My Sick Mind

Today was "Moon Day," or so they called it.  The day, in 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed on the moon.  I was there, as they say, if only watching on television. The space program was a big deal to me.  As a child of the 1960s (born in 1957 - my parents called my pacifier "Sputnik") the space program was the stuff of wonder for a child.  I have vague memories of the Gemini missions on TV, and more vivid memories of Apollo.  I would look back on the Mercury program of the early 1960s in the same way I would look back on the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and the Kennedy assassination(s), and remember with childlike wonder how such things could happen in America.  I saw it, but the child didn't process it. I guess you have to be my age (57) or older to have any sort of perspective on the Apollo moon landing.  I don't think you could have been any younger than that to have any real idea what was going on.  The 1960s were a turbulent ...

Today is Father's Day.  Each year since 1967, it has meant less and less to me - and more and more. Less, because I draw further away from my father, who died on April 3, 1967; and more, because I cling to the memories of the days we had together and they mean more to me with each passing year. I have vague memories of the first time he threw me a baseball.  I remember being on the side of our home - where my mother still resides - and for whatever reason, standing at the plate as a left-handed hitter and having him throw me a baseball.  I think I did it because my favorite player, Johnny Callison, hit left-handed and threw right-handed.  It didn't seem like that big a deal.  He didn't try to change me or encourage me to "hit righty" like the other kids, and that would be the hallmark of our time together.  Be yourself, kid. At some point in the early 1960s he bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder. A Webcor, if I remember.  It was a 4-tra...

Six years ago, I brought Thor home from the Gloucester County Animal Shelter.  It was the result of a month's old search for a replacement for my last cat, an 18-year-old who had eventually succumbed to kidney disease. The process was arduous.  I had no idea what I was looking for - only that I was looking for a cat who was looking for me. That is to say, I'd know it when I saw it. When I saw Thor (the name the shelter had given him) he was a 1-to-2 year-old cat, in a cage with a tag, saying that there was no record of how he came to be in the shelter.  Usually, they know.  Allergies, financial problems, or some other reason why the cats are there.  With Thor, no reason. I picked him out of the group - mostly because of his handsome features - and partly because he kept staring at me, and when the attendants handed him to me, he reached out with his paw and held it to my cheek.  The attendants were dumbfounded. "He's never done that with anyone!"...

While going through some old CDs, I stumbled upon an essay I wrote for college on April 3, 2003.  The title was particularly intriguing, and it might be the best part of the work - although I will allow you to be the judge.  I cannot recall for what or whom it was written or what grade it got. Since I haven't posted anything new here in a while ... here is something. Who is responsible for consumer negligence?   If we can define a negligent consumer as one who is irresponsible, then by definition it is not the company.   We also cannot always hold manufacturers responsible for so-called “foreseeable but unintended harm” caused by their products.   So, that leaves us in a legal no-man’s land of product liability, which seems to be precisely where we belong.           The 2003 version of the Porsche 911 Turbo is advertised as a car to “leave the rush hour behind.”   According to the company, the car ha...

"And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build a Great Society. It is a Society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled." - Lyndon B. Johnson,  May 7, 1964 That was just over 50 years ago, and I'd assume that Mr. Johnson had no idea of the so-called technological advancements that would take place over the next 5 decades.  Things like cable television, the Internet, microwave ovens, and digital photography that would contribute to our now Great Society.  yeah . The mid-sixties was a time when we concerned ourselves with issues like civil rights, gender equality, and free speech. In the mid-(I don't know)-14th year of the third millennium , we have other concerns.  Those of legalizing marijuana, same-sex marriages, and where to build our next casino.  It's very sophisticated - and selfish, in most ways. We walk around with earphones, heads down, oblivious to the rest of the "great socie...

One of the benefits of aging is perspective. It isn't always a good thing, though, because it exposes the current time to the past. In this case, my being a child of the 1960s has given me the perspective of what are called Aging Baby Boomers.  Good for me. I started to think (dangerous, I know) about the differences in our society between then and now.  We can rule out the obvious ones that even kids could come up with.  The one I focused on is the difference in the way we treat each other. The 1960s were a time of great social and political turmoil.  There were civil rights issues, protests against the war, and demonstrations demanding women's equality.  Those are all social issues, and to a large extent, have been resolved to the satisfaction of the people involved. We could say it was a "simpler time," but that is true of any era that we look back on.  Comparatively, the 1930s were simpler, and the decades prior, and so forth.  So...

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” - Genesis 1:26 Maybe it's that, or maybe it's something else, but I feel a responsibility to the birds.  Dominion, by its definition means sovereignty, and as such, imparts us with a responsibility to the animals the cohabit this Earth with us. Maybe it's the idea that we are all born to a place, and with some of us, it is impossible to leave that place.  The birds were here first, and as such, they have prominence over those of us who built houses on top of their houses.  We chased them from their place and forced them to live in our place. Maybe that's too simple. I have had a bird feeder outside my tiny condo ever since I have lived here, which is now going on its twenty-third year.  The pa...

Whenever someone complains about bad officiating in sports, I say that the problem with leagues expanding to more teams is that there is a need for more officials.  More officials means more bad ones and that means there will be more bad calls.  The same is true of television.   Back in the 1960s (where I come from) television was confined to three networks, PBS and a few UHF channels that you needed a special antenna to receive.  Now - there are hundreds of channels, all in need of programming in order to fill their 24-hour cycle.  From that was borne such things as so-called "reality" shows and programs that do nothing but follow people around for days at a time, editing their activities down to a half-hour and showing it on television.  From that, we have created television stars where otherwise would have been just regular people doing their jobs.  That is where the problems start.   People like the Kardashian's, those housewives a...

 Photo by me. Others available on my Flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/25812594@N06/sets/72157632449563618/  This isn't a music review site.  Mostly, it is a place where I gripe about stuff that gets on my nerves.  Occasionally, I will stumble onto something that makes me happy that I want to share with people.  Having been raised in the 1960s and schooled on music in the 1970s, I trust my instincts, and you should, too.  So, here goes. Through an interesting chain of events, I became acquainted with a guitarist named Chris Baker .  He had been playing with some mutual friends in bands and jam sessions.  Through Chris, the magic of the Internet and its marketing appeal, I found Amenti Rover . For an old music-head like myself, it's refreshing to hear young people ( real young people, not young people who I consider young) who get ... really GET music, and what emotion, drive and spirit are about when it comes to what I consider ...

OK, so that is the commercial for the Galaxy watch-thingy.  The first thing that strikes me about it is that its predecessors are all fictional devices that had no place in actual life.  There is a reason for that.  We never had the technology.  Now that we do, that doesn't give us an excuse to have another device that interrupts our daily lives to inform us of something coming in from the outside.   Seriously, are people willing to pay for this junk?   The second thing is that I can't imagine why anyone would want a device on their wrist that tells them that something in their pocket needs attention.  Isn't that the ultimate in redundancy?  Why would anyone pay for a device that tells them something that they already paid for?  The answer, I guess, is that it's possible.  We can invent devices that tell us what we already know.   Something I would pay for is a device that re-routes my calls to a person on t...

It's "The Holidays."   The time of year when we make excuses for our absence ("It's the holidays, and I'm so busy") It is the time of year when we are supposed to be kinder to our fellow man, "In the spirit of the holiday."  That's the idea.  When it's over, we can go back to being the despicable bastards that we are.  But for now, it's all "love one another" and "kindness" crapola. It's all too phony for me to believe.   The idea springs from The Bible - or we are led to believe.   There are conflicting ideas.  On the one hand, we are told it's a Christian celebration of our savior's birth.  On the other hand, we are told it's the season of Santa and his sack of toys, and that impossible idea that he brings toys to "all the good boys and girls of the world."  You can believe what you wish to believe.  The facts fly in the face of that...   When the Christ-child was born "t...

"It's the holiday season" or "It's the holidays " go the pre-packaged responses to things posed to people between now and the end of the year.  I would call them excuses, but others see them as reasons that they cannot either process information or accomplish tasks - other than the requisite shopping. We (you) burden ourselves with guilt-ridden gift-giving at Christmas.  The advertisements are filled with angst.  "Make this the perfect gift for the ones you care for."  "Tell them how much you love them with [fill-in the name of the item]." We (you) are supposed to find the ideal item that will express your deepest emotions when you find it, wrap it with paper and place it under a symbol of Pagan seasonal worship at this, the holiest of holy seasons. It's supposed to be a time of ... oh, I don't know, worship - gratitude - giving - you name it.  What it has become is a season of spending and financial sacrifice to prove...

It is both comforting and disconcerting to know that I got more responses from my previous post than the one on October 27, detailing the odd acts of humans .  But, such is life, I suppose.  Of all the things I have written on this page over the past 7-or-so-years, I would have thought that anus licking reference would have made the difference.  Au contraire.   The farther one travels, the less one knows. The less one really knows.   The difference between me and regular people is that I will tell you when I'm not "fine."  Fine is a nice texture for hair and a really great idea for slicing cheese - but it stinks when people ask, "How are you?" For one thing, they seldom want to know.  And for another thing, when you are honest with them, it throws them for a loop. (whatever that means) I'm not sure what people are expecting to hear when they ask (I think I know) or the alternate, "How's it going?" to which I generally reply, ...

It's difficult to know when the time is right.  When we are ready.  All of us think we have something waiting for us, something great on the horizon.  It's the lottery of life.  We believe.   If we were true to ourselves, we might know that this is (as they say) as good as it gets.  We have lived our life.  The struggle has reached its end.   There isn't anything greater than we have already known.  Nothing better than we have done.  Our best is behind us - whatever that is.  From now until the end, it's just playing out the string.   I have no children.   No legacy.  It's just me and my cat, and that's the best it will ever be.  I have over-stayed my welcome.  It's time to make a grand exit.   Now would be good.  

Occasionally, my mind drifts into thoughts that are not relevant.  Most of the time, those thoughts wind up here.  So, in keeping with that theme, here we go. The old TV show "All in the Family" featured a dialogue between Archie and his son-in-law Mike over one of Mike's friends.  The dialogue drifted into Archie's ideas about England.  Without looking it up, here is my recanting of the dialogue: ARCHIE :  This ain't England.  We threw England out of here a long time ago.  We want no more parts of England ... and for your information, England is a fag country. MIKE : What? ARCHIE :  Ain't they still picking handkerchiefs out of their sleeves?  The whole society is based on a kind of a fagdom. There is no more relevance to bring to the discussion, other than the idea that the show was broadcast in 1971.  The part where my mind drifted came in when I started to think about whether dialogue like that, or even a show like ...

Chris Christie was re-elected yesterday.  He won with 64% of the vote.  The newspapers called it a "landslide."  I suppose that's true, in a political sense.  In a sociological sense, 36% of the voting public thinks someone else should be New Jersey's governor.  To me, that's more like a marginal victory, especially when you do the math... Vote Count Percent CHRIS CHRISTIE 50,449 64.03% BARBARA BUONO 26,933 34.18% Let's take a look at the turnout, for a look at the mathematics... Registration & Turnout 193,820 Voters   Vote Count Percent Election Day Turnout 72,815 37.57% Mail-In Ballot Turnout 7,658 3.95% Provisional Turnout 0 0.00% Total 80,473 41.52% So, if you apply mathematics, you figure that 58.5% of registered voters didn't vote.  It sounds to me like Barbara Buono got hosed.  She should have been able to get the 110,000 registered voters who sat at home to come out and push ...

Who remembers "The Flintstones" theme song? [hand raised].... When you're with the Flintstones, You'll have a Yabba-dabba-doo time, A dabba-doo time. We'll have a gay, old time! [Wilma!] Well then, that was 1960.   A time when the word 'gay' meant happy.  If that show was produced today, the theme song wouldn't be exactly the same.  Words change their meanings over the years.  In the early part of the 20th century, making love to a woman merely meant wooing her.  Later, it would mean something completely different.   The melody of "Deck the Hall" is taken from "Nos Galan" ("New Year's Eve"), a traditional Welsh New Year's Eve carol published in 1794. There are plenty of examples of the word meaning "carefree," until the mid-1970s.  Perhaps it had a secret double-meaning?  An unspoken, implied meaning that was only included in hip publications and books - with a sly wink toward the...

 How can it cost less to mail me the ticket than it costs to print it at home or hold it at Will Call?