Cults and Music

I never did care for anything resembling a cult of any kind. Religion, philosophy, mechanics.

But it’s the cult of personality which probably rustles my jimmies the most. This was my biggest (not only) complaint about our last President, Obama, and it’s my biggest (not only) complaint against our current President, Trump. 

Best friend Scott and I saw Living Color perform this song at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas in October of 1989. We were seniors in high school. They were opening for the Rolling Stones. (At the time, we thought that if we didn’t seize the chance to see them perform, we would never get an opportunity again. It never would have occurred to us that, 30 years later, the Stones still perform on tour.)  

Brass Against The Machine does a solid cover, with featured guest vocalist Mazz Swift shredding the solo on an electric violin. 

https://youtu.be/WwsevGDRNAc 

Ray.

The week before last, on Monday, the Tribe started blowing up my phone. I got the word that Ray Carter, AKA Gay Cynic (of Northwestern Free Thinker), had been sent home from the hospital for hospice care. He was given about two weeks to live. I called Ray, and told him that I was coming on the weekend. He said that he looked forward to it. He seemed in good spirits. We texted and emailed through Wednesday, but I had to work on Wednesday and Thursday, and was so busy, I wasn't even getting by enough to see my father in a rehab hospital, where he was mending from an infection in his ankle. (And still is.)

I flew up to Seattle on Friday, 27 May. I arrived tired and with a headache, and checked into my room as quickly as I could, and sent Ray texts to let me know when he was ready to receive a visitor. After a few hours, I sent some to his mother, but got no response. Finally I called her, left a message, and was called back: "He's not doing well. He took a turn yesterday, and he's not really able to receive visitors just now." I told her that I didn't want to be a burden, but that I would come over in the morning, after calling ahead.

The next morning, I called, and Ray's mother said that he wasn't doing well, but maybe a visitor would help. I arrived at his house on a lovely street, full of flowers, at about 8:30AM. I was let in, and waited in his room to meet Ray. I met his brother Tim, who was very nice. When Ray came into his room where I waited, he was lethargic from the OxyContin and Oxycodone that he was receiving to ease the pains from end-stage liver failure. But he was there. We talked as he lay in his bed. He swung his feet off the bed and said, "Let's go." He wanted to sit in the living room.

Under an afghan on the couch, Ray fielded all kinds of questions that I had about his early life. I've known this guy for over 7 years, and I really didn't know his origins. He had wanted to be a police officer, but felt that a gay cop at that time (the early '80s) would never receive backup. He had worked as a night security guard at a college, and as a dispatcher. He had been an office worker. He had sold electric cars and bikes. He had worked for the Second Amendment Foundation. Throughout the talk, his mother and brother filled in what Ray couldn't say. Ray fell asleep often, and then grew cold and had to go to bed.

I excused myself, and got lunch, and spent a couple of hours at the Pike's Market. I bought fruit from a stand where the vendors used sharp knives to hand slices of peaches to passers-by. Some years ago, Ray had led my family though the market, and an attractive Asian gent handed each of us slices of peach. He was probably about 21. My then-14 1/2-year-old daughter was grinning and blushing as she accepted the peach, obviously quite taken with the looks of this guy. I then realized that behind her, Ray had a very similar expression as he stood back a bit to appraise the bounty of the fruit stand, before accepting his own complimentary slice. I laughed at the memory of this.

I didn't find the coffee shop where I had gone with Ray down on the Market, some years back. He had to use the restroom, and since I was in line, he handed me a $10 and asked me to order for him what in my family has come to be known as the "Ray Carter Special." It's an accomplishment when an order for a drink can make a downtown Seattle barista's eyes widen, but apparently asking for 8 shots of espresso over ice in a to-go cup will do just that.  I did find a nice coffee shop in the Moore Hotel, and ordered a latte, which came to me with coffee art on it.

I went back to Ray's house a little bit depressed. It is a lonely thing, to go alone to a place where you had enjoyed yourself with family and friends.

Ray looked better. He was awake and sitting up on the couch. A new crocheted afghan was laying across his lap, sent by our friend Bonnie. He liked the flowers that I had brought from the Market. His sister-in-law and niece were there, too. We talked some more. He sat on his recently-delivered hospital bed.. He fell asleep. I talked into the night with his brother and mother, and then went to the motel.  The family wanted to know about Blogorado-- they said that Ray always lit up when he talked about it, and looked forward to it, year 'round. I knew that they weren't of my political bent, but it was important to me that they know that this was a group of people from different walks of life who loved each other as a chosen family.

In the morning, I bought a cup of coffee from a bikini coffee hut, and went back to Ray's house. I was met at the door by his brother Tim, who told me that Ray had passed away in the morning at about 3:30 AM. I was fine, and entered, and said nothing, and then realized that I had owed Ray a lot of hugs sent by friends, which I hadn't really given him. In our group, no one gets away without a hug, but that's for leaving, or maybe initial greeting. I'd sat in bed with Ray, and held his hand, and gripped his arm, but I hadn't wrapped him up. I started to mention this to his family, and for some reason my voice cracked.

My friend Zercool had sent me an email that he had tried to send to Ray, and had asked me to read it to him when I could. I had failed there, too. So I read him what Zercool had sent me to say to him. I didn't do well. In fact, I blubbered a bit. But I got the words out over Ray's remains.

I hugged his family and left to SEATAC, playing Grateful Dead's "Box Of Rain" on the rental car stereo from my iPhone. I'm not a Grateful Dead fan, but this song spoke to me, as it was written by one of their band members, for his father who was on his deathbed. I played it on repeat, and sniveled a bit as I drove through the softly-falling Seattle rain. And then I came back home to north Texas.

Ray Carter was a good man, who cared more about family and friends than anything. He was a man with eternal optimism, who went by the moniker of "Gay Cynic." We are all --even his political adversaries-- diminished by his passing. I'm glad that I got to see him one last time.

It's nice to have creative friends. (By which I doubly exclude both Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago.)

I have some amazingly talented friends who can write*. Some even get paid for it. Some don't.
I have some amazingly talented friends who can photograph. Some even get paid for it. Some don't.
I have some amazingly talented friends who can sing. (You see where this is going.)
Then there are those who have talents for putting things together creatively into a multimedia fashion that defies labeling. One such friend is my friend the Ambulance Driver. Given that he's published a couple of books and is on a regular speaking tour, and teaches a class of his own invention on Shooter Self-Care, and put together a great fundraiser in Kilted To Kick Cancer-- I think that it's probably okay to let the cat out of the bag to say that Ambulance Driver is Kelly Grayson. Kelly, a fellow admirer of my friend Tamara Keel, took a regular piece of hers and made it a multimedia slide show.

Back around 2006, Tamara, in her love of all things Gun Show/ Fun Show, wrote her own words to "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things", and posted them on her blog as "The Gun Show Song." She posts it most of the time that she goes to a gun show. I can't even find the first time that she did so, but it's almost a decade ago, and she has posted the words to it maybe a score of times:

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Kelly cast around to find someone who could sing the song in as Julie Andrews would, and Squeaky stepped up with her trained voice, and recorded it (and very nicely, too) for him.  Then Kelly put the song to slides on a YouTube video of his own creation, and voila! He had made his Christmas gift to Tamara. She liked it.

See? Creative.

But then Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago over at that The Truth About Guns website did what they do: they stole the content. No attribution was given. They took credit for Kelly's work and Tamara's writing, and Squeaky's singing, without acknowledging whose innovation had created it.

This is not just rude and classless-- it's thievery. Tamara gets paid to talk about, write about, and shoot guns-- which is what The Gun Show Song is a product of that. Kelly gets paid to produce online content. This is their business, however lovingly they may practice it.

Well, stealing things is what Dan Zimmerman and Robert Farago do. They take content of value, host it on their site (without attribution), and then use it as click bait for their links along the sidebar. It's about profit without creating, for them. Notice that I will NOT link to their site. They can die in the cold, and I'm asking you, gentle reader, NOT to go there. Going to their site runs up their hit count meter, which they make money from with their advertisers' links. When they do it to me (and they have), it's just forgetting to attribute a hobbyist. But when they do it to Tamara and Kelly--- they're taking profit from professionals without giving them their due.

Roberta X put it neatly:

   Dan Zimmerman, widely held to be a longtime intellectual property thief and, I am given to understand, founder of Dead Hooker Magazine, has stolen Tam's "Fun Show Song" and posted the lovely video made as a Christmas present for Tam by Ambulance Driver and Squeaky and posted it over at TTAG, the other sink of iniquity and inequity with which he is associated, utterly without attribution to anyone but himself.

     Other than polite reminders (already issued) and the distant possibility of lawyering up -- Tam's a writer and her stock in trade is the unique groupings of words she creates -- there's not a whole lot that can be done.

     But there is one thing.  Cato famously ended every speech he made in the Roman Senate with "Carthage must be destroyed," even if all he was talking about was proclaiming Junior Vestal Day.  The phrase I'd like you to remember and to post all over the Internet is "Dan Zimmerman. Intellectual property thief. Dead Hooker Magazine."  And good morning, search engines! 

Oh, I see that Jennifer has already written a very similar article. Great minds, and all that.
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*Okay, when I started hot-linking friends of mine who can write, it didn't really cross my mind that I have a HUGE number of friends who can write, so I gave up pretty early. Don't feel slighted that I didn't link you, friends of mine; I didn't link a LOT of writers.

Random Thursday Thoughts

--Less than half of the US is now in the Middle Class. NPR finds this shocking. Reason says, "It's not that big a deal-- there are fewer lower class, and more upper class." It's like the statement of the simple fact that there is a minority which is far over-represented in the prison and jail population. One extreme is to believe that crime is inherent within that subset of the population. The other extreme is to believe and assert that the system is inherently racist.

--Looking at my level of income, number of people in my household, and my level of education, I'm trailing behind.

--Caleb wrote the obligatory piece on our POTUS claiming that the no-fly list should be used to restrict guns from citizens. It actually opens the discussion to some very important questions, though. If we let a regulatory agency with the force of law make regulations that take Constitutional rights away from people, what is the point of having a law, or a legislative process? This has been a question of mine about the actions of the BATFE and the TSA for a long time. Let's embrace the discussion, and thank our Constitutional Scholar POTUS for opening it up.

--In three weeks, Texans who have Concealed Handgun Licenses (CHLs) will have Licenses To Carry Handguns. (LCHs) We in North Texas anticipate lots of calls from pearl-clutchers seeing guns on the hips of citizens in public places, for the first time. I'm actually a big fan of them being concealed, because concealment removes (or at least strongly reduces) the incentive for people to carry guns for the wrong damned reason. It needs to be a tool, not a statement.

--I got tired of Pink Floyd back in college, when I had a morose roommate who would put 6 Pink Floyd albums into the CD changer and set it to Random/Infinite Repeat, and turn the amp up to 11 while he maundered. (Amazingly, that roommate is still one of my best friends.)  So I've not played any Pink Floyd for, oh 18 years. Yesterday, I played "On The Turning Away," and found myself with tears in my eyes.

--It's worth remembering that we as a nation are turning away from helping a lot of refugees, which lot is comprised of over 50% women and girls, and over 30% kids under 11. Because we are afraid.


--We got a nice new Roomba for the house, as an early Christmas gift for ourselves. We immediately named it Consuela. A guy on a local buy/sell/trade page online had an older model Roomba that his grandmother no longer wanted, so I talked him down considerably, and bought it. Within 24 hours, we had two robot minions cleaning our split-level house. I named the older model Rosie, for Rosie The Robot of The Jetsons.  My artistic 13 year-old daughter sketched her image of Consuela and Rosie, which we of course had to put up on our refrigerator:

The kid's got an eye, IMHO. 

-- Both my daughters this year are asking to borrow control of my Amazon account, to buy their Christmas gifts. We've had more boxes and parcels and packages dropped off at the front door of my house in the past year than in the combined total of my life, theretofore. 

--I qualified with the Glock 42 on Monday. That is a REALLY soft-shooting little pocket pistol. I had purchased it with Trijicons on it, and 600 rounds, from a friend. It will make a decent BUG, and I've found online the vest holster that I want to get for it for work. I just don't have the $85 lying around at present, what with all the other expenditures, as of late. Maybe next week. Or after Christmas.  

--Another officer had a Glock 43. That is an interesting pistol to shoot. It's FAR snappier in the recoil than the soft-shooting 42, which is to be expected as it is a 9X19 in basically the same sized gun. I may get one.

--Last night I got the ingredients to make this Alton Brown recipe for eggnog. It's as if they said, "we'll shut down the circulatory system with fat and cholesterol! Wait, we wouldn't want the endocrine system to feel left out! Let's wreck the liver, and the pancreas, all at once, with a pint and a half of liquor, and a pound of sugar!"

--As I have dinner to make, and a board meeting to attend in half an hour, I have successfully avoided going to work out today, by writing this blog. (smirk)

This is what class looks like.

Longtime online pal Marko Kloos is so classy, he even apologizes for being a little rude when he correctly identifies a rude individual.

Winning a Hugo, up to now, has always been very valuable for a science fiction writer.

If you're like many of us, you want to find a magical story that will divert you from the drudgery of reality, without having to wade through the crap. Just give me the good stuff. So, it's incredibly alluring to see that list posted up on the wall of your local book store with the Hugo winners by year. I've been guilty of having perused the list, found a title that I haven't yet read, and pulled it off the shelf and immediately gone to the cash register. It's that simple: I didn't have to read the slush pile.

I know that I'm not the only one. As do smart people like... well, like Marko Kloos.

Marko, however, found himself in a very weird situation. He had written a very compelling page-turner, which would have found itself in the running for a Hugo anyway-- but which was pushed to the short-list by an unsavory person.

Vox Day, AKA Theodore Beale, is not a person I would invite into my home. He is racist. He is misogynistic. He was expelled from the Science Fiction Writer's Association because of his attacks on fellow writers based upon their race and gender. He is bitter. The funny thing is, the man can write. If he weren't so obnoxious, he probably would have won something by now. But there are lines which you cannot cross without having some backlash, and he crossed them. He will never win an award in science fiction.

To make up for this, Beale/Day came up with a scheme: pack the nominations. Campaign on fairness! Your favorite writers have no chance to win, through no fault of their own! Though they have wrought the best stories, their only sin is that they are white males!  The P.C.-minded establishment wants a multicultural field of nominees, at the expense of Quality! Hell, it sounds good. We all just want the best writing. Who cares what color or gender the author is? We all hate reverse discrimination, because it's just another kind of discrimination, right?

When I saw that online pal and best-selling author Larry Correia was being labeled as a racist (!) and misogynist himself, I began to think, Yeah, I can understand why you'd get ticked about these things. Larry's a good man. Larry is not a racist. He may be a conservative, but he's not a woman-hater. Larry's writings depict strong woman characters, multiple cultures in his good guys... anyway, you get the picture.  So Larry's corner started up a little group called the Sad Puppies. And frankly, I was on board.

Then Vox Day starts up the Rabid Puppies. He endorses a group of authors for Hugo nominations, and they get short-listed. Marko Kloos was one of the authors.

For a few days, it was heady times at Castle Frostbite. Think about this: You're nominated for the Hugo --one of the most well-known awards in your profession*-- and word is that you've got a very good chance of winning it. Heinlein won that award. Asimov won that award. Clark. Le Guin. Dick. Niven. Haldeman. Gibson. Card. Those are the giants on whose shoulders you will get to stand. I'm not gonna lie: I'm giddy just knowing a guy who gets to have his name mentioned in the same lists as those people.

The same rocket ship badge that is on every paperback of Stranger In A Strange Land could be on your books.

But then comes the crashing reality, which is that people would associate your nomination with the unsavory person who put your name on a list that he advocated be nominated.

Some stains you can never wash clean of.

So Marko, faced with that situation, quit. He pulled his book Lines Of Departure out of the running.
He took his ball (which he was winning with), and went home to Castle Frostbite.

Drop the mic.

He'll write more. And we'll get to read it. But when he takes the awards, it will be on his terms, and not via some shady deal co-opted by a shady jerk.  Hey, Vox? Marko was never your kind of people.
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*Though, apparently, not really as critically-judged as you might hope. "Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon..." LawDog writes on his disappointment about the process.

Late October weekend recap.

--Lou Reed died last night. Well, now it would be the night before last. I'm surprised at how many of my friends really liked him. I thought most people just know "Walk On The Wild Side". When I was a freshman, my roommate had a copy of Lou Reed's New York, which I played to death. It's excellent. The first song that came to mind after I got married was "Beginning Of A Great Adventure." (Not the best song on the album, though. The best is "The Dirty Boulevard." )

One of the most moving album reviews that I ever read was of Lou Reed's "Set The Twilight Reeling", in which the reviewer noted that the album was not so well-received because it displayed the softer side of Reed; he was in love in love with Laurie Anderson, and proclaimed it openly. To paraphrase the review, the writer said that we should all buy it and listen to it, because if two jaded New York social critics like these two could find love and lose themselves in it, then there is hope for all of us. And hope is worth a $12 risk on a CD.

--This weekend we traveled to Denton, and watched the Dia De Los Muertos Coffin Races down the hill on East Hickory, off the Courthouse Square. It was a lot of fun, and was more about style than speed:

 

--I worked a 24 hour shift this week this weekend at the fire department. I listened to a firefighter, whom I firmly believe would walk into a wall of flame to rescue a victim, express real terror at the thought of sleeping alone in the upstairs sleeping quarters. Because they're haunted. I did everything that I could not to roll my eyes, but I don't know how successful I was.

 

--We went to Six Flags Over Texas for "Fright Night" on Saturday night, and got season's passes. I dropped by the security office to sign in because of the metal detectors. When I got out my pistol to check the serial number, the security sergeant there, who has seen a lot of such procedures over his years there, expressed interest in my pistol, having never seen one like that before. It was just a S&W 637 with a bobbed hammer spur. Now I was confused. Since when has a Chief's Special been an unusual off-duty cop's gun?

 

--We rode on the "Superman Tower Of Power" ride (apparently Metropolis and Gotham are now considered to be two of the flags that Texas has had flown over it.).  A storm raged in the near distance as we shot 330 feet into the air. I pointed out at the apogee that we might die due to lightning. My elder daughter was not reassured by that. She thought it quite amusing how I whooped and hollered on that ride. Damned exhilarating being accelerated up at about 2 g's, and DOWN at well over the acceleration due to gravity. I've sky dived, and it was only a little cooler. Shortly after, they shut down the rides. I hustled the family out of the park, and we just beat the storm out.

 

--I went to visit some of the firefighters at a campout at a nearby lake. One of the guys there had made "chili." He was born in Ohio, and was raised by Yankees, so he has an excuse for what he served us. It was actually quite tasty, bless his heart. But it wasn't Texas red.

 

--At the FD, I watched the Dallas/Detroit football game. Both teams played very well, and the score was decided in the last minute. Exciting, right? No. The two other firefighters watching were disgusted with the Cowboys for blowing it. The Dallas Cowboys had "effed it up."  I don't root for a team, but I thought that it was a good contest, and was surprised that they were so upset. They don't appreciate a good game? It's only fun to watch when their team wins?  I submit that they weren't being football fans, so much as winning fans. Yawn. 

--I watched this dash video of a street level supervisor responding to an officer-involved shooting in Warren, OH. I hope that the brass recognize what a superb supervisor that they've got in Sgt. Holmes (4690). He stays off the radio except when necessary while responding to the scene. He arrives, and takes control of the scene in a direct, but not panicked manner. He gives explicit instructions as to what he wants done, but doesn't hold forth. He took a tough situation, and did a good job. Warren P.D. comes out looking really good in this handling of what appears to be a good shoot.

---There is no report more boring to work than a fraud report. Period.

Various Friday prattle.

--I lost a thousand words on this post, when my daughter logged me off when I wasn't looking, and it didn't auto-save. Ah, well. I go on too much, anyway.

--Elvis died 36 years ago today. I never understood those who worshipped him. But then, I never much understood worshipping a human that they didn't personally know. But he was admittedly talented. This one's for you, Elvis.

--The ol' boy could put together an earworm, when properly edited.

--It just now occurred to me that I'm older than Edward James Olmos was when he played Lt. Martin Castillo here. And now I feel really old.

---And do you remember when weapon-mounted lasers were as big as this one? That's like putting a VHS camcorder on your carbine.

--I'm not really big into sports. Tam, who loves baseball, tells me that what most people call sports are actually games, and that the only true sports are big game hunting and racing. There was a time when Sports Illustrated would post real stories about such sporting. I wish I could have met Papa Hemingway. I only tend to think that during the summer, when I'm reading something alone, or having a drink on a Caribbean beach, like I was when my wife took this picture:

My wife and I were betting who could get a better picture of the full moon with our tiny-apertured Nikon CoolPics point-and-shoot digicam. Obviously the flash had to be turned off, and I was sitting on a padded bench, trying to stabilize the long exposure. My wife sensibly set the camera on a low partition wall, set the timer, and let the camera take this exposure. She won. :)

--You could do worse than to sit and drink coffee and listen to my elder daughter pick scales and strum chords on her bargain-priced 6-string guitar.

--Taser has put warning boxes in their literature warning of heart captures and other potentially fatal effects of use. Some administrators are pulling Tasers off the line, as a result, because they perceive that the Taser is a "deadly weapon". This is over-reaction. You know what's a deadly weapon? A baton to the head. A shot of pepper spray to an asthmatic. A beanbag round to the head. Sure some departments have over-used tasers, but that's a misuse of force issue, not an equipment issue.

--Although there are those who consider me something of a student on the subject, I will occasionally have questions on Texas Code Of Criminal Procedure that I need to answer right away and don't have time to look up. If an assistant district attorney isn't available, I tend to call my buddy LawDog, like I did last night. I always enjoy my chats with LawDog. I should call him way more often.

--I'm pretty sure that I've never seen a corner store product come from an internet meme, but if my younger daughter has anything to say on the subject, we will be the first people on our block to have bottle (or even a case!) of Grumpy Cat coffee drink in our house.

--Tell me this is a farce. I refuse to believe it until it is checked out. I'm a cop, and a volunteer fireman. When I'm on a fire rig, I leave my cop self at home. You're going to have to beat your kids or slap your grandmother, before I'm calling the cops over what I see. As for acting as police? Nope. Not while in my fireman's hat.

--Sunday morning, I take a girl out shooting. She just graduated with a degree in criminal justice, and is putting applications into local police. My graduation gift is a couple of sessions of firearms instruction. Her daddy's a cop with a local department and a friend, and he's gotten her a decent pistol and rig. I just want the shooting part to be the least of her worries, when she's in academy.

Thursday's Prattlings.

--We're due to reach 100 degrees for the first time this year today. That's actually pretty late, for us.
Edit: We broke into triple digits with a bang:

--I write this as much for my future reference, and for my kids' future reference, as for anyone else.

--I have a decent blog-worthy story that I can't post right now. But it ends with the question: "What caliber for douchebag?"

--It's pronounced /puh Kawn/. PEE kan sounds like what you put under the bed at night.

--I worked a 24 hour shift with the fire department yesterday, and not only ripped the tags off of the new wildland firefighting apparel* that they got me about a year ago, but also got it smokey and covered with soot. A welder caught some tall grass while putting in corner posts for a new fence, in the dry 17 mph wind. Right next to him was a stack of sections of old fencing that had probably 10 years' worth of weeds and brush growing up amongst it. I can think of no finer way to start a fire without accelerants. We had to unstack the flaming pyre and douse each level of stacked fencing one by one, and then get the particle board beneath it, and then go moving old rusty farm implements to get under all that. Finally we got all that done, and went to mop-up. When we finally got all the flaming cow turds busted up and stomped out, I climbed dirty and sweaty and ash-stained into our brush truck with our paramedic firefighter, and remarked that the hymen on my new brush gear had been perforated. Startled, he said what?!? I suggested to our best medic that he had heard me just fine. He laughed.

--I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men on my Kindle. I reviewed the movie five years ago, in which I said of the main character, aging sheriff Ed Tom Bell:

I know this man. I've been around him for years, wearing different faces, standing different heights, and carrying different weights. They mostly all spoke with a drawl, and they all wondered sometimes how it all got to be so crazy. Between McCarthy, the Cohens, and Jones, I saw the bewildered squint of people that I've known personally, perplexed and aghast.

 Having read the book, I'd have to say that the Cohen brothers kept the movie's dialogue very true to McCarthy's original work. Sheriff Bell knows that the nation is doomed, and feels like he has lost control of the part of it that he is supposed to keep peaceful. He feels like a failure. I have to admit that I thought a little about whether I help the big picture. I don't take it as personally as he did, I don't think. I know my limitations. The job of a law enforcement officer is to limit damage; he rarely gets to stop it altogether.

I just downloaded Blood Meridian. The reviews show that it's a pretty dark portrayal of the American West in the mid 19th century. We'll see if I start it anytime soon.

--A family member and friend of mine is grieving the passing of a close friend of hers. I've been pretty poor about helping her deal with it. Recently, my wife pointed out the meaning of the lyrics to the Grateful Dead's song "Box Of Rain." I've never much been a fan of the Dead, but I've got to admit that there's a gentle calmness that one can feel from auditing this (first) song.

"What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? 

A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through." 

--Speaking of music, my daughter was singing the title music to Singing In The Rain, and I wanted to hear the original, so I played this video. I come away thinking: (1) Gene Kelly was a genius dancer. (2) Even accounting for the poor synching of the sound to the video by YouTube, it's obvious that they dubbed in the tap sounds. But Gene Kelly was still a physical genius. (3) That street was a giant sound stage in Hollywood, right? Where they had to make their own rain? That was a BIG budget movie scene. (4) I cringe seeing Kelly dance through the puddles in his brown leather shoes. I can not stand having soaked shoes.

--Lately at work, I'm plagued with subpoenas to get. Think I don't beg help from the DA's investigators? Haw.

--I need a best location along the coast of Oregon or Washington (Olympic Peninsula?) for two things this summer: Tide pools and yerts.

--I'm planning an epic vacation with the girls and my wife.

--My friend Susan makes a good point: "When hanging around with drunk people...if the topic of conversation takes a turn toward Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories...it's time to leave!!"


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*Typically abbreviated to "wildland gear," which then becomes "Wild man gear." This is tough, light Nomex jeans and topshirt (usually comes with work gloves and boots, but I just use my fire gloves and bunker boots) that one pulls on over street clothes, which prevent embers from immediately burning through, but which have no insulative properties. Combined with a light plastic helmet (kept on the brush truck) and light goggles, this gear actually provides some protection without causing your firefighter to succumb to heat exhaustion in regular bunker gear.

Music and shoes.

I'm fairly sure than even our fellow-Texan and shoe-obsessed blogger friend wouldn't even give up all practicality for this fashion.

Wednesday evening this and that.

--Steampunk Lego sets? Why had this not happened before. Unless they are fools, this will be made of win.

--Nancy Grace has always irritated me, even before I happened to be stuck in a doctor's office or something, and saw her try to corner Elizabeth Smart in a bullying manner. (Note Smart's semi-eye roll at 1:21, to a rather stupid question put up by Grace.)
But she's especially irritating as a commentator, when she does a split-screen interview with a woman who is in the same parking lot as herself. On-scene stand-ups are over-used in the news. There is NO POINT in sending a reporter out to stand in front of City Hall at 07:00, to tell you about the agenda that they're going to talk about, later that day. So now CNN is using three tools that irritate me at the same time: unnecessary stand-up remote broadcasts, unnecessary split-screen interviews to attempt to show that they're ALL OVER on the coverage of this salacious story, and of course, Nancy Grace.

--On a side note, that Jodi Arias chick is so bat-feces crazy guilty (she took the stand, for 18 days!!!), she'll be extremely lucky if she doesn't get the needle.

--I like that now-defunct Nickel Creek band.

--From F. Scott Fitzgerald's entry in Wikipedia:

"Among the attendants at a visitation held at a funeral home was Dorothy Parker, who reportedly cried and murmured 'the poor son-of-a-bitch,' a line from Jay Gatsby's funeral in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby."

I would have expected more out of Dorothy Parker. But I'm planning on collecting crude statements by Marko Kloos, Cranky Professor, PhlegmFatale, and Larry Correia, so that I'll look literary when I cuss. Larry says that he can write me up a good funeral scene. I look forward to reading that. I'm thinking along the lines of a Valhalla send-off, delivered in the style of John Cleese at Graham Chapman's funeral.

--Phillip, a fine historian of firearms was giving a presentation of a Teddy Roosevelt double rifle at the end of the NRA Convention in Houston this weekend. This is something that they will do for accredited news media, to educate about some of the noteworthy pieces in the amazing NRA firearms collection. I went to the one last year in St. Louis. This time, just like last time, a security flunky came up to these officers of the National Rifle Association (the group that just spent million$ to lease the space), and tried to give them and the media the bum's rush. Phil politely let her have it with, uh, both barrels. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)  He took a breath, and continued with the demonstration. Well done, sir. One of my colleague web correspondents caught the action on video, here. Hopefully next year in Indy, we'll have this issue worked out.

--I didn't get to go to the NRA Convention. I'm still kinda pouty about that. But Dad got to go, and I'm glad about that.

--Lots of graduation notices, this May. Pricey.

Frickin' ramfrazzin

--Blue Screen Of Death started to appear on the home computer yesterday. I've been doing battle with a trojan virus since.

--G****** ph***ing piece of s*** adopted ******g ****pipe of a furball regurgitator alleycat brought another wounded choad-pecking juvenile grackle into the house, which then spent five minutes caroming off of s*** in my house before I could finally connect with an umbrella handle, to send it flying into my desk, and then leak ichorous ******g black blood all over my tile that I had just mopped, up under the edge of the desk.

--A local church lady and I talked about how to help a sad sack in the neighborhood, recently. Between us, we figured out that we'd both been lied to. Those church ladies make your neighborhood run, even if you're not of their faith, or of any faith at all.

--Our weather continues to be spectacular. My elder daughter and I are about to go shooting, now that we've got some .22 WMRF. My wife didn't understand why I was saving a couple of 1 gallon cans. She keeps throwing them in the trash, and I keep fishing 'em out. Great reactive offhand 100 yard targets.

--Night before last, I just pulled out one of these from the deep-freeze, and popped that 5 lbs of homemade goodness into a 400 degree oven for about 75 minutes.  Considering that we'd made those when we had purchased a bulk tub of high end (very fine-grained) ricotta and better-than-average mozerella, along with very good quality pasta on which we had poured some homemade sauce, my excellence-to-effort ratio was very much in the black. Blew a Stouffer's all to hell, and I actually like Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

--I got a Sunday Smith that I need to put up. Maybe on Sunday.

--My 14 year old has been playing music for her band's upcoming concert, in which her section has a soli involving the main melody. So it is that I've been hearing the sweet recognizable strains of Phantom Of The Opera throughout the house. Honestly? It's pretty damned good. She's a first chair freshman, which means that my kid apparently can play.

--I need to write another grant tonight, for work.

--We're going back to the Northwest, this summer, but we're taking the girls with us, this time. I want to show the girls the Olympic National Park, with its 200 foot trees and Roosevelt elk and the Hoh Glacier. I want to show the kids the 720 degrees of green in the valley below Mount Hood, and the sight of our American Fuji, which is Mt. Ranier. I want them to pull tasty-yet-aggressive red crab out of pots off the piers in Port Angelas and Sequim. I have gotten to see this stuff, and want them to, as well. It's not my region, but it's one that I know something of, and want to show them. Heck, my kids don't remember ever flying.

--We just got a $430 AT&T bill. That needs looking into.

--I finally convinced my wife to try my Lazy Man laundry concept, which involves 4 laundry bins of exact same size in the bedroom. Now, as we shed clothes, we are sorting the load. When the bin gets enough for a load, we run it. So far, my little plan works great, with laundry getting done more often and less chance of finding evidence of someone having dug through the dirty laundry to put a load together. The downside, of course, is the extra footprint in the bedroom. I took the hit, and put them in front of my dresser. I'm that committed to this operation.

--My younger daughter tried to make chai tea this morning by pouring milk into the kettle, and heating it that way. We had a talk about that this afternoon, when I discovered the evidence.

--A 4 ounce whiskey glass ended up in the garbage disposal today. It was too wide to make it back up through the flanged rubber gussett thingy in the disposal mouth. It must have compressed the rubber ring to get down there. After over 20 minutes of trying, I finally gave up and busted the glass with a crowbar, and used the 5 HP shop vac to suck out the pieces. Basically a Dispose-All D.&E.

--Disposals aren't as scary to put your hand down, once you know how they work.

--The wide part of my hand won't fit into a disposal, but my fingers are long enough to reach the bottom.

--Santa gave my daughters each a box of .22 shorts in their stockings. Both boxes broke. I find .22 short ammo in the strangest places, in this house.

--My brother's car had a sensor and a vacuum leak in his 15 year old car, which kept it from passing inspection (yes, Texas has a state-mandated vehicle inspection law). I hooked him up with a local mechanic, and loaned him my car to drive while it got worked on. My brother hadn't driven a manual transmission in over 5 years. Think I wasn't worried about the health of my clutch plate? He brought the car back two days later, and a day after that sent me a picture of his new inspection sticker. That made me glad.

--I need to get my younger kid some glasses.

One does not simply walk into Moscow...

...and kick the Russians' butts, playing their own music, during the Cold War.

But that's just what a modest gay kid from Louisiana and Texas did. A graduate of Julliard, Van Cliburn had always wanted to go to Russia. In 1958, the 24 year old went there to compete in the first International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Consider the era. The Soviets had just launched Sputnik, and felt that they were on a roll. They started this competition to show the world that the U.S.S.R. was not only technically advanced, but culturally the world leaders, as well. And, frankly, when it comes to virtuoso pianists, the Russians have a long and proud history.

Cliburn played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.

And he blew them away.
He won first prize, in an upset that in some ways was akin to Jesse Owens excelling at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.

Give the Soviets this: They reportedly applauded him for eight minutes, and then gave him the prize. He came home to a ticker tape parade, and a family friend presented a check for $10,000 to begin a piano competition in Fort Worth, TX, named in Van Cliburn's honor.  This was one of the things that has made Fort Worth a significant artistic destination.

Cliburn quit performing publicly in the '70s, when he felt that he couldn't give the quality that he believed that he should, anymore. But he continued to act as a cultural ambassador, acting as a servant of music. He lived in Fort Worth, TX until he passed away at 78.

We lost an icon, yesterday.

The beauty of Valentine's Day.

Not my idea, but I'd buy that shirt.

Look, we can't all express our love like Glenn Campbell did, when he sang,

"And I need you more than want you.
And I want you for all time."

. . . . . But suppose that I just expressed my love for my wife, in the manner of Professor Elemental*.

I shan't quote it here, but it's worth pointing out that few things are funnier than a geeky man rapping in Received Pronunciation, punctuating his over-the-top similes with low moans that Barry White --and only Barry White-- could ever pull off.

The lyrics are greatness.

Happy Valentine's Day, you romantic slobs out there.


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*Look, I posted classical musicians playing blue-grass the other day; I can post parody steampunk chap-hop today, if I wish.

Something to take the ear worm off.

Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan play bluegrass. The quartet, plus singer Aoife O'Donovan, are extraordinary. I bought the album after watching this.

Meyer and Ma are unquestionably the best in the world at cello and bass, respectively, and like to branch out from their classical stuff on projects like this.

Thile plays the mandolin like a rock star. Literally. And he sings with O'Donovan in the classically bluegrass song "Here And Heaven" (which starts here), which is full of bright notes that are moving.

Lost in it all is Duncan, who switches effortlessly between banjo and fiddle.

I may have linked to it before. I don't care.

Thursday is thirsty.

--After staying up until 4:45 this morning watching Netflix videos to keep myself on my night shift schedule, I got a call at 10:00am from an assistant district attorney, who wanted to discuss a family violence case that I had filed. She was shocked that I had put my cell phone number on the cover sheet, and apologized for waking me. I told her that I would much rather be awakened by an ADA with a question than have the question go unanswered, and have the case suffer. I don't think she fully believed me.

--I woke up with a completely stopped up nose. I took a Zyrtec (well, a store brand cetirizine HCL, anyway), and feel so much better, now. I think that pill cost me a bit less than 50¢. It's good for 24 hours. No side effects. I like living in the future.

--Slate is putting up a graphic depiction of deaths by gunfire since the Sandy Hook shooting. Even though I'm politically opposed to the editor, there. I find the map pretty interesting to look at. Looks like Chicago has a problem.

--Speaking of graphic depictions, check out the weird wind here in north Texas.









Depending upon which end of US Hwy 82 you're on, the wind may be blowing briskly at 20mph from the north in Wichita Falls, or freshly from the south at 10 mph in Gainesville, which is about 80 miles to the east.

--It's really nice outside. I'm going to do some outside work today. To believe the East Coast-obsessed newsies, though, the Only People Who Matter will be buried in a blizzard today.

--This past weekend, my good friend Joe Speer, proprietor of Jackalope Rifle Company, was coming through town, and dropped off my elder daughter's custom Mossberg Chuckster model 620K .22 WMRF single shot bolt rifle. He had done it as a project rifle, starting with a heavily used old rifle, and did some lovely things. The barrel and receiver are reblued, the stock was refinished, a purple heartwood stock end tip was put on, an ebony pistolgrip cap was put on, and a buttpad was installed. He filled the wallowed-out sling swivel holes, and the hole where the tang sight (sadly not to be found!) had been ripped out. You can just see the wood plugs, but you cannot detect them by touch. The inletting is very good. The trigger is quite good. My daughter has something that I'd never had given me: a custom rifle.

Joe and I and my dad all went over to Big City to Cabella's, and found that there not only wasn't a round of .22 WMRF to be had, but due to panic buying, there was almost not a single round of any common caliber. But Joe, a rather strident fan of the .30-'06, happily reported that there were decent stocks left of his favorite caliber, even in the Remington Core Lokt 150g and 165g load-- arguably the single most popular load for that caliber. Smirking, Joe said, "That's because a man with a .30-'06 doesn't panic."

--I need to order a part from Numerich for my daughter's best friend's Ruger Mark II safety. Her dad bought it, took it apart to clean it like the good former Marine he was, and put it back together and couldn't get it to work. He gave to me to fix. Oops. We've got Missing Parts Syndrome. He's a great guy, and his daughter's like family for us, so I'm happy to buy the part for him.

--While we were running around, we let Joe's dog Butcher run around in Mom's back yard. Mom got home and texted me that the dog was gone. We bailed out of Cabella's and began the not-insignificant drive home, slightly panicking. Mom called me back. Butch was sitting on my front porch, patiently watching Joe's vehicle to make sure that he didn't go anywhere without his companion. I called off the search party, and we stopped and got some Whataburger. Apparently, they don't have those everywhere. Odd. Here, they're on every corner, seems like.

--My beloved burr grinder broke. We're getting another. In the meantime, I'm drinking coffee that came pre-ground, out of a big can. Huh. So this is how you people live, is it?

--I watched Shooter last night on NetFlix. It's almost unrecognizable as an adaptation of Stephen Hunter's great thriller Point Of Impact. I'm still amazed at how Hollywood flouts the rules, and lets a violent felon like Wahlberg handle every gun that they've got in their inventory. I'm amazed that BATFEIEIO gives him special dispensation to do so. But it's okay; he's on the side of the angels now*.  I could stand to see that Kate Mara chick a bit more, though. As learned in Starship Troopers, if you're going to completely stray from the book which the movie is based upon, you might as well put some hawt chicks in the flick.

--Speaking of the Robert A Heinlein novel Starship Troopers, someone has put up the unabridged audio book of it on YouTube, and it's a guilty pleasure to listen to while tending to other things around the house or while driving.  It won't last very long; someone will cry copyright violation**.

--It was getting kind of late last night when my wife and I decided upon pork loin for dinner. We thawed the three-pound hunk of meat in about 13 minutes, split it sagitally, dusted it with salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder, and coated it with olive oil. Then we put it into the oven at 350 for an hour, and programmed the oven to turn itself off. Then we went to the store. We returned to a fantastic dinner, with which we prepared mushroom gravy and peas and carrots. Total prep time for everything couldn't have broken 20 minutes. Again-- the future? She is tasty.

--When I learned that a DWI Third Or More case that I had filed got a conviction, I was pleased. When I saw that the driver got several years of prison time, I was impressed. The driver had been represented by a very good attorney, and the evidence, while solid, was circumstantial. This was a first felony DWI for the driver, and no one saw the driver actually driving. However, the investigator did a fine job. :) I sent an email congratulating the prosecutorial team for excellent work. I don't know if it makes their day to hear praise from a lowly street cop, but it makes my day to get positive feedback from them. Believe it or not, I don't believe that most of those people are in it for the money, nor the power.

--My wife and the girls have infected me with an earworm. Those Walk Off The Earth people, who got internet fame for doing a superb version of Somebody That I Used To Know using five band members and one acoustic guitar, have put up a new song. It's one-take live acapella dubstep version*** of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble".  I have never taken anything remotely beatbox to be a serious artistic style, but dang if their visiting artist ("KRNFX") doesn't actually kinda impress me as having a talent.

I stress that this normally would not be my cup of tea. Uh, it's just something the kids had on. :rolleyes:

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*By which we mean to say, he wants to ban all guns.

**And well they should. The people who produced and published that audiobook deserve to get paid for their work. I'm a fan of defending intellectual property rights. But, yeah, I listened to the audiobook all the way through. Does that make me a hypocrite?

***Does that even make sense?

Among that which we applaud.

My old partner and I used to laugh a lot, listening to some Professor Elemental.

I had thought that we'd seen the last of that chap, though, until Jennifer tonight pointed out that the witty gentleman parody retro chap-hopper had just now produced this:

The end is the very best part. Seriously.

Haw.

Halloween.

• --On September 13th this year, I turned off the word verification Turing test on my blog. I've put most of the spam that I've gotten into a folder on my email. As of today, there are 444 such spam messages in there. The majority of my email now regards this blog, from "Anonymous," and exhibits one of three different characteristics:

1. It will compliment me as being such an extraordinary writer and providing such a useful blog.
2. It will be full of sentences mined from the net or just put together its own sentences with subjects, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and such pushed together to make a sentence that almost makes sense. Reading a paragraph of such sentences and trying to determine content will drive a person mad. End of line. Jump.
3. It will simply be full of links. Actually, they ALL have links. But this third variety will have nothing but.

• --I propose new legislation banning any October advertisement that includes any variation of the sentence: "[Nouns] so [adjective], it's scary!!!"  EG: "Prices so low, it's scary!!" "Food so good, it's scary!!!" Pull the advert; they're done for the month.
• --My high school freshman is making a mask to go roaming trick-or-treating tonight. She's taking her 10 year old sister, who is making some kind of raggedy witch costume. She makes pretty good costumes. Check out her dead bride costume from last year:

The dress was a costume dress that she'd picked up at a Goodwill for three dollars. The blood was some of her daddy's stage blood left over from graduate level blood spatter experiments.  She's miserable in that pic, because the stage blood, having been left in the garage, was about 55 degrees, and she was made to stand out in the fresh Halloween air to let it dry. She was cold.

• --Kids over 11 who arrive at my door tonight out of costume get no candy. Kids under 11 may get some candy, but they'll be told we disapprove, and that they need to sing for their supper. Also? They get the crappy candy, like Dumdums, or Good-n-Plenty.
• --I will actually be working an off-duty gig this evening for a couple of hours, controlling car access to an affluent community. Seems that the rabble locally less-affluent have discovered that their high-rolling neighbors give out the Good Stuff, and they all like to bring their kids. Problem: left to their own devices, man parents won't walk the sidewalks with their little kids; they will drive along beside them. This results in the hazard of people driving the streets while looking out their passenger side window, on the very night when there is the highest likelihood of a sprog darting out in front of their vehicle. My job will be to direct such parents to park their cars at the convenient lot near the entrance to the 'hood, and invite them to take a stroll with their costumed charge.  Such service will be rendered with a big ol' Officer Friendly grin. I have been assured that I am to be compensated quite well for this.
• --It's to be 73 degrees at 6:00 PM today, with a dry 5 mph breeze from the north, and not a cloud in the sky. The moon is only waning two days past full. It will be a delightful evening for a stroll with friends.
• --When I was about 13, my best friends' parents attended a church that taught that Halloween was evil. I was invited to a Halloween party with their youth group, and found to my dismay that they were all praying for the souls of all those kids who were caught up in the Satan-worshiping that surely accompanied the act of dressing up and unintentionally celebrating dark arts. The television show 20/20 had just done a big exposé on the apparent rampant spread of Satanism and people were wringing their hands all over. In retrospect, I think that there could have been no greater reward for the mullet-wearing teens with cans of spray paint and hopes of getting the townsfolk all scared, than that they would receive such coverage.
• --When I was 12, I was on a Boy Scout camp out on a fall night, when I went for an unsanctioned midnight walk with a friend*. I can't recall now if it was a Friday the 13th, or a Halloween night, but we came across a group of older teens in the woods who clearly were trying to work themselves into a tizzy. They had a girl screaming, and shouted. It was midnight. At one point, one of the young men stepped onto the dirt road near where we crouched and yelled the refrain to "Shout At The Devil!" I don't know about my companion, but I was rather impressed. It was right at midnight. I was pretty certain that if we were detected by the revelers, we would be murdered. I sharpened a large stick and we sat in the shadows, about 80 yards away. I suggested to my friend that we should go rescue the girl. My older friend pointed out that such an attempt would be foolhardy. I permitted him to persuade me. Later, we heard her talking and laughing. We crept away. To quote Robert Earl Keen in "Shades Of Gray": "...these are just some sorry kids/ They ain't the ones."*
• --I've just had that crappy Mötley Crüe song playing in the background while typing. It's no longer scary, nor does it sound that hard (it was mostly unlistenable to teen aged Matt G). It just sounds kind of crappy. Also? The metal umlauts are dumb. Yeah, I know-- I'm getting old.

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*I had seen him get up and walk out of the campsite, and I hopped up and ran to catch up. He was a couple of years older and a minor hero of mine, but I was aware that he also had a naughtier streak, too. To this day, I have no idea if he actually had a destination in mind. I think maybe he was hoping to get the two miles to the highway and get to a convenience store for some cigarettes.

**Yeah, this is the Richard Shindell version with Cry Cry Cry, but I think that the lyrics are clearer than the original Robert Earl Keen, Jr version. Also, yes, I'm aware that the song was written later in 1997, about some kids who almost got implicated for the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, but the phrase has resonated in my head many times throughout my career, when I have run across some light-runnin' malefactors who distracted me from my search for real evil-doers.

Band nerds.

I wasn't a band kid. My daughter is. I probably wouldn't have watched this video if I weren't a band dad.

Holy. Crap.

Even I knew that the Ohio State marching band is teh awesome. They're famous for their flamboyant drum major leading the band in their perennial "Script Ohio" number.

But this was something else. Apparently, the theme was simply Video Games.

Some of these games I didn't play (Halo, for instance). But I played me some Space Invaders, and Nintendo Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris, and even some PacMan. I didn't even get what the homage was to, when they showed a running, then rearing horse. But if you refuse to watch the entire 9 minute video, AT LEAST go to the 6:00 mark, and watch that. I promise you that you'll watch the rest.

 

Pretty cool.

Music: Disregard the way he looks.

I've heard of Patrick Watson down at Austin's South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival. I never have gotten to see him. Apparently he's one of those performances that needs to be seen live. And he picked a helluva backing band.

Look, I know he looks like he was a weirdo even before he got high to show up for the gig. I do. But they do that stuff live, without production. And the guy in the back uses a bow to play a brass trophy, before playing a musical saw.  They do some fun stuff with very simple miniature modulator amps, too.

Worth a listen*.

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*Note: The first one's the best, then the second one. The third one's okay.

Music interlude.

I believe that I'd like to hear a little more of Lisa Hannigan. Do me a favor: listen to this a second time.

If we don't hear more of that voice, then it's a shame.