SRV

Time for tunes. until I think up something profound, something nobody else has thought, ever.

BLOG PLINKING

Night time, can't go to the range; TV double-plus sucks.

 I suppose I could write something profound or serious or intelligent. Nah, would not be in keeping with the mission statement. If I ever help someone it will probably be by accident.

 Besides, I am psycho-socially debilitated.

 

 

 

I don't believe I want to be that civilized, but thank you anyway. - Hoot Gibson.

Never go anywhere without a knife.




 

MOSCOW RULES

We are losing our freedoms. Since we are not fighting to keep them it is as if we are giving them away.

 

 

 

 

 

Times are changing and our behavior must shift as well. The vigilance which government agencies exercises and the ever-increasing monitoring of what used to be our private lives requires a different mind set. Banking, phone usage, internet including emails, anything IRS related (which now includes health care), travel patterns, spending records, anything on paper or electronic, all is watched by Big Brother.

Orwell was prescient and what we used to take as paranoid fiction noir? it's all happening folks. Cameras everywhere: traffic, malls, office buildings, schools, hospitals, drones, IR monitors in forests. Tracking chips in cereal boxes, if you can imagine it, it is probably already happening. Drones anyone?

Blow wise to this: you are not invisible.

Friends, the FBI is the least of our worries.




 

Large urban areas are more watched. Avoid crowds is good advice. In a well-functioning fascist state the people police each other.

Here are some guidelines which I lifted from Woodpile Report:


Moscow Rules  via the International Spy Museum

Assume nothing.

Never go against your gut.

Everyone is potentially under opposition control.

Don't look back; you are never completely alone.

Go with the flow, blend in.

Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.

Lull them into a sense of complacency.

Don't harass the opposition.
 
Pick the time and place for action.

Keep your options open.

TODAY'S FORCAST

Brought to you by people that care. Remember, us old folks know what to do, and we know how to do it. When you get to a certain age DPJK makes a lot of sense. DPJK = Don't Play, Just Kill.

That's the nice thing about reality though, consequences are immediate and proportional: a short'n sharp feedback, no room for dithering excuses. — Remus

 It all sounds so easy until you realize there's a mile of wire in a screen door.





Avoid crowds. Play by Moscow Rules. Simple as that.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. - William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming.”

Well dressed, ain't he?

And now the weather:



Are there any questions about that ?

THE KING JAMES PART

 

Here's the spiritual part of my "King James and Uncle Sam" thinking. The bible is the rule and guide to my faith and practice, my moral compass. 

English Standard Version

1)  You shall have no other gods before me.

 

2)  You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 

3)  You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

 

4)  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

 

5)  Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

 

6)  You shall not murder.

 

7)  You shall not commit adultery.

 

8)  You shall not steal.

 

9)  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

 

10)              You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

So mote it be.


*

BILL of RIGHTS

 

 

Simple and straightforward. The Bill of Rights and a bible are all we need. Oh, and plenty of ammo.

Stand up for the National Anthem at the bottom of this post. You ever heard all the verses? Read the lyrics.

The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution which limit the power of the U.S. federal government. These limitations protect the natural rights of liberty and property including freedoms of religion, speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.

They were introduced by James Madison to the 1st United States Congress in 1789 as a series of legislative articles and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the States.

The Bill of Rights plays a key role in American law and government, and remains a vital symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the first fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

• First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

• Second Amendment – Militia (United States), Sovereign state, Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

• Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

• Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

• Fifth Amendment – due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, eminent domain.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

• Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

• Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

• Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

• Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

• Tenth Amendment – Powers of States and people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.





Star Spangled Banner   Francis Scott Key

Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust;"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

JOYFUL NOISE

I am a Christian. There is Joy in my heart. I face the tribulations of each day knowing that it's going to be alright. I sleep easy at night. 

Psalm 100 King James Version (KJV)

1- Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
 

^{2 -} Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
 

^{3 -}  Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
 

^{4 -} Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
 

^{5 -} For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

 

*

DO BLUE MEN SING THE WHITES?

 Good question. You may find the answer in the following. First we'll start with this.

"Whatsa matta?"

"da blooze has gotcha"



As you have noticed, he's a Black guy. He does mention White guys.


This ain't even a guy. Uh, blues dawg I guess you'd call him.

Let's go to school.

                                  BLUES 101

If you are new to Blues music, or like it but never really understood the whys and wherefores, here are some very fundamental rules:

    1. Most Blues begin with: "Woke up this mornin’..."

    2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

    3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find
something that rhymes - sort of: "Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weigh 500 pound."

  4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch...ain't no way out.

  5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.
 

 6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

  7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or anywhere in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the Blues in any place that don't get no rain.

  8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg 'cause you were skiing is not the Blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

  9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

  10. Good places for the Blues:
    a. highway
    b. jailhouse
    c. empty bed
    d. bottom of a whiskey glass

   11. Bad places for the Blues:
    a. Nordstrom's
    b. gallery openings
    c. Ivy League institutions
    d. golf courses

   12. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it.

   13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
    a. you're older than dirt
    b. you're blind
    c. you shot a man in Memphis
    d. you can't be satisfied

   No, if:
    a. you have all your teeth
    b. you were once blind but now can see
    c. the man in Memphis lived
    d. you have a 401K or trust fund

    14. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Sonny Liston could have. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the Blues.

   15. If you ask for water and your darlin' gives you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
    a. cheap wine
    b. whiskey or bourbon
    c. muddy water
    d. black coffee

   The following are NOT Blues beverages:
    a. Perrier
    b. Chardonnay
    c. Snapple
    d. Slim Fast

   16. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken-down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

   17. Some Blues names for women:
    a. Sadie
    b. Big Mama
    c. Bessie
    d. Fat River Dumpling

   18. Some Blues names for men:
    a. Joe
    b. Willie
    c. Little Willie
    d. Big Willie

   19. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

   20. Blues Name Starter Kit:
    a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Mute, Lame, etc.)
    b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
    c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, Clinton, etc.)
   For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Pegleg Lemon Johnson or Lame Kiwi
   Clinton, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

21. I don't care how tragic your life is: if you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues, period. Sorry!

Well, no answer there. I know, mo' music. Caint go wrong with mo' music

This guy ain't Black but he plays a mean harp. And he was born in Chicago.  Gives him a leg up on someone born in Portland.





No conclusions can be drawn. Poor Ned, he don't even know The Blues exist.



The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life

Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.

 

 

 

*

NYUK NYUK NYUK

Well, it was bound to happen. The Three Stooges. Legends in their own time. I never met a chick, liked the Stooges. That speaks to the Stooges' validity in my opinion. I'm talking about the originals, not the wretched remake recently released. 

Erleichda, erleichda, is my message for today. The curious among you will google it up. You may cross-reference Einstein if you wish. 



The Three Stooges started in 1925 as part of a raucous vaudeville act called 'Ted Healy and His Stooges' (a.k.a. 'Ted Healy and His Southern Gentlemen', 'Ted Healy and His Three Lost Souls' and 'Ted Healy and His Racketeers' - the moniker 'Three Stooges' was never used during their tenure with Healy). In the act, lead comedian Healy would attempt to sing or tell jokes while his noisy assistants would keep "interrupting" him. Healy would respond by verbally and physically abusing his stooges. Brothers Moe and Shemp were joined later that year by violinist-comedian Larry Fine. Soon they broke with Healy and a short time later Shemp left the trio, to be replaced with Curly.

Larry, Curly, and Moe is the combination I like best.





In 1934, the trio – now officially christened "The Three Stooges" – signed on to appear in two-reel comedy short subjects for Columbia Pictures. In Moe's autobiography, he said they each got $600 per week on a one-year contract with a renewable option; in the Ted Okuda–Edward Watz book The Columbia Comedy Shorts, the Stooges are said to have received $1,000 among them for their first Columbia effort, Woman Haters, and then signed a term contract for $7,500 per film (equal to $130,299 today), to be divided among the trio.






Film critics and stooge fans alike have cited Curly as the most popular member of the team. His childlike mannerisms and natural comedic charm (he had no previous acting experience) made him a hit with audiences, particularly children and women (the latter usually finding the trio's humor juvenile and uncouth yeah, so?).





I like the Stooges because they are decidedly masculine and represent males accurately, if perhaps a bit exaggerated. All us guys take ourselves oh so seriously but really we can be so effing goofy in some of the things we do. Look at yourself honestly and consider how you appear to others. When I laugh at the Stooges antics, and they are pretty funny, I am laughing at myself. Which is not a bad thing.

RISE AND FALL OF DEMOCRACY

This is all over the internet and I forgot where I saw it; not ripping, if I could give credits I would.

The Rise and Fall of Democracy

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
 

1.     From bondage to spiritual faith;

2.     From spiritual faith to great courage; 

3.     From courage to liberty; 

4.     From liberty to abundance;  

5.     From abundance to complacency;  

6.     From complacency to apathy; 

7.     From apathy to dependence;  

8.     From dependence back into bondage.”

Alright, get out yer Bible and follow along, Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

DAWN

Dawn: bad news comes early, and the sun meets it halfway.


There's a mile of wire in a screen door. If you gonna do the math, go away.

I post a lot of reruns, but ya can't have too much of a good thing. Read 'em again. I am such an excellent blogger the posts will be worth a lot of money someday. Do you good to read 'em often. If you wrote down half the stuff I said you'd be rich. I did not and I am not.

Let me serve up some tunes. If you complain too much it'll be the "Nothing" post for ya.

Some jazz guitar will set you straight.








If this here Wes Montgomery tune and the Atlantic Ocean sunset don't make you mellow maybe you need some thorazine. I favor the Atlantic; it is an honest ocean, not like that sneaky Pacific, which doesn't even live up to its namesake.

THE ACCORDION

As promised, more about the accordion than you will ever need  want to know.

When I was young I started playing the bass guitar in R&B, blues, soul bands. Led me down a path of sex-drugs-rock and roll, wasted a number of years there. I shoulda took up the accordion instead.

Betcha Tommy scores with the kind of chicks you take home to momma.

The Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. It is played by compressing or expanding a bellows whilst pressing buttons or keys, causing valves, called pallets, to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds that vibrate to produce sound inside the body. The instrument is sometimes considered a one-man-band as it needs no accompanying instrument. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand manual, and the accompaniment, consisting of bass and pre-set chord buttons, on the left-hand manual.
The accordion is often used in folk music in Europe, North America and South America. It is commonly associated with busking. Some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is sometimes used in both solo and orchestra performances of classical music.

History

The accordion's basic form is believed to have been invented in Berlin in 1822 by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, although one instrument has been recently discovered that appears to have been built in 1816 or earlier by Friedrich Lohner of Nürnberg in the German State of Bavaria.

The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that used free reeds driven by a bellows. An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian, of Armenian descent, in Vienna .

The piano accordion was played in Germany, then all over Europe. It was invented in 1822, but it started to actually be played in 1826, and built its reputation from there.

By 1831 at least the accordion had appeared in Britain. The instrument was noted in The Times of that year as one new to British audiences and not favorably reviewed, but nevertheless it soon became popular. It had also become popular with New Yorkers by at least the mid-1840s.

Use in traditional music

After the invention of the accordion in 1829, its popularity spread throughout the world, in no small measure due to the polka craze. "Once the polka became a craze in Paris and London during the spring of 1844, it diffused rapidly to the rest of the world. . . . In March 1844, polka-mania took Paris: common people, servants, workers and, one assumes, anyone else who wasn't too stuffy were dancing the polka in the streets of the capital and soon in Bordeaux and other French cities as well. A week or so later it took London by storm. And from these two great centers of fashion, empire, and influence, the polka diffused rapidly upward into the rest of French and English society and outward to the rest of the world."
Except for a brief moment in time during the 1830s and 1840s when the accordion was heard by French aristocracy during Salon music concerts, the instrument has always been associated with the common people. The accordion was spread across the globe by the waves of Europeans who emigrated to various parts of the world in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The mid-19th-century accordion became a favorite of folk musicians for several reasons: "The new instrument's popularity [among the common masses] was a result of its unique qualities. Firstly, it was much louder than all the older folk instruments put together. It could easily be heard in even the wildest pub above the stomping of dancing feet. It was also the prototype of a 'one man band' with bass and chords on the left-hand side and buttons for the melody on the right, and you could still sing along and beat the rhythm with your feet. The instrument needed no tuning and was always ready to play, but the most ingenious thing about the early one-row squeezebox was that you couldn't play it really badly. Even if you lost the melody it still sounded fine."

 

Use in popular music

The accordion was heard frequently in popular music beginning around 1910 until about 1960. This half century is often called the "Golden Age of the Accordion." However, with the advent of rock 'n roll and the generation gap in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the accordion declined in popularity, as the younger generation considered it "square"—epitomizing the light-hearted music of their parents and grandparents.
The accordion has been a primary instrument in Mexican style music. Since the late 19th century, Tejano music has emerged as one of the leading genres for the instrument in America. Central to the evolution of early Tejano music was the blend of traditional forms such as the Corrido and Mariachi, and Continental European styles, such as Polka, introduced by German and Czech settlers in the late 19th century. In particular, the accordion was adopted by Tejano folk musicians at the turn of the 20th century, and it became a popular instrument for amateur musicians in Texas and Northern Mexico. Small bands known as orquestas, featuring amateur musicians, became a staple at community dances.

Use in classical music
Although the accordion is best known primarily as a folk instrument, it has been used with increasing frequency by classical composers.
The Russian composer, Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, included four optional single-action diatonic accordions in his Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C Major, op. 53 (1883), simply to add a little color to the third movement: Scherzo burlesque.
In the United States several composers contributed to this effort including: John Serry, Sr. whose works featured both the traditional chromatic accordion as well as the free bass accordion.
Notable composers who wrote for the accordion during the first half of the 20th century were:

• Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1928)
• Serge Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, op. 74 (1936)
• Paul Dessau: Mother Courage (1936) and Die Verurteilung des Lukullus (1949)
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Jazz Suite No. 2 (1938)
• Jean Françaix: Apocalypse According to St. John (1939)
• Darius Milhaud: Prelude and Postlude for "Lidoire" (1946)
• Henry Brant: All Soul's Carnival (1949)
• George Antheil—of Ballet mécanique fame: Accordion Dance for accordion and orchestra (1951)
• John Serry, Sr.: American Rhapsody (1955), to name a few.

Use by losers

Libertarians, ne'er-do-wells, mooks.

Use by winners

Spillers of Soup.