Damn…

Why not good luck out there.

my only weapon is my pen, and the frame of mind I’m in…

What can it all mean?

It’s been a long time since I wanted to just get out of my head, the news however is a constant onslaught of hypocrisy and spin doctory and shithousery. I have wanted to dull my senses, take a break, not pay attention any more, just for a couple of hours.

So the round up. Bad health care for most, rampant homelessness, social services that don’t even raise to the level of a joke and we are apparently okay with our politicians allowing our children to be murdered while at school because they don’t have the backbone to do what’s right for fear of losing their seat at the trough that is the senate and congress feeding the pigs.

Now that what I call a run on sentence.

I don’t have any solutions. Well I do but you probably know what they are so I’m not going to spout my liberal nonsense.

Take the time to see who is making the money in this, that’s where the finger should be pointing.

No I never got out of it. Apart from in the musical sense.

they were forever to be leaving…

Twenty or so minutes of perfect eighties psychedelia.

Is it an album or an E.P?

Those sunny California chiming jingle jangle guitars covering up songs of desolation loss and abandonment.

It has been at least thirty five years since I sat down and listened to this record. The funny thing is it doesn’t sound dated at all. Go figure.

The last track is the monster No Easy Way Down is a slithering nightmare working it’s way into your day to turn you around and leave you breathless. Insistent guitars and an organ stabilizing the whole thing. It’ll mess you up.

I used to listen to my bootlegged tape of this album religiously. Sitting on the floor and just soaking in the sounds. Usually in that slow time when the pub has closed in the afternoon as you waited for the pub to reopen in the evening. It was a solid diet of this Green On Red, Echo and the Bunnymen and Syd Barrett. It all made sense and none of it did.

Happy to have it back especially as I watch the primaries.

we’re not what we used to be, we’re just paranoid…

In an ever expanding meta conscious decision to attempt to understand the coherence of politics. I decided to forego understanding and just feel man.

This led to this anarchic noise fest as I put my forehead to the cool tile floor to ground myself.

Peace, love and bongos dudes.

Go out and vote. All our futures depend on it.

Though we rack ourselves on the rocks..,

It has just finally come to my attention that I like thoughtful melodic and somewhat romantic if ironic pop music. Especially if it is wrapped in a stylish album cover.

So I’d tell you all about this album how great it is and fun. I’d mention the clever lyrics and the melodies and clever retro yet modern hooks. The harmonies the brass sound and the interesting yet complementary drumming.

However all I’ve managed is to sit and enjoy it three times today.

I know it’s not their best. It’s a pale shadow of their first couple. But it’s so much farther ahead of anything else I’ve heard this week so there.

It’s something to do with the hopelessly romantic if melancholic Scots.

I had several posts of angst and anger that I abandoned for this.

I ain’t afraid to say I tried on your skirts…

I am trying not to be judgmental.

I really am.

The other morning I was driving to what I sometimes call work, I got to a school zone and slowed down to 20 or less as required, suddenly I was being tailgated by a raised full size pick up, he put on his bright lights and the row of super bright LED lights over the cab and started swinging from side to side. Then he decided to move into the turning lane and pass me while still in the school zone, an illegal move at the best of times. All I could think was where are the police as he drove his Police Lives Matter flag waving oversize diesel smoke belching behemoth accelerating through the school zone.

As I drove to work I was thinking to myself, do the ends ever justify the means? This is the excuse the Christian Nationalists and the GOP make for Trump, he won the election, he or his like will probably win the next. I saw a commercial for a local politician here in the Pacific North West, his tag line was if business can build a wall to keep looters out why can’t we build a wall on the border. We are entering another season of the politics of fear, fear the Russians(since the 40’s), may be good reason for this, fear the Christians, fear the Muslims, fear the young, the old, those who look different than us, fear men, women, liberals and conservatives, fear the educated, the uneducated, the elite, the poor, the working man, the unions. At what point do we say enough of this.

We don’t want to educate people, critical race theory may creep in, be careful what math you teach, control, dictate and do as you are told.

We have managed to control the population by keeping them stupid and unhealthy, anything that threatens this is a communist plot.

Aaaahhhhhhhhh. The answer Blitzen Trapper.

I was struggling with the new album when I first talked about it. After spending time with it and eventually getting to attend a live show I have now decided that it is a psychedelic masterpiece. Also Requiem may be the great lost Lindisfarne song.

Altogether it’s a bit of a strange album moving from weird to middle of the road via folk-rock and all out psychedelic oddness.

Live the band were a bit nervous. There have been some changes new members etc. Eric Earley is still there being enigmatic. About twenty minutes into the show there was a big smile and off we were back into familiar unfamiliar territory.

It’s been a long time since I was at a show. There were masks, bare faces smiles and swaying. It’s good to be at shows again.

At least after the anger of the start of the day there was a good end to the day. In the words of Neil Young.

“Live music is better, bumper stickers should be issued.”

See now I feel better.

Rant over for now.

A tree felling happened as well.