Well….with the passing of Prince Philip today, the thought entered my head that, even being a big anglophile, or a fan of England, I’m not sure if I understand the monarchy in these modern times….or any monarchy for that matter…it seems that more egalitarian models of governance are more suited to the times we live in. I do feel for the British royal family as I do for any family that loses it’s patriarch or any of the people who guided it for 70 years, cripes, that is even longer than I’ve been alive, but what is the purpose of the monarchy? Here I fall back on my firm belief that no one should be able to go through life held up to high esteem just because of an accident of birth…whether it is through a monarchy or through inheritance of wealth as happens here in the US…for example, all of the idiot trump’s kids, what makes these people of any more worth than you or me? Maybe with the royal family it is a lack of understanding on my part…but, with the almost daily scandals coming out of that small family, ….okay…nope, I don’t like the way this one is going…I’m not going to attack something I don’t understand…and that is not how this one started in my head…maybe I’ll have to think more before I comment more….
Category Archives: Misc
Good news on the vaccines…
Well…as the vaccines for covid are rolled out slowly across the world, there is one detail that is being overlooked that I think is a pretty big deal…of the millions of people who have been vaccinated, there has not been one reported death…let that sink in for a minute….once you get the vaccine, you may get sick since it is only 95% effective but you won’t get really sick or die from covid….and that IS a really big deal…that the worst outcomes after vaccination is to get mildly sick but not end up hospitalized or dying….to me, that is worth any side effect such as pain or fatigue after you get the shot…and they appear to have the same effect on the new variants of covid…so far, but there may be a booster shot in the future as the virus continues to mutate…but I’ll take that any day….
RIP Leslie West
Well…damn, another one of my musical family died last night…Leslie West, founder of Mountain and other groups is gone after a heart attack that he couldn’t recover from. From the first time I heard “Mississippi Queen” and it’s cowbell intro, I knew he was something special…and I still get chills when Leslie comes in with the power and slashing guitar…I’ve always thought that the song was one of the most perfect 3:39 in rock history and Leslie’s growling vocals still takes my breath away…I could always tell when a guitar riff of his was playing…he has this choppy, power style that was raw and yet he could be subtle, too…I was fortunate enough to get to see him live three times…once with Felix Pappalardi as Mountain, and two other times with Leslie as a solo act…the last time at the intersection downtown where I could walk right up to the stage and watch him play from about 10 feet away…just frickin amazing….while they were great on studio albums, to get to the core of Leslie and Mountain, you have to hear their live recordings…I would recommend that you find a copy of their double live album “Twin Peaks” that was recorded in Japan….and listen to “Nantucket Sleighride”….thirty minutes of power where they put together bits and pieces of other songs to make an epic live jam….but it’s not the noodling kind of stuff that jam bands get into…it’s full power blast that ebbs and flows and shows you just how good Leslie was….I’m going to miss him…RIP Leslie….
Small acts of kindness…
Well….have been a little pensive today and thinking about what can be done to remove the stain and stench of the hate that the idiot trump and his followers have smeared on the world…and a story that I just read on Kos points to a path that I have been following for a few years now…small acts of kindness. In the story, a woman in England was trying to get to the nursing home where her mother was staying after fighting off both cancer and covid…but the directions and the bus number she was given was wrong and she was going the wrong way…and she only had a half hour window for her appointment…once she realized it, she approached the bus driver in tears thinking she wouldn’t be able to see her mother after their months of separation….and when the driver heard her story, he said to her not to worry we’ll see what we can do. Then he stopped the bus and asked the passengers if it would be okay if they took a little detour…and every one of them said yes so he turned the bus around and took a 20 mile detour so the women could get to see her mom. When asked later why he did it, the bus driver just said “because that’s what you’re supposed to do”….and that is what I’m supposed to do…just the little acts of kindness that says to me and the world that people can be okay…they don’t need to be the nasty assholes that infest our country right now…just a smile or laugh when someone isn’t paying attention on the trail or in the store and cuts in front of you or their dog is running crazy and I have to slow down….it’s such a small thing but from the reactions I get, it is making a difference…maybe for just a minute, maybe less, but in that small moment I know that my life and theirs is just a little brighter…and that makes me smile….
That was a bust…
Well…just got back from driving 78 miles to see the house that came up in my e-mails yesterday and it was such a bust…Muir is the dumpiest little village I have ever seen and I can’t believe anyone would want to live there…let’s start with the “paved” road the house is on…it may have been paved 40 years ago but now it’s just crumbles of asphalt and the “good neighborhood” it’s in consists of the house next door that may have been painted in the 1800′s when it was built but it sure looks like it hasn’t been since then….and the next door neighbor is a rusted out trailer with at least 3 derelict cars in the yard…but I couldn’t tell since the entire lot was overgrown with brush and weeds….if you say the words “white trash”…that is the description of the entire area…I mean trump signs in almost every yard right beside the burned out cars and roofs with blue tarps on them all over the place….it looks like the place was abandoned by time in the 1930′s….so, yeah, a pretty big bust but I guess that’s to be expected….some realtors really do lie…..
RIP Sean Connery
Well…damn, I hate 2020…and even more with the news that Sean Connery died last night at his home in the Bahamas at 90…he was another actor that spanned much of my life and I enjoyed every performance of his that I saw, from the Bond movies through the later ones like the Hunt for Red October and the Indiana Jones Movie to many more…cripes I was only 9 when the first Bond movie came out…and I always found it funny that as a Scottish actor, he had to do a British accent for many of his films….but, I’m weird that way…I do know that he will be missed by Scotland and the rest of the world…RIP, Sean…
People are back to being idiots….
Well…I was wrong the other day when I congratulated the people of Michigan for doing a good job on social distancing…at least about the idiots who are infesting the trails with the warmer weather…I mean 8 guys riding bikes in a group taking up the entire trail? And people having a frickin picnic in the pavilion with at least 20 people there….people…stop being idiots…you are going to get us old folks killed if you keep this crap up…you know, I was okay with all of the restrictions on everything but all of the stores keep ratcheting things up to the point where I won’t even be able to go grocery shopping with making people wait outside so only a certain number of people are in the stores at one time…and this is all spurred on by people being idiots and not distancing and taking the whole family to the grocery store for a damn outing….so, I’m going to do one more grocery run this week and stock up on everything I can and then plan on not being back there for a couple of months….so, I take it back Michigan….you are acting like idiots and we’re all gonna die…
Hey Michiganders….
Well…hey Michiganders…I know we’re all sitting around with plenty of time on our hands and I have a suggestion how to use some of it…with the new, voter passed law from last year, everyone has the ability to request a permanent absentee ballot so, if there are still coronavirus problems in November, or if you’re busy, or for any other reason, you can have a ballot sent to your home so you can fill it out at your leisure…and that means that the repubs can’t shut down your polling place, or move them or change ID requirements to keep our side from voting here in Michigan…I did it when I moved into GR and changed my address and the county clerks, or city clerks will send you the forms necessary to do it…so, let’s do this one little change that will keep the repubs from stealing any more elections here in Michigan…I know you’ll feel better for it…vote!
Good job, Michiganders…
Well…with the second day of stay at home here in Michigan, there is a company who is using location data and other things to track how effectively the tactic is working…and the report they put out this morning says that, so far, Michiganders are taking this order very seriously and are doing the best job of isolating in the country…so, I say good job, Michganders! Now if we can just work on the whole hoarding thing and realize that you don’t need to go to the grocery store every day and you don’t need 10 gallons of milk or 200 rolls of toilet paper…as an old guy, I thank you all for not exposing me to this damn virus and I say keep it up…we can beat this if we just pay attention and keep doing what our health experts are asking us to…
The latest Star Wars movie…
Well….the latest and last Star Wars movie showed up on Plex yesterday and I just had to watch it last night…finally, a Star Wars that lived up to the first three in the series…it kept me interested all the way through and there was a chemistry between the three leads that has been missing in most of the other movies and that was a fun to see…and there were a couple of pretty cool easter eggs that I laughed at…during a scene where the leads were walking through a bar, there was one to Doctor Who when one of the patrons in the bar was a Sontarun…and near the end of the movie, they fixed one of the big mistakes from the original movie where Chewy was the only one of the leads who didn’t get a medal in the last scene…when Leia dies near the end, one of her aides hands the medal she got to Chewy and I thought that was pretty cool….all in all, a fitting conclusion to the Star Wars saga…and well worth watching if you’re a fan…