Well….I think I bitched about this before but it came back to me riding through the parking lot for John Ball park this morning…I really think the park is going to be a new hotspot for the coronavirus looking at the hundred or so people who were in the parking lot today and none of them were wearing masks…and the lots were full to overflow so how are they doing social distancing? I was going to write about how well the people of Michigan have done with wearing masks and doing everything else to help control the virus they have been asked…enough to where Michigan is one of three states who are in the green for new infections and deaths…but I think this has made people complacent…especially in this very red portion of the state that still supports the idiot trump and have sent reps to the state government who have done everything they can to keep our governor from protecting the people of this state under the guise of “freedum” or some such nonsense….I surely hope I’m wrong and there is not enough virus here to cause a spike…but, all across the country we are seeing cases explode when things “open” so I think that is probably wishful thinking….
Tag Archives: Grand Rapids
Fumigate the VanAndel….
Well…with the idiot trump in town for some reason, the thought came into my head on the bike that they are going to have to fumigate the VanAndel arena where his “rally” is being held before I’ll be able to set foot in there again….I even got a text from his re-election campaign telling me how I could get tickets…now, anyone who knows me at all knows that the last place on earth I would ever be would be listening to the most stupid, racist asshole on the planet spout off and get his moron followers worked up into a frenzy…you know, living here in West Michigan all of my life, I thought the people here were pretty okay…but I was wrong…we are infested with hateful, racist assholes as evidenced by the DeVos and Van Andel families who, while they have done some good work, are trump’s biggest enablers here in Michigan, and that alone has tarred them with nothing but contempt from people here who have more than two brain cells. So, I won’t be watching any local news today since the local stations are all controlled by repubs and will fawn all over the asshole in chief…and I don’t need to see that…impeach….
Sister Sarah in town…
Well…when I woke up this morning, I felt like the Grand Rapids area had suddenly gotten much, much, dumber but I couldn’t really figure out why….then, I read the paper and found out…ole sister Sarah was in town…and, any town that Palin walks into immediately has it’s IQ drop by many, many points. I know this is a quite conservative area, in spots, but I didn’t know until now that those same areas are stupid…well…yeah, I did, I talk to these people and marvel at how willfully ignorant they are of science, the constitution…oh, hell…about everything. But they will queue up to see, listen to, and buy her stupid book on “the war on christmas”….that’s about all I have to say….I even feel stupider for just being in the same state as the supreme grifter…geez…
A local show of classlessness…
Well…there has been an interesting development on the local level of politics here in Michigan, and some would say a betrayal of the citizens of Grand Rapids, at least the Democratic ones by state Rep Roy Schmidt who just over the past few days has switched from the dems to the repubs. There are so many ways this tactic hits the ethical rock bottom, even for the repubs, that I have to comment on it…first, there must have been long term talks for this change to happen and all the while, rep Schmidt has been raising money for his reelection from his dem base…yep, that’s right, he is going to use the money from his dem supporters to run as a repub..at the very least, this liar should return every dime that he has gotten from any fundraiser or any other source that is dem affiliated. Second, the timing of the change was planned to ensure that the dems would not have anyone to oppose this turncoat in the election for this newly drawn district…just another instance where the repubs know they can’t win an election fair and square so they have to resort to this kind of shenanigans to manipulate the system to win…just like they are doing with all of the voter suppression measures that have been passed across the country. I say this to rep Schmidt…your whole career is a result of the dems supporting you and you would never have been elected, not once, if you would have run as a repub….this is political opportunism at it’s worst…you will fit right in with your new repub buddies….
Gonna be a little nostalgic…
Well…I am sitting here listening to Pandora on my computer and it sparked an idea in my head bout how much the delivery of music has changed so much just in my lifetime…I remember when I was young the nights where the weather conditions were just right and you could get WLS AM from Chicago and imagine that you were in that city….and listen to music that hadn’t made it to our little town yet….here in GR we had a heated rivalry between the two powerhouse AM stations that played rock and soul music…and there were even WLAV people and WGRD people who would only listen to the station they liked but I liked them both…in truth, they both played the same music fom Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, the Temps, The Tops (that the Temptations and the Four Tops for those of you that didn’t grow up in that time) but that didn’t stop people from choosing their favorites…something like being a Ford or Chevy person…both perfectly good brands but you would never be caught dead buying the other brand. This continued until I was about 12 or thirteen when the magical new thing called FM came into being, but that was even preceded by some “underground” stuff that was being tried by the AM stations. One of the ones I remember was a show called “Campus After Hours” that ran on LAV, I think, and brought long form music that was beginning to break the 3 minute AM radio format and exposed us to bands we had never heard of and songs that were not the designated “hits” from bands we already knew.
Then came FM radio…I have such fond memories of WLAV-FM from here in GR and the wonderful times of the 70′s and 80′s…and the DJ’s from that time…Aris Hampers, Ed Buchanan ad Alison Harte actually knew and loved the music they were playing…and at that time there was no where else to get the insider information about the bands and exposure to new music you could get there. I heard “Nantucket Sleighride” by Mountain for the first time there…does any FM station have the guts or the freedom to play that live, over 30 minute song anymore? On any night you could hear George Carlin, then the Who followed by Pure Prarie League and Frank Zappa….then back to Cheech and Chong…I heard the “Dave’s not here” sketch for the first time listening to LAV and I can still remember laughing so hard that it hurt….I guess what I wanted to say is that those were wonderful days…and I know they can’t be recaptured….but I can still miss them, can’t I?
Art Prize….
Well…we are into the second year of the local art competition here in Grand Rapids, and while I like the idea of doing more for downtown than just opening a new bar, a commentary I read in the GR Press this morning kind of got me thinking about what art is to me and if that judgment is valid. In the article, Ed Riojas, a local artist, states that he is uncomfortable with the path that the competition is taking; with the emphasis becoming more on process than creativity. But I guess that gets to the question that has been asked since the first art appeared in the caves of France 30,000 years ago: What is art? I really can’t answer that question…I know what I like and that includes the old masters I saw when I was in Las Vegas, the stunningly beautiful work of Picasso, Renoir, and Rembrandt took my breath away the first time I saw their paintings in person. I think we can agree that the works of Alexander Calder and his “La Grand Vitesse” that we have been so fortunate to have here in Grand Rapids these many years fit the conventional view of art, but does a giant penny made up of pennies?
I think this questioning of process over creativity reflects arguments that we’ve had over the years around the world….and there may be a component of these arguments that is just the old guard trying to protect it’s territory, as we saw in the 50′s with music when rock and roll was shattering the accepted style and form that fit into middle America at the time. But, I think we also have to understand that popular does not always mean quality…Jacqeuline Susanne sold millions of books but no one confused their popularity with being great literature. I think this process emphasis just relates to the general dumbing down of American society….I think we can appreciate the work that goes into some of these pieces, but let’s not confuse work with creativity and bringing something new to the conversation.
June 12th
Well…slept a little better last night since my daughter gave me some prescription sleeping pills to try….that or the beer worked. Just trying to get moving to get ready for the USA England match this aft….and need to pack my stuff up so I can take off after the match. I am kind of looking forward to getting back to GR but I’m not as antsy as I thought I’d be…well, not now, since it’s the last day. Yeah, I know, I’m a pretty screwed up individual if I can’t enjoy hanging out with my daughter…but I really do think it’s the whole getting used to being alone thing….who knows? Going to watch the last half of the Korea/Greece match so I’ll end here…maybe more later when I get back to GR, my couch, and manhattans…