The Saturday Snow White Variations–Final Installment

So this is it.  I’ve milked this theme a little longer than I should have, but I’m nothing if not thorough–but the end of Snow White Saturdays (it really is weird that I have devoted 4 posts over a month to this, isn’t it?) will make my wife happy–she just thinks it’s been boring, which I can deal with. As long as she doesn’t figure out it’s sort of creepy, too.  Ah, well.  Today I’m just sticking up the best of rest of the literally hundreds of interesting images I’ve found–all of these came from Tumblr, and none had attributions–as usual, if they’re your work, let me know: I’d like to give you credit and link back to your site.

This one is first because it’s the most clever.  The “note’ and the mug shot at the end are the finale, because they’re my favorites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Rock and Roll Heroes: Lone Justice

Lone Justice. If you don’t recognized the name of the band, you’re not alone–they burned bright and brilliant for a few short years in the mid-1980s, an edgy country-blues-pop band that defied the classifications of the time, too hard edged and rock and roll for Nashville, too country for pop, and eventually too commercially viable for the “cowpunk” scene they slotted into.  They were a big presence on indie and college radio at a time where the number of successful bands who leaned towards traditional could fit, albeit uncomfortably, in the round corner booth at Denny’s.  The Beat Farmers and come to mind,  and giants like the inimitable band “X,” and maybe The Meat Puppets–but I’d most closely associate them with another great little band called The Blasters, in that their country roots showed a little darker than most, and even then Lone Justice had some strong southern blues undercurrents that placed them left of center of one of the more unwieldy sub-genres of music.

I got the first Lone Justice album from the RCA Record club–the greatest thing ever.  It seems silly now in the midst of almost universal digital access, but music used to be expensive, and kids in small towns like mine were at the mercy of our record sellers.  Now, we had a good, non-corporate record store, but they leaned more towards bands like Yes and Edgar Winter and sold a lot of bongs.  Rowdy kids jamming old-fashioned country revved up with alternative vigor weren’t on their radar.  RCA ran advertisements in newspapers and magazines along with their glossier rival, Columbia House, which was bigger and fancier but required a much larger commitment–get 12 records for free, a 13th for $3.99, and agree to buy 5 or 6 more at “regular club” prices, which were on the high side, and the old “shipping and handling” scam.  RCA only gave you 6 free, but you just had to buy one at a discount and two more at those club prices..  You could be out of there with nine records for $30, wait a couple months, and sign up again–and RCA had a small but interesting selection of “interesting” recording.

I didn’t know much about Lone Justice expect that the sounded great, but when the album arrived and I threw it on the turntable, it was like BAM–my tastes in music changed.  Not completely, but more than a little. I’d already had my alternative tastes challenged by a friend who kept giving me Grateful Dead tapes, and turning me on to all the country-blues-roots that come with the Dead, but Lone Justice sent me deep into the barnyard.  A few years later I would buy the Cowboy Junkies “Trinity Sessions,” and that band would instantly become–and it still remains–my absolute favorite, while my musical tastes are best described as “confused.’

 

 

Norris-Canyon Cut-Off Road, 9/11/90

Brothers.
Bag of apples,
sharp cheddar,
Sixpacks and
loaves of bread:
Biblical fare.
Binoculars, and
a taped-together
roadmap.
Aspens rusting in
meadows gone to gold,
the day thick with
autumn mist, wanting wool.
Appalachian boys
loosed in the caldera,
hooting camp elk bugles
from the highway,
taking turns at the wheel
and reading out loud
from torn and trampled
paperbacks. Whitman.
Sandlin. Pound and Pope.
A great-horned owl swept
across the asphalt
at eye level, giant
and hungry and vital.
The fire-refreshed forests
a lawn of lodgepole saplings.

‘Reading Rainbow’ Kickstarter Earns Over $1 Million In 1 Day

Nice. After Mr. Rogers, best kids TV show ever.

The First Rule of Fight Club Is….

 

Don’t talk about fight club. Photo found on imgur.com

Maya Angelou 1928-2014

On The Pulse of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot…
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours- your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

Kitten Gun

Just because I think Joe The Plumber is a tool doesn’t mean that I embrace strict gun control.  Some guns are magnificently AWESOME.

found on drunktiki.com

 

And In My Neighborhood: Man Kills Friend Over Plate of Food

This gun stuff seems to come in bursts, don’t you think?  Like rounds from an AR-15 converted to fire on full auto.  This suspected shooter clearly seems to have some mommy issues.

http://www.indianagazette.com/news/police-courts/man-charged-in-killing,19943660/

You’ll also want to see the video–as the alleged shooter does a perp walk with his walker and oxygen.

http://www.wtae.com/news/state-police-neighbor-fatally-shot-over-argument-in-indiana-county/26171764

“Joe The Plumber” Grabs “Asshole of the Day” Award

I always struggle with the political thing–liberals are such candy-asses, and conservatives just plain old asses, and the highest levels of both mainstream parties have their lips pressed so tightly against the bleached sphincters of their corporate masters that one must wonder how they manage to breathe–which might explain some things, actually: asskiss-induced cerebral hypoxia.

Still, I end up closer to the simpering wussies on the left because–well:
1. I’m an outdoorsman of sorts, and every time I turn around some conservative politician is trying to log, drill, pave, explode, or dump toxic substances on a perfectly good piece of scenery. 
2 I don’t give a goddamn who someone I’ve never met falls in love with or marries.  Just. Don’t. Care.  Politicians who pretend they do are just kowtowing to the ignorant among us, wasting time that should be devoted to things that matter.
3. Dubya.
4. I don’t believe corporations are people (but since conservatives think they are, I’m wondering: is it okay if corporations marry each other and adopt kids?).
5.  All my children’s ancestors were immigrants, about half of them since 1900 (and none of them spoke much English)–which by most conservative accounts makes us all very, very terrible people.  Because all good Republicans walked here across the Bering Land Bridge during the last ice age–except that, um, there couldn’t have been a last ice age because the earth is only 3,000 years old, give or take.

And there’s the rub. I don’t have much in common with the sissies in the Democratic Party, but the Republicans are so rife with fire-breathing whackjobs it would be hard for me to make it through a right-wing rally without going on a shooting rampage, which would probably be okay, because they’re sort of allowed on that side of the aisle.

Or so were hear from one of those whack-a-doodles, the infamous Joe The Plumber, whose name ain’t Joe, and whose job ain’t plumbering.  On the heels of yet another douchebag coward’s shooting spree, Joe defied The Warholian Accords by reaching for a second fifteen minutes of fame (although, to be fair, his first go round was more like 6 or 7 minutes, and Andy never said you had to round up to the nearest 15).

Yep, good ol’ Joe snagged himself a coveted Asshole of The Day award for managing to stick his foot AND most of his leg not only in his mouth, but all the way down to his colon, with this gem “”I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now,” wrote Wurzelbacher. “But: As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”

His quote was directed at this comment by grief-stricken parent Ricardo Martinez, who was gunned down last weekend.

I’m not here to comment on the whole gun issue, but on the utter inability of conservative icons to keep from being dicks when they ought to be bite tongues and be silent.  I’m reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Deadwood, when George Hearst has succeeded in buying out Alma Ellsworth’s gold mine, after killing her husband, but can’t resist menacing her one last time. Sheriff Seth Bullock, seething with restrained rage, calls out the evil Hearst, who for all his wealth and violence fears Bullock

“Can’t shut up! Every bully I ever met can’t shut his fuckin’ mouth… except when he’s afraid.” ( at 1:15 in the video below).

Sounds familiar.

Best Damned Quotes: George Santayana

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
–George Santayana