Funkadelic-Everybody's Going to Make it This Time

From the LP, “America Eats its Young.”

George Clinton was an interesting choice by fate to be the bearer of this message, but he got the duty, and he did a fine job. Come to think of it, maybe his own experience of life helps me with the point that I am about to make.

All young parents who are sincere about doing a good job of parenting bring their own experience of having themselves been parented during their own childhoods. Many of them are only too familiar with the mistakes that their own parents had made in parenting them, and they set out not to make those mistakes, not to follow those old patterns. For my (now ex-) wife and I, this was the central goal of our plans for bringing up our own children. Then something happens.

We managed to avoid most of the mistakes of our parents, but we ended up making our own mistakes. Overall, I think that we made a much better job of it than our parents had, but I'd hate to send those score-cards to the judges.

Here's George Clinton telling us that “we got to learn from the mistakes that were made in the past.” For all I know, George did manage to avoid some mistakes that he remembered from the generation that raised him, but let's face it, he did make a few of his own before he was done.

Rather than sound ungrateful, I should mention my sincere appreciation for all of the great work that Mr. Clinton did in the music business. The legacy of Parliament/ Funkadelic is a tower of achievement that will stand as long as people enjoy music.

Lyrics

Our mothers and our fathers
They had lives to live
Oh, and today, is proof that mistakes were made
There's not a doubt in my heart
They've done the best that they know how
And there's still time for us to make a change

We got to learn from the mistakes that were made in the past
We got to clean so that we can clean our minds
Cause in order to get it together
We got to get our heads together
Everybody is going to make it this time [Repeat x2]

Our country and our cities, they have been betrayed for money
Ooooh, and somehow, the people, they will make a change, yeah
There's not a doubt in my mind
If hunger and anger place the blame
There won't be a country left to change

We got to see what we're doing in the name of comfort
We've got to see, we've got to feel the warning signs
But in order to get it together
We've got to get our heads together
Everybody is going to make it this time [Repeat x2]

We've got to learn from the mistakes
That were made in the past
We've got to clean so that we can use our minds
But in order to get it together
We've got to get our heads together
Everybody is going to make it this time [Repeat x2]
(Everybody, make it, yeah whoa!)
Everybody is going to make it this time [Repeat x9]
(Got to make it, this time, whoaa! Wooo, woo, woo, hey!)

Bill Wyman and Stanley Unwin - Bill hands his notice in

Well, well. Our Bill "Perks" Wyman and the Professor, Stanley Unwin, England's answer to Professor Irwin Corey, or visa versa. My, my. 

April 21, 2020: Today in WTF

The Eighth Wonder of the Modern World is the exponential increase in things that make you exclaim, “what the fuck?” Here are only four that I effortlessly picked off of the top of the news today, as reported by the New York Times. I remember a simpler time when the WTF moments left a little air in between occurrences. We are now accustomed to seeing their numbers increasing on a daily basis. The line on the chart is shooting through the roof.

Today in WTF: The price of oil set a record low. An all time record low. If you haven't read about it, try to guess what it is. Five dollars? A buck-three-eighty? No. Yesterdays closing price was negative thirty-seven dollars (thirty-seven below zero). It seems that the SARS-CoV-2 thing has almost eliminated the demand for oil, what with no one traveling by land, sea, or air, and it being too warm to sell much heating oil. Oil production is not like the water in the kitchen sink, you can't just turn off the taps. All that oil, and nowhere to put it. They are not only ready to give oil away at this point, they are prepared to pay people to take it away. What the fuck?

Today in WTF: Korean big shot Kim Jung un has been MIA for a few weeks. No one has seen the guy. He skipped the big ceremonies for one of the biggest national holidays in North Korea. Rumors vary from heart surgery to death, but I think it's more likely that he's having a stripper party with twenty varieties of French cheese and plenty of wine and vodka. Maybe he's at a health spa! God knows he could stand to drop a few kilos. The United Nations is excited about it, and there is mass speculation regarding the succession in the event that he has crossed the river. I guess no one wants to see political chaos in a rogue state possessing nuclear bombs. But really, hasn't he done this before? You'd think that there was enough to worry about, with the world health crisis, the world climate crisis, and one country after another throwing their democracies away like old newspapers. One despot goes incognito for a couple of weeks and the entire world of diplomacy is on the edges of their chairs? What the fuck?

Today in WTF: Paul Krugman's column in the Times today was about the Trump White House's tendency to fire any scientists who know what they're doing and replace them with quacks. Need advice about SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID-19, aka the Coronavirus? Ask Doctor Phil! Or Doctor Oz! Those guys are always available for TV appearances and they have ready opinions on all subjects. I've been warning about a Republican coup happening as we speak, under cover of Trump's silly outfits, clown hair and makeup, gobble-de-gook approach to English sentences, and idiotic behavior. This quackery is just part of it.

Don't take my word for it! No, don't do that! Ask the expert:

“. . . persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment of everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable . . .”

Or:

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Both quotes from Hannah Arendt, “On Totalitarianism.”

This entry is a double-dip. For one thing, this tendency on the part of Trump is still news? What the fuck? And besides, with the full knowledge of how such totalitarian states arise being part of any decent college education for the last seventy years, this present coup can still sneak in under the radar? What the fuck?

Today in WTF: OSHA is no longer in the business of protecting workers from dangerous workplace conditions. That's according to them, and backed up by their actions and omissions in this current health crisis. For all of the thousands of complaints that they have received from food service workers, delivery personnel, hospital staff, Amazon warehouse workers, and many, many others, OSHA has yet to file ONE complaint with employers. “You're on your own.” What the fuck?

Forgive me, but I lacked the energy to make a longer list. I got to four so quickly, and they were all so fucked up, that I ran out of gas. Frankly, I am losing interest in saving the world. Que sera, sera, MFs.

Jimmy Scott - Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child - 1960 Jazz Vocals

I'm in a bad mood, so I'll just take this opportunity to keep my mouth shut.

Open 'er Up! (Back to Business Edition)

Disclaimer: I'm about to call some people stupid. Or appear to call some people stupid. Or just suggest that some people are doing stupid things. I don't like to do any of these things. In the first place, it's not polite. Besides, I know that I do stupid shit all the time, so who am I to judge? Nobody, that's who. Why bother, then? I'll tell why. Because the stupid is really out of the box in America right now, and we should all be thinking of ways to get it back under lock and key.

People all over the country are taking to the streets to demand an end to all of these COVID-19 “stay at home” orders. They think it's bullshit! There was a real hubbub in Michigan, where an impressive number of cars showed up to drive around the state house, horns a'honkin and lights a'flashin, displaying signs and yelling at the governor to open up all of the restaurants, and factories, and every damn thing! There were also a lot of people standing around with signs and hard-ass looks on their faces. There was even a big group of them wearing camo and carrying big guns! No masks, either, they ain't wearing no damn masks. They were yelling, “lock her up!” about the governor, who is, indeed, a woman, and a Democratic woman at that. The entire world is in dire straights, and these people seem to wish that it was all much, much worse.

Why, pray tell, would anyone act this way? Is it because Donald Trump says that we need the country to get back to work, and he ain't wearing no damn mask either? Could be. Is it because those know-it-all doctors are starting to piss people off? Could be that, too. Is it because they need to go back to work so that they can pay their bills, buy food, and look for some affordable health care? Yeah, I think that's a bingo.

The same thing was happening in Frankfort, Kentucky; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Columbus, Ohio. So far that's a list of the usual suspects, Red states that love the Donald, and hate a long list of things that includes libtards, science, and the devil. There are a lot more of these rallies planned. Texas has one on calendar, but also many for places that I wouldn't immediately expect. California (!) for instance, and Oregon. Those west-coasters generally embrace science, did not vote for Trump, and are blessed with rational governments. But it appears that the stupid is well out of control now, and spreading faster than the Novel Coronavirus.

What are we really looking at? Who is behind this angry mob? Die-hard Trump fans? Certainly. Come hell or high water, those people will never admit that they were wrong. It's Trump-right-or-wrong to them. To paraphrase an old Russian proverb, “let him be the worst president in history, and dumb as a bag of hammers, but let him be our president.” (Original: “let it be worse; let it be ours.”) When Trump says “jump,” they don't ask how high. They just become airborne.

Also definitely libertarians, the Ayn Rand crowd. It's all about the FREEDOM, damn it! They're taking away our freedom! That's why the Tea Party is resurfacing, or at least people are waving their “Don't Tread on Me” flags. That's also why some of the gun club up in Michigan were waving Confederate flags. Somehow, I don't think that this is what those founders long ago were thinking when some of them said, “live free or die.”

Idaho, of course, is chiming in. The Idaho Freedom Foundation, in connection with other organizations, is planning a similar rally in Boise. They should get a big turnout up in the white homeland. That's a freedom crowd up there, a “freedom to discriminate and shoot up stop signs” crowd.

Infowars, unsurprisingly, has an opinion on the subject. They think that the virus is a plot hatched by the Chinese communists in league with the Deep State to destroy the American way of life and Donald Trump's career in politics. Inforwars is a bottomless font of stupid.

There's more stupid around right now than you could shake a stick at. The truth is probably that our less educated and more easily led brethren are reacting in stupid ways to a very real set of problems. American health care is no longer set up to help anyone; it's not even about the medical sciences anymore. It's a business; it's all about the money. You can die when we tell you to! That'll be when you're insurance runs dry. You lost your job? No more insurance for you! In the hospital on a ventilator? You have great insurance? They managed to save your life? Sorry, but there's a lot of stuff on your bill that was “out of your plan.” Your co-pay is $135,000. And by the way, American health care isn't in any hurry to develop and field adequate tests in sufficient numbers. Have you noticed? We're still waiting for that first, basic step to be taken. There's a reason for that, but it's too depressing to mention.

The American government is no more interested in people's well being than geese are interested in Jackson Pollack paintings. They're all the way on the money side now. They're going to skim billions from the stimuli and use the confusion to accrue more power to themselves.

Where can people turn to get a break? How about the churches? I'm sorry that I even brought it up. They're part of the problem. Churches are responsible for a considerable portion of our Corona virus cases, and deaths. “You can't tell us to close! God will protect us!” No one, to my knowledge, has been cured in a mega-church service, but a lot of people have been infected at one. Even one of the big-mouth “ I'm not closing my church!” pastors caught the bug himself and died. A fatal dose of either stupidity or greed.

It's no wonder that the American “your on your own” approach to government has driven Americans with few resources to distraction. All of those people are protesting against sensible medical approaches to this world-wide, deadly pandemic, approaches that are designed by experts to help them and their families live through the event, and I don't think that they could all be that stupid. Not actually stupid, although their actions and protests are stupid. They're just acting out, and they're taking advice from a bunch of idiots, from Trump, Fox News, Breitbart, Infowars, Rush Limbo, the whole crooked bunch of them. Those aforementioned devils in expensive suits are making the needy of America look stupid. You heard me. Hey! You people at those “open up the economy” demonstrations! Use your own heads! Stop acting stupid just because somebody who does not have your best interests at heart told you to do stupid shit!

As so often happens, the thread of this trouble making goes back to Reagan. Devil number one! He and his minions got the ball rolling on this anti-government hysteria. “Government is the problem!” “Government never helped anybody!” That started out as a trick to get rid of entrenched Democrats in Congress, “Vote against Washington!” was code for “vote in some new Republicans.” It worked too well. It was out of control, but still being pushed as the Republican agenda, by Newt Gingrich in his time in the House of Representatives. Do you remember? We had started to see many Hollywood movies in which the bad guy was the government, either a government agent or the whole government itself. We still see this in many movies. Now “government is the problem” has the status of a religion. “Drain the swamp!” It's the same now as it has always been: a trick to separate the Rubes from their money and their political rights.

If you or your baby get the Covid-19 and die, my heart goes out to you. If you get sick and live, or have only lost your job and/or your house, I'm sorry about that too. Be careful, however, where you place the blame. We, all of us, have allowed this situation to come into existence over the last forty years. It's our own damn fault that no one cares if we live or die. We were all too stupid to avoid it.

Sly & The Family Stone - Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

My wife and I were the first in our group of friends to get married. That meant that we had an apartment, and for about two years it was a party every evening at our place. This album was in heavy rotation most of that time, and this song was a big favorite. 

I loved the entire presentation, but Larry Graham made a particular impression on me. His playing was really something new. This song is a milestone in the history of the electric bass guitar. 

They Were Our Friends

Some of my old friends, very few, remember every single person that they ever knew. They remember all of their classmates, all of their neighborhood friends, everyone's parents, and all of our teachers. If one of our old friends on Facebook asks a question about anyone in town, they answer it in detail. It's amazing.

Not only do they remember everyone, but they kept in touch with a seemingly impossible number of people from our town, or in some cases, from their high schools. When I mentioned a certain Sister J., one of these social geniuses informed me that, “she just died last year. I had been visiting her at the Dominican's residence in Amityville. She was a wonderful woman.” My teacher in the second grade was Sister J., and she was indeed a wonderful young woman, only fifteen or barely twenty years older than her students, and so stunningly beautiful that she had become my first childhood crush. It never occurred to me, however, to keep in touch with her for our entire lives. But like I say, some people are social geniuses. God bless them. They are a useful font of information, and often they also remember us more clearly than others do. Fondly, it is to be hoped. In my case, they remember things that I had forgotten.

Memory Note: My wife has a great memory. Names of people, hotels, all kinds of stuff. She remembers our room number on hotel visits years ago. I tend to forget things that are outside of the range of my major interests. She told me once, “don't worry, you're just getting old.” I answered, “oh, Honey, my memory was never that good.”

I'm not in that group that can remember so many people and details. I could, and did, lose track of friends without half trying. I'm sure that this made me an inadequate friend back then. I began young to live my life on a daily basis, dreading every day waking up in the morning, and moving between anxiety and dread all day. Having awoken, my goal became to make it through the day without starting to scream and not being able to stop. God knows that my miserable parents were disappointed in me enough already, without getting a phone call from the hospital telling them that I had been admitted and sedated, and what would you like us to do with him? I'm sorry to say that this is still my modus operandi. Living like this has caused me to frequently forget about people who had been important to me only one month previously. Mea maxima culpa. I wish that it could have been different.

It's part of being this age, I believe, that makes us think about our remote pasts and wonder what ever became of the friends that we had then. In the rush of life we all became somewhat preoccupied with making a living, paying the bills, and maybe raising children and maintaining a marriage. Now many of us wonder, what happened to so-and-so? Something may draw our attention to a boy that was in our company at boot camp, an individual that we may not have had a single thought about in fifty years. We forget details of daily life easily, but suddenly we remember his name and wonder, how did he do out in the fleet, and thereafter?

Facebook has an interesting role to play in all of this. Facebook allows some of those childhood friends to become our friends again in the present. I am grateful to have reconnected with many friends from long ago on Facebook, and also many people of about my age whom I did not know back then. Friends of friends. That last bit is interesting. Some of my new Facebook friends I remember from the old neighborhood, but I had never interacted with them. Only seen them around and knew their names. Several remember me for some reason. Facebook is, however, a mixed blessing. In this pre-fascist/ near death of democracy period of American history, some of those old friends have turned into paranoid, political monsters. It's a terrible thing to witness. Quite a few of the wonderful, sensible teenagers of long ago, kids that I knew well, are now dyed in the wool Trump repeatocons. If he said it this week, they'll repeat it next week. It's depressing to watch American democracy die this way, allowed to die by people who really should have known better. That's how it happens, though. People believe the lies, and then the lies take form and the terror starts, and then it's too late and everybody shuts up. Unless it's time to shout, “I love Big Brother!” But I loved my friends then, and I love them now, Trump or no Trump. They are entitled to their opinions, and within the bounds of the law they are also entitled to their biases and their prejudices. Que sera, sera.

It is likely that the virus, and the accompanying cycle of worry and terror, add to the urgency of our search through the files of our pasts. Some days I can hardly stand the knowledge that many of my memories are unique to me, and that they will pass from the earth along with me when my time comes. That's a silly thing to worry about, but unfortunately pride is one of my shortcomings.

My memories of the dead are tender, at least for those who were good to me, but I have no beautiful words for them. Death, for me, means only that their file is marked, “deceased” and moved to the basement for long term storage. I love them still, and I remember them well, but that won't last much longer. They live in my heart, but that's just a sand castle that the next tide will wash away.

For those in the “what ever happened to . . .” category, I cannot address them all individually. These are the names from the past for whom the trail ended suddenly. There have been several that I tried to contact over the years, by letter when that was our only recourse, and by e-mail or Facebook later on. I had only negative reinforcement in those efforts, with one notable exception (thanks, Michael!). I may be more sentimental than most. For the bad boys whose names come to mind, the answer may be that they are either dead or in prison, although they may have successfully made the leap to organized crime, where, come to think of it, “dead or in prison” remain likely outcomes.

Many of my missing childhood friends probably just moved away without fanfare, as is usually the case. There were also a large number of children, mostly boys, who after a certain age were rarely seen outside of their homes unless it was in travel to or from school. My town was tough, very tough, and taking a beating or some very rough teasing was always a possibility. We either had to learn to deal with it or stay inside. I was more afraid of my mother than I was of the tough boys, so “out” was always my first choice. It's not as though the tough boys ever killed anybody, and they reserved their worst beatings for each other. A couple of the bad boys are now Facebook friends of mine, although when they discover my politics it renews their old urge to bounce me off of a wall.

There have been several friends who gave up on me and cut me off. Compassion fatigue, you know, people just get sick of the negativity that comes along with depression. It is also likely that I have habits which some people might find annoying. To those few who had been great friends to me for decades before giving up, just know that I love you and I understand. Thanks for everything; no hard feelings.

To all of my friends, known and unknown, I hope that your paths have not been too difficult. I believe that that is all we can politely ask of fate, or God, if you will. It's the only prayer that I pray. “Thank you, (fill in the blank), for never letting the worst happen.”