Schmaltz und Grieben

September 2o13

09/27/2013:

HAPPY 70 RANDY BACHMAN! Older guys cut their rock n' roll teeth on Elvis and Chuck Berry. Younger guys did the same with Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Really young guys... I guess it's Justin Timberlake and some dude named Obuku Dwana Compton. The one with three hundred tattoos and the crown of thorns he wears onstage.

Me? I was into the Guess Who, and back then that meant the band with Randy Bachman on guitar. It's impossible to estimate the amount of pleasure I've had listening to this guy for the past forty-something years... but nowadays I think that the only guitarist who could give Bachman a run for his money is Jimi Hendrix, and I've been playing guitar for forty-odd years myself. Plus, I had the pleasure of seeing Bachman (with old BTO sidekick Fred Turner) in Effingham, Illinois just last weekend. The man is a lot, lot better now than he was in his old days with the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive... and that's saying something.

Anyway, Randy Bachman turns 70 today. I'd just like to post a couple pictures in tribute to the great man. Happy birthday, Randy--and keep on rockin'!

 

 The Who and the Guess Who... Randy Bachman with Pete Townshend (photo credit: Prairie East, randysvinyltap.com)

 

 

Bannerman Ave. in north Winnipeg, where the young Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings composed some of their greatest songs (Google Earth image grab)

 

 Posted by Alois on

09/17/2013:

AN OBSERVATION:  America is increasingly divided between people who'd like to see us be more like Canada, and people who'd like to see us be more like Nazi Germany.

There's probably some folks in the middle who don't like either option, but you never hear from them anymore.

And if you're unfortunate enough to live in one of the "nascent Nazi" states like Wisconsin or Kansas, you see the divide more clearly than other Americans probably do. Democrats are talking Obamacare and gun control (although no one in the statehouse is listening--at least, no one in a position to do anything about it). Republicans are talking eugenics programs (i.e. stripping the poor of health insurance) and seeing how fast they can sell our country to Koch Industries. That doesn't exactly make for what any reasonable person would call a dialogue.

Welcome to the new America.

Posted by Alois on

09/16/2013:

MAKERS AND TAKERS: My wife and I watched a few episodes of "Undercover Boss" last night.

It got me to thinking about congressman-cum-eugenicist Paul Ryan and that spew that he and his fellow Randians like to hose the rest of America with: That business about there being only two kinds of people, the "makers" and the "takers."

Mitt Romney alluded to this nonsense with his infamous "47 percent" remark, which probably nailed shut the coffin of his presidential bid. When Ryan talks about "makers," he is talking about those people who actually create jobs for other people. Now that's wonderful n' all, but the problem is that the rest of us are "takers." Not only do we take more in wages than we're entitled to (see Scott Walker et al.), but we take unemployment benefits when we're laid off, workman's comp when we get injured at work, and (the final indignity) Social Security when we've already worked ourselves into the ground.

The strange thing about "Undercover Boss" is that, whether the CEO who goes undercover to see what makes his company tick is a self-made man or woman or (as is usually the case) inherited the position from his father, almost always there is shock at how hard their front-line employees have to work, how little they complain, and how hopeless they feel their lots in life are--even if they are struggling to save up money for college or attending night school.

These folks could be almost everyone I know. It's nice to see the higher-ups confronted with the reality of exactly who these people are who MAKE THEM RICH, and what it's costing them personally to do it.

Hi, ALEC. We're the "takers." Feel like giving something back?

Posted by Alois on

MEDITATION:

 

You hate to see summer go.

Especially in these northerly latitudes.

Posted by Alois on

 

09/12/2013:

 

 

AND THE ENDGAME IS... you're a serf, working for slave wages under the threat of violence, with no power, no say in your working conditions, and no chance whatsoever to improve your life. Kinda like Dickensian England, but worse... because we're letting it happen right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

This fine piece, by Richard Eskow, sets out the sorry course we've taken over the past thirty years that has enabled treasonous oligarchs like the Koch brothers to actually have a shot at turning the United States of America into a feudal state where they (and their like-minded pals at ALEC, the GOP, Americans for Prosperity, etc.) call all the shots and get all the money.

Whereas YOU get backbreaking labor and an early grave.

What a deal, eh?

Posted by Alois on

DAILY GAAAAAAZ-O-LEEEEEEN! AWARD: Solidarity Singers Hijack Scott Walker's "Unintimidated" Book Title

Can't help but leak it here for those of you who don't click the link:

"Unintimidated: The Book"

Posted by Alois on

09/09/2013:

VACATION: As you can see, I've been gone for awhile.

That wasn't deliberate. I never really planned to take a vacation; with what turned out to be a very busy summer delivering school buses all over Wisconsin, I just wasn't home much. And when I was, I was too tired to think of much to put on this blog.

And what I could have posted (mostly, more ugly tales of life in Walker's Wisconsin) was just too depressing to consider. I mean, it's not like I haven't already been there, or like things are getting better, or that I have suddenly stumbled on a way to explain how so many of my fellow citizens went from being "Republicans" and "Libertarians" to FASCISTS without apparently being aware of it. Yeah, I know... the same thing happened to the Germans. Doesn't make it any more enjoyable to contemplate.

I thought about going down to the Capitol to protest and probably get arrested with other folks who were "standing and looking and talking and breathing," to quote Mad Magazine, but strangely when I mentioned it to my 90-year-old father--a World War II vet and normally someone highly committed to American freedoms--he read me the riot act. "What if you get arrested and those cops make up some ridiculous charge? You're a school bus driver. How are you going to support your family? Remember how those cops used to beat you up in high school?"

"That was Jeff, Dad," I said. Jeff had a much bigger mouth than I did.

"You get my point. You can't afford to get arrested, especially with those cops down there just making up the rules as they go along."

I had to admit, he was making perfect sense. Some officer got it in his head that I "seemed violent" when being shackled and taken to the basement of the Capitol for booking, and my career as a school bus driver was probably over. No room there for convicted felons, even if the "felon" had done nothing more than stand and look and talk and breathe in his very own statehouse. An act that wouldn't have even been noticed by previous administrations, but that somehow had become a crime in this one.

So, for maybe the first time since I was about thirteen years old, I did what my Dad told me.

He was shocked.

And that, folks, is how I spent my summer vacation.

Posted by Alois on