And Now a Bay Rat Story........

......to show I am not a complete militant hard ass ,only on a mission bent on derailing Advocate management. I took a two day break from looking at the grim reaper in my rearview mirror, chewing up my unemployment and 401k as I struggle to find gainful employment. Just had to get out of the city, and feel some salt air. I had a wonderful dinner with the Grey-Beard Loon and his gal and their canine menagerie, and was briefed by herself on the inner-workings of the latest incarnation of my old hometown city/county politics. I didn't ask their take, or share mine, but in my opinion, it all seems a bit more citified, and a lot less bubbafied than I recall it being........either way, it was a fine evening of socializing, lacking only my hard working gal pal being present to add the perfect complement to the evening. 'Twas also a welcome diversion from a troubling afternoon with my own folks. Mom's Alzheimers, has become advanced to the point that it is really heartbreaking to us "kids", and a burden on my dad, requiring some serious soul searching and decision making on our part. I never would have imagined, given her full of piss and vinegar, powerhouse personality, as recently as a year or so ago, how quickly it could all come crashing down. We are resolved to make it all work out, and deal with it, so if you pray, pray for her and for us.

Today, while my sweet sister took mom to her doctor's appointment, I got a rare chance to hit the bay alone in my old boat, and rocket about for an hour or so, getting some pounding by the rough water, and some muddy salt spray in my face and hair. It is a far cry from the thundering forty foot crewboat, with it's array of lights and radar and squawking marine radio I remember as a young man, but it was still a day on the water. That is always good for the soul.........

Town hall meeting:Yeah Right - Try Circle Jerk....

Jesus,....What a ridiculous attempt at patronizing those few folks online that Cobler has not already micromanaged into oblivion by way of banning from participation in the forums, or the other chosen few he is giving a daily literary hand job to, to ensure that they remain and sing praises to him. Has anyone taken note of the fact that this "town hall meeting" was announced two weeks in advance? That was I am certain, by design....... For my money, I would like to see all of the banned bloggers and commenters, the "good, bad, and the ugly" if you will, show up at this little get together, and make ourselves heard. I'll say here and now, that I expect this post to remain a work in progress, and be updated or reposted a number of times before meeting day. I also wonder if Paul Tasin will show up as he die at the last "town hall" with his oversized bloody fetus posters. If he does, I hope this time, if Cobler still doesn't show the gonads to take the photos away and trash them, someone else does.

This whole farce of insinuating that Advocate management may actually consider dissenting opinions when plotting a future course for the paper, is enough to make me puke. Looking at my old Advocate copies from 20 years ago, or better yet at today's Chronicle, then opening up today's print edition of the Vicad, illustrates the chasm between a real newspaper, laid out by professional newspaper folks, and a tabloid style trash rag, laid out by bargain basement internet oriented dweebs, with basically no concept or understanding of the community in which they reside. Their idea of diversity from yesterday's to to today's print edition, was to re use the same two thug mug shots as front page material, but to re-arrange all two of them, and "update" the story.

Comparing the online edition to the print edition in their survey, and coming up with remotely similar numbers, tells me they just pulled numbers out of their ass, and served up to us and their subscribers as "fact", and in fact should be considered by everyone that reads it and this as fact, an insult to our intelligence.

As I said, this will be added to and amended, as warranted until I get a good head count of folks who will show up at their town hall wankfest and make themselves heard as a voice of opposition to the way these morons are heavy handedly running and ruining our only source of local print news.

If you would like some further evidence of Cobler's micromanaging style, beyond striking down opposing opionions by banishment, I urge you to track down the most recent issue where the Vicad management was required to disclose ownership and circulation statistics. For the previous twelve months, they claimed a circulation of 31k and change......note please the crossroads population.......

Now for the kicker - for a current circulation, they show 49k.....again with change. Now, I ask of any sane individual who either reads the online edition, or the print edition.......do you honestly think in the last year, that Chris Cobler and his Kansas cronies have really managed to effect a fifty percent increase in circulation of the Advocate? Whether you are euphoric from the smoke blown up your ass, or like me, wanting to see figures and hear the claim made in public and backed up with documentation, I urge you to give some serious consideration to attending the upcoming "town hall" event and make yourselves heard. At worst, it'll be a chance to wipe Paul Tasin's old ass with his obscene anti-abortion posters, and at best, it will be a chance at letting the Advocate management know that not everyone believes the bullshit they are printing daily, and to let them know we'd like our hometown paper back as it was..........
I mean, after all, as Gabe bragged, the meeting is "free admission". Do you think Cobler would have balls enough to check I.D.s at the door, and turn away those of us who have either been banned, or labeled dissenting voices? A best case scenario would be the bigj shows up onstage with his handlers......right?

Lawyerin' 101

I heard a little blurb by a lawyer on KTRH this morning, driving home after dropping my kids at school, that in my book, really typifies why the general consensus among humans toward lawyers, is what it is. Now being recently divorced, it is not like I needed to reload to take a few more shots at lawyers, but this one just made me roll my eyes..... There was a news story about someone in a condominium, who had sued another resident owner of a neighboring condo, for infringing on his right to enjoy peace and quiet.....I didn't catch what the squawk was about the alleged perpetrator actually doing, but it apparently was a trial that is about to come to a conclusion, and being a slow news day, the radio reporter asked a lawyer his professional opinion of the suit........

His reply was to say that while there are smokers who bother other folks by smoking around non-smokers, and ones who would play their music louder than maybe a neighbor would find acceptable, essentially saying so astutely, "different strokes for different folks". But his closing statement was that given that people are living in such close proximity to one another these days, that he personally saw this case as an indicator that an whole new field or type of specialized litigation was being born ........huh?

That pretty much explains the statement I read by a lawyer once, "It's a shame people feel the way they do about lawyers, when it's really only 98% of the lawyers that give all the rest of us a bad name.........

All Politics Is Yokel.......

Okay, I think I may have stolen the title here - from one of my heroes......from one of his Texas Monthly columns. But I'll deviate here, and rather than follow Kinky's storyline, try to show how the title he chose for his piece, is undoubtedly applicable in the little microcosm that is Victoria, Texas. Far be it from me to interfere with the aims or aspirations of would be candidates in the world of Victoria political hopefuls, but I can't help but laugh out loud at the joke a few of the Advocate bloggers are playing on each other and their riveted readers. It seems that the diminutive dark one who calls himself Bigj, has agreed to debate on camera, another blogger, whom I know very little of, but based on the small amount of his posting I have read, is as least, educated, articulate, and showed up when they taught spelling, literature, grammar, and speech. It also appears at this early juncture, that both aspire to public office in the Crossroads area.
Now while I must plead ignorance on Matt Ocker, I will say that I have what I think is a pretty good grasp on the public persona that is big.....er.....little j.
For the life of me, I cannot actually envision such a debate ever taking place, because I feel that if j has a lick of sense, he will never follow through with showing his face, or filling out any forms required for candidacy for any office, that requires using his full name and address and making that public record. I say this because if I had just spent a year plus, name calling, belittling, and threatening a host of total strangers, in the illiterate, grammatical disastrous suicide manner that he has, I'd already have moved to Montana, to start a dental floss farm, under a name worthy of the witness protection program........

Don't get me wrong. Seeing this proposed debate on viral video, linked to one of these backwater blogs, with bigj being filmed trying to verbalize the ignorant, illiterate, hateful shit he cranks out in print, is a wet dream come true for me......and many others I suspect. At this point, I would have to say that their plan to do this, is a joke or a fantasy at best. I seriously doubt that even the Victoria Advocate, and it's Facebook Twitteranian editor would be in any way party to airing such a farce as this. Jesus, I hope I am wrong...........in a way.........If a video of bigj's antics ever hits YouTube...........who knows. It's a pretty strange world we live in. And if I think it's strange, well............
What we have here.........is failure t'c'mmunicate. For some reason, this little troll has been inspired by seeing a reasonably educated black man with a line of bullshit a mile long, with a Muslim name actually chosen over a white war hero as president(that says a lot for what Bush left in our hearts and minds, huh?) to fantasize that he, totally unaware that he is a bigjoke, and actually might despite his horrendous command of the English language, have any grasp what so ever of the way government works, and actually get on a ballot.......sheesh.

Deep Six Club........

.......nah, not time yet. She told me about it later, when I asked her what possessed her to...... at sixty feet (three atmospheres) no less. I Googled it as "deep six club", to an array of results, none remotely close to my own experience. All I know, is that despite my education and understanding of gas laws, and the physiology of diving, somehow, I didn't emboli, pneumothorax, or suffer any ill effects, other than a momentary elevated heart rate. I told my friend and dive buddy Rafael about it later.....to his disapproval(circumstances best left out here). I eventually would have told Captain Felix, but the son of a bitch drowned on another trip to the rigs before I had a chance to.......damn shame, because he was just off balance enough to have appreciated my experience. Sometimes you have to take a chance......and sometimes you fall on your face, then others things come out o-Kay. A recent trip to the South Pacific has made me long to dive again.......with my young sons though. I think I will chalk this one up as a once in a lifetime, "you had to be there"(but I'm glad you were not) story..........

Generations of Music - The More Things Change.....

........the more they stay the same huh? Now, please allow me to qualify what I am about to say. These are the words of an old rock and roller, and a seasoned concert goer since the bands touring were groups like Strawberry Alarm Clock, and ZZ Top was still known as The Moving Sidewalks. I grew up on be-bop late fifties and early sixties pop. When I as my son now has, became enamored with anything that had a steering wheel and four tires, I was fortunate enough to be swept up in the Southern California born hot rod and surfing craze and the music that accompanied it - Beach Boys, Jan and Dean sufr pop, and the real deal as well, which was Dick Dale, the Chantays, and the Ventures. Mind you, I grew up in coastal Texas shrimping country, so my teen pop and rock, was seasoned with a dose of a then flat topped Willie Nelson, with a salt and pepper sprinkling of George Jones and Charley Pride. My first live shows were local garage bands, who worked their butts off learning Van Morrison's "Gloria" or "St. James Infirmary", or they were beer joint Saturday night country cover bands. I suppose I was fortunate to have fled Victoria for Austin in time for the '70s music revolution. My tribe arrived there about the time The Armadillo opened, which coincided with the arrival of the "Cosmic Cowboy" phase of music, which thrives there to this day. I doubt the Austin-Dillo bunch honestly thinks they coined the sound of country rock, as with most other innovations those days, it came first out of Cali, with the young genius and Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons leading the charge, and being the driving force that launched the Byrds, The Flying Burrito, Emmylou Harris, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks.........just to name a few. That said, I think the genre of music was, and still is being tuned, tweaked and perfected in Austin Texas, and was all started by Eddie Wilson and Jim Franklin, and the bunch at the old AWHQ, and the groups like Michael Murphey, Willie, Greezy Wheels, Jacky Jack Walker ........

Now I will get to my story, for those of you still reading.........

I have been going to rock shows since 1966. I love music, it is a gift I have received and given many times. I couldn't count the number of shows I have seen, songs I have Audiogalaxied or Napstered, if I wanted to. As much as I enjoy listening to music though, the real joy for me is seeing it performed, preferably by the person who wrote it. I heard Shawn Phillips probably do the best job of putting it into perspective. He was referring to recording and performing his songs, and he said "I can go into a studio, and given the time and money, make a perfect record every time". If you have heard his music, I think you'd be inclined to agree. But then he said "the real trick is to be able to stand in front of an audience and reproduce that sound live"......again, I know for those of you who have been fortunate enough to see one of his shows, and hear a beautiful thundering orchestral crescendo drop yo you could hear a pin drop silence in the blink of an eye, you know what I mean........

I think one of my favorite aspects of seeing truly amazing concerts, was the evolutionary process of the music of the chosen few who made it big. Like those who were fortunate enough to see The Beatles do a club show in Liverpool, and now greying, go back and see a jaw dropping Paul McCartney show. By comparison, my early years were seeing The Moving Sidewalks in Port Lavaca, then ZZ Top at Sun Valley, then to see them be picked up as an opening act for the Stones, and finally to see them sell out an arena as headliners. The most consistent place I was able to watch the evolutionary process begin, was without a doubt at Armadillo World Headquarters Give the performances there a look, then browse the whole website. You are in for a treat. Those lucky enough got to see a struggling, but powerful New Jersey Band there before a whopping crowd of about 175. Next time I saw Bruce Springsteen was just a couple of years later at the Erwin Center - stuffed to the rafters......I could give you such examples forever, but I'll cut to the chase here.

I think my nightclub of choice for the present, has changed from the bars, to now being Austin City Limits - then catching the acts I saw first there, when they do the arena or stadium shows. That would be the change to which I alluded. The "staying the same" part, is what validates my love of music and live shows. The gal pal and I, and my boys 12 & 14, went to see Coldplay a few weeks ago - at The Woodlands. For me anyway, the joints have been replaced by a glass or two of chardonnay(hey, at least my shirts don't get holes burned in them by exploding, flaming seeds), and while stomping and clapping for an encore remain in fashion, now a sea of cell phone lights have replaced the Bic lighters as the visual display of approval from a crowd. The shows are amazingly unchanged, in that eye popping visual special effects still mark the high points of shows, only the technology has become exponentially better. Much of the old customs of concert going remain, including all in the car getting revved up listening to a CD(instead of an 8 Track, or cassette tape of the band) on the way to the show. I don't make as many of the shows as I once did, but I do try to take my boys when I go. My girl pal is thirty years younger than I, so when we go to shows with the kids, we are basically three generations of concert goers sitting on a blanket on a hillside, doing exactly the same thing I did thirty some odd years ago at Hill On The Moon, watching Thirteenth Floor Elevators in a field outside of Austin. I can deal with that! What a treat, all of us focused on the same music, grinning ear to ear, and my 12 year old just staring in amazement listening to "Clocks" and seeing the lasers trace the night sky out in the Piney Woods! I am indeed lucky to have seen my tastes in music and performance, remain the same for so long, and even more so, to know that I can enjoy it with two generations of people who mean so much to me at my side.

I reckon that is another thing that's changed - that never could have happened with my dad and I. As much as I owe him for instilling the love of music in me......I just can't imagine ever having gone with him to see Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, or Perry Como or Jim Reeves live........On the other hand, I guess it would have been pretty cool to have seen Chattanooga Choo Choo done live in a smoky bar.....watching the old man beaming like I do when my boys go to a show with me.

That makes for a nice picture in my mind. Far out!

The Law of The Garbage Truck....

Like most of you, I get forwarded e-mails, chain letters and various spam crap in my mailbox on a daily basis. Truly, 99% of it I glance at and nuke on the spot, and I rarely if ever pass it on to ten people, and sit back and wait for the winning lotto numbers to appear in the clouds within ten minutes. This one was a bit of a profound one I thought. I got it from Bird Dog Billy - one of the original readers and commenters on what was very enjoyable and gratifying blog for me to write as part of - The original blogger group on the Victoria Advocate website, before the carpetbagger editorial staff that now runs it arrived.

Funny, as I read this, at some point, it quit being words on a page to me, and became the voice of my brother-in-law telling the story, as he has said the same thing to me a few times before, just with different words. However you take it, it is hard to argue with the logic............

The Law of the Garbage Truck By David J. Pollay

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving
in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space
right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and
missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his
head around and started yelling at us.. My taxi driver just smiled and waved
at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you
just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the
Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full
of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes
they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally.

Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and
spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom
line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their
day..

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so...Love the
people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't..

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!
Have a blessed, garbage-free day!

Thanks Billy - I needed this. I have been having such issues with the folks who jacked my daily paper. Hopefully I can learn some patience from these words.