My name is Barry Shatzman

Let me tell you how cool Banner Bank here in Pacific Northwest is. I went in to deposit a decent-sized check recently, and asked the teller what account info she needed from me.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “I’ll just use your name on the check to look it up.”

That made me happy. It sure makes a lot more sense than asking me to prove who i am in order to give them money. I mean… i won’t even make you steal my identity to do that… i’ll fucking give it to you. I also told her i wanted to take out $60 in cash (hey… if you know me you know i had to test the limits of this no-id thing). But i’m afraid it sucks to be you…. because it turns out you can’t just walk into my bank and say you’re me.

She said… “I know i’ve seen you in here before, but i don’t know you well enough, so can i see your id?”

That made me happy too, because i’d only been in that branch twice before, and never at the teller booth, so i figured i must be pretty damn special that she still remembered me.

But hey… let’s compare that to Safeway, where they still think i’m feeling the love when they study my receipt and say “thank you mister.. umm… schwartzman”. But we’ve covered that ground before.

Let’s also compare it to Chase. I’m sure you remember the fun experience i had with them about 10 years ago. Well i still have that credit card. In fact… i just got a replacement in the mail, so i called them up this morning to activate it. The nice person who answered asked me what i liked about the card. I told her that actually… i don’t like that i used to get my rebates automatically each month, but now i have to go to their site to claim it.

She was prepared for that one. “Oh, we did that because we wanted you to have the choice of letting your points build up,” she said. Obviously she doesn’t know me, or she’d've been ready for my response that they took away my choice to just get it automatically each month like i used to. She acted like she knew me though, pointing out how long i’ve had their card.

“I sincerely appreciate your loyalty to Chase, Mr. Sherman,” she told me.

My name’s not really that hard, is it? Maybe it is i guess, because when i go to a crowded restaurant, the name taker virtually always writes my name down as Berry. I guess like all the other Berrys she knows… Straw, Blue, and Very (not Marion.. my favorite ex-mayor of Washington DC though… even he spells his last name Barry). Hell… even a friend on Facebook addressed me as “Berry” in a comment. WTF?

And is Shatzman that much harder? It’s spelled just like it’s pronounced. So tell me… why do you always wanna put a C between the S and the H? Or change the “man” to “ner”? I know…i know… i should be grateful that you didn’t change one of the As to a different vowel. Berry fucking funny.

But hey… at least you’re not as bad as the dude from Fry’s a while back, who insisted that i tell him my name so i could buy something. When i told him i was paying cash and it was just some $10 piece of plastic so i really don’t need to give him my name, this is the receipt he gave me to take to the register…

Actually, dude from Fry’s who obviously wasn’t hired for your interpersonal skills… i do like my name. I just knew you’d be too fucking retarded to get it right.

Anyway…a customer service song seems in order here… wouldn’t you say?

	… so click the note to hear Waitret, Please Waitret, by Kinky Friedman.
It’s from his live album Old Testaments and New Revelations. You can find the complete song in a better quality, as well as the rest of the album here

I love my fucking country

If you lose touch with me for a few years and can’t seem to find me again, you might wanna try Costa Rica. Me and a few of my cool cousins have been saying for a while now that we should start a community down there for people like us who realize this country just doesn’t share the same values that we do… so why not give up trying to change things and just spend our lives in some tropical paradise under a coconut tree sipping pina coladas? You can keep the tea for your party.

But a few things happened this week that made me realize this really might be the Iphone of countries after all.

For one thing… i saw that a future in politics really is possible for me. My ex-girlfriend told me once that i could never be president because too many people have seen me naked. But the real clothes-related show-stopper is that i don’t even own a suit. And even if you thought my policies would help you and the country out more than the other guy’s, you just weren’t gonna get over the fact that he’s the snappier dresser, were you?

But wait… just when i thought it was over, i’m watching C-Span yesterday and look what i see…

That’s Don Young questioning Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during a hearing. Don’s a member of Congress – you know… that organization that we elect people to so they can make laws that let companies spew smoke into the air you breathe while making sure their taxes stay low so they can create jobs for you mopping the decks of their corporate yachts. And hey… check out the beanie. Right? If that’s the professional norm now, i gotta figure i’ll fit right in wearing my jeans and sweatshirt.

Of course… that alone wouldn’t be enough to keep me here. But praise that one god who created us and all the people we hate… Congress has come through yet again to make this country a place i’m proud to call my homeland. They voted to… are you ready for this… keep pizza as a vegetable. Is that not awesome or what? Come on… where else on this entire fucking planet can you eat the greatest thing ever baked in an oven and have it make you more healthy?

As too good to be true as it sounds… it’s gotta be true nonetheless. I mean… isn’t this the same government that feeds us the food pyramid and the plate? They must know what they’re talking about, right?

I hope so at least. Because they’re also making damn sure you can’t afford to see a doctor if you ever get sick.

I just got my hairs cut the other day…

	… so click the note to check out Hairstyles and Attitudes, by Timbuk3 from their album Greetings from Timbuk3.
They write very cool songs, and you should check out their web site where you can hear even more stuff of theirs.

Between a wall and a hard place

I hate flying… but i gotta admit it’s amazing. Not so much because you can levitate a few hundred people 40,000 feet into the air, but because i played Scrabble in Portland last night even though i woke up yesterday morning in Baltimore. I just got home from an east coast trip that covered Maryland all the way to Connecticut and back to Maryland.

I was gone for 12 days, but it was during my 40 hours in New York that i packed the most in. Literally. In those 40 hours i ate 3 slices of NY pizza, 3 lemon italian ices, 2 bagels with cream cheese and lox, matzoh ball soup, corned beef on rye, and a hot dog and one of these from a street vendor…

I also occupied Wall Street.

I mean… how could i not? I saw the protests on the TV news… the people acting like zombies… others in funny clothes carrying funny signs and saying funny things. You can keep your Les Miz, these were the real miserables, and i was gonna check it out.

So you wanna know what? It was nothing – and i mean nothing – like what i’d been shown on the TV “news”. Sure i happened to go on the day there was an organized march, but the (easily) tens of thousands of people of just about every demographic had one chant encompassing the various signs they were carrying such as these (click on each picture to see a larger version)…

That message was… “We are the 99 percent”

Which gets me to the other thing the corporate media completely misrepresented. The Occupy Wall Street participants had been criticized and even mocked for not knowing what they want or offering solutions.

But how realistic is that? For one thing, wouldn’t it be creepy if every one of those people had the exact same solution to offer? And how would they communicate it anyway?

And do you need to know about all the games that the folks who work on Wall Street play? Like mortgage companies that regularly falsified loan documents to qualify people for loans they’d never be able to repay (because they were running out of borrowers who actually could afford a loan) and then packaged those loans into Mortgage Backed Securities that were then insured by Credit Default Swaps – bruising every participant along the way until your tax dollars payed back only the rich guys who started the game in the first place?

They still have their yachts. How’s it working out for you? In case you’re not sure yet, here’s a great explanation of why you probably dont have as much money as you used to, where the money went, and why this will never change will unless the rules change.

It’s not their job to know what specific laws or regulations would prevent ratings agencies from rating worthless securities as AAA because those agencies are paid by the companies whose securities they’re rating, or that would make sure banks keep enough reserves so they won’t go bankrupt. That’s the job of the people they elect to represent them. And those guys even have staffs (that we pay for, of course) to help them understand all this shit.

Lucky for you there’s only one thing you have to understand… and i’ll tell it to you right now. Are you listening? I’ll even put it in italics so you can come back and read it over and over again till you realize this is the most important thing you’ll read here. It’s that the people you elect to represent you ought to be legislating in ways that protect you from corporations, rather than the other way around.

Am i wrong? And riddle me this… even if you don’t understand all of that other stuff, does that mean it’s not affecting you?

Ok… so maybe this guy could’ve been a bit more specific…

But if you still have a problem with the rest of those folks and think they should already have legislation ready to drop in the Capitol’s mail slot… how bout telling me what legislation you’d propose?

That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way… and here’s why…

A few of the marchers were shouting more than “we are the 99%”. They also were pointing to those who were merely watching and added “and so are you”. That amused these 2 people i happened to be standing near. One of them laughed and said to the other “Really? We are?”

Being in New York… i decided it would be best to mind my own beeswax. But if i was gonna mind their beeswax, i can only think of one thing i would’ve wanted to say to them….

“Really? You’re not?”

So speaking of sinking ships… you wanna hear the best song EVER about the USS Titanic (or just about any disaster for that matter)?

	… click the note to hear The Legend of the USS Titanic, by Jaime Brockett.
You can find out more about him here

No thanks for the fish

I came to realize something over the past week.

It was a week that an arguably innocent man was executed in Georgia. It also was a week that Congress again threatened to shut down the government soon over the question of how much money should be allocated to provide disaster relief for things like hurricanes that seem to be happening an awful lot lately but really the climate is just fine. Speaking of the climate… it also was about a week ago that the Obama administration decided that it would cost companies a lot of money to stop spewing nasty shit into the air we all breathe… so at least for now you won’t have to stop breathing that shit until you stop breathing air altogether.

Here’s what i came to realize. If you’re ever about to be executed for something you didn’t do and you’d kinda like to world to know it… or if there’s anything else that could affect a whole lot of people and you’re hoping it goes viral… you better hope it doesn’t happen in a week that Facebook even slightly tweaks its interface. Because that’s about all that anyone’s gonna be talking about on there.

I’ll spare you the lecture i already gave you… this cartoon sums it up pretty nicely anyway…

Almost…

It actually misses the most important thing. For some reason, you seem to think you’re a valued customer of Facebook, and they’re supposed to listen to you because you’re always right. But the thing is… you’re not a valued customer. In fact… (are you listening?) you’re not their customer at all. Facebook’s customers are the companies who give money to Facebook for a product. And guess what that product is. You are.

Yep… advertisers pay Facebook for people… and Facebook delivers em hand over eye.

Feeling used? Fine.. give up Facebook. Go watch Desperate Housewives, Bones, The Big Bang Theory, or even a rebroadcast of the greatest moment in sports ever that won’t ever be equaled.

“But hey! Isn’t that the exact same thing, Barry,” you’re asking me?
“Yep… you’re a fast learner,” i’m answering you.

Sound a bit fishy? Look… corporate TV networks don’t care what bait they use… as long as it hooks enough product… i mean viewers they can deliver to their customers… i mean advertisers. But unlike conventional products like the Ronco Pocket Fisherman, you don’t have to be boxed first… you jump right in.

“OK… terrific… now why did you bring us here?”

Here’s why… the next time you’re watching network TV news… and they talk about funding the Public Broadcasting Service or National Public Radio… i hope you’ll keep it in mind that the news show is bait… no different then showing you Tonya Harding busting Paula Jones’ nose… and you’re still just a product. But… with things like PBS and NPR… no one is trying to sell you to advertisers – what you’re seeing and hearing really is the end product. It might be far from perfect… but at least it was created to actually inform you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just feeding you a line.

This old blues song by Blind Boy Fuller seems fitting here…

	… so click the note to hear it.
I got it off this album, in case you wanna own it

Let’s do launch

You know that game 3 Truths and a Lie… where each person tells 4 things about themselves, and everyone else has to guess which one isn’t true? Lemme give you a hint in case you ever play it with me. If one of my things is “i had beers with astronauts”, go with one of the others.

The beers were drank a few weeks before they went into outer space in the space shuttle Atlantis. Even though it was more than 20 years ago, I can’t say much about it. As the commander said at a press conference… “i can tell you, but then i’d have to kill you”. But no worries… i won’t say anything… so you’re safe.

It was cool as hell experience. I was on the headsets when it blasted off and did its thing that i was supporting. And the Air Force gave me this patch – one of 300 that actually flew on the mission.

I’m telling you this is because i watched the last shuttle blast off, and a few people asked me to say more about it. Why did i go, you ask? (Well… someone asked anyway). I dunno… what words could you come up with to describe the coolness factor of watching a rocket ship blast off into space (or at least low-hanging clouds). But besides this being my last chance ever to do it, this was Atlantis – my shuttle. It took me a bunch of hours online and frequent flier points… but i managed to get flights from portland to maryland to florida and back to portland for less than $250.

Great… but what do i do once i get there? I had found this awesome site that told me there’s a lottery to get tickets to watch it from the Kennedy Space Center. Bummer i read it an hour after the lottery closed, huh?

But it also listed other good places to watch a launch from. So i drove to the space coast the day before the launch to scout out those places. Turns out the web site was amazingly accurate. I found everything exactly the way this dude described it (he didn’t mention i’d need a sudden run to CVS for one of their last bottles of mosquito repellent – they were so dense the cashier suggest i spray it on before i leave the store). Anyway, i scouted out the closest spot – an elevated bridge 11 miles from the launch pad… and a spot along the coast that was 12 miles away. I took a few pictures… here’s one from the space coast… and the weather reports were telling me that might be all i’d get out of this.

Can you spot the launch pad? Click on the picture to see where it is. Seriously… the only way i knew this was by asking some guy i found fishing earlier. That’s ok…. i learned something and got a picture. Which was good because i figured the weather was gonna be too sucky to launch. But even just seeing this made the whole trip worth it. I drove back to my hotel an hour away… bought food and water because i had to wake up at 3am to drive back there, and went to bed for the same reason.

I got to Titusville around 4:15am. My plan was to hang out at the space coast – the second-best spot – because i figured it’d be less hassle than the bridge, and NASA was saying the chances of launching were about 30% (the launch window was 11:26 – 11:31 am). Here’s what i found… the parking strips along the river were packed solid with cars… and there was a sign saying that it would cost $40 to park there. So i kept driving toward the bridge… hoping that there were more dumb people willing to pay $40 to park along a road than smart people who did a little research first.

Now tell me you’re not thinking “Barry… you actually questioned the proportion of dumb people to smart people? And in the south, no less?” Fine… but i did mention it was like four fucking thirty in the morning… right? So back off. At least i was right… i easily cruised across the bridge to the side i’d been tipped that parking is free… and even though it was crowded i quickly found a patch of open space big enough for my car. My plan was to get a few hours of sleep in the car, but after a half hour i decided i made it this far… i was gonna make sure i got a good spot on the bridge.

The first thing i noticed when i walked onto the bridge at 5:30am was how crowded it wasn’t. I mean… there were lots of people… but i could find a good spot at the rail almost right up to the midpoint. The second thing i noticed was how the launch pad was lit up at night (the sun was just starting to rise).

I settled next to this guy who used to be a professional photographer. This was good… because he gave me a lot of tips on using the manual settings on my camera… and why i needed to use them for a launch (extreme differences in brightness between the shuttle and the flame).

I’ll skip ahead about 6 hours here… because if there’s one thing more boring than standing on a bridge for 6 hours… it’s reading about someone else standing on a bridge for 6 hours.

An hour before launch, NASA was still calling it a no-go unless the weather changed. The big conversation topic on the bridge was when would they try again. Some people were going home the next day. Some said they were staying till it went up. I had a week to keep coming back to Titusville (i was gonna try to get a room here…

…where my son and i stayed 10 years ago).

But around 10:30, a patch of sun poked through. It kept growing over the launch pad. And the tone of NASA (we were listening on AM radio) became visibly more positive. Do i sound excited here? I seriously was… and everyone else there was too. By 11:00…we started to realize that we really were about to see a blast off. The butterflies in my stomach were like… well… think about that first time you watched Tonya Harding get ready for a triple lutzcow – knowing you’re about to see her fall on her butt. It was that exciting!

Then it was 5 minutes to go. Then 1 minute. Then 30 seconds. Then 5 seconds. Then… hey… what happened??? Nothing. It’s still there. We heard some talk on the radio but couldn’t make out what was being said. But then we heard the countdown start again at 30 seconds. No doubts now. (i read later that an indicator showed that cap at the top didn’t come off the shuttle… but instant replay review showed that it did… and the call was overturned… so they added a few seconds to the game clock and ended the time out)

Blast off!

This is where i learned what space shuttle rockets and the New York Mets have in common? No… it’s not that no matter how fast they start they both burn out before they get to where they’re going. It’s that the flame from the shuttle is the same deep orange as the Mets’ logo. You’d never know that from this picture…

…or just about any picture of a shuttle launch. The flame is so bright compared to the rest of the scene that cameras really can’t capture it. But in real life… the whole flame is that deep orange. I guess you’ll just have to trust me… but it was one of the three most amazing parts of the launch.

The second was the perspective of watching it fly across the sky while you’re standing still… rather than having a camera follow it like they show on TV. The shuttle is big… but the sky is bigger. That’s a perspective you lose on TV (though The Daily Show actually does a great job here of coming close).

The third thing was the noise. I know it’s loud… but this is one i’m gonna have to take other peoples’ word on. Where i was… we didn’t hear a thing. Well… not exactly true. About 30 seconds after launch we did hear a slight rumble… but the loudest thing really was the applause. Kind of like clapping after a movie if you ask me (what? the projectionist did a great job?). Call me a party pooper if it makes you feel better.

So there you have it. I hope this gives you some idea… though i know it’s about the same as trying to describe what it was like seeing Springsteen in the 70′s or 80′s. I did that too. And just like you’re never gonna see a shuttle take off again… let’s face it… the boss is never gonna write a song like Jungleland again. But i tell ya what… given the chance to pick one… this is the one i’ll pick every time.

So instead of song this time (hey… didn’t i just give you the best one ever?)… you can click here to see my coolest photos from the launch.

A Father’s Day card from Gitmo

If you’ve been to my place, you’ve probably seen this pillowcase and thought “geez barry… grow up and get a decorator for chrissakes”.

Ain’t gonna happen… at least for the pillowcase. It was a father’s day present from my son more than 15 years ago. And since it feels the same to my head as just about any other pillowcase would, i’ll sleep on the one that means something.

Now that he’s older, he never buys me father’s day presents or gives me a card. And i wouldn’t want it any other way. No Hallmark holidays for me, thank you very much.

This isn’t new. Once when i was in college i went out drinking with some friends on the saturday night before mother’s day. At midnight one of them went to a pay phone (that’ll prove how long ago this was) to call his mom and wish her a happy mother’s day. We all did the same. My mother was having none of it.

“Why are you doing this? You don’t do mother’s day. You’re just calling because your friends did.”

I’ll call it a draw. I did call because i wanted to. But she was right on that i wouldn’t've done it if they didn’t. Who knows… maybe she would’ve felt different if my call didn’t wake her up at 12 fuckin’ midnight. Some people just have no sense of humor.

Valentine’s day? Definitely a sore spot in many a relationship for me.

I don’t have anything against em. I’d just rather do special things for people i care about when the timing’s right… not when i’m told i should. And it’s the same the other way. If you’re out somewhere and happen to see something you wanna get for me… buy it and i promise i’ll cherish it every bit as much as the Hulkster. Show up with a pizza and a few beers on a random thursday night? I’ll feel like the most special person on the planet. But look… if you go shopping for something just because of what some corporation said, we’ll both know that’s why you did it. Right? (speaking of the Hulk… did you see that lame movie about him? Even after i warned you about it?)

And cards? Make me one any day. Email me. But i don’t know whoever it was who wrote those words on some card from a store. And they don’t know me. So even if you happened to pick the one card that nobody else bought so i really was the only one who read them… words that came out of you will mean a whole lot more.

And they’ll last longer, too. Lately i’ve been scanning photos and other stuff that i took from my father’s apartment after he died. And earlier this week i found this card he had made for his father – more than 50 years ago.

I mean.. sparkles from a 20-year-old sailor? And the message he wrote? Tell me how my grandpa didn’t have a tear in his eye when he saw that.

So with finding this card, waking up with my head on the Incredible Hulk, getting a couple of text messages this morning, and the completely unrelated to any particular day phone call from my son last night… i’m having a most awesome father’s day. No card, tie, or dinner at Red Lobster required. I hope you’re having a great day too. Just because.

OK… i promised you some Tom Russell the other day… so here he is…

	… click the note and hear Where the Dream Begins, from his album Borderland
You can find the album here

Just a flesh wound

My first four years of college were fun as hell, but you probably could skim the back cover of Psychology for Dumbshits and know more about psych than i know with my BA degree in it.

My grades weren’t too bad… and i even was in the honors program. But i’m being honest when i say one of the classes i got the most out of was one i got my only D in. It was an honors political discussion class, and Saul (i wish i could remember his last name) the professor said he wasn’t gonna fail anyone. And i was gonna hold him to that, dammit. So when it came time to write the final paper, i had better things to do.

Yeah i blew off the final paper, but i didn’t blow off the class. That class was my first glance into things like the US-backed coup in Chile that put Augusto Pinochet into power. And our discussions on whether the main purpose of incarceration should be retribution – as opposed to rehabilitation, deterrence, or public safety – still dominate my understanding of the topic.

I thought about it the other day when i read this story about a violent rapist who was denied medical parole. “That’s news,” you ask? Well yeah… because 10 years ago he became a quadriplegic after a prison knife fight. So channel Saul’s class with me for a minute and tell me a good reason for keeping this guy in the pokey. And while you’re doing it, keep in mind that he’s costing more than 1/2-million dollars a year to care for him in prison.

Rehabilitation? Get real.

Retribution? The guy’s a quadriplegic basically as a result of what he did. Are we really that vengeful that we still gotta keep him locked up? Wait… before you answer. I don’t just mean vengeful toward him. I mean vengeful toward the thousands of people who could be helped by spending the 1/2-million dollars (remember – this is our money) a year on things that provide a real benefit.

Deterrence? That’s an interesting one. On the practical side, you’d have to make the point that your average rapist on the street even knows about this dude, and then would stop because he knows he won’t get parole even if his arms and legs get chopped off. But there’s also the philosophical side – should we punish someone for a crime that someone else might commit?

That leaves only public safety. So here’s what a deputy district attorney told the parole board…
“He’s willing to threaten other people with physical harm, and if he can’t do it himself, which is obviously the case…he’s made it very clear he can find, in his view, other people to commit crimes for him.”

So what do you think? Does that qualify for my favorite button? I’ll give the parole board a pass, because they probably didn’t get to see this recent picture of the guy…

But you still get the button. Go ahead and click it to see why we’re all about to be made even safer by maybe locking this other evil doer away for 8 years…

OK…i don’t usually pick a song that’s related to the story, but this time i will. Since i mentioned Augusto Pinochet, here’s a song Sting wrote about the people who were “disappeared” under his regime…

	… it’s called They Dance Alone, and you can hear some of it by clicking the note
It’s from his album Nothing Like The Sun

It is what it is

I wonder what gives people the idea i have an iphone. Maybe the emails they get from me with the signature at the bottom that says “Sent from my iPhone”?

Or maybe it’s because my advice to anyone having a problem with their PC is “get a Mac”. I do walk the walk on this one. If the cops were to bust in here right now searching for Apple products, (fine… i’m watching Law & Order SVU), they’d find about 10 of em. But if the warrant’s for an iphone, they’re leaving empty-handed.

So then what’s with the email signature, Barry? Simple… tell me this. When you get an email from someone, do you really give a flying fuck what they typed it on? Iphone users obviously think you care or else why would they have that silly signature? Which means they must care when they get an email. And since their approval matters a lot to me, i set up my gmail account to end every email i send with “Sent from my iPhone”.

I even spelled it the way Apple has got you spelling it. But the thing is, it’s not an “iPhone”. It’s an Iphone. It’s only an iPhone if you use it while drinking a

That’s right.. iPhone isn’t a name. It’s a logo. But before you tell me to get my panties out of a wad, i don’t really care if Apple calls it that. I’m just saying that newspapers fucking shouldn’t (unless they use logos of other products every time they mention them).

And while i’m on the subject…

Oprah isn’t “Ophrah”. She’s Oprah Winfrey. At least when she’s the headline of a “news” story that’s more important than wars, the economy, etc. I mean… Barack Obama isn’t “Barack”, is he? You wanna call her “Oprah” in some gossip column? Run with it.

Same with K.D. Lang. She’s only “k.d. lang” when written in a sentence as “if you ever heard leonard cohen sing his song hallelulah, you’d realize that k.d. lang doesn’t come close to doing it justice”

Sure there’ll be exceptions. Like with that NY congressperson who’s been in the news lately, taking up space that also should be for writing about things like health care and education. I can say with certitude that if i read one more headline like Weiner sandwiched between David Letterman and Chris Brown, news stories can call him anything else they want and you won’t hear one twit from me about it.

OK… song time. And this one’s personal. Eight years ago a friend took me to a cool Neil Young concert just hours before my son and i headed out on a 30-day, cross-country road trip. She was one of the closest friends i’ve ever had. An ex-girfriend (lovingly) dubbed her “my other girlfriend”. She was the one i’d confide details to about some of my odder relationships (yeah… like you never had one of those). We worked together at the largest company i ever designed a database for, and at the smallest. She was the one i celebrated my jump into journalism with. As close as we were, we always seemed to lose touch whenever she found a new boyfriend. Then a few months (or years) later, we’d connect again. Hey… people are how they are… and you just gotta take em as they come. And when she started dating the guy she eventually married, i saw her less and less until we basically lost touch again. But real friendships can’t be even dented by superficial stuff. So even though i got word this morning that this time it’s forever, Sabrina is and always will be my friend. So it goes.

	… this song, Falling From Above, is from the concert Sabrina took me to that night in 2003. Click the note to listen to it.
You can find out more about it here

Bucks for the bang

Hey… could i ask you to take a look at this chart, and answer just 1 question for me? The chart lists the 20 countries that spent the most on their militaries last year….

The question is really simple, and it’s based on the fact that the U.S. spent about 700 billion dollars, while no other country spent much more than 100 billion. All i wanna know is… what the fuck did we get for that extra 600 billion dollars?

I know… you wanna be safe from enemies (remind me… who are they again?). But so does every other country, right? And most of the big ones… your Canadas, your Frances, your Brazils, your Japans… seem to be holding up pretty well from foreign invaders. So what are they missing that we can’t live without – to the tune of 600 billion dollars?

I don’t know what the fuck we got, but i DO know what the fuck we DIDN’T get because we spent that extra 600 billion dollars. I’m sure you too can come up with a few things that the money might’ve been better spent on. Education, health care, infrastructure, and a few other things that 600 billion dollars can buy.

Keep in mind that it’s not a bucket of 600 billion George Washingtons doing whatever it is that’s being done. The bucks are passed to companies that sell everything from rockets, to bullets to boots to meals to airplanes to gas to guns to boats to uniforms to spy satellites to mercenaries (you do know half the force in Iraq was contractors, right?), Companies like GE, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, or whatever name some of them go under these days.

I mean look… if you were CEO of Earth, and that chart was how much each division of the company spent, wouldn’t a certain division president’s spending report stand out enough to politely ask what the fuck is going on? You’re not the CEO of course. You’re a stock holder – an owner. You have even more of a vested interest because – get this – it’s your fucking money that the people who represent you are giving to those companies.

It’s a racket, as Smedley Butler – a former brigadier general – wrote in his book War is a Racket. “It’s the only one,” he wrote, “in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” He wrote it in 1935.

For today’s song… i give you Ramblin’ Jack Elliott… a way cool performer whose stories are every bit as entertaining as his songs. He’s also a really nice guy. I saw him in a tiny venue in San Francisco’s Noe Valley a few years ago and got to talk with him for a few minutes after the show.

	… click the note and listen to The Sky Above and the Mud Below (and he’s singing with Tom Russell, who i promise to give you a taste of soon).
You probably can guess where this story is heading… but it’s worth hearing it for yourself. and at least for a while you can hear it for free here

I shot a terrorist in his pajamas

Before i get started here… i gotta say how thrilled i am to see that the media actually can perform its intended function of informing the public so people can make educated choices about who should represent them.

Case 1: It seems this young couple found a way to get the government to pay for their wedding. And we’re not talking by some Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. We’re talking jillions of public dollars. In like the biggest clubhouse in England. But the media sniffed it out and covered the hell out of it so now we all know about their scam. And maybe the officials responsible will get voted out the next time around..

Case 2: Hasn’t it been nice not having to read about silly stuff in Libya? The media must’ve recognized that the conflict there is over and all the U.S. troops are home, so it isn’t making you read any more about it.

I also gotta credit the media with finally avoiding some of the distractions they always seem to wanna shove down our throats. Like leaked documents showing that government officials know that Pakistan lies through its teeth to us. Or that the House of Representatives is trying to give away oil fields and tax breaks to oil companies, while making it harder for most people to afford medical care. Yeah… i know they’re supposed to be representing our best interests, but we don’t have time to get bogged down by technicalities, do we?

The media doesn’t deserve all of the credit though. Turns out a few of our elected “representatives” (hmmm… i’ve seen this word before) also felt bad for us having to hear about all this stuff. Lucky for them… they’ve known for at least a year now where Osama bin Laden was living high on the lamb in some air-conditioned mansion. Yup… a killing was in order.

So they gave us a tasty snack. Literally… like telling us what snacks the dude kept in the cupboard. Or that his wife was killed when he used her as a human shield and was shooting from behind her during a fierce firefight. Or that it wasn’t his wife who was killed after all. Oh.. and he wasn’t using anyone as a human shield. And whadda ya know… he didn’t even have a gun. In fact… here’s what the Associated Press is reporting…

The commandos encountered gunshots from only one man, whom they quickly killed, before sweeping the house and shooting others, who were unarmed, a senior defense official said in the latest account.

We also learned his ex-body was dumped at sea in accordance with the laws of Islam. Just like those billions of other dead religious Muslims who became shark food… right? And how he got into his pajamas i’ll never know, because now we’re not gonna get the pictures we were promised.

Sure… you’re doing the happy dance cause he’s dead. Ding fucking dong. But be honest with me here… until this week you hadn’t even thought about Osama in like forever. Didn’t i point that out like 8 years ago?

But you wanna know the real funny thing? Forgetting him wasn’t such a bad idea. At least if “9/11″ still gets your goat. Why? Because …and this is true… there is no known evidence that Evil Doer Numero Uno had anything to do with that attack.

I bet right now you’re thinking about now how easy it’s gonna be here to prove i’m a total nimrod. I mean… all you gotta do is find one shred of evidence that points to Yogi Beard. I gotta warn ya though… you’re gonna have to be better than the FBI. They couldn’t find anything. Really… look. In fact… their own wanted poster for him doesn’t even mention any airplane-related shenanigans.

But don’t just take my word for it. Paul Rea is a former college professor who has spent the past few years writing a book on “9/11″. So he seemed like a good guy to ask about it. Here’s what he said…

This gets complex, but the short answer is that the US couldn’t provide/didn’t have evidence when the Taliban asked for it in Sept. 01, and the FBI dropped charges against OBL (for 9/11) in 2006 for lack of evidence. Until my book comes out, History Commons would be a good source.

So now… tell me… exactly how do you “know” it was Mr. PJs who was responsible for stuff like the USA PATRIOT act, Gitmo, and not being able to take a fucking cup of yogurt through airport security? And no saying it’s because 2 presidents said so. Hell… one even lied about whether the caveman’s house had air-conditioning. I wouldn’t buy a used helicopter from either of em.

But don’t get me wrong. The world potentially is a better place without the guy. After all… between exposing him and that daring British duo, all that scary radioactivity from Japan seems to have vanished. Haven’t heard much about that lately either.

Mission accomplished.

Someone else died last week. If you even know who Phoebe Snow was, you probably thought of her as one of those one-hit singers. But you’ll appreciate her infinitely more after you listen to this.

	… so click the note to hear a fantasy you’re probably more familiar with
It’s from a benefit concert featuring people like Jewel, Roger Daltrey, and Jackson Browne. It would be worth the price of admission just for Jewel’s version of Over The Rainbow alone. You can find it here