Jazz and Tyrannosaurus Sexing

I know you're afraid that your friends will think you wear thick-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector, but haven't you always wanted to know how to read a schematic?  Sparkfun has an intro. Even though there are no tube symbols, I've decided to forgive them.

Don't:

tell your buddy his girlfriend has a hardon.

at work, end all your sentences with "as ancient astronaut theorists believe".

put your penis in the pencil sharpener

park your ICBM on the lawn, facing your idiot neighbor. I know this now.

cook with Vagisil

reproduce

Dear lefty:

• Why do you call people names?
• Because you're an idiot.

I'm sick.

No, not that way.

Really sick. Physically.

It starts in the head, feeling woozy, like watching social tv.

Then it migrates to the chest, when coughing hurts.

Then you think you're better, but you're not.

Then your wife tells you that you have a fever and look what can best be described as gray. Because we are men, and need a female to tell us this stuff. This is because of rectal thermometers when we were little (which explains a lot). 

When helping with menial jobs has become an insurmountable task.

When you're so hungry but can only reach the peanut butter and jelly in one jar. Getting up to fix yourself something is unthinkable, like the tv networks airing a funny, original show. Falling off the couch presents a choice: do I haul ass up to bed? Nah, the floor is perfectly comfortable.

There's the Dayquil and the Nyquil. You've become a drug addict, with one drug to allow you to stay awake and another to help you sleep. Neither works well or gets rid of your cold. You fall asleep on Dayquil and Nyquil does nothing, but at the same time manages to taste like souffle of emesis.

The most fun is losing your sense of taste, sometimes off and on. I take revenge on myself by eating stuff I hate, like my wife's moldy ten week-old simmered socks cheese with XXX on the label. Of course once in my mouth, taste switches back on, my body spoiling the one revenge I get on it. It says something about exercise and chuckles.

I woke up this morning feeling almost bouncy. So good that I'm actually looking forward to doing the dishes. No, I am not hallucinating.

Naturally the wife told me I still have a temperature.

She said this as she reminded me we're picking up the new furniture today.

Tomorrow's installment will depend on whether or not the hospital has wifi.

• Millions of devices vulnerable to complete takeover - security cameras, baby monitors and smart doorbells. No solution in sight.

Opt out of facial recognition at airports. Yes, it's being phased in, without notification or your permission. This is the latest insult to your privacy.

Some things never change:

Eager to give CNN (if we don't like the news, we make it up) another chance, I tuned in. It took about two minutes before the president was somehow responsible for the synagogue shooting.

Not that there's any better news outlet.

• Just in case you like privacy like I do: the information of 80 million US households sat in the open, with no password, for the taking. The owner of the data has not been identified.
• Do you wish to trust idiots and incompetents with your personal information?

Officials in Montreal, Canada, are warning people to stop sightseeing and snapping selfies in flood zones. This is why we are doomed.

MC Hammer Found Alive?

McDonald's has apologized after a toddler was found sucking on a condom in a restaurant.  Unrelated: McDonalds introduces the McCondom.

• A man was arrested for threatening to kill President Trump at his rally. 
• Only the bright ones get caught.

What are the odds?

A Florida (shock!) man impersonating a cop got arrested after pulling over a real cop.

Dear lefty:

• Why are peaches fuzzy?
• same reason your mother is

Watch out, kids.... new SJW research reveals that dogs are a tool of white supremacy and gentrification. I wonder if cancerous dogs are the tool of white veterinarian supremacy....

Although it's possible I might be overloaded, the load itself seems to be overloading:

• Zombie Dishes: put them in the sink, wash them, and they're back the next day.
• Zombie Trash: it appears each week, after having taken it out the previous week.
• Zombie Ants: yes, it's that time of year again. We saw them warming up in the yard, their miniature fortresses in the ground. The weekend saw them in the house, in Popular Ant Places, like the washer and my bedroom table. Even in my house, there is no food in either place.
• Zombie Grass: it appears out of nowhere. I'm told it's weeds, but I can't tell the difference. I mowed last year - what does this pestilence want from me?

Now available: Elton John's Early Demos. This is a 4 volume set of Sir Elton's demos for some of his biggest songs. Sometimes he changed the titles, but here are the working titles:

Don't Let Your Son Go Down on Me
The Bitch is Black
I Guess That's Why They Call Them the Jews
Saturday Night's Alright for Crossdressing (J. Edgar's Song)
Goodbye Conventional Marriage
Candle In the Gin
Philadelphia Dungeon

• Suffice it to say that chocolate covered ants, considered a delicacy on some planets we don't visit, comes up severely lacking when served without chocolate.

The LAPD has run over a woman sunbathing on a beach.

Perhaps they should legislate those orange glow vests....

• Pennsylvania news: three men are accused of having sex with a few different animals. This was obviously the first volley in a campaign for governor.
• a PA woman died after falling into a meat grinder.  Well, at least she didn't fall into a tree grinder- those things are messy.  Unrelated: sale on sausage this week only.

Dear lefty:

• What is a hoosier?
• Even the people who live there can't tell you, which says a lot.

The lefty household would like to thank the Poseidon Corporation for their flea and tick medicine for dogs. Penny is flea and tick free. The ticks now crawl onto us, but they don't bite her. Success!

Plug Cord into Computer, Wrap Other End Around Neck

The Illinois state senate passed a bill to keep Trump off the ballot in 2020 unless he releases his tax returns. Illinois' state motto: Stand Up and Be Stupid!

It's an awful shame people weren't this interested in government when the Bushes, Obama, Clinton, and the others were in office. This game of Divide and Conquer is the most successful since the concept there are two real parties for which to vote.

• I love when the cop comes upon a car with two naked people in it and asks what they're doing.

Dear lefty:

• Why is she such a bitch?
• She's not a bitch - she's hormonally enhanced

Guys - when you're doing a YouTube guitar pedal demo, put on some shoes. No one wants to see your socks adjusting a knob.

• Golf: a sport invented by black people to watch white people dress stupid

Your good friends as Faceyspaces, in the Disaster of the Week, asked 1.5 million people for their email passwords, then proceeded to suck up their contacts. It was, of course, unintentional.  Happy Faceyspaces Logging In, people!




Dear lefty:

• Why are the Canadians so pissed off at us all of the sudden?
• Who cares?

The Horse is Dead, Jim

Amazon employs thousands of people to listen to recordings of everything you said 'to make the service more accurate'. Gee, last time we heard, it doesn't record everything you say.

Q. When will people wake up to this intrusive nightmare?
A. Never.

• Ever cough so hard your underarms itch? Just asking.

Of Man and Dog


Penny's off visiting relatives with her mom. When Mom calls me, she puts me on speaker. When Penny hears me she runs up and licks the phone. It's good to know someone misses me.


Stuff I Learned Too Late
The lovely elderly neighbor, who Marshall taught to feed him on command, is not doing well with Penny, who largely barks at anything that moves. The neighbor would plant and weed, while Marshall would snooze near her. When she moved spots, so did he. They'd chat.

Now she comes outside, sadly looks for 'her Marshall,' and goes about her business. His loss looms large.


Don't read this:

A neighbor, truly a good guy, went through several cancers. No matter how bad his shape, he played with the dog, who brought him great joy. Sadly, he passed recently.

Now the dog roams the house, looking for him.

Hey Dad, Check This Out!

My father died a long time ago, when we were both too young.
I though it would be cool to update him on what he's missed all these years.

• Bag phones, beam me up Scotty phones, and tiny flat phones. Walkie-talkie private phones. More horsepower in the phone than the first personal pc's and the computer on the Apollo space missions. Personal computers with hard drives under fridge size. Instant communication, like a 'Dick Tracy wristwatch.'  Roswell's fiber optics, integrated circuits, and night vision. Digital electric alarm clocks. 
• The internet as we know it. The ability to text, talk, send pics, look at dirty pics, and suck up information in no time at all, in your hand and in your house. Sometimes in your car.
• Autonomous cars - that I wish we didn't have to see either. Ridiculously high-powered car stereos, measured in decibels instead of watts. Never replace spark plugs. No rotatable distributors. Unleaded gas. Digital stereos playing AM stereo (for a while), FM stereo, 8 track cassettes, cassettes, ELcassettes, songs from non-connected phones and memory sticks.
• Much better medical knowledge, at ridiculous prices. Much more sophisticated diagnostic machinery. Chiropractors (?), Eastern medicine, and better medicines (horribly expensive and too frequently used recreationally). 
• An incredibly rapid news cycle. Finding out about political scandals via news. Then going back to being covered up by news. The discovery that the Military Industrial Complex is actually running things. 
• Shopping for everything locally, then online.  24/7 stores.
• Complete disregard for manners, customs, feelings, and one's parents. Warehouses for old people.
• Amateur radio, using the same equipment designed and built before your own birth.
• My phenomenal guitar and amp collection. My less than phenomenal playing. Being crowned CEO of Sarcasm.
• Unprecedented governmental and corporate spying. Unprecedented tax and spend.
• Homosexuality and sex-changes out in the open, sometimes celebrated. 'Ass' and 'shit' are ok on tv, but still no 'fuck'. Publicly admitted BJs and cigars not-smoked in the White House. 
• Expansion of The Stupid. Drooling, celebrity-obsessed idiots. Something from another planet called Kardashians.
• The realization that All is Not Well, like it is on tv. The end of innocence.

On the other hand, most of us never got to see

• turntables in cars. Cars the size of two current cars. Suicide doors. 400+ CID 8 cylinder engines, 'straight eight' cylinder engines, leaded gas, people pumping gas for you, waiting for your car stereo and tv to warm up before you can use them,  Fins. Large amounts of chrome. Seats that fit a family comfortably. Legroom. Bench seats. Manual and pushbutton transmissions. Having to slam huge metal doors. No seatbelts at all. Real wood on Woodys. Full service gas stations with window cleaning, fluid check, and replacement.
• Paying cash for a doctor visit. The doctor coming to your house.
• Newspapers. Milk and potato chip home delivery. 
• Salespeople who knew you and 'put it on your tab', then sent it to you.
• Happily living close to your parents.
• Really really bad 'solid state' stereos and guitar amplifiers (ok, that continues).
• Comics being funny without expletives.

We miss you, fella.

Hours and Hours but You Can't Find Out Which

We went out yesterday, which is usually the start of a good/bad story.
We tried to be prepared.. it was a Sunday, so our destination had different hours. We took to the web to find out what those hours were. This was definitely a mistake. I almost miss phone books.

The first place had a link for hours and told me all about their Christmas and other holiday hours.  So at that point, we know when we couldn't go, but not when we could. We eventually found the hours by going to a different site.

I'll tell you something the professionals won't: depression is 75% brain chemistry and 25% trying to find stuff on the web or type things on your phone. I am dismayed that people are moving to cell phones to browse, over laptops and desktops. With that in mind, you'd think the web pages for phones would take the hint and get better. As Ben Stern said, "I told you not to be stupid, you moron." An entire page in a font ants strain to read is not helpful.

The second place had hours and even shared them with customers. But mostly they had a BIG SALE.

The third place only took 47 minutes to release its secrets.

I'm a huge technology guy and if I can't find this stuff, what hope do my parents have? Perhaps I have it wrong and the sites are set up for The Great Unwashed, and anyone with more than a few brain cells can't figure out it. This may be giving myself too much credit.

So on a Sunday, 3 connected stores were open at 9, 10, and 11:00. While this crisis doesn't reach the level of nuclear winter, the coordination and planning behind it is fun; like the class of ADHD students writing down the date of the next test. Look - a FENCE!


We took The Parents. You have not lived until you've seen Mom and Mrs lefty spend ten minutes going over the vagaries and precise details of work gloves. I didn't want to be unreasonable by demanding they return to the planet, as I'm only really horrible online. Of course I was thrilled because they had tool chests in blue. It takes all kinds.

When I told Mrs lefty to speed it up a bit (please), she said she was doing her best. Doing her best? How? Doing her best to discuss gloves, chatting about relatives, stopping to look in a window, more Glove Talk, more windows to check out. I'd hate to see her not doing her best.

Then there's Cigarette PTSD.
If you know a smoker, you'll understand. They're always the last out of the car because they're getting their cigarette ready. They're terrified they'll never have another cigarette. Logically, this is plain stupid, as they just got done paying $27.89 a pack for tobacco with urea and huge banners that say SMOKING WILL KILL YOU.

Once they're out of the car, they're the last in the store or destination because they have to smoke the little things. And if there's a walk involved, they can smoke another one, delaying the entire busload of cancer patients another ten minutes.

I was at a mall with Mrs lefty and her sister. As we were leaving and approached within 50 feet of the exit, they both had their ciggies ready. In fact, the PTSD was so bad, they only made it to the first set of automatic doors - both of them. By the second set (15' away), they were already enjoying burning plants with toxic additives and putting the nicotine goodness from it into their lungs.

If you watch police shows, you'll notice they arrest the perp for shooting 47 people and raping kittens, and the only thing the bad guy will say is to beg for a last cigarette before they take him to jail.


Other scenes from a mall

When the ice cream guy hands you caramel ice cream and strawberry cheesecake ice cream, why do you have to taste them first to figure out which is which? When you tell him someone dropped an entire cone on your side of the counter, he asks small or large.

The frozen lemonade stand looked interesting. It would be more interesting if they had actual lemon-flavored lemonade, as pictured. This is what I call Unreasonable Expectations.

The place that has [James Earl Jones voice] THE MEAT, doesn't tell you THE MEAT doesn't extend to the outside of the bun. But hey - curly fries. There's apparently a bell by the door you're supposed to ring if you thought the food was delicious. If anyone ever rung it, it would develop a crack larger than the Liberty Bell.  I guess if you didn't think the food was delicious you'd need to signal your thoughts, perhaps with a long, pronounced fart.

Speaking of long, pronounced farts, have you seen that Payless Shoes is going out of business? Now's the time to hit the stores. That is, unless you're my size or like what I like, in which case there aren't any shoes. When I had determined there were no shoes for me in the entire SHOE store, I was tying my shoes and some lady asked, with great difficulty, if she could use the seat to tie her other person's shoe. Well, sure, but they'd have to wait for me (I'm funny that way). While waiting, the other person, probably on the autistic spectrum, let out a long, zippy kinda fart. I was waiting for the entire aisle to fall over, but everyone politely waited til we left the store, before doing verbal impersonations.


All in all, it was a great day to swear this is something you'll never do again, then forget and do it again.  At least we procured a tie with functional piano keys on it, so the day wasn't totally shot.

Joining the Hairy Krishnas

Sex enhances emotional bonds, boosts mood, and bolsters people's belief that life has meaning.  [The Post-Sex Blues, Sarah Hunter Murray, PHD]

Gimme more MEANING!
"But Honey... our life will have no meaning if we don't."

• It's the little things: when you get text spam, forward it to 7726 (SPAM), which reports it to the appropriate authorities, through your carrier. You even get a nifty 'thank you' for reporting.

Dear lefty:

• Does anybody actually read this shit?
• No. Why are you writing to a fictional character, Chief?

I joke that this is not an entertainment blog - it's the chronicle of a man's descent into madness. How many more times do I have to say it before the universe makes it so? Is it already so? 

• Florida Woman (but of course) Arrested After Pulling Gun on Person Who Asked Her to Stop Feeding Stray Cats.   Crazy cat lady? You decide.

Motel 6 will pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit that said several Washington state locations gave their guest lists to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the state attorney general's office.

The fallout will cost $12 million, but on the positive side, Motel 6 is now the official motel of government travel.  Motel 6 - for when you're not quite good enough to be Motel 7 or Motel 8.

• Why is there an expiration date on my sugar?

If you're feeling short of Douche Chills, a woman was found to have four bees living in her eye. Damn the specifics.  When asked by doctors if she wanted them removed, she said no - she needed the honey.

Are we done?
Not by a long shot.
A Florida (shocking!) man has been caught (again), sticking his stinger in a bee hive. He has a sexual thing for them. The love that hurts.



Dear lefty:

• What's the difference between bees in the eye and bees on the penis?
• try both and let us know.

I like seeing doctors after work so it doesn't interfere. The other day I got my exam, left the room, and beheld total darkness. Then I apparently tripped the motion sensor. Some overly-competent employee turned off the lights, closed the office, and set the alarm. Does this shit happen to you too?

Paris is Burning

Technically just Notre Dame.
Big damn fire.
There was scaffolding around the area, which could mean someone won't be coming to work tomorrow.

Let's put on our conspiracy hats:
The fire is a message.

Let's put on our 'how can I outrage people today' hats:
Hey - let's see if high level priests and popes burn...

Smoking at the Gas Pump

It turns out that many security apps on the Google Play store are impotent or fake.  Always be careful when choosing an app of any variety. At very least, bizarre wording is a clue.

• A 320lb ($247 Canadian) woman was sentenced for sitting on and smothering a girl.
• Too stupid to figure out she can get paid for this.

Dear lefty:

• If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
• Hemlock.

An astronomer married his wife because she had a celestial body.

• A woman nearly died after she injected herself with fruit juice.
• And people tell me chocolate is bad for you...

My wife is going to brunch today. 

Why in the entire universe do we need a word like brunch?

Have our finest scholars been working on this for one hundred and two years? "Let's see... it's just not right to call eating at 11:00 breakfast, nor lunch. We need another word for it... hey, let's smash the two words together! We can call it lunchfast!"  You will notice that after this great bit of wordsmithing for no particular reason, no one has started on a word for eating dinner at 9pm. I dunno about you, but I call it dinner.

• Mick Jagger is undergoing heart valve surgery.
• At his age, with his experience, that's the luckiest heart valve on earth. 
• For each year Mick Ages, it shows twice on Keith.

A Montana school has noted that there is a 'severe lack of women in cybersecurity,' so they're offering a cybersecurity program to high school girls. Noting there's a 300,000 person shortage, the field obviously needs women only. It sounds kind of sexist.

• Proof of God: Tyler Perry is retiring 'Madea', as of this most recent affront movie.

President Trump is eyeing Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her appointment will depend on whether she passes the Snore Test.
A cybersecurity researcher at Tenable has discovered multiple security vulnerabilities in Verizon Fios Quantum Gateway Wi-Fi routers that could allow remote attackers to take complete control over the affected routers, exposing every other device connected to it.

• There are ear lifts by the bathroom sink.
• Do ears sag, like breasts? Is there surgery (of course there is - there's surgery for everything)?
• Breasts? I just love saying breasts. 

Dear lefty:

• Why did the sign language interpreter put on gloves?
• she spoke with an accent

You are allowed up to four dead seahorses when entering Australia.

I am here to make your life less difficult.

The next time you complain about your job, remember my buddy, who just took a mandatory course on workplace shootings.

Orange Vanilla Coke

They'd have a better chance of selling Orange Vanilla cocaine.
This is positively brilliant, in that no functioning human being could seriously come up with this. The person's boss apparently took them seriously and someone is getting a hell of a snicker out of it.

"Yeah, Orange Vanilla Coke - that was mine!"
"I've never been so stoned at work in my life."




Dear lefty:

• Are you kidding me?
• Are you organically this stupid or do you have to work at it?

Please don't encourage them.
Brit Floyd, the Pink Floyd tribute band, will be playing on the same stage where I saw Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy.

As if that's not enough to make your week, there is a ninth Madea movie. At this point, we have to stop blaming Tyler Perry and start tracking down people who see these modern-day tragedies.

• The eyes are the key to the soul. A talented mouth never hurts.

I say this because I haven't in at least 5 minutes: I HATE WINDOWS.

I turned my singular Windows machine off, but it made me wait forever because it wanted to install THIRTY SEVEN updates. The problem here is that I have updates set to download, but NOT install. Windows thinks it knows better. Just one reason to hate Windows, out of soooo many.

Windows: it's not an operating system: it's a virus

• You Can Tune A Piano but You Can't Tuna Fish  - REO Speedwagon
• I can (almost) tune a guitar but get that cello out of here - lefty

Someone said they needed to take their cello to the teacher to get it tuned.

Ridiculous, I said. I can tune my guitar and there are two more strings - a cello should be easy, especially with my phone's tuner app (g-strings). As it turns out, I should have let him take it to the teacher. Who knew a cello would be so difficult to tune? No matter what I did, the note would be spot on, then take a rapid nosedive to the LOW ZONE. I gave up quickly because that's what I do.

At least we got a decent phrase from it: keep the dog off the cello!

• In either a heartwarming or horrifying development, we have another of those most dangerous creatures: a smart cocker. It took Marshall no time at all to figure out you can have all sorts of treats when you drop them and eat around the medicines they have in them. As of moments ago, Penny figured it out. Marshall is somewhere, laughing.

Happy International Women's Month!

To those of us who pay attention, every month is Women's Month.

To those who are paying attention to the online whining, we are apparently on a mission to get more girls into Science/Tech and to hire them. 

Let me make this short and somewhat sweet: hire the right person for the job, regardless of plumbing, level of melatin in their skin, hair consistency (or lack of), religion (or lack of), or length of their nose hair.

I'll get pilloried but I'd prefer not to hire people who have trouble with English, foreign or native. Customers should always be able to understand their service person.



Dear lefty:

• Why does my penis hurt like this?
• Take it out of the pencil sharpener.

There are a number of tv shows featuring a motley crew of people talking into microphones. Radio hosts talk into microphones. What we have is radio on the air. Unoriginal radio. Social radio. And we see the real reason why dj's are behind a mic.

• Over in Beautiful Downtown Sri Lanka, eighteen 5th graders were hospitalized after an assault by their teacher, who didn't feel they completed their homework to his standards.
• How does one teacher assault and hospitalize eighteen kids?
• Would this sort of thing help American children take their education seriously?

We've Done It

I joke about being part of Trump's Space Force.
I joke about Space Force.
I joke.

Yesterday I heard that India just successfully tested their satellite killer.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen - we have (already) weaponized space.
Seemingly tired of having enough hardware to blow up the planet ten times over, we moved the fun to space.

See a pattern?

Just a few short (evolutionary) years ago, we were beating each other with sticks and bones. Then canons, rifles, chains, guns, bigger guns, grenades, bombs, etc.


-------------------------> [Hey, who paid for this shit?]


-------------------------> [Hey, who benefits from this shit?]



As a guy with no interest in bombing anyone (except spammers), this is not a welcome thought. It's not like things are going to stop here.

As a guy trying to look at this from a larger perspective, it's saddening.
We're better than this.



If there is any other life out in that absolutely humongous universe, can you imagine what it thinks of us?

Managing Nuclear Weapons at Work - a Course

If you look far and not too wide, you'll find a course called "Managing Gender Differences in the Workplace." If you manage to find it, you'll find your palm slapping your forehead, then you'll say, "Oh God, no... not again... we just got past women being equal (and getting the vote). We're nice to minorities our HR department hired based solely on a physical difference. We even stopped sexually harassing Shirley, the babe at the front door... at least until she asked us to start again... what's this gender difference stuff?"

No, it's not men and women treating each other as equals... it's treating coworkers who 'do not meet society's accepted definitions of gender'.

To quote Oral Roberts, "Jesus Christ."

What's wrong with HR now? Did someone sue, saying that their insistence on being a female hippopotamus got them fired? Quite frankly, the manure was getting out of hand. And on the walls.  Did someone send HR a pamphlet?

Do you work in a place that would encourage or require this course?

First we learned what sexual harassment was, just so we knew what to call the things we were doing. We all passed, provided we know which of the opposite sex you had to treat with respect and which of the opposite sex you had to treat with respect and a healthy dose of lust. Most were the latter, because there were no actual issues of gender; this was something some dreamer dreamed up in a faraway universe.

Then we had to be tolerant of diversity, because HR insisted we hire people of color or people of lack of color or people with internal plumbing or people who didn't bathe and braided their nose hair. No, they were not qualified for the job, but apparently this one difference qualified them. For extra brownie points, you could love and demand diversity, using the word in every other sentence.

So we were non-harassing and tolerant of diversity.
Then we had to be tolerant of people who identified as different genders, species, inanimate objects, and fire trucks. I was never popular at work til one day I identified as an elevator: everyone wanted a ride. [sigh]

Now it's gender differences.
You say, "but lefty, we are completely on board with gender differences... men and women are equal, some more equal than others. Why has this come back from the dead?"

Because, my children, we're not talking two genders. You bought the lie, as taught in schools all over the planet, obviously as a plot to undermine something that wasn't invented yet. There are, in fact, as Led Zeppelin said, "A Whole Lotta Genders." Or maybe it was Michael Jackson - I forget stuff a lot.

Yes, humans, we are no longer limited to a boring set of two genders - we're now on a spectrum, like dissociation or autism. Folks are not necessarily male or female - they're somewhere in between. But there are no definitive stops on the spectrum's train, so we recognize them as non-binary. While we're riding that train, as the Grateful Dead said, "high on cocaine," there are people who have no gender. Asexuals. Pansexuals. Trisexuals (they try everything), Momsexuals (same as asexual but married with children) and Dadsexuals (will screw anything with a hole in it).

Are you positive we need a course on this?
We really have been treating each other well at work.
When you see a woman who's more manly than your dad, with piercings in places you didn't know could have piercings, you don't point and laugh (at work, anyway). We get along (but only if she's on our team). Now she brought twelve of her friends, from her former employer, over to work. They all look like varying degrees of her, except one really gorgeous one (who is asexual), and a single white female, who the whole group makes fun of, because that's ok.

Like Rodney King said, "AAAAAAAAAAAAH, stop beating me!".  No, wait... "Can't we all just get along?"


If somebody has to tell you this, you shouldn't be working there.

Robin Trower

Robin is quite frankly one of the fathers of guitar. From fame with Procol Harum to great solo success with Bridge of Sighs and more.

I have this old memory of some good dirtbag friends of mine, playing with their pot on a Trower album (yes, album - deal with it).  I was a fan from the first note, way back when people were comparing him to Hendrix (an invalid comparison).

I saw Trower in the 80s, at a now-defunct venue in PA. Years later, I found myself at Glenside's Keswick Theater (never a bad seat) to see Robin again.

Opening was Jeffrey Gaines, a local guy. He was doing a great job at the unenviable task of opening for a legend. In the middle of a song he experienced a technical glitch and his guitar was no longer heard. Having gone through this, I felt horrible for the guy and started to applaud. It's possible this spread and wound up in the whole place applauding. Gaines smiled and thanked everyone for being so sweet to him. Go out and buy his music - it's worth it.

We were in the first row of fixed seats, which came out to be the fourth row. This was nice.

After a while, Robin came out.
And rocked the place nonstop for the night.

If an instrumental musician or accomplished guitarist translates past musicians to non-musicians, there's something special. There was something special that night, as Mrs. leftystrat watched in awe. Robin has gotten older and lost hair but that's all he lost. Mrs leftystrat said she picked up joy from him, and gratitude that people were coming out to see him do what he does best. The place was pretty crowded, if that's any indication. He seemed genuinely taken aback by the adulation.

He ran two Marshall half stacks and his signature model Fender Stratocaster all night - no changes. The 2 fellows with him did a great job, with the bassist handling most vocals. We didn't hear the vocals well, but that's not what we were there for. The gents were young.

I joked that they were carding at the door and if you were under 45, they wouldn't let you in. Old, fat, and bald was the order of the evening. It's possible that I fit into one of those categories.

Go see him. Buy the cds.

A note about tickets:
People hate ticketing agencies. I remember having to wait in line for tickets, not that I did. As soon as things got 'organized', they went to hell. The charges randomly piled on top of the ticket prices did nothing but skyrocket.

We were unlucky enough to have to purchase tickets through AXS, a national group of pirates. Oddly enough, the purchase went well, which is not my experience. This continued until they asked how I wanted to tickets: Rocket Blast or Will Call. I have no trouble with E-tickets, so I chose Blast. As soon as the transaction was through, I was informed I needed to install an app on my phone to get the tickets. WHAT?

No. I don't want to install an app to get tickets. I can't stand the apps I have now, plus the ridiculous rights this app demanded... there's no reason in hell this app needed to have info about my other accounts, plus the rest it wanted. I put in a service ticket, requesting E-tickets, like normal.  Oops - they have no E-tickets, but they'd be damn happy to leave them at Will Call (for only $6 each).

HUH?

There is a Web Convenience Fee of $15. Plus the ticket price. Plus $6 so I can collect the tickets without having to install an app.

NO.

Poor Mrs. leftystrat had to install the app. She said under no other circumstances would she do this: the app had a horrible reputation, which turned out to be well-deserved.

AXS can do whatever they want, but I'm going to look around and spend my money elsewhere, if at all possible. You should too - don't encourage this.

Imaginary Interview: Mike Nesmith

From time to time, ThermionicEmissions interviews interesting people, usually ones who play guitar. Imagine that. So far Justin Currie (Del Amitri) and Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) have appeared in these pages. Unfortunately the interviews are all one-way because.... can you see me trying to contact Jimi? Justin? "Hey, man, big fan. Would you do an interview for a blog with several actual readers?" Or "I thought you were dead, man..."

Inspired by a recent interview video on YouTube, I figured Mr. Nesmith (Nez to people who know him. I don't know him.) would be a prime target person of interest for the blog.

• Nez (may I call you Nez?), it's so great to see you after all these years. I'm not sure what it is that's different.. must be the hat. No, wait, we're related (one pair of chrome domes).

• Congrats on that Liquid Paper thing - your mom was a genius.

• Where did the hat come from? Was it after a meeting of the Executive Committee? Did you know that your concessions don't sell the proper shade of green? And no choice of buttons.

• You mentioned you're not a collector, even of guitars. What are/were your favorite guitars over the years? What is your desert island guitar?

• The guitar-centric interviews always talk about guitars, but what about amps? I saw some old footage of you guys, dressed in white. You were playing a 3 pickup SG (LP) through what looked like a combination Marshall and Acoustic(?) speaker setup. Did you enjoy that? Where are you on the tube/solid state argument? What is your desert island amp?

• Some of the Monkees interviews have taken time and experience into view, specifically about the external producers/band as a product years. You put your hand through a wall during a meeting with Don(nie) Kirschner. Can you tell me about that, along with any differences in your thoughts today?

• Joanne is a song that really resonates with me. Can you tell me how it was written - by experience, perhaps? Did your writing methods change during and after the Monkees?

• Aside from the obvious differences, how do your solo work performances compare to Monkees shows? Have you ever been chased by adolescent girls after a solo show?  <-- this is what we call a setup

• I write some mean parodies but can't seem to cross over into serious songs. The parodies go over well but I think it's time to add real songs to the resume. Any advice?

• Did growing up in Texas prepare you for stardom and fame around the globe?   <-- this is also what we call a setup, or a Really Dumb Question.

• Does the quality of groupies change over the years? Do you have any film? Regale us with stories, please. Are the STDs any better or worse these days?

• There were Monkees feuds over the years: how do you view them and what are your thoughts on them now, in light of 50% of the group missing?

• You and Frank Zappa always strike me as being too cool for the room, but not intentionally. You're both bright, but tell me why I get that impression. I know Frank appeared on a show and in your movie, Head.

• How could/should Head have been made differently? Would it include less of Certain Substances in the writing process? Do you ever see Jack Nicholson these days? Speaking of Certain Substances, do you ever see Jimi Hendrix these days?

• Were you ever inspired to stand in front of a wall of Marshalls and pull a Jimi? Did you ever get the Purple Haze riff down after he showed it to you?

• Aside from Jimi and the Beatles, what other rock royalty did you meet? How about Jeff Beck? Would you guys sign my #1 Strat?

• You guys are pretty humble in your talk of the Beatles, but they threw a party for you, partied with you, you saw them record, and you outsold them at one point. Do you have any further comment on that? The four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor....

• How could anyone drive the Monkeemobile with that huge intake thingie coming out of the hood? Didn't it obstruct the view (or was that the idea)?

• You were (and are) a serious hero to many kids growing up in many generations. I know you were to me. You don't think highly of yourself as a guitar player, but you were very influential. What do you think about that?

• If you could be a lawnmower, what kind of lawnmower would you be?

Thanks so much, Nez. We'll be looking for you on tour with Mickey and solo.

Barbara Streisand is an Anal Wart

Defending Michael Jackson against new allegations of child abuse: Michael had his own sexuality. Besides - these kids... they were all happy to be there. They're grown and married - I don't see any harm.

Without taking a stand on whether the allegations are true or not, this person has just excused pedophilia by another musical star and referred to its claimants as attention-seekers, as no one was 'hurt' by the rape.

The alleged human in question vigorously walked back her statement.