Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The escalation – federal forces and incendiary rhetoric – to produce the violence #47 so desperately seeks. Instigation, followed by justification.
Dictators; authoritarians…this is their playbook. And one of the most essential – and the most heart-wrenching – chapter of the playbook is that their followers don’t, won’t, can’t, or refuse to see it. They vehemently and obstinately don their moral and historical blinders and bray, “That was then; this is different,” as they slide into the putrid pit of “then.”
* * *
Department Of Win-Win
Dateline: Monday eve, watching the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary. Moiself can’t remember exactly where I was or even how old I was when I heard Led Zeppelin’s first album, but the thing was that I heard it as an album. Among the many insights presented in the documentary is the group’s strategy to *not* be a singles band – their albums were meant to be played and listened to us as just that: albums. [1] That differentiated them at the time (although, arguably, they were preceded by The Beatles’ Seargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in terms of a band producing an album that was meant to be listened to as an album, and not just filler songs surrounding one or two singles).
I (eventually) bought all of the LZ albums and attended several of their concerts. I also understood, intuitively if not consciously at the time, how LZ, and the heavy metal and “stadium rock” bands which followed, became partly responsible for the emergence of punk rock. Several of the members of The Ramones, as well as members of other punk bands, have spoken about how their approach to music (jackhammer, two-minutes songs; minimalist instrumentation and no solos by any member of the band) was a reaction to and rebellion against what they saw as the self-indulgent excesses of mainstream rock, which had abandoned or twisted the original energy of rock ‘n roll into, as an example, Jimmy Page’s and John Bonham’s respective, lengthy, guitar and drum solos. [2]
Moiself was a fan of Led Zeppelin’s music, then *really* loved The Ramones and punk rock as well, so it all worked out for me.
* * *
Department Of A Blast From The Past
Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025. So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.
This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?! [3] friend gave me, all those years ago, [4] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Journal/diary-resistant moiself would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.
Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago June to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )
Here is an excerpt from my blog of 6-14-18 ( The Match I’m Not Lighting ).
Department of Will Someone Please Explain to Me…
As a kid, I didn’t understand the light a match reference, nor the presence of a pack of matches in the bathrooms of most people of my parents’ generation. Even after it was explained to me by an adult, [5] it still seemed rather silly. Was it a last resort, an act of religious penance ( Forgive me, Father, for I have blown Satan’s bugle [6] ), or some kind of ritual atonement (setting oneself on fire rather than face the shame of emerging from the host’s bathroom after you’ve stunk it up)?
Matches eventually gave way to the Bathroom Air Fresheners industry – including the aptly if not discretely named Poo-pouri [7]. This was a great loss to the budding pyromaniac that lurks in most six-year-olds, and also provided yet another variation on things that don’t make much sense.
Yeah, I get the point of, or rather I understand the supposed need for, commercial bathroom air fresheners. But other than serving as an effective irritant to asthmatics and people with fragrance allergies I think it is arguable that they “work.” In my experience in other people’s houses and in restaurants, businesses and other “out” venues, it’s a tossup as to whether air fresheners eliminate [8] or enhance the odors they are designed to combat.
And the varieties of masking perfumes, ay yi yi. Here are just some of the olfactory auras available to you, Discerning Consumer, thanks to the scentmeisters of Glade, Renuzit, et al:
Frosted Pine
Clean Linen
Creamy Custard® & Apple Cinnamon
Angel Whispers [9]
But really, who’s kidding whom? Here are your choices:
*Bathroom usage sans air freshener: it smells like someone took a dump in here.
* Bathroom usage with air freshener: it smells like whispering angels stood by
as someone took a dump on a pine tree,
in your clean linen, on your apple custard dessert.
Not to get all Bathroom Buddhist ® , but it is what it is. Embrace the stone age, y’all: light a match.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Born Too Soon To Achieve My Ultimate Sports Destiny
Sub-Department Of I Realize The Pressure To Fill Space With Content 24/7,
But, A Classic Sibling Bedroom Brawl Is Now A Professional Sport?
Dateline: Sunday night, at Manzanita’s San Dune Pub, [10] realizing that one of the pub’s five televisions which show a variety of sports was set to an ESPN channel which was broadcasting the PFC, as in…I can’t believe moiself is typing this….Pillow Fighting Championship.
“PFC: Pillow Fight Championship is the world’s first professional pillow fighting league featuring professional fighters engaging in intense, fast-paced and all ages-friendly combat unrivaled by any other professional sports entertainment or fighting organization.
However, PFC isn’t just for professional fighters. We have developed a unique set of rules and regulations to complement our patent-pending and safe combat pillows that allow anyone to participate.
Pillow Fight Championship has been credited for being a safe alternative to traditional, violent combat sports and for it’s ITAL (sic) cardiovascular and benefits.”
( from PFC: About )
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [11]
Zora Neale Hurston. Brilliant Harlem Renaissance writer. Anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist. Best known and beloved for her 1937 masterpiece nove,l Their Eyes Were Watching God. Enormously influential in the worlds of literature, anthropology, oral tradition, African American folklore, and just about every other damn thing except maybe particle physics. She was a non-believer, and even as a child, she was beginning to question the unquestioning faith and dogma of her congregation. She wrote of those years she could not “understand the passionate declarations of love for a being that nobody could see…. When I was asked if I loved God, I always said yes because I knew that was the thing I was supposed to say. It was a guilty secret with me for a long time.”
She eventually concluded, “Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.” [12]
( excerpts, list of “7 Amazing Atheists Who Aren’t Old White Guys,”
By Greta Christina, [13] August 30, 2012 |)
* * *
May you no longer engage in pillow fights for free if others are paid to do so;
May you not say yes because you know it is the thing you are supposed to say;
May you find a way to torch the authoritarian’s playbook;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] And LZ founder/guitarist Jimmy Page was fortunate to get the contractual stipulations to be able to do that.
[2] Johnny Ramone’s one note guitar riff in I Wanna Be Sedated was his satirical nod to rock guitarists’ lengthy solos.
[3] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.
[4] Was it really over twelve years ago?
[5] By my uncle Joe, accomplished match lighter, may he rest in peace.
[6] a high-pitched, keening wail of a fart, as if summoning Satan’s minions from one’s nether regions.
[7] I am not making this up, and you have to read the product reviews.
[8] Sorry. Potty-pun unintentional. No shit really.
[9] Because we all know what angel whispers smell like.
[10] Interested in a business opportunity? The beloved Pub is for sale. We want someone good to keep it going!
[11] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[12][12] From Dust Tracks on a Road.
[13] Who herself is not an old white guy; rather, Greta Christina is a not-infrequently-quoted-in-this-blog author, atheist ad LGBTQ activist, and speaker.
