Random Record Revisited

Thirty Seconds Over Winterland – Jefferson Airplane [1973 / 2009]

   I discovered Jefferson Airplane in my parents collection sometime around 1982. It was a 2 LP compilation called Flight Log [1977] which covered the Airplane and various offshoots / solo projects up the first [or second, depending how one classifies Paul Kantner’s Blows Against the Empire – I call it a solo album so… ]Jefferson Starship album, 1975’s Dragon Fly. The funny thing about this album is I don’t ever remember anybody playing it before I found it in their stack.

   I became an admirer pretty quickly and acquired the cream of the Airplane in short order. It was a coup that on the day I went for my interview for Sound Warehouse -waaaayyy up in IRVING! – that I found a copy of the 1969 live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head.

   I am not sure when I first heard Thirty Seconds Over Winterland [the title is a bit misleading – only 3 of the original album’s 7 tracks are from the September 1972 Winterland shows; the other 4 are from an August show in Chicago]. I had borrowed Bless Its… from my friend David Herring while in high school but it’s been several decades and many, many adventures since then. Since I don’t recall it, I guess it didn’t have much of an impact. Winterland was also a favorite of my music mentor “Uncle Mike” [J. Michael Leone, R.I.P.] but I don’t ever recall him recommending it until much, much later when he kicked off one of the Live Leone CDs with the Winterland lead off track Have You Seen the Saucers.

   The general consensus of Jefferson Airplane in the 1970s was that the band was meandering and unfocused having lost cofounding singer Marty Balin. The band was basically living two lives as Paul Kantner and Grace Slick made two side records [Kantner’s previously mentioned Blows and the Kantner/Slick 1971 album Sunfighter.] and lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady recorded and toured as Hot Tuna [2 live records and one studio record by the time these Airplane dates were recorded]. Indeed, the two studio albums after Balin’s departure [1971’s Bark and 1972’s Long John Silver] suffer the lack of Balin’s soaring tenor, which is to say there is too much Paul Kantner and way, way too much Grace Slick. At times Slick [who was starting to suffer the downside of alcohol dependence] is pushed overpoweringly high in the mix. Add that Kantner’s songwriting can be preachy and Slick’s can be just plain weird. Jorma Kaukonen’s contributions hold pretty steady in Jorma’s wheelhouse – if you like the songs on Hot Tuna’s studio album Burgers, well, you’ll find his Airplane songs in the same vein.

   If one can somehow push the lyrics and vocals down though, the Airplane is still playing pretty well. Two different drummers [Joey Covington on Bark, John Barbata on most of LJS] on the albums and adding the sometimes funky but sometimes unnecessary violin of Papa John Creech into the mix keeps the band fresh. By the time of the Winterland dates, former Quicksilver Messenger bassist / vocalist David Freiberg joined the band on tour as a sort of replacement for Marty Balin. [Freiberg would switch off bass and keyboards with Pete Sears when the Airplane muted into Jefferson Starship.]

   It’s this band that finds itself in Chicago and San Francisco in 1972.

   As previously noted, the album kicks off with a spirited take of the 1970 single Have You Seen the Saucers. And the band really does cook through this, Kaukonen’s lead lines cracking like lightning, underpinned by Jack Casady’s rumbling mercurial bass lines. [Michael love, love, loved that last hanging note of feedback from Casady that ends the track.] It’s not a stretch to say that Kaukonen and Casady are the stars of this album. The next track is an extended take of Jorma’s Feel So Good.  Eleven minutes long but the band finds such a groove and there are enough twists that it doesn’t feel overly long. Look, the idea of a 45 second bass break seems like torture from certain players but Casady stays in the groove and he and Barbata push the song up a level for the next round of solos. It’s really a great example of how the Airplane really could fly. This is followed by the title track of 1968’s Crown Of Creation [the oldest song on tis album]. This is the point where one might miss Balin but it’s a pretty good version. Freiberg is not Balin but he finds the perfect spot between Kantner and Slick.

   Side two of the album kicks off with Bark’s When the Earth Moves Again. It’s a slow to mid tempo plodding track, very vocal based and a good example of the tracks people cite when they deride this period of the Airplane. There’s not much the band can do with this and so it is the only forgettable track on the “original album.” [More on that in a bit.] The album ends with a trio from the then current Long John Silver. Milk Train retains the fun, funky grove that made it a favorite on the Flight Log collection.  Kaukonen’s Trial By Fire is another funky groove track typical of Kaukonen’s writing at this time. Kantner’s Twilight Double Leader ends the [original] set with an impressive burst of energy, another good example of how the Airplane still had some magic.

   Now I added a second date of 2009 to the release date of this album as the current CD release is and expanded edition adding five songs to the original release.  1969’s Wooden Ships is similar to the 1969 live version that shows up as a bonus track on the expanded Volunteers album. This is the one spot you definitely miss Balin. The title track from Long John Silver follows. This is another forgettable track, although the band does find a groove and Jorma rips an amazing Neil Young like solo in the last minute. Come Back Baby is one of those blues numbers that Kaukonen performed in concert [like Rock Me Baby from Bless Its Pointed Little Head]. This one never found it’s way onto on official Airplane release until the 2007 release Sweeping Up the Spotlight, a live album from two 1969 appearances at the Fillmore East. Law Man is a Slick track from Bark. At least it’s short. The final track [tracks] is listed as a medley of Diana [from Sunfighter] and Volunteers. Diana is only a 52 second long track on the original release so this is just lazy editing in my opinion. Volunteers is spirited romp through that. Papa John’s violin seems incredibly out of place here but as They say, it is what it is.

   This live release was the last for the original run of Jefferson Airplane. The four remaining core members  would only play together one more time on record for 15 years, all playing on Paul Kantner’s song Your Mind Has Left Your Body on the 1973 Kantner / Slick / Freiberg album Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun.

   It’s not a bad ending and it wasn’t a sad ending as Jefferson Airplane never announced “Hey, we’ve broken up.” They just never got back together to make the next record. Hot Tuna went one way and the rest of the group became Jefferson Starship and that was that.

   Overall, I’d say the original album is four out of five stars, the expanded edition like 3.75. Being that Rock Me Baby is the only thing worth having the expanded edition for, I’d probably recommend the vinyl.

 Change / No Change

   It’s been a long time since I’ve moved. As a matter of fact, MOST of my friends have been at our addresses a long time, even that one friend - you know, the one who was on the "lease is up let's move it out" plan.

   If you live somewhere a long time, one can occasionally find your mind wandering into a twilight zone. I has this happen last night, literally in the twilight.

   I had to scoot across to Arlington to get my new glasses before the place closed up. Leaving 5 minutes later than I wanted to when you’re rushing to beat a deadline is nerve wracking and frustrating. So I’m shooting across town knowing that the freeway at 820 and 20 is under construction and basically a “No Fly Zone.” This has me cutting across the southwest Green Oaks area of Arlington. Many decades ago we lived in this area and my uncle Bill also lived in this area - before everything was 4 or 6 lanes, before Green Oaks existed [though construction has begun] and for a couple of years I delivered for Dominos in this area so I am pretty familiar with this end of town.

  I’m sitting at the light at Pioneer Parkway and Park Springs Blvd. impatiently waiting for the light to change and there I am in that flashback. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m jamming to something from the 80s on one of my own mix CDs but I find myself in the “used to be” mode.

   The 7-11 has been there forever. The gas station on the northeast corner as well. The insurance agency is in the old Pizza Hut building. That’s where we’d pick up in the late 70s / early 80s. I have a memory or implied memory that that jukebox is where I first heard Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Maybe it was the first time I PLAYED it on the jukebox? The old 2 for a quarter jukebox!

   Behind that is Decorator’s Warehouse but back then in was Edison’s which morphed into Service Merchandise. That was the store I chose the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls and the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full Of Blues over Kiss’ Hotter Than Hell.

   A little down Park Springs was the complex where Henry and Ed had units just across from each other, the scene of one hilarious night of intoxication with [not named to protect the guilty but if you think you know you’re probably right] trying to sneak into Ed’s ground level window and ending up trapped behind his couch. Also, another complex where one of the fellow Dominos drivers lived and at where much youthful debauchery ensued. A little down the way on the north side one of my fellow Sound Warehouse workers lived in a duplex.

   The aforementioned friend was in town this week for their annual Christmas trip and we met down at Gina’s Pizza in Burleson. [AND we ran into two old classmates with their son and one of his friends.] Gina’s used to have a very faded paper map circa 1983 of Burleson with some of the businesses that were around then. They had it painted on the wall after the remodeling / updating done a couple of years back. That list is a time warp for those who have been going to Gina’s all these years but probably more so to people who were in high school or junior high around this time. Looking at places that are no longer standing like the Dairy Twin, Safeway and the Wilshire Theater. The places that are now something else: Buddies / Winn  Dixie, Eckerd Drugs, the Hallmark store, another Pizza Hut, the Taco Bell, the bowling alley, the Bonanza… and yet McDonald’s is still at the same place [with addition]. Gina’s is still here [sorta]. The Dairy Queen.

   I mean we are talking about 40 years. There are going to be changes. Some things are noticed and some not so much, depending on what you know about what was once there and what you’re looking for. Arlington and Burleson have grown a lot and changed a lot in that time.

   And then some things change very little. I’m still driving around listening to the same 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s music I have always preferred even though it’s on CD instead of the radio or cassette. I have my grey now and I’m double my size but I’m still me, the same way those Arlington and Burleson have changed and not changed.

  

   Happy New Year!

 

Aging out of the Demographic

   Running some errands on my last few days off for 2025. I wrapped up 2 of the remakes of my FM Flashback series so I was tired of having those songs in the vehicle and all of my CD cases are in the house for [yet another] shifting of cases. This puts me in the awkward position of having to deal with Terrestrial Radio.

   Even for a few short hops, this prospect depresses me.

   Dallas radio has shifted something terrible this year. JACK FM, one of those corporate sorts of anti-playlists /“we play what we want” stations has shifted into a new demographic that I do not understand. The local “Pop Oldies” station KLUV transitioned to something called The SPOT, another corporate sort of anti-playlists /“we play what we want” stations with the same demographic competing with JACK. Neither of which appeal to me. Yes, KLUV seemed to be playing Michael Jackson every time I switched to them but that was better than whatever they are playing now, which seems to be aimed at the 25-45 demographic [i.e. Gen-Y / Millennials] of which I am not a part of nor do I appreciate any of that music.

   Since I do not follow new music or really any music after the millennial change, I seem to connect with the local public radio music station KXT about half the time. Have I heard some interesting things made in the 2000s there? Yes. Have I take a deep dive into any of it? Not really.

   This leaves 2 sports talk and the local Classic Rock station, KZPS. Sports talk isn’t really about sports most of the time. When they do manage to be talk about sports, can be very hit or miss. I do not follow basketball, they do not very often talk about hockey even when the Dallas Stars are winning, and I have no desire to hear what the Cowboys are thinking at any particular moment.

   That leaves KZPS. And their demographic is in transition as well.

   I can say it until I am blue in the face: “You can play Candlebox, Three Doors Down, Nickelback or Staind on a Classic Rock station but that doesn’t make them Classic Rock.”

   But today, I realized it doesn’t matter – I don’t matter to those stations anymore. I’ve aged out of their demographic. And it’s a little bit of a shock but then again, it’s inevitable.

   I remember back when I was in high school – yes, I actually do have memories that far back, thank you. They are very clear to me because I was exploring the earlier era of rock and roll at the time. diving deep into the 1960s and 1970s roots of the current bands. I was learning about the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Beatles, CCR, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, the Who and Led Zeppelin and still absorbing the current things hitting AOR, Top 40 and MTV. At this time, KLUV was heavily skewed towards the baby boomers – late 50s and early 1960s rock and roll but not really playing a  whole lot of Motown / soul. It didn’t strike me much at the time but I later realized that they skewed VERY, VERY Caucasian. There was also an AM radio station KRQX that was leaning into the late 60s, early 70s “Psychedelic/ Early FM” era radio KRQX  was a failed experiment and only lasted a year or two. KLUV on the FM band gradually shifted from the early era to more Beatles era [1964 – 1970] and Motown and Stax began appearing with a little more frequency. Eventually that shifted into the 70s and then about 2015 they shifted into the1980s aka, my high school years. That’s disturbing realizing that your music is “Oldie Goldies.” My music in 2015 was akin to the Big Band and pre-rock & roll schmaltz that my grandparents grew up with. Yikes.

   Fortunately, I do not have to deal with this most of the time. I do not have to commute anymore. I am not in my car 60 -75 minutes a day at peak listening times. Perhaps their playlists are more geared toward my age group during those morning and afternoon drives but how would I know?

   And it really doesn’t matter. I have aged out of the prized 25 – 45 demographics. Not that I needed the reminder that I am not young or hip anymore - as if I ever was but you get my meaning.

   It’s like watching PBS at fund raising time – the programs are heavily geared towards the aging Baby Boomers who are likely to be watching PBS because there’s nothing else on that’s interesting. Or because they’d rather give their money to PBS than obnoxious children in an inheritance.

   Have you looked at how many record companies are emptying their vaults with super deluxe sets and old live recordings, trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the baby boomers still interested in filling out their catalog of 70s Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and Bruce Springsteen shows. Yes, such things were taped [i.e. paid for] a long time ago, all they need is mixing and mastering. And the Beatles? Why does the world need to hear take 26 of an obscure album track that has two words changed and if you listen very closely you hear their roadie sneeze in the background? And remixing the Beatles [and those terrible 40^th anniversary mixes of the Doors that I heard from Tracey’s collection]? Sacrilege. Blasphemy. Stop it.

  I know I am stuck in a metaphorical music time capsule. I have a great nostalgia for a golden era of AM and FM radio that probably never really existed except in my head. My CDs are just an attempt to recreate that and fulfil my long-time desire to be a disc jockey. If nothing else, I am the DJ of my car stereo which is about as good as it gets.

   And this? This is just me being the cranky old man that I have been for a long time. “Hey you kids, get out of my yard! Slow down! And your music sucks!”

 Random Record Revisited

Let the Music Do the Talking [1980] - Joe Perry Project

 

   After revisiting Ace Frehley’s first solo album in the wake of his passing. Ace’s was surprisingly the best of the 1978 Kiss solo albums, although there are a couple of “meh” tunes on the B-side. Still a solid 4 star record. But I was still in the mind to listen to some guitar centric rock. The last couple of tunes from this album had been perking in the ol’ earworm today anyway, so I loaded her up.

   As a little back story, when we opened the first Sound Warehouse in Arlington in 1986  [the Collins Street store – it was a couple of long blocks north of Division Street – currently the location is some of the parking lot where the Cowboys “stayjum” now stands], we had a “midline” sale from Colombia records. “Midline” catalog titles were records who’s price had dropped from the top tier [$ 8.99 at the time] down to like $ 5.99. I think we had them on sale for like $4.99 or 3 for $12.00 because I remember I had to buy in sets of 3. I raided this probably the first or second day we were open and grabbed two handfuls of titles. I am sure I had 3 Bob Dylan records including Blood On the Tracks and Shot Of Love, maybe even Infidels] and Debbee the Thrash Weasel and I grabbed the two copies the CBS Joe Perry Project albums. I would apologize to the patrons who missed these records but “you snooze, you lose.”

   Now the folks had Aerosmith’s Toys In the Attic on 8 track as part of their original Columbia House 8 for a penny deal back in 1976. This is the same deal that brought Earth, Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, Bachman Turner Overdrive and the Steve Miller Band into my life. I had rediscovered Aerosmith in 1982 or 1983 [the eponymous debut and Get Your Wings were bought at another midline sale at the Camp Bowie Sound Warehouse] and I had already seen the reformed [but not yet sober] band twice. So of course I HAD to jump on those Joe Perry Project albums.

   I will say off the top that I find 1981’s I’ve Got The Rock ‘N’ Rolls Again a slightly better and definitely heavier record. The addition of Charlie Farren on co-lead vocals and rhythm guitar solidifies the sound more in vein the Aerosmith. But Let The Music Do the Talking is still a solid rock album. Perry is backed on this record by bassist David Hull, drummer Ronnie Stewart and vocalist Ralph Mormon. Mormon would be fired near the end of the Project’s first tour for problems with his drinking and especially missing shows. How fucked up do you have to be to be fired by one of the “Toxic Twins”?

   The album kicks off with the title track. Aerosmith would later recut this song for their album Done With Mirrors with lyrics re-written by Steven Tyler. Had this song been put on Aerosmith’s Night In the Ruts it would have improved that album from “good, not great” to “pretty damn good,” but alas Perry took it with him. This cut still features the great slide riff and solo that fuels both versions. Perry’s first vocal track is next, Conflict Of Interest. As a singer, Perry is definitely in the Keith Richards zone – good to give the lead singer a break for a couple for a couple of songs but not sure a whole album of their vocals is a great idea. [But I do love Keith’s first couple of solo records.] With 6 of the 9 songs credited to Perry alone, it’s clear that maybe lyrics are not a strong suit either. But what Perry lacks in vocal abilities are definitely made up for by the fire in his guitar playing as this riff is another boiler that cooks along nicely. Discount Dogs and Shooting Star are two more tracks where the music / guitar work is much stronger than the vocals. Not that Mormon is a bad singer but the band behind him is that locked in. They are just smoking. The side ends with the very short instrumental Break Song which is padding to fill out the side but again has some very fiery work from Perry.

   I feel that side 2 is the stronger side of this album. It kicks off with the extended Rockin’ Train, co written with Mormon. This feels like it reached back to Perry’s roots, a funky rocker along the lines of the Jeff Beck Group’s Rough And Ready album with Bob Tench on vocals. It is followed by the brooding The Mist Is Rising. While not as hot or heavy as much as the album, Perry’s layers of guitars moan and growl with different textures [a lot of backwards guitar courtesy of producer Jack Douglas’ learning the technique form John Lennon] rising up and then sink back into a swampy miasma. Ready On the Firing Line follows, another funky rocker with Hull providing some nice work under Perry on this one. And the album closes with a blast of rock on Life At A Glance.

   This record might have been important to Joe Perry in determining that he wasn’t [necessarily] the problem in Aerosmith, that he could still play and play with fire and passion. The album sold a respectable 250,000 copies upon its release, reaching # 47 on the albums chart but the management company [Leber-Krebs who were also still managing the stumbling Aerosmith] admitted that they had not given it marketing support hoping to get Perry back into Aerosmith. If it had been a bigger hit, who knows what would have happened. On the other hand, Joe’s drug problem would continue to drag him down and CBS would drop the Project. A completely new band would do one very mediocre album for MCA records in 1983 that sank like a stone. That would lead to Joe Perry switching to Tim Collins as his manager, Collins getting Perry and Tyler back together which led to…

 

   The day it was announced that Jimmy Kimmell Live! was being suspended over the Charlie Kirk controversy, it was announced that John Stewart was hosting The Daily Show that evening. It was a Wednesday, so this was very, very unusual. I like John Stewart a lot and I was sure he was going to have a lot to say about this knee jerk over-reaction by Disney / ABC. And The Administration and their minions. And he did.

   But that evening he had a guest on the show who made an even bigger impression. I don’t know if she had already been boked or if she was brought in last minute but what she said stopped me in my tracks and I ordered her book on Amazon IMMEDIATELY [i.e. before it could be banned].

   The guest was Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, a journalist from the Philippines and her book is How To Stand Up To A Dictator [Harper Books, 2022].

   Very Long Story summed up: In 2016 the Philippines elected Rodrigo Duterte, a President who turned out to have autocratic [autocracy (per Oxford Languages): a system of government by one person with absolute power; A country, state, or society governed by one person with absolute power; domineering rule or control] ambitions.

  Maria Ressa worked for the Philippine government station PTV4,CNN  and Philippine TV’s ABS-CBN before founding the digital news site Rappler in 2012. Over several years Rappler researched and published articles on how Duterte’s campaign used social media to spread disinformation. And Facebook’s complicity [by choice or merely by inaction] in bringing autocrats to positions of power and influence. It’s a fascinating [though at times overwhelming with minutiae] story.

   I was shocked and dismayed by what I read. I could so clearly read the parallels. Like Duterte’s first “justification” for his crackdown and use of troops was the spread of drugs and murder and general mayhem and violence. It’s the story of the near death of democracy by a thousand cuts, the weaponization of law and the calls to shut down media institutions critical of The Administration.

   It’s The Playbook that The Administration took to heart and is running right now. It’s scary because it is real. It’s not happening somewhere else – it’s HERE. In the United States Of America. I know The States don’t seem very united right now, but that’s by design.

   We’re in a dangerous place where the civil rights of ALL Americans are on the line. We have all ready seen how The Administration and The Party have been working on diminishing the ability of people to vote by stoking the fear that non-citizens are swaying elections even though there is absolutely zero proof of that ever occurring. It’s just “coincidence” that the people impacted most by this are the people more likely to vote against the ideals and goals of  The Administration and The Party.

   The Administration and The Party have also taken the unusual step of redrawing their Congressional districts in the middle of the decade. The Administration begged Texas and Missouri and other “Red States” to do this in order to [hopefully] solidify a slim and shaky majority in the House of Representatives. And by golly, some of them did. They drew lines to break up areas where The Opposition has [had] seats and made them highly unlikely to be able to hold onto the new districts. They  Party is well aware that they won Congress on the coat tails of a fear monger populist against an unprepared and weak candidate in 2024, but they want to claim a “Mandate from The People,” when in fact The People seem unsure of anything political.

   Is it legal? Maybe. Are there lawsuits? Hell yes. Are there going to be more lawsuits? Most definitely. Is it moral? Absolutely not. But The Party is counting on The Judiciary to remain an active judiciary only this time in THEIR favor.

   It’s an utterly naked power grab by people who do not care about representing and governing; they only care about gaining and holding power.

   The framers of the Constitution that they claim to hold so dear are surely spinning in their graves.

   This is true disenfranchisement. They’re disempowering voters and the voters themselves are left in a lurch. In order to win back power they have to elect new representation but the lines have clearly been drawn to make that very, very hard.

   Democracy IS fragile and that is CAN be bled away from us by a thousand tiny cuts. It’s happened many times. The Philippines are a case study – they have been led by many tin pots [mostly backed by the military] since the 60s. It’s all laid out in Maria’s book. On pages 220-221, Maria reprints part of a 2019 letter from her dying friend Muriel ’Twink’ Macaraig.  See if this sounds familiar.

 

   “Duterte has enfeebled our institutions by populating them with minions who share his low regard for human rights, due process and what words really mean. These institutions that form parts of our nation’s immune system should have ensured that our freedoms were protected. Instead, they’re party to repressing dissent, demonizing the opposition and preventing scrutiny by a critical press. The Constitution, the last bastion of our democracy, and also a key component of the collective immune system, is in the process of being dismantled. When thet goes, all protection, all of the freedoms it guarantees goes too.

   “So where is the outrage? Where is the resistance?”

  

Maria put it the danger into perspective very well herself [page 260]:

 

   “We elected incompetent populists who stoked our fears, dividing us and turning us against one another, fueling and feeding off our fear, anger and hate. THEY [my emphasis] appointed officials like themselves; their goal was not good governance but POWER [my emphasis].”

   “Technology didn’t do this all alone; it was the accelerant to set fire to the kindling built up by decades of liberal progress. …The more progressive we became – women’s rights, gay marriage, pluralistic societies – the stronger the nostalgia for a simplicity that never really existed became.”

 

   Democracy IS fragile and that is CAN be bled away from us by a thousand tiny cuts. It’s happened many times. The Philippines are a case study – they have been led by many tin pots [mostly backed by the military] since the 60s. It’s all laid out in Maria’s book.

   So what’s the response here? Well, we have to remain vigilant. We have to speak up and fight like hell to hold onto our rights and hold the line of fascists and tyrants on all levels. We have to embrace old values such as honesty, vulnerability, empathy. We have to embrace our fear and believe in the good.

   But I take a small  grain of comfort in the words of Colleen Cornelio quoted on page 246:

   ““As long as there are good people, there is hope,” Coleen had said. “Those in power, they won’t be in power forever. And whatever wrong the do, it will come back to them.””

   Amen.

 

   As far as the Kimmell “controversy” itself, I am reminded that before anything was known about the person who planted the bomb at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, the public went nuts blaming Muslims and Arabs and getting ready to bomb the Middle East into the stone age. Then we found out it was a couple disgruntled Caucasians from right here in the USA who met in the Army.

   Charlie Kirk was probably still on a table in the hospital and his killer had not even been identified and his motivations a complete mystery when The President called for action against “radical leftists” as opposed to saying “Let’s let the police and FBI do their jobs right now and let us pray for the family of Charlie Kirk.” By pointing out that The Administration had been using the assassination to score political points with their own base [Kimmell called them “the MAGA Gang”] was not incorrect. The powers also overlooked Kimmell’s comments of September 11 stating “"His death has amplified our anger, our differences, and I've seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won't ever understand."

   I am not a fan of Jimmy Kimmell. I don’t care for him and I rarely flip to his show. BUT. It is well known that The President does not like to be questioned or lampooned, which is a pretty hard to understand when you are your own publicity machine and want to be the center of attention at all times. And any and all public figures are fair game for satire. It is a form of free speech. And I do believe in free speech.

   Was I going to cancel my Hulu / Disney / ESPN package over Jimmy Kimmell? The thought never occurred to me. But the fact that people who were upset with their discussion to suspend Kimmell’s show indefinitely [it turned out to be a week] took their discourse to the source and hit them right in the wallet [where it hurt them the most] is the most encouraging thing I have seen in a long time.

   I must say I have been on the sidelines of this whole thing for a long, long time. I did consider going to a “No More Kings” rally in Fort Worth or Burleson since I am totally disgusted by the politics in Tarrant County, the state of Texas and in the White House. But I guess I wasn’t disgusted enough. I thought that my vote was the best way to let my voice be heard. But after reading Maria’s book and seeing the path that was blazed in the Philippines and the playbook that was created being followed here in the USA today, I guess I am going to have to stand up and say something and “stop the new steal” for real.

 

  And as s a follow up [since Maria’s book was published in 2022], on March 11, 2025 Rodrigo Duterte was arrested for Crimes Against Humanity [to wit, murder, torture and rape]. On September 22, 2025 Duterte was indicted for involvement in 76 murders between 2013 and 2018.  

 

   In my mind, I should be in a rented car rolling through the thick but manageable summer air in Beaver County.

   Rocking some shorts and a nice Polo style, shoes and socks flung across to the passenger floorboards as soon as my suitcase was stowed in the back seat. Good Lord, I hate having to wear shoes! Out of the airport and rolling down 376 towards Center, Aliquippa, Monaca, Beaver, Chippewa and more points north northeast. Down this four lane monstrosity crossed by other roads that seem to branch off like the veins of a leaf or on the back of my hand, the roads that feed to homes and businesses and shopping centers.

   Across the Mighty Ohio at Vanport and then off this major artery onto one of those smaller ones and into Beaver. Two lanes and some change feeding between houses, row houses, businesses and churches, a cemetery, a park and even the county courthouse. Past one location of the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe – yes of course we’ll make it to one of these locations and the Housing Authority offices where several of my relations worked at or were based out of. Past Kretchmar’s magical bakery - I’m sure someone thought to get some maple rolls and cinnamon bread for my visit! Down from Beaver, briefly into Bridgeport and across the Beaver and then the climb through Rochester. Through the roundabout, up to the four way stop, the red light at Sheetz – left up the hill, across the Deer Lane Extension, past the school and Shewak’s and the new St. Cecelia’s. Bear right up the hill twisting past houses built almost right against the road or with driveways that fly up at impossible angles that must be hellish in winters. Past Sylvania Hills cemetery and mausoleums where a few of my own are laid to rest – Grandma and Grandpap Sheets and aunt Barb resting in peace. Around the curve where Marion Hill Road comes up from New Brighton, past Bachman’s Garage, signal for the left I’m going to take in the middle of the next curve…

   And then we’re on dirt. Officially it’s 911 address is Schoolhouse Road but to most everyone in our family it’s just “The Lane.” Second house on the right. Unique but unremarkable white block house with some white siding, one car garage and a couple of car ports. But this is “home.” This is my Uncle Richard’s home or “Dickie’s house” now that my grandparents have passed but it is still referred to as “mum’s” or “Grandma’s House.” This is the place a good deal of my Pennsylvania memories have been made.

   This is the place I’ve enjoyed walking in dew covered grass that hides no little sticker burrs that dotted out yards in Texas. This is where I’ve sat on the swing and enjoyed my coffee smelling the grass and clover and listening to the cars and trucks passing on the Route I came in on. This is the place where me and my many cousins chased and captured lightning bugs and played croquet and freeze tag. This is the place I’d hear my Grandfather whistling as he puttered in the workshop or coming up the stairs from the garden. This is the place I’d play dice baseball on the desk in dining room while Grandma whipped up supper in the kitchen. It was here I’d hit and toss the whiffle ball in the back yard pretending the Pittsburgh Pirates once again defeated the hated Reds of Cincinnati.

   I have already written at much length about the kitchen table in this place.

   This is the place I would pop in every couple of years and see my grandparents slowly age, one visit to the next. Noticing a hand shaking lifting a cup of coffee, a little less spring in the step, a body a little more bent. As I noticed it became more important to pay attention and to ask questions. And I tried and I learned and locked some things into memory. And they watched me grow – tempestuous child into bored teen into a grown man [in my own mind] and into a mature person.

   In his famous speech in Field Of Dreams James Earl Jones’ Terrance Mann speaks of a place where it’s as if they’ve “dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.” That’s how this place feels to me. Just standing in the drive, looking up I can feel days and nights many decades gone so many times returning to this safe haven. Standing in the kitchen I hear the voices and the laughter of so many loved ones. Standing in that yard I feel the worries of the world being drained from me and the energy and peace of my youth flowing back into me. Truly this is the one place I can totally relax and totally recharge myself. A few days here and I am good again for another year, even with the whipping that modern travel has become.

   In my mind, I have pulled into the drive…

    I hate writing about this stuff but I have to clear my head.

   A friend of mine – or maybe a former friend – parroted [copied / reposted because like so many people today they don’t have original thoughts] a couple of things on The Facebook that disturbed me.

   I will preface this by saying that I was associated with a group that would meet once a month or every six weeks for two or three of years – until the Covid pandemic hit and we were all locked in our own little universes. Since then due to some health issues with various people that were the primary hosts, the group has basically splintered and disintegrated. In a way I breathe a sigh or relief that there was no knock down, drag out over politics.. There was no “Fuck you!”, “No FUCK YOU!!!” screaming match. [Which unfortunately also mean no tearing of shirts off and women wrestling in their bras cat fight either.]

   Now this member always our ultra-conservative in the group which balanced out one full time ultra progressive liberal [with one liberal who was a non-regular attending member]. I am sure there were some spirited yet civil discussions as the more moderate persons kept the balance.

   As a bit of insight, I was a Republican [a moderate conservative but still] for many years but as the evangelicals became increasingly prevalent and the party shifted harder to the right [about 2004] I became less of a Republican and more of a Libertarian. I’m pretty sure I DID vote Libertarian ion 2008. In 2016 I voted for Trump over Hillary. I did not want share her vision of America. In 2020 I voted against Trump specifically on his personality. He did not present himself as a proper person for the office of the President. Corporate CEO, maybe [although his record of bankruptcy says maybe not], President of the United States, no. I saw 2024 as another referendum on Trump again and voted against him. [Which will probably get an FBI file opened on me since I am saying it out loud.] I don’t think he understands regular Americans and I know he doesn’t understand politics but somehow he rallied a populist vote promising stop the inflow and then get rid of the brown people coming to America despite America “not being great” [since we need to make her great again, which Trump failed to do in his first term]. He also told the world that he was going to go after his political enemies. That meant basically anyone who stood up and said he was a crook, a serial rapist and the world’s biggest narcissist crybaby with a martyr complex and that there was no fraud in the 2020 election and he lost fair and square. In retrospect, I kind of wish he had won in 2020 so we would be done with his shenanigans and he could fade into the sunset.

   Anyway, the post in question had [surprise] an aging white male opining that the Left and Muslims were moving to Texas to change voting patterns to turn Texas Democratic and that once that happened “that would be the end of America.” To which someone added “ [There is a] Global Marxist / Communist [plot] using Muslims as pawns to overthrow the governments of the world.” In researching, I believe that this is from a group called that Faith And Freedom Coalition, a conservative advocacy group linking the Tea Party movement to evangelical voters.

   I sighed when I read the headline and the added comment. I should be used to this by now having lived in Texas for fifty years but sometimes the level of ideocracy just gets to me.

   I asked if this person truly believed that. I pointed out that the persons coming to Texas must be coming to fill all of those great job opportunities that the Guv and the legislature has brought in and to fill the jobs that the brown people being shipped back to their points of origin. I pointed out that in order to turn Texas Democratic [“Blue”], those people would have to take over a lot of very, very rural areas that were very consistently Republican [unlikely because that is not where jobs or homes are] and asked why the current group of conservatives is so afraid of dissent or opposing viewpoints. I also reminded them that Texas had been a fairly Democratic state up until the 1984 election. [Democrats continued holding a lot of the state offices until the early 1990s.]

   The answers were pretty party line: “Muslims [the next non-whites to be targeted by The Administration, mark my words.] are here to destroy America, they’re screaming it all the time.” Trump won in a landslide so the people must not have liked the Democrats.” And “I Stand with Israel” – which no one asked about but I am sure links to Muslims wanting to take over the world. Starting by turning Texas back Democratic.

   I sighed again. And “unfollowed.”

   I don’t want to give D.J.T. or his falling all over themselves fawning followers any more foothold in my brain than I have to. I am not going to argue with people who are not open to discussion. I am not about to try to convince someone who has chosen their version of “truth” and “reality” that they may not be seeing The Whole Picture or A Realistic Picture.

   The fact is that the internet has made it so much easier for people to slip down rabbit holes and find these extremist views that resonate with them and then parrot them right back out on social media. And social media given each and every one of them a megaphone to announce what they have found, what new “truth” they have been enlightened to. And when we were stuck inside for most of 2020, it gave a lot of people time to fall down a lot of rabbit holes.

   I recently told someone that the only thing that Trump say that connects with people is
“I believe the same conspiracy theories you do.”

 

    This bunch scares me.

 

   They’re taking their cues from someone who is clearly unstable and obsessed only with power and revenge. And making deals. Not deals that are rally going to help Americans mind you but to say “I made a deal. I did this. I did it. Me. Don’t you love me for it?”

   Sadly, Trump’s obsession with money has him trying to run America like a business and make deals with the world and increase revenue in any way except, you know, allowing his Billionaire Buddy Club to cough up a few more dollars a year in taxes. This now includes trying to whitewash history, roll back progressive hiring and college admission practices and legislating any discussion of gender [as opposed to sex] out of existence. And kill public radio and television. And levy huge “fines” against colleges for Anti-Semitism for “allowing” Anti-Israeli demonstrations on campus.

   And now they want to try and re-run the census. But not count anyone here illegally. Despite the fact that the census is Constitutionally mandated to run every ten years. And that the census is to count all persons dwelling in the United States, including citizens, non-citizen legal residents, non-citizen long-term visitors and undocumented immigrants.

  

   This bunch scares me. The fact that 77 million people thought that this person was the best person to run the country saddens me.

   The Boomers have been allowed to hold on to power for far too long. 70- and 80-year-olds rarely bring fresh thinking and new ideas to the table. But who wants to be a Senator or Congressman now? I don’t blame my fellow Gen Xers for saying “no, thanks.” And realistically, our time is coming soon, too.

 

   This is the strangest point in my life and maybe in American history. I can’t believe the thigs that are happening and yet, these are a lot of things I thought would happen in Donald Trump was re-elected.

     I hope that when historians are looking back at the start of the next century that this will just be an era of one-man throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. I hope that the next elections begin the return the nation back toward moderation and politics back toward a more civil discourse. Yes, I might as well hope that Santa Claus brings me Elizabeth Perkins for Christmas but a man can still hope in America. For the time being.