Soupkitchens for Everyone?

Apparently, Soup-lines have opened up, not just for the homeless and needy, but for people who can afford a phone.

Maybe this guy was just trying to get a free meal, and isn't really homeless, but at the sight of the First Lady, became overwhelmed with excitement and forgot about his 'homeless' gig.
The frustrating thing to try and wrap my mind around is that I pay my taxes so homeless people can eat. And of all people to plaster a smile on their face for a photo-op while working a Soup-kitchen, it's Michelle Obama. I know the lady is well-educated, but the lack of her irony detection is astounding.

Do they not have any kind of stipulations for entering a homeless shelter? Is there one in my neighborhood? I get hungry when I have no money, but I manage.


Boy this is maddening. You're welcome.

What has happened to Rock and Roll?

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Rock is Dead.

As much as it pains me to say, there is no such thing as rock and roll anymore.

Of the Top-10 radio stations in America, 3 are Classic Rock, 5 are talk/news radio, 1 is Top 40, and the other is Listener Formatted.

There is a good bit of information one can pull for this small-scale sampling:

-The Baby-Boom generation is alive and well in their 50's.
--They have maybe a handful of cd's, a vault of records in the attic and no clue how to work an MP3 player. Or a CD player for that matter. If you do, kudos. You're better off than my parents.
--The radio waves are dominated, still, by this generation. They experienced the rise of FM broadcasting and Album-Oriented Rock, and most still listen to AM radio.

-Gen Y, for the most part, doesn't care about the radio. They think AM radio is a static-filled emergency channel for governmental use.
--The majority have more cd's than they can count, and enough MP3's to make any member of the RIAA regurgitate their breakfast. It's been about me, I, and mine since the invention of the Walkman, and technology has held our hand the entire way. We want to listen to what we want to listen to when we want to listen to it.

But if you were to look at the Billboard Hot 100 you find contradictroy evidence.
1. Black Eyed Peas
2. Lady GaGa
3. Pitbull
4. Jeremih (that's not a typo. Jerem-ih, Jeremy?)
5. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain (of voice-modulation fame)
6. Beyonce
7. Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo
8. Kid Cudi (Cutie? Ah, how cute)
9. Sean Kingston
10. Lady GaGa

Now the Billboard Hot 100 compiles data from airplay, sales (digital and hard copies), ringtone sales and a handful of other things, BUT....
Who are these people? Beyonce is hot and talented, but....Will anybody remember these artists (cringe) 10 years from now? 5 years from now? TWO years???

Here's a look at the top selling albums of 1999;
1. Backstreet Boys - Millenium
2. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
3. Shania Twain - Come on Over
4. 'N'Sync - Self Titled
5. Ricky Martin - 'I'm a Douche' Vol. 1.

Now lets look at the top selling albums of 1969;
1. Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
2. Original Cast - Hair
3. Blood/Sweat/Tears - Blood, Sweat and Tears
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country
5. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

This is just a small sampling of the difference 30 years can make. Does anybody remember anything decent from the top list? Ok, Backstreet and Ricky Martin are gone for good, until VH1 does another friggin reality show. Shania Twain is semi-retired living happily in Canada with some very lucky person, and Justin Timberlake has actually done something with himself....No hate for JT.....but N'Sync is done, thank God.

And as for Britney.....well it's hard to say what happened to Britney. She definitely cracked under the pressure of the limelight (We're not in Kansas anymore!). She can sing, but she's no Christina. Britney exemplifies everything that is wrong with the music industry: It's always been about her image, not how well she can sing.

Now onto list 2. Most have no idea who Iron Butterfly is, but just creep down to #'s 4 & 5. Creedence Clearwater has nearly as many recognizable tunes as the Beatles. And Zeppelin is arguably one of the top 3 greatest rock bands of all-time. Point being; Your chances of hearing Zeppelin or Creedence on the radio today are much greater than hearing anything from List 1, and it's only been 10 years since they were on top of the music charts. It's been nearly 40 since Zeppelin 1 was the 5th best album of the year. Startling huh?

So what does all this mean?
We are all sliding down the wet slippery slope of music retardation. The good music that is out there won't ever escape the hometown bar, and nobody cares because its not good unless it can fit into any of these critera:
-Heard on any episode of of any show on MTV. (Just change it to 'TV' please)
-Showcased as the opening song for a prime-time soap opera like 'Grey's Anatomy'
-Seen as a text-for-free-download Ringtone on tv

Ahh, this topic is to heavy and I've gone on too long. Jet showed some promise, but I just can't explain it all. Here's to all the bands chugging away on the circuit, non-stop-touring, like all the big boys used to do. Cheers guys and girls.

Phish back on Tour

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DAMN I wish I could be there.



Let the video load, and if you haven't the time, skip forward to about 6'40" and listen to the escalation until 7'10": That is what we call Goose Bumps.

Leading causes of Goose Bumps are,
-Drop in room temperature
-Eerie revelations
-Scary movies
-Kickass music that moves you.

I mean, Where has all the music gone? Yeah I know a lot of people don't like Phish for their long, improvisational pieces, but damnit man! If you have a sound like that, you don't really need words.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible, is music."
-Aldous Huxley

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Face-crack

Let's just get this out of the way: I loathe Facebook.

In the words of the great Peter Griffin, it really grinds my gears.

In my words, it's a pack of crazed chiuahua's chasing each other around a chalkboard-laden room while Bob Dylan and John Popper play some gnarly harmonica.


We all know what it's "good" for. Keeping up with those of day's long gone, and posting and commenting and tagging and editing and quoting and playing trivia and sending friends drinks and stalking and annoying and, and, and, and....

It's fu#king intrusive.

Call me a hermit. A loner. A homebody. Whatever.

I don't give a sh!t about what someone I knew for a few weeks back in high school when my friend invited them to our lunch table because they also liked salads with a crap-ton of ranch dressing said about someone else whom I wouldn't mind seeing in person but otherwise don't give a flying flop about's friggin' plans for Friday night.

See my point?

Keeping up with friends is great, and we should all maintain some level of social-synchronization. It's definitely in the process of eliminating the need for class reunions. (Now, we can all catch up in our underwear, thank you Tim Brenners-Lee.) But there's a line, somewhere, in some kind of black,volcanic sand that stipulates the level of information I need, much less care to know about people I know, knew, or once shared a laugh with.

So I should just delete my account and withdraw from the black hole that has become of social-networking, right? Well I did once, only to be pestered by friends who could no longer tag me in our numerous photo-op's, galavanting the streets at night.

It can be useful, and it's nice to log-on and check up on an old friend you haven't seen in a while. I just don't care to know that they don't like their new tube of toothpaste.

AND STOP WITH ALL THESE DAMNED APPLICATIONS!!! AT LEAST MAKE THEM USEFUL!!!

I really think the Gov'ment is out to destroy us.

Why the hell is marijuana illegal?

I don't even smoke, but this is getting ridiculous. In a time where budget cuts across the entire scope of our government are needed, we somehow, regardless of how much proof science can provide that marijuana really is a "miracle drug", our government continues to spend billions upon billions of dollars fighting marijuana.































Wonder what the DEA thinks of this.

You mean to tell me that crime can actually decrease in this most uncivlized age??? HA HA.

First Rant

I saw a girl cry during a test yesterday as if she were trying to get out of a speeding ticket. Is it because she spent the previous three nights up all night studying to pass? I sure as hell didn't. I believe sleep is just as important as studying. But I didn't cry either.

I just don't know anymore. Our whole system is flawed.

An 11-yr old kid just graduated from college. His mother is Taiwanese and his father is Israeli. Granted it was an LA Community College, but hey, he's 11. He goes on to cite astrophysics as his passion and Einstein and Bruce Lee as his idols. I've taken English classes at a major university with 20 yr-olds who couldn't read their way out of a wet paper bag.

Maybe it was the Baby Boom.

History Lesson (annotated)
Fresh off of kickin' Hitler's ass and, well, *ahem*, (well you know about Japan), the soldiers who survived WWII returned home and began Operation Impregnation, back when a high-school diploma was worth a damn, and Kid Kreation was the cool thing to do. If you were a male with a high school diploma or GED, you could get a very good job just about anywhere, work 30 years and live off of Uncle Sam the rest of your days. The majority of women didn't even have to work, and if they did, they made decent money as a secretary or a teacher or a cashier.

-But now we have robots who manufacture everything. Who built the robots? Ha, not us. But if we did, it's only because they're cheaper and don't unionize. At least for now they don't.

-Now we have phones that can connect to the internet to order your groceries for you, based upon the prior input of your necessities and favorite delicacies, PLUS it will keep track of a schedule. Thanks Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China. (I don't care about Apple. I'm poor.)

-Then we had the feminist movement. (I'm not saying anything negative about women's rights; this is solely for the purpose of explaining how said movement attributed to us being so screwed right now.) 30-40 years ago, women stayed home! They had to! Google (v.) baby boomers if you still don't know what I mean about Operation Impregnation. Now that we have technology taking away our skilled jobs, and women (rightfully so) competing with men for all other jobs, no wonder our unemployment rates are through the roof! There's just too many people in the job market.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Point being, we got content, then passed by just about every country in just about every important category except for GDP and American spirit, and we're soon to be buried. No amount of legislation can fix decades of apathy towards education. And so long as technology keeps evolving, we'll be content sitting in front of our High-Def t.v.'s, listening to our iPod's while the world scoots by on a proverbial rocket of intelligence developed and manufactured by someone in east Asia.

I know we're a smart bunch. But we watch entirely too much t.v. We pay athletes a crap-ton of money for playing a game and reward our most (outta be) prized profession, Educator, with a measly $30,000/yr starting salary. I made that much before I was 21. The guy who created Facebook, well, screw him, but you get the picture.

(Note: I know there are alot of holes in this piece due to time constraints and eagerness to set up the actual blog.)