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Timothy S. McTaggart's Archived Blogs Apr-Jun 04

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Given that it has been nearly three weeks, I'm gonna see what's become 'bloggable' since my last entry. One item is that the local police chief race has finally come to a conclusion. The margin of victory was only 70 something votes. The campaign got quite ugly between the two folks involved in the runoff. During the conciliatory handshake offered to the victor by the opponent, the opponent was said to have stated "I guess your lies paid off". That's a hell of a way to start a new administration of a police department. I sure hope the rifts can be healed, since we don't need this. San Angelo's police department could stand some improvements. Being a musician who often heads home in the wee hours from a gig, I sometimes feel like I'm running the gauntlet around the plethora of cop cars out that time of night. I'm not sure what their priorities are either. But that's just a personal observation. I've only been pulled over a few times, once by an officer who after checking my inspection sticker up close and noting that it was actually current, walked off, muttering to himself about going color blind. Another time that I was pulled over was for speeding along a street near the ASU campus. About a year later, the speed limit on that street was changed to the speed I was pulled over for running. Wish that could have been retroactive regarding the ticket. But that's enough about cops, bambis, drunks, potholes, debris and other road hazzards for now. Our band did a gig at two places this last Thursday night. The first was during the gatherings for a retirement dinner for one of our commanders at the clinic. We then booked on to Graham Central Station for our appointed gig later that night. The gig could have been better attended, not to mention other things. Further discussion about that in a future blog. Regarding my last blog, the flags remain at half-staff. I'm not sure how long that continues in mourning the passing of a president. Next topic; once again I'm going like a cat on a ceiling fan at the office. It's kind of rough to keep up with a cohort on vacation. So I went in today (Sunday) for a few hours to get a beachhead on this coming week. Got a lot done today without the goddamn phone ringing and folks coming in with stuff. More later as the week progresses. Hasta la taco.

Last Saturday night, I was doing a DJ gig (the first in many years) since our band was unable to play for this function. At the top of the evening, came the news about the passing of one of our greater presidents. That explained the half staff flag at the headquarters building on base as I drove by. Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president I ever voted for, and this was when he ran for re-election. Maybe I was caught up in the moment of things, but this president was being good to the military, which I was in at the time. Reagan transcended so many barriers, not just the partisan ones of our government, but those which meant so much. I remember his speech in Berlin where he said: "Mr. Gorbachav, tear down this wall!" It will be a long time before anybody as legendary as "The Great Communicator" as he was known, occupies the office again of the most powerful person in the world. We are in sore need at this time. Our pride and confidence have taken a serious beating. This nation needs to have someone back in that office that will sort out the Iraqi mess, and restore our place of leadership in this world.

I don't think I've ever been as disgusted as I am now with our local politics and one of our TV stations. This was after seeing a picture of a fellow musician (also a bass player) displayed on the local news last night, with the blaring headline that this person was hauled in for a misdemeanor possession of pot (less than 2oz). This ran on both the 6 and 10 PM broadcasts of the KLST local news. Stuff like that only needs to be in the court records part of the newspaper. However the mitigating circumstance is that this person is also a schoolteacher. I substituted a couple times for a teacher and my big conclusion is that the profession is grossly underpaid. This person is known for being a very good teacher as well, so when the unfortunate incident happened, the school board folks were trying to keep things low key and let the matter blow over. A schools trustee had different ideas about this, and once he learned of this, he took the matter straight to the media, causing the present flurry. The newspaper had a story in the Thursday edition about this, and stated that it is a policy not to do stories on misdemeanor drug charges unless the person involved is a public figure. Too bad our other media outlets didn't exercise similar discretion. I'm not sure where else this may have aired on local news, but I was upset enough seeing a name and picture on KLST last night. I think someone from KLST and that schools trustee both need a dunking in one of the more brackish parts of the Concho River. So, instead of letting this teacher pay the odd fine, go and sin no more, someone has chosen to make an example and to ruin this teacher's career. That doesn't seem right in my book, and I'm hoping to get a few of us local musicians together to rally on this teacher's behalf.

Today is the 9 year anniversary of a crazy thunderstorm that came through here with 100 mph winds and baseball size hail, not to mention a couple of tornadoes. I remember that evening well, crouched in the bathroom with a VHF receiver, listening to the weather spotters relay information to the NWS. One of these poor spotters was trying to report the size of the hail, but could barely be heard over the noise of the stuff hitting his truck. When asked to say again, the guy keyed his mike and I heard a yell, barely audible over the din: "I said baseball size hail!!!" That was my preview of things to come. Within minutes very large and heavy sounding objects began pounding the roof, rattling the fixtures in the apartment. This increased to a monstrous roar of things hitting the roof, punctuated by impacts of larger things, still and the occasional crumbs falling off the ceiling. The power went off for a few seconds, and then came back on, this time flickering most notably. Other spotters and the NWS person were all reporting at least one tornado on the ground. At that time one of the spotters gave a play by play account of the front of his house coming off. Somehow this storm subsided after a fair eternity, and the sun even came out. Almost every north-facing window in the apartment complex was busted out (fortunately, I didn't have a north-facing window). I spent part of that evening helping others with damage control, putting plastic on windows. It was amazing all the damage around town, some of which is still visible nine years later. A popular night club on the main north-south drag had a big part of the facade torn off, and the sign out front said: "Please excuse our tornado. We'll be back."

Heads up. 100.9 hits the airwaves this evening for one of the occasional late night shows. Tune it in if you read this in time.

Just saw the hit counter on my web page is now at 900. Now if I can get Google to list the thing -it kinda managed to drop it again. A bit of sad news from late last week here. I read in the paper of the passing of a one each Harry Holt who was a local TV personality since my early childhood. The local NBC affiliate (which until recently was a repeater of the Abilene NBC station) had run Harry Holt's local segment at 25 past the hour during the Today Show in the mornings. I remember seeing that 5 minute report from Harry Holt during my elementary school days (it normally started with music from some Sousa march). That was normally while I was attempting to eat a bowl of cold cereal, sprinkled with generous amounts of wheat germ. Mr. Holt would report on the local weather and agricultural news and occasionally lament that soybeans had a hectic day (he must have owned futures in soybeans). It was quite a transition for me from the Today Show and Harry Holt, when we went overseas and listened to BBC in the morning, via a garbled Russian jammed short-wave radio to get the news. It was good to note that Harry Holt was still there when we got back from overseas, but as I moved out of the area, I went to CNN and other places. (Also interesting to note when I get up really early now, I listen to BBC on the local NPR affiliate, sans the short-wave interference.) Only a couple of years ago, I tuned in the Today Show again on the local NBC affiliate (when it was still relayed from Abilene) and noted that Harry Holt was still going strong at 25 past the hour. Harry Holt also had a weekly show on about agricultural news. That show was finally cancelled a few months ago. The local paper ran an article about the show being cancelled and Harry Holt's adverse reaction. I suspect that this had a lot to do with his opting to pass on. Well, Mr. Holt, here's to you, your incredible dedication, and your long broadcast career. I'm sure you'll be doing something similar in the afterlife. We'll stay tuned.

So once again I contemplate a new month here. How did it get to be May already? I'll probably ponder the same question when December gets here. But enough. The political crap continues with the Bush vs. Kerry campaign just beginning to heat up. Also, a most revolting thing to note this past week is how a few of our military (and contract) folks have treated some Iraqi prisoners (the details of which I won't mention here for the moment). And then there's the news today that the UN had tried to call this to our attention several months ago. How the hell can we expect to set an example of a better way to the folks from whose country we removed a dictator known for this and worse practices? For starts on damage control, I suggest that the persons responsible for this abuse be very publicly fried on both sides. I also suggest that the prison in Baghdad in which some of this abuse occurred, be torn down, as per an initiative proposed by some of our congressmen. That may start to make amends. That part of the world needs to be aware that much of the American public is also outraged. We are outraged not only with this, but we are also outraged with the heavy handed and cumbersome means by which the ideal plan meant to liberate this country was conducted. My fervent hope is that once we get Kerry in the White House, we can make an exit from Iraq, leaving in place a government that serves the people far better than the last one did. It also will take much work to get back on board with NATO and the UN. We have to win back that part of the world. This speaks similar for Afghanistan, a country I hope to revisit soon. Our efforts in Afghanistan were far better received, given the immediate post 9/11 aftermath, and a more intelligent population that had past acquaintance with democratic government. My hopes and prayers continue to that possibility. Before I wind up this blog, I must also mention a one each Don Dunagan, Ph.D. who spoke at the Tom Green County Democratic Committee meeting this last Monday night. Dr Dunagan laid down a very passionate speech, saying that we must get everyone out to vote in this presidential election, and that he feels that this is probably the most important presidential election since the early 30's. Dr Donagan's obvious motivation is to get the incumbent voted out of office. I will say that there are good reasons to remove president Bush, even if Dr Donagan didn't spend much time on the facts to back those reasons up. Donagan's sheer passion helped fire many of us up to get the public out there to vote, and to this end I must commend him. So folks, learn the issues yourselves and vote your conscience. Please E-mail if you have questions. What else can I ask for? See you all next blog.

Hookayyy... time for another periodical blog. Interesting topic I heard mention of on NPR was if you enter the word "Jew" in the Google search engine, the first return was an anti-Semitic web site. Thus began a movement to sign a petition to get Google to do something about that. This movement had it's own web site called removejewwatch.com for taking petition signatures. I checked that web site, and noted the large "WE WON!!" at the top. Seems they got the ISP who was hosting the anti-Semitic site, to can that site, since it was a violation of the ISP's terms of service. Good. Google still shows the offending site in search results, but has a disclaimer/note at the top of the page. The note describes how Google works as well, since it uses some algorithms based on web links. One recent stunt pulled by many anti-Bush web masters, took advantage of that. They put the term "miserable failure" on their web sites with a link pointing to the biography for our current president. This managed to stack the results from Google's web crawlings. So now if one asks Google to search for "miserable failure", the first return is the president's biography. Okay, I gotta get on this bandwagon to keep the search engine stacked, so click on this for the president's biography:miserable failure. However our fine president states that we're either with him or we're with the terrorists, so I guess this logic would put me with the terrorists. Well damn it, I'm slap out of high explosives and I only participated in two peace/protest rallies last year. I did live in Afghanistan a long time ago. But I'm getting behind on my flying lessons (should have done the check ride by now); not that a C172 would manage to take out much beyond an outhouse. So I'm probably stacking up as a "miserable failure" in the terrorist category. Think I'd better settle for voting for John Kerry this fall. Crap, is that Homeland Security knocking on my door? Better post this blog now and bail out through my back window. Later folks, after I have evaded or escaped, hopefully.

Happy Easter to all, and especially to those reading my odd blogs here. Please note that this blog may be a bit extended. The Lord blessed us with some rain this morning, so it was a good news and bad news situation regarding our attempts to put on a sunrise service. This was the sunrise service that the Businessmen's Bible Class (BMBC) puts on every year. I went out there Saturday to help set up for my usual job of running sound. This year, out of concerns for the weather, we put the mixer and amps inside a trailer right next to the stage. The bigger part of the stage consisted of a flatbed gooseneck trailer -very west Texan if you ask me. I then sat up for part of the night before, watching this approaching rain on the radar. Finally said the heck with it, went to bed and attempted to sleep (MGB was supposed to play last night too at Kimbo's, but that was mercifully cancelled -read on for more about that). Sure enough, it was raining when I ventured out early this morning for this endeavor. I figured from the radar that the rain would be past us by the time we were to start the service. I arrived on-site with the rain still falling, and observed TV crew trying to set up cameras in this mess. I started putting floor monitors inside plastic lawn-leaf bags before I put them on a very wet stage, and proceeded to get the rest of sound related things ready. I got the board and amps powered up within the semi dry enclosure of the trailer. True to my calculations, the rain stopped about 40 minutes before the time we were to start, but things were wet, soggy, and our fearless leader had by then opted to cancel. We sat around for awhile, I retrieved most of my stuff and then split. After I got home, I observed more rain coming this way on the radar. Sure enough it started sprinkling pretty good, and this was happening before the time we would have completed the sunrise service. Good call for the most part to cancel. The Bard said that discretion is the better part of valor. Now on to another topic, but with the discretion held in mind. We (MGB) did play at Kimbo's Saloon Friday night, to a moderate crowd. The folks seemed to like us, but I didn't think we were quite up to where we needed to be for several songs we were putting forth in front of people. My ears are still ringing from a couple of things that got a tad loud as well (shouldn't put one of the mains right behind me, ouch!!.. but it did help with running the mixer -a job I resumed for this gig). So, Mrs. Kimbo, the manager of the place made the observation that she'd forgotten that this was Easter weekend, where there would be minimal crowd on Saturday night. We were therefore notified that we didn't need to play the second night of this double header gig. Not sure what that meant, but Kimbo did tell me that she wants to book us again. Didn't hurt my feelings since I had the Easter sunrise thing. Will see if she really wants to book us again or not. What a character, though. She's a motorcycle girl, like the alter ego out of the 'Rose is Rose' comic strip. Any wardrobe things she does are not malfunctions, either, as the band will probably testify. No wonder we messed up the third set. Time to fall back and regroup regarding band matters. We are going to be in the search for a lead singer soon too, as ours will be leaving soon. On to another topic; had I known the Saturday gig and Sunday sunrise service were cancelled, a road trip could have been in order, but we all know how hindsight works. To further compound matters, I've had some stomach crud hit me this afternoon. Had to forgo lunch and evening plans. Now that it's late, I seem to be feeling better. Murphy's law. But so was much of this weekend. I am taking Monday off, with plans to do stuff at the house in Menard and then visit the parents. More later. Stay tuned.

Rather than cleaning up this heap of paper on my desk, I have opted to write a blog this evening. I did spend the day cleaning up some things in this pad. This was only to the degree of which a person cleans up a place prior to the arrival of someone they've hired to do the actual cleaning. No such person hired here though, so this is as good as it gets for awhile. It would take better than a week to get this place actually cleaned up. Now to see if I can find anything. I do have the big waste can strategically positioned for when I get started on cleaning up the desk. Okay what the heck was I going to write about anyway aside from the cleaning attempts. I am still threatening to take a leaf blower to this desk. As I said in my last blog, MGB plays a double header on Friday and Saturday nights next weekend at the uncertain place of Kimbo's Saloon. See ya there if you're reading this. Okay, still trying to remember what else I was going to put in this blog. Must be old age already. I thought March was over, but there was still a basketball game on when I turned the TV on to watch the local news tonight. Ah well. On to another topic now... I re-activated my cell phone last week with a new phone number. It's only a digit off from the land line. See the home page for the new cell number. I don't know if my cell provider finally quit running the obnoxious ad that provoked my turning the cell phone off. That's because I haven't listened to the radio station that aired the thing much since. Hurray for satellite radio!! Kim Tumlinson with my cell provider is due credit for replying to my E-mail in which I conveyed my distress. Since she managed to save my business, it's now up to the provider to not lose it again. Dang it, the time change is tonight. Think I'd better call it a night. Later, folks!!!

April Fool's day is decided reason to post a blog. You know, this could be frightening, but I have a year and a half's worth of blogs on the web page now. I wonder if this so called 'Jenny McTagarty' of Doonsbury fame is still somewhere out there in blog land, or have I outlasted her now? Leave it to me to exhaust a probable fad. Today has been the most docile April Fool's day in awhile. My standard April Fool's joke is to spread the word that there will be a Mickey Mouse hot air balloon flying over the place at a particular time. One year, at an unnamed past employer's office, I broadcast the message via computer that subject hot air balloon was overhead for all to see. I had people going outside to look for the thing! So I wished them all a happy April Fool's day joke in my next message. But I didn't do such a stunt this year. My obsession with a Mickey Mouse hot air balloon on April Fool's day comes from when one actually flew over my place of employ some 20 years ago. It was that one and several other weird hot air balloons, all in the April Fool's theme that overflew the place. That same evening, MTV repeatedly ran the video "Leave It" by Yes, in which everyone appears upside down. They played several versions of that video, all of which were upside down, and then began to run everything else upside down, to include all the commercials. During the breaks, Mark Goodman, an announcer (or VJ as they were called) told everyone to stay tuned for the new video by Yes, entitled "Leave It". On to other music matters now. We (MGB) rocked the Scrub Pub last Saturday, to a good-sized appreciative crowd. We even managed to pull off the Tom Sawyer song -I just hope there weren't any bass players out there. This was the first time I had a few butterflies about a gig in a long time (didn't even get them when I did the Wortham Blues gig with DCB in front of 3000 people some time back). The barkeeps at Scrub Pub even told me that they liked us, so we could even venture back into the place. In the meantime we're in some odd dive by the name of Kimbo's on 9-10 Apr (Friday and Saturday) for a double header show. I'm doing sound system for Easter sunrise service the following Sunday morning too, so this is a somewhat busy weekend. No gigs this coming weekend, but some other stuff in the mix. More gory details in a subsequent blog. Hasta la taco.

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