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Timothy S. McTaggart's Archived Blogs Jul-Sep 04

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Okay, another long blog here... EdRush (AKA MGB) managed to fool the population of another nightclub this last Friday night when we played part of a venue at The Oasis. With seven of us up on stage that night, things got a little cozy. The jazz numbers we'd practiced just the night before were somewhat dicey, but the crowd appreciated our enthusiastic efforts. Finally we moved into some more familiar blues territory and had the crowd quite well entertained, hopefully with the music. It was fun though, and I hope the crowd had as good a time as we had, playing for them. After we finished, The Austin TX based Alan Haynes took the stage with his three piece band (4 less than us) and proceeded to wow everyone with a great blues power trio. This next Saturday, we play at a blues competition billed as the Baa Baa Blues & Groovefest at the River Stage and then return to the Oasis that night to warm up for another headliner band. Crazy stuff, this musician habit I support with my real job. Well, here I go from the music on to politics, but I think of the late Johnny Cash song entitled 'The One on the Left is on the Right'. Never have I seen an election before where the population has become so polarized. Vietnam happened during my early days of youth, before I became politically conscious enough to appreciate (or dread) what was happening. There was a letter to the editor in yesterday's local paper, written by a fellow musician, which went far to sum up my feelings. Although I put a link to John Kerry's campaign web page at the top of my personal web page, I too, have some concerns about our Democratic Party candidate. He has been referred to as a 'jerk' from time to time. There are the odd things such as cussing about a secret service agent, there to protect his life, when they collided on the slopes during snowboarding endeavors last winter. There are allegations from Kerry's senatorial days, that he did things to provoke the ire of flight crews escorting him around. I'm not sure what kind of diplomat Kerry may be, but he could have stood some sensitivity training. But I think this 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' outfit that seeks only to discredit Kerry's military career, is crap! Kerry served honorably in a war that most folks in politics managed to dodge. But I also doubt the authenticity of the documents that CBS News surfaced regarding W's military career attempts in the National Guard. It wouldn't surprise me that a fortunate son would take such leave from his military obligations, but someone had to be really stupid (or working for the Republicans) to fabricate documents in an attempt to back this allegation up. What National Guard outfit in the early 1970's would have used (or even HAD) advanced typesetting capabilities for the mere use of memos and normal correspondence? I'd expect early 1970's correspondence to come from a standard typewriter -okay maybe an electric typewriter- but not with the same font and proportional spacing, such as what you are seeing in my blog. Whoever fabricated the documents wasn't old enough to know about things such as typewriters (I learned typing on an IBM Selectric). Or if that person knew, his/her intentions were definitely not for Kerry's sake. I think that one was a bait, and CBS News bit on it. Must be some sharp folks working for the government propaganda news channel, umm... Fox News I meant to say. Later chinks.....!!

Today I visited the 9/11 Memorial that was recently built here in San Angelo. The centerpiece of the memorial is a rough square of burnt 1/4-inch metal that was blowtorched from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Here it was, this third year anniversary, to the day, and I was standing alone at this memorial (I'm sure more people came by later) looking at this piece of metal. I am a believer in metaphysics and that matter will absorb (as in consciously witness) the things that have happened around it (you know the expression: "If these walls could talk..."). I have felt the impressions of occurrences left in matter before, but not like this. There was this feeling of -if I can use the obvious word- terrified screaming, probably left from when that building collapsed. That was probably the most helpless feeling I had, watching the first building collapse on CNN, long before the news commentators came to the conclusion that this was what happened. I wasn't sure I even wanted to touch that piece of metal. On that day three years ago, I figured that this was our generation's Pearl Harbor. That was another conclusion that the media came to, sometime later. With the perspective of this being three years ago, I wonder what we have actually done to effectively counter what led up to this horrible event in our history. I agreed with, and supported our invasion of Afghanistan to rid the Taliban, and for that, I think that country (that I spent a couple of years of my youthful military brat life in some 30 years ago) is grateful. However the 9/11 and WMD premise for the subsequent invasion of Iraq rang false with me. Sure, much of the population of Iraq was at least as happy to get rid of Hussien as were the Afghans to get rid of the Taliban. But now here we sit, trying to figure out how to get a democratic government in place in Iraq, a country that has never had one before, and all we have managed to do has been to alienate most of the population. We need to get out of Iraq, and return to our efforts in Afghanistan, where we're hopefully still appreciated. God rest all the people who have died in the attack and subsequent actions.

As the bills from the vacation begin to filter in, I am pondering the odd question: Does Kokopelli ever get a crick in his back? He seems to be piping in the rains here at home more than he was in the Four Corners area. Hence the need to get a lawn mowed this weekend once I get new parts installed on Jaws (that's my ancient very tough riding mower). That yard is just a bit big for the push mower, and my current physical conditioning. About the only thing keeping me in shape is hefting the band equipment around for practice and gigs. Living upstairs helps too. Who needs a Stairmaster when you can have a real stairway? Momentary digression here; I'm thinking of an old George Carlin routine performed on the Tonight Show. Mr. Carlin asks the crowd "Have you ever seen a moving staircase?" He then gets this aghast expression on his face and says "It's GONE!!!" Okay, next topic. Our band, EdRush (although I still also call it MGB) has a big gig for some firemen's convention on 2 Oct at ASU's Junell Center. It's only supposed to be for two hours. I've done firemen gigs with Old Hat Band in the past and they can get pretty crazy. So if they like us, I suspect we may be playing a bit longer than the two hours. Some turnover in the band has occurred too, but we have a month to get this one together. The Junell Center is a big venue. We may be rocking arenas yet. As I type this I'm listening to XM Radio's 80's channel, which was playing "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister. It'd be good to do that for this gig. I'm ready (but we'd better get some practices in). Stay tuned.

It has been nearly a week since the return from vacation and I haven't done anything 'blogwise' until this evening. So with hopes of this blog entry not getting too long winded, here we go. For two weeks Nancy, a good friend of mine, and I headed to points west and northwest, namely the 4 corners area. This was in quest of some mountains, cooler weather, r & r and more diverse culture than that of this place. Although our endeavor mostly involved New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, I guess I could now say I've also been to Utah, at least the very southeastern corner as occurs at the 4 corners monument. A picture was taken of me standing at parade rest on those converging corners of subject states. I will probably spare my website of this picture for now. One highlight of the trip was seeing a number of Anasazi Indian sites both in Arizona and in Colorado. These were dwellings we saw underneath the overhang of canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly and in Mesa Verde. With the exception of the shapes and sizes of windows, some of those places could have resembled villages I'd seen 30+ years ago in Afghanistan. However the Afghans may have built some Islamic (or other eastern religion's) equivalent of a kiva. Despite the probable contamination by thousands of tourists that had visited these sites, I still felt some sense of aura remaining of the ancient civilization. I hope that I lent the place due reverence and respect during our visit. I will admit that the tour around these sites (often involving very narrow stairs between rocks and wooden ladders) took a bit of effort. Hence are there continued resolutions to get back into shape. Another high point of this trip was my first ride in a glider. This was via tow plane off of a grass strip just north of Durango. It was a great experience despite the glider pilot's minimal success in his commendable search of updrafts. To his credit, he did keep us aloft for the length of time I'd paid my legal tender for. From my student pilot's perspective of Cessna powered flight, I'll say this is a whole new world. One sees buzzards turning to follow updrafts. Glider pilots get to do a similar amount of turns (steep ones!) in the same quest. The view of the San Juan mountains was magnificent from the air (and we flew a bit closer to one of these mountains than I'd care to venture with an aircraft). I hope the few pictures I took will show some semblance of the experience. The downwind landing was a bit exciting too, as the glider floated over most of the strip, finally touching down on the last third, where the main gear made a decided skid mark in the quest to stop before finding a fence. We landed downwind, so the glider would be in position for an upwind take-off with the tow plane. Wow. On the return from our trip, we went over Wolf Creek Pass. I am reminded of the old CW McCall song by the same name. So as we ventured through Pagosa Springs, I kept expecting to find a building with a side bashed out of it, which would be next to a historical marker denoting the incident of the runaway truck hauling the chickens. The pass itself was beautiful, full of jagged mountains with caves and tall pine trees. Sort of like the Salang Pass if it had trees. There was even one snow shelter, which brought back a slew of memories (so was it a snow shelter rather than a tunnel that took that top row of chickens off the truck in the song?). Anyway, it was a great trip and vacation, and we're ready for another one anytime.

This is actually the wee hours of 31 Jul as I type this blog, in an attempt to get tired enough to call it a night. No 100.9 FM LPFM transmissions this evening either. Got a gig later this day with EdRush (AKA, MGB) at the Scrub Pub. We've revamped the song list and have a bunch of new stuff to lay down. See ya there at the Scrub Pub if ya read this blog in time. It's a full moon night and it's gonna be fun. We may even drag out 'Werewolves of London'. Don't mind the sudden facial hair. Dang it, got a clippers around here somewhere?

First, a heads up; 100.9 FM may hit the airwaves for awhile this evening starting at 2329 CDT. It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog, most of which I spent commenting on the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11. Scroll on down for that one (since these blogs are reverse chronological). I may have started some E-mail dialogues about that one and other political crap in the meantime. More later. Well, let's venture into other topics for now. I saw Los Lonely Boys in concert at the river stage here in San Angelo a couple of weeks ago. Good to see a local musical group hit the big time for awhile. This was their triumphant return to San Angelo. Boy did they pack the place. After getting in line once for the overwhelmed restroom, I decided that one beer was probably enough if I didn't want to spend the rest of the concert in that line. The early ticket sales were slow, so no portable potties were ordered for the venue. Most of the tickets were bought at the gate ("oops..." said the planners). Jojo, the bass player of this trio had some bass amp problems at the start (my hat is off to his patient guitar tech, because I probably would have whomped Jojo over the head). But then these guys proceeded to put on a heck of a show. They finished up with their trademark one handed vertical playing of bass & guitar and had the crowd screaming for encores. (I've tried this one handed vertical bass playing stuff and had some problems finding the intended notes, but at least didn't drop my Fender P bass.) It was good to see these folks bring their music back to San Angelo (and why the hell didn't the local radio stations play any of their stuff until long after most radio stations in the US did??!!). The last time I saw Los Lonely Boys was in the Cactus Hotel lobby for an acoustic live broadcast on KUTX last fall. Somehow I knew that they were going to be big after the first time I saw them when they warmed up for Willie Nelson last year. I hope Los Lonely Boys finally get San Angelo on the map. It's been a long time since a San Angelo band got on the map, especially with the last time being in the early 60's with Frank Wilson & The Cavalier's "Last Kiss". Amazingly, I sat in on bass one night with The Cavaliers a few years ago (one or two original members remaining) for some party gig. They were still playing. Okay, brief mention of one more musical thing: EdRush, my band is back in the Scrub Pub this next Saturday, 31 Jul. See ya there & stay tuned.

You can probably tell by looking at the length of this blog that I went and watched Fahrenheit 9/11 this evening. It was actually playing here in San Angelo. To start my parsings of this film I just watched, I will say that I find myself agreeing with several of the reviews. Earlier today I read some staunch Pro-Bush rebuttal of this film, just to make sure I was carrying an open mind into this. Although that rebuttal had some merit, much of it was dashed by the first half hour of the film where Michael Moore outlines the nepotism utilized in the 2000 presidential election results as well as Arab business relationships, past and present with members of this administration. Our fearless leader and much of his administration were shown to have oil business relations with Arab families, to include the Bin Laden family. There lies documented, a decided conflict of interest for the highest office in the world. Although the film played up other things, such as the misguided foray into Iraq, our administration has some very serious things to answer for regarding this conflict of interest. This is sufficiently damning on its own, and the rest of what Michael Moore offers is icing on that cake. I don't know how many hours of presidential film footage the editors had to search to portray our fearless leader as a complete blithering idiot. I am concerned that these editors didn't have to look through much. Michael Moore portrays Afghanistan as something that our president is told he has to do, before he can proceed to his goal of Iraq. So that conquest is taken on. The movie screen shows the word 'Afghanistan' across this yellow parchment map (like maps in old western movies). The map then catches fire, like it did in those old 'Gunsmoke' shows and burns away to reveal the action behind it, namely the folks of our administration riding grandly in on horses. In the aforementioned rebuttal of this film, it was stated that Michael Moore didn't want us to go into Afghanistan after 9/11 and then contradicted himself by saying that we didn't take enough troops into Afghanistan. I will say we took enough troops in there for the Taliban to get our point and make their retreat, but more troops now would help with this fledgling administration (far more than it could in Iraq). Okay, so President Hamid Karzai may have had some involvement with the company running this natural gas pipeline through the country, but I'll credit that one to Afghan entrepreneurship. Afghans are never one to turn down a piece of the action. Also, contrary to Iraq, folks may still like us in Afghanistan (as long as we don't do something to cause otherwise). So there it is. The movie then compares the Iraqi venture to Vietnam, with the young troops discussing the music they listen to while they're conducting operations, and the high of combat. Some very pointed observations are made about killing people. In there somewhere is the aforementioned grief of parents who have lost a child. This happens after so many years of these parents having children in the military. A resident of Baghdad screams of the loss of her husband, children and neighbors when her neighborhood is bombed (not that any war has ever killed only soldiers). Amputees contemplate how to continue their lives (contrary to wars past, the medical folks are able to keep these folks from dying in the field). Christmas Eve involves a raid on some Iraqi dwelling in which someone is detained (with the distressed family screaming), as opposed to the Christmas Eve segment in Michael Moore's first movie "Roger and Me" where this person takes a break from evicting people from rental property in Flint, Michigan. Dilapidated houses in Flint are compared to war damaged houses in Iraq. I saw a bunch of similarities to "Roger and Me" throughout this film. There was equivalent humor, but this was far more intense. Maybe that was because I saw this one in a movie theater. But the subject matter was far more serious than the past wayward ventures of a CIO of General Motors. The subject is now the critical matter of a President taking this country right over the cliff. The most passionate and main statement made at the end of this movie was to not get into a war and subject our military to risk of life and limb without just cause. Bob Dylan's song "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" is played through the credits. Each screen full of credits is shown for two measures of that song, as any competent musician will observe. I just hope this movie helps in defeating the current president. Lord (or Allah, as per pleas of the Iraqis) help us, either way.

Well, here it is July already. I think I made a reference in a recent blog as to how time flies. The Fourth of July celebrations out at the lake went well last night. No rain messed up the electronics for the display this time, but the finale was somewhat anti-climatic. Our band, MGB/EdRush wasn't in any battle of the bands this year either, since there wasn't one (so catch us 31 Jul 04 at the Scrub Pub). Also, the display was moved across the lake from the rec. camp, so we could sit right on the shore this time to watch. Guess we'll see what the reviews are on moving the display. I just finished updating my main web page and archiving last quarter's blogs. The latter took a few cusswords to get accomplished. I may want to consider some utility software in the future for this. But for now I'll stay with my trusty Notepad. Friday was some 'family day' at the office, so we had that day off, making this a 4-day weekend. Helps with the blood pressure for sure. I think the official mourning period for President Reagan ends today, so the flags will move back up from half-staff. Even if it was done, I don't remember a month long mourning period for President Nixon some ten years ago. This may have been the first 4th of July, at least in recent history, in which the flag was at half staff. Speaking of presidents and our current fearless leader, his standings in the polls are continuing to get worse as the justifications become further suspect for our Iraqi misadventure. I ask where the hell was everybody when I was playing Dixie Chicks on my PA system in support of a peace/protest rally on the court house steps in March of last year. May take awhile for the people to come around, but I hope it happens by November. Later, folks.

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