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Larry the Cable Guy redelivers me to the world of “Cracker Soul”

It’s one fine day. No work. I got up. I ate. I went to Jason’s Deli. I had the Club Lite. I don’t like the new bread. It’s kind of rough around the ages. I shopped at Kroger. I said: “Hello. How are you?” to the meat lady. And did the same to the lady who seems to keep the right-wall area with the bread and organics in great working order. This young guy comes up to me on the aisle with the skin lotions. He works there. He said: “Smell this. It’s vanilla. I bet I could get all the women with that.” It was surreal. You had to be there. I came back to the crib. I went for a walk. I have been thinking about writing a book forever. I have got a rough theme. It would be, like Kris says, “partly fact and partly fiction.” It would be, in all likelihood, controversial. I’ll give you a hint. Flying bird dogs. Does that make you crave for it? No? Well, that’s why I’ve got to think more about this thing. The walk was nice. I came back and sat down to this Internet on this one fine day.

I surfed into Cracker’s Web site. It was on purpose. This was because I watched late last night the History Channel show “Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy.” Larry is a guilty pleasure. I shouldn’t like him. But he has just that right amount of crassness combined with weirdness. You might even learn something.

Larry was at a Florida ranch where he extracted bull semen. He helped drive cattle across a marsh and into a barge and onto an island ranch. All of this was in Florida. The ranch foreman or owner said the origin of the term “cracker” came from Georgia folks who migrated to Florida. They came with their whips to help herd cows. The whips made the cracking sound. Hence came “cracker.” It’s sometime used as a derogatory word black people use for whites. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that, Gump. I’m not sure if my description of the rancher’s explanation was exactly as he said it, but it’s close enough. Because this was not the Cracker site to which I clicked.

I started listening to Cracker in the 90s. I continue to believe they were one of that decade’s best rock bands. Cracker, which has a dual life with the band Camper Van Beethoven, combines rock, some California country and whatever else it is they do. I haven’t listened to nor have I heard any Cracker songs from beyond the turn of the century. “Turn of the century” makes them sound old, doesn’t it? The band remains. That is it. It’s not bad that they just remain. It’s a good remain. In fact, it’s fantastic.

Cracker continues to produce, perhaps, what would result from Led Zeppelin meets the Eagles. I don’t know if that is accurate, but I mean it as a compliment. I guess they are too explicit for radio, although a couple of their hits are played on Classic Rock stations.

A number of great videos, some dating back to the 90s, can be found on the Cracker site. Perhaps the most interesting is “Yalla, Yalla.” Cracker driving force David Lowery explains the name comes from Arabic, kind of an expression like the Spanish “vamanos”  when used as a command. It is a speed-demon rocker of a song that, according to Lowery, doesn’t take any sides in the Iraq War. Lowery later explains that he was against the Iraq War because the war in Afghanistan was what deserved our nation’s attention. As I felt and feel, the U.S. needed to get out of Iraq leaving it in a stable state. This piece is not for arguing. Enough of arguing, already. I must also warn that “Yalla, Yalla” has some very suggestive scenes of military personnel whose videos came from You Tube. Please read Lowery’s explanation before watching.

 

There are more than two kick-ass videos on the Cracker site. Here is number two. It’s a dynamite Cracker-style country-like tune called Friends with Patterson Hood. Dysfunctional friendships such as is described are probably more common than anyone will imagine. Some of my friendships have been dysfunctional, I make no admission nor charge as who’s to blame. By the way, Patterson Hood is guitarist and vocalist for the Southern Rock band Drive-by Truckers, I had to look that up. You’re welcome. Oh. Okay the song is ‘Friends’ and it’s played with Patterson Hood. He’s the guy with the beard and glasses. I’m so confused.

If you enjoy these two songs. More rest upon the Cracker video site. Happy Friday. Oh, and “One Fine Day” is a bluesy, somewhat spiritual tune. I’ve had one fine day today. But it hasn’t exactly been like “One Fine Day.” So remember, spring forward this weekend.

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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen

Work is ahead in less than 90 minutes. I have to say something, just to write it down and say: “I wrote something today.”

And so I did. “Mission Accomplished,” as was displayed on an aircraft carrier upon our high-flying former President Gee Dubya’s premature announcement of the end to the Iraq War.

Thus there is always more to say but not always enough time to say it properly, clear, crisp, fresh as a daisy. Huh? Where did that “fresh as a daisy” come from? I would not mind to come out smelling like a rose, but fresh as a daisy is just not my gender. You got it? Less I appear sexist I better stop while I am somewhat ahead.

Time to go to work and be a jerk! Or perhaps, continue as a jerk.

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The congressional Little Train That Won’t scores one, ties one for the good guys

Surely the House Republicans — words that now rank up there in refuse as “dirty bastards” — are patting themselves on the back. You see, the voted to keep the government open until the end of the fiscal year in September. Finally, they do something, kind of, almost on the order of doing what it is they are supposed to do.

“This a bill to keep the government operating while we debate then how with sequestration,” said House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky. “This is not a sequestration bill.”

Meanwhile, the GOP brethren in the Senate, employed a filibuster to delay naming John Brennan as CIA director. The cause would, ostensibly, be one in need of a good discussion, only in some other forum than a vote for the nation’s top spook. Instead, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. and son of the goofy former Republican Rep. Ron Paul, decided he would hold up the CIA nomination over a statement made in a letter by Attorney General Eric Holder opining that drone strikes could be legally carried out on American citizens on American soil.

Granted, that former White House counter terrorism head Brennan had said early in the confirmation process that he could foresee extraordinary circumstances when domestic drone strikes could be carried out. I think such moves should be explained by government officials to the best of their abilities. I mean we’ve all seen movies where the Army or CIA or both come rolling in at just the right time to fight the bad guys. And we just love it! I don’t like the willy-nilly use of drones. I don’t think police should use them. I don’t think private citizens should have them. So it stands to reason I probably wouldn’t want them blasting to pieces some couple who where just making out on Lover’s Leap. Of course, without domestic drones where else would the folks who draw on their Second Amendment rights to own Tomahawk missiles mount the damn things!

Were it not for the likes of those who crave Fox News stardom like Paul and McCarthyite Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a civil discussion on the use of drones in the U.S. of A. would be something worthwhile. But what you have is Paul and Cruz with dreams of the Oval Office and kicking Democrats in mid-air off Air Force One. Plus the fact that these senators are off track holding up confirmation of such an important office with an issue that really has nothing to do with the CIA except perhaps in a consulting role.

I remembering Republicans crying bloody murder when the Democrats blocked confirmation of some federal judges appointed to the bench by Gee Dubya Bush. “This has never happened in history!” was the GOP talking-point heading. But the Republicans do not think twice about holding up anything that can be construed as progress for the Democrats, the President or the United States.

It has been awhile since I read what it would take for the so-called “Nuclear Option,” — the nickname for disposing of the filibuster in Senate rules — to occur. I think maybe the time has come for that option. Just maybe the Republicans would think twice about going off the tracks to interrupt any type of move which might help better our country.

Then again, the Tea Party wing of the GOP wants “their country back.” They want their country “the way it used to be.” You know, where the blacks wouldn’t vote, much less get elected as the nation’s CEO.

 

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Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. … Justified.

Since I have learned that what I write may end up who knows where — be it here, for Facebook, or on bathroom walls — I have found that it isn’t a very good idea to compose something when you are drunk or mad or both. I am not drunk right now, nor particularly mad although that doesn’t mean both states are impossible to attain.

I felt I should write something as that is the whole reason for this exercise. One of these days I shall decide whether I should write on the Web, strictly for money, as a mind-to-finger-to-mind exercise, or all of it. My part-time job has taken on more of a full-time feel even though I get paid far from full-time and on a much less consistent basis. Then, there is the whole pain thing. Hopefully, some day I will find out whether anything can heal me or nothing but the state of disability.

This mind o’ mine has a lot to think about, and more. So, I think I will get ready to watch “Justified.” It’s a really great show.

 

 

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The old sayings about the weather leave us forever wondering

The wind in the great out of doors a short-short ago was slicing like a Saturday evening straight razor. We are supposed to be kissed here abouts 45 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico with sea breezes that gently caress the evening. But alas those winds, like the 30-plus mph gusts that ripped me a new one as I walked out of the office today, were more like a nasal-to-chin sloppy one planted by the town drunk on a suicide mission.

Metaphoric pictures, and not necessarily pleasant ones at that, aside are the “March Crazies” as I call them. It isn’t a particular weather feature but more like a pre-Spring phenomenon that leaves you not knowing whether to fly a kite or tie your ass down to a sturdy oak tree.

The old sayings about the weather leading into Spring have now faded into memory. With the possibility — and for many probability — of intercontinental travel these days could only a meteorologist who has studied weather of areas traversing the big ponds know if these sayings universally hold water, pardon the pun.

Had I not witnessed it myself would I have known the old mariner’s weather verse is as true — many times — on the Big Sur side of the mighty Pacific as it off the Indochina coast looking fore and aft while sailing down the middle of the South China Sea. I once knew what basis in fact was “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” Of course, that verse is also as foretelling sometimes as does the old saw: “If your left hand itches, it means you will be blessed with money.” That very circumstance has proven true at times, though just as often as when my left butt cheek itched.

My mother was not overtly superstitious but I think that she loved when these old sayings with which she heard all of her life became a reality. She used to point out “Thunder in February, frost in April.” And I can remember those times more than not.

The most confusing of the old weather sayings has been how “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” Or is it vice versa? At least in my part of the world does the former seem to be the most evident.

As entertaining are these old wise tales does the same go for the completely unpredictable. The wild and sometimes dangerous storms of Spring are still as great a wonder as can be imagined. Were it not so, perhaps L. Frank Baum might have spun an epic story around a blizzard or a drought rather than a tornado which caused a farm house to conk Dorothy on the head and heave her ho out into Oz.

The nugget of wisdom that points out how “April showers bring May flowers” seems as if it is making up for a ruined day, perhaps it is why Johnny had to stay inside. But it is just as true as “April showers bring April flooding.”

Times were back during the recent droughts when it seemed as if it would never rain again. But it did. Like that rainy July 4th I remember. Nothing was ruined for me on that festive day as the blessed steady showers came during a severe rain-free period.

Talk though you may about that weather and say there is nothing that could be done. Someday science may prove that just as empty as some lakes left dry by drought. But I had just as soon weather be left alone with perhaps the great advances in forecasting being a welcome exception. It is those winds that blew from the sea with gusto and which seemed to tear my bones apart likewise provide me a great comfort in its mystery.