So the weekend finally arrives, you and your pals or gals or whatever decide to hit the town for a couple 2, 3, or 12 drinks… whatever you’re into.

If you’re a woman, you’ve probably dressed yourself up in some ridiculous outfit that makes you look like a porn star or a prostitute – if you’re a man, you probably look like a cross between an Abercrombie model and a used car salesman.

Off you head to one of the really “in” (popular) clubs where all the cool kids go to shake it up like a bunch of sluts and whores in a drunken stupor… pawing all over themselves dancing the night away to the worst music anyone with taste has ever heard. Shallow, meaningless music with an electronic drum machine blasting away fills the room as the drone of sexist, violent, terribly written lyrics float over them like turds on a shit river.

You stand at the bar forever trying to get served (unless you have huge tits or tons of cash) while ass-hole “Night at the Roxbury” frat guys scour the room for someone to punch out or a girl to take home and fuck…

This is the nightlife – and I hate it. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth. The whole thing is so fake… the people, the music, the orgasms - everything about it… FAKE.

As I read those last paragraphs, I think to myself, “this must be what old people said about the early days of Rock & Roll.” I’d question myself, “Am I really that old?” but I know too well that I’ve felt like this since I was very young - even before I played guitar and wrote my own songs. I guess I don’t like it because I’m so out of my element. My comfort zone is raped within about .04 seconds so like many of you the only thing I can do to overcome my uptight whiteness is to drink till I dance. (Frank the Tank? That’s me at weddings…)

Maybe I’m too harsh on society. Sorry to pre-judge. Maybe the club scene is not your bag at all…

So instead you’ve gone to some townie bar to do vaguely all the same kinds of things, only instead of techno, rap, and terrible modern rock music you’re in the presence of a cheesy cover band that plays terrible modern rock and top 40 music… or they’re playing the same old songs every cover band in the world plays all the time. “Sweet Home Alabama?!” Dude… it’s Rochester, NY. Aren’t you sick of hearing that yet?

Ok… ok… so I admit it… I’ve played Skynyrd in cover bands before too… but that was before I matured… before I had integrity. Ok… and that one other time, but I swear I was only in it for the money.

… oh and I used to wail on Freebird…

Sigh… I’m so, so sorry.

My point here is that all around you there are talented musicians. Real people who write their own music. Real songs… some are better than others… some aren’t really even all that great – but a bunch of them, even in Rochester, NY are fucking great!

My old man likes to say, “there’s an ass for every seat,” and dammit, he’s right. Only the asses that might actually dig bands who write their own songs… the ones who could help turn this anemic music business around… sit at home. Or worse they actually come out and then they leave early, or stay the whole night out in the other room trying to ignore the band.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m lame. I love to stay home most of the time. I don’t want to stay out till 2am, I’m too cheap to pay a cover charge and buy $5 beers all night. I hate that bands don’t start playing till 10 (and that’s just the openers… if you headline you go on at 12:30 or 1am!)

And loud… Jesus it’s loud these days. Live bands are loud as hell, and my band is, on occasion, probably one of the loudest trios in the city. (Take that metal heads!) Seriously… dare us, we will make everyone bleed. I don’t like it that loud, but I do agree that rock and roll does require a certain volume. No matter what, it’s going to be at least as loud as the drum kit – and since I usually stand about 5 feet away from a crash if we’re lucky enough to be on one of the city’s larger stages, I know it’s fucking loud!

But it’s just as loud in dance clubs sometimes. It’s just as loud at the cover band’s shows.

I also know from experience, that even if the setting is 100% acoustic and volume isn’t an issue nobody comes. If the show starts at 8pm there won’t be anyone there either. If we hang up flyers, make phone calls, get all over the Internet, have a radio interview that morning… nothing makes any difference. It seems to be impossible to get the average, everyday people out. Populist music for a population unwilling…

So maybe I don’t make it out as much as I’d like, but I still manage to make it out – needless to say I’m playing my own gigs practically every week! It gets hard to make it out to see other people too.

Society is fucked. Real music is lying on the sidewalk bleeding out while the masses step over it – obliviously jamming out to their I-pods and text messaging their friends.

Sounds alarmist since people have been raising a flag about the death of “real music” since back in the Woody Guthrie days.

As it appears to me – if you aren’t part of a scene – if you aren’t a retro 60’s garage rock band, a hardcore or emo band, a bunch of throw back jam band hippies, a metal band, or you’re not serving a duel role as main drug dealer to the audience nobody will come to your shows.

If you don’t kiss the balls of the local news media nobody will write about you or talk about you on the radio (except DFE – cause this site is cool… shameless plug) and thus, nobody will be at your show. And lastly, if you get to busy to hang out at the open mics and fall out of favor with the coffee house folk music clique, nobody will come to your shows.

This all bothers me constantly as it applies to me and my musical aspirations… being unknown sucks, but playing to empty rooms is even worse. Playing to full rooms and watching people get up and walk out… well now that makes you want to sell your gear or eat a bullet. It begs the question, “why?” I’m a very modest person – I’m not really the second coming of Hendrix or John Lennon… but I certainly don’t suck.

The sad thing is though, as much as this is a rant about me and my music getting little to no respect with Rochester’s nightlife, I’m not alone. It happens to so many other people it’s heartbreaking.

But you know what? We’re all still doing it anyway. All I’m asking is for a little respect from the public for me and my fellow local musicians.

If all us unknowns quit and nobody wrote new songs anymore, not even bullshit pop acts that the public keeps buying would have songs to lip sync to. Rappers wouldn’t have anything to sample. Bar sluts would have nothing to dance to… 12 year old young impressionable boys wouldn’t have Tom Petty songs to grab a broom and pretend they were playing a real guitar too….

Face it kids… the world would suck.

Now get your asses out to see a live band and give us poor local musicians a chance!

And hey bar / club owners and Rochester press, would it kill you to put a small add out about some gigs once in a while – let alone the “what’s happenings” that often look like nothing is actually happening.

It’s bullshit and I’ve had enough. No matter how hard you try to kill it or no matter how much you ignore it, “real music” no matter what the genre will be around as long as beings with emotion and audio capability exist. How about putting a little more faith in the listening public? They’d actually like good music if that’s what the got to hear more often. By default it would become cooler and then everything would get better.

Sunday - late morning. You wake up in a strange room, your shoes are on the wrong feet… and wait, those aren’t even your shoes. Your head is pounding and all you remember is what must be a dream about seeing some really great band last night…

No talk of Cherokees specifically if you’re looking for some insight on “the trail of tears.” Google that term if you’re interested. You can skip over lyrics from the 80’s hair band “Europe” and get straight to the actual history though.

I thought it would be cool to remind anyone who forgot, or anyone who never got the truth yet, the real story of “Thanksgiving.” A holiday that’s actually as religious as a dollar bill or the pledge of Allegiance. (In other words, “God” wasn’t put in there till later on.)

As you all know, you can’t start an American tradition without stomping on the civil rights of an entire people… This might have actually been one of the first - a precedent if you will!

The real story of Thanksgiving.

I can not tell a lie - my favorite Holiday for many years has been Thanksgiving. History class aside, it’s a perfect fit for my lazy American middle class ass. Oh, and sorry PETA, I eat meat. It’s all about the Turkey for me. (I have two eyes in the front of my head, which makes me a predator. If my eyes were all sideways like a Gazel or something, then I’d eat grass. You’re entitled to your beliefs and choices and all that, just don’t try and make me feel guilty for being on top of the food chain. )

As with most holidays that they try to tell you are about God, (we’ll touch on X-mas when the time comes) I don’t end up spending the day with any terribly religious people who are going to make me pray or talk about the things I’m thankful for or any of that 12 steps kind of horse-shit.

I also get along with most of my relatives so there isn’t any of the typical things for me to make fun of here. (And this year I’m even going to be with my in-laws! Still, no dread here!) No homosexual coming out parties yet, no weird Uncle getting loaded and saying things he shouldn’t, no Grandpa touching the women inappropriately, no Moms or Aunts having nervous breakdowns…

No, Thanksgiving is just a day off that involves a lot of my favorite spare time activities!

How could I not like a holiday where the whole day revolves around cocktails with the relatives, having a few laughs, eating a huge meal, taking a nap on the couch while the uncles swear at the TV about football calls, and then being woke up by the wife for coffee and my choice of snacks from a desert smörgåsbord?

You mean I don’t even have to buy cards for people?!

Top it off with the fact that this is the one floating holiday my employer hands out all year and it’s nearly a perfect day as far as I’m concerned.

Thanksgiving also begins the season of the illustrious “Great Cannoli Caper.” Every Holiday till after New Years will now involve the Italian men in my family scouring the house trying to find where “Ma” hid the chocolate cannolis so we can eat some prior to desert time. Some people are all about hunting deer this time of year… us wops are hunting the chocolate cannolis.

Still I can’t help but think how disgusting the whole thing is to me. Not just because it’s a day I’ve made into a holiday for gluttony, laziness, and a general statement of “I’m a man, so you ladies make the food, do the dishes, and maybe I’ll cut the bird for a photo op.”

Rather, it makes me sick that we have 2 holidays (the other being Columbus Day) that hide their true colors  in this phony “everything’s just swell” kind of mood when really we’re celebrating the robbery, rape, and murder of the Native Americans and their way of life.

So tomorrow, even if you’re not into prayer, take a minute and think about what a shitty deal the Real Americans got and let that swim around your insides between fork fulls of stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Then make sure you hit the stores bright and early Friday with all the other ass-holes… ’cause if we stop shopping than the terrorists win! Have fun waiting in line 3 hours to save $5 suckers!

(yeah, yeah, I know the sales are great and all, but it’s more fun to knock Black Friday down a peg… If you wanted political correctness, you wouldn’t be reading my posts now would you?)

I confess… I have a gravatar now so I just wanted to see how this would work. Here’s me digging for something to write about off the cuff…

 Well, more shootings here again today.

  I’m not sure if we need a guy randomly hugging everyone in the city like in that Dave Mathews video or if the cure is some guy like Charles Bronson lurking in the shadows taking out the thugs.

I doubt seriously either would help and I’m willing (at face value anyway) to put more stock into the new “zero tolerance” policy the city cops are using. However, you gotta watch it with things like that. Civil Liberties start to get tred on a bit and… well it’s just a slippery slope is all I’m getting at.

Anyone else think Zero Tolerance is the stupidest name ever? What, did we tolerate crime before? Eh, he just robbed somebody… the guy’s probably got some drugs to buy and he needed the money.

The sad thing is, even with all this it still doesn’t seem to be curbing the violence.

(Armed forces patrolling the streets under strict rules and arresting anyone who looks suspicious isn’t stopping the violence? Sound a little like any other place you know that rhymes with IRAQ?)

The constant shootings made me think back to watching “Bowling for Columbine,” which I’ll have to see about renting or buying or whatever. Micheal Moore has these comparisons to Canada that made it sound like paradise to me. (below is a page with some statistics)

I heard some more talk from a few lefties about people moving up north if the 2008 elections don’t swing in a favorable result.

First of all, I had a great time the last time I was in Toronto. They have a better vibe for music there. People have a different kind of appreciation of art there - more European. Everyone seemed easier going too. Lots of different people all mixing it up together as well… not so divided like us.

Next, I’m a fan of Hockey. I’m pissed that with all the Football it’s nearly impossible to catch a Hockey game. I usually hate sports but there’s something about Hockey that I dig.

I love Neil Young, Hayden, The Band, and I’m sure numerous other Canadian musicians that did the Americana sound better then Americans.

I’ve got a fondness for trains, flannel, maple syrup, pine trees & forests & lakes and all that untouched wilderness stuff…

Needless to mention free universal health-care! How about a relaxed attitude towards marijuana? (Now if I could just convince the wife to relax a bit about it too…)

All in all, I bet I could get along just fine in Canada.

… that is, as long as nobody tried to rape me. (See statistics or that’s going to sound odd.)

My Cousin Jamie lives in NYC and wrote the following to her brother Tim, my other cousin:

“Ani’s close & personal with dennis and has supported him since 2003 (at least). i imagine if there’s anything spotty in his past that it’s definitely past, cause i don’t see her wavering on any of those big sticking points. check out his site - http://www.dennis4president.com/about-dennis/ i like everything i’ve read about him and seen of him (including him playing a hand-shaker and dancing during the encore of ‘little plastic castles’ last night) so i’m planning to get more involved and find out more… he’s the only one out there who i really feel represents ME! “

As a guy who loves his family I felt like I had to stick my nose into their conversation. (That’s what us lame ass parent types do… you know?)

A letter to my Cousin the Liberal Voter

(And Brother, aint that most of us on here?)

M’Lady… pour yourself a cup of your fav. tea, have a seat in your favorite chair and get ready for this:

There is no hope.

Dennis Kucinich will never win in ‘08. Nor will anyone who has any real ideas… anyone who is really honest or “connects” with you or I, or anything remotely close the ideals we cherish.

The war will continue and probably spill over into Iran, the environment will go up in flames and society will keep eating all this shit because that’s what we’ve been trained to do.

To become president in 2008, you have to appeal to middle-class white bread America, be in the pocket of upper-class CEO America, and play the same bullshit games that every other politician in the history of this country has played.

If you really want a guy or gal like Dennis Kucinich - someone who actually believes in something, you have to start at the bottom and change the entire system.

Get the lazy bastards who don’t vote to get educated about how bad they’re being fucked every day and get them to go vote. (And not just vote for name recognition… vote for some issues they identify with.) You have to convince the people like my Dad who flatly believe that the whole thing is fucked and his vote won’t make any difference to go vote anyway.

You have to change things like this all the way down to town elections and school board elections. (Do you really believe Henrietta is actually as republican as it looks on a Map? It’s not exactly San Francisco, but come on… it’s not that bad! But nobody votes!) You have to give people some ideas and some candidates that they can believe in for once.

Then after you - rather we - have accomplished all this groundwork, maybe then we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell at getting something to change in our political system.

… oh and a little campaign finance reform wouldn’t hurt either. Money corrupts and it’s impossible to run if you can’t raise ba-jillions of dollars.

If someone like Dennis Kucinich won I’d cry tears of Joy for the first time in my 8 years of voting.

But then, I hope you already knew all this. So don’t think of this as pissing on your parade…

Honestly, the only people who might make it are going to be John Edwards or Rudy 9/11 Gulliani. When it comes down to it, this country isn’t ready for a woman, a black guy, or a morman. McCain is bat-shit crazy, and the rest of the dems come off like a bunch of weirdos or pussys as far as the general public is concerned. The fringe candidates are probably the most interesting… the Mike Gavels, Ron Pauls (did I just say that?) and such, but they’re just dreaming.

You have two options next Nov. - Vote on party lines for the lesser of two evils in hopes to make a difference slowly over time, or vote for a long shot because at least you’re being honest.

As I reflect on the last 12 years, I’m not sure yet what I’ll do. All I do know is you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck talking to people… getting them and yourself involved. I mean, go ahead and vote however you do, but don’t wait for some ass-hole in Washington to make the world better - get your hands dirty and start a change yourself.

(And as I type that, I’m talking to myself as well…)

Cheers Jamie! Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have a college degree you can be absolutely sure of one thing…. you have a college degree.

That’s a quote I stole off some website - no accreditation given. It might have very well been me at any point in the past… say, 12 years. I’ve never liked school unless it was creative writing, history, or music. I sucked at math and science and I probably always will - comparatively.

I was determined to not go to college. I even wrote a piece on it in 12th grade called something like “Wall Hangers and Tower Pissers.”

Fact is the first time I decided to go to college was because a girl I was in love with thought it was what I should do. One of her friends mistook me for her brother once who was going to RIT for Mechanical Engineering. I played along for a while, but let’s be clear - I’m no engineer. My Dad worked at Kodak once a long time ago and all I’ve ever heard about was wise ass college kids with engineering degrees fucking up everything they touched. I used to argue with this girl all the time about book smarts and common sense and it being nearly impossible to have both.

She changed my life in some ways I suppose. But then she broke my heart and I decided not to go to school. Suddenly I found myself in the last week of summer vacation after graduating high-school - looking around and seeing that all the intellectuals left town.

So I had 2 choices… stay home with the losers and get really high everyday and keep working with my Dad, or frantically call up Fredonia and beg to be readmitted so I could go to a new town with a friend of mine who played guitar and sang with me - then I could get really high there instead until we made it big.

Needless to get into the amazing story I could tell you about my 1 semester at Fredonia, I ended up having a nervous breakdown, stopped showing up for class and returned to Rochester with - get this - a 0.57 GPA. Take that Animal House! A quick memory I can relate to this blog is Election night 2000. George W. Bush won or something like that (you know that story) and I needed to smoke an 8th and hit the dining hall for eggs and waffles at 8am sharp to cope with it. Then as per ritual, I slept the rest of the day till someone woke me up for dinner. Then we’d watch movies and… well, get high.

anyway… back to Rochester…

Working a real job everyday and not being quite as stoned all the time was pretty lame, so just as I turned 19 I started going back to school at MCC. My first year there was amazing and I never regretted one minute of it. Fuck anyone who tells you it’s just high-school with ash trays. It is what you make it.

I was there on my way to creative writing with my friend Dave when we found out that 9/11 was happening. They shut the campus down and sent us all home. I thought the world might end or I’d get drafted. (This is yet again another highly interesting story I could tell, but it can wait…)

Later, when my girlfriend at the time - 2 years later to be my wife - called me in the start of Spring Semester to tell me that I was going to be a Daddy, that was the final nail in the coffin for my English / Music degree ambitions.

I had a pretty good Job with my Dad’s painting business, so I bought a house, had a kid, saved up some money, got married, and started getting used to a life I expected to mirror very closely my own father’s.

Enter Election 2004… Bush won for real this time (well, I guess you heard that whole story too.) and my Dad decided that things for our business weren’t going to get any better and so he laid me off. I got a job in a machine shop for less than half of what I had made. Suddenly a degree sounded really good - but that was about as far away as becoming a rock star.

Blink your eyes really hard and it’s 2007. My Boss has put me in an mostly office job and my pay, though still not what it once was, has been getting a lot better. I’m working days, and starting to take classes part time at MCC. I recently found out that they’re not really the best place for me to be anymore (another decent story) so I ended up driving over to my wife’s old college.

Now I’m waiting to hear if I’ve been accepted to RIT for part-time evening studies. My boss and I shook hands - that still means something in a few places - that even if it takes me a long time, I’m going to have his help earning a BA in Manufacturing Engineering Technology. In other words, I’m going to be an Engineer someday.

It’s a long road ahead. It’s going to cost everyone involved a lot of money… a whole lot of money. But someday when all this is done, I’ll be able to make as much or more than I did as the VP of a small company. Ideally, I already have the job - I just need the education and the experience to earn the big money. For a day job, I’m ok with that.

Unless a music career takes off for me in the future (yeah right) someday I’ll be an administrator in a medium sized company making a fairly respectable amount of money, and I might be able to wear clothes to work that I wasn’t worried about getting oil, grease, or muck on.

I’ve done this all on my own… lots of hard work and care. I’m tired of paying for the mistakes I made as a stupid kid in high school. It’s perfect poetic justice that the kid who actually asked the math teachers, “when am I ever going to use this?,” actually has to use it now.

I’ve still got a distrust for the establishment and I pretty much hate our government - especially the GOP. One thing I never liked about Republicans is that they don’t want to help anyone with anything. If you can’t get it for yourself, than fuck you. That’s about the message I’ve always gotten from them.

But isn’t is sort of true that it took George W. Bush to fuck up everything in my safe little 1990’s world to get me into something I would have laughed off only a few years ago? I really did have to buckle down and work for it - and the work’s not even close to being done yet!

Republicans screwed shit up so bad… destroyed the economy in the first part of the 21st century that I had to go back to square one and work my way up the ladder like it was 100 years ago. Only I’m fortunate enough that I’m being encouraged to get a degree - they’re even helping me pay for it as long as my grades are there.

Now I’m just hoping that my strong foundation in the working class will keep me grounded enough to make me one of the rare people who are college educated and also have some common sense - or else I’m going to look back on all those arguments I’ve had about this sort of thing and…

You know what? If you look back on your life and try to remember who was wrong or who was right, you’re a fool. And who’s got time for that anyway?

Oh… and don’t worry - I still think George Bush blows donkeys as far as being a president goes.

(Best closing line ever.)

6:15am, Nov. 6th, 2007 - Election Day.

The morning starts unlike any other. I hit the snooze button only 2 times - and keep in mind it started giving me a case of the mini-heart-attacks about 15 minutes earlier today. I refuse to be late to work again, and besides that - I’ve got business to attend to.

With the tide of robo-calls receding and the local news starting to take up my story on the bullshit pulled by the local republicans (again) with the terrorist license thing, I’m feeling victorious already. Well that and it’s been good to see Jim Breese didn’t get the GOP nomination and thus might (for the first time I can remember) not be joining us next year.

So I got my coffee poured in the travel mug, my lunch slammed into my cooler, and still feeling a little damp from the shower I head for the car. I’m making good time so I decide all this excitement calls for a little revolution music. I run back into the house to my completely disastrous CD collection…. where is it…. damn un-alphabetized mess…. AH! “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.”

Back in the car and exchanging the Lightnin’ Hopkins for Blowing in the Wind… I am now ready to vote.

Into the elementary school, among the last feeble remnants of “The Greatest Generation” I look for my booth. These people knew how to put country before politics when push comes to shove. It’s good to see even in old age, they take pride in helping the country limp forward by running the polling places.

Into the booth - lever goes down, curtain closes…

Now I don’t know about you folks but I had no Greens to vote for, maybe 2 Democrats, a few Working Families, and an overwhelming majority across the board of independents, conservatives, and… gulp… Republicans. Needless to say I took a while in there.

Suddenly I’m left wondering who the hell am I really voting for. Obviously not the republicans. Not the Maggie’s or the lock-steppers to Bush & Klan - I mean clan… I realize I know very little except that I don’t like the last 7 years of Republican control of the Federal Government, and I’ve never really been a fan of the way they’ve been running Henrietta, (where I’ve lived all my life) well… ever.

So even though it’s a disgrace and it is one of the stupidest things going for true democracy, I voted purely from an opposition / working families point of view. I didn’t pick any judges because they were all reds. I voted on the ignorance is bliss line.

I started wondering… where the hell are all the progressive thinkers in this town? Don’t give me that bullshit that Henrietta is full of white trash hicks and lazy bastards who happen to be very conservative. I don’t buy it. It’s kinda true, but not completely. In a way, Henrietta is like “Heartland” America. John Cougar country if you will… and Mellencamp’s a fairly liberal guy when you get right to it.

If you get any of these people going - even when they really don’t know much about current events or politics in general (and that needs to change) they don’t have anything in common with the party that represents them over and over again.

The suburban public gets led around by the words “property taxes” and the occasional GOP mind fuck like “Bill Johnson is BLACK! He’ll make Monroe County into a ghetto with a gang in every school and a fried chicken in every garage!” or any other thinly veiled white flight politics. When that doesn’t work, then they fall back on the Bush theory of “scare the shit out of them, scare the votes out of them.”

We had one younger guy run this year on the “Brighter Futures” party line. His whole deal was wind energy and pro-environment issues. He’ll probably loose, but I voted for him because I admire that he’s trying, that he’s not afraid to go for it, and that when it comes down to it… at least on that issue, he’s totally right. (Besides, I already was feeling like a winner this morning - no more Breese… I can almost taste it!)

But 1 progressive guy in this whole town is fucking pathetic. Get off your lazy Asses! I talk to you… I grew up with you… believe it or not, you all do give a shit! We can’t all be really smart and follow every detail of how bad we’re getting fucked everyday - but some of us must have it in us to get our names under a lever in that booth under some office on a progressive party.

Give those of us who aren’t Conservative Republicans someone to stand behind. Like the whole argument about how there’s no great leaders anymore like we had in the 60’s. Where’s our RFK? Our MLK?

I want a guy with a last name beginning with K to get out there and get the people off their Asses!

Sooner or later, if life hasn’t beaten me down hard enough, I’m going to get mad enough to just go for broke and see what happens if I run for some kind of office. Why the hell not? Could I really do a worse job? Movies with the regular guy telling the truth in politics do well because that’s actually what the public wants.

I’ll tell you this - the waterfall of honesty, obscenity, and bluntness would at least be good for people’s souls. Well, most of us anyway. I tell you, it would be like the best porn you’ve ever sneaked a peek at. (And you’re full of shit if you say you haven’t, by the way… You should run for office. You’d be perfect!)

I walked out after voting this morning and saw an older couple walking in. I’m not a generally happy guy - or for that matter, I’m not usually going out of my way to say “Hello” to anyone I don’t know.

I found myself smiling, with a brisk business-like walk, (showing them people my age aren’t all a bunch of slackers) giving a nod and saying, “Mornin’!” I think it made their day - at least at that early stage.

I had this second of afterthought like - that will be enough to start some small change. When some young guy or gal does get the political nuts to stand up for what they believe in and run for something around here, they might have a better shot with those old folks.

Next Election Day, maybe I’ll feel more like pulling out “The Times They Are A Changin’.”

Did you know that the Democrats want to give each and every TERRORIST a valid NYS drivers license to aid them in destroying America? (All Democrats hate America - and Liberal Democrats? Well, they loathe America…)

So didn’t you hear this before? All you’ll have to do to be a TERRORIST with a drivers license is walk into a DMV with your hand out - no questions asked… not even a road test! And if you’re an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT from MEXICO they’ll also give you a welfare check and the job of the first white guy you see! (As long as you’re not staring over the counter of the DMV That is…)

Serriously, you never knew that?
… Yeah, neither did I! I mean, I could hardly belive it.

There I was ending a nice Thursday and pulling into the drive way at quarter to 9 last night when I figured I’d stop and get the mail before running inside the house. I’d actually had a pretty good day at work, and spent a little time after work with my son, my parents and my uncle. The rest of the night was going to be smooth as a rocks glass full of grand-dad’s favorite medicine.

Sorting the mail: Bills… junk…. sales…. blah…. blah…. WAIT! …What’s this?

A horribly photo-shopped picture of a dark skinned man in TERRORIST garb - complete with AK-47, one crazed eye peering out of his head wrap, and posed on a rocky terrain of some kind . Behind him a terribly out of focus landscape of rocks and debris…

Lain behind this photo is another - a fuzzy shot, like a man hanging upside down from a moving helicopter, of a pile of MEXICANS (I’m just guessing here) being arrested by what appear to be armed police and border patrol guards (no marking on any of the white SUV’s) and a desert as the backdrop.

Below this and jumping out over an assortment of vile bilge spewing forth the most retarded, bullshit propaganda this side of the Red Scare - huge blocky font spelling out, “VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

On the flip side of the pamphlet from hell, a photo of a poker hand - only the cards were drivers licenses for, yup - you guessed it. TERRORISTS!

The top card, the only ID picture completely visible, and thus not blurred and fuzzed over as much, is of an Arab looking man in a white and black head covering - think typical Saudi casual wear (so I’m told) - staring ominously at you.

Needless to say, I was more than marginally pissed off - and not just because this was wrong on so many levels that my head was floating.

I then walked into my spare room - “the office” as I’ve taken to calling it, and checked the answering machine.

“Hello, this is your Sheriff, Patrick O’Flynn. The Democrats are making it… blah blah… unsafe… TERROR…. TERRORIST…. blah blah… ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS… blah blah blah… Join me in VOTING REPUBLICAN blah blah blah.”

To wrap it up for now, I pose one question to you the casual reading public:

What the fuck? I mean really. This is what it’s come to? You can’t win an election anymore without making up shit to paint the other side of the argument as a completely insane, moronic bunch, bent on the total destruction of the country and the extermination of the American way of life?

What’s worse is when a lot of the dumb public buys it. Takes it home, wraps it up tight, and sleeps with it under their pillow, loaded, cocked and ready to take out any intruding thoughts to the contrary.

What’s even worse than that, is that the people starting most of the bullshit propaganda… the ones screaming about patriotism and using all these scary words all the time like TERRORIST and MEXICANS are some of the worst people we’ve ever had in government. Not because they’re more evil, or twisted, or because they slither in the shadows, keeping everything hidden from view - Hell you live in America long enough and you get used to that in a heartbeat…

No, these people are the worse ones we’ve ever had because they’re totally illogical and still worse, some of them… well, they’re just plain stupid.

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”

George W. Bush

Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

DragonFlyEye has a new blog, DragonFlyEye.Net! Why not welcome them to the community by commenting on this post?