Poor Bruce, starved for love, can’t hear the boos for the
rage in his head,
Finally finding religion that lets him rant and rave, a true
believer who has ceased to believe in anything other than his own myth.
What goes on inside that rattled head of his, a man
possessed, a life reassessed, a woke joke abandoning the folk he used to sing
for, singing for a different crowd, overly loud, a shout in the dark that compensates
for all his mistakes, the Beverly Hills delusion he revisits now, when he tells
himself he’s on a mission for a god he doesn’t believe in, no entity possibly
more powerful than he thinks about himself, preaching to people who pay $1,000
(sometimes $3,000) to hear his music, not his mouth, he pocketing his wealth,
helping nobody but himself. Why can’t he use it to help the immigrants he
preaches about, or the homeless or the hungry he never sees, his bulging
pockets the only Bible he really believes in.
Yassamin Ansari, congresswoman from Arizona, has apparently been launched by Iran to do damage to the American war machine
She is the latest of a series of inside attackers whohope to do in Congress what I ran cannot do on the battlefield
Instead of a Manchurian candidate as was feared by the right back in the 1950s we get an Iranian candidate who has learned to use the American system against itself,
A brilliant strategy by Iran along with the misinformation campaign it has been waging through elite media like CNN and sky News
Even in New York times has played its part in helping the Iranians in this war
Of course, there have always been the stealth candidates including the squad as well as many others who do not act like they support Iran openly yet their policies are completely damaging to the American interest
In an old Chuck Norris film called invasion USA the enemies of the state came in here and tried to destroy those institutions which we trust such as the police and the military
Movements like the defund police as well as the anti-war movement or largely designed to destroy America
this is pretty much the Iran strategy through these steath agents in Congress
Instead of being worried about the nuclear bomb or long-range missiles perhaps the defense department has to worry about the knife in the back from its own Congress
This of course has been supported by numerous liberals who have decided that they like Iran better than America but are unwilling to move there
It appears that the Republic of Iran is going to award the New York times it's highest award,
This in gratitude for the times disclosing the fact that a wounded pilot had been stranded in Iran.
While ultimately the times was unsuccessful in helping Iran to capture the fallen pilot. they nonetheless did their best to help terrorists State obtain that goal
And for this the New York times will be honored at some ceremony after the bombing stops in iran and if there's anything left of Iran to honor them with
Of course nobody at the New York times was available for comment on this, waiting to see if they actually get the award
Although inside sources said the time staff is extremely pleased at the idea that they might have helped the rogue terrorist Nation get that pilot
Better luck next time one reporter said
This of course is in keeping with the times editorial policy which is the pro-iran and anti-america. ultimately they probably will also support China but that's down the road
The New York times has been vehemently anti-trump for years and of course it doesn't matter if the pilot got captured or not in their minds as Long as Trump got embarrassed
One of the few surviving upper echelon of in Iran said they were very pleased with the times behavior and hope to work with the times again in future and if ever the opportunity comes available
Paul McCartney’s “The Days we left behind,” stunned me.
Partly because it is the time of the lives of the Beatles
that I most treasure, a time of hope and when they worked towards a common goal.
When they were more than just friends or band mates.
Going through the story of the Beatles, I crave that time as
well, partly because it foreshadows my lives with my friends, and how much we
managed to come together, and never had success ruin it for us – we all remained
like brothers for all of our lives.
McCartney’s release of his song and the album to come realizes
finally just how powerful a time it was prior to their success, and how much
success really cost them.
The release of this new music reflects something I was
thinking about as well, and how I wish I could have been part of that
experience – although again, I was with my friends, two of whom (like John and
George) have since passed on.
I’ve written extensively about my experiences, and several
songs that reflect the same feeling McCarney’s recent song does (my song called
“Formerly Joe’s very much in the same vein as Paul’s.
This may well be McCartney’s swan song (hopefully not). If it
is, I treasure it, because it looks back and brings back to life those precious
moments he lived through (and stirs up in me the nostalgia for our little
gang).
Few things have touched me so deeply, or bonded me more
closely with McCartney (who I’ve never met) than the release of this song –
which I’m in the process of learning, part of my attempt to get into the heads
of the Beatles by trying to perform their music.
Seven nights in a row I’ve dreamed about my old job at the
newspaper, not with the most recent owner, but the one I worked for twenty-five
years prior to that.
Not exactly a nightmare, although filled with the usual
trepidation, the weekly and sometimes daily deadline hovering over me.
My dreams usually have the same overall landscape, a world
that roughly corresponds to places I actually lived or worked. With this latest
series, the landscape altered somewhat.
I won’t confess to any questionable trysts, though REM sleep
always brings its share of those as well. Yet, these dreams recollected some of
what I felt when the owner of our paper used to spy on me, checking the computers
where I worked as if looking for evidence of a crime.
I rarely used work a computer for anything but work. If I wrote
anything private, I did so long hand into hardcovered notebooks that I carried
with me in my bag or my car.
These recent dreams had the same feeling I got when in
reality I came to work to find my boss sitting at my terminal or got word from
the other office that he had been snooping in my terminal there.
In waking, I lost most of the thread of these dreams, only
that he expected something of me or suspected something about me, which in
reality or dreamland, he could not prove.
Why I am saddled with these dreams these days after nearly a
decade since he sold off the business and moved up state New York, I can’t say.
Perhaps the godawful work environment still haunts me even
now when I have a much better boss and a less stressful job. Something remains
unresolved, something I suspect never will be.
The more I learned about the Beatles history the sadder the
story is
It is one of those tales of caution that Shakespeare might
have written or others about getting what you really want
This is partly a tale of my friends and our band, which came
dangerously close to fame and it would have ruined our lives if we’d gotten it
All of it started in the basement of a friend, who's rich
parents gave him everything he wanted in instruments and everybody gravitated
towards that place
Out of this emerge the band that played Passaic valley area
and for a time looked like it was going to have its own version of Beatlemania
Two venues had to be closed down because of overcrowding of
teens
This occurred after I first saw the band in Paterson playing
the St John's community center where Paulie got up on stage
Later, while I was on the run from the police out west, the
band made even more headway and by the time I came back was already playing
most of the clubs in the area and making a name for itself
The most notable of these performances was at Melody lake
where we played for a bikers’ picnic thousands of motorcyclists, scaring the
hell out of Passaic county – our version of the 1969 Rolling Stones concert.
In a battle of the band that was supposed to be won by a
band largely made up of a horn section, our band prevailed. It was at an exclusive
community, where only relations to the association could compete. But since our
drummer was dating one of the daughters, we were allowed to compete. Everybody
thought the house group with its big horn sound would prevail. It did not.
The prize was a recording contract as well as the services
of a prominent booking agency.
The band was very tight by that time and one of the
prominent agents came to see us at the Red Baron in cedar Grove.
He offered to represent us but at a price we had to give him
a percentage of all the revenues we had made already and then upgrade all of
our equipment to Marshalls and other stuff we couldn't afford
What are the two Johns who played guitar for our band told
him to screw off and we got blacklisted
We tried to disguise John, doing a Davis Bowie disguise, but
he was just too good a guitarists and nobody got fooled – much like the scene
from Backbeat in which Stu was playing Elvis, and the agent walked out.
We never reached that high point again although we continue
to play in various factions at one point splitting it to two entirely different
bands one new age and one more traditional Rock
One version of the band cut a single thanks to the
assistance of Joey Ramone. But it went nowhere.
The other band put out several albums of original material
no record company picked up on.
Perhaps a blessing, since none of us were ready for success.
One John went on to work as a prominent computer specialist
and succeeded in that fashion.
The other John was more tragic, never giving up the rock and
roll live and died eventually from liver failure.
Paulie became something for hermit after working as a
library director for 20 years
Some of this sounds like the scene from yesterday in which
John Lennon held up as a hermit and that's what I think of often when I see
that film, Paul living in in his trailer where he eventually passed away as
well
And the more I learn about the Beatles the more I realize
that had the band really succeeded it would have had the same issues and
perhaps not the same positive result no Linda or Yoko to settle down the most
too provocative characters
Sometimes I think it's better off not getting what you want
especially when it comes to fame because there's no way to shed the mantle of
it and perhaps as with the Beatles you sort of become a puppet show for other
media to make money
In many ways the Beatles lucked out later when each of them
settled into a real life but the story is still sad very tragic a regular
Shakespearean tragedy
Cold again, two days before the official start of spring,
not really a surprise, just annoying. Junior, our cat, is ill again, and does
not seem to be on the mend, despite a visit to the vet, and I’m caught between
bad choices.
We are also in the midst of house repairs that have our
lives in a turmoil, stuff in places it oughtn’t be in order to make space for
the work, some of which will be rectified today when the contractors come to
finish up one portion, allowing us to repack the space that previously contain the
“stuff”.
Beyond the walls of our abode, the world is in even worse
shape, people seeking peace by waging war, and we are all forced to take sides,
an uncomfortable choice because none of this will end up well, regardless of
which philosophy prevails.
I miss the simplicity of the past, when I assumed I knew
which side I wanted to be on, and could confidently live with this delusion wisdom
has since revealed as folly.
Looking back, I continue to wonder at what point in the past
I might return to had I had the power to do so, and most often conclude the
1970s when all our dreams still seemed within reach, when we all believed we
would end us somewhere better than we ultimately did.
Perhaps living with illusion is better than living without
it, having hope than later feeling hopeless.
These days, the more I learn about the Beatles, the sadder
that story becomes, how these four lads got everything they hoped for, then lost
it, derailed by their own flaws.
Did Yoko save John? Was Linda the salvation Paul needed?
I keep hearing Layla in my head, the song that became the
sound track of 1972, our most hopeful year, and realize this was about George
losing a lover.
Hank used to compare the four of us to the Beatles – me, himself,
Garrick and Pauly, and over time, as the Beatles story unveils, he might have
been right, we losing Hank first, and decades later, Pauly, leaving me and
Garrick as the las two of the foursome to carry on.
Pauly was much more like John, while Hank, like Paul, each
seeming to take on one or the other as a model. Pauly had John’s twisted humor
and amazing vocal ability, even doing artwork similar to John’s, and came up
with unrealized schemes.
Hank was the ultimate showman like Paul, performing in local
pubs, often singing show tunes – including the Broadway tune the Beatles
covered.
This leaves me and Garrick to accept the roles of George and
Ringo. Garrick still performs out with pick up bands. I do internet videos.
Both of us clinging to a bit of the past. I relate to George most, and I tend
to play best his music.
Yet, we can carrying this comparison too far, since Pauly
alone had the genius of the Beatles, and perhaps Hank had the talent. I work too
hard to learn what the did, and often come up short. Still, as time goes on,
what else can we do, but keep on keeping on.
