Pfffffunk...eee

In the immortal words of one Robert Bunker, "Listen to me." Before you dig too deep into this blog entry be advised there are links to three YouTube songs.  If you only have time listen to one, please make it the last one, "Blisters" by War - It's way too short at just over two minutes but it captures the whole story here. Knock yourself out...

Hopefully the extra "F's" and "E's" up there have helped you draw out the word the way I intend. You see, it is sticking in my pitiful brain this morning and I want to share the stick.

Pfffffunk...eee, as in funky... funky down Broadway.

As an exploratory effort, right now I am listening to a Parliament Funkadelic tune from 1978, "One Nation Under a Groove". I can't say this is a great song and I am trying to capture some serious "funk".  I am looking for something that is head-bobbing, compelling bass, catchy rhythm and lyrics kind of funky.

Ahh, now it is working!  I called upon Mother Google and she has directed me to Wickipedia wherupon I have discovered some definitions and some direction to what is sticking here.  Sly and the Family Stone, War, The Commodores... that is what I am talking about here this morning.  I am going to run to YouTube and find something that nails this mood.  Be right back...

This is it... War's extended version of "Slippin into Darkness"... first time I have ever heard the extended version and it is great.  Check it out  

He is slipping into darkness when he hears his momma say, "Pretty soon your gonna pay."

Then, there is my favorite, "Blisters" from their "Deliver The Word" album.

That... is Pfffffunk... eee.

Sunday Morning... Going Down

A month or two ago Berkeley Breathed penned his last "Opus" cartoon for the Sunday papers.

From a personal standpoint there is grave significance to this.  You see, for some time my Sunday morning routine consisted of reading the paper front to back while saving the frosting on the cake, the comics, for last.  

(I should point out here that our paper, the Sacramento Bee, recently downsized the paper and changed to a density that resembles tissue.  This means when you open it to read... it flops all over the place like a limp ____.  This is  another sure sign of our depressed economic times, but that is another story.)

Anyway, when I read the comics I only focused on four; Dilbert, Doonesbury, Pearls Before Swine and the comic of all comics... Opus.  

Now that it is gone, my Sunday mornings are a shell of what they once were.  I am incomplete.  I don't know what I am going to do to fill this cavernous gap in my day.  Maybe I will write a blog... nah.      

Royal Fleece

Goldman Sachs Posts First Loss Since Going Public

 

Bloomberg News

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 

Goldman Sachs Group yesterday reported a fourth-quarter loss of $2.12 billion, its first since going public in 1999, as the most profitable of Wall Street's biggest firms succumbed to the global credit crisis. The loss of $4.97 a share in the three months ended Nov. 28 was smaller than analysts' most pessimistic estimates, and the company's shares rose 14.4 percent, or $9.54, to close at $76 on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm reported net income of $3.22 billion, or $7.01 a share, in the corresponding period a year earlier. Chief executive Lloyd C. Blankfein, who led the firm to its lowest annual earnings since 2002, gave up his bonus after converting Goldman Sachs to a bank-holding company and accepting $10 billion in bailout funds from the U.S. government. The firm, which set a Wall Street profit record in 2007, has cut 10 percent of its workforce as its stock has plummeted 65 percent this year and revenue fell by half. 

What you don’t see here is this very same report points out that these guys paid 1% in taxes.  One Percent.  

Rachel M and others figure they are likely sheltering their money offshore somehow. 

At the same time, we gave them (through our elected government representatives) $10 billion dollars as part of the recent bailout?!  What is wrong with this picture?  

Joe the Plumber and you... and me are in the 30% bracket or thereabouts and our government is using the money we pay them to “bail out” an entity that is paying 1% in taxes. Un… Freaking… Believable. 

This is just another of many things that are fundamentally wrong with our system.  We have met the Sheep and the Sheep is us… we are getting a royal fleecing. So for those of us who think the “system” has our back, it’s time to think again. 

I have to turn this all over to the “F-bomb Governor”.  He will set up a deal no one can refuse, as long as we make his wife the Illinois Lottery Chief.

 

  

Baby Blue & Speed

She was a nosed and decked baby blue ’49 Merc’ and she was hauling ass across the eastern New Mexico plains. The year was 1964. She had left Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis and was headed for Logan, New Mexico. It was near dawn and her flathead V8 was singing a 75 mile an hour tune. About a half hour into her trip, her headlights caught their first glimpse of the breaks. The breaks were 100-foot cliffs marking a natural cut across the landscape as far as the eye could see.  

As she decelerated slightly for her drop to the lower plains, the sounds inside her passenger compartment at times almost drowned out the sound of her screaming engine. She was carrying two young Air Force airmen who were right in the middle of trying to match the full volume of her radio as the Beatles, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” played.  That music was blasting from Wolfman Jack's Mexico station.  The Wolfman was operating what was called an outlaw "border blaster" station that used powerful wattage to cover large areas...all well in excess of US regulations.

There were other occasional noises cutting through the night as well. Every few miles the Mercury would pass a farmer’s irrigation engine. These were unmufflered big block Chrysler Hemi’s, Fords, Oldsmobiles and Chevy’s that would constantly crank at about 2,000 rpm. They provided a lifeline of water for the peanut, cotton, corn and grain crops in the area. They also gave off a deep-throated, powerful rumble that was pleasing to the young ears of the car’s occupants. The big blocks just sat on engine stands, exposed to the elements. They almost seemed to be waiting for the rest of the automobile body panels, tires and wheels to be wrapped around them so they could peel out and head down the highway.        

The two had worked all day and partied well into the night before they began their Thanksgiving Eve trip. They were running on pure energy…and Dexedrine… “speed”. In those days the powerful amphetamine wasn't controlled. It was routinely dispensed to pilots as the “go” pills on tongue blades that had a bottle of them taped on one end and a bottle of “stop” pills on the other. The blades were even color-coded at each end, red for go and blue for stop. Pilots on long missions would take “go” pills to stay alert during flights and “stop” pills to help them come down after landing. 

It wasn’t exactly illegal for the airmen to have the go pills but it would definitely be frowned upon if they were caught so they kept the whole thing on the sly. They were medics and had unlimited access so they would use them from time to time to extend a lively evening of partying. One small problem…they were clueless about the near term effects of extended use. Consequently, that day the riders were on a routine…pop a couple of go pills every four hours or so and just keep going.

By the time they reached their destination they had already been on speed all night. As they arrived, they each popped two more tablets for good measure. They were invited guests for Thanksgiving dinner at a local family’s home and they didn’t want to crash right in the middle of the meal.  It was a fairly simple matter of avoiding a face first splat into a plate of turkey with trimmings. Their plan wouldn’t work.

After an hour or so at the home of their friends, one of them was suddenly overcome with a racing pulse, clammy skin and incredible weakness. He hit the floor in the living room and tried to keep calm until the symptoms subsided. He kept the others there calm by just claiming to be overly tired and needing a little rest. He was naïve but not so much that he didn’t realize it was the speed hitting him. Resolutions are usually reserved for New Years but he made one that Thanksgiving, “Never again.” It was a no-brainer.  It would hold for the rest of his life.       

Tatizzle

Look, Google uses a made up confirmation word when you are posting comments on other folks blogs.

(I think I am going to start more sentences, verbal and written with the word, "look".  I have noticed that our President-elect likes to do this and I have decided it sounds presidential... doesn't it?)

So look...today I was making a blog comment and the God Google asked me to enter the letters, "tatizzle".

Look, let me be the first to nominate this as a new word in our lexicon. I mean it just has a pleasant ring to it doesn't it?

Now look, I have to make up a definition.  I am going to go for the obvious here and call it a really "hot" tattoo.  As in, "Wow!  your idea of putting a skyscraper, one on each leg running from toe to hip really has tatizzle!"

Say it out loud three times real fast and you will earn the puzzled stares of anyone near you. 

Tatizzle!

Tatizzle!!

Tatizzle!!!

Fun eh?!

Look, you read it here first. 

(Note:  I was going to post a photo of a sizzling tattoo here and cruised Google images for a hot one but had to stop.  Its the permanence of the things that scares the H--- out of me.)

Heart Warrior

Sarcastic, cynical, pedantic.

You will hear this

But you won't believe it

It is not part of you

It is just a top skim

A brief look

Reality is buried within

Checked for later

(be sure to keep your stub)

It is just communication after all

Like everyone else

On the outside

You don't always get it right

But within you it is always

True to the target

A laser from the heart

To one you love

To one you care about

To one you admire

To one you love again

A heart warrior

You keep firing them constantly

You wish you could hit them all

But you only hit a few

At least that is what you sense

From the responses

Or the lack thereof

It stems from a desire to touch

With impact

A desire to reach hearts

And remain

With affection

Consider these lyrics:

"I'm a gonna hit that bar

Goin downtown again.

I really need to hit that bar

And I'm gonna take Fair Oaks Boulevard

I feel like I'm someone prepared to get down

And I need that something gonna' turn my frown upside down.

I feel like I'm someone prepared to get down... and I need that something right now"

("Downtown Again", Copyright, 2008, Arden Park Roots/Tyler Thomas Campbell, www.ardenparkroots.com)

Someone else's lasers

Fired with the same intensity

I'm gonna do a better job

Of picking up on someone else's sincerity

I'm gonna avoid hanging labels

Spare the Sarcasm

Spare the Cynicism

Humor the Pedantic

I'll try.

Hybrids!?

Well now... isn't this interesting?!   Ford, GM CEOs Heading to Washington in Hybrids

This is a new role for us... the public that is.  

Now, we have to carefully scrutinize the behavior of management staff at publicly held organizations and tell them when they are doing the wrong thing (i.e. flying corporate jets to Washington to plead for bailout money).  If we don't do this routinely, they will be prone to 'fly' off and do frivolous things... kinda' like many of our politicians.  

This must be the "check and balance" part of our great democracy my teachers unsuccessfully tried to bang into my head in high school.  Now I get it - the responsibility is ours -  as opposed to the avarice ridden minds we tend to put into high powered political and business positions.  

We are the 'check' in the equation. I guess we are up to it. Aren't we?  

Elliptical - 2028

Just a week shy of my 83^rd birthday now.  

It seems like a hundred years since we went through Great Depression II in 2009.  It is good to have witnessed the re-birth of a self sufficient United States.  That amazing President, Barack Obama pulled off the most remarkable recovery and he did it by teaming up an eclectic 'Wild Bunch' of politicians.  He turned them around from fighting cats that were at one time slashing at one another like Jack the Ripper.  He put them on the same course, gave them a vision and blammo!!!  Here we are.  We have paid off our 35 trillion dollar national debt and therein freed our kids to create their own prosperity.

So now we have an openly gay President, Rachel Maddow.  So much for “don’t ask, don’t tell” right?! Rachel is an Oxford educated Rhodes Scholar and the first of her kind to move from newscaster to Senator to President.  Who would have thought?! I will tell you she is a pistol of the first degree.  She has us on a steady track of retaining human values while dealing with world population growth problems that stagger the imagination.  I am betting that will be the defining point of her Presidency.  I am also betting she will succeed. 

But I am missing the point of this story… my elliptical machine.   Well, it’s not exactly mine.  It is one of several at the Del Norte club, our neighborhood gym.  There are a half dozen of these along with an equal number of stair steppers, treadmills and in-place bicycles (all cardio machines) along with the usual assortment of weight machines.

About ten years ago, contractors laid pipe perpendicular to our two rows of new cardio machines.  The machines were then all configured to capture the energy produced by our workouts.  It worked great and it wasn’t long before we were generating enough electricity to completely power our club.  We even generated enough excess to help replenish our community electrical reserves and help power buildings that had no self sustaining ‘human’ generators.  We could also apply excess electrical credit to our own homes!  

It all worked so well that it within five years it was hard to find a home or gym that wasn’t similarly wired.  Even plug-in autos would pull up to a gym for a quick charge.  We all got so ‘charged’ up about the new technology, we were spending twice as much time on our machines.  I even dropped enough weight to drag my old Air Force blue suit out of the closet and watch it sort of hang off me.  I’ll tell you, this was happening in millions of closets back then.

I guess you didn’t have to be an epidemiologist to predict some of the after affects of this whole cultural change.  For example, the incidence of diabetes and other weight related illnesses has declined dramatically. We are also getting older and older as a population and we are retaining our faculties pretty well along the way too!  I have to give Google some credit here as well.  After all, there is no knowledge that can’t be found there and our extremely old baby boomers aren’t shy about using it. When we geezers aren’t generating electrical power, we are writing semi-literate passages on everything under the sun.  It sure has added a lot to our geriatric bag of tricks.  Our sons and daughters and all their offspring aren’t doing bad either.  Our new found collective fitness has reenergized and sharpened the thinking of everyone in the government and the private sectors. 

Then around five years ago, we installed yet another generation of elliptical and other cardio machines.  These were optically wired with high resolution telemedicine capability and allowed us to run our annual physicals at the same time we were generating plain old electricity.  The attached earphones we typically used for music also had super sensitive receptors to measure many of our critical vital signs. 

When we grabbed the closest set of hand bars (the ones we normally used to check our heart rate) during our physicals, we also generated information that was instantly sent to our primary care physician.  After that, all we had to do was stop by the lab for specimen collection and our physician soon had what was needed.  On our next trip to the cardio machines, we had a direct hook up to the doc who would share the results and free us for another year or ask us to come in for additional tests.  Our exercise club also had an on-site med tech who assisted us with special hookups for more sophisticated tests when needed. 

That’s it for now, I have to go.  Julieann and I are stepping out tonight for a little dining and dancing.  We are giving our ellipticals a little rest…