Friday, July 27, 2012

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE...
...for that matter, I can't buy The Beatles' newest album, either...
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It's a move that has surprised a whole lot of Beatles' music collectors. A new collection of their songs sports the name, "Tomorrow Never Knows", and from what I've read, this album is being marketed to younger, mix-oriented, disassociated Sonic Youth of today, but get this: IT IS ONLY AVAILABLE ON "I-TUNES"...that's right, you can't get a solid, tangible item that you can actually hold in your hand, instead you're buying the right to download these songs on your computer or mobile device, or whatever it is that today's disassociated Sonic Youth subscribes to in terms of musical service.
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Throughout the '70s, '80's, '90s and '00's, I have bought every copy of a Beatles re-release that I could get my hands on. I bought their re-done "songtrack" to the Yellow Submarine movie. I purchased a copy of "Let It Be" (the 'naked' version) back in 2003. Back several years ago, The Beatles scored a huge hit with their re-package of #1 hits, titled logically enough, "1". Got that too. I bought English Import copies of all their albums, and for their various songs that weren't on their English albums, I bought the two-LP (and CD) "Past Masters" set, which brings together all their single tracks that were never issued on an English LP. (The English record companies operate in strange mysterious ways.) I even bought a 2-LP set of their "Love" album, which re-mixes Beatle Songs; and as such, approximates the "Cirque de Soleil" show that's been running in Las Vegas in fairly recent times.

The image at left was probably created by someone having fun with their photoshop program. It's a picture of The Beatles' New Item that Does Not Exist. I have bitched and whined over the years about how many times they have released the same songs, and have griped because so many versions of re-arranged Beatle Product have been put on the market. I even bought all the 2010 re-masters of all their English Albums in addition to the "regular" (not that much different) CD's that came out back in the 1990's. Yes, folks, I've bought it all. I devised ways to scheme and follow release schedules so that I could place my order for New Beatles' LPs, since they were being issued in super-limited quantities. (For example, the "Love" 2-LP set I referred to in the above paragraph received a North American Pressing Run of only 5,000 copies, and I've got one!)
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This time around, though, I guess The Beatles don't want my business. I don't do all of this mobile-broadband-always-switched-on communicating stuff. I have no I-phone, no cell phone, the only "tablet" I have consists of sheets of paper, and the Blackberries I come across are in Pie A La Mode. So I'm not hip. I'm not with it. I treasure taking a long-desired slab of music home with me and actually putting it on the turntable...or CD player. I want something I can hold in my hands. I'm a collector, after all, and consider every addition to the collection a "little victory". Ahhh, the sweet smell of Acquisition. Some need to merge major corporations; me, I bring new vinyl home. So what good does typing all this do, you ask?
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I wanted to get this post OUT THERE in the hope that some cyber junkie will come across what I've written, and start a worldwide campaign! Why can't I have a chance to buy this new "Tomorrow Never Knows" album on LP and/or CD? I'm being shut out here and the more I think about this blindsiding action taken by The Beatles/Apple Corps/I-Tunes, the more OFFENDED I am! Not that I need the same old songs on a different running order, but I would buy the record and CD if it was available, and I'm sure a lot of the Beatles' collectors around the world would support this! Why would I foolishly spend money for Beatles songs I already have? It's the sweet smell of Acquisition. Some people collect coins, I collect music. And failing all else, maybe I'll gratify myself by making my own "Tomorrow Never Knows" compact disc from other Beatles' CD's I already have. But I would buy the thing, were it to be made available...hint...hint...
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Finally, I should mention that Ringo's just completed his most recent tour with his band of musicians, and of course, Paul is gonna do the closing of the Olympic Opening Ceremony this weekend, but there is something that could happen for both of them...if they wanted it to happen...and it probably never will happen...I'd like Paul to surrender his pride and become a part of Ringo Starr's All-Star Band. They'd have a great time! How about it, guys? Neither of you are getting any younger!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

THE END OF AN ERA...
...well, it's the end of something...feels like it anyway...

Ichiro, now a Yankee
What can I do but come right out and say it...Ichiro Suzuki is no longer a part of the Seattle Mariners' Organization as of today, July 23, 2012. Just like that. This is where I get to stroke my ego, because I've long thought (and mentioned here in this blog) that Ichiro, sooner or later, would be wearing Yankee pinstripes, although I've thot that less likely over the last few years, simply because the passing of time makes all of us old, and Ichiro ain't gettin' any younger. I don't really have a 'favorite moment' regarding Ichiro, although, especially early on, I marveled at his speed and his cannon-of-a-throwing-arm. Oh, and all of those 200-plus-hits-seasons. So he's now a New York Yankee. During tonight's game, the camera pointed to Ichiro in the Yankees' dugout and I felt a chill coming from my TV. The Mariners got a couple of young pitchers in return for their trouble. So will the M's excel without Ichiro? Certainly not. Will the M's win their division anytime soon? No. There'll be another team in the M's division next year that the M's have to contend with. Will the M's ever achieve a .500 winning percentage? They'd better think about that if they expect to contend sometime during the next decade.
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Amy Winehouse, 1983-2011
ONE YEAR SINCE SHE PASSED: In a way, I think she died a long time ago. Her marriage broke apart, the papparazzi wouldn't leave her be, she'd acquired a monster drug habit, and basically her career was more or less over by 2009. She had been stockpiling songs for her third album, but during her last couple of years, she didn't record anything especially noteworthy. And she finally ended up going to "rehab" (yes, yes, yes). In her prime, the whole world was hers. She was excited, full of vim and vigor, and her voice carried an edge that was reminiscent of the best of the lady blues singers down through the ages. But she was booed off stage at a comeback performance early last year; she showed up drunk and couldn't hold a note or remember the lyrics to songs she had written. She'd already died;  the only difference was that on July 23, 2011 was that her heart stopped beating. She'd rendered herself irrelevant a long time before. She'd been off drugs for three years, but she still had problems with the bottle...the authorities found three empty vodka bottles in her apartment on the day of her death. Suicide? Binge drinking? Mental obliteration? She was just 27. Such a sad tale.
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BLESSED INSURANCE: If you're a licensed motorist, you know the drill. Show proof of insurance upon demand from your friendly man (or woman) in blue. You also have to supply proof of insurance to the monolithic state transportation department when ya get yer license. Well, A couple of weeks ago, I received a notice that I was among a random group of drivers targeted to Show Evidence Of Insurance being maintained on my part. It was a "RESPONSE REQUIRED" mailing. Of course I sent the reply in, so (hopefully the State Of Oregon) is resting easy now that I've supplied proof of insurance. Again. The only problem I have with this is being (vaguely) warned in said note with suspension of driving privileges if I failed to respond. Wait a minute...I'd already supplied proof of insurance several times during the last few years, and now you're THREATENING ME if I don't supply proof of insurance...again??? Gosh, you guys. Ease Up. Quit your heavy-handed ways.
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SOMETHING TO GET PUMPED ABOUT: The Gas Station Attendant (you can't pump your own gas in Oregon) told me something which I'd been wondering about for a while: When your Gas Tank's full, you get better mileage! There's less air in the tank, which means less room for condensation, resulting in purer gas being fed to the engine. I've been filling up my tank for the last few months, and noticed that the better part of a month would go by before I needed to fill up again. Giving the long distances between things on the Southern Oregon Coast, I've been using my share of gas going to points "A" and "B" (plus all other points in-between). I knew I'd been putting more in the tank via the fill-ups, but for some reason, I was going further than I expected to. So re-mortgage your house or do whatever you have to do to afford a full gas tank; once you do that, you may find you're going further than you thought you would. Which really helps when a trip to the Post Office is a ten-mile round trip.
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So there ya go, I've fed the Blog Monster once again. I'm finding that I've basically got to reserve an entire evening to do this. Maybe I should load up on carbs and proteins so I get more blogging mileage?

Friday, July 13, 2012

Warning: Long Post Ahead. Bring your lunch... 
I'M NOT AS INVINCIBLE AS I THOUGHT!
...or another way I've found out that I am starting to get really old and decrepid...
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I've run marathons. I've swam for a mile at a time. I've hiked up and down forested hills with an 8-gallon water bag on my back, shovel in one hand and a Pulaski in the other. I've always been rather active, and love to be outdoors whenever I can. I used to tell myself that because I did all that running way back in my 30s and 40s, that my heart was very very strong and would remain so, giving me an advantage in life. Well, guess what...my blood pressure has been spiking lately, and my last blood pressure reading was up over the 200 mark (top number-systalic), which really freaked me out. It turns out that I feel stressed in particular situations (such as going to the doctors' officer) and "pow", my blood pressure reading is off the charts! The same thing's been happening at open-mike nights, my heart starts racing and I forget half my chords and all of my lyrics, which isn't fun.The old "naked in front of everyone" nightmare, although I do have a guitar covering up strategic places on my body.
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So I'm on BLOOD--PRESSURE MEDICATION! ME! A hidden benefit is that the drug 'Propanolol' is also supposed to make a person less anxious. And so I believe I'm joining the ranks of Official Senior Citizens...the last time I went to the pharmacy, they wanted $60 bucks! Will I have to one day choose betweeen medication and food? Oh well, there is some good news, though: I've been advised to monitor my blood pressure from time to time, so I went into Wal-Mart today to strap my arm into one of those "heart rate machines", and my blood pressure was 127/62, which is a LOT better than the reading at the doctor's office. Evidently I have a hard time handling high-pressure situations. I think we all have to 'mask' pressures in everyday life, and to a point, the body can absorb that, but I'm beginning to think that as I age, the body's capability to sublimate all that goes flyin' out the window.
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I've also been feeling really rundown lately...I get up, feed the birds, have breakfast, and before ya know it, I wanna go back to bed again. Tired, tired, tired. So they've got me on mega-doses of Vitamin D which are so powerful they can be taken only twice a week. And let's not forget Cholesterol, and I'm taking horse-pills of Niacin to deal with that. And that doesn't take into account the other medications I'm taking which these new medications have been added to. Right now I see ten bottles of pills and vitamins staring me in the face from on top of my nightstand. My kidneys are still good, which I see as a minor miracle since I've been bombarding them with anti-gout medication for the last six years. A person with Gout has too much uric acid, which is created 'somewhere' in the body and the kidneys are supposed to filter all that stuff out, which mine don't do. So the kidneys are doing their job, but my body makes too much uric acid. A normal Uric Acid level peaks out at about "6", and my level is just over "4". So I'm doing something right after all. But I think I need to get a tattoo of a modern-day Surgeon's warning placed somewhere on my body: "Caution: Being Me can be Hazardous To My Health".
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I'm taking a couple of anti-depressants also. Last time, the doctor, added a new pill and had me cut back on the other pill, and this time around, he increased that 2nd pill to the amount I was taking before he reduced the number because of the New pill. That almost makes sense. But that's fine with me 'cos I sleep better. My new doctor comes from India, I believe, and although there are some language problems...he speaks a little 'fast' and sometimes accentuates the wrong syllable, I'm sure he means well, and so far, I'm happy with him. He really seems to be interested in navigating a patient's condition and trying to better it with various medical cocktails. During appointments, he types out instructions to the patient on a computer, then prints them out, so the patient has all of the doctor's instructions right there, to take home, and I think that's really great. I'm glad he does that; it's getting to the place where I'm taking so many pills on so many consumption schedules that I feel somewhat like a pill-juggler. And so there's reason to have hope. I still have my health, with the possibility that things'll get even better. So I'm grateful, at least for now.
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RING, RING GOES THE BELL: Next month, I'll be heading back to my old hometown for our 40th high school class reunion. I still stay in touch with goings-on up there, but there's been so much new development that I'll probably barely recognize the place. It'll be interesting; after 6 years away; I'll run head-on into some strange mental trips...how do I feel about a place I'm no longer part-of? Will I miss it? Will I be glad when I leave? I got tired of the cold winters, the sometimes ultra-hot summers, the influx of more and more people in the area with the resulting traffic problems and basic inconsideration by folks who 'brought their ways' with them. My dad used to call them "flatlanders", and I can see why he felt the way he did. I'll be busy up there...there are some graves I need to visit, including graves that weren't there when I left. So many memories. Good and bad. I gave a lot of my life to that place. I spent some of the worst years I've ever had up there. I remember it as a great place to grow up, but also a very harsh place as I grew older. It was the fact that I really didn't 'fit' into my hometown that made me think going elsewhere was something I needed and wanted to do. But it's a brain-strainer for sure, returning to the Same Ol' Place. Only it ain't the Same Ol' Place, if you know what I mean.
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Finally...there were a certain group of high-school classmates that I detested. Every school has them; the bright, eager, glib and oh-so-smart scholastic-oriented kids who were always in pursuit of High Honors or excelling in everything they did, or running for Student Offices, all the while debating everything, half of it in Latin. You know what I mean. Those doggone "smart kids" who got Gold Cords, honors and scholarships.  So why did I detest them? I've always considered myself at least halfway smart, but when I was in class with them, I knew that I just didn't measure up and knew I never would. They had a certain 'something' I lacked. Once, I got put into a 10th Grade "Honors English" class with most of them, and I almost quit that class several times, because I wasn't "one of them" and was intimidated to the "nth degree". Recently, I saw the website belonging to one of those high-honor kids who is now an attorney in a large city, and as I read his writings on ethical issues as well as his writings of other things that happen in life, I came to realize he and I were as different as I am from someone who got absolutely no "book learnin'" at all. And it's true; we are given different levels of talent and it's up to us to try and maximize them if at all possible. But everyone is going to end up at a different level, and that just has to be accepted. Maybe I was smart, but there was a lot in school that defied my comprehension. I hope I've made some progress as I've gone through life, but I'm not really sure.
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It's really refreshing to be able to post things which I've had running around in my head for a while. Typing this thing was almost like doing a 7-minute mile (which I used to be able to do). A 7-minute mile for me was the equivalent of Roger Bannister doing the 4-minute mile for the first time. And for those of you who are wondering what a "Pulaski" is (1st paragraph), it's a tool that's shaped like a hammer, except one side is a hoe, while the other side is an axe. So now you know.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

A LESSON IN DEVOTION...
...or, if dogs could talk, we could learn a lot... 
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One day a couple of years ago, while walking on the beach, I saw a dog, which isn't unusual out here, except that this particular dog didn't seem to be with anyone. It would lay on the beach for a while, pace back and forth, looking seaward; occasionally it would approach a beach-walker, such as me, looking for a pat or two on the head, and I must admit, I'm 'easy' when it comes to giving a dog a good hearty head-scratch. That's one of the cool things about beach-walking; meeting the dogs and their owners. It's an easy situation in which to strike up a conversation.
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I spent quite a lot of time watching this particular dog; it wasn't fetching or chasing a tennis ball or any of the other dogs do; it just paced back and forth along one section of beach, looking for somebody or something out there in the water. Obviously the dog was in some kind of distress, although it looked perfectly well to me...and then I figured it out...I saw a surfer come in, with surfboard; he'd had enough of the waves pounding his brain, and the dog was so happy to see his person. And I thought, "what a cool relationship this is".
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Fast-forward to a little over a week ago; I was sitting in the sand, surrounded by beach grass, ready for Mother Nature to lay another gorgeous sunset on me, and there was that dog again. You can see it standing near the waves, while The Surfer paddles out to face a few more waves. Actually, it doesn't seem to take a lot of 'wave' to get a pretty good ride. Me, I can barely keep my balance on dry land!


I wanted to provide some contrast in this photo, and this picture might have achieved that...in the background, you can see some fairly big lumps of stone about half-a-mile away, and in the foreground, is Mr. Surfer, at the end of another wave. And even though those waves look small, they're fairly big when you're out in the middle of them. And I'm sure the water's cold too.


After pacing up and down the beach for a long, long time, finally Mr. Surfer had enough cold, hard-hitting salt water and came in, and there was His Dog, so glad to see him. Every so often, this scene is repeated; the dog gets exercise running up and down the beach, and Mr. Surfer gets his brains pounded out of his skull by Ocean Waves. In the end, they both go home, tired but happy.


That's something I often wonder about...I guess it's called "devotion", and why we, as human beings find it so difficult to be devoted to someone else. I've often wondered about married couples...when they first meet each other, How Do They Know that they want to be together for the rest of their lives? And what happens after that, when one or the other meets someone else who "fits" them better, and how does one not feel guilt toward their partner for even thinking that? If I knew, I'd be in a relationship by now. But I've always felt I'd just let my partner down if I saw someone I liked better.
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But wondering about such things becomes a moot point after a while. The cool ocean breeze, together with a darkening sky, is always a relaxing time of day for me. It's as if Mother Nature is saying, "evening's come now, time to slow down and seek refuge in your place of comfort". So, here is the sunset that night, taken as the temperatures began to drop. A beautiful sight. Comforting too.

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I suppose one can wonder about a whole lot of things that don't do a whole lot of good. I've certainly had my share of doing that. What do I do about it? I find an evening that looks a whole lot like this one did, and it's off to the beach. It Always Works. It always brings me back to the "now"...at least for a while anyway...