12 Days To Election Day: Vote Democrat & Throw The Bums Out!

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Democrats

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Check out the Scar Stuff Blog

Jason, of the Scar Stuff Blog has a fantastic blog, where he largely seems to rip and scan strange vinyl Long Players from the days of yore. Great listening and reading! Thank you Jason!


A recent sound file is a "Two Headed Monster Devouring Raw Flesh." This blog is really cranking now, in the run-up to Halloween, and is well worth a look and a listen. . .
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Sign: Big Dick's Halfway Inn

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G.O.P. Candidate John Spencer leaks "butt-ugly" before photos of Senator Clinton

Hillary Rodham - "Before" and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - "After"

John Spencer, former Yonkers Mayor and Senator Hillary Clinton's Republican opponent for a U.S. Senate seat, is embroiled in controversy after he claimed on Monday that Hillary Clinton was ugly, and that she "underwent millions of dollars of "work" and "looks good now."



"You ever see a picture of her back then?," Spencer said, "Whew. I don't know why Bill married her."


Republican Candidate John Spencer

Spencer denied making these statements to New York Daily News reporter Ben Smith: "I would never call Hillary Clinton ugly. That's outrageous. I didn't do it." Despite Spencer's denial, an anonymous Spencer staffer later leaked "before and after" photographs of the Senator. The staffer was unable to provide a provenance for the purported before photograph.

Smith told the Associated Press that Spencer made the comments as Spencer, his wife and Smith sat together on an airline flight. Candidate Spencer is trailing far behind the Senator in every recent poll.
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Shades Of The Enumclaw Beastiality Case-- A Spanaway, Wash. Man Is Accused Of Having Sex With A Pit Bull

A local (to Seattle) man has been busted for having sex with the family pit bull. Unfortunately for Michael Patrick McPhail, of Spanaway, Wash., this state recently made beastiality illegal under a new animal cruelty law. It's not only illegal, but a felony. You may recall the earlier series of articles in All This Is That on the now notorious Enunclaw horse sex case:

Further ruminations on Enumclaw
Horsin' around: update on Enumclaw
Another shocking revelation
Beastiality in south King County
The final horse/beastiality update
Enumclaw Story To Become A Movie

Michael Patrick McPhail pleaded not guilty Thursday to one count of first-degree animal cruelty in Pierce County Superior Court. The Prosecutor, Karen Watson said that McPhail was the first person in Pierce County to be charged with the new bestiality offense. McPhail posted $20,000 bail on Friday and Judge Katherine Stolz has set a trial date for Dec. 11.

McPhail's wife told police she found her husband on their back porch Wednesday night performing intercourse with their 4-year-old female pit bull terrier, a Pierce County sheriff's office report said. The dog was squealing and crying, according to the official complaint. The wife took photos with her cell phone and called the sheriff.

You have to feel for Mrs. McPhail. . .I mean it's one thing if your hubby is playing hide the salami with a co-worker. A pit bull? That takes it to a new level, doesn't it?
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Music in Austin, Texas this week

On our visit to Austin, Keelin and I met some great folks, ate good food, and, of course, heard some great music.

The first night, we ate barbecue at Ruby's near the university, and watched a fantastic thunder and rainstorm from the covered patio. As we we walked toward our hotel, looking for a cab, we stumbled onto a nice dive and one of the oldest music bars in Austin---the Hole In The Wall on Guadalupe. We were lucky enough to catch part of Roger Wallace's set. He played solo--just him, his guitar and cowboy hat. The songs were all impressive, and I was especially moved by one that detailed the last 1/2 hour of a convict's life before they sprung the trap door. It details the horror of execution in a rollicking, and sometimes funny tune that propels you toward the climax of what we sometimes call a necktie party.

Billy Block, on Western Beat Radio in Nashville said: "Roger Wallace stands hat and shoulders above the throng of ‘would-be’ Texas country stars emerging from the Lone Star State."

His web site (link above) includes a series of very interesting rants on music, politics, and social issues...



On Thursday, we were able to score tickets just before Dwight Yoakam's show at the Stubb's BBQ amphitheatre. Amphitheatre may be a bit grand sounding. It is a raked dirt lot with a big covered stage and about ten bars and barbecue stands. The theatre holds about 1,500 people (standing, ala Seattle's showbox, etc.). Dwight was riveting and played over two hours--new stuff, old stuff, tributes to Merle and Buck and the Bakersfield sound. He was often funny and his voice was in fine fettle. The band included some facile multi-instrumentalists--the piano player doubled on harmony, organ, percussion, accordian and banjo. The guitar player doubled on mandolin. The bass player switched between an electric and string bass. The audience was a fascinating mix of honky tonkers, college students, tourists like us, music fans, and traditional C & W folk in full regalia. The one thing most had in common was an abiding and deep thirst for Lone Star Beer and Shiner's Bock.

I'd always liked Yoakam's voice and music (and weird character actor parts in movies). I hadn't realized how good the music is--a melange of the Bakersfield sound with the best of honky tonk, bluegrass, roots music, and even a whiff of rockabilly. He covered a few Buck Owens tunes, a Bonnie Owens tune (who died recently), Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and a Presley tune or two.



On Friday, we went out with Mark Yeend to Guero's for some of their fantastic margaritas (and Mexican food in their restaurant) and to hear the Sisters Morales play in the great outdoor venue I always like to hit when I am in Austin. I've never seen a bad show there, or had a bad margarita.

The Sisters were fine players and singers, and their band rocked. One of the sisters looked like she is about to have a baby tomorrow. David Spencer is one of the tastiest guitarists I have ever heard live. Other people agree: "David Spencer is one of Texas' finest guitar players." He scores high in polls of top electric guitar players. And we just stumbled onto them. Spencer also plays pedal steel guitar, a moving and fluid slide guitar, and he some sweet mariachi leads on acoustic.

If you ever have the chance, go to this wonderful town ("The live music capitol of the world"), where you'll encounter good music, drink, and food, but especially the Texas friendliness and hospitality you always hear about. That friendliness permeates everything you do and everyone you meet.
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More of the same of ca-ca from Karl Rove and The White House

Republicans have threatened to crank up their act against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign, and the somewhat resurrected head storm trooper, Karl Rove gave a little preview on Friday of what they have in mind.

Stumping for the struggling Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), Karl Rove ripped into Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), and took a potshot at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and asserted that Democratic policies would leave the country weaker.


"You can't say I want to win the war but not be willing to fight the war," said Rove, Bush's head political honcho. If the Democrats win, he said "our nation will be weaker and the enemies of our nation will be stronger. " In essence Rove said "stay the course." How's that working for you Karl?
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Sting has rocked his last

Take it with however many grains of salt you wish, but Sting recently blasted all contemporary rock music as so stagnant that he prefers to sing 16th century English ballads.

The former teacher who shot to fame as lead singer, bassist and songwriter in the 1970s and 80s for The Police told German newspaper Die Zeit that he prefers singing songs of Elizabethan lutenist and composer John Dowland to the rock music of today. Please. I don't see how someone who played, wrote, and sang his last decent song in 1980 is in a position to hurl brickats. I have to guess that no one in the modern rock scene is either to choked up, or too surprised to know Sting now prefers the music of Shakespeare's contemporaries.

Maybe the "adult contemporary" crowd is buying this demented gibberish, but I doubt it. I think all that tantric sex has somehow caused a dangerous blowback into his cerebral cortex.

Jack, sore from last week's hip dislocation, but on the mend, in Austin, Texas,
Where rock and roll is very alive & well
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Richard Manuel

Richard Manuel April 3, 1943 - March 4, 1986


"Richard Manuel was a whole show unto himself. He was hot. He was about the best singer I'd ever heard; most people said he reminded them of Ray Charles. He'd do those ballads, and the ladies would swoon. To me that became the highlight of our show."
--Levon Helm

"He brought a lot of powers and strengths to the group. He brought in gospel music from his church upbringing. Plus, he loved to play and just come up with new things. It was like having a force of nature in the band."
--Rick Danko

"Richard not only had the voice, he had this great rhythmic feel..."
--Garth Hudson

"Richard was a sweet, sweet guy... Always pushed the envelope beyond where it would go. Drove one hundred fifty miles an hour in his driveway; faster on the road."
--John Simon

"I was madly in love with Richard... At the time, [1975] we had the same troubles. I felt insecure and he was clearly insecure, and yet he was so incredibly gifted....For me he [Richard] was the true light of the Band. The other guys were fantastic talents, of course, but there was something of the holy madman about Richard. He was raw. When he sang in that high falsetto the hair on my neck would stand on end. Not many people can do that."
--Eric Clapton

"Richard Manuel's is the first voice you hear on the first Band album Music from Big Pink. After a Robbie Robertson guitar intro that sounds as if it's being fed through Garth Hudson's Lowrey organ at its most distorted, his aching baritone launches into the first reproachful line of `Tears of Rage`. As it arches over `arms`, you can't help thinking of Ray Charles, the singer who more than any other shaped this unlikely white soul voice from Stratford, Ontario. And by the end of the first chorus you realize why, in an almost unspoken way, Manuel's fellow Band vocalists Levon Helm and Rick Danko always looked upon him as the group's `lead` singer."
--Barney Hoskyns

"Well, let's see: I started [in music] at nine and quit. Then got back to it when I was twelve. Then I became a party star. In fact, I became a party!"
--Richard Manuel

Lyrics to The Band's "It Makes No Difference"

Here are the lyrics to one of The Band's later, greater tunes. Rick Danko (R.I.P.) with his fragile and moving tenor sang the song. Song by Robbie Robertson. (By J.R.Robertson, from Northern Lights - Southern Cross © 1975, 1976 Medicine Hat Music)


It Makes No Difference
by Robbie Robertson


It makes no diff'rence where I turn
I can't get over you and the flame still burns
It makes no diff'rence, night or day
The shadow never seems to fade away

And the sun don't shine anymore
And the rains fall down on my door

Now there's no love
As true as the love
That dies untold
But the clouds never hung so low before

It makes no diff'rence how far I go
Like a scar the hurt will always show
It makes no diff'rence who I meet
They're just a face in the crowd
On a dead-end street
And the sun don't shine anymore
And the rains fall down on my door

These old love letters
Well, I just can't keep
'Cause like the gambler says
Read 'em and weep
And the dawn don't rescue me no more

Without your love I'm nothing at all
Like an empty hall it's a lonely fall
Since you've gone it's a losing battle
Stampeding cattle
They rattle the walls



And the sun don't shine anymore
And the rains fall down on my door

Well, I love you so much
It's all I can do
Just to keep myself from telling you
That I never felt so alone before
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Alien Lore No. 89: Dr. Carl Jung on UFOs

I recently found some of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung's thoughts and observations on the UFO "phenomenon." If you want to know more about Jung, read his wikipedia entry that details his break with Freud, and his fascinating explorations into the collective unconscious. He may have been a wack in some respects, but he has been a huge influence on psychological thought in the latter half of the 20th century. His work was an enormous influence on Joseph Campbell.

This article first appeared in "I. Dr. Carl Jung Himself on Unidentified Flying Objects" in the Flying Saucer Review, Volume 1, No. 2, (May/June 1955)]

In the course of years, I have gathered together a considerable
mass of observations, included in which are reports by two
eyewitnesses known to me personally (I have never seen
anything!). I have also read on the question. However, I can
only say for certain: these things are not a mere rumour:
something has been seen.



A purely psychological explanation is ruled out by the fact that
a large number of observations indicate a natural phenomenon,
even a physical one (explainable in part as reflections or
temperature inversions).

The American Air Force (despite its contradictory statements),
as well as the Canadian, consider the observations to be real
and have set up special Bureaux to compile reports. However,
the "disks" (that is, the objects themselves) do not behave in
accordance with physical laws, but as though without weight, and
they show signs of intelligent guidance, by quasi human pilots,
for their accelerations are such that no normal human could
survive.

What astonishes me most is that the American Air Force, despite
all the information in its possession and its so-called fear of
creating panic, seems to work systematically to do that very
thing (witness the Orson Welles radio play at New Jersey) since
it has never yet published an authentic and certain account of
the facts, only occasionally allowing information to be dragged
out of it by journalists.

This being so, it is impossible for the uninitiated to form an
adequate picture of what is happening. Despite my own eight
years' compilation of all that has come to hand, I must admit
that I am no more advanced than at the beginning: I still do
not know what these Flying Saucers are. Observations read so
strangely that one might be tempted - if one wished to deny the
reality of the facts reported - to compare them to
parapsychological phenomena.

Because of the general uncertainty as to foundations, it would
be useless to speculate. We must await what the future brings.
So-called "scientific" explanations, such as the theory of
reflections by Dr. Menzel, are not possible without abstracting,
'for convenience' sake, any reports which fail to fit in.

If these "bodies" are of extra-terrestrial origin, as is
affirmed, perhaps planetary (from Mars to Venus) one must not
forget observations which speak of "Saucers" springing from
earth or sea. One must also take into consideration numerous
reports of thunderbolts, or of rare, stationary fireballs (not
to be confused with Saint Elmo's fire).

In such isolated cases thunderbolts can attain to considerable
dimensions, moving slowly from one cloud to another in the form
of a sphere of lightning-like brilliance, and of the apparent
thickness of a half-moon, or again making a passage for
themselves through a forest about 13 feet wide and 220 yards
long, splitting all the trees which lie in their path. They are
silent as the Saucers, or may disappear in a clap of thunder.

Perhaps these round thunderbolts, being isolated charges of
electricity (so-called necklace of pearl [;>))] lightning) are
the origin of those formations of Saucers, photographed several
times.

Often electrical phenomena have been reported in conjunction
with Saucer sightings. If, despite this not yet explained
possibility, the extra-terrestrial origin of the phenomena
should be confirmed, this would prove the existence of an
intelligent interplanetary relationship.

What such a fact might mean for humanity cannot be predicted.
But it would put us, without doubt, in the extremely precarious
position of primitive communities today in conflict with the
superior culture of the whites: the rudder would be removed from
our grasp, and we should lose our pleasant dreams.

Naturally, it would be chiefly our science and our technology
which would have to be consigned to the dust-heap. What such a
catastrophe would mean on the moral plane we can in some sort
judge by the ruin of primitive cultures of which we are
witnesses. That the construction of these machines prove a
scientific technology, and one immensely superior to ours,
admits of no two opinions. Just as the Pax Britannica put an
end to the disputes between the tribes of Africa, so our world
could unroll its Iron Curtain and use it as scrap iron, with all
the millions of tons of guns, warships and munitions. This
would not be very serious. But we would have been "discovered"
and colonised - sufficient reason for universal panic!

If we wish to avoid such a catastrophe, the authorities in
possession of important information should not hesitate to
enlighten the public as soon and as completely as possible and
should, above all, stop these ridiculous antics of mysteries and
vague allusions.

So, after all, there is nothing out-of-the-way in the statements
of ancient documents that all sorts of signs and miracles appear
in the skies, or that people look too the skies for a marvellous
intervention coming to the aid of human incapacity.

Our present day observations of Saucers coincide with the
many reports going back into antiquity, though not in such
astonishing frequency as in these times. But the possibility
of the destruction of a whole continent, which today is in the
hands of politicians, has never existed previously. -C.G.J.
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