Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars

One Thing I Like About President Obama

While I’m not exactly an Obama-naut, here’s one good thing about his presidency: Woodstock is no longer frothing at the mouth over the evil President Bush.

A couple of years ago, Woodstock held its official Hate Bush weekend. It was quite an event… two days devoted to comparing Bush to Hitler, screaming obscenities, the usual boring 60s theatrics, etc. The weekend was capped off with the showing of the YouTube sensation, “Loose Change,” a video produced by two local kids.

The video was the work of a couple of English majors who pasted together various clips that “proved” that President Bush was the conspirator behind the attack on the World Trade Center. The video is a foul, vicious, stupid piece of ham handed political propaganda for the lunatic left… just the sort of thing our loonies love.

The Woodstock Times carried a two page article that weekend that praised the young men for this vicious moronic attack on President Bush. Large crowds gathered in town to denounce Republicans and to attend the movie at the Tinker St. Cinema. It was a complete nutjob hysteria… just what I’ve learned to expect from Woodstock’s deranged left. If you’ve ever seen one of those South Park episodes where the entire town goes completely crazy with lynch mob fever, you’ll get the idea.

The one really positive outcome of the Obama presidency is that the nuts and cultists are no longer howling at the moon and frothing at the mouth. For the moment, our cultists believe that salvation has arrived. Now that the evil Bush is gone, they are hoping that they will stop hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations. A strange quiet has descended upon the World’s Most Famous Small Town.

As the letters to the Woodstock Times demonstrate, a certain cockiness has set in. Now that the Evil America has been defeated, those Iranians and North Koreans will certainly want to kiss and make up. Free everything for everybody! All our problems are solved. Those big evil Republicans were the cause of it all.

Pictures from The Castle Gig

Outdoor gigs are always held hostage by the weather. The V-Twins played The Castle down in Chester, New York on Saturday, and we fought with the rain all afternoon. What the hell! Big Joe and I had a good time anyway.

The Castle offers a combination of carnival, amusement park, roller derby and go-cart attractions. In addition, the park has a food court and a video arcade. It’s a great place to take the kids for a weekend outing. The owner, Brian, is very concerned with maintaining the family atmosphere, and he does a good job of it.

Big Joe and I moved our equipment under cover of the pavilion and cranked it up for our first set. A group of kids danced the monkey in front of our bandstand.

That shiny metal guitar is my Dobro. We’ve just begun to work it into our act. As long as you play in the key of G or the key of D, it’s great. I use the Dobro to play slide guitar in G opening tuning.

Big Joe sang about eight songs. When he played “La Bamba” a Hispanic guy over at the batting cages broke into a mambo.

The Castle reminded me of my days playing in teenage bands. Back in the 60s, it wasn’t unusual for the rock band to play on a flatbed truck at the carnival. A favorite spot for the sock hop was the roller rink.  Sometimes, the skating would just continue through the sock hop. The band’s tunes would get mixed into that sound of roller skate wheels on the wooden track.

After the gig, we took the girls out to dinner at a steak joint. We drank and ate up the profits. It was a good time.

BlameBush! Out of Business!

The venerable blog, BlameBush! seems to have gone out of business. I guess we really don’t have President Bush to kick around any more.

Somebody forgot to tell President Obama that Bush isn’t still to blame for everything. Obama still seems to be 100% the anti-Bush, campaigning endlessly against the War on Terror.

Here in Woodstock, we’re all terribly relieved that we survived the reign of the Bu$hHilter. We were worried that he would refuse to leave office after his second term and set up the Fourth Reich.

Now that President Obama has replaced the dreaded Bu$hHilter, the French like us again. Pretty soon, the Arabs will kiss and make up. We’ll all be driving a car the size of a roller skate. Everybody will be gay, gay, gay!

It was a great run for BlameBush! But, we don’t have Bush to kick around any more. Somebody tell President Obama.

V-Twins at the Castle!

Big Joe Vaccarino and I will be playing at The Castle in Chester, New York this Saturday afternoon.

The gig is from 2 to 5 p.m. Stop by and say hello.

Hasbrouck Heights Street Fair

The Karaoke Queen and I will be singing a few tunes at the Hasbrouck Heights Street Festival at 1 p.m.

Drop by and say hello.

Hospital Internship

I started my hospital internship on Friday. Talk about an intimidating environment!

Catheter

In nursing home, I knew what my assignment would be every day. I generally had the same patients, and the same procedures to perform. Every day in hospital, I have a different patient and different procedures.

The hospital environment is, of course, very serious, because patients are admitted for immediately acute problems.

I spent last week studying catheterization and injections in the lab. This week, I’ll be inserting catheters in patients and giving insulin shots. My first injections! Believe me, I’m nervous about that.

Inserting catheters in patients is one of those jobs that really test the nurse psychologically and emotionally. First, let me say that the job ain’t sexy. My teachers tell me that I’ll be catheterizing a lot of men because male patients often request a male nurse so as to avoid embarrassment.

Oh well, I’ve already been wiping old man butts at the nursing home. That’s part of the job. I’m not too good to do it.

The V-Twins! Just an Old Man!

Big Joe Vaccarino and I (the “V-Twins”) recorded my new original, “Just an Old Man,” last night during rehearsal.

We’re getting ready for an upcoming gig, so we were recording to my Zoom H-4. This field recorder is amazingly easy to use and it produces very high quality sound. Just set it up and turn it on.

Here’s the tune.

Just an Old Man

I’ve got to come up with a logo for the V-Twin name. Borrowed this picture from a guy on Flickr.

Finally… Passed the Med Admin Exam

Whew! I’ve been away for a while, as you can see, studying like crazy for my medication administration exam.

I’ve been so wrapped up in this test that I’ve neglected to pay my bills or clean my house. The only thing I’ve gotten done the past two weeks is to build a new fence in my garden. Yesterday, I got it planted

Giving injections is far more difficult and dangerous than I thought. There are so many things that can go wrong and so many ways that you can hurt a patient. Giving medications as an LPN isn’t the same thing as pulling your pills out of the cabinet. Procedures upon procedures… check off after check off.

The test was a flunk out test. I failed the first time. The second try was my last try. After investing three months and several thousand dollars in the course, I simply could not afford to fail.

Haven’t been so nervous in years. Woke up at 3:30 the morning of the test and couldn’t go back to sleep.

After I passed, I bought a bottle of 47 Pound Rooster Pinor Noir and I drank every damned pound. Went to bed at 8 p.m. and slept through until the next morning.