Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars

Busy as a Bee With a Red Butt

I’m in over my head. Playing music with everybody who will show up and play. The Karaoke Queen laughed and offered this Filipino idiom to describe me:

“You’re as busy as a bee with a red butt!”

A bee with a red butt! I’m still trying to work that one out. So, I PhotoShopped the above picture of a bee. Apparently, the bee’s butt gets red because he hops from place to place.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. The North Koreans are threatening to lob an atomic bomb at Hawaii over the July 4th weekend. (One of my sisters lives there!) Mexico has blown up into a full scale drug war that apparently threatens the stability of the government. Iranians are fighting in the streets against the mullahs.

I can remember when I thought that I could do something about this madness. When I was much younger, I was busy as a bee with a red butt… playing music, working and raising a family. And, I somehow also found time to try to save the world.

I ceased trying to save the world over 25 years ago, because I didn’t seem to be producing a noticeable effect, and because I just got tired. Hell, I couldn’t even prevent Myrna from dying. Often, I wonder whether I might have been much more successful if I’d never been infected with the save the world bug.

The world’s gonna do what it’s gonna do. I have a very small role to play. Big Joe and I are recording an acoustic CD. We've got eight songs in the can!  I’m praying that the weather clears up over the July 4th weekend so that I can get in a gig with Nite Train up in Lake Placid.

The Grateful Dead, in their infinite wisdom, wrote a song called “Hell in a Bucket.”

I may be going to hell in a bucket
But at least I’m enjoying the ride

Here’s the YouTube version.

All I can do is enjoy the ride.

Kiss Your Ass Goodbye

We’re on the verge of a major nuclear war, and nobody seems to care much. Iran is about to acquire the ability to construct nuclear weapons and it has missiles capable of reaching Western Europe. And the mullahs have sworn to wipe Israel off the face of the earth!

I’m grew up in the 50s. The world was just getting used to the idea of nuclear weapons. We were panicked by the notion that nuclear annihilation was imminent. In school, we practiced duck and cover. The idea was to crawl under your desk and wait out the mushroom cloud. See the satirical poster to the right to get an idea of the hysteria.

Those who could afford it built underground bomb shelters. A staple of TV programs during this era was this dilemma: what to do about the neighbors who didn’t bother to build their own shelter? Leave them out in the fallout to die? Shoot them? Bomb shelters were provisioned with months or years worth of food.  If you fed the sheltered and fed the neighbors, your own kids might die as a result!

During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, I remember going to bed terrified that the entire world would be blown to hell overnight.

So, how did we become so blasé about our impending doom? The Iranians are nuts. I don’t doubt that they will launch a nuclear strike against Israel. What will happen after that? God alone knows. Israel will probably strike back. After that, all hell could break loose.

I guess we’ve just gotten used to the idea of nuclear war. Nobody seems to be noticing that we are on the verge of Armageddon.

Support Stockings and Reading Glasses

chic noir, a regular at 2Blowhards, journeyed over here a day or so ago to suggest that support stockings might be the answer to my circulation problems, noted in this post.

Support stockings!

I’m still struggling with my vanity over wearing reading glasses. At least I only wear those in the privacy of my house.

“Do You Suffer from Varicose Veins or Tired Aching Legs?” asks Binsons Home Health Care Centers. “Stop Suffering, Our Compression Hosiery and Support Stockings Help Alleviate Pain!”

You’ve got to be kidding.

File this one under Other Signs of Advancing Age. I’ve got those short term memory problems, too. Last week, I bombed on a nursing school test because I tried to cram too much into my brain the day before the test. Net result… grasping at straws. So, I’ve decided to adopt a new strategy. Got to get that stuff into the brain at least a few days before the test so that it has time to settle in.

What’s next? Prune juice? Very popular at the nursing home.

The Self-Interest of Financial Advisors

Like just about everybody else, I somehow acquired a financial advisor several years ago. Myrna got our finances organized. For the first time in my life, I had substantial finances.

As the stock market has tanked, I’ve gotten the same advice from my financial advisor that everybody else has gotten: hang tight and leave your money in the market.

This advice may be sound. I don’t know. Over the past 18 months, I’ve asked my advisor repeatedly whether it wouldn’t be best to re-invest in fixed assets and try to ride out the storm. As it has been explained to me, my portfolio is invested in some great funds that will one day return to profitable status with a vengeance. The developments of the past year and a half have made me wonder how I will ever regain what I have lost.

My sister, Diana, converted her entire retirement fund to fixed assets over a year ago, and she’s still got all her cash. I’m down to 60% of what I had at the top of the market… and still headed down. It will take years of gain to get to where Diana now stands.

All this got me thinking about how it is that financial advisors make money. If somebody has a better idea of how this works, please let me know. But, this seems to me to be the likely story. The advisor earns a small percentage in commission from the combined portfolios of all his investors. So, he has a vested interest in convincing investors to keep their money in the market. Once that money is withdrawn and shifted to fixed accounts, the advisor ceases to earn a commission.

The collapse of the market must mean a massive reduction in the absolute income of the advisor. Every time another investor decides to sell out, the advisor’s income declines again.

So, at some point, the interests of the investor and the advisor begin to conflict. This knowledge is beginning to make me very uncomfortable, because I’m beginning to believe that the market may drop again to half its current value, taking away half of my remaining funds.

Anybody out there understand better how this all works?

Obama’s Stimulus Package Explained

Big Joe Vaccarino, lead guitar player in Saints & Sinners, sent me this joke that precisely explains President Obama’s stimulus package:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900:   $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do this job for $700:   $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Chicago contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?”

The Chicago contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”

"Done!” replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

Hard Times

Can the stock market drop to zero? Are we completely bankrupt? Every day seems to bring ghastly news.

The U.S. may soon have no economy, except for public sector and health care jobs. I’m in the right place. In a couple of years, I’ll be an RN. People will continue to get sick and die. Health care jobs are, directly or indirectly, funded by the Fed.

President Obama doesn’t really seem to care about the private sector. He’s entirely an income redistribution, welfare guy. That’s his constituency. The stock market is taking note of this. Obama will borrow and print money without regard for the future.

Although I didn’t make the decision to go into health care for these reasons, I’m lucky to be moving into that field. For the rest of my life, I’ll be paid by government transfers. I’ll be living on the dole. All of us will.

Nursing school continues to demand just about all of my time. Last week, we started to learn how to give injections. That’s scary stuff! Next week, we’ll be interning at nursing homes. We’ll be meeting some real patients.

I’ve got a few more years until I can begin to draw Social Security. I’ll do OK on Social Security and an RN’s salary. Won’t be rich, but I might be able to take a vacation and buy a few things that I want.

At least, that’s the hope. Who knows what the next few years will bring?  All bets are off.

Barack Obama... The Musical

No comment on this one.

Here’s the link to the short musical about the life of our new President.

U.S. of Thieves

So, Democrats, you thought the problem was that Republicans held the presidency. By now, it should be apparent to you that President Obama is the most personally corrupt occupant of the Oval Office in our lifetime. He’s a Chicago hack, a creation of the Daley Machine… and he hasn’t got a clue what to do… except to steal.

Not that the Republicans were much better. Our government has become a kleptocracy. In the last year of the Bush administration, President Bush paid off his cronies with billions of dollars in “bailout” money. He greased the skids for the terminally corrupt Obama administration, which is preparing to pour trillions of dollars into the pockets of its cronies. Thievery on a grand, almost impossible scale.

Democrats, Obama suckered you. He suckered you with your sanctimony. The left is terminally addicted to its sanctimony. You were sitting ducks, because all those years of worshipping your own halo rendered you brain dead. Remember when public financing was the most holy of Democratic Party ideals? That got junked so that Obama could rake in a three quarters of a billion bucks. Now that he’s in office, Obama is gearing up to pay off the folks who poured that money into his campaign.

As I said, I’m certainly not attributing any virtue do the Republicans. Bush provided Obama with the story line… the politically connected cannot be allowed to go broke.

The question now: How do we rein in the kleptocracy? How can we stop the stealing? Welcome to Third World corruption right here in the U.S. of Thieves.

Will Blago Rat Out Obama?

Forgive me for all the political posts. I’m generally uninterested in politics. The circus that is playing in Chicago is just too entertaining to ignore.

I listened to Governor Blagojevich’s press conference on Friday… and it was wild. Mayor Daley went so far as to call Blago “cuckoo.” I thought I was the only one in the world who heard what the Governor said: He threatened to rat out the entire corrupt cadre of the Daley Machine, up to and including President Obama.

One Chicago writer did get it, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune. Read his article carefully.

Let me reinterpret Blago’s message on Friday: “I didn’t do anything any different from what the rest of Illinois politicians do. It was all just business as usual. And that includes President Obama. If these bastards try to take me down, I’ll rat them all out.”

As Kass points out, it’s not just the Daley Machine that Blago is confronting. The Mafia is lurking in the background, too, because the Mob is always deeply involved in Illinois politics.

This is fascinating, and comic, stuff. Will Blago sing?

President Obama raised ¾ of a billion bucks, and refused to abide by public financing for his campaign. Where do you suppose that ¾ billion came from? Blago knows.

Will he sing? As Kass says, the Illinois political establishment is trying to get him out of the way as fast as possible. I’m not claiming that Blago isn’t guilty. He is undoubtedly guilty as hell. If he does sing, will he go after President Obama?

The plot thickens.  I see a bad moon on the rise. 

A New Era In America

We stopped class today so that we could watch President Obama take the oath of office. The black kids were so clearly moved by this moment. Although (as I’ve said), I haven’t been an Obama supporter, I saw today just how important he is for black people.

The 60s have finally ended… completely. In fact, today is the end of a very long cycle in American history that began with Abraham Lincoln. Today, I was very proud to be an American.

I heard Jim Brown, the greatest running back to ever play football, speak of the importance of this event. Brown’s anger over the treatment of blacks, once one of his defining characteristics, was simply gone. He was still a little astonished to discover the basic decency of America, and the enduring truth of the American Dream.

Everything has changed. We Boomers are becoming obsolete… museum pieces really. The grudges, obsessions and causes of our day don’t matter any more. The era we are entering will be… well, who the hell knows? Predicting the future is for fools.

Even though I am not a partisan of Obama, I am glad that this moment has arrived for black people. Now, it is time for them to change. As Brown said today, there is no longer any reason for a black kid to grow up in despair or to become a ward of the state. I expect big changes in the black community.

I’d like to see changes in Woodstock, too. It’s time for the lunatic left to let go the hatred of middle class America, particularly white Americans, that they’ve carried for decades. These people probably will not be able to change. They will be left behind.

What a privilege it was to grow up and live in the America of the past 60 years. It’s easy to focus on what we do not receive in this life. To be a middle class American who lived through this great era… a gift from God.

As always, when momentous change occurs, I thought of Myrna today, and regretted that she did not live to see this day with me.  She was a devout patriot.  She loved America and was fiercely grateful for the opportunities she found here. God bless America for giving a poor Filipina from the shanty town of Olongopo a chance to earn the good life.