If you want to know how elder Gen X is holding up just go look at the comments under any April Wine song on YouTube.
Still haven’t gotten over this
Spent an hour flying around the San Juan Islands in an airplane that’s even older than I am (!) and the whole region really is paradise but don’t tell anyone.
Lotta different ways to wear the new hat
This just makes me want to honk at them MORE!
Real rogue’s gallery met up last night at @lorettasnorthwesterner. If you turn up the volume the Long Winters track playing on this post features a guitar solo from @brdcrp followed by a tricky guitar riff under the verse by @themikesquires
The other rogues are @andrewlyallmckeag @michaelmusburger @timdijulio and @kimmckeag
Also, there was a shooting out back while we were sitting on the patio and no one even shifted in their chairs.
Question for Zappa-heads. All the people who played with him take professional pride in describing how exacting he was and how much he expected his band to turn on a dime to a wave of his hand but... did he pay better than other band leaders? What I mean is, was playing with him its own reward to these guys where they took standard rates to work ten times as hard? Or were they getting compensated for what would surely have been tons of extra prep and a constant feeling both onstage and off that Zappa was going to put them on the spot and fry them if they didn't respond perfectly?
This isn't an anti-Zappa post, I'm just trying to determine how much of being in his band was a point of professional pride, how much it was a great money gig worth the extra effort, and how much was a cult of personality. It's pretty common in our industry to say, 'Oh, that person was hard to work with or that band was toxic,' but I just saw an interview with one of his bandmembers who said, "Zappa gave us each two words at the start of the day and that night he would suddenly turn to you and expect you to remember the words and I couldn't remember them," and that just sounds way more cult leader than band leader, but I've never seen a musician interviewed where they expressed anything but pride at having worked for him.
My posts about the Democratic Party are not a DEFENSE of the current leadership of the Democratic Party. I’m trying to impart the following:
1). The Dems are a largely volunteer, grassroots org, therefore…
2). The Party is strongly influenced by the people who actually volunteer and JOIN, therefore…
3). The platform of the Party is determined by those people, so…
4). The Party doesn’t move quickly or change easily since much of the membership is older and has been active in politics a long time, however…
5). It’s a bottom-up org by design. Young people can join and change its direction simply by being there and putting in the work, meaning…
6). If you want the Democratic Party to be more Socialist then join the Democratic Party and advocate for it to become more Socialist. If you think the Dems are a bunch of Boomer homeowners (they are) then flood the ranks with Gen Z renters. That’s one of the things we mean when we say “participatory democracy.”
There’s a tendency to think that “make your voices heard!” means post angrily on social media, but that’s the same as the dudes shouting about Jesus outside of baseball games. No one likes them and they don’t change minds, they’re performing for themselves.
If you’re a young progressive who EARNESTLY wants to change the world and isn’t just PERFORMING for yourselr and your friends, one way to do it—a very effective way—is to engage with American politics directly, starting at the bottom. That’s how the super-conservatives stole the Republicans, and a better and more altruistic version of it will work for the progressive left too if you put in the time.
The radical left is not going to get a revolution and wouldn’t survive one if they did. A revolution of any kind in this country would leave a smoking crater. So the Left, like it or not, has the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party is us. No third-party candidate has won a presidential election since 1856, but third party vote-splitting exceeded a president’s margin of victory three times: 1844, 2000, and 2016, and brought us GW Bush and Trump.
Join the Democrats ESPECIALLY if you’re dissatisfied with them. You can change them. Photo of @mikejmccusker
One of the big things I learned running for Seattle City Council was that the Democratic Party is run from the bottom up, like a sports franchise. Every district has a Democratic Party organization that YOU can join. They have regular meetings, adopt resolutions and endorse candidates. They’re the wellspring of the Party.
When people say, “Why don’t the Democrats field better candidates?” well, it starts in these rooms. The people who choose this kind of activity instead of going to shows or watching TV, they are a TYPE of person, engaged in politics, often to a fault. They feel proprietary about it, like they’re doing their part while others sleep, and they have strong opinions and like to quiz candidates and argue propositions. Some of them are GREAT people, very welcoming, and many are idealists. They’re all volunteers. In and out of those rooms are a whole subculture of people: Young Democrats, just out of college, activists, people with aspirations to run for office, even more with aspirations to work in politics. The Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the world.
We’ve seen the Republican Party get taken over by zealots. They started locally, at this level, passionate about the Bible, convinced the federal government drinks the blood of babies, and VERY informed about the incremental, tiny ways to push moderates out and gradually gain control of every little feeder vein of their party. Are the Democrats also in thrall to zealots? No, not the same way. They’re liberals so they like to argue. There’s natural dysfunction.
Are you frustrated the Democrats can’t get their shit together and are ready to get your hands dirty? Attend a meeting. Figure out your district and look it up.
People get angry at the Democrats as if they’re twenty rich people in a boardroom, or 200 communists in a warehouse, but it’s actually thousands of citizens volunteering in small groups. Maybe you? Feeling passionate? Join a committee and see how the sausage is made. It’s not a mystery, it’s hiding in plain sight. It’s an education in citizenship. Then at least you can complain KNOWLEDGEABLY about the Democratic Party!
This is meant to be a helpful post.
It’s important to filter out the white noise of the Trump administration, the stuff that can be undone, from their attempts to do real damage to underlying structures.
Most of the chaos they’re sewing is superficial garbage, and most of their attempts at truly systemic destruction have stalled or failed. Short-term damage is real, people are hurting, but we can correct it in time. Thwarting their work to break institutions is where to concentrate our resources.
Politics is about minimizing damage when you’re out of power and maximizing progress when you’re in power. A lot of the hopelessness in the air is partly because most people alive today have never seen a Democratic administration that MAXIMIZED PROGRESS.
The ones you’ve known have been fairly flaccid. It takes just one Democratic administration prepared to fight a ground game to reverse a lot of damage in short order, with the support of a united coalition of the left. *hint hint* It requires a UNITED coalition of The Left.
What can most of us do? Stop panic-posting, quit amplifying doom, read the news once a day for 30 mins only. The time you normally spend doom-scrolling spend reading books like Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit and Humankind by Rutger Bregman.
Vote for progressive candidates that focus on programs and avoid rage-baiting. Speak intelligently and calmly to your friends. Mirror the reasoned sanity you want to see in the world and thus help it come to pass.
The amount of political Dunning-Kruger on social media is astounding. Post after post from SUPER CONFIDENT people who already know everything and can see the future. Remember the general truth: the more strident a person is in their viewpoint the less they actually know about the world.
Don’t get sucked in. Just because someone SCREEDS KNOWLEDGEABLY doesn’t mean they know anything, myself included. Calm defeats panic in every instance. Hope defeats despair in every instance. Curiosity defeats certainty in every instance.
No one knows the future. The graveyards of history are full of commentators who claimed they did. Nothing is irreversible. Choose sanity.
Who can tell me the story of this building in Raleigh NC?
Headed to Raleigh today, who’s in NC and wants to try for a meetup tomorrow?
Look at these MF’n chemtrails!
#chems #chemtrails #mindcontrol #sovereignty #holysmokes #wtf #projectbluebook #rockfordfiles
Walked a mile or two on Hwy 99 in SeaTac to get a cup of coffee from Dick’s. This kind of underbelly blight is easy to decry. It’s inhospitable, hostile to pedestrians, noisy and polluted. As urban design goes it’s a travesty, completely ad hoc and unplanned, a relic of a time when land was cheap and the car was king. We’re too pot-committed to it to now to change it except incrementally, ad hoc. Whatever comes next here, whether it’s housing “density” or whatever, this is destined to be a brownfield waste for years to come. Land is still “cheap” compared to Hong Kong.
Yet, every business along this forsaken stretch represents someone’s American dream. Every one is an independent shop, some immigrant-owned, serving immigrant communities, every one representing a big swing for someone staking their future on the cheap rent and easy access. These are the START UPS that send the next generation to college, this is the capitalism that trades hard work and personal integrity for the opportunity to build. This weather-beaten moonscape where once stood a virgin forest is not the flotsam of the city, it’s the mortar of it.
The word ‘privilege’ is overused now to the point of gibberish, thrown around by brats enriching themselves in a currency of projected shame. Yet, to see this landscape as ugly, or worse, as horrific, is to lay on a bed and curse the mattress. We must seek to improve, to make a better world, but with humility. We are not “above” what proceeded us, we just came next.
Yes, good, efficient public transit will obviate the need for all this auto-service infrastructure. Hell, maybe all this land can be returned to forest sooner rather than later. For now, this is still a magical place if you see it for the people and not the pavement. Folks here aren’t suffering, they’re STRIVING.
I mean, some are suffering, but that’s not unique to here.
Last minute alert! I’m interviewing Dan Carlin, host of Hardcore History, at the Atlanta Symphony Hall in Atlanta on Friday and the Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh NC on Saturday.
I had a great conversation with Dan when he came to Seattle in April and if you’re a fan of his podcasts, or of mine, I can promise these shows will be fun and riveting!
If you are anywhere within the Piedmont Atlantic mega-region don’t miss these shows. It’s basically the Yalta Conference except there are only two of us and the stakes are lower.
In 1993 I was drunk and on drugs still. Against all odds I had a smart, elegant girlfriend from an eclectic Boston family who was slumming it in Seattle for a few years. I pursued her, thinking I had no chance, and after months she chose me and we were a good fit. It’s just that I was on drugs, etc.
One day, as happens in youth, I didn’t have a suitable shirt and she said, “Here, my sister stole it from her boyfriend and I stole it from her.” It fit well and I liked it. I’m not sure if she gave it to me with a graceful wave or whether I just never gave it back but from then on it was mine.
Thing is, I REALLY liked it and wore it all the time. It had riz, and the story of Boston and Ellen’s sister’s boyfriend added to the appeal. At the time @jcrew was an unknown quantity out west, a catalog brand like Land’s End or LL Bean. This shirt may have been the first one I’d ever seen in person.
Incredibly, I never took it out of rotation. It’s been in closets of mine since 1993 even when I was living out of a bag, living in a Ford Aerostar, it was always there. I continued to wear it as I grew up, as an adult, as I wore out jeans and jackets and shoes, every week or two there it was. I washed it in the washing machine and dried it in the drier, I took no special care of it.
It was sewn in the British Colony of Hong Kong and I remember thinking,”Wow, pretty fancy!” that it was made overseas in such an exotic place. I still harbor that feeling. It would be a long time before I saw a shirt made in China or Vietnam.
Twenty years ago I first had the thought, “Jeez, how is this shirt still hanging together?” I’m pretty tough on clothes, they rip and get threadbare because I bump into things and tumble around. Ten years ago I started thinking, “Ok, what’s up with this shirt? How in the hell is it still untouched by time?” It had a few paint splatters and the collar was a teeny bit worn but otherwise it still read as impeccable. It might have shrunk a little but more likely I’d just grown around the middle.
Now, after 32 years, it has a tiny hole in the sleeve but even in the elbows it isn’t threadbare. I cannot account for it. I regard it with awe, but still wear it.
I joined the Seafair torchlight parade last night as King Neptune LXVIII. There were only a few former royalty in our double-decker bus but I brought along my princessa and chargé d’affaires who, although fully a teen, will still humor her father and join him in parades. Many congratulations to the current Seafair royalty, Queen Alcyone Carmen Best, King Neptune Eric Johnson and Community Hero Mercy Houb. Queen Best is the former Chief of Police, King Johnson is the former anchor of KOMO news, and Miss Houb is the first ever Community Hero, a new role in place of the Miss Seafair title.
This was the first year the parade went down the waterfront and it was spectacular. Seattleites like to fuss and fight about Seafair, the loud boats and jets and so forth, but of all the many civic events I’ve been lucky enough to attend the Seafair celebration is BY FAR the most diverse both in terms of locals honored and crowds attending. The parade route was lined with people from every conceivable walk of life, far more so than any other festival, march or gathering. Contrast it with any major event here, outside of professional sports, and you’ll see how Seafair appeals to everyone. All branches of the military are represented in great numbers and I can tell you from personal experience it’s a thrill for them, officers and enlisted alike.
Included here is some footage of a disastrous Blue Angels crash, a cute couple who found a secluded spot to watch the parade, and a dusklight tour of downtown at the stoplight level. I didn’t take pictures of the crowds because I was busy waving!
Seafair is old Seattle. A lot of people think they’re too hip for it, or it’s too loud or crowded or *gasp* too blue collar. But like Pike Place Market it’s actually the rarest of things: a regional institution that’s survived the forces of homogenization. It’s quirky and it delivers.
If the Blue Angels are too loud for your dogs or your war trauma, I get it. It’s is a great opportunity to take a 45 minute long jaunt somewhere in the 71,000 sq miles of Washington where all you hear is the wind whispering in the trees.
Another photo of me in 1989, bringing the total to something like 15 known usable photos taken between 1984-1994. In this one I’m 19 and already making lifestyle choices that would permanently affect my chances of getting a real job.
This photo provided by @rwgarnett who is currently the Paul J. Schierl / Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law, Concurrent Professor of Political Science, and the founding Director of the Notre Dame Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School but at the time was some kind of hippie-hugging loon.
It’s curious to note that I still dress exactly the same except the holes in my sweaters are mostly mended now as a concession to middle-age.
Here’s Scott Musgrove at the Seattle Art Fair next to a painting of a pink, furry, horned llama that was painted by Scott Musgrove.
@scott_musgrove @seattleartfair
