September 23rd, 2016.

Performing at 7 Locks in Rockville, MD – rocking hard, having a great time, catching up with som friends and fans we hadn’t seen in a while. August 20th, 2016.
Looking back on it, I think this show at 7 Locks was one of the first ones where I’d JUST restrung my guitar, and yet became inordinately aware of breaking a LOT of strings. Ocer the course of the night I think there was a scene like this 3 or 4 times – and this was after one of the very first songs.

Sigh ā€“ I wish I had more juice left in my battery to type with, but Iā€™ve been working on band stuff, IMT stuff, Life stuffā€¦ arguing against the concept that NASA is spraying lithium in controlling doses across the American populationā€¦ you knowā€¦ important stuff!

So ā€“ yeah, the Snopes article attacks the logic Ā that IF : the government would spray for mosquitoes THEN : the government would totally spray mind control drugs in the atmosphere ā€“ and it also points out that there are public white papers on NASAā€™s website going back for over 60 years on using lithium as the released element in sounding rockets ā€“ but youā€™re right, it doesnā€™t really attack the central thought that NASAā€™s release of lithium into the higher ranges of the atmosphere ā€“ because it freely admits to doing this. I guess thatā€™s sort of like Ford ā€œadmittingā€ to releasing hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide into the air. HOWEVER, the idea that lithium is being sprayed out there as a mind-control or calming element should be looked at more from the practicality of it : a daily ā€œcontrollingā€ or soothing dose of lithium is (actually highly variable, but on the LOW side, 600mg a day) ā€“ letā€™s say youā€™re soothing a city like Baltimore. You know, to make sure weā€™re calm and would never riot, protest, or shoot one another. 600,000 people times 600mg ā€“ do the math and youā€™re releasing about 800lbs of lithium into the atmosphere a day, NOT accounting for the fact that the wind is dispersing itā€¦ letā€™s say weā€™re not even going for a calming dose, but a maybe just one quarter of that to take the edge off ā€“ and that somehow youā€™re assuring it doesnā€™t waft out into the ocean, get neutralized by radiation in the upper atmosphere, get breathed by rats, whatever (force fields, amirite?) ā€“ what with Tesla pushing the price up (batteries), youā€™re looking at spending close to $10,000 a day on this element, somehow aerosoling and dispersing some 200lbs of lithium every day ā€“ not every once in a while via a rocketā€¦ you could MAYBE try to argue that thatā€™s what the mosquito trucks are aā€™sprayin, but the NASA theory is simply not practical. Think like an evil genius ā€“ thereā€™s better ways to do this.

Later on I got involved in a discussion of having a centrist position. Someone kept posting gifs of Futurama characters denouncing neutrality and undecidedness…

I THINK I’m being trolled – but just in case anyone in this feed actually believes that a centrist position is the same as being undecided or neutral – and that this will lead to the world, nation, or simply Old Bessie going down in flames : no, it means that I believe in kindergarten principles like “we take turns and listen to one another speak” and American principles like “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”, free speech – and even the right not to listen.

It means I believe in free elections and a legal system that shouldn’t be for sale to the highest bidder, nor should it be revoked at the whim of a king or fuhrer. It means you can Love blue, and YOU can Love red – and though I Love purple and believe SO strongly that we all got together we’d see it the same way, I’m not going to hold a gun to your

head for believing in something else.

Quite frankly – humans see in spectrums, only animals see things in black and white. To buy into the idea that a “centrist” idea is the same as not having a legitimate opinion is to fall prey to the divisive rhetoric of “us against them”, “if you’re not for us then you’re against us” and xenophobia.

Maybe I shouldn’t fall back to Dune romanticism for my species : maybe to be human is to be tribalist and frightened of things that are other or alien, and to deride those things in the hope of controlling or obliterating that which isn’t understood. But as a nation and as a species we need to rise above these human failings, and you do that from the centre, where you can at least see (if not agree with) all sides.

So ā€“ thanks for bearing with me. These will one day soon vanish into Facebook, and though Facebook will keep my thoughts pristine and saved for generations to come, only Facebook knows how one would access it. You can see Iā€™ve been arguing with people. Not necessarily successfully, but there are definitely nights when I simply canā€™t sleep until Iā€™ve typed something out. Maybe I should pick bigger battles. I almost certainly SHOULD pick bigger battles ā€“ like I should DEFINITELY be calling out my cousin who was calling for protestors to be shot in Charlotte, NC ā€“ because, you know, sheā€™s so fucking AMERICAN. And yet, itā€™s not just triage of people, but triage of time and my sanity. Pick your battles, pick your hills. I donā€™t think everyone can be saved. Currently sheā€™s sharing memes like ā€œif youā€™re arrested you should lose all government benefitsā€ whichā€¦ well, I could agree with part of that AFTER theyā€™ve been convicted of a crime, and I can grasp how that would settle someoneā€™s desire for appropriate vengeance (though Iā€™d argue that if you just keep them in jail, financially youā€™re supporting them even more than if they were on the streets drawing on welfare) ā€“ but getting beyond the assumption on the posterā€™s part that the black man pictured is on some sort of government assistance (and whether through the EIC or probably the more direct SNAP assistance that sheā€™s no doubt envisioning) causeā€¦ you knowā€¦ heā€™s BLACK ā€“ well, then what? How is that helping him NOT be on the system? You going to just HOPE that sans job, unable to GET a job because of the criminal record, unable to get any baseline assistance to exist, that heā€™ll just curl up and die and not be a problem anymore? Yeahā€¦ youā€™re not thinking that through. I guess sheā€™s hoping that heā€™ll either get shot by a cop or a citizen ā€“ just as long as SHEā€™S not paying for it.

We put the West Madison open mic night on pause for a sec in August since attendence was SO low, so I used the opportunity to go flesh out the attendence at someone ELSE’S open mic, namely Dave Koronet (above) of the Frederick Area Music Association (FAME) open mic at Dublin Roasters in Frederick, MD. He was a’wailin’ because he was playing a passionate song, but he might as well have been wailin’ in fear over the GIANT AIR CONDITIONER over his head.

Anyhow, here I am sitting in idyllic Glastonbury, CT, having walked down to a favourite coffeeshop and spent the day doing band work and Institute of Musical Traditions work, being angry and being encouraged and being happy and being discouraged ā€“ and worrying that if I wanted to pacify a nation I wouldnā€™t try to impractically aerosol them with lithium but would invent some kind of massive information-gathering system that would a) harvest all their personal information while b) giving them a place to vent and give them the feeling that theyā€™d accomplish something almost as legitimately as if theyā€™d gone out and voted. Extra points for this evil master plan if you donā€™t spend any government money doing it, maybe even make a PROFIT with it ā€“ extra, extra points if you can convince rob Hinkal to take time away from his Journaling to post quickly-forgotten social media posts of no import.

Yeah, way more effective to do it this way.

upComing & inComing

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