Retro This...

I think nostalgia is good for your soul. People that claim that it is just living in the past are usually the people that didn’t enjoy anything about growing up and who only enjoy life now because something was handed to them. If it makes someone in their 30’s happy to watch Thundercats on the internet I say more power to them. If my boss wanted to have a Flock of Seagulls hair style I’d still respect her for her position. Retro is warm and who doesn't like to be warm? Chicago is a frozen tundra 80% of the year, Brian Adams guitar riffs and girls with the neck cut out of their sweatshirt so it hangs off their shoulder make me smile... we could all use more of that.

Different kinds of Chicago CTA Buses:

1. Stinky Bus – This is the bus in June thru Aug

2. Influenza Bus – This is bus rest of year

3. Horse Nostril Bus – This is bus when it’s raining and the windows are all fogged up with condensation from people breathing too much

4. WinterMint Bus – Bus when homeless guy is drinking Scope to get drunk, this one is pleasant actually

5. The North Face Bus – This is the Clark bus, can also be called: Angry Birds, iPad or the Trust Fund Bus.

6. Sardines Bus – This is the bus that someone is eating sardines on. (not what you thought I was going to say huh, hahah gotcha).

7. McDonalds Bus - This is the bus someone is eating McDonalds on and even though you have a personal embargo on eating things that will kill you, you smell the French fries and then feel shameful that you want to eat them so badly...

8. Sports Bus - This is the bus that everyone on is going to the sports game and you are not. You are like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer and not invited... or basically like my elementary school experience in gym class

9. Pee Bus - This is the bus when # 4 has drank too much Scope or #8 and his buddies have done to many shotguns of Coors Lite and well you know what happens... it starts small and then gets bigger and bigger down one or both legs...

I think I captured what I thought was a perfect ideal of what I wanted you to be but there is no where else that love like that can exist then cerebrally. Reality is much to fake for that sort of conviction. That is the only statement that can make “It’s not you, it’s me” mean anything more then you just being a complete fraud and a coward.

Oh those Republicans...

Here is my response to a guy saying that Speculators and futures trading was NOT the cause of high oil prices and that it was President Obama's fault we have high gas prices. It’s pretty sarcastic but I really hate lame spoon fed Republican nonsense talking points.

Your Shawn Hannity talking points aside I’d say that your argument is exactly what I’m talking about. Oil isn’t an economics 101 problem and can’t be solved with those basic principles. Geology 101 would show you things I suspect you already know but are being either coy or completely naive about. Any Earth Science grade school teacher will tell you that US production peaked before we were receiving free AOL discs in the mail and anything North America has in reserves are locked up in oil sands, shales and intermixed with methane pockets (Which are none-too-good for the grunts working on the platforms). It’s silly to make arguments on some fantasy notion that if given the okay from Obama, we could just walk outside and shoot at a rabbit with our squirrel rifle, and pure crude would come bubbling up. (que the confetti party!)

Secondly, in Economics 101 they had to mention “Incentive” didn’t they? Tell me why multinational corporations whom are posting double digit profits quarter over quarter needs to just pump extra gas into the world out of the goodness of their hearts? Get real man. Even the ones that found Jesus, like so many claim to have, aren’t that charitable. And even if we poked another 1000 holes in our continent tomorrow, that fuel wouldn’t reach the consumer market for years, we simple couldn’t handle refining it all fast enough. It takes a lot more time, money, and tonnage of garbage to get the oil from the ground into your SUV. Even releasing our nation’s strategic reserves is arguable at best for effecting prices in time for the family trip to Florida or whatever our collective plans are for this summer.

This isn’t a political issue, it’s a business problem. (which is why I commented in the first place, I hate misplaced blame born of ignorance or sheepish following of blatant propaganda). Look man, my team is guilty of blaming the Boss in Chief too, but you have to admit, it was a little easier to swallow considering Bush was an oil man, was funded largely by other oil men, and who’s right hand man worked for Halliburton. If we could stop acting like the President has his thumb on some magical fountain of ‘Freedom Juice’ and is blocking us all from our God given right to drive our Hummers to the NASCAR Smash-um-ups we so love, we could employ Real Science to solve our problems. It worked for Polio.

My point on the trading of futures was simply this: Aside from Fox News, every other rational human can understand the principle of GREED. Your bible even spoke of it a few times I think. I saw it in that movie Se7en. When you give the keys to the kids for the weekend, they always do the same thing. Joyride… get drunk and crash. Unregulated free market capitalism creates gross imbalance, gross imbalance is the root of our oil problems. You want to see it? Come to Chicago. A guy driving his Lotus can hardly get her up from 0 to 60 in .38 seconds like the commercial says when he’s having to swerve around all the homeless people and pot holes. This sillyness about tying the hands of our jobmakers is a snowjob. When the ultra rich get breaks they don’t build factories and hire Joe Sixpack, they farm the work out to China, and buy golden toilets for all 27 of their bathrooms.

I’m not saying I have all the answers here, don’t take my sarcasm for pomp. We’re all fuked, we colonized to big a backyard I guess. We hate public transportation (I sure do, I take it every day and it smells like cabbage on there), our cars are part of our culture, like Apple Pie and steroid infused baseball players. But the fundamental teachings of rational science (not nonsense Fox News bullshit, I mean real science) is that change happens. Remember when the sun use to revolve around the Earth? Paradigms shift, and we can either be on the front of that crest, or flailing in the shitsludge wake. More oil to a nation sick with withdraw is the same as more heroin to an addict who sold his last wristwatch… It only sounds like the answer in your head.

The power is in the hands of businessmen who don’t give a fuk what you pay at the pump. They sleep soundly at night knowing that you will pay it either way. And they love the subversion of blaming the black guy for it all.

(As for OPEC, I don’t have much to say about them, suffice to say they know they have us by the balls and NOTHING we do is keeping them up at night worrying. They’ll sell to China or some other budding 3^rd world start up. They are the masters of their domain and until such time we are desperate enough to take if from them by force, they’ll sit by and watch us choke. Let’s just hope we don’t sell our entire bomber fleet to them before its go time).

(Note: despite my incessant sarcasm, I’m not attacking you personally like I feel you were doing to me with the “high school econ 101” comments, I don’t even know you, but I do love a rational conversation so no harm done, you’ll never change my mind and I won’t yours… so be it).

I haven't posted in a while

But I will in the coming months.

I've been very busy with band stuff and have been sort of at a cross roads of sorts with things. I can't even fully explain it all now, but suffice to say this new batch of songs has nearly killed me and the plan our manager has for us is hard to deal with. It involves a lot of work without releasing any thing.

I’m extremely happy with the new songs, they’re the best I’ve ever been a part of and I’m excited about the video shoot for 10Volt this weekend. It’s just disheartening to lay in wait while things that are out of your control govern an entire lists of “could happens, might happens, and holyfuk happen already happens”.

On a lighter note, I wonder why professional painters wear white? Is it so they can prove to their bosses that they actually worked and didn’t just sit around ogling ladies all day? If my work output was represented in the wear on the clothes I’m wearing right now, I’d be fired. Sitting on your ass all day reading about worm holes and the Ordovician Period leaves little more than BBQ Jay’s potato chip crumbs on your lap.

I’m back though and ready to pontificate like a Kardashian on all manners of things most people could care less about.