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.

Not a lot of clappin' going on...

Pugslee Pig played guitar in a few metal bands back in highschool... He thought for sure he'd make it big, but you know, then piglets are born, trash needs to be rooted thru and before you know it, your time has past... One night Pugslee was sipping some sour milk and chewin some old pizza crusts when the Country Music Awards came on...In an instant, a fire ignited deep inside of Pugslee's heart like never before... He watched with huge eyes as the country stars twanged away to the delight of the packed house. He studied their moves on stage and pondered their alluring appeal. There it was in front of his piggly face, all these "cross-over" stars like Billy-Ray Billygoat and Snakes of Leon, up there jamming their country soaked tunes and raking in fame and fortune... They were probably rootin thru the finest filth money could buy, and eaten the rottenest refuse anyone could get their hoofs into. These guys had it made!

Pugslee got his hands on an old banjo that Farmer had put into the attic some years ago and decided that he'd become the best banjo picker in the Midwest. He played it every day from sunrise to sunset. But a problem soon arose, and a serious one at that.

Now, any pig worth his bacon can master a short necked guitar with a little dedication and a lazy farm owner who doesn't nag at him much. But the banjo has a long neck and Pugslee's little pig arms couldn't reach out to all the far frets. How was he suppose to do his sweet sweep-arpeggios if he can't even get to the end of the neck? One night after a poker game with the barn rats and his buddy Muleson Mule he got to thinkin...

(Late that night he awakes in a cold sweat)...

He'd seen it done on TV.... he could do it... I mean who'd care really, they're just rats after all? It could work right?... It'd HAVE to work...

The next Saturday night before the poker game Pugslee was seen hiding some things out behind the old well. Seems he had fetched the farmers hedge trimming hacksaw and some twine from the tool shed and hid it under some dirty rags. As the sun fell over the horizon and the sky burned from red to black, Pugslee walked slowly over to the Rat-Bar with a jug of his homemade sour mash Milk-Whiskey in one hoof and a strange twitch in his eye...

Scoundrels 1

[Byron Dastardly and his Clan of Outlaws]... Byron is a long time Snake-oil salesmen and part time scoundrel. He and his side kick Clayvis Pritchit travel from town to town rustling up trouble, drinking booze, and sometimes leaving in a big hurry if need be. Clayvis is a pick-pocket and a Sworse thief (seen here on his favorite sworse Miggs). Clayvis is known for his fast hand, blistering tongue, and his taste for Lizard Liquor. Byron is showing off his latest elixir, The Byron Dastardly's Bones and Bunion Remover (can also be used to moisturize and treat sworse saddles)... They've been carrying cases of the new elixir, along with some other dry goods, on the back of their Swaddleback named James. James just gave birth to a little Swaddleback they call Liverlips, she got stepped on a few weeks back and is nursing a sore lower lip but she'll be fine. Also pictured here is their Dodo, Janus Forktooth. She yaps on and on like a sailor's wife at port about all sorts of nothing, but they keep her around because of her keen sense of smell and sharp-as-razors look-out eyeballs. She can spot a town sheriff coming to exact any retrobute from 3 miles away and she'll get to chirping something awful till everyone is up and ready to ride.

Anyway, I'd say go about your business unless you have some gold you're looking to part with, and in these times, I'm not sure why anyone would...

Oh Snap, someones got the jaundice...

The dichotomy that is Type O Negative and Jay Ramirez

Why do I love Type O Negative so much? A fair number of people have asked me this over the years and it wasn’t until Peter Steele’s untimely death today that I thought about the reasons why.

The 90’s was a disenfranchising time for me to say the least. I hated Grunge music more then life it-self and because I was a drummer I couldn’t listen to Punk. Tooooo boring… That led me into the only other option after the fall of Hair Metal, and that was just plain of METAL. I often say that Metal is primarily for individuals who play instruments and/or angry teen/20something boys. Needless to say I was all of those things in the 90’s, so Metal was on the menu and Metal is what I chose.

Being a drummer I enjoy the polyrhythmic interplay of the drums and the bass/guitars. That coupled with the speedy tempos in which Metal is played, makes for a challenging task to learn, play, and invent, interesting patterns in the world of drums. This quest led me down the road of Megadeth, Testiment and Metallica’s musically wizardry, but what I soon discovered was that the upper limit of speed and ridiculous time/tempo/key changes was something as unattainable as faster then light travel. There was just always something faster, more difficult and more brutal. Opeth, Samael, Deicide, etc. etc.

The last years of my drum lesions were spend on funk and groove polyrhythms, but after the discovery of Metal I had largely forgotten how cool they were. Speed was the name of the game and cramming 4000 notes into 10 bars was more challenging for me. That was until I heard White Zombie. (Thanks Beavis and Butthead). Hearing the grooves of Welcome to Planet Mother Fuker and Thunderkiss 65 reminded me of the grooves I learned in Jr. High. They were just simplified into a more dancy outcome here. The guitar and drums syncopated in 3 and 2 instead of the drums doing all that alone (Later I’d hear Carter Beauford doing it all himself for Dave Mathews and that more than anything brought me back to my drum lesson days). But it was really the moment I heard Black No. 1 that my life changed. It wasn’t about rhythm any longer; it was about the whole package. Here was a band that was doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing, most noticeably throwing the metronome into a bucket of tree sap. But they made this aura that encapsulated each song like I had never heard before.

I loved it right off the bat. It was only after I learned more about Peter Steele and his working class, self depreciating, stance on rock stardom that I came to admire the tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Type O. This wasn’t that “Poor me I’m a huge rock star” bullshit Cobain emoted to anyone who’d listen, it was a more real portrayal of living a life countless people just like you would die for and at the same time realizing that you’re not any more qualified then any of them to do what you do… I loved it.
Now, I don’t like comedy rock, I’m not a fan of Tenacious D or Adam Sandler’s songs or anything like that. But Type O was making fun of the self righteousness and seriousness of Goth and Metal by poking fun at the worse offenders of the lifestyle… namely the musicians making the music, not the people buying it. Type O made beautiful music sound desperate and harsh while at the same time making aggressive music sound epic and warm. I will always love Type O Negative for that.

I wish I was in Michigan right now so I could burn some leaves, die my hair even blacker, drink some gross red wine and make out in the woods in memory of them… R.I.P. Peter

They...

I stepped right up next to the edge of the waterline, the hyper toxic creek trickled past me with a quiet and soothing sound. The liquid was a burnt and grotesque yellowish-orange with deep violet crusty edges ringing the shorelines and rocks that protruded above the waterline. I thought about how primordial the scene was, how this place had existed like this for hundreds of millions of years untouched and unchanged. I thought that in some way I was standing at the birth of life on Earth, that these hot twisted pools of filth contained the words that made the language of our DNA. She came over and asked if I saw any yet.

I said: “No nothing… what am I looking for again?”

She said only: “Them”.

She asked me why I never chose to study science and do field work on things that interested me instead of whatever the hell it is I do now. I gave her my stock answer: That I was young and stupid and cared more about making out with girls then doing my homework… that I was sure I’d become a rock-star drummer like Tommy Lee and that the math was simply above my head after the basic ideas of physics and thermo dynamics. And well, that although I didn’t know it when I was young, I was destined to become germaphobic as an adult, and doing “field work” sounded dirty and gross.

Some time pasted and the bright sun light began to fade a bit. She said that if we had no luck seeing them in the wild that we could go back to the outpost and see the captive ones they had in large tanks. I agreed and we walked up the jagged and curiously shaped outcrops of sandstone and shale back to the field lab.

The lab was typical as far as remote science outposts go, a few tubular shaped trailers connected by a rather large plastic circus tent looking structure that housed the tanks she spoke of. A few 4 wheelers and a Jeep caked in dried mud and flaked paint from the acidic environment were at rest in no apparent order just outside the 2 stepped porch. Each had their keys dangling from the ignition… No one steals vehicles out here I guess. Inside the lab the smell of chlorine and ozone hit my face like I was standing next to the exhaust of the CTA bus in the summer; hot on hot with a blast of hot. I rounded the corner into the open circus tent area and saw the large in-ground pools filled with what I surmised to be the liquid from the primordial creek just down the mountain side. Only the liquid seemed brighter, more like a swimming pool I guess. Must be from the white walled swimming pool container the liquid was housed in. The creatures were easy to see against this sterile backdrop. They were greenish shadows moving around fluidly in the water with what looked like little or no bone structure. Sometimes they appeared large and then a split second later very small. I remember thinking they must be flat like a mantra ray. They reminded me of the demons from hell in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze. They would just shift and move at impossible angles. No animals or fish I’d ever seen moved in the water with this kind of precision. One second tiny and flat, then 6 foot long and turned at a right angle, then wide and round. They shimmered in the liquid more then swam I guess.

She looked at me watching them and said: “Would you like to go get one?”

My eyes never left the pool when I replied: “Sure you have a fishing pole or what?”

She grabbed what looked like a human sized condom from below the desk and started to unravel it a bit, tossed a small weight into the bottom and gently placed it into the pool like she’d done this a thousand times before. I remained quiet but I could tell she could tell I was completely lost.

She said: “You have to be careful not to touch the fluid, it’s extremely alkaline and burns flesh rather severely. On cue she held a large and uncooked turkey leg above the liquid until my face told her I was comprehending what she was about to do, and then lowered it into the liquid. It fizzed and popped for a few seconds and I could see the tension in her smooth and girlish forearm as she tried to hold the end steady in the tumult of the angry acid pool.

Upon lifting the cleaned and bare bone out of the water I quipped: “I’m cool, you go get one… I’ll watch from here”.

I started to look back at the doorway as if to plan my quick escape if things turned all horror-flick on me. She slipped down into the human condom carefully and began to navigate the liquid into the center of the pool. When she got there she held out a chuck of raw meat and They began to swirl around her. I could feel my neck tense up and I knew that I was now sweating more then I like to around girls doing more manly things then me.

I said: “Maybe you have a net? We could just fish um out from the edge over here”

She smiled and said: “It’s okay, they just like to play around with me for a few minutes before they concede.”

I was beginning to panic and looked around for something sharp or a gun or something. I mean this is science fiction right? Something around here should say: In Case of Emergency (Or Weird Fuking Demon Slug Attack) - Break Glass. Nothing but mundane science and office supplies were within reach though. I tried to think of different ways I could kill things using a Bic Pen and a plastic clip board as a shield. In my panic I failed to witness her scooping up one of Them and bringing it over to the side of the pool. She asked for my hand to help her out but I froze just staring at the creature she was holding like a baby waiting to be burped slung over her shoulder.

I stuttered: “di- di- does it burn you? Wha-?”

“No it’s fine, it’s the liquid that burns not their skin”. She interrupted.

Unwillingly I reached my fully rigor mortis ridden arm out to her. She pulled my body forward as her weight lifted out of the body condom and onto the edge of the pool. I braced myself backwards to balance her one hundred and five pounds and she popped up with a smile on her face and the primordial companion against her chest. It turned what I guess was it’s head a full 180 degrees and looked at me with tiny black eyes. His back then turned into his chest as he turned himself inside-out to accommodate his heads new position. He didn’t turn around in her arm, he just ‘became’ facing forward. I say ‘He’ because it just looked like a male for some reason. He was forest green and slightly fuzzy, and very flat and completely dry.

I said: “You’re growing flat jellyfish Kermit the frogs?”

She giggled cutely and said: “Oh these are no amphibians, they’re much better…”

Then she told me… They… were the end of the world. They were the first things here and the last things left. They were from what she could tell cyanobacteria that evolved into a community capable of instant adaptation to whatever surroundings it found itself in. They started out with the other blue green algae around 3 billion years ago but these particular creatures adopted an ability no other creature before or since could: The ability to adapt and change instantly, not over successive generations thru mutations like ever other living creature on Earth. These were literally super creatures. You throw them in acid, they swim around in it like an otter, you toss them into a fire and they cozy up to the glowing hot ambers, you throw them in the freezer and they set up camp right next to your ice cube tray. These were extremophiles in a macro cellular form. They could be the size of a dime or the size of a bus, it didn’t matter to them. They could grow or shrink depending on the situation at hand. I was blown away and wondered why they (and her for that matter) were not on the cover of Time Magazine. This just seemed so huge.

Sensing my amazement she began to answer my rapid fire questions with easy to understand and matter of fact answers.

- There is no name for them
- We are incapable of determining their age
- They have no internal organs and do not seem to reproduce or mate
- They are docile and have no aggression
- They like raw meat but will also eat just about anything else you can think of including Bic pens and plastic clip boards

I was feeling something inside I’d never felt before. I was happy for mankind I guess I don’t know. I mean who gets happy for mankind? That sounds so ‘politician giving a stump speech”. It sounded very Kennedy to me or something. I was just happy I guess; finally something amazing in an otherwise boring life.

I looked down at my watch and it was about 11:30 p.m., where had the time gone today? I glanced up as she was talking to me about the potential implementation and implications of these creatures for humans when everything in my life grind to a halt. While she was talking it had slithered up around her head and was now ‘her’. She was It. It was her, it had blended itself with her. She was smiling and talking normally like nothing was happening but I was looking on in horror.

“It doesn’t hurt Jay, only the liquid they live in does. That liquid is a product of mankind. That's the waste. We come up with hundreds of ways to destroy ourselves in our world but they can take it. They can take whatever we throw at them and they don’t even get angry about it. They’re prefect… and you can be too”.

“I don’t want to be perfect; I just want to be human…” I said, my voice now obviously cracking like a teenager.

“You just say that because you haven’t tried it. You can do all the things you’ve always wanted to do Jay, you can travel to the stars, you can live forever. You can eat fire and walk on water. You can live a million lives any way you want to and never look back in regret. You make a mistake? Start over. You can have everything you want… Come here… just touch them, it’s like heaven”

My mouth was dry, I felt dizzy and I felt myself stumble over the office chair as I backtracked toward the doorway. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her/it. She/It reached out to me with both arms but they were not smooth and girly anymore, they were green and fuzzy and moved fluidly in waves like her bones were gone. I turned and ran thru the trailer until I crashed against the door. Without looking back I busted out into the night and fell off the 2 step porch onto the cold and dusty ground beside one of the haphazardly parked 4 wheelers. When I stood up I could see it’s silhouette in the doorway. The xenon white lab light was now yellow as it haloed her/it in the doorway. She/It looked frightening as her still human shaped body now bent and contorted at impossible angles.

“Jay, where are you going to go? There is nothing left you know. This IS the end of the world. There is no Chicago… There is no United States, there isn’t even any civilization anymore. It’s over, all of it. There is only… Them. Only… Us.”

I looked down at my hand; it was warm and itched badly. The night sky was bright with stars and the moon cast a dim enough light for me to see my hand in detail. It looked fine but had a strange greenish tint to it. I felt it with my other hand and it felt fuzzy and warm. It felt like I was touching Kermit the Frog’s puppet skin. I stood up and looked at the jeep with the keys dangling in the soft night breeze.

She said: “There is no where to go Jay. Come back inside before They get angry with you”

“I- I thought you said they didn’t get angry”

“Come back inside Jay”