Friday Cat Blogging

Caption: Why doesn't she leave me alone? Doesn't she know I dislike her flashing steel box game? Boring.

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Listening to: Patti Smith Group - 25th Floor
via FoxyTunes

Her life was saved by rock and roll

Today: nostalgic musical interludes. Run away now!!!

Looking over my old posts, I was horrified I didn't blog this video for my obituary of the Outlaws' Hughie Thomasson. Then I realized, I didn't yet know how to embed videos!

I know now, so I feel obliged to post it.

Just keep in mind, this isn't just a SONG (there's no video)--it's an ANTHEM, and just like the 1812 Overture or something, it just can't be any shorter. Just so you know.

I assume only the Deadheads and/or southerners will stick around for all 10 minutes! Yall have heard of "dueling banjos"? The last two minutes of this song is "dueling electric guitars"--and a more righteous noise you ain't likely to hear in this lifetime.

Green Grass and High Tides - The Outlaws

[via FoxyTunes / The Outlaws]

~*~

On Sunday, I mentioned my magical thinking.... and this is exactly the kind of thing that reinforces it: I have been looking for the following song since the advent of the net, literally, for well over a decade. I Googled the lyrics; I tried in vain to remember the name of the band. Was I spelling it wrong? No sign of it. It was a favorite of someone I knew, who died in November of 1979. Were we the only two people who heard the song? It was like a phantom. He is gone, the song is gone...and truly, it is like there is no record of him anywhere. If I could find the song, it would prove---what? That he isn't gone either. He is somewhere.

His birthday was June 10th, which started me looking for it all over again.

It was posted for the first time, yesterday, the 11th.

(See, "coincidences" like that are just too MUCH for me!)

And so, for Keith Alan Koon, at long last: Music Eyes.

He had them.

Music Eyes - Heartsfield (1974)



~*~

This song goes out to ex-Plexus (Bay Area feminist newspaper, published approx 1974-1983) news editor Kelly Eve McRae, another person it is virtually impossible to locate. Unfortunately, there is a Christian artist with the name "Kelly McRae"--rendering most searches maddeningly hopeless. (I know they aren't the same person, since they appear to be several decades apart in age.)

If you're out there, drop me a line.

More magical thinking: she wore her hair like this, too.

Temptation - New Order

[via FoxyTunes / New Order]

~*~

And finally, the song featuring the title of this post... I was over five years old (the age of the song's precocious protagonist) when I first heard it, but you know, not by much. If only they had allowed the Velvets on TV, I could have seen Maureen Tucker for myself and known that YES! There are WOMEN DRUMMERS! It might have changed my life. By the time I saw Karen Carpenter, they had already foisted the violin on me. (And besides, they made her stop playing the drums, too.)

The bang-up remake of this song by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, inserted "Detroit station" in place of "New York station"--so I guess we all fill in our hometowns, if we identify with the story.

And ain't it the truth?

The Velvet Underground - Rock and Roll

[via FoxyTunes / The Velvet Underground]

RUNOFF ELECTION FOR TED!

Left: Ted Christian watches election returns at the Liberty Tap Room last night.

~*~

It was a long day yesterday. We busted major ass.

First, I go to work, and encounter my favorite customer who had a TV show made about him, Tony Della Ventura. I asked him if he voted in the primary and ohhhhhhh, I forgot. (I asked him that before, didn't I?) I was treated to a mini-diatribe about how politicians are all whores, which you should pronounce the way Tony Montana did, whilst sitting in the bathtub: these horsssssss. Della Ventura is the only ex-New York cop I know with a confederate flag tattooed on his leg. He was played by Danny Aiello, which is utterly perfect casting, except that Danny isn't tattooed over every square inch of his body, riding a Harley. (Well, in fairness, this is after retirement and moving south.)

And so, Tony tells me: don't vote for these horssssss.

I take his point, but I tell him how I try to work within the system, yada yada, and with that, we are off on one of our epic conversations. I re-stock the Greens Plus and talk about Ron Paul, who he likes.

~*~

Went to vote in the Thornblade precinct, where they had (this is no exaggeration) only 17 Democrats all day, and 324 Republicans. (This totally explains the golf course in my face, now doesn't it?)

My spies say they saw Jim Burns shaking hands with people, shilling for votes, right on the polling place property, supposedly as he stopped in to vote for himself. Isn't that against the rules? Who's in charge here?

Off to do some quick windshield-leafletting, wash dishes, grab kombucha on the way over to the West End.

~*~

And speaking of the West End--damn, what happened to this place? You ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. I arrive at the aptly named Liberty Tap Room, which didn't even exist a couple of years ago. I'm still quite amazed by the whole capitalist enterprise; the pseudo-artsy West End (once the low-class textile mill area of town), the new ball park, the condos atop the ballfield, etc... all the latte-town dreams of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. I look at the ballfield and wonder how many old millhouses and ancient storefronts died for it's sins. I've still never been to a Greenville Drive game, although I did go to Greenville Braves games in the old suburban stadium, back when we had the Atlanta Braves farm team. I think DRIVE is a DUMB name for a team and I say so at every available opportunity (like right now). The Braves were sold to Mississippi and are now the Mississippi Braves. Damn, I hate that.

~*~

Ted was watching the returns when I arrived after the polls closed at 7pm. The whole crew was there (see photo below) and we settled in to watch the returns on one of those giant restaurant TVs out on the terrace. He joked that at least he had eleven votes!

When approximately 44% of the precincts were in, Ted looked at the TV-screen, somewhat startled, and did Rocket Scientist magic right in front of us. He squinted in deep thought, like Mr Spock, and announced that if Bryan McCanless had X% of the vote and Paul Corden had Y%, with 44% of the precincts? Closes eyes, put hands to eyes momentarily--then he says: Runoff.

"No single candidate could possibly have 50% of the vote," he said, somewhat surprised at what he was saying. "Runoff election between me and Corden!"

What? How did you DO that, man? NO WONDER HE CAN LIVE OFF THE FREAKING STOCK MARKET, with talents like those. I wish I could do algebra right in my head. (Just like they told you in school, word-problems can actually help you in real life.)

Ted looked exultant, well, as exultant as rocket scientists ever get, anyway.

At this point, cell-phones start ringing, and people start handing them to Ted. HE DOESN'T HAVE A CELL-PHONE, PEOPLE. HE IS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS AND DOESN'T HAVE A CELL-PHONE!!! Newspapers and Channel 4 wanna interview him--Ted sprints off to Channel 4, which is, luckily, right down the street. (Sometimes, living in a smallish town has its perks.)

The phones continue going off with various ring-tones, and one campaign-worker says, HEY, TED TOOK MY PHONE!

~*~

And so, it's a Runoff election in two weeks, between Paul Corden and Ted Christian. Ted landed 33%. I attribute not a small amount to those Walmart windshields I littered up!

Ted, on his website:

We're inside the gates, boys and girls.

Here's the deal. Anybody who didn't vote Republican in the primary can vote in the runoff. Corden got the party hard core yesterday, and that's about all he's going to get. We on the other hand have an entire universe of fed up people to tap into. Do the math.

Ted's all about math.

More work, more windshields, I can't pretend this isn't exhausting to think about. But Ted actually in the race against entrenched Republican incumbent Bob Inglis, where he CAN'T BE IGNORED? It's a dizzying prospect. And it could happen! We were all flush with success, woo-hooing our way out of the Liberty Tap Room.

More to come, of course. I will keep you all posted.

Edit, by popular demand: here is your humble narrator doing her Brunhilde impersonation last evening, particularly necessary in heat like this, where my hair threatens to smother me. Photo by Serena.

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Listening to: Grateful Dead - The Race Is On
via FoxyTunes

Local Democratic primary

...is today, at last.

I leafleted Walmart windshields on Ted's behalf (or should I say, on behalf of the good people of the 4th district!) in this searing, blistering heat. (There have been perpetual "heat advisories" the last couple of days, which caused me and Mr Daisy to cancel a hike we had planned on, phooey.) We are all running around like crazy people, but I'll keep you posted.

The Greenville News did not endorse Ted, which he put on his website: NOT endorsed by the Greenville News.

See? Too much of a Yippie to get elected, with a sense of humor like that.

~*~

In other news--South Carolina leads the nation in the number of Hispanic worker deaths on the job:

During the time studied, 51 Hispanic workers died on the job in South Carolina, a rate of 22.8 per 100,000 workers, the CDC reported using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The number was twice that of Oklahoma, which had the second-highest rate.

Falls were the leading cause of injury and 63 percent of the deaths were in the construction industry.

The high rate in South Carolina most likely can be attributed to the state’s relatively new immigrant population where workers would be less likely to speak English and would be unfamiliar with employee safety laws, said Sherry Brown of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Occupational Health Disparities Program.

“A reasonable explanation is new immigrants are moving to work in construction, which has a higher risk,” Brown said.

The study found 88 percent of the Hispanics who died while at work in South Carolina were foreign-born.

Across the nation, on-the-job deaths of foreign-born workers have been increasing, and overall Hispanic deaths rates are consistently higher than those of white and black workers.

On-the-job deaths can include everything from car wrecks and murder to falls and explosions.

For the past five years, the state has recorded the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the nation.

Hispanics make up about 3 percent of the state’s labor force, according to the Census Bureau.

The most notorious work accident involving Hispanics in the Midlands happened in 2003, when teenage brothers, Moises and Rigoberto Xaca, died while digging a trench at the Blythewood High School construction site.

The brothers, ages 15 and 17, were illegal immigrants who showed fake documents to get hired. The company that hired them was fined for six safety violations.

Two years after the Xaca brothers were killed, the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation created a Spanish job safety training program for the construction and landscaping industries, said Jim Knight, a department spokesman.

~*~

And Natalia reports on ArabComment that Leila Hussein, mother of honor-killing victim Rand Hussein, was shot and killed as she was walking with two women activists to meet a contact to take her to Amman, Jordan:

Leila Hussein drew her family’s ire when she refused to support her husband’s decision to murder their daughter for entertaining a crush on an American soldier. Leila Hussein’s sons had also participated in the brutal act, and did not support their mother in her escape.

Hussein’s husband had previously boasted to the media that the local police had fully supported him. And while Basra law enforcement officials have told the press that Leila Hussein’s defiance had nothing to do with her murder, that this was a routine spat of sectarian violence targeting the women activists, their own role in this story makes their statements suspect.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Leila Hussein was being made an example of. This wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last time, in today’s brutalized Iraq. The activists who were trying to help Hussein escape are receiving threats as well. Any woman who does not submit to her role as a passive piece of human garbage is a potential target in a patriarchal society scarred by years of violence.

What can we do? The good women at Jezebel are collecting money to help.

Another thing we could do is BRING THEM HOME NOW, and let Iraq heal from its many wounds.

Quirky Sunday

Left: Beautiful petunias, at the SC Farmers Market this weekend.

~*~

I was tagged (by Jojo) with a quirky meme!

Six quirky things about me:

1) My diet is extremely quirky, and at various times in my life I have likely qualified for orthorexia (obsession with healthy food). I won't eat meat or anything with meat in it, which may or may not qualify as quirky. I usually won't eat anything cooked without something raw added to it. I am currently progressing to a 75% raw diet; I'm at about 50% currently. (Yes, I do suspend the raw/cooked rules when eating out, as well as for vacations, holidays and other special events/occasions, etc. This has succeeded in making these occasions even MORE special, which is a nice bonus.) I also daily partake of drinks like acai juice, kombucha, tulsi tea, aloe vera and other weird stuff. (And I don't care what anyone says, pure noni is gross.)

All of this taken together, probably qualifies as major quirkiness.

2) JoJo admits she talks to herself a lot, and yes, I do too.

3) I sing the guitar parts of songs, if I know them. You've heard of air guitar? I do vocal guitar: Weeee-oooowrunggggg. I try not to be too obnoxious with this, but it's become a sort of personal signature.

4) I would shock all of you if I told you how many supplements I take. It's way out of hand. I've tried to pare it down to essentials like L-Carnitine and antioxidants, you know, IMPORTANT stuff, but invariably, I find everything important. Hey, it's my JOB, okay? (As a result, I also get most of these supplements as free samples and promotions, which is how it all started.)

I could probably stop any time I want! ;)

5) Extreme superstition, which I have methodically and purposefully channeled into (more respectable) religion. Lots of magical thinking. I believe in omens, signs, dreams predicting the future, all that stuff. (I do read the Tarot, after all.) After 50 years, I can assure you: I could not NOT be this way, even if I wholeheartedly wanted to. (PS: I have tried.)

Vanessa (atheist) believes atheism/general lack of belief is a particular "bent" or temperament that some people have, and conversely, that metaphysical belief/mysticism is a "bent" that some people have. I totally understand and appreciate this view. When I have not been consciously religious in my lifetime, I have been virtually ruled by superstition and a genuine fear of fate. If I didn't channel this deep, very strong impulse into something rational (by comparison) and culturally recognizable, I would be a mess. Religion is my catch-all for my various forms of magical thinking, and as they say, it works for me.

I sometimes encounter atheists that I think are forcing themselves to be strictly rational, and even more religious people that I think are forcing themselves to Go By the Book. I wanna say to them: lighten up, and go with what's right for you. You can't force any of that, in my humble opinion.

When you see a shooting star, do you close your eyes and involuntarily make a wish? (Then feel silly afterwards for doing it?) If so, you know what I mean. If you don't, you won't get it.

6) I find it almost impossible to watch a movie without reading at least one review of it. (PS: this doesn't apply to television and never has!) I don't even have to agree with the review, I just have to read it. I can't even tell you how many SPOILERS I have read, over the years. (Certain reviewers, I learned to avoid, because they didn't seem to be able to restrain themselves--yes, I'm looking at you, Roger Ebert!) Mr Daisy thinks it's the most wacko thing I do. (He shares several of my other quirks, you should know.)

This quirk has gotten exponentially worse with the advent of the net, since there are online reviews of every movie ever made... Occasionally, back in the day, I was forced to watch a movie WITHOUT first reading the review, but that hasn't happened in well over a decade.

~*~


Here are the Rules:

1. Link the person(s) who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

I tag the aforementioned Vanessa, as well as Renegade Evolution, white rabbit, Rootie, Shadocat and Nexy!

(If yall don't wanna do it, no problem.)

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Listening to: Grateful Dead - Cassidy
via FoxyTunes