A Chill Pill From The ABB While The Fools Fiddle

I am encouraged by the last couple of days. It seems that the people who came here once just to spew some venom my way have receded to whatever den they came out of. Obviously the last piece was my opinion and "need I say it" not everyone shares it. What was great was the level of civility that was maintained while we discussed our differences. If only, blah, blah , blah. You can fill in those blahs for yourselves.

For those of you that didn't see the video and those that came back to see it again, I am very, very sorry but it seems that we don't own that video. The dude that does does not want it up and insisted that I take it down. There are plans for a long form film about the ABB that should include this one and several others from Byron. For those that saw it I hope you enjoyed it and here is the story without further editing. 

Today I have the urge to ramble a bit on  where my life went after the place I left it at the end of my tribute to Duane. We are just beginning rehearsals, with "Trouble No More" being the first song we learned and Duane calling Gregg to get to Jacksonville ASAP. We pick things up with the next thing we started working on: Spencer Davis' "Don't Want Ya No More". I have no recollection (sorry Rupert) of who or how that "Don't Want Ya No More"  line came up but someone, probably Duane, really liked it so we used it as a starting point for a structured jam that developed into what became one of our most used opening numbers. Our first title for it was "The Mother Fucker". If you're not familiar with it it takes the line from Davis' tune, repeats it and then we go into a transitional lick that ends by coming out of the shuffle we were playing and switching into a straight 4/4 rhythm for Gregg to play two two organ solos over. Then we just slip back into the shuffle for two guitar solos that are followed followed by a dual guitar line (first time ever for this new tool that in many ways will come to define a major part of our sound) that leads into a second guitar solo, two passes, that ends with a repeat of the earlier dual line that retards into everyone holding the final chord until Duane plays a screaming intro into a slow 12 bar blues groove. This is pretty much what we had learned when Gregg showed up.

I remember that when we played these for Gregg, he took Duane aside and whispered to him "I ain't good enough to pay in this band" Duane just looked at him and said sit your ass down (behind a brand new Hammond B-3) and within a short time Gregg gave us "Not My Cross to Bear" and those two have been paired up for eternity ever since. After Gregg realized that, not only was he good enough to "play" in this band, but that he had a few other things to contribute, he began to pull out tune after tune, Whippin' Post, Dreams, Black Hearted Woman, etc, etc and the ABB was off to the races.

We didn't stay in Jacksonville for long and within days we all piled into a white (aren't they all?) Ford Econoline and headed up to Macon, where Phil Walden was headquartered (MUCH more on him in my piece on the music business). We landed at a place owned (rented) by Twiggs Lyndon (Twiggs could be considered the very first member of the ABB) our road manager. It was a two room apartment totally devoid of any furnishings except a Coke machine that Twiggs kept filled with beer.  The idea was that if you paid a quarter for a beer then we would always have funds to refill the machine. Since we seldom had a quarter, Twiggs was always opening the machine and we seldom had funds for more beer. Somehow, not sure exactly how, it did seem to always have beer in it though. Maybe it just felt good about being used for third base when we would come in late at night after hours of rehearsal in an empty warehouse behind a barber shop on Broadway and start up a game of cork-ball. I'll explain that game in its entirety later. We played a lot of cork-ball in those days.

We threw a few mattresses around the rooms and "The Hippy Crash Pad" was formally born. I always thought it very strange that a groupp of guys with hair down their shoulders and even one black man in it was able to hang in that place (being Macon, GA, circa 1969), eat psilocybin and play ball, sliding into third base (our beloved coke machine) at 4-5am and not have the police show up and haul us all off to jail or worse. For some reason rather than call the cops, everyone in that building just moved out. One day we came back from practice and one family was moving and we lined the hallway and gave them a round of applause. They were not amused. We were ecstatic. Eventually some lovely young girls moved into the apt. across the hall and we wound up renting the apt next to "The Crash Pad". We really had a ton of fun in that place. Wesleyan College for Women supplied us with a stream of beautiful playmates, the music was well on its way to a new religion. I had begun reading "The Lord of the Rings" the day of our first rehearsal and between group gropes, cork-ball games, etc was living in the magical world of "Middle Earth". Life was as good as it gets.

By the way, it became an annual right of spring for me for the next few years that I reread Tolkien. I have probably read those books at least 20 times and seen the films even more. Maybe a piece on the "Ring" will be in order one day, we'll see. I have had many theories as to what the "ring" symbolizes and I will probably have many more. Would be nice to hear what yall think.

Gonna jump ahead a year. Don't worry, I promise to fill in 1969-1970, but I came across the above video so I'm gonna yap a bit about the "2nd Atlanta Pop Festival" held in Byron, GA., July 3, 4, 5, 1970. We were just getting started when the first Atlanta Pop Festival was held in '69, so no one really wanted us to be there except us. That was just about the time we began playing the free Sunday concerts in Piedmont Park, later on that too.

Byron was incredible. Estimates range from 150,000 to 500,000 but most rational people believe that 200,000 is probably pretty close. Whatever it was it was a shit load of people and there is little doubt that Byron was one of the launching pads for The Allman Brothers. I mean we played and played and played. When we couldn't get on the main stage, we would go across the road and jam with everyone else on the free stage they thought would satisfy everyone and keep them from tearing down the fences and just coming in. WRONG!!! First day, as soon as critical mass was reached, the gates came down everyone poured in. The bands weren't paid and the promoters lost their respective asses. We could have used the bucks but, fuck it, we  were there to spread this new religion we had discovered and did we ever preach. You can see just a tiny bit from the first set in the above video. This was early in the day while we were all still relatively sober. Don't remember Duane jumping around that much. There is little doubt that he was having a ball. We played a very long set that afternoon and man was it hot. We played another set on that stage either later that day or, more likely, the next. It had been sweltering all day, with naked kids in various stages of consciousness swimming in a river near the festival site. Believe me that part of Georgia had never seen anything quite like it. It was amazing that things went as smoothly as they did. But they did. Anyway, when we got up to play that evening show the sun was still up and everyone was still sweltering but as we played a small storm moved in. About halfway through our set it started pouring. You talk about a crowd getting its second wind,  well these kids with that cool refreshing rain pouring down on them just went berserk. They all stood up started dancing throwing mud and in general really kicking into a mass of kids making a joyful noise while listening to us do the same. Well....the only cover on the stage was a huge tarp and once it filled with water it came crashing down on us with a vengeance. Of course we had to shut off all of the electric stuff, but we had two drummers. Jaimoe and I never missed a lick. We just kept playing with huge splashes of water flying up every time I hit my floor tom, This somehow raised the energy level of the crowd even higher. All the electric players started looking for and finding things to beat on and we just played and played until, after a while, it stopped raining. We turned all the electrics back on and blew that place apart. One of our truly high points early on that was followed by many more.

So went Byron. We left there, continued to tour almost without stopping for many more months. Byron, however, introduced us to the world in a big way as well as putting us in front of thousands for the first time. It was quite intoxicating. The Allman Brothers Band were taking off in every way. That three days raised the bar drastically.

Later Yall.

The Damn Debt Ceiling

Some random thoughts about the mess in Washington ATM. Let's start with the most obvious. This is the first time since T-bills were issued to fight WWI that there has been any debate at all about raising the debt ceiling. I believe it has been raised 89 times without controversy. Seven times under George W. A single line from the congress raising the debt from ..... to ...... No problem.  To those of you that have called me and others that lean toward the democratic party and use terms like "the fool in charge" to describe Obama please tell me when in the history of the nation one party has been as intransigent as the Republican Party is being about this issue, especially when the consequences are so dire? During the Bush years, while two wars were being fought, off of the books, and the most expensive drug bill in history was passed (which included the inability to use its massive leverage to negotiate lower prices and simply gave certain drug companies huge profits), that took a budget surplus and turned it into the mess we are in right now all we heard was: "Debt doesn't matter, it's a small part of GDP". Now, all of a sudden the Republicans seem to have completely passed on any job creation that was their promise during their 2010 campaigns (Boehner's comment that a new GOP budget proposal may cost several hundred thousand jobs, but "so be it" being the obvious philosophy behind this "cut the debt at all cost" new religion of the GOP's). Now the debt is, according to the GOP, our one and only problem and be damned if any new revenue, especially from the wealthy, will help get us out of this end of times issue, it is slash and burn time. Obama is to blame for the jobs issue. Didn't you all know that? The Republicans have decided, in the interest of cutting debt, damn the consequences, to stop legislating. You did now that it is the job of the head of the executive branch to enact and pass laws, didn't ya? Oh and in spite of jobs gains continually over the last years, corporate profits that are breaking all historical records, the stock market back up in lala land, Obama didn't create this recession, but he has made it worse. Ask Mitt Romney, he'll tell you, again and again and again. 

One case in point is the last jobs report that all are screaming at Obama about. Only 18,000 new jobs added. What no one seems to want to talk about is that there were 54,000 private sector jobs added. It was the slash and burn policies of conservative governors and state legislatures, as well as the federal congress that accounted for 36,000 public sector jobs being lost. Look as I may, except for a few "Blue Dog Dems" I can find only the Republicans that are doing this. The main reason I lean toward Obama and the Dems is that what the GOP is doing: cutting government spending during a recession has been proven time and time through history to always be the wrong thing to do. Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, predicted when the Republicans cut the amount of stimulus that Obama and the Dems wanted (40% of which were tax cuts) that right about this time in 2010 the economy would again begin to slide. Well he was right.

I was told by one of you that it was WWII, not The New Deal that ended the Great Depression. As I have said before, so what? I have been told that our debt, right now, is higher than it has been since the federal government started borrowing. Bullshit!!!!! In actual dollars, maybe. Today the debt is around 24% of GDP. At the end of WWII it was over 120% of GDP. Look at what happened. When the dust settled from that debt out of it arose a juggernaut of an economy that has dominated the world for 70 years. Again, compare the economic policies under the tax increasing Bill Clinton and the tax cutting, "never saw a spending bill I didn't like or regulation I did" Bush years. That is just the recent past.

The Roman Republic started very much as we did. Italy was covered with small family farms and you had to be a land owner to be a citizen and be able to vote. By the time of Julius Caesar only a few hundred families owned all of the property in Italy and much of the rest of what Rome had become. Caesar was a populist who wanted land reform beginning with the land that he had promised to the soldiers that fought all of those years with him. Brutus, Cassius and the others that did him in were all members of that elite. De damned if Caesar was going to take one mm of what was theirs. Thus ended The Roman Republic and any chance for land reform and once Octavian took out Marc Antony and became Augustus Caesar, the first among equals, tyranny was the Roman system of government (with the real power in the Roman army) until it's demise centuries later. The change was brought about by a few grabbing all of the power and wealth and fuck everyone else. Sound familiar?

This has happened many times throughout history. Remember Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" shortly before those proposed cake eaters cut off her head? It is ironic that this event is one of the main motivators for the US Revolution.

There is another major trend in the Republican Party that concerns me and should concern us all. Until recently a sworn oath to protect and defend the constitution was all that any politician had to take to govern. Not too long ago Grover Norquist, leader of Americans For Tax Reform, came up with a pledge, signed by 95% of Republicans and a few Democrats that put in writing, signed,and sealed, that they would NEVER raise taxes (including obviously unwarranted tax breaks). This pledge is one of the major factors in the GOP refusing Obama's offer to cut 3-4 trillion in spending (3 to 4 times the amount the the accursed health reform law) because it did not allow them to throw in a single penny of revenue. Now you tell me how you could not, given the sad fact that all we have are Republicans and Democrats to choose from, choose the Democrats as the party of "the little guys"? Now we are seeing a growing number of oaths that are popping up, all on the Republican side. Please tell me of any oaths, other than the one taken when they are sworn into office, that the Democrats are signing. We got The Susan B. Anthony pledge to only appoint pro-lifers and cut off all funding to any agency, like Planned Parenthood (talk about hypocrisy, over 90% of what they do is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. What better way to avoid an abortion?). This one has been signed by Bachmann, Gingrich, Pawlenty. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum (if you don't know who he is, Google Santorum). We got a cut, cap and balance pledge to gut federal spending by cutting and capping spending and enacting a balanced budget amendment to the constitution signed by all of the above as well as Romney and Cain. We got The Marriage Vow that is just to weird to imagine. It includes "no Shariah Law" as well as the statement that black children were more likely, under slavery, to be a part of a nuclear family when the fact is it was against the law for slaves to get married and children were routinely taken from their mothers and sold. Bachmann and Santorum still signed it. How the hell can you govern when you take absurd pledges that remove your ability to compromise? How can you govern, if you can't compromise? It is the Replicans refusal to compromiise in the least that has us in our current pickle. That is a fact.

I agree with Paul Burke's post 100%. If we truly get "a free market" and all regulations are removed we are then totally screwed and those that have the money, e.g. the power will finish off, like Brutus, Cassius and their gang, what little is left of  Democracy. The government is our last hope. Believe it!!!

The reasoning is simple and unavoidable. When the engine of our consumer economy is losing ground and  have nothing left for the goods an services they want and more and more even their most basic needs, then companies will not be expanding, they will be firing not hiring. without demand for their good and services this is the only fiscally responsible way to go. There is only one entity that can break this cycle and that is the federal government. Big business and the most wealthy are sitting on trillions of dollars. They will continue to do so. Why should they do otherwise? A huge influx into things like mass transit, fixing our centuries old, crumbling electric grid, using this crisis in the same way we did the attack on Pearl Harbor or Sputnik and taking the lead in what must be the next global economic industry: clean energy. This would not only create all of those jobs that would lead to much greater revenue and then we could cut federal spending. Then and only then do we stand a chance of maintaining our position as the global economic leader. If we don't then better start learning Chinese. Look at what the race to the moon did for our economy. Look at what happened after WWII. Imagine what will happen if we don't do something drastic and keep heading in the direction we are headed. Imagine not raising the debt ceiling.

All the best. We got some rough road ahead I am very much afraid. Especially if the conservative agenda doesn't lose a great deal of its appeal.

Duane Allman

I was going to wait a day or two before writing anything more but the comment by Lacyguitar: "Wow! Duane was amazing! Allman Bros would not have existed without him." got me motivated. I am certain that many of you know that Duane put the Allman Brothers band together and was our leader. He led because that was just the way he was. He was very intelligent, totally honest, was of the highest character, morally and ethically and I would say that Duane was one of those people that, if you are lucky, you may meet one like him in your life. If you are extremely fortunate you will become friends with him, as I did.

I first met Duane when the band I was playing in, The Bitter Ind, decided to take our summer off from FSU and head to Daytona Beach to find a gig for the summer. We auditioned for damn near every club there and were met with the same results at each of them: "You guys are great but we need a band that people can dance to". We were auditioning at the last one we could find, The Martinique, when in walk "The Beatles", at least you would have thought so. They were a group of guys led by two blond headed dudes called the Allman Joys and man did the folks around Daytona think the world of them. This was the first time I laid eyes on Duane and Gregg. Well our audition finished with the usual comment from the club owner and we were sitting in the back of the place talking about putting our tails between our legs and heading back to Jacksonville when Duane came up to us and started going on and on about how much he liked our band. We told him our situation so he just said the hell with it, come on over to our house and hang for a few days until you can work something out. Well his house happened to be 100 Van Avenue, where Duane and Gregg lived with their mother. It also happened to be the place where all of the "heads" in Daytona would hang. We spent the next two or three days sleeping on couches and the floor and finally did decid to put our tails between our legs and......

Several months later, after getting a job working a warehouse for some precursor to Walmart, I got a call from Duane telling me that they were in town playing a club called "The Comic Book" and their drummer just quit would I mind playing with them till they could find a replacement. Of course I said "of course". It turned out that the manager of the club was a huge Dylan fan and since The Bitter Ind played pretty much everything Dylan ever wrote, either in his style or that of The Birds, Duane got us an audition. Well we got the job, Gregg and Duane took off, found another drummer and we played that place for over eight months. 

We would run into them from time to time playing around the south and one day we were in Daytona and stopped in to see them. This was just after they had left L.A. after the fiasco called The Hour Glass. Our band was kind of stuck in a rut plus we were recording our second album in Miami and Duane said we should join forces. Well hell this was incredible. We did and worked up a bunch of material that they played and a lot that we played and started touring as The Bitter Ind, The Allman joys or The Hour Glass depending on where we were playing. We also spent some time in Miami finishing that record. Melissa was one of those recordings. This was the first time it was ever recorded. Gregg had written some other tunes and we laid them down too. The crooks from Miami we were working for finally released those recordings on Bold Records, with Duane and Gregg's picture lifted off of Idlewild South as the cover and called it "Daune and Gregg Allman". You will most definitely get a rant sometime about what I think about the music business. Well Gregg decided to head back to L.A.to try it on his own and get Duane and the other members of The Hour Glass out of their record and management contracts. Duane and I headed back to Daytona and this was when he got the call to come to Muscle Shoals and be one of their session guitarists. You can read all about what happened there from many sources.

Sometime later (I'm not great with dates) I was married, living back in Jacksonville, just about to give up on the music business and go back to college and finish my degree in math. (I guess that would have led to a nice teaching job somewhere) when there was a knock at my door and there was Duane with this muscle-bound black dude with an afro, a tank top and a damn bear tooth claw necklace around his neck. As only Duane could he said "Butch this is Jaimoe, my new drummer. Jaimoe, this is Butch, my old drummer. Well they came in, Duane hung for a while and then headed of to go see Berry Oakley and just left Jaimoe sitting there. Well my upbringing didn't really prepare me for this. If you know Jaimoe he is a man of few words. He just sat there, frowning and staring at the floor and all I could think was, "Oh my god a militant n..... he's gonna kill me. He wound up staying with me for a few weeks that trip and has become my very dear friend and partner for the 42 years since that day. What a wonderful way for a middle class, white Southern boy to be introduced to the real world. Thank you, Jaimoe.

It turned out that Duane had gotten really bored with session playing and the reason he was in Jacksonville was to start a new band. Once word got around this became the focal point for the burgeoning hippy community in Jax and we started getting together at least once a week, setting up huge piles of gear and jamming all day long. After a while Duane had pretty much decided on who he wanted for his band. Jaimoe came with him, Berry Oakley was the bass player and Berry convinced Duane that Dickey Betts would add a very cool new twist to things. Damn was Berry right! There were several drummers trying for a spot too. Jaimoe kept telling Duane that I was the one, but back then I was a pretty introverted player. Humility was what I had been taught and humility and rock and roll don't really go together. I think Duane decided that Jaimoe was right but I also think that he felt I needed an attitude adjustment if I was going to play in his band.

I will never forget the day. We were jamming in an open field surrounded by woods next to the #1 AM radio station in Jax: WAPE. Well we got into a shuffle and it really wasn't going anywhere. I did my usual "Oh god they're all looking at me" and pulled back. Duane turned around, stared me square in the eyes and played a screaming lick that just yelled "Come on mother fucker, play". To which I further retreated. Well he did it again, I pulled back again but then on the third or fourth time I realized that he was showing me up in front of all of those people and I started to get mad. I began to beat my drums like I was hittin him upside the head. We kept this up for quite a while. I mean we were locked eye to eye glaring at each other and the music just took off. In my anger, I forgot to be afraid and started playing the drums. Finally Duane smiled, pointed at me and said "there ya go". It was like he reached inside of me and flicked a switch. The light went off in my head "you can play so stop apologizing" It was that epiphany that made me capable of doing what I have done for the last 42+ years. It was Duane that caused that epiphany.

Duane Allman was the most powerful character I have ever known. After 40 years I still have dreams that I run into him. There is a part of me that will not let him go. He most certainly changed my life and touched the lives of everyone fortunate enough to be around him. He asked me to join the band. We started rehearsals and learned a few tunes "Trouble No More" being the first. Then he called his baby bro. He was absolutely right that there was no one else alive that could sing in that band.

Duane, I miss you, I love you and I always will.

THANK YOU !!!!!!

Some Responses To Your Comments On My FIrst Blog Post

Wow. I am blown away by the amount of people that actually took the time to read my first rant. Before I rail on again, I feel like I should respond to some of your comments. Judi, thank you for getting things started. All the best to you and Paco. Miss you guys. To all of you that liked anything I had to say and said so: thank you. To those of you that didn't: thank you for at least showing up and giving it a read. You are obviously entitled to your opinions (as was pointed out by IdlewildRickT, it does say "The World According to Butch Trucks" in big letters at the top of the page. To say that what I write is self indulgent is redundant to the max. 'Tis the nature of the beast. To Sully and Gina: thank you for your insights into my comments concerning religion. I promise a full blown rant in the near future that will give you a great deal more to react to. To those of you that said that you don't really care what I have to say, why do you waste your time reading it? Then waste more time responding? You must have better things to do. As I said earlier the top of this page leaves no doubt who's opinion this is. I think "Fox News" is nothing but a propaganda arm of the GOP and that Glenn Beck and his idiotic conspiracy theories about anything the the left of Hitler are full of, not only his opinions, which he is entitled to, but false information, and I believe that some of what he says is akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater. He is dangerous and I believe he belongs in a mental institution. The result of our last election is, in my opinion, due somewhat to people like Mr. Beck. To get to the point, I just choose not to waste my time watching, listening or in anyway paying attention to him and others like him. You have that same choice. Especially the anonymous that thinks I am a narcissistic horses ass: you apparently know me and have some kind of axe to grind. If you want to continue to come here and post, then be my guest but don't you have things to do in your life that are more rewarding? To Scott: I would like to know what you mean about my "boycott" of The Black Keys. My only contact in life with them came at the 2009 Wanee Fest. They refused to allow us to put them on our webcast. I spent a lot of time trying to change their minds but they decided not to. I think you may have some bad info. To 34d, I have read "Misquoting Jesus". I'll get into that one and many more in the one I promised Sully and Gina. Whether or not The New Deal got us out of the depression and it was actually WWII, what would you call WWII from a fiscal perspective? We spent many times our GDP fighting that war and look at what happened. That level of "deficit spending" created an economic juggernaut that has dominated the world for almost 70 years. Now, even after that kind of evidence, we still get the foolishness that cutting taxes and cutting spending will boot the economy. Cripes, just look at the stats under Clinton and W if WWII isn't enough proof for ya. 

Mostly I would like to respond to another anonymous (amazing how many of you have that name :-). First off thank you for the compliment about my drumming. I do actually agree that I may spout what I have learned and do know out a feeling of intellectual inferiority. I would propose the concept that most people that get on a stage, write, act or do anything to get public attention do so, at least to some degree, out of an inner need for approval. I chose to play music and did not complete my education so I have spent a great deal of my free time (and fortunately musicians have a lot of that) reading everything from the classics (one of the worst experiences of my life was The Peloponnesian War), fantasy, science fiction and once I finish Ulysses I think I'll give my brain a rest and reread "The Wheel of Time".  Someone is finally writing the ending. I also have hundreds of lectures from a company called "The Teaching Company" that range from philosophy to literature to history and even some science. This is what I listen to in my car so every trip to the grocery store is like going to school. I will not be ignorant. I may not be right  to some of you. Most of what I am saying is opinion and not provable either way. I promise you that what I say will be based on facts not lies and if you see a misstatement please feel free to show me where I am wrong. But I digress.

After taking your criticism, anonymous, I would like to offer you a bit. You are wrong about what John Locke wrote. I have spent a good deal of time the last two days researching his quote (BTW, I got my information that Jefferson quoted Locke in "The Declaration" from a lecture by Dr. Alan Charles Kors, professor of history at The University of Pennsylvania, I didn't feel the need to fact check him). It turns out that what Locke actually said came from a 1689 piece "A Letter Concerning Toleration". His quote was: "Civil interest I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body: and the possession of outward things". Dr. Kors referred to Locke's "Second Treatise on Government" 1690 where he said "Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled [uncontrolled] enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate." There is a lot of debate about what exactly Locke meant by "estate" and the conservative response seems to be "land". You will find "life, liberty and land" attributed to Locke everywhere, but he never said it as far as I can find. If you can point out where he did, please do. I mean that in all seriousness. I meant what I said when I said I try and learn something everyday. Jefferson did quote Locke later when he used the phrase "a long train of abuses."

I'll wrap this one up by saying that the single most influential person on my life (other than my wife) was Duane Allman. I'll tell the story of how he changed my outlook and my life in a moment of epiphany some other time. I'll just end this with my favorite quote of his. Most of you know it. It is on his gravestone. He wrote it in his notebook Dec 31, 1968, just weeks before he started putting together the Allman Brothers Band.

"This year I will be more thoughtful of my fellow man, exert more effort in each of my endeavors professionally as well as personally, take love wherever I find it, and offer it to everyone who will take it. In this coming year I will seek knowledge from those wiser than me and try to teach those who wish to learn from me. I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can -------"

FIRST BLOG

I was raised a devout Southern Baptist in the beautiful town of Jackass Flats (better known as Jacksonville, Florida). Growing up, if the church doors were open, my young ass was in it, no questions asked. Worst of all I bought, lock, stock and barrel all of the dogmatic propaganda that was being shoved into my as yet unformed noggin. In 1965 I finally left home and headed off to the booming metropolis of Tallahassee and Florida State University where I was to spend about a year and a half majoring in staying out of Vietnam. Although I did receive that degree, sic, FSU didn't seem to like the fact that I refused to attend their classes and after the first trimester of 1967 they asked me to get my lazy ass off of their campus. During this time I joined up with two acquaintances (later to become two of the best friends of my life) from high school (Scott Boyer and David Brown) and we formed The Bitter Ind. I guess we were the very first hippies at FSU. We learned everything The Birds, Bob Dylan, The Lovin' Spoonful did along with some Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane and even one Rolling Stones tune thrown into the mix. While this was happening on a macro level my brain went through a very radical change on a micro level. I started to think for myself for the first time in my life and after several months of serious consideration I got really pissed at all of that crap that had been shoved into me. I went from Christian to atheist at light speed. When you take the time to really think about "God's Word" and then spend even a little time studying the "historic" bible it doesn't take a genius to realize that if one book says "It is by your faith that ye shall be known, not by your actions (from one of "Paul's Epistles)" and another book says "It is by your actions ye shall be known, not by your faith (from James)" then what I had been fed all my life about the "King James" version of the bible being the absolute "word of God" and thus infallible just ain't true (I trust you noticed that both of those passages can't be true, ergo one is false and ergo there is at least one false statement in the bible). I have spent a good deal of the 45+ years since that epiphany studying the real history of the origins and evolution of Christianity and it sure ain't purty. I can't find a single other cause for more suffering, pain and death in the history of the Western World. Now I find myself watching Michelle Bachmann (ya know she really does have a very slim chance) spout that crap and watch people all over this country eat it up. Segue to politics.


I would consider myself a liberal. I know who the three philosophers are that Jefferson used as the basis for the US Constitution (a little test, do you?). For example who wrote, "All men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" (I do know that's from the Declaration, not the Constitution, but the influences are the same). Hint: it wasn't Mr. Jefferson. I have studied some philosophy and will continue to do so until the day I die. I believe it is one of the purposes in my life to learn something new everyday. Now it seems that everyday I read the newspaper (The New York Times, and The Palm Beach Post) or watch CNN, MSNBC or one of the network news shows. Just can't abide more than a couple of minutes of Fox without destroying my TV, 'sides anyone that considers Fox "news" is a big part of the problem I am going to yap about. The art of "fact-checking" seems to have been removed from that arm of the GOP.

My rag today is a very simple one, but I believe is at the root of why we are going down the tubes. I learned in high school that the US government was built on a tripartite system. (if you don't know what that means, go look it up). The other day Obama was doing a "Tweet" conference and he received a tweet from Boehner saying "We gave you all that money now where are the jobs?" (or something to that effect). I was blown away by how Obama let Boehner get away with framing even that simple tweet. First off, "all that money" was a fraction of what Obama asked for and (as we have since learned was needed) 40% of "all of that money" were tax cuts (See the Bush years for what tax cuts do for job growth, BTW I will not go dig up charts, statistics, etc, you can do that yourself, but they fully support the statement that tax cuts do not create jobs). Obama's response to Boehner was some blah, blah about what he has done. He should have used that opportunity and the many others like it to remind us all that he is the President. He is the head of the executive arm of our system. It is not his job to write laws. A very simple response would have been: Mr. Speaker your house has passed exactly 20 bills since its beginning. Not one of these bills have dealt with anything of any real import (three were just bills naming public buildings). It is your job as the legislature to legislate. You did pass an extremely watered down version of the stimulus I asked for soon after taking office. Now as soon as you can put any kind of jobs bill on my desk that makes any sense I will be glad to sign it. Getting it to me is your job, not mine. I will continue to try and set the agenda, but in the end you must take responsibility for congresses lack of action and stop doing all in your power to make me look like bad guy. Are you and your fellow Republicans really prepared to let this country go down the tubes just to make sure I am not re-elected? It sure looks that way to me. I guess the final statement is my personal view and I doubt if Obama really should be quite that in your face, but I do think he had better start teaching the American public a few lessons in basic civics, seems no one else wants to.