Muddy Waters Fills Basement

Back when the earth was still cooling, as my kids like to point out, I heard good music. My father derisively called it jungle music. Love you Dad, to this very day even though you're gone, I do, but Les Brown and his Band of Renown didn't get me rockin', nor did Kay Keyser or Chesty Morgan. Chesty did have her high points though.

Muddy and his pork pie hat played alone in a basement bar in Boston due to a nor'easter. I had been sitting there since noon thinking that was the only way I would get a seat in what was going to be a crowded bar for a performance by a master of the Blues. The snow kept falling, buses stopped running and the bartender got there about 15 minutes after I did. So did Muddy.

There was a young singer by the name of Bonnie Raitt along with just her bass player Simbo. Rambo or something like that who was to appear before Muddy who wanted to check out the accoustics. The snow kept falling and cabs stopped running.

Post lunch became pre-dinner and some boiler makers started appearing as nervous jokes about the steps down into the bar being filled with snow were fullfilled by God himself. As pre-dinner became cocktail hour for the finer folks on Nob Hill the stairs disappeared under the weather. The snow fell and the wind jammed it into the cracks in the mortar between the bricks while the bums, winos and drunks pleaded to be let in. Muddy smiled and the bartender cracked the door wide enough for the nearby nonmusical Tom Waites to sidle into the warmer basement bar.

Muddy started playing guitar. Bonnie started playing dobro, whatshisname on stand up bass. I sheepishly offered spoons on the bar. Toothless smiles from the cold visitors warmed by coffee and in hopes of something more smiled a chorus seldom heard in concert venues. Thus the evening was cast.

"Dust My Broom", "Hootchie Cootchie Man", many others and a 35 minute rendition of "Got My Mojo Workin" was unplugged because the power went out and candles were lit.. Muddy talked about his friends, competitors Bo Diddley, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter and others, but not the way I had heard him talk before. It was warm, maybe fun, but challenging in his pride of his own work. He picked as he talked.

Muddy was known as the master of Chicago Blues, but he played the silk sounds of the Delta liked born to it. Laconic sliding tones of inconcruent, yet musical toning meant to be together just to make a swamp of a basement in Boston into his. That night quietly. That night quietly sounded voluminous by the quiet that surrounded the music as sounds bounced off three foot thick walls, floors and empty tables.

The bartender, a strapping lad with red hair, gave us all a cuppa cold coffee, a shot of Jamison and a word of sorrow that we'd be staying the night.

Muddy Waters sat most of the night in a chair so his back wouldn't stove up on the cold floor.

Obama's Illiteracy About Military Basics

Acting and speaking as if you know the military is really (really) stupid when you don't.

Obama is dumber than a box of rocks because he believes he has import on this subject when he is actually digging a deeper hole and doesn't know when to stop digging.

Read this:

Obama Lies Again…
February 23, 2008 By Sniper One

This is either an outright lie, or a complete misunderstanding of how the military works. Either way, Obama is not fit to be the CinC.

Read the rest and hope that Michelle has the stones to help her husband's lack. Obama is worse than Hillary. That speaks volumes.

Being positive, Obama does have all the qualifications and experience (I hope) to run a local Easter Seals Neighbor mailing fundraiser. If he knows a neighbor of his faux Georgian Manor Mansion.

Angry White Man And The 2008 Election

I am kind of shocked this came out of the Aspen Times Weekly, but the writer nails it. McCain and the RNC are missing it.

In election 2008, don't forget Angry White Man
There is a great amount of interest in this year's presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates - a woman and an African-American - while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party's nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn't looking for anything from anyone - just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords - "disenfranchised," "marginalized" and "voiceless" - don't resonate with him. "Press 'one' for English" is a curse-word to him. He's used to picking up the tab, whether it's the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a "living document" open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he's willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn't bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina - he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don't matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He's a man's man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn't ask for a penny. He's the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he's a man, not a dishrag. If they're looking for someone to walk all over, they've got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am."

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He's not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He's willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don't pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It's not that she is a woman. It's that she is who she is. It's the liberal victim groups she panders to, the "poor me" attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Barack Obama isn't going to excite this crowd either, but the politician that does is going to win big because there are a ton of people like this. I am one.