Existing in New York City Out of Sinc With the Rest of the World

Unfolded 1956 Pacific Jazz Records Catalog showing the early LP releases that introduced the world to West Coast Jazz, which led to "Cool" Jazz, which was the partial invention of Gerry Mulligan (along with Miles Davis), the Pacific Jazz label's biggest star.  Other stars on Pacific included Chet Baker, Chico Hamilton, Cy Touff, Richie Kamuca, Russ Freeman, and Pacific introduced us to the great pianist Dick Twardzik, who died at age 29 of a heroin overdose in Paris while on a European tour with Chet Baker's Quartet.  Chet later said he became a heroin addict because of his depression over Twardzik's death though critics say Chet was already doing heroin when he met Twardzik.  (from the tgw collection) "Trying to Keep Jazz Alive"
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Say Goodbye to: Ray Sadecki, first I remember Ray he was on the 1964 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, the team he started his career with as a "bonus baby" (remember them?) and was rookie pitcher of the year when at 19 he went 9-9.  Ray was prominent along with Bob Gibson in '64 in the Cards WS victory that year.  Then next I remember Ray when he turned up as a Met in 1974 as a reliever on a Mets team that had Tom Seaver as their main man on the mound that great Met year. Ray Sadecki, 73, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets), blood cancer.
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Say Goodbye to: Alvin Dark, baseball player and manager extraordinaire; originally played for the Boston Braves and the NY Giants and later the SF Giants.  Alvin also managed the SF Giants and the Cleveland Indians.  Alvin Dark, 92, American baseball player (Boston Braves, New York Giants) and manager (San Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians), Alzheimer's disease.
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"Sittin' Here Thinkin'"
In my way of laughingly reasoning about the Republican's taking over Congress, I stumbled across something from the back of the attic of my brain I've known a long time, since my college days and my acquaintance with James Fraser's The Golden Bough, a book I think should be required reading for growing minds.  That something that I stumbled across while reasoning on that Repug takeover was how totally ruled we are, and I include the world in this, by MYTHS, from whence come mysteries and God-almighty how human beings love mysteries.  I mean most of the whole damn world believes in ghosts.  I've got good friends, one a writer whose work I admire very much, who swear they've seen ghosts. With me, to believe in ghosts is nonsense.  Comical stuff.  OOOOOH, a ghost...run for your life! (And, F. Scott, I use that exclamation point to actually laugh at my own joke.) [And I wonder how many Americans know who F. Scott Fitzgerald is?  "Isn't he a Kentucky whiskey distiller?"]

Mitch McConnell, who is going to be our supreme ruler for the next Zeus-knows how many horrid years, is a Southern Baptist, the worst kind of Old South Christian 'cause they're tricky slick.  They dance and drink and make sleazy backroom business deals with divine impunity because among Old South Christians, and Mitch was born in Alabama don't forget, the Southern Baptists are stuck up and holier-than-thou or as my dad used to say, "All Baptists are going to Hell, but they don't give a damn 'cause they'll air condition it and turn it into a First Baptist Church." [The First Baptists, by the way, were the holiest of the holiest Baptist.  Why?  Because they were the first Baptist church in town meant they were then the richest (old wealth) Baptist in town.]

So Old Mitch, and he is an old fool, can swindle us and gas us and spoil our waters and give our public lands away and impose the Ryan Budget on We the People Who Elected Them Into Power, a budget that is inhumane and backwards in terms of the ideals that should be governing this right-now being-destroyed nation.  Check out that great old tome, Gibbons' The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.  It's all in there, except we haven't yet been taken over by a military coup, but that's certainly a possibility in these coming tragic years.  And, by the way, I want to say, I'm just as scared of the weakkneed, asskissing, all-embracing Dumbocrats, and don't forget, a lot of those Hillbilly and low-populated-states Dumbos voted in lock-step with the stupid Republicans on a lot of issues.

First of all, the majority of us live under the myth that we are not animals.  That we are not the results of natural evolution but rather are creatures created from a supernatural being from up in the clouds or under the seas or down in Hell.  We live among ruins (and preserve them with love) of temples to Zeus, Jupiter, Mars, Dianna the Huntress, Pluto, Jehovah, Hera, Mary, Mary Magdalen, St. Paul, St. Sebastian, etc. all the Saints, and etc. to all the gods I've left out of my Pantheon.  But think of how these mythical creatures have been since the beginning of human reasoning believed faithfully to be real, to be actual beings while being spirits at the same time.  Would I want to have sex with a swan?  Maybe that's why I never wanted to believe in any god or mythical creature.

We live lies.  We have faith in our fabulous gods (and all our gods and Messiahs are fabulous) and we deeply study the writings that have accumulated over centuries that are supposedly sacred writings, interpretations of the various cultural gods' messages, messages on how and what to sacrifice in order to get favors from these gods.  The Jews sacrificed lambs and goats to their god; the Aztecs and Mayans sacrificed young maidens to their gods or they cut out the hearts of their enemies and ate them.  Hey, the gods demand sacrifices.

We sacrifice our people in this country and the people seem to love it.  I mean by electing these Republican goons to rule us, We the People of the USA have given up for good our Bill of Rights; we've approved of Corporations becoming citizens of privilege (the Supreme Court in the late 1800s made corporations citizens--especially Rockefeller's monopolistic Standard Oil); we have OK'd a perpetual war economy; we have given up most of our civil rights and our voting rights will be purposely rigged to make Black, Latino, Asians, and senior voters inconsequential; we have agreed that Corporations and rich people will have their taxes reduced to a nil status (why should they pay any taxes at all?); we've approved a rise in the use of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and uncontrolled fracking in every state; we have approved of a privatization of our public schools and most government services--remember, our government is supposed to be "for the people and by the people," though not according to the wealthy Republicans.  To them, our government is a regulatory monster who have their hippy/Communist/Socialist boots on the necks of our heroic Power Elite as they try and swindle us out of ALL our taxes, savings accounts, bank accounts, pensions, homes, cars (the latest bank scam includes selling cars with no money down and no proof of being able to pay for these overpriced foreign automobiles (does that sound like the home mortgage scams that went south on our crooked financial industry?); we've approved of selling our public lands off to billionaire cattle herders, hunters, gold miners (how about privatizing our National Parks?); we've approved raising interest rates on student loans; we've perhaps approved of debtors' prisons; and worst of all, we've approved of the very people whose wildass backward-thinking schemes got us into this mess in the first place.  Reagan's administration put us into perpetual debt; Pappy Bush then put us into deeper debt that Reagan; then came Pappy's dumbest son (which doesn't really mean the rest of the boys and the girl aren't dumbasses) and this little phony bastard put us into the worst debt ever.  But, hey, folks, that's who We the People of the USA want as our rulers.

We live as though our myths are actuality.  We believe God's laws are more important than humanitarian laws (the righteous Republicans calls such laws promote "Secular Humanism," a tag that riles Republican's up worst than Socialists and Communists.  After all, Communist China owns us.  So how did you like the way Obama (who left the country after he fucked up the Dumbocrats chances of winning) kissed Chinese Communist ass in Beijing before he went on down to rightwing Australia to another of those bullshit G20 sessions in Melbourne. [Get ready for the Ten Commandments to suddenly appear in all our courts.]

We're doomed, but, hey, the White People of the USA had rather see the country sink into Third World status (the whole trickbag in the Neo-Con Manifesto) than see equality and democracy work, especially as this country begins to turn brown and put the White man in the minority (NEVER, the White Man screams!).  White people in this country hate Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos (especially Messkins), Asians, any foreigners who aren't White...IN FACT, White people in this country hate themselves.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler