A Portrait of the Dumbass as an Old Man

Agnostia

So, I wrote a song! Woo-hoo! Left a sample on my youngest's cell phone (from the band room in the basement) so I wouldn't forget it -- then managed to make it upstairs and record it on the pc, with much more suitable lyrics. Very existentially angsty, totally suitable for a 14 year old, just what I was looking for!

Here's a great antitheist site: http://www.evilbible.com/. Putting numbers to it -- the site states: "In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered." -- nice!

In other minor antitheist activity, I took exception to an article by a contributing columnist in the Herald-Leader, "Christians should lead fight against global warming". But based on "the enemy of my enemy", I e-mailed the author rather than writing a letter to the editor. I protested the presumption of moral superiority it implied and the exclusivism. We went through about 6 e-mails back and forth before mutually agreeing to a draw. He was a young guy with much more energy than me.

I noticed he chose not to comment on this interesting statistic, from a post at KASES forum: while the percentage of unbelievers in the US is now around 14%, of 74731 inmates in federal prisons listed a religious preference, only 156 or 0.209% were atheist.

Oops, just looking at this again, 18381 out of the total population of 93112 did not answer -- maybe something a non-believer would do? That is 19.7% -- which I think ruins this stat -- oh well.

I thought my birds had all deserted me. Last weekend, I saw only our pair of cardinals -- and a hawk/falcon that swooped overhead early in the morning. So I'm wondering, has the hawk scared everything off? (see prior post). But raking leaves yesterday (all done as of a few minutes ago -- only 45 bags as opposed to 60 last year -- the 3 trees we removed seems to have helped) I saw: purple finches, doves, sparrows, a starling, and juncos. So, the birds are still around. I also got a new feeder, and a metal birdbath to replace our ceramic one for the winter.

Music-out-wise, O'Neil's was a little weird Wednesday. The alpha guitarist Lindsay Olive and keyboardist Bob Hopps were backing Paul Hinberg (sp?) at John Michael's "Battle of the Bands". Plus harpist Dave Harrod was out of town. So, I was offered the principal guitarist role on Tuesday, but I had to go to my wife's xmas dinner. My bass player Ron wound up as principal guitar, and he and Harmonica Red were in charge.

Weirdness comes in when young turk Thaddeus showed up and got to play. I wound up backing him. The music wasn't too bad (compared to times in the past when I've gotten stuck playing with this guy), he gave up the guitar he was playing after 1 song (he perceived it as being out of tune, but I don't think it was the guitar). So his next 2 songs, he was jumping around, screaming, acting crazy, and used some obscenities. I was next to him on stage, I finally found a safe spot with the steps between us. But, this did not go over well with the management -- the guy was pretty scary, very much either naturally or chemically deranged -- and we were told to close down at 10 instead of 11.

Hopefully Thaddeus will find a more suitable venue for his performances. When Dave Harrod and some of the others told him he couldn't play at Lynagh's, he got real nasty and wound up being ejected by one of the bouncers very forcibly. That was pretty ugly, hopefully it won't come to that again.

Notice I have been remiss on music in. Hmmm, going into my iTunes to see what's been added lately, it looks like 3441 of my 6408 tracks have had their "Date Added" set to 11/9/2007 10:37pm. I guess that this was some upgrade activity? Too bad, I wouldn't mind having had that data retained. Anyway, new stuff (cut and pasted from an e-mail reply to my most excellent nephew Greg):

• New Pornographers, Challengers -- reasonably catchy, 3 stars
• Levon Helm, Dirt Farmer -- the drummer from The Band, a rock icon, 3 stars
• A Girl Called Eddy, eponymous -- more chick pop, 3 stars.
• Mike Bloomfield, If you Love these Blues, Play 'Em as You Please (1976) -- the greatest Jewish blues jazz guitarist of the 70s and 80s; interesting, lots of genres with descriptions of the type and instruments used. 3 stars.
• Radiohead, In Rainbows -- I decided to pay 5 pounds. 4 stars, great work. If you want this for free, get it quick, I got an e-mail they are closing down the download site.
• Prefuse 73, Preparations & Interregnums -- very interesting, orchestral hip-hop / electronica -- the star of my NYC techo cruise (blogged here), 3.5 stars.
• Sunset Rubdown, Random Spirit Lover -- very catchy alterna-pop, 3 stars
• We Versus The Shark, Ruin Everything! --- ditto.
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Safe as Milk -- 1967 conceptual music (it's almost music ...). Surprisingly more conventional than the classic "Trout Mask Replica", 3 stars.
• Carl Perkins, Sun Recordings -- the king of 50's rockabilly (he wrote "Blue Suede Shoes") -- I want the band to do "Her Love Rubbed Off", 3 stars.
• Django Reinhardt, Crazy Rhythm vol 1&2 -- the greatest jazz guitarist of the 1930's (a Belgian gypsy) playing with his quintet (3 guitars, bass & violin), and with various small jazz bands, including Coleman Hawkins. 3 stars, with a half dozen 4 star tracks.
• The Stella-Vees, Come Round Baby. A Lexington blues band who won some "best blues bands" in Memphis and Louisville last year. I have played with their drummer Steve and their harpist Fuzzy many times, and their guitarist Jason once or twice. Very nice production values, very well done. 3 stars.

Finally off the magazine stack, woo-hoo! Reading a new Charlie Stross, clear to read from now to the new year!