well i do find something funnier than you might normally think about that, i mean not just about the funny parts but generally speaking.

good to see ya psb.

you all know i can't type so sorry about the typo's

but i was thinking how when Pete and I was touring about the battlefield along sickles ave. and all Pete says " well what side of the war would you be on if it was to happen today?"

now I explained how that really isn't fair because where and how you was raised at that time had as much to do with which side you was on as anything. Just about that time we drove past a Celtic cross on te battlefield dedicateed to the Irish Brigade of New York. Pete was impressed with the depiction of the Irish Wolfhound (he travels through Ireland alot now as part of his job. He'say, "the plaque says the wolfhound is extinct, that is quite the error", then he asked about the Irish in the war and I explained how many on the boats from the potato famine went directly into the army for the money offered often to tale the place of the drafted american buying his way out of the fight and how at some battles Irishmen faced Irishmen in a war miles from home that was somehow connected to ending slavery. He asked if the irish were protestant or catholic? I said I assumed catholic as why would a protestant need to flee Ireland and the famine? Then he asked about why i said the war was somehow connected with slavery and i explained about states rights and federal authority and went into reconstruction abit. he was fascinated and had no idea that the world wasn't about slavery. Then he asked which side would I be on again? I said well my family fought and died for states rights! he said, well which side would you be on?

I said well philosophically it is the libertarian in me that would want to support states rights because tht most closely fits the philosophy of individual freedom but morally i am opposed to the individual freedom those states claimed, the right to own slaves. He then asked if I thought it was a just enough cause to kill for? I really don't recall if i answered that question as we drove around the battlefield looking on land where mass numbers of men who felt it was lost their lives so long ago. i think I did say, i don't believe that any individual act of killing or being killed contributed at all to the inevitable outcome and I can't say if slavery was any less moral than the labor exploitations that the North was built on (that Calhoun fellow had a point les the morality and judgment of the reasons for argument), I just can't say! I am just glad I have managed to avoid that situation and i think like religion, war is another concept humans must leave behind if they are to survive.

just real quick...i didn't mean to say that typos were funny, (although they can be...some of us have come up with some doozies!) but generally they are pretty much a non issue. and in case you weren't thinking that anyway, well never mind.

anyway, gotta run!

but when the London arrests happened last week that sparked some discussion. Pete and family were here having flown out of Birmingham earlier. he said there was much of birmingham that was entirely muslim most from the powder keg zone. we discussed how britain had carved up the middle east into arbitrary zone (oil had some to do with the zones i know) and helped create israel and gave all of those in the territories British passports. and how Mr Churchill was appauled by the relative ease associated with the distibution of British passports into the hands of the empire. It created the Muslim diaspora in Britain, the one that everyone fears for they are "homegrown" those terrorists. we talked of what could motivate these second generation muslim immigrants to these acts in the name of potential immediate salvation. he told me honestly there were places in Brimingham and Leeds and London where the English language is rare and has been for years and who can tell what motivates those in the enclaves. we spoke of secular mohamedism, he wasn't sure how it existed in Britain, suni / shiite ??? we spoke of the similarities and differences between muslims in the UK and Blacks in Baltimore and Philly and New York. I think Pete was acually very impressed with the tolerance to multi culturalism that one sees in everyday America, something that might be strained after 911 and the bush years. we spoke of the affect of the arrests and the anger it can provoke and how osama wants the right to be victorious in polarizing the people to intolerance, and in a late night session we wondered why do they want to end the world.

we had the guitar and Uke at the beach and we sang all the old tunes.

Pete sang Dirty Old Town late one night, probably his favorite folk song, he plays it a lot (he tends away from folk to a more energetic type of music but his taste in folk can be choice) Old Friends from worlds apart, I miss him when he is gone! we always end up singing Waterloo sunset together before we pass out affter a session!

But I don't Feel afraid
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset I am in paradise

Dirty Old Town
By Ewan McColl

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Clouds a drifting across the moon
Cats a prowling on their beat
Spring's a girl in the street at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I'm going to make me a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
Will chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

pete and i wondered of individual worth and meaning in the world we know? we had no answers we just listened to the locusts and watched the sun go down! two men in their late 40's watching the world go by.

oops

talk about being right in somebody's backyard...so which one o' you'se was it who was wearing the green and white striped speedo?

I attempted a link of a picture of Pete and his daughter becky on stage at the Hook Norton Beer festival a few years ago. She is 15 now and drives Pete crazy mostly because she is a lot like him. She has an attitude beyond her actual years and the voice of an angel. I think Pete wants her to achieve many of the the things he potentially could have given the right breaks and freedom to do so and feels his own frustrations when she reponds in her own rebelliousness. I will soon be taking my own daughter Kathryn to Pitt to begin her life away from home. I am glad she chose to move so far away and I encourage her to find her own way. She wants to study anthropology (God where did that come from). As a going away present I have bought her a collection of Joseph Campbell and am reading Myths to Live By, one I got her that I haven't read before. I am 100 pages in and think it a good choice. I hope a year or two of independence and structured learning allows conversation with her that at this time has not been possible. She seems a lot like me and I am excited about her finding herself in the world. The child is becoming a woman and what is a father to do? But there I go just wondering aloud again so below I am posting the lyrics to a song that Pete and Becky perform wonderfully together in intimate acoustic settings (like the balcony at the beach or in a pasture on the Mason Dixon Line or at the Hook Norton Beer festival. I must admit I have not listened to a lot of Green Day but I like this song a lot.


GREEN DAY LYRICS

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

well it is election day, and I have my little sticker and for the second time in my life i made a special effort to vote against rick santorem. feels good.
I know he is from PA, but i was thinking about football. now, I have an adopted city of Baltimore MD. I know its an ugly little working class city with a long and bizarre history, but I have adopted the teams and am now both an Oriole and Raven fan. Sometimes it is tough to be an Oriole fan especially with the pay rolls of the Red Sox and Yankees, but that is part of the charm of charm city.

but it is election day and of course that made me think of the Ravens! I mean how many teams in professional sports are named for a literary work? and, how many are named for a lterary work by a confused, depressed and drunk nightmarish hell kinda guy like Edgar Allan Poe. That is right, only the Ravens. Baltimore truly loves Edgar Allan Poe! Maybe its because for 40 some years a phantom put flowers on his grave at midnight on the anniversary of his death or maybe it is just because Poe represents better than any other character the mixed up confusion that is Baltimore.

Election night, any way, did you know that it was on election night in Baltimore, October 3, 1849, that Edgar Allan Poe was found in a near comatose state on the Streets of Baltimore, a laudinum and alcohol induced coma that left him helpless wandering in and out of conciousness for 4 days before his heart finally quit. Apparantly, EAPoe was a frequent visiter of the Pubs of Baltimore and was always looking for a dose in those days of America's youth. He would often spend the evening reciting the Raven or other tales from his pen recieving drinks and other intoxicants for his efforts. It just so happens that Mr Poe (like so many on the streets in those days) sold his vote on election day as it had more value than his words at that point in time (now there is no direct evidence, but). It is believed he was sequestored in a Whig "COOP", a collection of men of similar ilk collected by the WHig election force and essentially given non stop Laudenum and drink for 24 hours prior to the election at which time they were hauled from poll to poll practicing their right as many times as possible before their energy gave out. Poe was weak and depressed from a lifestyle of questionable decision making by that point and was left on the street, Lombard street, by his Coop handlers where he was found near death and takin to a local hospital to wait out the final remaining hours of his life.

So Vote, Early and Often!

so macabre yet, strangely interrelated.

speaking of laudenum, i have an old poultice recipe (probably really old) that calls for a bit of laudenum "sometimes". it's named as a grateful dressing for certain sorenesses. i'm just sayin'...

oh I know vegemite rash

hee hee

old demon alcohol
sad memories I can't recall
who thought I would fall
a slave to demon alcohol

Now for the hangover, are we comatose in the gutter, or will this election be a turning point for humanity and a great man of vision will spring forth in the next two years to lead us away from this world of rising health costs and Jihad wars (Flash Flash Here comes Flash)

I wish those politicians would be honest when asked, Senator Elect so and so, what will be your first priority when you get to Washington? .. Well, I am going to try to figure out the politics as quickly as possible so that I avoid any really bone head moves that could affect my future!

(Agnes: Note the Ray Doug Davies References and ///''/ ' // (translation, hang in there man, it's alright))

in reference to the football, ravens, edgar allen poe, election day, ray davies, mad tea party connection?

"why is a raven like a writing desk?" the hatter

I heard the raven made a nest in your eye

so tell me "why is a raven like a writing desk"?