Censorship by proxy is still censorship.

Twitter made its bones (and a Netflix special) on the Arab Spring and the way the social network opened up communications for a people beset. Throw some years on top until the paradigm flips and Twitter is banning the President of the United States of America from posting on its network and every other major social network is involved in actively censoring a wide swathe of users, posts and content that doesn’t break any existing laws but is problematic to a worldview that aligns with a certain portion of the population. Social media is a compromised resource, much like the legacy media. They are no longer allied to those that would have speech flow freely until an actual law breaks the movement. Their hegemony must be broken before it is too late. Their ghost-censoring on behalf of the U.S. Government proves that they are not to be trusted.

List of top guitarists based on current listening habits

1.) Ricky Wilson (B-52s): A wrist that slinks and skanks out riffs that sound like the entire Top 10 for the year 1962. Criminally overlooked.

2.) James Honeyman-Scott (The Pretenders): I’m currently writing an essay on the Pretenders and, wow! what a loss to the world of music. Johnny Marr lists him early and often in his own pantheon of the gods. He jangled, he ripped, he shot space lasers out of his guitar. The 80s really missed out on his presence.

3.) Adrian Belew (Bowie, Talking Heads…others I enjoy less): I’m a really shallow music fan at certain points and it always shoots me in the foot. If somebody’s got an awful album cover or they use a horrible effect on their voice, I may tune them out for decades and malign them as unlistenable. In the late 80s and early 90s Adrian Belew had some awful suits and a look on his face that conveyed a less than austere aesthetic. And thus it was that wrote Adrian Belew off until 2021 when I read a Brian Eno biography that illuminated Belew’s contributions to Bowie and the Talking Heads. The guitar solo in “Born Under Punches (the Heat Goes On)” is a lightning bolt showing what could be done in the early 80s and if someone recorded it today for the first time, it would be just as astoundingly entertaining so far removed from its debut era.

4.) David Byrne (Talking Heads): A writing guitarist makes decisions throughout their career to commit to doing certain things and not doing other things. Some people make the most of power chords and it sounds just fine. But David Byrne appears to have made at least one decision to play little things, short, noodly lines and tiny ditties that build up and serve a higher, more robust whole. It’s not unlike the 18 musicians from the titular Steve Reich piece where each performer plays a little something in their own way, in their own time over and over until the entire piece begins metamorphosing into a shifting, organic monolith of sound and, of course, pulse.

5.) Eddie Hazel (Parliament/ Funkadelic): Nirvana/ Kurt Cobain introduced me to a lot of great artists that I have spent almost 30 years enjoying. Conversely, the Red Hot Chili Peppers/ Anthony Kiedis have/ has made me roll my eyes at more great artists than most. To whit— I am only now discovering that all of the corny George Clinton-lite-isms of the non-musical aspect of the Chili Peppers blinded me to “Super Stoopid” and “Cosmic Slop” as well as Eddie Hazel.

My opinion on Ted Cruz and Family in Cancun

I think we set records for low temps statewide last week, negative double digits in Texas, even the coast and the Border. I had rolling blackouts and janky plumbing holding on by a thread. But no one I know was included in the death toll so there’s that. None of this even includes mention of the 100-vehicle pile-up that killed so many as the storm was barely ramping up. Now that I sit here still assessing plumbing damage as last week’s winter storm continues to melt into the groundwater, as I continue to boil water, and as I prepare for my first trip to the grocery store not sure of what if anything will be on the shelves, I am forced to call a time-out and mellow out.

I will distract myself with coffee, a doojay, or Youtube, the #1 reliable source for distraction. This routine has been going on for days now and those days have been filled with, first the news and then, continuing updates on Ted Cruz’s escape from the winter storm that crippled the state he represents in the Senate last week. First I got to watch him being escorted off of his return flight with a security detail. TMZ was all abuzz with video of his fellow passengers cursing him out. Then, the photos of his family on the beach were leaked. Now I get to watch his rich kids and overfed (though surprisingly svelte) wife returning for the same walk of shame that their chinless patriarch made days before.

I did not vote for Ted Cruz though I would contribute to a GoFundMe to support the purchase of chin surgery for the man. I recall a distinct feeling of relief when I left the state at the start of the last decade; Cruz wasn’t my problem anymore. I’ve assumed the time I spent away had mellowed my cynicism on his performance as a public servant. I’ve been too busy dealing with vicissitudes to cut a side-eye at another unremarkable politician. And I can’t really say that his latest debacle has done much to thaw my detachment. I mean, what did people expect him to do?

He’s not a populist. He’s definitely not a statesman. He wasn’t even brave enough to take a stand on one side of the fence during the Trump years. He’s a tweeter. A blowhard. He serves his own and that doesn’t include me. I don’t look to politicians anymore. They are bad actors in the literal and figurative sense. These are ugly, unremarkable individuals that have profoundly failed the people that they were elected to…I don’t know, to try for, to give a shit about, to at least show up and represent. No. These are people that never fail to vote in an annual pay raise for themselves while they take regular vacation breaks and waste time with galling stunts and theatrics while the big mushroom cloud that is the unemployment situation in pandemic-America starts to look more and more like a skull and crossbones. These are not our representatives. These are not our public servants. These are jobbers. Professional wrestlers. Vaudevillians with the world as their stage.

I reject these people. They were elected for me, not by me. Therefore, I am never disappointed when they fail me, which they do day after day after long-dying day. They obtain their position acting in ways that I would never accept from my mother, my children, or from a friend. And once they are ensconced, they wile away the days, wasting time and money, my time and money, play-acting.like the people they see on TV. These are people that bow down to movie characters and call it racial justice. These are people that win Emmys for speeches they give on television in which they lie about their response to a pandemic that has crippled the people that are least able to withstand nonsense. These are people that invest in medical, financial, industrial interests and use their legislative powers to protect and nurture those interests for their own benefit no matter the cost, once again, to those who can withstand the least amount of market/ culture volatility.

Ted Cruz does not disappoint me. He is a recognizable marker that I use to reliably measure the level of bullshit active in the world at any given moment. It’s better that he flies off during times of crisis. He would only be in the way and I have things to do and I cannot afford the delay.

Cool music for the week ending 02/07/2021

Hit the City - Mark Lanegan and PJ Harvey.

Screaming Trees was never a thing for me. “I Nearly Lost You” was mostly associated with ‘Singles’ for me so they were a non-starter by default. But I listened to Mark Lanegan read his “memoir” on Youtube and the algorithm started returning tracks so I listened to a couple and this is the best so far. It’s total turn of the millenium-era PJ Harvey where the world is tipping over and two lovers have to decide who lives on the headboard and who sinks to the Deep. If these are Mark Lanegan lyrics, he’s very good.

Withered Hand - Oh Sees

“Pluck your eyes out with the master’s withered hand while the planets walk around without a plan.”

Whatever, dude. It melts my face off.

Cosmic Slop - Funkadelic

I’ve never gotten into Parliament/ Funkadelic aside from “Super Stupid” but this one showed up on YouTube or Amazon or whichever brain is making my music choices and it’s good. I like that “I can hear my mother call” business. It’s a crazy looking video from the year of my birth. George Clinton on acid or sherm, everybody buzzing out in full regalia around Manhattan.

Here Come the Warm Jets, Sea Breezes - Brian Eno, Roxy Music

I’m reading “Some Faraway Beach” an Eno biography so I’m revisiting the old classics. Roxy is almost too English for me. I like the fact that Here Come the Warm Jets and “Cosmic Slop” are from the year of my birth. I’m also seven days older than the Dark Side of the Moon.

Love My Way - Psychedlic Furs

The classic. One of those special songs that connected with me so hard that I felt I had discovered it only for myself even though I found it on MTV. Mark Lanegan mentioned them kindly in the above-referenced memoir which means he’s got good taste. I must have listened to it 50 times this week.

Runner-up: Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Stereolab.

Grooves like an opiate. Technicolor hypno-lock. Futuremusic for beatniks. It popped up on Amazon Music while I was painting posts and I let the whole album play. Still great. Still as cool as when I used to listen to it delivering for Domino’s. 1996 had some stone-cold, pizza delivery driver classics like this, Beck’s Odelay, and the Flaming Lips’ Clouds Taste Metallic (which came out in ‘95 but hit me the following summer when I deep-dove the Lips). Honestly, I probably hold these albums in such a special place because they are the soundtrack to my life just before heroin entered my scene. They are artifacts of the last of my innocence. I salute them.

How I Spent My Quarantine, Part 1

You see? This is how I do—

I’m already slacking on this blog. Even with all of the time to do, I’m still letting this thing lapse. It’s what I do. My origin story is chock full of getting about 2 daydreams deep into something and then my attention goes farting away into the ether. Ideas? I come up with plenty of good ideas I’ve got good lines and smart plans, too. But follow-up is where I fall down. It’s why my output sucks. There’s a word for it—it’s Velleity, it’s an idea that isn’t strong enough to cause action. I think of things but I rarely write them down, much less act upon them. I learned that word just this week. It was in Gravity’s Rainbow, the Thomas Pynchon book that I’ve vowed to finally complete seven years after I purchased it on i-Book (the Apple e-book format). One thing I’ve learned since then is that I’m not an Apple guy. It was a creativity killer for me. So now that I got a new Windows laptop so I can work from home, I’m going through reading anything I bought for my Mac and/ or I-phone before I retire the Macbook that I wrote The Grifter’s Bible on.

In the past month of quarantine, I finally read White Noise by Don Delillo to the end (that was my other i-Book) and I’ve gone past all of my old bookmarks in Gravity’s Rainbow and I’m still going (I don’t get it yet. Maybe I’m a lunkhead). Aside from that, I learned about the D.C. Go-Go scene on an Amazon documentary and I learned about Latin Freestyle from Big Jay Oakerson.

I also learned about banana whips from Big Jay. Never heard of it in all of my long life. I think it’s a north eastern dessert. Yankee treats. Looks good, though.

Oh, and this is cool—the two main hooks (vocal and horns) from the Bucketheads’ stone-cold classic, “The Bomb (These sounds fall into my mind)” were sampled from a song by Chicago from 1979 called “Street Player”. I love that. It’s like finding a missing puzzle piece that you didn’t know you needed.

I did some more learning and doing stuff but that’ll have to come for later.

Hi-yo, Calgon! Take me away!!!

Ich Bin El Sh’booms, 04/22/2020, 6 feet away from everyone from now on.

April 02, 2020: It's Official!

The gender-reveal balloon has popped and the ox-blood colored confetti has confirmed—It’s a Book!

I just got the first copy of ‘The Grifter’s Bible’ in the mail after a few weeks of delay due to COVID-19-related havoc wrecked upon the supply chain. I’ve got to hand it to Amazon, it looks legit. I mean, it was my art and my formatting, not to mention the text, but for a relatively cheap price it’s outstanding quality.

Now if I can only figure out how to get someone to buy a copy.

But for tonight I think I will just glow.

—Ich Bin El Sh’booms, 04/02/2020, from inside the eye of the hurricane.

March 23, 2020: The city shuts down. The website goes up.

I want this web site to stand as testimony that I existed and that I did not entirely waste my time on nonsense so this site is largely dedicated to promoting and illuminating “The Grifter’s Bible”, a work born out of an older plague. So, as the city, the nation, the globe slips into shifty vicissitudes once again and waits behind barred doors for the Angel of Death to pass, it seems now is as good a time as any to let this site go, to commend it to the River and let the Tide take it wherever it may.

But with that having been said, there’s two cops outside my van and I’m not supposed to be out here after the ‘stay-at-home’ order goes into effect at 11:59:59.

May the future be illuminated but for now I’m going dark.

Doink it up, quarantiners!

—Ich Bin El Sh’booms, 03/23/2020, somewhere in America