Monday Music 2 fer. "Rubber Biscuit" and "Walking in Memphis"

This was an eventful week.  My mother in law went into the hospital for complications relating to her first round of chemo and 36 hours later had crossed over.  It was real sudden, she was in good health before the chemo.  She was an advocate for the deaf community and was loved and respected by all that knew her.  I enjoyed her company and she was a classy lady, there was a running joke with the spousal unit and myself.  She would tell other people  " If he and I divorce, my mom would take his side."   I wrote the obituary since I have a modicum of talent in writing and having the ability to turn a phrase, and was amazed by what she had accomplished.  She had bridged the deaf and hearing worlds and was respected by all. 

 Also today was a bit bittersweet, I sold my little black Ranger, my "Disgruntled Veterans" truck that I used for many camping trips and other adventures. I loved that little truck and she was a good truck, but I needed a bigger truck.  So I will use my $$$ from the sale plus my bonus and buy a newer F150.  Still I wish the little truck well on her new journey.

                                            " Soo long and thanks for the Adventures...."

Leaving my driveway for the last time....

I decided to roll 2 songs, both bracketed my favorite decade the 80's.  First off was "Rubber Biscuit" that the Blues Brothers sang...I loved the movie and the movie has become a cult classic and still hilarious today.  I also used Marc Cohn from the early 90's .  Both are excellent songs.

"Rubber Biscuit" is a doo-wop song by The Chips, recorded in 1956. It was famously covered by The Blues Brothers (on their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues), among many other artists as well as featuring in the 1973 film Mean Streets. Label credit for writing the song was given to Chips lead singer Charles Johnson and Adam R. Levy. Levy, though, was the son of label owner Morris Levy, who was notorious for adding either his or his son's names to songwriting credits in order to claim partial, or in some cases all composer royalties on songs they did not write. There is no evidence that Morris or Adam ever wrote any songs.

Few of the lyrics can actually be understood, as they are sung in the scat manner. The scat is interrupted every few bars for short one-liners, most of which are implicit references to the singer's poverty and the low-grade food he eats: a "wish sandwich" (where one has two slices of bread and wishes for meat in between the slices of bread), a "ricochet biscuit" (which is supposed to bounce off the wall and into one's mouth, and when it doesn't, "you go hungry"), a "cold-water sandwich" (or a "cool-water sandwich") and a "Sunday-go-to-meeting-bun". The song closes with the question "What do you want for nothing? A rubber biscuit?"
"Rubber Biscuit" became the theme tune to Jimmy's Food Factory, a programme about supermarket's food tricks on BBC One. It is The Chips' version that is played at the beginning and end of each show. It was also featured in the 1990 John Waters film, Cry-Baby.
The Chips were teenage friends in New York: Charles Johnson (lead vocal), Nathaniel Epps (baritone), Paul Fulton (bass), Sammy Strain and Shedrick Lincoln (tenors). "Rubber Biscuit" started life as Johnson's answer to the marching rhythms of the Warwick School For Delinquent Teenagers while he was an intern there.

When Josie Records heard the tune they signed the group and the record was issued in September 1956. Although it did not chart, "Rubber Biscuit" became an instant east coast radio favourite, and saw its performers touring alongside The Dells, The Cadillacs and Bo Diddley, but the momentum gained by their debut single was waning and the group broke up at the end of 1957. Only Sammy Strain went on to success in the music industry, as a member of Little Anthony & The Imperials from about 1961 to 1972, when he left to join The O'Jays. Strain left the O'Jays in 1992 to return to The Imperials, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.

Marc Cohn was inspired to write "Walking in Memphis" by a 1985 visit to the Memphis, Tennessee area: he was then based in New York City working as a session singer while pursuing a recording contract - "(quote) One night while listening to all of my demos, I came to the realization that I shouldn’t be signed, because I didn’t have any great songs yet. My voice was good and the demos were interesting, but the songs were only just okay. I was 28 years old and not in love with my songs. James Taylor had written 'Fire and Rain' when he was 18, and Jackson Browne wrote 'These Days' when he was only 17. I thought: 'I'm already ten years older than these geniuses. It's never going to happen for me.' So it was a pretty desperate time, and I went to Memphis with that struggle at the forefront of my mind." Cohn made his first excursion to Memphis after reading an interview with James Taylor in which Taylor stated he overcame writer's block by "go[ing] somewhere I’ve never been, hoping to find some idea I wouldn’t get just by sitting at home": Cohn emulated Taylor, choosing Memphis as his destination - "I always knew it was a place I had to visit because so much of my favorite music came from there. From Al Green, Ann Peebles, and everything on Hi Records, to Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, and the Stax catalog, an almost endless stream of brilliance and soul came out of Memphis. I was aware early on that...there was something going on in Memphis that was utterly inexplicable. It was part of what made me want to be a musician in the first place."

Cohn recalls that on arrival in Memphis: "I did all the [expected] touristy things...I went to Graceland, and I saw Elvis Presley’s tomb and his airplanes" - (Cohn would express misgivings after, eventually referencing Presley in the lyrics of "Walking in Memphis": "To me, the song is so minimally about him, but I worry that it gets cast off as another Elvis tribute. It's a testament to the power of his name, even if you just mention it in one verse, the song becomes about him because people focus on it.") - "But a friend told me there were two things in particular that I had to do, things that would forever change me. They would later become the centerpieces of 'Walking in Memphis'. The first thing was go to the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church on a Sunday morning to hear the Reverend Al Green preach...I [soon] had chills running up and down my spine. The service was so deeply moving that I found myself with sweat running down my face and tears in my eyes, totally enveloped by everything I was seeing and hearing. There was something incredibly powerful about Al Green’s voice in that context. Even after three hours of continuous singing, his voice only got stronger and his band only got better. I sat there crying in the church, aware of the irony of how I used to cry in Synagogue in Cleveland as a kid — but because I wanted to get the heck out of there! Al Green’s service was one of the great experiences of my life."

The second advisement of his friend was that Cohn visit the Hollywood Café in Robinsonville, Mississippi, 35 miles south of Memphis, to see Muriel Davis Wilkins, a retired school teacher who performed at the cafe on Friday nights: "When I arrived, Muriel, who...was in her 60s, was onstage playing a beat-up old upright piano and singing gospel standards... I felt an immediate connection to her voice, her spirit, her face, and her smile. I was totally transfixed by her music. While many of the patrons were busy eating and not paying close attention to Muriel, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. During her breaks, the two of us would talk. Muriel asked me why I was there, and I told her I was a songwriter trying to find inspiration. I also told her a little bit about my childhood — how when I was two and a half years old, my mom had passed away very unexpectedly, and about ten years later, my dad had passed away and I’d been raised by a stepmother. My mother’s death was a central event in my life, and I’d been writing a lot about it over the years, both in songs and in journals. I think a part of me felt stuck in time, like I’d never quite been able to work through that loss....By midnight, the Hollywood was still packed, and Muriel asked me to join her onstage. We soon realized that there wasn’t a song in the universe that both of us knew in common. A quick thinker, Muriel started feeding me lyrics to gospel songs so that I could catch up in time to sing somewhat in rhythm with her and make up my own version of the melody. Some songs I was vaguely familiar with, and some I didn’t know at all. The very last song we sang together that night was 'Amazing Grace'. After we finished and people were applauding, Muriel leaned over and whispered in my ear: 'Child, you can let go now.' It was an incredibly maternal thing for her to say to me. Just like sitting in Revered Al Green’s church, I was again transformed. It was almost as if my mother was whispering in my ear. From the time I left Memphis and went back home to New York City, I knew I had a song in me about my experience there."

 Soon after returning to New York City, Cohn began constructing the melody for his Memphis song on his guitar: "I started playing an arpeggiated figure that I liked, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I couldn’t play it very well on guitar. So I went to the piano, where that kind of rolling rhythm was easier for me to play. Then I added that first line to the piano riff and I was off to the races. The music for 'Walking in Memphis', except for the bridge, is really just the same thing over and over again. It’s an attempt to keep things simple so that the narrative is what the listener focuses on. The story keeps changing; it goes from one scenario to another, all following the thread of my elation, described in the lyric 'Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale'. What’s being expressed is my love of music and the spiritual transformation I’ve always felt through it. The line: 'Tell me are you a Christian child, and I said 'Ma’am I am tonight' - even in the moment I wrote it down, I knew I was getting closer to finding my songwriting voice. To this day, people still ask me if I am a Christian. While I have to admit that I enjoy the confusion the lyric brings, the thing that makes that line work is the fact that I’m a Jew. So many great artists over the years needed to hide the fact that they were Jewish to protect themselves and their families from anti-Semitism, so I’m proud of the fact that I could come right out and practically announce my religion on the first song I ever released." Cohn wrote numerous drafts before he had a set of lyrics which satisfied him: "When I finished the song, I felt like I had completed a jigsaw puzzle. I wasn’t sure if it was a hit, because I was still years away from being signed to Atlantic Records. Six months later [in 1986], after I wrote many of the songs that would later comprise my album 'Marc Cohn', I went back to the Hollywood Café to play them all for Muriel. After I finished, Muriel said to me: 'You know the one where you mention me at the end? That’s the best one you got!'" (Muriel Davis Wilkins, born 6 December 1923, would die 1 October 1990, five months before the release of "Walking in Memphis"

Taking a Break.....

I have a lot going on right now, I will post Monday Music Next week...and there will be 2 of them.   I will be taking a break from the blog for the rest of the week.  There is a lot of stuff going on in real life.    

     

  Just a note....Having to tell your 12 year old son that his meemaw is not long in this world really sucks.   Just saying.

This past weekend......In camp...

  Well the 2016 Klondike is history, We came back cold but ok.  The rain earlier in the month forced a change in venue from the primitive camping sites that is normally used due to flooding and water saturation.  This actually benefited us because it forced the move and the move was to a better location, the scouts and their leaders were happier.  we had games..

   And more carnival games....

They had me run a bb and archery range, basically the best shooter from each patrol shoot archery and BB targets.

  At the end of the day, we had a Scoutmaster shootoff....best scores in BB marksmanship and Archery.  The Archery equipment was provided by camp and the BB rifle was furnished by me, brand new Daisy Red Rider..

One of the scoutmasters shooting my rifle.  The scoutmasters enjoyed shooting it and the ribbing they gave each other was entertaining to watch.    I also got a pic of our elusive camp director "Mac" with the girls...

   We think he enjoyed this picture tooo much.   We did have a good time and my son got his "brotherhood" award with the Order of the Arrow.  It was really cold and the sky was clear and the full moon was out....this after telling all the "camp" stories about missing scouts in years gone past and the usual camp stories....

  I enjoyed the trip...but yes I am glad to be home and back in my bed.

    

Gone Camping

Yep, I am going out the fare the weather that is supposed to be cold and wet....We DO call it Klondike for a reason.  I prepped the Ranger, got my snivel gear and the most important thing in my kit....

Along with my Gerber and other assorted stuff I carry camping.   Read the folks in the sidebar...they are a hell of a lot more entertaining than I am;)

The goings on at Casa de Kona

I will be going camping this weekend for our Klondike.  I will attempt to load a few thing on the scheduler thingie.    For Christmas Mrs Claus brought me the following item...

Belt Buckle

I normally don't "do" belt buckles but I did want something to go with my scout uniform, especially when I wear my "Formal Class A" as I call it, the one with all my patches and awards on it.   And speaking of awards, I was surprised greatly at the leaders banquet with this one..

  We call it the "DAM" award.   I apparently had quite a few letters of recommendations from Mac, a few of my scoutmaster friends,  and they read the one from my son out loud.  Man all I can say is that there was a lot of dust in that room.  I was totally blown away and humbled that people thought well enough of me to do this.  

     On a different note, I am planning another range trip when my schedule slows down.  I am feeling the need for some recoil therapy.  I will contact Eric from ammoman to see if they have some 6.5X55 swedish mauser, the only rifle that I havn't fired since the end of the 80's.  and I might drag out one of my other old rifles and make it an old school rifle shoot.  One day I will have an M1A to my collection or a Henry Rifle in .357 caliber..Yes I am dreaming...but You gotta dream to make it come true...

    On a different note, the local politicians are talking about the latest bill submitted by the local dems to strip the rights from law abiding Georgians, I don't see it passing this legislative session...but I don't put anything past Bloomburg and his astroturf anti-gun groups to flood the cycle with money and skew the vote.

  

     And the local Kroger and Walmart are out of bread, beer and milk...there will be the word "snow" mentioned and people here go apeshitcrazy and stampede the grocery store...they buy stuff that they will not need and have to throw away once it goes bad.....That is why I keep 30 days supply of food at the house.   Not that I am paranoid.  I am not a LDS but one of the tenet of their religion is to keep extra food and water at the house.  That part I do agree with, too many people live hand to mouth existence.

    

Will we come full circle......?

This is how it starts.  I did an Article a couple of days ago when the local democrats here in Georgia submitted HB731 to ban "Assault weapons" here in the Peach state.  The funny things about liberals, they have no idea how history works and that it is cyclical.  The phrase "History repeats itself" is more than a cliche.  I keep wondering of the new brand liberals will heed history but I have my doubts....they believe that they are the smartest people in the world and this time socialism WILL work because the right people are doing it this time.

72 citizens killed resisting Massachusetts State gun confiscation

When I first saw this headline I thought to myself, “here we go, it’s started. The gloves are off now.” This is the kind of incident that will certainly cause the citizens of this great land to take action, and I was right. Please be sure to read all the way to the end.
Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.
Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.
The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.
Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.
One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”
Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.
During a tense standoff in the Lexington town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right-wing extremists.
Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.
Ironically, the local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units. Colonel Smith, finding his forces over matched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat.
Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops.
Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, remain at large.

And this fellow Americans, is how the American Revolution began, April 20, 1775.
On July 4th, 1776 these same “right wing anti-tax extremists” signed the Declaration of Independence, pledging to each other and their countrymen their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Many of them lost everything, including their families and their lives over the course of the next few years.
This is a powerful reminder of how far we have come as a nation. In many regards we have come full circle and find ourselves in a situation not unlike that of our founding fathers.
For those who claim that the Constitution is outdated or a living document that requires modification to fit the societal changes, this should be stark evidence to the contrary. Of course, people of that progressive persuasion possess a high degree of intellectual dishonesty and a lot of perfectly good breath can be wasted trying to clear their eyes and their minds.
The recent actions of the state government of Connecticut as well as other areas in which progressives are running roughshod over local citizens in violations of their constitutional protections are eerily similar to the lead up to “the shot heard around the world.”
Those state governments as well as the United States federal government need to take to heart the lessons of history and remember what preceded and created the situation in which the founders of America were driven to form a new government.

Monday Music "That was Yesterday" by Foreigner

I decided to roll with a band that has been around since the mid-late 70's.  Foreigner was very popular, especially their earlier stuff was popular with the jukebox that was in the cafeteria at the time.  It seemed the songs played all the time, boys playing the songs hoping to score with the girls.....I liked foreigner,I played the agent provocateur album in the cassette player of my 1979 Mercury Capri.

I liked that car, but I sold it.  Many years later I wish I hadn't but so is Life.  Anyway I had to drive to Texas to pick up a girl that I called my girlfriend but she didn't feel the same about me.  That was my social life,,,Always the "best friend" never the boyfriend.....talk about the kiss of death, but I digress and the cassette was stuck in the player.  I had to wait until I returned to Atlanta to get it out.   I liked the song, it reminded me of the roadtrip and perils of being foolish.

Agent Provocateur is the fifth studio album by American/British rock band Foreigner, released on December 7, 1984. The album was the band's first and only number one album in the UK, and it reached the top 5 in the U.S. Although album sales were lower than their previous work in the U.S., it contains the band's biggest hit single, "I Want to Know What Love Is", which is their only #1 single in the UK and the U.S., staying at the top spot for three and two weeks respectively. The follow-up single, "That Was Yesterday", also proved to be a sizeable hit, peaking at #12 in the U.S. The album was certified Platinum in the UK by the BPI, and triple Platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA.

"That Was Yesterday" was the second single taken from the album Agent Provocateur by the band Foreigner. This song was available in four versions, as a remixed single, a very popular extended remix, an orchestral version, and the original mix. The song was written by Lou Gramm and Mick Jones, and the B-side "Two Different Worlds" is also of note for being the first solo-written Lou Gramm song to appear on a single. The single reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and also reached #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and #24 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It also reached the Top 40 in the UK (#28), the Netherlands (#19), Switzerland (#29) and Germany (#31).

The extended remix added additional lyrics in its intro, and these lyrics can be heard in the live version from the DVD All Access Tonight - 25 - Live In Concert. The video was filmed at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
Allmusic critic Bret Adams called the song "a terrific hit single," citing its "catchy chorus" and "nifty synthesizer lick."

Georgia Democrats push the Obama agenda of Gun Control

Man talk about doubling down on Stupid, these local democrats are following the national party into a bad place.  I noticed that these democrats want to declare something illegal, but they will not go into somebody's house and take it, rather they want some government agent to get shot trying that stuff.

 Remember this is Georgia, we ain't Connecticut and New York.  They had massive disobedience up in the liberal corridor, we in Georgia are more conservative, but in 20 years, it might change with the way the demographics are working we are having a lot of people not of this region moving down here from the hell holes of the north and they bring the same attitudes and voting patterns that turned their original state into an over taxed and over regulated state...so they move down here where the cost of living is lower....they havn't figured out the cause and effect thingie yet...

I pulled this info from the GA state government website, the website from "bearing Arms" and the pics came from my stash of pics.  I also pulled the information from the sponsor's website.

In outlawing these guns, they call for the seizure of the weapons and the so-called “high capacity” magazines.
The bill – HB731 – was introduced by the following  Democrats: Mary Margaret Oliver (D-83rd), Stacey Abrams (D-89th), Carolyn Hugley (D-136th), Pat Gardiner (D-57th), Dar’shun Kendrick (D-93rd), Dee Dawkins-Haigler (D-91st).
Ostensibly, the bill prohibits the “possession, sale, transport, distribution, or use of certain assault weapons, large capacity magazines, armor-piercing bullets, and incendiary .50 caliber bullets.” It also criminalizes the “possession, sale, transport, distribution, or use of certain assault weapons, large capacity magazines, armor-piercing bullets, and incendiary .50 caliber bullets.”
Georgia Democrats have filed HB 731, “Wreck the Georgia Democratic Party for 10 years bill.”
Here’s the purposes of the (unofficially) unnamed bill.

To amend Article 4 of Chapter 11 of Title 16 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to dangerous instrumentalities and practices, so as to prohibit the possession, sale, transport, distribution, or use of certain assault weapons, large capacity magazines, armor-piercing bullets, and incendiary .50 caliber bullets; to provide for crimes involving the possession, sale, transport, distribution, or use of certain assault weapons, large capacity magazines, armor-piercing bullets, and incendiary .50 caliber bullets; to provide for criminal penalties; to designate certain weaponry and ammunition as contraband and to require seizure of such by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation; to provide for enhanced penalties for the possession and use of machine guns; to provide for definitions; to provide for exemptions; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

The bill would outlaw millions of common semi-automatic firearms, standard-capacity magazines, and define a wide-range of bullets as “armor-piercing,” including brass bullets that are becoming increasingly popular for big-game hunting and other lead bullet alternatives.
HB 731 violates both the letter and the spirit of United States and the Georgia constitutions in regards to the natural right to bear arms for self defense. The bill specifically targets those arms and accouterments best suited for a “well-regulated militia,” not those most commonly used to commit crimes.
It would turn millions of Georgia gun owners into felons when they refuse to turn in or “render permanently inoperable” their lawfully purchased guns, magazines, and ammunition.
Proving their willingness to trigger an armed insurrection by forcing law enforcement to attempt the confiscation of millions of these arms, the Democrats behind HB 731 direct that “the Georgia Bureau of Investigation shall seize and take possession of” these common firearms if the law passes.
I rather strongly suspect that these legislators have no idea of how violently the public would respond to attempts to confiscate their arms and ammunition by force, and how inadequately staffed the GBI would be attempting to confiscate firearms from an unorganized militia twice the size of then entire U.S. military.
In 2014, the Connecticut State Police suggested they might attempt confiscation of several hundred thousand guns from between 80,000-100,000 gun owners who refused to register their weapons. Connecticut’s gun owners dared them to try.
Connecticut’s authorities had the good sense to back down.
Fortunately, Republicans hold a nearly 2-1 advantage over Democrats in the Georgia legislature, so the odds of this absurdly anti-American bill passing into law are exceedingly remote.
 

This off her website..

MMO to hold press conference to discuss HB 731 - Assault Weapons ban
January 12, 2016

 

 

MMO and fifteen Democrat women House members introduced HB 731 on the first day of the 2016 Session. The bill bans assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Georgia needs debate about these weapons which are only used for rapidly killing people. Assault weapons are not necessary for deer hunting.

Please join legislators, faith leaders, law enforcement and gun safety advocates for the press conference THURSDAY, JANUARY 14 at 2:00 PM on the South steps of the Rotunda of the Capitol.

The definitions of assault weapons covered by the bill and all details of the bill may be viewed here:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20152016/HB/731>

 

The seizures of the American Sailors by Iran...

This is a quick rant....well kinda a quick rant by me.  I will add a post by Matt Bracken to bolster what I am saying.  Once I heard of this I immediately knew this was an attempt for Iran to humiliate the United States, especially before the State of the Union address.  Once I heard that we had "lost contact" with BOTH boats...this stank of 6 day old fish...They got jumped and communications jammed in the middle of the ocean.  No way both boats would have a "mechanical" breakdown the odds of this happening at the same time is the same as me winning the powerball.

  I believe that the Iranians orchestrated this and President Obama and John Kerry  so wanting a legacy involving the Iranians totally surrendered to the Iranians....Makes great propaganda for the locals.  Iran wants us out of the Persian Gulf.  Remember the undeclared war we fought in the late 80's with them, The Iranians would mine the shipping lanes and shoot silkworm missiles at Oil Tankers.  We in retaliation shot up several of their oil platforms and captured an Iranian dhow full of mines.  We have traversed that area for many years and I am sure that the Iranians knew our shipping schedules.  I am just an Army guy, but this seizures of American sailors is designed to make us look weak and ineffective and with the current denizen on the white house, they are succeeding.

I am cutting and pasting this article from Matt Bracken.

Matt Bracken in the 80's

I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat's icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bull$#it.

For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP.

This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face.

Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.

The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other.

Summnation of the SOTU address by President Obama

This is my opinion of the subject matter of the State of the Union Address by President Obama....

  I have been working the Overtime, I hope to post some pic of what we are working on.

Monday Music "Modern Love" by David Bowie 1947-2016

I was going to roll with another song, but I read early this morning that Davie Bowie passed on after battling cancer.  I am not a huge fan of him, but I did respect him as a musician and he kept reinventing himself to stay current.   I have ran a couple of his songs in the past on my Monday Music.  The last one was the Bing Crosby and David Bowie Christmas song "Little Drummer boy"

One of my favorite Christmas song.  This song was made just before Bing crossed over and David Bowie was moving past his "Ziggy Stardust"Persona.   
   
"Modern Love" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie, and the first track on his album Let's Dance. It was issued as the third single from the album in 1983.
Bowie has claimed the song is inspired by Little Richard, and it maintains the album's theme of a struggle between God and man. Some commentators noted the similarities between the track and Elton John's near-simultaneous hit "I'm Still Standing", although both parties said the songs were recorded at roughly the same time with no knowledge of the other.

By the time "Modern Love" was issued and edited as a single, Bowie's Serious Moonlight Tour was underway. The track had become a popular encore on the tour, and Jim Yukich's video for the song used footage of Bowie and his band performing the song from concert in Philadelphia on 20 July 1983. A live version, recorded in Montreal on 13 July, was on the B-side.

The single reached No. 2 in the UK, and No. 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100. As well as being a staple of the tour, it featured in Bowie's set at Live Aid in 1985, and in his subsequent Glass Spider and Sound+Vision tours of 1987 and 1990. A re-recording with Tina Turner was also featured on a Pepsi commercial in 1987.

Hitler Rant parodies....

I just came back from camping this weekend with the boy scouts and I have to get ready for work.  I ran across a couple of Hitler rant parodies and I figured I would post them.  I will have some pics of my weekend I will post probably tomorrow...?  

EPA and Volkswagen

Hitler and Clash of Clans

 

Overtime....It is whats for dinner.....

I have been super busy with work, I havn't had time to post anything..

..I wanted to do a rant about the latest escapades of our petulant boy king.....with his B.S. executive directives on gun control.....he is the best gun sales man on the planet....Perhaps he can get a life membership to the N.R.A, he has done more for gun ownership than anybody else.

This is Obama's viewpoint of the world...and it shows in his actions on the world stage..

..Obama is afraid to fight anybody....except with conservatives..

Monday Music "1999" by Prince

I got this out again a bit late, we have been busy with real life stuff...nothing bad...just real life stuff....and work of course:).  I was listening to my 80's channel and they were doing the 100 biggest party songs of the 80's and this song was number one on the list.  I remember when this song came out in the early 80's and Prince got a lot of airplay on MTV (of course)on this song and his "little Red Corvette", followed by "putple rain" and "when doves cry:...*blech*.  Prince is a very talented musician, I remember a stat on him in the early 80's, he could already play 17 different instruments....that takes talent...I can't even play one...and I consider myself a pretty talented person.
  

"1999" is a song by American musician Prince, the title track from his 1982 album of the same name. The song is one of Prince's best-known, and a defining moment in his rise to superstar status.
The apocalyptic yet upbeat party anthem saw chart success in 1983 (particularly in Australia, where it peaked at #2), but it did not make it into the Top 40 in the US or the UK on the first attempt. The song originally peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1982. But following the top 10 success of "Little Red Corvette", the song was re-released and peaked at #12 in the US in July 1983, and at #25 in the UK in January 1983 (reaching #2 in the UK when re-released in 1985).
The B-side, the piano ballad "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?", became a fan favorite. It has been covered by many artists, including single releases by Stephanie Mills in 1983 and Alicia Keys in 2001.
Rolling Stone ranked the song #215 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The album version of the song starts with a slowed-down voice, reassuring the listener "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I only want you to have some fun." Prince shares lead vocals on the track with members of his band The Revolution, namely Dez Dickerson, Lisa Coleman and Jill Jones. Originally conceived to be a three-part harmony, it was later decided to separate out the voices that started each verse.
Prince created "1999" around the central riff of the 1966 song, "Monday, Monday" by The Mamas & the Papas. Prince, writing under the pseudonym "Christopher", reused the verse melody in the song "Manic Monday", recorded by The Bangles.

On New Year's Eve 1999, Prince (his stage name at that time still being an unpronounceable symbol) held a concert titled Rave Un2 the Year 2000 at his Paisley Park Studios Soundstage, and he later vowed never to play it again. However, in August 2007, as part of his Earth Tour, he reintroduced the song to his set after an absence of almost eight years.
On December 31, 1998, the song was played after the Cirque Du Soleil "O" show for the night had finished, at the Bellagio Hotel, Paradise, Nevada. Attendees found a bottle of champagne and confetti under their chairs.
On September 30, 1999, when the San Francisco Giants played their last game at Candlestick Park, the song played after the game.
On December 31, 1998, in Los Angeles almost all the music stations in the city played the song at midnight, and again on Dec. 31, 1999, for the lyrics: two-thousand zero zero party's over oops outta time