what a weekend

had two gigs this weekend -
notsuoh saturday night went great - nice turnout (not any of my friends, except the one or two who just happened to be at the bar already...and the guys I played with Sunday at AG) and the performance went great - very different than playing these pieces in the practice room, but we could hear everything and I feel like we did a good job presenting the work... everybody's elses set was great too...
about 12:30, after the last set, a group of old friends, including bart and elizabeth show up, and well that is when the real trouble starts - I am in a great mood, so I start buying drinks for folks - no idea how much i spent or how much i drank - it was a long, but good night...
and oh yeah, the band got an offer to score a film, and I think Michelle's dad offered to make us costumes...

Sunday at AG was a little different - thomas helton and his crew were playing upstairs - I was playing with robert pearson and carl smith - they decided the show was a bust before we even played - low turnout (mostly some people from the saturday night show at rudz) - but when we finally played it sounded pretty good - just when I was really warmed up and listening good we were done... outta there by 9:30 - off to tapatia with laura for a quick snack and then home to bed...

overall a good weekend - two good and very different gigs - while I won't be playing with carl again for a while (he's from austin) I think the Michelle Yom ensemble is going to become a standing group - hope you can make it out to see us next time...

Valerie Tarico: Ancient Mythic Origins of the Christmas Story

Valerie Tarico: Ancient Mythic Origins of the Christmas Story

Or consider the idea that Mary is a virgin. The Greek writer of Matthew quotes Isaiah as saying: "a parthenos shall conceive and bear a child." The Hebrew word in Isaiah is "almah," which means simply "young woman." But the Greek word parthenos can mean either a virgin or a young woman, and it got translated as "virgin." Modern Bible translations have corrected this, but it is a central part of the Christmas story.

That's a lot of added complications. If the rest of the New Testament doesn't refer to these stories or need them, then how did we end up with them? Where do they come from?

One part of the answer comes from Hellenistic culture. (It is no accident all New Testament books written in Greek.) In this tradition, when a man did something extraordinary there was the assumption that he did this because he was different, either divine or semi-divine. They would make up a story about how he came to be divine. Almost all Greek heroes were said to be born of a human woman and a god--even Alexander the Great, Augustus and Pythagoras.
The father typically was Zeus or Apollo. The god would come and sleep with the woman, pretending to be the husband or as a bolt of lightning, or some such. Greek mythology also shows up in the book of Genesis: the gods lusting after the women and coming down and mating with them.

Obama names Tom Vilsack, Ken Salazar to Cabinet - Los Angeles Times

Obama names Tom Vilsack, Ken Salazar to Cabinet - Los Angeles Times

don't know much about salazar 'cept that he was obviously raised in a barn.
you don't wear a hat indoors.
bum phillips never wore his in the dome.
you don't wear a hat indoors.
didn't yr mama teach you nothin'?

it starts

the hostility
starts in my shoulders
works up to my brain
down to my fists

spills out my mouth

The long walk home.

been

been a rough
coupla years
alienated
a lot of folks
change is coming

at the bar I think
fuck it,
i mean,
these people
are still alive...

I could run
with the wrong crowd
drink myself
to death in 10
or run
with the wrong crowd
back to the office habit
heart failure in about the same

been a rough coupla years
time for a reinvention
a renovation
a goddamned look in the mirror
with a harsher light

but tonight
i just wish
i could sleep

Maybe they aren't evil genuises?

“This woman wasn’t saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt,” he added. “She was saying they were stupid. Her message was clear. If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of borrowed money, and imagine what they’d fetch in a fire sale... For better than a year now, Whitney has responded to the claims by bankers and brokers that they had put their problems behind them with this write-down or that capital raise with a claim of her own: You’re wrong. You’re still not facing up to how badly you have mismanaged your business.”



The Citigroup bailout is the worst yet...
The ones handling yr money - they aren't exactly the best and the brightest.

2001

I am so making one of these:

From 1999 to 2008 over 100 people abducted by aliens have reported using thought screen helmets and hats made with Velostat. Since 1999 only two abductees were taken when they wore thought screen helmets with Velostat. Most of the other abductees using thought screen helmets reported success. Some abductees could not be reached after they tried their thought screen helmets.

It's all about the velostat.
yeah.

post 2000

and all I have to say is if union contracts are on the table in the auto industry bailout then executive compensation needs to be on the table too...

of course the answer is to promote unions everywhere so Toyota doesn't get breaks by manufacturing in non-union states.

Just watching MSNBC and getting mad at all the class warfare. Some talking head blaming the auto industry's collapse on the unions. How dare they suggest that the economic collapse is the fault of working people? or even worse the poor? As they've tried to do with the mortgage/banking collapse.
Just - just - fuck them.
Really.

Dostoyevsky: To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to