I read an interview with Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles & took exception to a few things he said. There’s nothing wrong with the Eagles continuing without Glenn, despite what he & possibly the rest of the group think. I believe that they may have used it as an excuse to retire without the fan base getting pissed, and they may have used it to get out of contracts, and they may have used it as a social scheme because that’s just the thing you’re supposed to say, that you can’t go on without someone, and considering that these guys are pushing 70, it’s possible they’d had enough, but obviously that was bullsh*t as they got back together with Glenn’s son Deacon & added Vince Gill, and the fans & myself love it.

The comment Timothy made about the illegitimacy of some bands having few or no original members is short-sighted as well. If you have a band that’s using the name officially and has NO original members, that’s OK as long as there’s not a competing group that would be more faithful to the original lineup that should have the legitimate rights to the name. Case in point for the good part of this is Foreigner, which at this point has NO original members since Mick Jones has been sidelined due to his health, but they sound great & the singer sounds just like Lou Gramm & I believe it’s as good or better than the original talent-wise. Blood, Sweat & Tears has no original members left, and Bo Bice has been fronting them & doing a killer job. Boston is another act that has only Tom Scholz in the line-up anymore & they’re great. The Who is just Daltrey & Townshend, and realistically, that’s all you need to recreate the sound, though hardcore Who fans will lament that statement. Styx technically only has 1 original member in James “JY” Young, but Tommy Shaw has been with them since they started getting uber-popular in 1975 & has written & sang many of their hits. Most of the old 50’s & 60’s & even 70’s R&B & Rock/Pop groups have 1 or 2 at the most & sometimes NO original members left (or alive for that matter), but they all operate under the official band banner & with many of them, there’s no competition for them from other acts comprised of other original members or by someone claiming to own the band name. In those cases, it’s great to have at least somebody playing the music & keeping it alive.

But then you have some situations where someone legally owns the band name & it’s not seen as legitimate, but the more-legitimate group has to use a different name & they are the ones who people go to see, not the band with the official name . . .

CCR is now actually Creedence Clearwater REVISITED (not “Revival” anymore), and it doesn’t have John Fogerty, so who cares, especially since you can go see John Fogerty & you’ll have a better show.

Little River Band now has no original members and just 1 guy from 1 album who played guitar, but you can see “BSG” on YouTube (were together from 2002-07), which is the original 3 guys who did all the vocals — Beeb Birtles, Glenn Shorrock & Graham Goble, and it’s infinitely better.

The Guess Who is just the bassist only, who wrote much of nothing & sang nothing, but why see them if you can see Randy Bachman & Burt Cummings instead.

The Byrds & Foghat both had 2 touring & competing groups at one time or another, and Great White has the “official” band with a different singer, or you can see the original singer Jack Russell with his own band or maybe some of his namesake dogs (LOL) — just make sure you know where the emergency exits are if you go to one of their shows — surely they’re not still using pyro?

Speaking of competing groups, we have the unique (and fantastic) situation of having 2 YES bands as of 2019 — one that has Steve Howe, Alan White & usually Jeff Downes (if not Oliver Wakeman, Rick’s son, or maybe Tony Kaye) and had Chris Squire, which was the only YES until he died, and a 2nd one called YES Featuring ARW, which is Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin & Rick Wakeman.  I enjoy them both, but the ARW lineup is more to my liking.

“The Orchestra” was formerly ELO 2 until the drummer quit & sold his rights to the ELO name to Jeff Lynne, but for a time (at least while Kelly Groucutt was alive), they were a way-better alternative to the crummy band Lynne put together for his Zoom tour that went nowhere, although Jeff finally recruited a good stage band as of 2019. Now with Groucutt dead & the replacements they’ve gotten lately, The Orchestra is not nearly as good as it was & with just the violinist & orchestra leader left, The Orchestra is just a cover band in my opinion.

Foreigner is also just an official tribute act as long as Mick Jones owns the name, but I’m sure they’ll be sidelined for at least a little while is Mick gets back together with the original lineup as rumored from time to time.  He’d be better off to bring in Lou Gramm to sing a few with the existing tribute band as a guest & keep the current singer.  That’s what Styx does with the original bassist, but they actually do something original and use 2 bassists on stage together when he sits in.

Heck, Glenn Miller’s band continued without him after he died & they’re still playing gigs some 70+ years later. Surely there’s no original members there, eh? I believe it’s quite possible that we’ll see a number of Classic Rock bands touring with no original members just like Foreigner. It’s not that unusual as a number of 50’s & 60’s acts are doing that right now — they’re simply groups who have licensed the use of the name to make a buck & give the people what they want – a faithful rendition of the music they like. And I’ll gladly pay to see the music I like performed live by anybody who’ll do it right. Speaking of which . . .

There’s a group based in Birmingham, AL called Black Jacket Symphony that has a somewhat revolving door of hired musicians who are selected for each show based upon the talent needed, and they do entire shows dedicated to 1 artist’s music. The first set is a note-for-note recreation of a classic album by the group, which is the name of the performance (e.g., Black Jacket Symphony presents “Dark Side Of The Moon”) and it’s played in the exact order as the original album, then they introduce the band, take a break, sell tickets to the next show in the lobby, then come back and do a greatest hits set of the same band. They don’t try to look like the original acts — they all dress in a black t-shirt with black slacks & a black jacket (hence the name) and some of the singers they get do spot-on perfect impressions of the original singers. One in particular was a performance of Queen’s “Night At The Opera” in which they enlisted Marc Martel to sing the parts, and not only did he nail the voice of Freddie Mercury, he even looks like Freddie’s twin brother and he also plays guitar & piano at times — really freaky & incredible good to say the least. There are plenty of tribute acts there who have a singer who looks & sound like the original — for that matter, Boston got a guy who worked at a Home Depot in North Carolina named Tommy DeCarlo who sounds & looks just like Brad Delp, the original Boston singer. There are guys who look and sound like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Steve Perry, Elvis (thousands of those), the Beatles (go see the Fab Four & you’ll walk away thinking you just saw the original Beatles as they look, talk, play & sound just like them), you name it.

The fact is that some of these Classic Rock acts & some of these so-called “tribute” acts that use the name legally that parade as a legitimate continuation of the original are actually very good & some are very lame.  The public is mostly ignorant to what’s good or bad, so as long as they want to hear the music, they will all continue making money.

The sexual harassment claims against all these people started noble & were made against those who deserved to be called out & punished for the most part, but this is now quickly turning into a witch hunt.

Al Franken is & was an entertainer, and the way entertainers behave around each other is way more loose & personal than other groups who work together. They routinely have to kiss and/or pretend to have sex with others as part of their act on TV, film & onstage. They have a more refined sense of humor and it’s typically more bawdy than the general public.

I have no doubt that the allegations made against Franken are those which may seen egregious if done in a corporate environment, but were actually simply harmless fun that was mutually acceptable by both parties at that time, but due to politics and publicity-seekers, those events are now being portrayed as being sinister & unacceptable.

The pic of him simulating the groping of breasts is just one example of a bawdy joke that is completely acceptable among entertainers and not a demeaning act as it’s not intended to be.

I believe once the witch hunt trials end that Franken will someday be able to be in public service, but I doubt he will have the stomach for it and I at least hope he re-engages in political commentary/humor soon.

I also hope we can let these people who are being accused to have their day in court or otherwise to get a chance to defend themselves against these charges rather than automatically assuming every claim is 100% truthful & correct. Just because there are multiple claims/complaints doesn’t mean that someone is guilty. It’s not unusual for people to “jump on the bandwagon” because of personal grudges, political reasons, publicity-seeking narcissists, people seeking an ill-gotten payday, or people who have reassessed the interaction decades later and now find it inappropriate even though they formerly thought it was acceptable to them personally.

I’m not saying anybody should get a pass.  I’m saying that everyone who is accused has the right to defend themselves before their careers & reputations are ruined & before their are tried in social media & the real media.

I have a love/hate relationship with NASA.  You first have to remember that their efforts are usually well-intentioned, but they are not 100% benevolent.  This is a government agency that needs government dollars like they all do, but it also wants all the dollars it can get, whether needed or not.  The 2017 budget was 18.4 BILLION with a “B”.

Many of the people who work there do so because they like doing what they do & they get paid very well to do it, so it’s not like their making sacrifices — only the astronauts are doing that, not to mention risking their lives, but they’re also doing it for the same reasons as the rest of the NASA employees are — they like it & get paid well to do it.  The difference is that the astronaut’s efforts are usually necessary, whereas a lot of NASA’s efforts in themselves aren’t.  Don’t even get me started on the NASA contractors & the billions they make that are mostly wasted or well-overpaid.

For one, the moon race was the biggest waste of money there ever was.  We’ve had no need to be there now nor probably ever, and if we do, the money we’ve spent to get there won’t matter as we’ll still have to spend money to get there again if and when it becomes necessary.  We could have probably sent a drone up there to take pics & samples for way less.

So what if the Russians or Chinese had put people there — it will never be colonized now or later, so it means nothing other than misplaced pride & dollars.  The money spent to colonize Mars or even send satellites to there or any other planet is a total waste of money.  They serve no purpose other than to satisfy our curiosity & knowledge about them, which doesn’t change anything here or there, and keeps NASA & its contractors & its employees flowing in gov’t money.

The Space Station was another gargantuan waste of money.  Many more billions of dollars wasted for nothing but curiosity & keeping NASA employees checks & contractors’ checks rolling in.

But here’s the good parts, and see how they screw up those as well . . .

The space shuttle was a good thing and it should be resurrected.  Not only are we able to fix satellites & space telescopes with it, like Hubble, which should repaired & maintained for as long as possible regardless of the Webb telescope — even NASA says Webb is not a replacement for Hubble.

Speaking of Hubble, that was the best expense we could have ever made.  However, they have said they won’t continue to put money into repairing it & that’s a bad idea even with the Webb telescope coming, and even the Webb telescope wasn’t built to be serviced, another bad idea, as Hubble required servicing numerous times.

Another far more important thing we need to do is put more money & effort into finding all the potential Near Earth Objects out there & also work on a deflection solution to keep them from harming or destroying Earth.  This is our #1 space problem & they aren’t doing enough.

NASA research & technology (mainly via its contractors) has brought us many wonderful inventions/innovations, such as memory foam, smoke detectors, carotid artery scanners, long-distance satellite phone calls, TV broadcasts “live via satellite”, Cable & Satellite TV itself, GPS, this list goes on & on.  But we overpaid for this and continue to do so.

Don’t mention the “faked” moon landing.  We went to the moon alright — we just shouldn’t have gone.

I abhor that fact that Roy Moore will probably be the next US Senator from Alabama as long as he can stay out of jail for having sex with teenagers, but in Alabama, you can have sex with a 16 yr old legally as long as it’s consensual and you’re not their teacher, in which case it would have to be 19 for a student-teacher sexual relationship, i.e., you can have sex with your college professor when you’re 19 as many do.  Note that at least 1 of Moore’s accusers also say he gave them alcohol, which would be illegal since they were all under 19, but the SOL on that has run out; however, there is no SOL on rape, or second degree sexual abuse, the latter of which is at least the minimum Moore could be charged with per what the then-14 yr old alleged victim claims, and it’s a felony.

However, voters nowadays may not approve of the then-32 yr old Moore having sex with or someone that age marrying a 16 yr old & may show that displeasure at the polls. Besides the political repercussions of being a cradle-robber, the only claim he’s really fighting legally is the then-14-yr old’s claim, as that’s statutory rape if it was consensual & you can add 1st degree rape to that if not, as she claims it was.

I imagine Moore has built up enough Brownie points with the US Dept of Justice in Alabama to avoid getting charged if it’s just her word against his, and I believe that GOP voters will sell their soul to the Devil to keep a Republican in that seat, so I believe Moore will get elected, but it will be a slim margin of 1 point instead of the landslide it usually is.

Next question is whether the Senate will seat him or not. When the House tried to unseat Adam Clayton Powell, the SCOTUS ruled that was illegal. I imagine a majority GOP SCOTUS would use that basis & feel the same about Moore as long as he isn’t found guilty of a crime, but politically, it may be tough for senators to support him & they may pressure him to resign or fail to give him committee assignments or even acknowledge his presence, which they’re allowed to do. SCOTUS can’t help him politically in the Senate — he has to stand on his own two feet there, but that will be impossible, I believe.

Alabamians may already know this and figure that a GOP governor (Kay Ivey) will appoint another Republican and they’ll retain the seat, so they win either way. They figure that’s still better than giving it to a Democrat.

These 4 women waiting 40 years to come forward all at once, and not having come forth when he ran for the Alabama CJ seat twice (and won each time) and also running for Governor, well, that’s highly suspicious. I believe that he did have sexual relations with all 4 of those girls, and that it was consensual, and I believe they may have been unearthed by that WP reporter and otherwise would have never said anything about it because they were embarrassed.

The problem is that the alleged sex with the 14-yr old is illegal even if “consensual” (a 14-yr old can’t legally give consent in Alabama or anywhere else in America), and politically speaking, I don’t think many GOP voters will vote for a cradle-robber even though it was legal to have sex with the other 3 girls who were 16 & up.

Roy Moore doesn’t follow the rules & neither does his kid who’s been arrested 9 times in his young life. Have YOUR kids been arrested 9 times? If the guy can’t even take care of his own family, how is he going to take care of Alabama & America in the Senate? He’s already proven that he doesn’t follow the rules more than once & lost his elected job over it, and his son doesn’t follow the rules either, and now he’s allegedly had sexual relations with teenager half his age at the time, and one who was a minor, which by legal definition for sex purposes in Alabama is someone under 16.

At some point, Alabamians are going to have to demand that simply being a fervent Christian Bible thumper & white male gun owner alone just aren’t enough evidence to make a person qualified to represent them.

Alabamians voted for Roy Moore because he represents their outlook — overbearing self-righteous religiosity, religious bigotry, racial bigotry, hatred of those who are not successful & wealthy & white — the good ol’ boy network.

Moore has appropriated religion so much that many in Alabama think they’re voting against God if they vote against Moore. What’s amazing is that the poor & middle class whites are willing to vote for a party that doesn’t have their best interests at heart because a cadre of well-off GOP-ers have made it a socio-political club that you have to be in or die socially & economically; they have to be a religious GOP voter or they’re shunned from their society, even though they have nothing to gain by electing Republicans other than a stand against blacks & being a part of the dominant peer group.

Our world has become very socially aware because it’s not just Big Brother watching — everybody is watching everybody now & they’re networking & groupthinking & talking about the same things in private. Imagine if Adolf Hitler had the internet — the Nazis might have been unstoppable as they might have gained a bigger share of the hearts & minds of people everywhere surreptitiously via the web.

That’s what happening now in Alabama with the religious right. Pick a few white right-wing Alabamians & read their Facebook posts. Even the ones who aren’t political expouse religious fervor, right-wing pro-military buildup, typical right-wing slogans, and general hatred of anything that doesn’t service those concepts.

If you heard words like those that Roy Moore uses coming from the leader of an Islamic republic, you would shudder in disgust that he places his religious beliefs above the law & above compassion & respect for its citizens while imposing his misplaced beliefs upon the masses.

Placing his religious “king” above the rule of law is what got him in trouble twice now & will only serve to get him in more legal trouble if elected, though he’s actually quite harmless in the Senate — that’s actually the best place to put him to keep him out of society’s way, except the possibility of any president aspirations or a nomination to a cabinet position (or even the US Supreme Court) where his decisions could harm us.

Judge Roy Moore surely will win the senate race in 2017 because a majority of Alabamians feel the same way & believe in the same things that he does, and that’s the sad part. A guy like Hitler could be an Alabama Governor or Senator today because Hitler & white Alabamians have a lot of the same ideals — just different methods, though I believe many Alabama whites would vote to put blacks & other minorities in concentration camps & exterminate them if they could.

This is the same state that voted for Richard Nixon 3 times (1960, 1968 & 1972); also 41% of them voted in 2001 to NOT remove the law that barred interracial marriage even though it was strictly a formality to put it on the ballot — it had been overturned in 1967 by SCOTUS (Loving v. Virginia). Apparently you can’t change the Alabama state constitution unless it’s done by a vote of the people, and there have been instances where the striking of an amendment that was in conflict with Federal laws lost on the ballot; i.e., the voters elected not to remove it as a protest vote even though it has no legal effect. This happened in 2004 & 2012 when voters struck down amendments to remove segregationist laws even though they’re unconstitutional.

You could ask an old white Baby Boomer when the good times were & he’ll say “The 50’s, when we kept blacks in their place”, and you say “The 1950’s?”, and he’d say “No, the 1850’s when they were in chains.” Folks, this is no joke — this is how many of these people truly think & feel. It hasn’t helped that a lot of the black population is making their race look bad & making the old whites feel justified.

I’m not going to say there’s no way this nutbag couldn’t get elected president as I said that about Trump years ago and look what happened.

Banks and other potential creditors who ask you questions that go beyond what’s available on a credit report should be illegal.  Let me explain my position . . .

There’s no reason for any bank to ask a question about anything that’s not on a credit report.  Credit reports remove all negative remarks/accounts after 7 years (actually 6 years, 9 months) unless it’s a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which remains for 10 years.  That in itself is a whole different argument as I feel nothing should go longer than 7 years period.  They also have a right to disclose info going back forever if the loan is more than $150,000, and that’s another problem I have that should be litigated. because they can see it’s on there — all they really need to do is confirm that it’s accurate.

The fact that the credit bureaus can’t report anything negative beyond 7 years (except Chapter 7) is because the Federal FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) says they can’t, and the reason that law exists is because our society has deemed 7 years as the look-back period for anyone, and that’s why you were originally allowed to file bankruptcy every 7 years (it’s now 8 years).  They picked 7 years because it comes from a biblical passage stating “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the LORD’s release” (Deuteronomy 15:1-2).

So the fact that credit bureaus can’t divulge this info means that the Federal government was determined that no one should know anything beyond 7 years of your credit history.  So if a bank has a question on an application that states “Have you EVER filed bankruptcy” or anything that reaches beyond the 7-year period, that should be an illegal question to ask and I believe a good lawyer could make that case in court & also be able to beat the law on reporting Chapter 7 for 10 years & the forever look-back on large loans.

I personally have refused to answer questions that refer to any lookback period beyond 7 years and I’ve purposely crossed them out & put my explanation in the “Notes/Comments” section of applications that delve that far back, stating “I refuse to answer credit history questions beyond that which is reported on my credit report due to the Federal Statute of Limitations on reporting credit items per the FCRA.”  That usually scares them enough to forget about pursuing that line of questioning since my credit score is very good now, and it probably wouldn’t affect the outcome anyway, and by answering the way I did, I didn’t lie, and there’s no Federal law that says you have answer every question on an application — you just can’t lie about it.

I also have a problem with banks that claim they’re talking to you on a recorded line.  First off, I don’t believe them.  I believe they do that to scare people into not lying; however, my complaint is that they can’t keep hackers from getting data; what’s the stop them from getting the recordings?  The bank and the hackers can take the recordings & edit them to have it sound like you’re saying something else by moving the responses around any way they want.  I believe the best way to hold people accountable is to have them put it in writing; after all, the app is in writing.

I love Kevin Spacey’s roles & his impressions, and I was just as saddened as many were of the accusations that surfaced in October 2017 about alleged “sexual assaults”.  The problem is that these “assaults” hadn’t been proven, were just allegations, and just as I’ve seen in many cases, people are quick to jump on a bandwagon and allege misconduct when they have animosity toward someone, or they grossly exaggerate or outright lie about it in order to feel important, gain publicity & garner sympathy, or for money.

The allegations weren’t rape; it was “sexual assault”, and in his cases, it was simply alleged groping and nothing more. I don’t agree that groping is sexual assault.  Grabbing someone’s ass or genitals shouldn’t be placed in the same category as rape; otherwise President Trump is a serial sex offender as he admitted to doing that.  I agree it’s a crime, but it’s a misdemeanor at best & not a sex crime as there’s no sex involved.  The only people alleging this are media members & other members of OOPS — what I’ve coined as being the Outraged & Offended Police of Social media.

The worst part of this is that Spacey gave a bad reply to the initial allegation, and his career will probably be destroyed & his reputation forever tarnished over something that happens in locker rooms & gay bars every day & night with no problems or complaints.

As of December 2023, all charges against Spacey have been dropped, so he hasn’t been found guilty of anything by anybody except in the court of public opinion. Coming out as gay during all this hasn’t helped him at all. I don’t believe society will ever accept him again and it looks like his career is over unless he can figure out some way to redeem himself, assuming that’s even possible. Today’s society is far less forgiving as we look to tear down people to make ourselves feel better.

Millennials are killing or have already killed these wonderful traditional American things. Note that I included only those things that I felt were being discarded due to Millennials’ choices & non-usage rather than things that are being supplanted by technology, such as newspapers & landline phones, both of which are shunned by Millennials, but they aren’t dying because of Millennials — they simply have been replaced by advances in technology, which are the internet & smartphones respectively:

> Any TV show that isn’t reality-based
> Full-service restaurants, both casual & fine
> Bookstores
> Mens suit stores
> Bars (they “entertain” at home)
> Non-Fantasy-based movies
> The housing market, both new & pre-existing homes
> The pool of unskilled & technically-skilled blue-collar labor
> Premium anything (that isn’t a waste of money)
> Desktop computers (they use their smartphones only)
> Beer, or at least non-flavored pilsner beer, like Bud, Miller, Coors, etc
> Diamonds & other expensive jewelry
> Bars of Soap
> Golf
> Department Stores

I got the last 5 from an article I read on Inc.com & it inspired me to add to that list as I did here.

In the late 1940s when Rock was born, then through & until the drug culture changed society & Rock/Pop in the mid `60s, the focus of the lyrics was usually on how much someone loved another & how they longed to be with them, whether it was a statement about how good it is to be with them now, or how sad they are to not be with them anymore. The comment & the feelings were coming from the singer, but the focus was on another person, not themselves.  the are simply the conduit, the modifiers, and the subject is another person.

In the mid `60s, the drug culture and the slow corruption of society starting with the JFK assassination quickly expanded people’s minds and showed them that our government wasn’t the rock of Gibraltar that we thought it was — a president was killed right before our eyes, and the government cronies who took over were sending us into battle in a place 10,000 miles away that had nothing to do with the security of America — a lot like what’s been happening since 2001. These events & many others of the turbulent `60s could have & should have separated us, but they brought us together. The lyrics were about how we could make a better world, about loving each together & living in peace & harmony, and inciting us to use our brains & think for a change. It was the beginning of the socio-political message. Due to the drug culture, lyrics sometimes were abstract impressions pieced together simply because they sounded good with no inherent meaning to them (e.g., “I Am The Walrus”) or only to the lyricist.  NOTE: Steely Dan did this in the `70s, but they got that inspiration from the `60s counter culture, namely the Beatles, who did just about everything first — except combined Jazz, Rock & Pop.

As the `70s began, we kept exploring the “We” theme of lyrics for a while, but we slowly drifted into the Me Decade, and with that came a lot of lyrics about self-indulgence & making yourself feel good at all costs. The start of the decade showed us the dark side of self-overindulgence with the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, JIm Morrison & Janis Joplin, but it didn’t stop us.  The Eagles sang about hedonism, and Fleetwood Mac & others dove into it & saw their relationships & lives come apart for the sake of it.  Disco was the bedrock of narcissism & even its music was tailored simply to entertain the audience & to allow them to put on their own performance on the dance floor. Originally, the performers where the musicians and the focus was on them. People danced to music of the `50s & `60s, but the music wasn’t necessary tailored to fit to a particular beat so it could be danced to, and the aesthetic art of the talent to create it wasn’t put on the backburner like Disco did to it — Disco was solely invented to A) entertain a crowd non-stop, because the focus had shifted to THEIR needs being more important than the performance, and B) make it cheaper for bar owners to entertain their patrons. it was also born out of mindset that even if you didn’t have talent, you could do something in music that was easier to do that would gain you notoriety & possibly make a living doing it, thus the club DJ was born,and DJ’s are bigger now than ever, even releasing “new” music they created using other people’s talent & songs.

Disco was so pervasive in music that virtually every musician tried to do a Disco-themed song, including those who had no business doing it, and many were doing it trying to kick-start a sagging career. The Bee Gees were the prime example of this, as they were slowly becoming a nostalgia act when they decided to tap into the fever of Disco in its early days, and they are still the gods of Disco to this day, for better or worse. I’ll never forget Disco Demolition NIght in 1979, the radio/baseball promotion where people were encouraged to bring their Disco albums to Comiskey Park so they could be destroyed in 1979 — that was the beginning of the end to Disco, but the style & its influence wouldn’t stay dead, as many `80s performers & beyond appropriated the sound, and the Electronic, Rap/Hip-Hop & current Pop genre owes a large debt to Disco & its repetitive pulsating beat.

Underlying Disco was a fringe backlash that led to Punk, which seems to be as opposite a direction as you could go musically, but it had a lot of common principles. For starters, once again instead of spending years to hone a talent, instead of learning to spin records, you could simply learn the basics of an instrument & stop there, then practice those elements into the ground so it looked like you were really good, then simply do that over & over again with no further progression.  Just like Disco audiences, the Punk audiences weren’t content with letting the performers be the sole entertainment, so they started moshing long before it became a fashion in `90s Grunge.

By the early `80s, the focus of lyrics turned back to another person rather than the singer, but this time, it was highly sexual & objectified women. Every Hair Metal band in the 80’s had a song & video about how much they loved having sex and a beautiful woman would be in the video as eye candy. What was interesting was how a guy who looked like a girl & was about 140 dripping wet would try to act tough & sexy (to the opposite sex) in spandex & makeup, the proceed to tell them how they’d like to have sex with them because they were hot & needed sex — and women bought it & loved it.  This wasn’t the case with all bands, as New Wave melded the fringe Punk music with Pop music and created sounds from the likes of Blondie, U2, REM & others, and it attracted an audience that was tone-deaf to Hair Metal & mostly a bit more intelligent. Digital synthesizers created a new British Invasion, and for the most part of the `80s, if you looked gay & sounded British, or if you grew a lot of well-coiffed hair & looked androgynous, you could get a record deal.  Mainly due to MTV & the music business becoming more attuned to image rather than substance, talent took a backseat to the packaged presentation.

In the `80s, it was expected with the advent of Disco & Punk that `70s Prog & Hard Rock would die a fast death, but it melded into Pop instead, as Rush, Saga, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Journey, Rainbow, Ozzy and other related acts moved into the 80’s with a more Pop-accessible sound that sold for the 1st half of the decade. The lyrics were darker in tone & more serious in their content than typical Hair Metal & had keyboards & harmonies, usually with a melodic & high-range singer, vs Hair Metal that focused on guitars, group unison backing vocals & a singer who sang “tough” & usually had blond hair. The focus in the `80s Prog Pop was still on the other person, but most of the lyrical content was about the dark side of love — when it goes wrong. This isn’t virgin territory, as Country music had been exploring this ground for decades — listen to Hank Williams Sr music from the `40s to prove that.

In the `90s, Grunge hit like a baseball bat across the collective heads of American culture, not just music — ti even affected fashion. Gone were the primped hairstyles & the sleek video stars — the new guys (mostly from Seattle) were wearing a lot of flannel and were a throwback to Punk & looked like unwashed 70’s rockers, and they were pissed. All their songs were about how their life & the entire world sucked & how it affected them. The focus shifted to themselves & it was dark & depressing. The same feelings were being conveyed, in that someone is hurt by something, i.e., more of the same insipid whining we’ve been getting since day one of the Rock revolution, but the focus wasn’t another person — virtually every sentence began or contained the words “I”, “me”, “my”, “myself” & “mine”. This marked a focus shift that has persisted to this day in Rock/Pop as Post-Grunge has endured for many years beyond its life expectancy.

Michelle Carter, the stupid little bitch who helped talk a guy into killing himself, is a twisted little piece of crap & needs a lot of psychological help, but she didn’t break any laws & she’s not a criminal.

Massachusetts has no laws against the encouragement or assistance of suicide. The prosecution perverted & twisted the law to create an illegal charge of involuntary manslaughter by claiming she was wanton & reckless, but being wanton & reckless itself is not a crime — women who dress in provocative clothing & people who disdain others because their simply different (e.g., gay, minority, Muslim, etc.) are wanton, and people who jump out of perfectly good airplanes or refuse to wear seat belts are reckless. You can’t be criminally wanton & reckless unless the act you’re wanton & reckless with is against the law.

I predict she’ll win upon appeal or they’ll give her a light sentence of probation, and she really needed a better lawyer.

In re the United Airlines incident in April 2017 with the Vietnamese passenger who wouldn’t depart the plane when requested, United did nothing wrong under the circumstances. Yes, they made a mistake in not realizing the plane was overbooked, but at the time the incident occurred, neither United nor the “victim” knew that — he was simply claiming he was more important than the other passengers (not true) & he staged a sit-in, like that plane was a Southern lunch counter in the 50’s.

Dr. (and I use the term loosely) David Dao is a bumbling idiot & charlatan. Don’t take this guy’s side simply because you don’t like airlines or United — he’s completely wrong, and he’s a convicted felon & disgraced doctor to boot for writing illegal prescriptions & drug trafficking, plus he admitted to sexual harassment of a former male employee & then engaged in a gay extramarital relationship with him after he quit. He’s also a failed chef & a pro poker player — is this the guy you want treating you? If not, then how can you believe any of his story? His credibility is long gone out the emergency exit.

Forget about United saying later that the flight wasn’t overbooked — that’s way after the facts known at the time of the incident & mean nothing in relation to his actions.

At that time, the passengers, crew & United all believed the flight was overbooked. The passengers were told that if 4 people didn’t forfeit their seats, the computer would randomly pick those who would be required to depart the plane. These are the rules of the airline, and when you buy a seat, you agree to those rules. Dao’s number was selected (at random by the computer) and he failed to comply, like he was special and that it should be someone else giving up their seat instead of him & he thinks he’s more important than the others. Then when he was told he would be forcibly removed by the airline, like those idiots who scream “Black Lives Matter” when they get shot because they resisted arrest, this guy got bloodied because of his own actions while “resisting deplaning.” Now that’s a new euphemism if you ask me.

He’s an idiot, and you’re a sucker if you had any sympathy for him.

Forget about his sordid past for just a minute & focus on the facts . . .

1) Nobody knew at the time that the flight wasn’t overbooked — everybody involved believed it was overbooked. The reason he didn’t comply had nothing to do with that. He thought as everyone did that the plane was overbooked.

2) He thought he & his business & his life were all more important that the other passengers, and that’s why he refused to get off the plane & resisted the authorities & delayed the plane from taking off. Note that the others who were selected to leave all got off the plane, and there were others who wanted to take off & get home quickly as well.

3) The reason he was hurt was because of his own actions. If he hadn’t resisted the authorities, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt. He had no right to disobey the airlines. If he had any right to do so, he should have filed a lawsuit or taken up the grievance off the plan with the airline while making arrangements to board another plane.

4) If his patients were in such desperate need for him to return immediately, then causing himself trouble or getting hurt was not helping them and totally counterproductive.

If you put all this into objective, non-biased perspective & you understand the facts, and then you look at his sordid criminal background, you now can surely understand why this all happened — it’s because he’s a narcissistic convicted drug criminal, as most drug criminals are. He thinks that not all of the rules of society or law apply to him.

What if you had been on the plane & he didn’t want to leave, so they instead picked you? How would you feel about him in that case? What if you had an important reason to get home & this guy was delaying you? Do you normally put your personal complaints about airlines above your own scruples in order to defend a narcissist convicted drug offender? Would you also defend wife beaters & child molesters if they were allegedly harmed by an airline?