Monday, November 2, 2020

Comin Down The Mountain - Monday Morning Edition

 When my son was very little, a new band called Jane's Addiction started putting out amazing albums.  I consumed the recordings voraciously.  When we drove around in the 1975 Plymouth Valiant with more than 200K miles on it, we had a small boom box stereo on the front seat that played tapes and FM radio, since the '75's AM radio was broken.  Jane's Addiction was frequently in that boom box.  When we took our 1988 Honda Civic EX on road trips from South Carolina to OH and IN to meet relatives at holidays and vacations, Jane's was a mainstay in the tape deck (the '88 had no CD player) as well.  

Our little boy sat in his car seat in the middle of the back seat  - safest place in the car statistically - and absorbed every bit of music we played for him.  As I played drums on the steering wheel, he'd play drums on his brown car seat, and I'd smile as I'd catch a glance of him doing so in the rear view mirror.  We exposed him to a vast variety of music: hard rock, punk, classical (Chopin, Dvorak, Mozart), classical (Who, Led Z, Stones, Beatles), progressive, 70s, 80s, metal, grunge, goth, dark wave... if it was fun to dance to or had a difficult drum part or just touched the soul (as Chopin always does to me) then it got played, and Christopher drank it in, deeply.

Mountain Song, by Janes Addiction, was one of our favorites to play while driving on I-26, I-40 and I-75 through the NC, TN and KY mountains.  The '88 Honda Civic had a speedometer that went to 120 mph.  Christopher and I hit 115 going down the I-275 descent to cross the Ohio River from KY to IN while singing and drumming to this song when he about 5 yrs old.  We coasted down to 80mph as we crossed the river, protected by the bridge's steel super structure.  Unfortunately, a dozen Indiana State Troopers and a spotter aircraft saw us emerge from the bridge, and wrote us a ticket for 72 in a 65 mph zone before we could cross back into Ohio.  After the ticket, Black Flag was put into the Civic's stereo.  

Jane's Addiction "Mountain Song" from Andrew Doucette on Vimeo.

I hope you enjoy this song as much as my son and I did, whether we were in the car, or drumming with two sets in the bonus room above the garage in South Carolina, or just hanging out in the living room.

I'm also attempting to use this song as a way to Jump Start my Monday morning... which appears to be suffering from significantly lethargic inertia.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

It's OK, Had a Bad Day...

 

This has been running through my head a lot lately... and it's quite fun to play on my new massively expanded drum set.   Christopher, RIP.   I miss you son.

Friday, October 16, 2020

Red Tiger Striped Ludwig Standard Drum Set

 The Foo Fighter's RUN video has a red tiger striped Ludwig Standard drum set that looks like my kit, made in the early 60s in the US by Ludwig.  I'd never seen this set before...  


Taylor's normal set is a Gretsch ... so the old Ludwig was probably just what they had on the video recording set.  And for the record, Dave is and has always been a better drummer than Taylor.  Taylor is not bad, but Dave is a monster on the kit.  I thoroughly enjoy trying to emulate Dave Grohl's work, and work up quite a sweat when I do.

Thursday, October 15, 2020

I Feel the Pain

 Dinosaur Jr - live.  https://vimeo.com/9771951


Dinosaur Jr: Feel The Pain - Live at The Bowery Ballroom 1/16/2010 from Edwin Samuelson on Vimeo.

The lighting for this show is really poor.  My son Christopher and Get Rigged / Pulse would have done so much better of a job.

Friday, September 11, 2020

Put on your red shoes...

 I was on my way home from getting some pet food on Wednesday night, when Sirius XM played David Bowie's Let's Dance on my car stereo.   It was the first time I sang along to any song with any amount of joy since Sunday morning, August 16th, when the coroner called me to tell me my son had died.  Put on your red shoes and dance the blues... 



Saturday, September 5, 2020

I Shake Like an Incurable...

 It was 95F here in Carlsbad today.  Dr Desert Flower and I floated in the pool in the late afternoon.  It's rarely over 80 or 85F here.  I asked her to put on The Police...  just not Synchronicity, as that's my least favorite album of their 5.  She put on Reggata de Blanc, and Outlandos d'Amour.  We have Bose speakers that point at the pool and backyard.   Then this came on the stereo system:

... and I kinda lost it.    Between my son's death and my dad being diagnosed with colon cancer this week, August and September 2020 have been the worst months of my entire life.  

I miss my son, more than words in English can express.

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Carlsbad Cardiac Conscious Rodents?

On Sunday evening, I noticed 3 twigs of chrysanthemum plant leaves laying haphazardly on the ground in my backyard, near my grill.  "How did those get there?" I thought, as they were a good 10 to 15 feet away from the LARGE potted chrysanthemum plant Dr Desert Flower has near the outdoor fireplace in the backyard.  I picked them up, examined the stems closely, and it looked distinctly as if a rodent had chewed them off, dragged them away... and then got distracted or detected or possibly had to evade being eaten by an owl or something else, and just dropped them in front of the grill.  So I set them over onto a raised planter near the grill, and made a mental note:  "On Monday, take these to the green trash can", since it was dusk and we've got an abundance of orb web weaving spiders and I really Really REALLY dislike walking into any spider web and getting it on my face, with or without a spider on the web.

To my surprise, this morning (Monday morning, 31 August as I write this), I went out into the backyard in full day light, to fetch the chewed off branches.  They Were Gone.  Only thing left was a sad, trodden, tiny fragment of one of the 3 branches.  I was perplexed.  Where did these large, sandal sized branches go?  Then I remembered, we've got "citrus rats" (AKA Southern California rats that enjoy eating citrus... sounds better that way) and California Ground Squirrels.  Both are about the size of a men's size 12 sneaker, and are large enough to set off wildlife cameras in the yard.  The sadly squished single remanent was not much bigger than a sprig of parsley you might get at a restaurant, and obviously was not worth dragging away by the large nocturnal rodent who had gnawed off the other 3 branches.

Today, I tried to search for "chrysanthemum lined rat nests" and "+chrysanthemum rodent toxicity" and "+chrysanthemum +rat +nest".  I have known that chrysanthemums are used in natural "green" pesticides along with rosemary and peppermint, as many insects abhor and avoid these plants for the scents and toxins carried within them.  One time when we lived in South Carolina, I watched a Japanese beetle land on a marigold plant next to the driveway, take one bite, and fall over dead, instantly.  A few weeks later, I saw the same thing happen to another beetle who landed on a chrysanthemum plant, chomped it, and rolled over onto the ground on its back, legs in the air, twitching momentarily, and then died.  Granted, these were tiny insects, and dosage matters, so the rats (or perhaps squirrels?) won't die from nesting with chrysanthemum... but do they know the holistic benefits of having chrysanthemum lined nests to dissuade fleas and ticks from feeding on their children?  "My momma taught me, when I was a little rat, to always line the nest with chrysanthemum, yes she did!"

Or were these rats voracious readers of Chinese studies of the effects of concentrated chrysanthemum extract on myocardial fibrosis in rats with renovascular hypertension? 
link here:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32186102/   and link here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf062088r  (Absorption and Excretion of Luteolin and Apigenin in Rats after Oral Administration of Chrysanthemum morifolium Extract)
I don't know for sure.  There are so damn many H1B visa holders in Southern California that the rodents in my yard might have been participants in the aforementioned scientific studies for all I know? (taking away jobs and resources from Umerikun rodents!  "Make 'Merica rat infested again!" [makes as much sense as Drumpf's inane con-man slogans that only the most gullible of American citizens embrace, hook, line, and sinker]).  

All along the Southern side of my property there's a 6 ft high wall that separates my yard from the neighbor's, and it is covered in jasmine and mandevilla vines.  My hypothesis is that there's a rat family living in the thick vines on top of the wall, and they wanted to help discourage parasites from living in their nest... or they're cardiac research scientist rats who are squatting without paying rent.  Not sure - and no, I'm not the president of the USA in Idiocracy.  

Monday, August 31, 2020

Rage, Against Vanessa Carlton

 My buddy Joe M sent me this link this morning, and it really brightened an otherwise depressing start to my day.  First day back to work following my son's death, funeral, wake, cremation, flight home, and zoom wake for relatives yesterday.  I listened to this, and thought several things simultaneously:

- It is brilliantly done

- It's perfect for introducing Rage Against The Machine to generations of people who may have never heard them before, or think they're too hard to listen to, or that "rock is roll is not my kind of music" listeners

- It can be listened to by teenage tik-tok trolls who love music like Vanessa Carlton, and perhaps it can open their eyes and ears and hearts to the message within

- My son would have enjoyed this

- I need to share this with a wide-of-an-audience as possible

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did, wether you live in Kenosha, Portland, Washington DC, Charlottesville, Charleston, San Diego, Orange County, or wherever closed minded, anachronistic, 1950s-nostalgic, Confederate apologists, Nationalists, Alt Right, Q-anon, pathetic nazis, and white supremacists keep raising their ugly, delusional filled, willfully ignorant little heads.

Link: https://youtu.be/6kYco2Zt-cM


Sunday, August 30, 2020

My son's eulogy

  

My son, Nathan Jr,  passed away recently, unexpectedly.  We held a Covid compliant funeral and limited attendance wake in Charleston SC, where he lived for the last 15 years. Today, on August 30th, we had a zoom video conference for friends and family who could not travel to Charleston.  The following is what I said about my son, introducing the videos and slide show memorials:

Thank you everyone for coming today, and taking time out of your morning or afternoon, depending on where you are geographically.  Our son Christopher, as many of you have heard, unexpectedly died in his sleep the night of August 15th.  He was 33 years old.  He had a mild case of Covid back in June, but he appeared to get better after a few days.  We do not know why he died, as the autopsy was inconclusive, but the coroner is running more tests that should be complete in mid September.  We may never know exactly what took our son from this world, but we Do Know what a wonderful person Christopher was, and how many thousands of lives he touched in such meaningful, positive, caring, empathetic, helpful, compassionate, funny, inspiring, motivating, passionate, hilarious, insightful, musical, useful, intelligent, genuine, loving and kind ways.  His passing leaves an enormous singularity, a voracious black hole that is tearing at the very fabric of our hearts.


Our son Christopher was magnetic.  People were intrinsically drawn to him, and loved being around him.  His mother and I raised him, and it appears - from the 100s of FaceBook and Instagram posts, from the 100s of his friends in Charleston who loved him, and from the stories his childhood friends keep sharing with me - that we raised an amazing person, a good human, as my friends and former colleagues in Bangalore would say.  Over the last 2 weeks since his passing, I've lost count of the number of men and women who have told me
- I wouldn't have the job I have today, if it was not for your son
- Christopher built my first bike
- Your son helped me move
- I would not have stayed in school in Charleston and graduated if not for your son, because I knew I would not be able to be around him if I left
- Chris walked me home and made sure I got there safely when I had too much to drink
- Your son taught me everything I know about lighting
- Your son trained me as a bartender
- Christopher always listened to me; you always knew he authentically cared
- I could always count on your son when I needed help; I'd call him and he was always right there
- He always made me feel at home, and made me feel that I mattered

I always knew he was an exceptional person, but his passing has clearly shown me the countless lives he selflessly helped.  Our son inspired others, usually in positive, creative, productive, meaningful ways.  He led and encouraged and loved those who were inexorably drawn to him.  Much like my father, Chris's grandfather, his Dzia Dzia, Christopher loved engaging everyone in friendly & lively conversation. No one remained a stranger to our son for long.  Our progeny made everyone feel comfortable and welcomed when he was around them.  If you were having a bad day or having a tough time, everyone in Charleston knew they could count on Christopher to help them feel better, to brighten their day.  It was a gift he had, and he gave generously, warmly, selflessly.  For those of you who did not live in Charleston, or who had not seen Christopher very much since he went to college there, our son did not tolerate fools, bullies, meanness, hatred, or racism.  The inequality, brutality and injustice he witnessed first hand this year, as he and other peaceful demonstrators were needlessly tear gassed, shot at, and attacked in-and-around Marion Square across Calhoun street from where he worked at Big Gun, deeply upset our son, and he was struggling to find ways to make his community a better place for everyone.  

He was real, genuine, caring, confident (sometimes overconfident), fearless, fierce, and loving.  Whether you knew him as Chris, Christopher, little Uzbek, Casmir, Nathan Jr, C Papa, or Papa Prolowski, your life was better, enriched, for having known him.   There will never be another Christopher Joseph, but we all can continue to carry part of him within us, his indomitable spirit, on our journeys through life, putting our best effort forward, helping others, rooting for the under-dog, trying to be a good human, and make the world a better place for everyone.  

Losing my son, is the hardest, most difficult thing I've ever had to endure.  Knowing I will never hear his voice again, be able to hug him, play drums with him, travel with him, get a text from him, laugh with him, build and repair things with him, ride bikes with him, share books and music and art with him, trade dad jokes with him, 😊 build sand castles and sand sculptures, walk on the beach and swim in the ocean or sail with him, open Christmas presents with him, see a concert with him, practice yoga or speak French with him, watch a Chicago team usually lose a game on TV with him, 😀 enjoy a delicious meal and savor a good bottle of wine with him, change flat tires or oil with him, go to Costco with him, hike and rock parkour and climb mountains with him, sip a glass of fine quality whiskey with him, dance at weddings with him, watch Raising Arizona with him... these things and so many more, a lifetime more, are memories now.  Christopher would want us to all go on with life, doing the best we can, listening to and genuinely caring about others, helping the helpless, the little guy, the disenfranchised, assisting those in need.  So even though this is the hardest, most difficult thing, we'll do the best we can, as Christopher would want us to, would expect us to do.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

What If It Was "Red Lives Matter" Instead?

As a son of European immigrants, and a white male who was born and raised in Northern Indiana, lived & worked in IN, SC, AZ and now California, and who has lived more than 1/2 a century, I've seen many parts of the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.  I've had countless civil conversations with men and women of various economic groups, ethnicities, ages, religions, and political affiliations, and usually I've learned something from each of those interactions.

When some of my high school friends embraced right wing politics during or after college, I did not follow them, and scratched my head as to what led them down that path?  When some of my high school friends embraced progressive, socialist, left wing or anarchistic ideologies in college or thereafter, I was busy raising a toddler and being the sole bread winner in my new family's household.  I could relate to the empathy my left leaning friends had for the under-dog, the little guy, the disadvantaged, forgotten, and under-class of society, since I grew up fairly poor myself.

My maternal grandmother would get government cheese at the Senior Center.
At one time in my childhood, my parents applied for food stamps when my father was laid off from Rand McNally as they closed their Hammond IN book printing facility, and dad could not find gainful employment to support the family.  We didn't get it, because we owned a home (with a substantial mortgage) and an old high mileage Pontiac Bonneville that dad used to get to work and then look for jobs when I was in Jr High School. But I understood what it was like to be poor, eat saltines for lunch at school, wear only hand-me-downs, and rely upon my maternal grandparents for food.  I never got an allowance, and didn't understand why any parent would just give their child money that was un-earned.  I had a paper route in 6th and 7th grades, delivering Chicago Tribune, Sun Times, and WSJ to a 8 square block area every morning, rain or shine, on my Schwinn banana seat bike - the Sunday edition of the Tribune was MASSIVE.  So I have first-hand experience with pulling myself up by my "boot straps", having had nothing handed to me or my family from the state or federal government.  But my father was able to get a loan for his house in a majority blue collar suburb of Chicago, where lots of Poles, Slavs, Germans, Hungarians, Irish, Hispanic, Italians, and Scandinavians lived.  He got a unionized job in a book bindery before I was born, and for most of my childhood, we were in pretty good shape.

Just a few miles away, in Gary IN, most of the city was not in very good shape economically.  The steel mills all began to close in the 1980s, and the tax revenues dried up in Gary, Easy Chicago, Hammond, and Whiting.  Street lights, traffic signals, and general infrastructure broke down and didn't get repaired.  The majority of Gary entered an economic malaise from which they've never really recovered.  The majority of Gary was also African American.  But what if the majority of Gary's citizens, instead of being African American, were caucasian and all had red hair?  I know this might sound silly or absurd, but give me a minute or two to explain.

Since Memorial Day 2020, when George Floyd was publicly murdered by Minneapolis police and recorded by civilians as it happened, all 50 states in the US, and many countries around the world, have seen widespread public protests against racism and police brutality against black and brown people.  What if George Floyd, instead of being a large man who was a former NCAA basketball playing African American, was a large red haired caucasian?  And what if every black and brown person who have been beaten or killed or wrongly convicted by the legal system had red hair and white (probably freckled) skin?


Hold that thought in your head for a moment.  Replace "black skin" with "red hair and white skin".  You can certainly SEE that someone has red hair, up-close, or from far away.  Many of them are originally from Scotland, Ireland, or Scandinavian countries, where the genes for red hair are not rare.  Red haired folks are no different than brown haired, black haired, blond haired, or gray haired folks, but you can immediately see that they've got red hair.  Take off a red haired person's hat, and there is no ambiguity that they are indeed red haired.  Many red haired men often grow beards, which show off their red hair even more.

As I kept hearing "all lives matter", and "blue lives matter" and white folks call in to shows on the radio (NPR) say "you have to first acknowledge there's discrimination AGAINST white people, before we can talk about black lives matter" it began to become very clear to me.  Many white people have a BIG problem with the word "black" because of the systemic racism within their narrow view of society in which they were raised and have been living their whole lives, racism that Most of them are not consciously aware that they are practicing.  So imagine a world for a moment, where there were NO BLACK PEOPLE, whatsoever, and probably no brown people either, for this analogy to work and make sense for the white people who read it.  Instead of African Americans being the most discriminated and disadvantaged folks in the United States, RED HAIRED folks took their place.

Think about that, for minute, especially if you're white.

Say that all red haired folks couldn't get VA loans when they left the military, because of the color of their hair.  They couldn't live in nice neighborhoods, without the KKK burning crosses in their lawns, throwing bricks through their windows, and hanging nooses from their trees.  Red haired folks were denied job interviews, jobs, home loans, entry into the best schools, entry into non-red-haired "christian" churches in the Southern United States. They were severely beaten and hospitalized when walking their girl friend home at 3am in Charleston by 5 blond and brown haired guys wearing College of Charleston shirts. Imagine that Red haired folks had been brought to the US in chains from Scotland and Ireland and Scandinavia and forced to work as slaves on cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations, mostly in the South, but some in the rest of the country as well.  When red haired kids tried to enter segregated public schools in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi they had police dogs set on them, were fire hosed, and beaten, all because of the color of their hair.

What if red haired folks created better music, more meaningful and soulful and powerful lyrics and rhythms, that they called blues, jazz, gospel and many other genres that blond and brown and black haired artists appropriated, imitated, and played for blond and brown and black and gray haired crowds in bars and concert halls and churches, where red haired folks were not allowed to enter?  What if blond and brown and black haired daughters liked red haired boys, but were forbidden to hang out with or date those red haired boys?  What if the N word was replaced with the G word (ginger)?  And one red haired person could call another red haired person the G word, but no one else was allowed to use it in conversation, in a tweet, on-air broadcasts, in social media, or anywhere else without repercussions?

What if, in the Fortune 500 companies, there were only 4 red haired CEOs, even though red haired folks comprised more than 10% of the US population?  What if red haired folks were 2.5X more likely to die from Covid-19 infections than their blond, black, brown, and gray haired counterparts?  Because of the systemic fear, structural racism, and discrimination against red haired folks, a large percentage of them worked in lower paying service professions, like security guard, bus driver, janitor, short haul truck driver, and health care assistants, and during periods of economic downturns, they were impacted disproportionately to their size in the general population?  What if the relatively few economically successful red haired folks who were judges, US senators, plant managers, or PhD scholars were routinely hassled and scrutinized, delayed by police, security guards, TSA, and retail store loss prevention personnel? "Why is a red haired person like you driving this really nice car?"

If you were a police officer (city or county) in this all white society where red haired folks were routinely discriminated against, you might be fearful of those citizens with red hair.  They have "fiery tempers" after all, and everyone knows "red haired women are trouble" while all non-red haired men know that many red haired women are "crazy".  Broken tail light, failure to use a turn signal, "fitting the description" of a red haired suspect... all of these would be opportunities to pull over a red haired driver, interrogate them - often rudely and with excessive force - and take them in for further questioning when the red haired driver, who was minding their own business and usually did nothing wrong, began to get irritated that they're being hassled for no reason whatsoever... oh... wait... yeah, they have Red Hair.  In the eyes of many of the blond, brown, black, and gray haired officers, most red haired folks "all look alike".

What if in Tulsa OK on Memorial Day 1921, the most prosperous part of the city, known as "Red Wall Street", 35 square blocks, was looted and then burnt down by non-red haired people, while Army Air Corp biplanes dropped petrol bombs on the district, with more than 400 red haired men, women, and children, massacred?  (without a single prosecution, and with zero insurance claims paid)  What if in Chicago Illinois, on the Lake Michigan lake-front beach in 1919, a red haired teenager swam over to the non-red-haired beach, across an imaginary line, that got him stoned to death by all the non-red swimmers?  And then the non-red swimmers went on a rampage killing 150 red haired citizens, and burnt down 1.1 billion dollars worth of red-haired owned homes and businesses in Chicago?  What if all red haired men were called "boy" or "uncle", instead of "mister" or "sir" when they were spoken to by someone with blond, brown, or black hair.

So if you personally have a problem with the phrase "Black Lives Matter", as I first did many years ago the first few times I heard it in my 40s, where I kept telling myself "no, all lives matter, not just black ones" ... then you really should stop for a moment, replace "Black" with "Red" and remember this context.  Think about the analogy I make here, about a country where everyone is white (no black or brown people whatsoever), but the red haired citizens consistently the short end of the stick, a raw deal, a violent and forceful shove back down the ladder of success by all the other citizens who don't have red hair.  Even if they have boot straps, the systematic barriers non-red society has repeatedly placed in their way have made it remarkably hard for the vast majority of red haired folks to succeed, prosper, and be on equal footing under the US Constitution, after the 13th Amendment was passed in December 1865, just 155 years ago.

If reading this has changed even one person's mind or opened their eyes to the reality that the majority of African Americans live in the United States are subject to just because of the color of their skin, then it was worth writing.

Note:  I have many red haired friends, former class mates, colleagues, acquaintances and neighbors.  All of whom are nice people.  I hope such discrimination and anti-red-haired hatred is never focused upon them, as stated in this analogy.  I was going to try "blue eyes" or "bald" or "left handed" but none of those aspects are instantly recognizable, from afar or by law enforcement officers, so I kept coming back to red hair in my mind.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Talking NIN Heads, Only Blind

For about a week now, two songs have been running through my head, mashed together rather seamlessly, and blending into each other smoothly.  Talking Heads, "Blind" and Trent Reznor's NIN "Only", are not yet in a published Mash-up, but in my head they are already merged.  Several of my close friends and my son have been asked about this via text message, and most of have responded that they hear the similarities.  My buddy Rick even stated that it makes perfect sense because not only the 2 and 4 hi-hat, but the basic "Da-Da, da-Dah, da-da-da, dah-duh-da-da..." repeats merge nicely.


And Reznor's "Only":



Two very different songs, that came out many years apart.  I might be only of the few Americans who enjoy both bands passionately... but maybe there's more people out there with excellent musical taste.  =P   Being a father, (and Father's Day is approaching) I am delighted I could positively affect my son's musical repertoire and appreciation in exposing him to some of the Best music from the 80s and 90s as he grew up, both of these bands inclusive.

It's a fun blending of tunes in my head.   I hope you enjoy it as well.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

I just have some extra lemons...

There's a local neighborhood social media platform called Next-door.com, which I renamed "complaining-neighbors.com" since the vast majority of posts on it in here in Southern California has traditionally been neighbors complaining about:
- dogs owners letting their dogs poop in other people's yards
- dog owners not picking up after their pets
- cars driving too fast near schools
- occasional helicopters circling a neighborhood
- cars being broken into that homeowners leave unlocked in their driveways
- packages being stolen off of front porches
- rattlesnakes being found in a large planter, or on a hiking path, or in someone's garage
- really loud music blasting late at night from a party where the parents are not home
- graffiti somewhere in the city
- drivers who cut you off or drive recklessly or who don't know how to turn on a double-lane turn
- strangers walking around the neighborhood or sitting in vehicles on residential streets who don't live there
- unleashed dogs attacking leashed dogs on walking trails
- coyotes attacking any dog that's smaller than a coyote

... that kind of thing.  Sometimes there are nice posts of someone who needs moving boxes, or someone who needs a heavy piece of furniture moved or picked up, or to borrow a ladder or wheelbarrow or other tool.  Over the years there have been lost pet posts, please adopt this dog or cat posts, seeking a pet sitter posts.. and that genre of neighborhood communication.  But nearly all of that has changed.

When the malignant narcissist was installed by the United State's electoral college after losing the popular vote in 2016, I significantly decreased the frequency that I ever visited the Book Face (or FaceBook as most people call it), because I was sick and tired of all the Russian bot generated fake news with inflammatory headlines designed to enrage whoever clicked on them. Troll bots drove massive amounts of traffic and eye ball exposure to misleading, or fabricated, or out-of-context "news stories" that so many devoted followers clicked on, and liked, or shared, and propagated faster than Covid-19 is currently spreading around the world.  I did NOT want any part of that, and trying to fend it off or combat it, or explain why it was incorrect was becoming an enormous waste of time.  So I withdrew from that battlefield (yes, the Book Face IS a battlefield, fighting for your attention, surveilling your data and preferences, plotting to try and sell you ads for stuff you don't want, while also re-selling your data to retailers and big data research firms to make even MORE money off of your "free" account - and their Instagram acquisition is no better.  It just has prettier pictures most of the time).

Around that time, Dr Desert Flower and I had just moved into a house in a new neighborhood, in a new city a few months before, and one of the realtors who lived in the neighborhood was the administrator of the local community Next-door site.  I signed up and created an account for DDF and I, and we "welcomed" other new neighbors, got to know several of the people who lived around us, donated our moving boxes to people who needed them, and even eventually adopted a pet who was posted on Nextdoor as being in need of a home.  

Gradually, as the malignant narcissist out lasted the Mueller investigation, and then the Republican Senate refused to convict the impeached president, I noticed that the posts and the comments on Nextdoor.com became increasingly political, aggressively confrontational, angry, and nasty.  "Mean spirited" does no begin to describe the vitriol that so many neighbors readily spouted on the site.  MAGA themes, and anti-MAGA themes pervaded any kind of post you could imagine, even ones that had NOTHING to do with politics.  Emboldened by the "new normal" that the White House had established in bullying, criticizing, using hate speech, being openly racist, without any repercussions, fans of the president found fertile ground in which to plant their ideologies.  Liberals and progressives would often provoke them - inadvertently often or overtly sometimes - and stoke the hate and anger to completely uncivilized levels of disgusting discourse.  

Then, the Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders came out, first from governors who needed to take action without any coherent leadership from the deniers in the White House.  Then, the White House issued the "president's guidelines" for how to stay safe in the pandemic by mailing everyone post cards 2ith instructions that just a few weeks before the malignant narcissist had been mocking.  Once the States were in quarantine, and everyone was home with ample time on their hands, the flood gates - which had been LEAKING terribly - burst wide open.  

Nextdoor became a full-on platform for those who were taking self-isolation and shelter-in-place to the strictest levels began railing on anyone they saw outside on the street or sidewalk as a public menace if that person or persons did not meet their level of sterile precautions.  The MAGA fans exploded back in hostile retribution telling those who criticized them where they could go and where they could stick things.  Moderators (like the realtor who admins our neighborhood site) now had a FULL TIME job taking down postings that were erupting with neighbors screaming at each other, injecting politics and personal beliefs into any and every posting imaginable.  

Posts like:
a) does anyone know when the city will open the hiking trails again?
or
b) the condos across the main road have 2 Covid cases in them, the City posted it on everyone's doors
or
c) does anyone have an extension ladder I could borrow on Saturday?
or
d) My son and daughter-in-law are stuck in Peru where the cruise ship they were on is quarantined; does anyone know how I can get them back home? 
or
e) I have some extra lemons, if anyone would like a few, our tree made so many 

... devolved, within 3 to 5 replies, to "that's the whole problem with you libertards!" or "it's the president you voted for who killed my uncle by not implementing a national plan!"  or "why don't you create a database that tracks everyone's health, doctor visits, cough, sniffles, and Rxs in the whole neighborhood?"

The little old lady just had some extra lemons... she was not trying to start an armed conflict.  

And it is not just down here in San Diego County.  Our friends in Orange County have noticed the same thing, perhaps even worse.  Our civil society isn't.  Civil discourse is dead.  Everyone is too angry and hateful, entrenched in there own camp, fed by Fox News and MSNBC, OAN and Talking Points Memo, Brietbart and The Raw Story, Drudge Report and The Washington Post, The New York Times and Gawker, Politico and The Washington Examiner.

I've been telling people who I know that there will very likely be an ugly American civil war if the 45th president loses in November 2020 and refuses to step down, or calls the election "rigged" (as he did in 2016), and possibly declares Marshal Law as violence rises in both red and blue states, minorities and outspoken voices of reason, and those who are not wearing the right 'patriotic' colors  are lynched, hospitalized, or disappear.  Most people scoff at such a notion, and say "things won't get to that level."  But look how QUICKLY Nextdoor spiraled downward.  Neighborhood residents CANNOT Fake profiles or Hide as an anonymous troll on Nextdoor.  It is a verified, regulated, moderated site, where Open Discourse is supposed to be the norm.  Open, civilized discourse.

It will not take much to go from Complainingneighbors.com to Violentneighbors.com or WeKNOWwhereyoulive.com, by ideologues who have forgotten how to discuss facts, respectfully, and politely.  

Friday, May 8, 2020

An Empty LA

The new video by Maynard of Tool, on his side project Puscifer, published Apocalyptical yesterday.  (thanks to my buddy Ryan for the head's up).  It shows a completely empty Los Angeles.  I've been to the Staples Center.  It's in a very busy section of the city.   https://youtu.be/Hj_bTbfAEsc


A skateboarder in a level 4 haz mat suit, drone footage of streets, parking lots, beaches, all devoid of human life in frame after frame.  Granted, these might have been taken near dawn on a cloudy day (so you can't see shadows) but it is eerie how empty the streets are in America's 2nd largest city.

Those Southern states who are opening back up with little or no restrictions, I wish your health care systems and morticians all the best, as your elderly, cancer patients, diabetics, hypertensives, morbidly obese, immuno-compromised, the weakest of "the herd" say their good byes to their families (if they still have any) through FaceTime or panes of glass before they expire.  No, Covid-19 is not a hoax.  It's not some conspiracy created by hospitals to get more Medicare money. It's a global pandemic.

If you read this, and can't help yourself in angrily (or snarkily) responding to me, your comments will be published and mocked.