I love you like it was still the nineties

So tonight Let’s have a toast the past
Have a champagne, have Alize, get a glass

Ill have a soda but ill drink it to fast

It was fun while it lasted, prepare for the crash.
I threw my accordion against the wall

So many pieces inside of us all.

You say its not love, that i was obsessed

Too bad I can’t be obssessed with success.
Selena Gomez said your mouth is a gun

when she start s singing, I’ll Call 911

Your the only one that made my heart rush.

The juniper bloom in the Texas brush. 
I brushed your cheek with electric blue paint

Youre souls a resistor, currents alternate

Our hearts beat like there was such thing as fate

I was shocked when you pushed me away
it was one hundred degrees that shade

You changed by the window, you opened the drapes,

Like stars in the morning the memories fade

The truth is, out there not one’s safe in space,
A letter that I never intended to send

A lemon wedge in my plate, but zest in the bread…

You want to know if im sorry? He said

Truly I am. And now you know. I am.
 Heres something I never told your before

I liked you a because you remind me of her

I never once called you straight out of the blue

I had an idea of what I wanted to do.
Do you know why my hands still smell like bleach

They never come clean with You still out of reach

The black market is real, I’ll show you around

Dont touch anything and do not make a sound
We’ll Say a prayer for the Menatlly ill

sorority girl’s chapter on spruce hill

Later we’ll order a tomato pie

You can get any three toppings you like

Immortal Beloved

Don’t you think that we should all be given a pass for today for being overly emotional? Afterall, we are artists and his purple majesty died today.
The very first concert that I attended was Prince in 1984ish. I remember it well, a random kid thought he knew me.
As my good friend Joseph Irizarry pointed out.., “Purple Rain” was the first movie with adult situations I saw.. Perhaps too erotic for a six year old.
On one of our first dates I was trying to show Holly Morris some movies that impacted me.. i put on Purple Rain..she got through 12 minutes and fell asleep.
My band, My version of It, used to regularly perform Purple Rain, the song, as a cover.. Usually to end the night, I sold it as a “funny idea” but secretly really got off on the Prince Guitar solos. The first time we played it, this guy “Mo” came in from outside and said “oh! no way!” We had people in the club singing along, still my fav cover song. We could never upload it to youtube tho.. 
We did “controversy” on new years eve 2002. To b controversial and b cause eye was drinking purple drank I kissed that dude Byron Claymore on stage, then decked him across his face. He was playing keyboards that night. On time Byron grabbed the mic during a rendition or Purple Rain at The east end cafe and oddly stated shouting “philly steaks, philly steaks, philly steaks.” I was thrown out that night for being too intoxicated. Jon Groobz was serving as our bodyguard “ak 47”
We had to retire Purple Rain because we played it way too often. People started complaining that we were “ruining a classic” – on my commute to Philly to record our 2007 album “One Way” I listened to Purple Rain everyday. Once on the car ride home to New Castle, while listening to 1999 I threw up in a cowboy hat and hucked it at a prostitute. I was overly medicated on painkillers from a recent surgery. We were drinking a little too.
I take medication where I cant drink any more. It gives me the shakes and makes me have nervous legs and discomfort sitting. Its supposed to be helping me, but people misinterpret your physical characteristics. sometimes the mock and mimic them. Nasty. At least when you drink, people think youre fun. You tell them you dont drink and they hold it against you.
If you havent heard “Planet Earth” by prince. You have to. In 2001 I was very much infatuated with “Emancipation.” Its the album where he has “slave” written on his cheek. It is hard to be an artist kept away from your art by corporations. He was having a contract dispute with the wb. he said “oh great.. Now you think youre my soul mate… You dont even know what kind of cereal i like. Wrong. Capn crunch. Soy milk.”
My mom, long before she became obsessed with Bono was in love with the purple one. She used to tape Prince songs off the radio for me. My favorite tape was a tape of Prince songs taped off the radio in Jeannette of Prince and Morris Day songs with a blue star she scribbled on the label. i called it the star tape. i now have. A tattoo of a blue star on my left upper bicep.
In 1986 there is a record by the Hindu Love Gods. Its a group comprised of Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills from r.e.m. And Warren Zevon on vocals. Its a mainly blues album, but they do a killer rock version of raspberry beret. Even when I was a teenager and only listening to rock Prince had a place.
Remember, Holly Morris, when we drove all the way upstate to find a target to get the album he released only in target? The record he put out last year by 3rdeyegirl that I worked out many times to at Worlds Gym in millsboro. The lyrics to Marz sing “Lost my job at Mickie D’s

For giving away too much food for free

But I couldn’t watch another black child go to school

With nothing to eat” 
Nothing so noble here. i have never had a disciplinary complaint at any of my previous jobs.mMaybe I should have been giving away free burgers to black children.. That would be at least something that i could stand for. I have fairly bad habits of mostly sticking up for myself when I feel like people are attacking me unfairly. not good for a slave.
On “The Holy River” Prince sings:
So over and over you ask your soul

Why’d you come down to a world so cold?

And the voice inside says, tonight the truth will be told

You surrounded yourself with all the wrong faces
Spending your time in all the wrong places

Puttin’ your faith in things that only make you cry

People say, they love you when they wanna help

But how can they when you can’t help yourself?
The more they say they love you, the more you just wanna die

So here we go again, the self analysis

Have another glass of port and uh, forget this

The band’s playin’ at the club tonight and they’re bound to groove.
As enigmatic as Prince was, you could always find transcendence in his words or just the emotion of his guitar. he played While my guitar gently weeps at the super bowl. it weput, and wailed and broke the rules. 
He wwas a huge influence on me.. Soul where I have none and funk where Id only wish to funk. If he had demons and dependency, the world is a very hard place to live in for sensitive people and smart people and artists and spiritual people, we are not allowed in the Garden and there not much else out here but snakes. 
Youre thinking that i must really love prince. More than that.he’s dearly beloved, and he taught us that you dont have to be a slave to corporate bullshit and getting away from an oppressive atmosphere. We could all learn to stand for our principles like The Purple One. thank you Prince, I hope Jehovah’s Witnesses get into heaven,and hope I do to. Much love. Goodnight and god bless. . Im gonna have a bowl of capn crunch with soy milk tomorrow afternoon, just like 2day. Before I got suckered into a pitfall by trying to be the best I could be. i wish I could have talked about Prince today, but maybe by standing up for myself I said a lot more about him. 
Imagine you could rid the Earth

Of anyone you choose

Which ones would you need the most

And which ones would you lose?
Do we want to judge another

Lest we be judged too?

Careful now… The next one might be you

(Planet Earth)

The Music of the Spheres

Heres what I learned from my 3am walk in the woods. We are absolutely too inundated with noise and I and you need more time in the quiet solitude.
There is something very primal about the dark woods. They say it is the human race’s bad dream. So many of our myths and legends include a mysterious stranger in the woods, a shack in the woods, getting lost in the woods… From Little Red to the Girl that Loved Tom Gordan.
So, that includes a primal fear. What was that sort of honking sound? Why did all of the Lord’s creatures just suddenly become silent? Is it because of me or to warn me.. There’s something out here. 
Every time I made up my mind, that I needed to fight back against real or perceived slights I instinctually turned back towards the house and began my trek home. I had to stop to remind myself what I was doing out there in the first place. Why running away of course! Not from myself, but from the chatter and noise of technology. They say you don’t have to ever enslave anyone in humankind again, be cause we already lock ourselves in cages. We have lots of cages. But the cage they specifically mean when they say that the indoors.
Carl Sagan said, in Pale Blue Dot, the reason there is so much depression, anxiety and listlessness in society is because we are betraying our true self nature. That is, to be transient. We are wanderers and explorers. We’ve never gotten use to our sedentary lifestyles.
So instead of coming back inside, wouldn’t be much of a camping night if I ran inside to fire off a strongly worded letter, I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of life all around. The life that no one notices or even cares exists.
Depeche Mode says “Enjoy the Silence” but there is no such thing. Everywhere around us there is life and noise. Real and artificial. The cacophony of the spheres and the perverse mimic of life emitted by machines. Which one are we.. The real deal or the parody?
 

#Unfriended

What have you done to get “Unfriended”? Lately, someone unfriended me because I said their dinner was racist.

“That what I hate about Facebook. If you said that to someone in real life, they’d think it was funny.” – My friend Dave.

I have this one friend who is a little neurotic. He’s ‘stopped talking’ to me for years at a time because he’s been mad over things I’ve said or done from here to here.

First time was because I didn’t help him move. Second time was over me missing a WWE House Show.. Now, because I said his wife’s Indian food was cultural appropriation.

So the latter being sort of a joke. I mean, I actually do believe that if you engage in cultural tourism, it can be racist. But she posts a picture of Indian food and I said “it’s racist! What’s next.. wearing a bindi?” Very much like my last blog.

(http://www.delaware1059.com/blog/post.php?postid=654)

I found out that she blocked me a few days later when my wife sent me a picture of her and I was unable to view it. That was all, until I blogged about the food topic. Maybe they thought it was about them, because I got this message the next day.

The exchange went like this:

I went on to ask him to send me a list of appropriate topics.. and then he blocked me… and then he blocked my wife.. and then his wife blocked my wife.

Then I was like:

WHAT’S A BIRD TABLE!?!?

But, you know… it kind of bothers me. I’ve known this fellow for 30 years. He was angry at me before because I was unable to remove a video from youtube that he’s on. He’s changed his online name so “work” won’t be able to find him. So, he’s very touchy about online life.

You know the type, right? Always mad at someone online.. Basically always involved in #socialmediaDRAMA..

Huffington Post wrote a blog about it:

3. Unfriend (or unfollow) people whose sharing is draining or overwhelming you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-bartolotta/5-ways-to-use-facebook-as-a-highly-sensitive-person_b_7101294.html

>>>I know this one may be controversial, but I believe it’s controversial only because of the importance we’ve allowed Facebook to have in our lives. In offline communications, many people choose to steer clear of polarizing topics with certain friends and family members; limiting this kind of interaction on social media can be helpful for both preventing overwhelm and preserving relationships. Many people share violent imagery and articles to raise awareness about causes that matter to them. If you know these are upsetting to you or will overwhelm you, limit the types of these posts in your newsfeed. We don’t need to see every gory detail of a tragedy in order to care about it.<<>>The study, published this month by the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, was based on 582 survey responses gathered via Twitter. Sibona found six factors that predicted whether someone would avoid a person who unfriended them.

If the person discussed the event after it happened.
If the emotional response to the unfriending was extremely negative.
If the person unfriended believed the action was due to offline behavior.
The geographical distance between the two.
If the troubled relationship was discussed prior to the unfriending.
How strong the person valued the relationship before the unfriending.<<>>Published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that insecure, anxious people were more likely to brag about their relationships on Facebook. On the days “when people felt more insecure about their partner’s feelings, they tended to make their relationships visible.”

Facebook allows people to portray a certain image of themselves, and sometimes this differs from reality. “People can choose what image of themselves to convey on Facebook, so it’s intriguing that people seem to emphasize their relationships in that image when they’re feeling insecure about them,” says Lydia Emery, one of the study’s authors and graduate student in the Ph.D. program at Northwestern University in Illinois.<<>>insert it’s a trap meme later<<<

If you are so sensitive.. why post things for the world to see? Maybe it's better if you're one of those weirdos without an online presence. Then you won't have to worry about old youtube videos.

Or you can always, as the french say "grow a pair."

Is your Ethnic meal cultural appropriation?

Is your Chinese food equal to blackface?

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture.

As defined by a quick Google search. On first blush, this latest cause by the tumblrina culture (if there is such a thing) seems just another reason to be offended by anything. This is the current culture that is being rebelled against by the people who preach against the PC. Those Trump supporters who are proud that he tells it like it is.

“An exit poll taken during the South Carolina Republican primary, for example, reported that 78 percent of voters who said “tells it like it is” was the top quality they’re looking for in a candidate said that they supported Trump.”

(source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/04/trump-tells-it-like-it-is-thats-not-necessarily-a-good-thing-for-democracy/)

But is that all it realy is?

(courtesy of theephemerals)

This is the reason why The Redskins logo and Tomahawk Chop are “racist” – or if not racist, culturally insensitive.

So what does this have to do with your meal? Are you being insensitive just by EATING Indian, Chinese or Italian food?

Now, I gave no real consideration to such an idea until I read a comment on a Reddit post mocking such an idea. I can’t link to it because I’ve since lost it, but I will paraphrase if you like.

“It’s only cultural appropriation if you, as the white person, are viewing the restaurants as cultural tourism”

What’s that mean?

How do you view the individuals making your meal. I was at China King the other day and there was a customer making ‘meowing’ sounds (at least I think it was a customer huckhuckhuck). Now, that’s blatantly racist. But, he was enjoying the food. Mocking the culture. Pretty clear cut.

How about the frat boys who went to La Queztalteca the other night and were using Spanglish and basically talking down to the waitress. Less blatant.. but the display.. the “appropriation” of the culture was fairly clear. These guys were ‘pretending to be latino’ – that is indeed, cultural tourism. They are parking themselves in the culture for an evening.

Pop star wearing a Bindi? cultural appropriation. How would our Catholic friends like it if you went around with ashes on your forehead because “the culture is just so beautiful?”

Plenty of times we don’t even realize what we’re doing. That’s what they mean by White Privileged. Remember when Hillary’s “negro dialect” (not my words, thank goodness)

Nobody told me that the road would be easy!

So, we know you like ethnic food. We like the Belly Dancers, we like the Tequila, we like all the Feta cheese, but how do we FEEL about the people that are making it?

(How about Olive Garden, Jared.. Aren’t they pretending to be Italian? Shutup. The neverending Pasta Bowl is a national treasure.)

And that Bizarre Foods guy is the worst. Stop eating things that don’t know they are food yet, jerk.

Pizza anyone?

(artist’s rendition of my dad)

Nintendo Power.. 25 years lost in the mail.

Did you ever have your mail delivered late? Really late?

Here an upstate Delaware man has a magazine that had subscribed to delivered 25 years late.

We’ve all heard stories like this, a google search reveals several similar stories. “Late delivery: Woman finally receives letter 25 years after” “Lost letter finally delivered in Pittsfield after 83 years” “Letter Mailed In 1931 Turns Up At Post Office”

This is a world where Hardees employees want $15/h

I’ve worked with a few mailmen turned talk radio hosts. They also take that long to deliver content on the air. It’s all ‘me me me.. here’s my Bob Dole Clipboard”
As Trump might be heard to remark.. boring. Idaho can have them.

“I guess I didn’t pass the audition” – postal postal worker angry his radio show wasn’t a success.

My good friend Billy excluded, of course.

“Build a Wall” – Donald J. Trump

“Cactus Flower” on “Folk Union”

“Cactus Flower” from “Through Every Change” available now from Folk Union.

Folk Union – @FolkUnion – 10/09/15 – Chelmsford Community Radio by Chelmsford Community Radio on Mixcloud

Full Track Listing

Bedlam – Stick in the Wheel
The Betrayed – Kwalaparla
You Can’t Please Everybody All Of The Time – Jamie Williams
I Am Stretched On Your Grave – Kate Rusby
I Know How To Love You – Zander Michigan
Off The Hook – Jeannine Barry
I’d Rather Pray For Sun – Pete Robson
Matty Groves – Hares on the Mountain
The Great – Zander Michigan
Give Yourself A Medal – The Real Si – B
Tide Take Him – Various Guises
Box Of Angels – Zander Michigan
Dreamland – BRUISE
Pennies On The Shore – 2Ton Bridge
Be Gone, Winter Long – Erisa Rei Music
Cactus Flower – Jared Morris
Lady Grey – Katzenjammer