This Is Not Acceptable Behavior

When some of our members of Congress were walking into Congress this weekend they were greeted with protesters who screamed out the "N' word ( they were men of color ) or the "F" word ( the one that rhymes with maggot rather than the one that rhymes with luck ).

This is not acceptable behavior. What is it about our bi-racial President and this Democratic Congress that brings out the racists and the bigots? It is troubling to see, not only these lowlife gutter scum screeching out horrid slurs, the response from the right and that includes the supposed mainstream of the Republican party.

I have friends who are Republicans. In fact my very best friend online is a Republican and I love her dearly. I think that others and she should join the Democratic Party. If they do not care for the platforms on social issues then they need to find or join a Conservative Democratic organization to address those issues. But their party is falling apart when it takes its platform from a tv station owned by an Australian man who already owns the media in his home country.

Regardless of what party, there should be no room in any party for derogatory slurs directed at members of Congress concerning a person's race or sexual orientation. It is not acceptable behavior in polite society. Even if you do not agree with someone there is no excuse for that sort of language, that sort of disrespect.

Unless one is lowlife gutter scum.

I WANT MY BOOM BOX BACK!!!!!!!! MAJOR RANT

About two years ago I made a NASTY discovery ( and it had gotten worse ) --- I discovered that it was virtually impossible to get an audio cassette recorder. I am not just talking about what I REALLY want but what I really NEED. That would be a double cassette player-recorder. Panasonic formerly made a really good one and YES, since the speaker on one side blew out I WANT ANOTHER ONE DAMN AND I WANT IT YESTERDAY!!!!!! But now one can hardly find a hand held cassette recorder. GRRRRRRRR!!! It seems that TPBT ( the powers that be ) made some stupid decision that those of us who record songs ( in my case it is my own original songs ) should have to learn how to do all this on a computer, that we should put all of our music on an MP3 player or ipod blah blah blah.

There is just one itty bitty problem with this( ok, so there are A LOT of problems with this but one main one ) --- those of us who were born before 1980 REALLY LIKE our cassette boomboxes ( the same way we also prefer LPs to CDs which sorry for those digital junkies, do not sound half as good ). We have boxes and boxes of cassettes from the 70s and the 80s etc and a lot of that stuff one can not find except for hordes of cash.

In my own case it is wanting to be able to record rough cuts of my original songs and not spend a fortune for it. Not to mention --- it is a heck of a lot easier to push a button that says record and sing into the built in mic ( ok, I cheat and hook up another mic with a little echo as well ) and the sound comes out pretty good and real good depending. THAT I can do!

But try and learn it on a computer? That means fiddling with this thing and that thing and then adjust this and that and then after that you need to do this and do that and then of course that is not quite right so you need to adjust this and push that and pull out this and then you need to do this and then you might lose everything you created and by then the little men with the white coats are coming to take you away and not hahahaha take you away either.

First of all in the good old days ( 3 years or so ago ) one could still find a boombox ( double with built in mic ) for under 100 bucks and the sound quality rocked. NOW, if one actually wants to get a decent cassette system ( and good luck in finding them even online ) one is expected to shell out thousands for fancy stereo components and find someone with an engineering degree to hook it up for you.

With the good old boombox you plugged it in put in a tape, twiddled with the equalizer a tad, pressed a button and you were good to go. I am a major tech dummy ( ok, ok,THE tech dummy of the universe ) and even I can do that! I could and did and have hundreds of cassette tapes of MY SONGS to prove that.

And on the low end, if you can find something, it is under 50 bucks and the sound quality is CRAP and usually there is no built in mic and of course it is not a double cassette player. I WANT MY BOOM BOX BACK!!! And put it in the damn stores thank you very much.

I don't want to order it online. The rotten one I have now I bought from the Panasonic website a few years back, they sent me a demo or a return ( I think it was the latter ), it took two months to send back, after jumping through customer service hoops. They then sent me another lemon. After that I just gave up the ghost.

But you know what is really pathetic? It is knowing that I would grovel to get my greedy little hands on ANOTHER of the same kind ( but without the blown speaker ). Are you listening, Panasonic? Or Sony or RCA and all the rests of you who are shoving ipods and MP3 players down our throats! I don't want my Mp3! I want my fat juicy smooth analog easy to use machine!

Do they even have a CLUE as to how many of us boomers are out there and we want our BOOMER BOXES back! It has really stifled me as how the heck do I get my songs recorded? I don't read or write music but I have some great tunes runnin' around in my head and need to get them recorded. I am NOT some fancy computer programmer with a doctorate who can figure out ANY computer music program --- unless it is a one button and sing into a mic routine.

And even then in these economic times why should someone have to shell out a thousand bucks or more just to record what sounds better on a 100 buck boom box? I just need a little double cassette boom box with a built in mic so I can record my original songs and dub a copy of them to send to my friends in Mississippi and Wales. To TPTB: can you send me one or ok maybe half a dozen? I will pay full price and I would be eternally grateful ( but no more lemons! ). PLEASE. And make that pretty please and a song sung for my supper on top of it.

PS I might add that these cassette recorders also work great for recording grandparents and their old memories.

10,000 songs and one more

Ok, I now have a little more to say. On Valentine's Day I finished up writing my 10,000th song. And I am such a laze I have only written one more since then. Of course I am now working on another project which I started on ( not realizing it was a project at the time ) a few years back. I am now over 780 fantasy worlds into the 1001 fantasy worlds project. Other projects sort of in the works: the rock and roll band ( I saw Janis Joplin live when 18 and never you mind if I was high or not but I decided then that I wanted to be a rock star. I am 61. Dreams sometimes refuse to die ) I want to form at the new senior center a block away. I would then like to see about maybe getting a 1001 song project started ( having others and myself record a 1001 songs of my 10,001 songs ), and a 1001 stories project ( to be started after my 1001 fantasy worlds is completed ) which should then take me a few years or more. Why the 1001? Because I live in Indio ( though I SOOOOO miss my Hollywood friends and the awesome thrift stores there ). And Indio has the Riverside County Fair, the Date Festival, patterned after the Arabian Nights which were 1001 nights.

Some times there is big big frustration and one wonders if anyone knows or cares at all what has been my life's work. But being the creative genius... I wake up and my fingers itch to write. It just pours out of me, the creativity, because that is who I am. That is who God made me. I will just view it as a blessing even though I am living my life in poverty and obscurity. I can't afford to buy music so God has given me songs to sing that are uniquely mine. I don't have the money for art so I am given the blessing of seeing kaleidoscopes of color in my mind and can create my own art. I love to read fantasy and so much of it nowadays are just textbooks of how to practice witchcraft and magic ( BARF ) rather than actually using one's imagination to create a world of fiction, so I have been given worlds of imagination to wander through and create. So this is God's blessing for me. Even though there are naysayers that consider me to be a worthless bum. If you are artistic and poor you are the equivalent of ewwwww something scrapped off the bottom of a shoe. If you are artistic and rich you are worthy to be cast in gold or whatever to be worshipped and adored as an icon and idol. I don't want to the latter ( rich and famous, sure but worshipped iconically, no ) merely to be respected for my craft. Another blessing is that I do have friends who are artistic whom I treasure. They respect me as a peer which means more than the world to me. I am honored by their friendship and I love them dearly. Now if I only wasn't estranged from the family that feels they have the right to judge me and say they "know me." Self-absorbed, they sit in judgment. They do not have a rat's ass clue as to whom I am, not as a person and certainly not as the mad-eyed Bohemian that I ever profess to be. Off to stick a nose in a book. R is for Ricochet if you are so nosy as to want to know..

St Paddy's Day

I haven't been posting in my blog much of late ( bad bad me ) and I really need to do that. Lots of rants and a few raves as well. But this is just a short post. So since it is in the wee hours of St Patrick's Day, everyone have a good one!

Haiti

I haven't posted here in ages but felt I really needed to comment on this. This quake is such a tragedy. And yet, the people of this country, alone in the dark with terrifying aftershocks, sang and praised God for their survival. Haiti, California prays for you. We are well acquainted with earthquakes. I was living in Hollywood when the Northridge quake hit and have spasms ( from a pre-existing condition ) as the result of a fall during that time. I know there are people, too many, who have lost their lives and will have debilitating conditions much worse than the spasms I still live with. My heart and my prayers go out to the people of Haiti. God bless you all for your fortitude and your courage in the midst of this disaster.

Cynthia

Boomer Luxor

Well, I meandered on down to the Senior Center for Boomer Night. There were a number of people there. So what did I do? I went over to play a video game called Luxor. I tried it on Monday and got under 10,000. Well tonight I did not move from the time i got there at 5 pm till it closed at 8pm. And my score was over a million and a third! Whoa! Yep, these things can be addicting. 

I was interviewed and had my photo taken by some young reporter from the Indio Desert Sun ( part of the Palm Springs Desert sun ). He interviewed other people so I don't know if my interview and photo will show up but will check with the Desert Sun's website to see. If it does I will post about it here, along with the url. I did mention to him that I would like to start a boomer band and mentioned I had written over 9500 songs. 

Maybe next boomer night I might actually go and socialize a bit hahaha!

Indio Senior Center

I went to the opening of the Indio Senior Center on Saturday. Among other speakers ( as if anyone cared, we all wanted to get to the free food hahahaha ) was Mary Bono-Mack. So I went up and introduced myself as the starving artist- songwriter that I am and mentioned that it would be nice if there was a sliding scale for the copyrights people need. The rate for filing a copyright has gone up in less than twenty years from 10 bucks to 45 and for all I know it might be even more than that now. I have written over 9500 songs, a fantasy book ( hollyWEIRD ) and a bunch of poetry, etc. I am prolific. And it is just too freakin' expensive to copyright everything I want to copyright. So I mentioned this and said there should be something to help the poor starving artist ( which there are definitely more of than the rich and famous artist ). She looked annoyed. She mentioned ASCAP and BMI and I said maybe I could contact them. And then she said, when I said, maybe talking to them to LOBBY for sliding scales for the poor artist, that no but maybe they could help me financially. Ah huh. But there SHOULD be a sliding scale and one can sign it under penalty of perjury with fines if say someone is rich or earning more than allowed. A little postscript of this: I met Sonny Bono when he was the mayor of Palm Springs. It was after I had started to write songs. I asked him about songwriting, thinking he might know some place here in the Coachella Valley to do something about songs and the like. His reply "Go to Hollywood." I DID and while I didn't achieve anything resembling fame and fortune I feel I found something better - some lifetime friends and memories of friends I had met and known there who have since passed away. So I think his advice was great considering the true wealth I found there.  

The senior center rocked. It is just gorgeous and has a nice library, game room, other stuff. I am hoping to start hanging out there, start a club/class or two and see if I can put together a band of boomers. Oh YEAH. I went back there yesterday and played some game in the game room, looked through a couple of books, had some crabby old lady yell at me when I spent about 5 minutes on a treadmill going VERY SLOW. And whomever she is, I was nice to her but will see what sort of a crabapple she is if she is there on a regular basis. I can be kissy kiss if need be because I definitely intend to use this little center to promote me and yes, to spread my love of art, writing, painting, singing, etc. It would be nice to find some new fans to enjoy what I create. So we will see.

I am now on Facebook and it is fun, able to post photos there ( haven't figured out how to do it here; it might be easy but I don't know because I am the tech dummy of the universe... ). 

I am thinking of starting a writing blog... we will see.

SAC