Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast

Another great new supergroup now...

2009-07-15T21:01:00.003-05:00

...at the Boneyard, Sirius Ch. 19, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Chad Smith and Michael Anthony, also known as Chickenfoot: "Oh, yeah! Come on baby, tell me what you need..."
Damn, but Sammy Hagar sounds good for a senior citizen. I never thought anyone over 60 could rock like that. ;-) I saw their cd at Best Buy the last time I was there, for ten bucks. I shoulda bought it...they sound really good.

Oh man, this is just golden.

2009-07-15T09:34:00.000-05:00

I guess I missed this at Country California when it was posted. But considering I've just recently discovered Danzig, and the band was mentioned in a comment here, I had to go looking for that original post. And here it is (in bold)...

Martina McBride’s new album Shine comes out March 24...
...what is a surprise is her odd choice of cover song to include as an iTunes bonus track for the deluxe edition of the album. McBride will offer her version of rock band Danzig’s “Dirty Black Summer,” a grinding, soulful song that some have interpreted to be about crossing over into the path of evil....
McBride’s management would not comment on the song, but one of her friends told us: “Martina is experimenting a little; you can only sing so many Lifetime-friendly songs about kids dressed as bags of leaves before you feel the need to branch out.”

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!! I bet Jack Sparks would love that...

One wonders how far....

2009-07-15T08:25:00.000-05:00

...some people will take their lines of reasoning...

In his article, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott worried that local governments like Chicago's are trampling the rights of American citizens to bear arms. I find it bizarre that Abbott is so concerned about Chicago, which is not located in Texas. Has it occurred to Abbott that Chicago's 3 million residents, through their duly elected officials, might actually want to keep their strict gun control law from 1982?

So if, say, a majority of Chicago's 3 million residents wanted to suspend the Fourth and Fifth Amendment, that would be okay, too? And considering the state of that city's political machine, I'd tend to question that whole "duly elected" part, too...

The attorney general is surely joking as he laments the unrealized promise of gun ownership protected by the Second Amendment. With 200 million firearms in private hands, one has to wonder how much more freedom we need and where the protection for the community fits in his constitutional analysis.

Wow, really? One really has to wonder how much more freedom we need? A citizen of the United States, of by-God TEXAS, actually said this? I tremble for the future, I really do. What one really has to wonder, from where I sit, is just how far people like this would take that whole "we're too free" logic (and I use that term in its loosest sense). One also has to wonder what the Founding Fathers would say.

Call me crazy...

2009-07-15T08:08:00.002-05:00

...but I would really think that sending teams of snipers and personnel with other assorted armaments to kill al-Qaeda leaders with pinpoint surgical strikes is far, far preferable to using and putting at risk larger military units, no?

What do you want to bet...

2009-07-15T08:04:00.003-05:00

...they could have pulled the whole thing off armed only with knives, as well-planned as they were and as unprepared as their victims were?

PENSACOLA, Fla. — An ex-convict who taught self-defense to children. A day laborer who served prison time for killing a man in a fight. An Air Force staff sergeant attached to an elite special operations unit.
Somehow, authorities say, they ended up part of a loosely connected group of seven men charged in the shooting deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings, a wealthy Florida Panhandle couple known for adopting children with special needs.
The suspects, some dressed as ninjas, stole a safe and other items during the break-in Thursday at the sprawling Billings home west of Pensacola. Nine of the couple's 13 adopted children were home at the time. Three saw the intruders but were not hurt. Authorities would not say what was in the safe or what else was taken.
Some of the masked men entered through the front door, while others slipped in through an unlocked utility door in the back. They were in and out in under 10 minutes. The crime was captured by an extensive video surveillance system the Billings used to keep tabs on their many children.

Sooner or later we're gonna have to admit that the "easy availability of guns" isn't the problem, eh?

Just a question...

2009-07-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

...prompted by this story...

More than a hundred incendiary devices — including homemade pipe bombs, explosive boxes with booby traps and altered tear gas devices — were found in the Baytown area home of the former police officer authorities said fatally shot a Chambers County deputy and then killed himself.
...
Ortez used a high-powered rifle to kill Detwiler, the sheriff said. He then turned the rifle on himself and took his life with a single shot to the head, investigators said.

High-powered rifle. I see this phrase so often and I just don't understand why. Is there really a such thing as a "low-powered rifle"? Hell, even a .22 will kill if you put the bullet in the right spot. And this, this was just great...

Investigators recovered an unknown number of guns, including rapid fire assault rifles, from his home.

Rapid-fire assault rifles. Huh. as opposed to, what, high-powered long-range sniper rifles? And of course, plenty of this same sort of assclownery in the comments...

Two hundred million guns in our society versus a valuable public servant and 3 fatherless children.

So it was the fault of the 50 million-plus gun owners that this guy was cut down? I guess to some people it is.
I've read elsewhere that the deputy's killer had a history of domestic violence and assault. Chalk up one more reason I am 110 percent in favor of women learning to shoot and defend themselves with firearms. Sure would have been nice if one of his victims had put him in the ground before last week.

One of the best songs from the '90s...

2009-07-15T07:23:00.002-05:00

...from one of the greatest country singers of all time, at Prime Country, Sirius Ch. 61: "He's gone country, a new kind of walk...."
A No. 1 hit for Alan Jackson the week of Jan. 28, 1995, "Gone Country" was yet another classic from the pen of Beaumont native and Lamar University graduate Bob McDill. A lot of people -- including Jackson himself -- saw the song as a celebration of country music's renewed popularity in the wake of Garth Brooks and the like, but I read later that McDill was making fun of certain opportunistic mindsets when he wrote it. Which makes sense when you consider what the song says...
"He says, I don't believe in money, but a man could make him a killin', cause some-a that stuff don't sound much different than Dylan,
"'I hear down there, it's changed, you see, well, they're not as backward, as they used to be,' he's gone country..."
As long as McDill had been a Nashville hitmaker by that time (at least since the early '70s, going by this list) I find it a bit difficult to believe he'd really think people were backward during that time, but then maybe that's just my biases talking.

Another random rock observation....

2009-07-14T16:04:00.006-05:00

....brought to you by Bad Company and "Shooting Star"...
If Bad Company was not the greatest supergroup of all time, then I do believe they were definitely in the top 3. I also like a lot of the work of Cream, and more recently Audioslave too, but on the whole I think BadCo is and has always been at the top of the list.
On the other hand, hearing what I've heard on Sirius from one of BadCo's forerunners, I've said this before and I'll say it again -- for them being just a one-hit act (at least in the States), Free was a damn good rock band. Paul Rodgers has always been a hell of a singer.

Ooooh, more Queensryche...

2009-07-14T10:02:00.003-05:00

...at the Boneyard, Sirius Ch. 19: "Last night the word came down, ten dead in Chinatown...Innocent, their only crime was being in the wrong place, at the wrong time...Too bad, people say, what's wrong with the kids today...I tell you right now they've got nothing to lose...They're building EMPIRE!"
This was the title track from that album I was talking about the other day, one of those songs I could never see Bon Jovi or Poison even thinking about doing. Like I've said, I don't understand why anyone would consider that album a sellout. It did have more of a mainstream sound, but even so all the songs were very well-written. I am really liking "Another Rainy Night," "Best I Can," and "The Thin Line" as well. I suppose I could give that cd a proper review....

Man, I had gotten to thinking...

2009-07-14T09:14:00.002-05:00

...nobody made music like this anymore, at Willie's Place, Sirius Ch. 64: "My ex is out tonight, while my walls are closing in...Where are all the girls I use to cheat with?"
Once again, that's Merle Haggard's stepson Ron Williams doing an old Keith Whitley song, from his cd Texas Style, which came out about two years ago. Seriously, before I found out just who he was, I could have sworn he was one of those near-forgotten singers from the 1970s, like Mel Street. What I've heard of him sounds just like it was recorded back then. But it doesn't sound the least bit dated. I prefer the term "timeless."

Well, isn't this interesting...

2009-07-14T08:20:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite Texas singers doing one of my favorite Texas country classics, just the way it was recorded, LIVE, at Outlaw Country, Sirius Ch. 63: "He sure does like his Falstaff beer....likes to chase it down with that Wiiiild Turkey liquor...."
Of course, that's the Ray Wylie Hubbard classic "Up Against The Wall Redneck." The definitive version was on Jerry Jeff Walker's 1973 live album Viva Terlingua, recorded in Luckenbach. I did not know this, but it seems that a bunch of Texas/Americana guys got together a few years ago and recorded almost a song-for-song remake of that entire album. Cory Morrow does the honors on this track and he did pretty well. The lineup looks quite solid...Tommy Alverson, Ed Burleson, Brian Burns, and the Derailers, among others. I might have to check that one out.

They had cameras...

2009-07-14T07:57:00.000-05:00

...did they have alarms, too?

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Byrd and Melanie Billings had a growing brood of adopted children with autism, Down syndrome and other disabilities, and took care to make their nine-bedroom house a safe place for them, wiring it with surveillance cameras in every room.
It was those cameras that captured images of the masked men who shot the wealthy couple to death in a break-in executed with chilling precision.

Or how about any method of or plan for defense? Surely these people knew that with their wealth they'd be a juicy target to some people -- especially considering, as the story put it, that they lived in a "house set deep in the woods" -- where as the old saying goes, when seconds count the police are only minutes away. God only knows what the couple's odds would have been with the kind of operation detailed here, but at least they'd have had a fighting chance -- perhaps better than anyone could expect, considering that was their turf and that they knew it better than outsiders. The way it sounds here they were caught completely flat-footed. No doubt that camera footage will make it easier for a jury to give those creatures the needle, but ideally they'd have been put down like the rabid animals they were as they broke down the door.

Another band I've come to appreciate a LOT more in recent years...

2009-07-14T07:19:00.003-05:00

...at Classic Rewind, Sirius Ch. 15: "I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives, nobody's putting up a fight...I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell...I'm gonna get ya, Satan get ya...Hells bells..."
I don't know why, but for a long time I wasn't really that big on AC/DC. As I started getting into that old rock more, the more I liked them. They may be an Australian band, but they know how to make good old American rock and roll, and "Hells Bells" has gotten to be one of my favorites. I like a lot of the songs that Bon Scott sang lead on, but my preference is the Brian Johnson era, of which "Hells Bells" was a part, of course. Sometimes that getting a new lead singer works, and sometimes it doesn't; in the case of AC/DC, it worked perfectly. They couldn't have picked anyone better to replace Bon Scott after his untimely death. From what I understand Scott had actually seen Johnson perform on stage before and thought he was really good, though I am not sure if that played a part. At any rate, of course, AC/DC saw its biggest success after Johnson came on board, with the first Johnson-era record -- 1980's Back in Black -- selling more than 22 million copies in the United States alone. That was another of those times where good music actually sold well instead of being just a critical favorite. ;-) It was (and is) an awesome record, too..."Hells Bells," "Back In Black," "Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"...oh, hell yeah.

Ooooh, 7:25 am, at the Boneyard, Sirius Ch. 19: "inferno's coming, can we surviiiiive the blitzkrieg...."

Random thoughts on a new phenomenon

2009-07-13T08:35:00.004-05:00

No offense to those of you who do it, but I just don't get the whole Twitter thing. (And I see I am not the only one...) I have a Facebook page and a blog, both of which I can see uses for vis-a-vis letting people know what I'm doing, thinking, or what have you, day-to-day. Beyond that, what's the point? I recall a blogger not so long ago who shall not be named who started off a post (or it might have been a sentence in a post) with something to the effect of, "Since most of you don't follow me on twitter..." And I got a huge kick out of that. I won't lie -- I thought, "Can you hear that clue phone ringin' there?" The whole thing just seems to me to have been created by and for narcissistic, egotistical blowhards. (Note: I am NOT saying everyone who Twits is a narcissistic, egotistical blowhard -- although I am sure many are...) When I went on my Neches River adventure yesterday I had my phone in the boat with me, and that's where it stayed when I got in the water. I suppose I could have Tweeted that, if I had a Twitter account...but why bother? It's just not that big of a deal to me that people don't know what I'm up to minute-by-minute. And if people really want to know, most of the time they can get ahold of me on my cell phone. I don't often agree with the points Wiley Miller makes in Non Sequitur, but I thought he nailed this one squarely in the X-ring. And I know it was about Facebook, but it's perhaps even more apt for Twitter.

Thoughts?

Movin' on up...

2009-07-13T08:14:00.002-05:00

Not me, but reader, commenter and blog-friend Bob S. Adjust your bookmarks & blogrolls accordingly.

...And your point...?

2009-07-13T07:39:00.000-05:00

In the comments to Dwight Silverman's guide to buying a laptop on a budget, one commenter said...

...or you can just buy a Mac.

A response:

You do know that a Mac won't give you the same options and customizability as you can get with other PCs, right? Nor does it run Windows by default.

I am guessing this writer meant to make that sound like a bad thing. Perhaps it could be if you're the type who likes to tinker with hardware, build your own machines and things like that. And I can see the appeal in that sort of endeavor, but when you get right down to actually using the machine, in my experience the Macintosh will do everything a Windows computer will -- or at least everything I need a Windows computer to do. Don't know if I could play Counterstrike on it (thanks for that, Tam), but since I've never been a gamer that's not a concern for me. I have the MS Office Suite on my Mac with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage and have used Word and Excel in their intended environments and they've all done what I need them to do. I don't know about QuickBooks or other software like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had or were working on Mac versions for that. Yep, the Macs are more expensive, but that's just what happens when you're dealing with proprietary hardware and software. Even so, when I was music shopping at Best Buy last week I saw the 13-inch MacBook with the 2.13GHz Intel processor, 2GB of double-data-rate memory and a 160GB hard drive for $999. Seems like a bargain to me even at that price. YMMV, and often does, of course...but I'll probably never go back to Windows if I can help it.

Yeah, you can hunt with it...

2009-07-12T12:28:00.001-05:00

A referral, from Google, "dan wesson razor back for hunting sidearm."
Yeah, you can use it for that. I've heard a lot of folks hunt with 10mm — including the Motor City Madman himself, Ted Nugent, who's done it with the Glock 20. If I remember correctly, Buffalo Bore loads its 10mm so hot (180 grains @ 1350 fps, 200gr @ 1200) for precisely that purpose. Double Tap also has some good hot'n'heavy loads for it as well. I've read of whitetail deer, hogs and javelina all being taken with the 10mm, albeit at all very short ranges, as in about 25-40 yards. Don't think I'd wanna get that close to a javelina or hog with that amount of firepower. Even if I was good at follow-up shots with that hot load. Also, if you're gonna be driving those hot loads through that gun on a regular basis, I'd suggest one of these.

In which I lapse into livejournal mode.

2009-07-12T08:29:00.002-05:00

I was going to whine here about moving and losing/misplacing stuff, but where was the thing I was looking for? In the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Yeah, you know what I'm gonna be listening to at work here in a few. Before I go out on the river with the folks, that is. ;-)
Mood: excited
Music: AC/DC, "Let There Be Rock"

Texas AG does right by us.

2009-07-12T07:55:00.000-05:00

and he explains his actions, in today's Houston Chronicle.

Americans breathed a sigh of relief last year when the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment does, indeed, protect individuals from government infringement on their right to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately, some state and local governments still believe that prohibition does not apply to them.

Indeed they do, and I do not understand. I am quite familiar with the doctrine of selective incorporation, and I know that's exactly what this is an example of, but I have never understood why anyone would think selective incorporation was a good idea -- in theory OR in practice. Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz said this of those who try to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution: "They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." And this is exactly what the doctrine of selective incorporation does as well, because its very foundation rests upon the premise that some of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights are more equal than others. Call me crazy, but I don't think the Founding Fathers would have agreed with that.
Oh, and I thought this was quite interesting, considering the source...

The rights that the Constitution's framers wanted to protect from government abuse were referred to in the Declaration of Independence as "unalienable rights." They were also called "natural" rights, and to James Madison, they were "the great rights of mankind." Although it is commonly thought that we are entitled to free speech because the First Amendment gives it to us, this country's original citizens believed that as human beings, they were entitled to free speech, and they invented the First Amendment in order to protect it. The entire Bill of Rights was created to protect rights the original citizens believed were naturally theirs...

Given what they paint as their stalwart defense of the rest of the BofR, a it's worthy question as to just why the ACLU doesn't defend the 2A as ardently as the other nine amendments contained therein. It would seem, going from the words of chairperson Nadine Strossen, they believe some rights are more equal than others too. "...the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty." Really? As the man says, if that's the case, then why the hell did they put it in the Bill of Rights? Right behind freedom of speech, religion and assembly, no less?
Back to Greg Abbott's piece, though, I also thought it was pretty sharp of him to point out the use of gun control as a tool of racist governments to limit the liberties of blacks. That seems to be a lost point in the debate these days, especially with groups like the NAACP arguing for stricter gun control all the time. One wonders who the REAL Uncle Toms are now, hmmm? Like I've said before, no doubt the Deacons for Defense and Justice would so very proud...

Stories involving guns always make for interesting comments...

2009-07-12T07:19:00.001-05:00

...and this story is no exception....

I tell my daughters, never date the insecure man that must own a gun. One day he will just decide to shoot you.

Huh. I wonder if he tells his daughters men with guns are compensating for small endowments too. Wouldn't surprise me a bit, but still I shudder to think of what kinds of men they'll be dating. Whoever those men may be, I hope they're good at hand-to-hand combat and don't mind the risk of getting cut and bleeding out. Odds are, though, if they're the type to eschew firearms as possessions of the eedle-nay icked-day, they won't be.

More Texas music....

2009-07-11T09:13:00.002-05:00

....but not what you might be thinking, at Faction, Sirius Ch. 28: "Here we come, reach for your gun, and you better listen well, my friend, you see...It's been slow down below, aimed at you, we're the cowboys from hell..."
I've only heard that first Pantera groove-thrash disc (1990's Cowboys From Hell), so I was thinking they had two different guitar players -- one on lead and one on rhythm. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Dimebag Darrell was playing both parts and that they used overdubs to create that sound. Shows how much I have to learn about that old music, I guess. I was thinking they were like Metallica in that respect, with frontman Phil Anselmo playing the rhythm guitar. A guy I work with told me that after Cowboys, though, Pantera went to recording as they played live, with no overdubbing. Either way they sounded bad-ass.

(...and for you-know-who...if you thought vintage Metallica sounded like your blender, you'd just lurrrrrve you some Pantera... ;-) )

I thought it already was...

2009-07-11T07:53:00.000-05:00

...was I missing something?

"The culture wars have been ongoing in this country for many years," Worthington said. "We can't afford for the university to become a political battleground."

Call me crazy, but I thought it already was a political battleground, at least to some extent. Seriously, what kind of debate would I stir up if, say, I walked into this guy's classroom wearing this shirt? Or what of professors such as Ward Churchill or Michael Bellesiles? ATR just threw a shit fit with a bunch of bloggers, but in the cases of the actions of the other two, if the students on their campuses are anywhere nearly as well-read and informed as they should be, there's going to be at least a little bit of conflict there. I can understand the desire of college administrators to minimize the risk of violent conflict, but clamping down on free speech isn't the way to do it. If you do it that way and don't address why they feel they have to settle heated debates with their fists, you'll still have a group of hot-tempered individuals under the dangerous delusion that's the way to go about it. I can only imagine how that sounds...and believe me, I know there are some things only violence will settle. Maybe they could start teaching students about the use of force continuum, initiation of force and things like that. Of course I may well be reading entirely too much into this whole thing. Reading that story again, I can't help but think they're just trying to avoid hurt feelings. They said the Missouri workshop was "tolerating offensive speech without allowing racial, ethnic, cultural and religious slurs or sexually explicit remarks." (I wonder if "gun nut" or "gun freak" counted as a cultural slur...) Well that's just peachy, but when you take away the slurs and sexually explicit remarks, what exactly is left that is offensive? Who gets to define that? And WHY do they get to define it? I honestly don't know where the line should be drawn, but I do think we as a society should grow the hell up, grow a thicker skin and work on just brushing things off. The alternative is something our forefathers fought and died to prevent, and we owe them and our progeny more than that.

Forgot to mention...

2009-07-10T08:13:00.000-05:00

...this, from the 'Dog:

...The only two times that I've read Texas Monthly, I've been somewhat shocked by the sheer amount of left-wing bias it contained.
I don't know how one could call a magazine "Texas Monthly" when the only articles that I've ever read in "Texas Monthly" were embarrassed by Texas and Texans.

I haven't watched the video LawDog featured in that post, but his comments re: Texas Monthly were right on the money and have been at least ever since I ever saw the magazine some 20 years ago. I remember thinking, "Wow, for a magazine with such a name, it's certainly overstaffed with people with contempt for its namesake." A couple of the commenters described Texas Monthly as "reflect(ing) the left leaning liberals of Austin," "always apologizing for being in Texas," and "the organ of the pseudo-cosmopolitan smug Dallas scene." All of which described what I've seen in the publication to a tee. Don't know about the "Vanity Fair: the Texas Edition," though...for the simple reason that my fingertips have never flipped open the cover of that mag. It wouldn't surprise me, based on what I've heard about VF.

Wow, I sort of agree with Nancy Pelosi...

2009-07-10T07:09:00.000-05:00

...here...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday abruptly blocked an effort by Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to have the House of Representatives pass a resolution honoring pop star Michael Jackson as an international humanitarian.
Pelosi’s reasoning: She didn’t want to open up a congressional debate on the seamier side of the pop icon’s life.

...but then, on the other hand, the longer they debate penny-ante shit like this, the less time they have to wreck the economy any more than they already are with the healthcare and cap-and-tax schemes. Oh well. Every silver lining has its cloud. How about they debate a resolution declaring Sheila Jackson-Lee an embarrassment to the Texas congressional delegation? I bet they could charge for that debate. Yeah, I think it'd be that good. ;-)

I guess I was just lucky that way

2009-07-09T08:31:00.002-05:00

...if you wanna call it that...

...people flipped the hell out. I mean seriously. The second the word was let out that Michael Jackson died, his records started flying off the shelves again. Folks were sobbing in the streets. Every frickin’ radio station started playing his songs non-stop. MTV started playing actual videos again.

...because when Michael Jackson took his last breaths, I missed the nonstop radio airplay and the people crying in the streets. Oh, I saw the headlines and such via the Internet and print media, but beyond that I just thought, "What a shame." Which it was, of course, but there was a bit of overkill on the coverage of it all, it seemed. Another good thing about Sirius, indeed. Would that they'd had it during the O.J. Simpson trial...