you know, just another saturday night

Saturday night, rhonda and i are getting ready to go to see chris bliss at the south point casino where he is doing a three day gig in the big room and we are almost ready to walk out the door when my phone rings and it is the video producer/editor of the ringo starr tour, brent carpenter, a long time friend from back in my l.a. days.

brent says that ringo has asked if i would like to come down to primm, nevada to see him and his all star band. now, rhonda has never met ringo but she, of course, has heard me speak of him and how i came to open for the band when they played at caesar's palace here back in the 90's. (i am ringo's favorite comic and they play my c.d.'s and dvd's on the tour bus) i tell rhonda that we are not going to see chris but how would she like to go see ringo starr. needless to say, she was all for it!

i call chris to tell him that we are not coming but are going to see ringo but he does not answer the phone so i leave a message telling him the news. while we are in the car, chris calls and rhonda answers the phone; chris says, as way of opening, "i have two words for you---------tough decision!" lol.

we get down to primm and go to the "will call" desk and there are not only seats for us but backstage passes. i call brent and he tells me to meet him at the stage and we can go in and hang out with the band. what a band it was! edgar winters, gary wright, billy squire, hamish stewart (average white band), colin hay (men at work), gregg bissonette on drums and, of course, ringo.

she gets her picture taken with ringo and later with edgar winters and she is in heaven. winters and i talked about several shows i had seen him do in houston; some with leon russell and some with his brother, johnny. i had probably seen e.w. at least ten times in texas. what probably blew rhonda away the most was how pleased all these people were to meet me. they all were familiar with my work from listening to my c.d.'s and hearing ringo and brent talk about me. soon it is show time, so we go to our fifth row center seats for an hour and half of rock and roll. ringo has an absolute blast performing with these all stars and a good time was had by each and every one of the sold out crowd. everyone was unbelievable. edgar winter was un-fucking-believable! exceptional, even among these artists; he played saxaphone, electric piano and some drums on "frankenstein." that old, skinny albino can just rule a stage. billy squire was strong as grandma's lye soap as well. like i said, they were all UN-fucking-believable.

The format was that ringo did the first several songs and then each band member was featured on one or more of their own individual hits.

at the beginning of the show, ringo pointed me out to the crowd and said some very nice things about me. how fucking cool is that? (the people around us were also duly impressed...)

a little side note: most of the crowd were older and fans from waaay back but there were some young people in attendance as well, including a really cute couple right in front of us, ryan and kelsi, who came in not really knowing what to expect but were just mesmerized and left giant ringo fans.

anyway, that is how i spent saturday night.



(if i haven't ever written about that caesar's palace gig here on the blog i will one of these days. it is a great story)

a nevada tale.

i have a poker playing buddy whom we shall call bob who told me this story:

he was in a card counting ring and they had gone up to reno to ply their trade. they had chosen boomtown casino which is up the mountain on I-80 going west and is the last casino before you get up to lake tahoe area. it is winter time and it is snowing.

bob has stationed himself where he can see a "weak" dealer's hole card and is passing the info onto his cohorts at the table when casino security comes and rousts him. they tell him they know what he is doing but they don't know who his allies are so they are kicking him off the property.

they escort him to the front door of the casino and tell him to scram. bob asks if he can just stand under the awning because all he has on is a sport coat and slacks. no, they say, "you must leave our property."

"what about that closed gasoline station over there? can i wait there?" asks bob.

"nope, we own that too. matter of fact, as far as you can see, we own all of it. except for that interstate over there. you can walk over to it and you would be off our property." says they.

so bob hikes over to the interstate and is trying to get a ride back down to reno. he is standing beside the road in the snow hitchhiking. cars are going quite fast down the mountain because the road is clear though the snow is coming down harder and harder. no one will stop for him, probably because they don't see him until they are almost past and bob is getting quite cold when finally a car pulls over.

bob trots to the car but the door is locked and then the window comes down a little bit and the driver says: "what in the hell are you doing out here in the snow?"

bob figures the truth is the best here so he replies, "i don't know if you will understand this but i am a card counter and i was working over there at boomtown and security busted me. all i need is a ride into reno because i am staying at the silver nugget."

the driver says, "i am a slot cheat so i can't afford to be seen with you!" and drives off.

only in nevada.

to think: he is the best they could do.

here is a stunning thought for you: john mc cain is the very best the republicans could do. that this old man who, almost every day, makes another statement showing either his inability to understand the situation in iraq or his inability to tell the truth, is their standard bearer in these troubling times, is almost beyond belief.

just yesterday, he goes on cbs and makes a totally false statement which cbs chose not to air (ah, that liberal press again.) johnny mc idiot says that the surge is what caused the "awakening councils" in anbar province. quick! someone tell him that the awakening was WAY BEFORE the surge and the surge had absolutely nothing to do with it.

today, the mc smear campaign made an insinuation that obama is in favor of genocide. unfucking believeable... and what is scary is that there are idiots out there who get their news only from fox or rush, who will believe literally anything they are told. then again, we are pretty much at the bottom of the barrel education-wise in the world, so nothing to do with americans' lack of knowledge should surprise me.

some on the left are afraid that some racist idiot from somewhere in the south will assassinate obama. i know how he can protect himself from that....name al sharpton as his vice president. now, no one will be shooting at obama.

of course, the republicans will take what i just said and start another scare rumor on the net. OBAMA SUPPORTERS HOPE FOR SHARPTON AS VP!!

while the polls are close right now, obama is going to win in a landslide. once senator mc cain and senator obama are on the stage together answering real questions about policy and plans, senator mc cain will look to be the uninformed, obfuscating fool that he is. the american people may be stupid but surely they won't be so stupid as to elect mc cain, who will only follow in the disasterous footsteps of george "the decider" bush, as president. surely not. but then again...they did re-elect bush. (well, that is not quite correct...we didn't elect him the first time so he couldn't be re-elected.)

elect senator obama and get this country going in the right direction. please.

someone give mc cain some geography lessons

when senator obama embarked on his trip to the middle east and europe the republicans were just giddy with thoughts of how he would make mistakes that they could pounce on. they were so sure that things would get out of hand, that his so-called inexperience would show, that the troops wouldn't welcome him, that he would be chided by some leader, that he would somehow make such a huge mistake that senator mc cain could leap into the lead. well, so far, they couldn't have been more wrong. not only has senator obama not made any gaffes; senator mc cain seems incapable of going a day without sticking his foot into his ever open mouth.

a couple of days ago, senator mc cain said there are a lot of problems along the iraq/pakistan border. only problem with that is THERE IS NO IRAQ- PAKISTAN BORDER. so, now we know that senator mc cain does not know the difference between a sunni and a shiite he also doesn't know where pakistan and iraq are in relationship to one another.

over the past couple of weeks senator mc cain kept referring to czechslovikia (sp?) which HASN'T EXISTED FOR 33 YEARS. who says mc cain lives in the past?

the american people want us out of iraq.
the iraqi people want us out of iraq.
senator obama wants us out of iraq.
the whole world (with the exception of isreal) want us out of iraq.
senator mc cain wants us to stay in iraq until "victory" is accomplished. (but he refuses to define what "victory" is)

ah, but that last statement is another FLIP FLOP for john mc cain in what seems to be a never ending series of flip flops. in 2004 he was asked "if the iraqi government told us to leave should we leave?" AND GUESS WHAT OLD STRAIGHT SHOOTER SAID? he said that if the government of iraq requested that we leave there would be no question but that we should leave. (i saw the quote yesterday in the huffington post)

now, even george, the decider, bush is talking about a timeline "horizon", whatever the fuck that means but what it insinuates is that even gwb is talking about withdrawing american troops from iraq.

i wonder if your local paper ran an article about john mc cain flip flopping on this issue.

i wonder if your local paper ran an article about him saying "iraqi/pakistan border."

i wonder if your local paper ever runs a critical article about senator john mc cain or doe they just refer to him as "an american hero'?

mc cain wants to solve our problems with military might, you know, " bomb, bomb, bomb iran." which was a sickening peek inside the mind of mc cain. making a joke about bombing a country. gee, that's really funny, john. you sick old fuck. making jokes about killing people. back in the 80's mc cain made a joke about how a woman should just enjoy being raped. you sick old fuck.

john mc cain finished 5th from the bottom at the naval academy and his dad was an admiral. if his dad wasn't an admiral johnny wouldn't have graduated. he was a fuck up then and he is a fuck up now. he wasn't bright then and he isn't bright now.

he is not an american hero. he was/is not a great senator. he would be a terrible president.

1.25 MILLION DOLLARS PER ROOM!

article in the washington post points out that the u.s. air force is building capsules to fit inside of large military planes that make into traveling quarters for high ranking officers and vips. putting two of the capsules together they include plush, swiveling leather chairs with footrests, beds, a couch, a table, a 37 inch flat screen monitor with stereo speakers and a full length mirror.

they are using counter terrorism funds for this.

they are going to make 3 of these two room capsules. cost for THREE is 7.6 million dollars! that is a little over two and one half million dollars for two rooms or 1.25 million dollars PER ROOM. gotta have those generals go in style, god forbid they go like the troops under them go because, well, hell, what would be the sense in being a general?

gotta counter that terrorism.

there are 114 democracies in the world. we are 114th in voter participation. adams, jefferson, washington et al must be really proud of us.

70% of voting age population is registered. 55-60% of them vote. 55% is average winning percentage. so 60% of 70% = 42% and 55% of that is 23.1% so we get a president that was elected by LESS THAN ONE QUARTER OF THE VOTING AGE PUBLIC. or said another way, three quarters of us did not vote for whomever is president.

more likely, adams, jefferson, washington, et al must be sick to their stomachs. to think they risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor so that we could stay home and bitch instead of getting involved.

so for those of you who are not involved in politics, who are not campaigning for your candidate, who are not sending money to whomever you support, who are just sitting at home at your computer with your little smirks on your little faces ...... shut up.

in the past 5 years here in nevada, our power company has raised rates 30%. in those same five years the compensation for the top five guys (all white guys, i might add) went up, 227%, 265%, 123%, 204% and 55% for total salaries of 4.9 mil, 1.9 mil., 1.4 mil, 1.4 mil and 373k. well at least those guys won't have trouble paying THEIR electric bills this summer while the rest of us are paying 500 or so per month.

newspaper coverage, a good speech by mc cain, jessie jackson and other morons

tomorrow, strangely enough, i will be featured in two newspapers, worlds apart; the las vegas sun and the hilton head island packett. i haven't had all that much press since i came back to work in 2000 so it is nice to see my happy smiling face in newspapers. we had a running story in the bloomington, indiana newspaper when rhonda and i got married. she was living there and working for the university and up and quit to go marry a basically unknown comic and then our wedding made the news because of its unusual character. i was married in my back yard by the POPE OF THE CHURCH OF LOGICAL THOUGHT, a church that i founded here in las vegas strictly for the purpose of appointing a pope who could then marry me. my friend, steve epstein, of TEXAS OUTLAW COMICS fame, was and is the pope. steve does frank sinatra impersonations so he was dressed as frank for the service and sang I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU as part of the service. it was great fun and the bloomington newspaper thought so too and wrote a couple of articles on rhonda and me.

prior to listening to siren song of tv and moving from here to los angeles in 93 i was incredibly popular with the press here, the two newspapers wrote about me regularly, i was a frequent guest on the local tv shows and could almost always be found on your radio dial on the rock stations. if i had stayed here instead of going to lala land no telling what would have happened; probably my own show in one of the casinos ala rita rudner or george wallace. i let too many people influence me to move instead of following my own council. oh well, maybe i can start it all up again. vegas does not have ageism, if you are a good performer and can draw people into your room you can get a deal. whether i am up to a weekly grind though is questionable. i like working 20-25 weeks a year and playing poker or swimming the rest of the time with a trip over to l.a. to see the dodgers every now and then. thanks to xm and sirius radio, we do a nice little business over the net in c.d.'s and dvd's and with rhonda being a cpa and thus always employable i don't have to worry about making a lot of money. the only reason i would like to be a "star" is so that i could play to larger audiences. it is the making people laugh that is my high. oh, 20k per week would be cool, don't get me wrong, but it is not the motivating factor in my life and hasn't been since i have been in comedy. matter of fact, comedy is the very first thing i had ever done where money was not the motivating factor.

on to something else: is jessie jackson stupid or jealous or both? wants to cut off obama's nuts and, to add insult to injury, used the "n" word as well. he said that obama was talking down to black people when he called on black men to take responsibility for children they have fathered. of course, bill cosby had done the same thing, does the reverend jackson want to cut off his balls too? AND what kind of MINISTER (CHRISTIAN AT THAT!) would say something like that? is that what jesus would do? give me a fucking break. jackson has become a caricature of his former self. what someone needs to do is cut off jackson's microphone.

senator mc cain gave a great speech at the naacp and kudos to him for doing it. unlike some other republicans, mc cain does not seem to me a racist and would not be that bad of a president for minorities other than for his adherance to untolerable republican financial positions which hurt the poor more than any other group and the poor are mostly people of color. unlike many in his party, senator mc cain is not against some kind of immigration policy that is not just "throw them out!" which seems to be the position of many of the rank and file on the republican side.

all these banks and other financial institutions (think bear-stearns) who are in deep shit have or had excutives who were or are paid millions of dollars for their "knowledge and experience." they are so fucking smart they thought people who have bad credit are going to somehow change their ways and start paying mortgages with esculating rates. they were so smart they thought the housing market would go up 15-20% per year indefinately. these same excutives have bloody hands when it comes to the huge financial problems that our country now faces. if i was a stockholder of any of these companies which are now in a tailspin i would be asking for a refund of the monies paid to these MORONS.

it is 103 here at 12:30 in the afternoon, think i will take a dip in the pool.

flight home

back home in vegas after the plane flight from purgatory. (would have said, "hell", but it wasn't the worst flight on record). i am supposed to leave savannaha (sp?) at 6:10 in evening to catch 8:40 flight in atlanta to las vegas. my flight is delayed so ticket agent tells me that i will miss my connection so she has me confirmed on a 9:45 flight but i will have to check in at desk to get seat and the flight is almost full so i will end up in middle seat. (had window for the 8:40..which i prefer) so we finally board at a little past 8 but then we sit on runway for an hour which means the 9:45 is getting problematic. when we get to atlanta air space we have to circle for a while and then we land but can't get to our gate because another plane is still there. 9:45 is going to be problem because it is now 9:35. we finally get to gate at about 9:50. we, of course, are not in terminal from which next flight leaves. i do the airport run, dodging and dashing, down the escalator, on the train, off the train, up the escalator, start running down corridor and as i pass gate 19 on way to gate 24 i glance over and lo and behold, it is the 8:40 flight to vegas and it is still boarding. screeching to halt, thanking the air gods for my good fortune, i get on plane. it is now a little after ten. we sit on plane until a little after eleven and almost leave then but i have noticed that the cargo door must still be open because there are bags on ground waiting to be loaded. the pilot calls for flight attendents to take their seats and prepare for takeoff. i tell one of the f.a.'s that the bags are there and she looks out and confirms and scoots down aisle to notify pilot. gads! they were going to take off with door open! finally, bags are loaded and we leave gate only to find we are number 84,376th in line.

when we get to vegas they have lost my bags.

glad to be home.

start tonight at the trop where i am hosting the show. part of my deal with the owner is that he gives me a lot of weeks but i agree to take any position. this way, i can tell him which dates i want and he always can get me in and since this club uses only headliners in all three positions anyway i don't really care. i have no ego about it and am always glad to work here at home. plus he pays me the same regardless of position.

rhonda is going to video me all this week with our new camera and i may make a new dvd from the shows; we shall see.

oh well, nothing to say so will say goodbye.

the hilton head comedy club two week review

i had never opened a room before though i have closed a couple over the years and this has been a combination of nerves, fears, hopes, dreams, plans, last minute changes, unforeseen problems, small crowds, no advertising, some advertising, bigger crowds and BIGGER CROWDS. it looks as if my two good friends, mike and john, are on their way to having a successful club here in hilton head, south carolina. last night, our first show was around 80 people which was, far and away, the biggest crowd of the two weeks i was here. they finally got some ads in some small surrounding newspapers and will have a big feature article in the main paper next week. every day our crowds got bigger, mostly through word of mouth. one night last week we had only 9 in for the show and i got a standing ovation from them and then last night for our biggest show i got another one. good shows is what will get this club over the hump and, thankfully, i nailed every show, big or little. i felt more pressure here than anything i have done since i came back to comedy because these are my friends and i do so want them to succeed. mike has put most of his money in the business and john left a very good excutive job to do this. they are "all in" to use a poker expression.

they will succeed because this island, though small, is populated by upper-middle class people who, even in the recession, have disposable income and there is absolutely nothing to do in hilton head, south carolina after the sun goes down for adults. oh, there are drinking and dancing clubs galore down on the south end of the island but they are geared to very young adults; a 45 year old couple is not going there. there is a small jazz club on the island and brothers and sisters, that is all. the most common thing we heard from the customers was "we really need this here on the island."

the crowds that have come to the shows have been VERY bright and VERY well read...hell, they even got a latin joke plus a geometry joke. it was a pleasure to perform for them.

they have a lineup that is over the top with talent, todd paul, pat godwin, a. whitney brown, chris bliss, kenny rogerson, tim walkoe, russ nagal and others are in the first six months.

so anyway, today i head home to vegas where i start tomorrow at the trop.

it is the economy, stupid.

senator john mc cain has stated, for the record, that he "doesn't know much about the economy" and thus he signed up phil graham to be an economic advisor. phil's advice to americans, "quit whining." you lost your job, can't afford both food and gasoline so either you don't eat and use car to look for job or eat and walk to job interviews but don't you fucking whine about it you little liberal loser you. professor graham then said this wasn't a real recession but, are you ready?, a "mental recession." soooo, obviously you have just imagined you lost your job and can't afford both food and gasoline. just tell the kids that hunger in their stomach is just their imagination.

senator mc cain said that graham doesn't speak for him and that he speaks for himself and he alone.

right, that he does. so when he was speaking for himself, senator mc cain said, "i don't know much about the economy." and we are back to square one. and that square is where the election is going to be won or lost. it is, as bill clinton's campaign said, "the economy, stupid."

the economy must not only be faced as an election issue; it must be faced with some honesty for a change instead looking at it through partisan-tinted glasses. whoever is in office must be willing to put all options on the table and then get advice from a wide spectrum of intelligent, knowledgeable people FROM ALL SIDES and then, and then only, go full tilt boogie on stabilizing the economy and getting americans back to work. it is the economy, stupid!

bush and his gang of treasury robbers have started two wars without ever raising taxes. only time in american history, i might add. they kept the war spending out of the budget so as to hide the ENORMOUS DEBT we are incurring. that debt is what makes the dollar fall. the dollar falling is one of the main reasons for the gasoline price increases. (bush did give a tax break to the most wealthy of us though, gotta take of one's own is his creed.) so the dollar must be stabilized. it is the economy, stupid.

the housing market collapsed (or are we imagining that, phil, old buddy?) and repercussions are still being felt. the collapse affected millions of jobs; from construction to financing. millions. each job lost affects the prospects of the jobs still there. if your customers are laid off, your business suffers and soon you may be laying off your staff and then, one horrible day, you have to lay yourself off. those construction jobs are an incredible value to the country. that wall street broker has nothing to do if joe worker is laid off. let me put it this way, we can do without wall street brokers but we cannot do without our construction labor force. the making of a "thing" creates real wealth, brokers just move money around; they make not a single "thing". as they move the money around, they keep some. (now, that "money" may be used to finance some new company that will, in some way, make "things" but the money was generated by a labor force.) construction must start up again. it's the economy stupid.

many reasons are given for the housing market collapse but, in my mind, greed was the main factor. the price of homes went up through the roof and, in doing so, priced homes out of reach of the working people. it seemed as though everyone in the housing market for the boom years wasn't looking for a nice place to live but some house where they could double their money. the housing market isn't going to take off again until the prices of existing homes come down to "what they are really worth". (the home i live in supposedly tripled in 4 years. rhonda would say 'our house is now worth .......' and i would say, 'no it is not'.) a house is 'worth' only what someone will pay for it and what someone will pay for a house is based on what they can afford. you look at the breakdown of income levels in america and you see that MOST people are middle class or lower and therefore MOST homes must be priced at their level. if you price your home above the income level of your neighborhood you won't make a sale in a normal market. a normal market is what we need. if incomes were going up 20% per year then home prices could rise accordingly but in the recent "boom" incomes were mainly stagnant while home prices soared. that doesn't work over any period of time. never has, never will. it's the economy stupid.

oddly enough, the republicans, who espouse a smaller government, no debt and no intervention in foreign affairs have been the main culprits as far as expanding government and deepening the debt. (the foreign affairs thing is pretty obvious, what with iraq and all). we must focus on the united states of america; we must get our financial ship in order and put our people to work. it is the economy stupid.

the oil price crisis must be addressed. we are a very large nation and so goods and people sometimes have to go great distances. because of our spending billions, if not trillions, of dollars subsidising the automobile industry and the oil industry we are far behind other countries when it comes to public transportation. we could put a lot of peope to work in CONSTRUCTING a national train system for both states and cities and we should use electrical power to move those trains. france can build an electical train that goes 200 mph, so can we. drilling for oil off our coasts would do nothing to wean us off oil and no oil would come on line for at least 7 years and would then go into the world market and not affect us at all. the oil companies have millions of acres off shore already under lease and are not drilling. i think we need to put our money into the future, wave power, solar power, wind power all generate electrical power. hydrogen power, to this very unscientific mind, looks to be very promising. if nothing else, employ a million people to build a million wind mills. it's the economy, stupid. not only today's economy, but our future's economy. we cannot build a 21st century country using early 20th century ideas and models.

there are no easy answers out there. we need leaders and great thinkers to get us going in the right direction, i hope we elect one this year.

dis and dat on a tuesday morning

iraq's prime minister said monday his country wants some type of timetable for a withdrawal of american troops included in the deal the two countries are negotiating.

it was the first time prime minister nouri al-maliki explicitly and publicly has called for a withdrawal timetable----an idea opposed by president bush.

associated press, july 8th 2008

one of the things that i and others have said was behind the invasion of iraq was the neo con's desire to have permanent military bases in iraq. the administration has always claimed otherwise. at the same time we have built 4 huge bases that are obviously designed for long term use in different parts of iraq.

when osama bin laden attacked us one of the reasons he gave was because we had built military bases on what he considered to be "holy land." at the time, he was referring to saudi arabia and the bases we had built there. iraq is the home to many islamic 'holy places' and this placement of american troops there and there seemingly forever is not going to, in any way, make the place more peaceful but will provide a constant irritant to muslims and a continuing excuse for violence against us.

maybe that is what john mc cain meant when he said we could stay in iraq for 100 years.

speaking of john mc cain, did you know that he doesn't know how to operate a computer? this is the guy who wants to lead the united states in 2008? by his own admission, he doesn't know much about economics and now we know he doesn't know about computers. who said he was too old? the press has always given senator mc cain a certain amount of latitude because on a personal basis they like him and i am sure i would too. he is feisty and off the cuff, funny. he makes wisecracks and is not afraid to make fun of himself. that aside, he still is not someone i would want guiding the ship of state through these perilous waters. one of the things that the press has not given nearly enough space to is his rather violent temper. he is renowned for it on capital hill. not a quality one would want in someone who has the nuclear button at his fingertips.

here in hilton head 15 WOMEN got in a fight at a huddle house restaurant late last night. they attacked each other using their high heeled shoes. write your own punchlines...i plan on having some for tonight's show.

oh well, have things to do. later.

another war we aren't winning

we have been fucking around in columbia now for a couple of decades supposedly trying to stop cocaine trafficing but cocaine shipments continue to grow and expand with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of profits going into someone's pocket. at the same time we are engaged in afghanastan and, all of a sudden, heroin is plentiful again with 90% of the world's supply coming from that hell hole of a country. pure coincidence i am sure.

one of these days we are going to find out just how extensive our military operations in south america really are. the three american "contractors" who were rescued the other day are cia or black ops military.

the "war on drugs" is another war we are not winning. we have spent over, are you ready, 4 TRILLION dollars on the war on drugs. that is a lot of fucking money, brothers and sisters, and that money would be very nice to have to spend here in america on, say, road work or building schools or any number of other projects to help the american populace. i can go, you can go, anyone can go into ANY city in america and get ANY kind of drug within a matter of hours. you know that to be true. (if you don't, ask any cop) how can it be we have spent all that money, locked up all those people, gone into all those countries and drugs are more available, more common and more affordable than ever before? maybe we weren't really trying to stop the drug flow. maybe it is just another sham to get our military into another foriegn country.

the obvious answer to the so-called "drug problem" is to legalize all drugs and offer treatment to the ones who become "addicted." we do that with alcohol, one of the most dangerous drugs of all time. what someone does to their own body and in their own home should be nobody's business but their own. we allow people to drink themselves to death, we allow them to smoke cigarettes to kill themselves and both of those are drugs. the savings to the nation would be enormous. cops could then go after the really dangerous felons, the robbers, the killers, the car-jackers, the rapists and stop worrying about whether joe there has some weed in his car.

well, what about all the killings and shootings going on over drugs? those are related to DRUG SELLING not DRUG USING. the profits from illegal drugs are basically the only thriving business in our slums. by getting rid of the illegality of drugs and dispensing them from, are you ready?, DRUG stores you then free up millions of dollars that could be used for job creation and job traing in the intercities.

ron paul had as part of his platform this very idea and no one would argue it with him because all the facts were on his side.

sure, some drugs are very dangerous, but so are alcohol and cigarettes. speed is very dangerous but most people figure that out for themselves...the old sixties saying, "speed kills" is still viable. the scare tactics used by our drug enforcement people fall on deaf ears because the people who are using the drugs know fact from fiction when it comes to drugs. crack is not immediately addictive as you have been told. it is just cocaine but in a smokable form. it is a quick high and it is cheap which is why it is popular in the slums. for ten bucks you can get a 15 minute reprieve from the misery of your daily life.

being from the sixties and a rebel at heart, i have, over the years, used almost every kind of illegal drug and now i use none at all other than an occasional toke of marijuana. why? not because of illegality but because they didn't do anything for me after a while. never was big on coke or speed, hell, i am pretty much "up" most of the time anyway. heroin was never attractive because i didn't want to spend all day in a stupor.

if everyone was really honest, i bet we would find that a majority, or close to one, of adults have, at some time or another, used some kind or another of illegal drugs. hardly any became addicts.

we have more people locked up than any other country in the world and a good number of them are in for drug related offenses. think of all that money it takes to keep all those people locked up. hell, give them a job, send them to school, make them productive citizens, it would cost a lot less right now and would reap benefits for decades to come.

on to other things: i am doing next week as well here in hilton head since the act coming in is caught up in some legal hassles in california over a home he owns. so, here is hoping we have some big crowds this week. i will be back in vegas to start at the trop on the 14th.

e pluribus unium

out of many: one. that is the original motto of the united states of america and it defines, more than any other slogan or motto, the promise of the united states. we are so many peoples, with so many origins, so many religions, so many beliefs, so many interests, so many skills, strengths, desires, ambitions, hopes and fears that uniting us is our greatest national challenge. together, united, we can do almost anything; we have the natural resourses and the brainpower to overcome our problems and make this country a realization of its potential.



it seems to me anyway, that we have lost our course and lost our sense of unity. maybe the hard times that we are now facing will force us or allow us to regain our unity as a people and when united, we can plot a course that benefits us all.



in my mind, we must pull back from interferance in foriegn affairs and concentrate much more here in the homeland. we have now been "at war", either 'hot' or 'cold', in the middle east since bush the first. we are at the twenty year mark right now (i think it was 88 when we invade iraq the first time) and this war has been waged every since then by republicans and democrats alike. bush invaded and clinton bombed and then another bush invaded again. (and that wasn't really the beginning, remember reagan in lebenon (sp)) in the meantime, critical problems here in america were ignored or put on the proverbial back burner.

(see post for 10-6, 06...the war party)

the main reason i am for senator obama in this election is i believe he has the ability to unite us as a people and also has the ability to work across the aisle to unite us in the political sense. now, don't get me wrong, i don't see repubs and demos joining hands and singing around the campfire but i do think that faced with troubling times and economic woes that with a strong voice at the top, repubs and demos can put aside their differences for the moment and do what is necessary to right the ship of state.

senator obama is the only politician that i have been excited about since jfk. he is the only one that i have actively worked for. i went door-to-door for him, we donated time and money to his campaign. i think he is the best hope we have right now.

today is our country's birthday. you can give a present to your country; get involved; whether you be conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, independent or libertarian, green or socialist, male or female...get involved. physically and mentally. no one party has all the answers. no one party has a monopoly on brainpower or ethics. as a united country we can accomplish miracles; as a divided country we are doomed to laying the groundwork for our eventual failure and collapse.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA (AND MAY WE HAVE HUNDREDS MORE!)

the grand opening of the hilton head comedy club

it was the grand opening that no one knew about. john and mike worked up to the very last minute to get the club open this week; they got their liquor license on monday and got their city permit at 4:20 pm on tuesday, the day they opened. (that office closed at 4:30) because of all that there was no real notice that the club was opening this week so the crowd was small, around 30 people.

i think i was more nervous before this show than i have been in years. these are my friends and i surely did not want to suck for their very first show.

from a comic's point of view it was a challenge because practically no one in the audience had ever been to a comedy show or comedy club in their life so they weren't really sure of just how to act. this club works on the "an evening with" format where there is just a host for 5-6 minutes and then the headliner. i started rather slow but as i got more into my material the pace picked up. i did about an hour and 20 minutes and everyone had a great time. the audience, though small, was bright and attentive. i did ORAL ROBERTS, JIM AND TAMMY, THE MOVIE AT MY TRIAL and some newspaper stories along with YOU ARE GOING TO DIE ANYWAY.

so, be it ever so humble, the hilton head comedy club has officially opened!

as the word gets out, this club is going to be a rousing success. prime location and john has done a remarkable job on the interior. it looks like a comedy club should.

had to borrow friend's computer here in hilton head so i could respond to something in USA TODAY on the 1st of july editorial page. the writer was jonah goldberg (editor at large of national review online and author of book called "liberal fascism".

his contention is that senator obama has "real patriotism problem." and here is his argument:
senator obama wore a flag on his lapel after 9-11 but quit wearing it during the debates because, in his mind, it had morphed into a symbol of supporting the iraqi war. in may, he started wearing it again. senator obama was talking about people questioning his patriotism (remember, good readers, that the republicans demeaned max cleland, a double amputee from vietnam as being unpatriotic) but anyway, back to obama, he says "i am going to try to tell the american people what i believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

goldberg jumps on that statement and says "what it is not great now." and again i quote goldberg, "this sense that america is in need of fixing in order to become a great country points to obama's real patriotism problem."

"definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the american context patriotism must involve not only devotion to american texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from european nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the american nation."

well, i don't know what DEVOTION TO AMERICAN TEXTS means...do you? "devotion" as in, shall we say, a religious sense? what the fuck.

according to goldberg, you could read that as saying americans are patriotic and europeans are nationalistic. what the fuck. we are good they are bad? what the fuck.

ah, but let me get to the INHERENT AND ENDURING GOODNESS OF THE AMERICAN NATION.

inherent? we inherited our "goodness". from whom? god? the british? goldberg sounds like one of those people who think that GOD, in some way or another, favors america over any other country. pssst. if there is a god, it would the god of everyone. if it is just for one people or one nation, that is not a god, that is an idol. remember god was on the side of the nazis. that is what they said. god was on the side of osama bin laden. that is what he said. god told george bush to invade iraq, that is what he said.

"enduring goodness of the american nation." hmmm

were we good we practiced genocide against the indigenous peoples of the north american continent?

were we good when we practiced slavery?

were we good when we dropped the second atomic bomb on japan who was trying to surrender at the time?

were we good when we invaded iraq? or vietnam or
" " grenada
cuba
mexico
russia
haiti ?????


were we good when we supported right wing death squads in central america?
were we good when we infected blacks with syphlysis (sp) and then let them die without treatment?
were we good when we backed iraq in their invasion of iran?
was agent orange a symbol of our goodness?
do we have more people in prison than other country in the world because we are inherently good?
do we lead the western world in murders and violent crime because we are good?
we sell more weapons of war than any other country...are we good because of that?

come on now, we have faults. we have made mistakes. to believe that we are inherently good (and other people aren't) is the belief of fanatics. we will never live up to our ideals, to our promise, to our capabilities unless we see ourselves as we really are and then work together to fix the faults and improve even the good things so that they become better.

the real thing that is special about us is our form of government, we brought democracy to the modern world. we have checks and balances in our constitution because our founders knew that men are venial and ambitions and power corrupts. they put those in there because they knew we were not "inherently good."

do we do good things? abso fucking lutely! am i glad i live here in america? same answer. can we improve? fuck an a we can. should we? fuck an a we should.

senator obama wants us to improve, to get better, to provide a better, safer, more prosperous nation and for this he is attacked by people who think we are perfect as we are.