There's No Substitute For Red

The way we played yesterday will not get us past Buffalo.

Four sacks, no D line rushing, gotta be better than this, boys, but still undefeated

Electric Blue

What would I like for people to say after I'm dead?

"He was a good man."

I have many miles to go. Or maube not, 69 is coming soon.

Carl Sagan was a good man. It's his birthday.

He wrote our mission statement on this pale blue dot.

Today is the the anniversary of Carl Sagan's birth in 1934 and the day we celebrate his life, teachings and wisdom.

The image mentioned is The Pale Blue Dot. It is a photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles. Mr. Sagan shared his thoughts about this image in his book, The Pale Blue Dot. His words are timeless but also seem particularly relevant at this point in time.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. 𝙏𝙤 𝙢𝙚, 𝙞𝙩 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙚'𝙫𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙣.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

"Certified" Picker

 

https://acousticguitar.com/chet-atkins-certified-guitar-players/

Warriors

 

Five Years Ago Today

 

Iconic.

Legend.

Hall of Fame.

Kris Kristofferson.

In an incredibly subdued and classic performance, I was taken for a ride through many years of songwriting excellence. Backed by Merle Haggard's band, he made me laugh and cry. Many times.

His humorous take on "Okie From Muskogee" was very funny and caught the crowd by surprise.

At 80, I hope to be not drooling on someone. At 80, he was as smooth as ever.

A word to the wise. The show starts promptly at 8 and he gets a lot of his bigger stuff out of the way early.

"Me and Bobby McGee" was about three songs into his first set.

"Here Comes That Rainbow Again", "For the Good Times", "Help Me Make It Through the Night", "Sunday Morning Coming Down", "Why Me Lord?" "Now till Forever"...etc etc.

Incredible. Just words and music backed by a stripped down band of veterans.

This was one best behaved crowds too. No talking because he sings so softly.

His book of songs is mind blowing..

Thanks to Scott Mackey for the picture.

The Uptown Theatre Kansas City, Mo.

Welcome Back

It looks like this is where I'm going to park my stuff for the time being. 

For some reason, people keep wanting me to write a book. This is probably the closest thing to it I will get. Here's the thought on not writing a book. I know I have a lot of friends, but I honestly don't think there are enough of them to even begin.

The publishers would want a large pre order. When I thought about putting together a podcast while working for Cumulus, I was told I had to have at least 5,000 followers.

That's about as far as the conversation went.

So, I will post here my thoughts and feelings about what's happening in my head and at this point, my head is NOT right. Since Tuesday, I have felt this overwhelming dread of the future. I know what's in store and the people who voted for Trump are thinking what he does will not affect them. What he does will affect everyone. His tariffs will raise prices on EVRYTHING. I find it so overwhelming we voted in a person who doesn't understand what tariffs do. He is the dumbest man ever to run for President. 

For some reason, I feel I must apologize to my ancestors and thank them for saving us from fascism. They only delayed it by 70 or so years, but I appreciate the sacrifice they put in to fight a war against Hitler and Japan. If war break out in Europe (Trump had given Putin the green light), I'm afraid we will be fighting with the fascists and not against them

I love history, it's what I studied in high school and college. Somewhere in the last 40 years or so, the basic tenets of government were not taught. I feel this started with Ronald Reagan. Whatever the reason, we have the dumbest electorate making decisions for the rest of us. Now, instead of people working in Washington to lift us up, we know have people in place to blow the whole democracy to shreds.

I can't go any further though but to thank Rush Limbaugh for his 30 years of calling liberals, "the greatest threat to democracy. " I believe his words were..."Russia and China are not our enemies. the true enemy of the people are liberals. They are the biggest threat to this country." So, after two generations of yelling fire in a crowded theatre (and no one doing anything about it,) here we are.

I have very little faith we will be free again in my lifetime. Trump and his cronies will jury rig the system and our elections will be the puppet Putin kind where we will know who won even before the vote. I always thought this country was better than that, but apparently, not so.

But here's one thing to consider, Trumps' bullshit will affect his supporters too. When the tariffs go into effect, jobs will be lost and wages will stagnate while the price of everything will skyrocket. It will effect them in ways they don't even know about.

Our attorney generals and law enforcement have let us down. Why was Trump not tried for the insurrection? Why wasn't a more vigorous pursuit made concerning the constant law breaking Trump did? Why did this country allow him to get away with it? Easy. We're lazy and dumb. He should not have been allowed to run, he should have been in jail.

It doesn't matter now. This democracy is no more. It's over. Almost 250 years and with one election...poof! Everything we worked hard for is gone. There are no rails into what Trump can do. I hope the damage spares you and me and the people we love. The next four years will be hell, and if Trump has his way, he will sow mass destruction. It's who he is. Everything Donald Trump touches dies. Every last one of them. Including, I'm afraid, this country.

So here we are, Steve Bannon warned of Roman justice where it is acceptable for one part of the country to rule over the others. He has basically said he wants to prosecute those who speak ill of him and Trump. You can be sure, they can and will.

Sorry for the bad vibes, but now they are out, I will try and find some more decent and nice things to talk about.

See ya next time.