Month: April 2018

News Roundup

Bad News

1.) FrogPres Emanuel Macron and his Nana wife arrived in D.C. to meet with POTUS. I can only imagine what they’ll talk about, Macron being about the most pussified politician in Euroland — which is saying something. One thing’s for sure: Trump isn’t gonna grab this saggy old broad’s ass. (Incidentally, Macron is probably Over Here because they all hate him back in France.)

2.) Duchess Kate Wossname popped another sprog. As usual, the socialists are moaning that all babies should be born equal instead of being fifth in line to the throne of Britishland. Nobody cares about this except people like me, who think that all socialists should be flogged daily, and not just for being complete tools about the birth of a baby.

3.) Man runs the London Marathon in honor of his late father, then dies. So he died in honor of his dead father, but he wasn’t Japanese (in which case this might have made sense). One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this story.

4.) Asswipe causes ruckus on an airliner, gets a Taser sandwich. A quick look at his mugshot should explain everything.

5.) A bunch of lesbians caught fire — oh wait, not lesbians but the Greek island of Lesbos. My bad; although you have to admit that the headline “Lesbos On Fire” could be misleading. Anyway, the “migrants” are revolting (I know: aren’t they all). Apparently they were attacked by a bunch of patriotic Greeks who are sick of all the crime and such that the”refugees” are bringing with them. (I’m not one of the above, but I can see why they might think this way.)

…and lastly:

6.) Women-only offices (so-called “coworking” spaces) are increasing in number because #MeToo or something. I have only one question to ask: could men create “men-only” work spaces to escape the bullshit that these ur-feminists bring to the workplace? Thought not. [200,000-word rant deleted]

Fucking Leftist Bullshit

Lies and Untruths, Two-Minute Hate

Maybe I’ve just been reading too much stuff like this, this, this and this recently, but I have to tell you, I’m getting totally sick and fucking tired of all this snowflake-ism, fascism masquerading as anti-fascism, threats against conservatives, Twatter storms when someone dares voice a viewpoint counter to the Orthodoxy, children screaming about how their parents have fucked up democracy (and being treated seriously by their ideological allies in the Press instead of being laughed out of the room), and all the rest of the politically-correct, safe-space-seeking, thumb-sucking kindergarten antics which passes for serious behavior on the Left.

Fucking hell: I enjoy a good show as much as anyone, but when Leftists are pilloried by other Leftists for being not Left enough — when the first Leftists stand to the left of Joseph Stalin to begin with — I start to get a sinking feeling about all this. Some people are treating this as a spectator sport: “Go ahead! Let’s all get the popcorn while the Left devours itself!” Well, it may be oh-so amusing, but what happens if this bunch of loony Commies gets their hands on the levers of power?

Does anyone remember when Hillary Bitch Clinton bragged that when she became President, she was going to allow not one or two, but twenty thousand Muslim Syrian refugees into the United States? Does anyone else see that this bit of American Merkelism could only have one purpose, that purpose being the undermining of American society? And that was Hillary Clinton, FFS: the most conservative member of the freak show that calls itself the Democrat Party nowadays. What if ultra-Socialist Bernie Sanders or one of those other Marxists became POTUS? Does anyone think that this would end well?

We’re all going tsk-tsk as we watch Venezuela descend into chaos, or South Africa descend into the usual African slaughterfest, and we comfort ourselves that oh no, none of that could happen here. Here’s my take on this:

Oh yes it fucking could.

I used to think that whoever was elected POTUS didn’t really matter because the Establishment would provide some kind of corrective stability. Sure, we elected a silly Lefty like Jimmy Carter or a fake conservative Democrat like Bill Clinton, but that didn’t really matter because the Republic survived their silliness. But then a serious Marxist (Barack Obama) got elected because golly gosh, it was time we had a Black President (even though he was really half White), an intellectual (even though he was an appalling student with crap college grades) who could then inflict Leftist bullshit like ObamaCare and subversive initiatives like the “Dear Colleague” missive sent to college administrators. Couple that with a vacillating, cowardly foreign policy, a feral politicization of the federal bureaucracy (Lois Lerner’s IRS, Eric Holder’s Justice Department, and the EPA to name just three), a serious attempt to undermine the electoral process using fake information and the FBI — and we have, for the first time, a really quick and effective transformation of the United States into a socialist police state.

And here’s the really good news: Obama was just the beginning. The next Democrat president is going to make him look like an amateur socialist: a member of the 1930s Fabian Society, as opposed to Joseph Stalin.

This, by the way, is the reason I’m really irritated by the NeverTrumpers: their childish little tantrums about Trump’s uncouth manner, his “undignified” behavior (e.g. his use of Twitter) and the “chaos” of his Administration don’t do anything but help make the Leftists’ screams that “Trump Is Hitler!” ring true.

But if the NeverTrumpers irritate me, the pillars of the American Left (academia, the Press, the Democrats and so on) have a different effect. Where before I looked on them with scorn and some amusement — FFS, do they actually believe that bullshit they’re spouting? — I now look on them as I would a rabid dog or a black mamba: they really do believe that crap, and they are that fucking dangerous.

One of Obama’s more telling pronouncements (as opposed to his bald-faced lies) was “Punch back twice as hard.” Well, that’s what I’m going to do in future. I’m not going to let some asshole Leftist get away with behavior that as few as twenty years ago would have been unthinkable to the Left itself. If they attempt to suppress my speech because it’s “hateful” or “hurtful” or “threatening” or any one of their little masquerades which all mean “Shut Up!”, I’m just going to ratchet up the venom quotient.

If they think that I’m “hateful” now, just wait: I haven’t yet begun to hate.

I didn’t think I was ever going to have to resort to violence to protect myself, my right to free speech and all my other Constitutional freedoms, but then came the calls for gun confiscation, Black Lives Matter and Antifa (to name just three), so I’d better get in some preparation.

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range. While I still can.

Musician Thoughts

Music

All the way from past Down Under (i.e. New Zealand), Reader Tony H. writes:

Was reading your post about the travails of the guitar industry.
I bet if you looked at the way the piano industry “evolved” from a time in the 50s & 60s where every second house in my street had a piano you’d see some interesting comparisons. As a kid we’d go up and down the street to people’s houses, go inside and they would play Christmas carols and we’d sing along. No parents along for the ride, mind you.
How many actual pianos do you reckon got sold world wide last year? Thousands? Tens of thousands? So if you were one of those British or German piano makers you were on a hiding to nowhere.
Part of the problem is longevity. Once you get up to pro level gear, it basically doesn’t wear out.
I’ve got a 30 year old Fender Strat. Played 100s of shows with it. I use a 1970s Fender amp. OK, I’m a semi pro person, so I bought myself a Gibson Les Paul 12 years ago. I’ve got two 80’s Marshall amps that I use for practice and social playing.
None of this gear is ever going to wear out to a point where repair is not an economic proposition. So unless I break something or it gets stolen, me as a daily user of my equipment represent zero revenue to any of these suppliers.
OK, yes, I go through strings at a rate, but that’s like buying petrol for your car.
If I did write off one of my guitars, in truth I’m much more likely to buy a vintage example than a new one – not even a price decision.
So how are Fender or Gibson ever going to get any money out of me? Self tuning guitar? Nah. Hi tech like Line 6 with built in effects etc? Nah, I like the sound of my old analogue tubes and nicely aged bits of wood.
Clearly I’m not alone, the largest sector in the Gibson catalogue is “reissues”.
Both Gibson and Fender have gone down market to chase volume. There are Epiphones and Squier guitars at every price point.
As a person that really gets their brand proposition, actively uses their products and is in the fortunate position of being able to pony up a few thousand on a new instrument if I wanted to, they have got zero dollars off me in the last ten years and are highly unlikely to get anything off me in the next 10 years either.
OK, maybe a modern amp as lugging around a 100 watt head and a 4 X 12 quad box is starting to tell, and these days I never get to crank it.
So, zero growth potential from me.
Also, anecdotally, the value proposition for Fender and Gibson has been steadily eroded by products from other makers. Yes, I fully get the “wank value” of owning a Les Paul, but objectively there are dozens of alternatives at much cheaper prices and the quality gap is narrowing all the time.
Whats left for them? Joining Harley Davidson in acquiring 100% of a diminishing market? We all know how that works out.
Cheers & keep up the good work.

All true, and I know for a fact that if I were still playing, it would be on my old Rickenbacker 4001S through… well, not my old Roland RB-120, because it died the day before my last gig in S Africa, all those years ago. [cue spooky music]

It was one of the best-sounding bass amps ever made, by the way, and it was one of the very few which could handle the high output from my Rick (which I always played at full volume from the guitar controls).

So much did I love that guitar that if by some miracle I could play bass again (arthritis, don’t ask), I’d be playing that same old Rick… but instead of trying to resurrect the old Roland (great though it was), I’d probably get one of the new amps. Well, I say “new”, but in fact it would be a new version of my old Roland. (You may all return your shocked faces to Sarah Hoyt now.) They stopped making the RB-120 back in the early 1980s, if that helps. Here’s the Cube 120XL:

Note to Reader Tony: forget that valve stuff for gigging; this is the business, with all the different amp effects built in. (I actually owned the smaller 30-watt version of this amp a little while ago, and I loved it.)

See? I can change if I have to. Especially as this amp weighs about a tenth of my older double stacks, and my back still gives me an occasional twinge to remind me how much I abused it back then.

Anyway, here’s a pic of the old band setup at the OK Corral Club, just outside Pretoria, taken in May 1977:

Yeah, that’s me (age 22) on bass at bottom right. I can’t remember what amp I was playing through back then, but it was either a Fender Bassman 120 or a Marshall 100-watt rig (can’t see it clearly in the pic).

Note also the various Gibsons and the Fender Strat. Yes, we supported them way back then too. (Marty’s Les Paul was a ’63 and Kevin’s Strat was a ’65. I don’t remember the year of the Flying V, but I think it was a new one, i.e. 1975-ish.)

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Unlike Reader Tony, I wouldn’t go back to gigging; I’d only play old standards (Gershwin, Carmichael etc.) in a four-piece house band (piano, bass, drums and either a horn/clarinet player or a female torch singer), in an old-fashioned night club where people dressed up and danced cheek to cheek:

You may call me old-fashioned, if you wish. I wear the label with pride.

5 Worst Things About Hitler

Friday Feature, The Worst

Staying with the April 20 theme, and ranked from bad to horriblest:

  • killed his dog with poison
  • is responsible for Godwin’s Law
  • adopted a stupid political philosophy which still influences other statists like Nancy Pelosi and most Western European politicians
  • his even-more stupid anti-Semitism continues to influence assholes like Jeremy Corbyn, about one-third of all Internet commentary, and all of Islam
  • was, unsurprisingly, a strict vegetarian.

Your observations and suggestions in Comments.