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muthaFredstock, Rosa Parks, Sprawlmart,
Listening to: liv on the phone Reading: ? Weather: oddly warm 55 Last weekend was awesome. It was Fredstock, which we have moved to Hungry Mother State Park in VA for the last couple of years (Fred's farmhouse got arsoned, ugly story). Many good times were had by all, as about 20 of us played music, drank beer (yeungling!), passed the peace pipe, and potlucked awesome grubbins all weekend (complete with brownies). I brought my bass, but alas, David Lee did not make the scene, and he was supposed to bring a little amp. Mine's too huge for the car. I road down with Doug and Kathy, and we were pretty wedged in without it. But there were guitars galore, as expected, so I helped myself to Connie's Ovation or Willie's Taylor when the spirit moved me. Others MIA included Donny (!!!), Patsy, & Mark Mendez. We decided next year's shirt will say Got Donny? that little shit. There was a significant drop in Beatles repertoire with him missing. So we had to make some Eagles, various pop country, some old country, and many tasty 70's one-hit wonders suffice. Speaking of one-hit wonders, we enjoyed a little northern lights as well. Shazam, my bitches.
We enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather, played with Tbird, had painting lessons on the porch, and generally got to breathe a little fall air all weekend. Lovely. There was a strange and uncomfortable domestic violence incident that I won't describe, to protect the innocent, but fortunately it was solved fairly quickly by a nice trip to jail for that shithead to serve the rest of his sentence. There's no excuse, people, you know that. K, let's move on. The music continued, and the mood lightened and we enjoyed the rest of the weekend. The Lakeview restaurant was closed, so we descended on a little diner in Marion on Sunday morning before we all kissed goodbye and headed our separate ways. Already looking forward to next year. I have spent the last hour and a half sizing some pictures and trying to get this really cool little thumbnails hover picture page going, but not working out yet. Hopefully I'll succeed soon and post the link.
Rest in peace, Rosa Parks. I always loved her story. To me she's an example of a very ordinary person doing something extraordinary, that rippled out for miles and decades. Maybe her feet hurt that day, and she was just sick of the bullshit. Somehow I don't think she thought of that moment as heroic at the time, but it certainly had heroic results. You're an ordinary person, you can do something like that, too. Knowing what's right plus opportunity to carry it out equals kickass.
So do you still need some more reasons to stop shopping at freakin Sprawlmart? Endless supplies of nothing but plastic Chinese crap not enough for ya? The New York Times revealed an internal memo a couple of weeks ago (unfortunately not freely available anymore, so here's a link to a similar article from CNN Money). The short of it is that their massive profits are not enough for the greedy bastards, so they're considering reducing 401k contributions, cutting life insurance, and seeking to hire "healthier" new recruits. That means unlawful and immoral discrimination against older workers and people with disabilities. Listen, 46% of the children of Sprawlmart's USA employees are either UNINSURED or on MEDICAID. I didn't make that shit up, it's in the memo for crap's sake. Pigs, nothing but despicable greedy pigs run those plantations. Everytime you spend a dollar there, you're voting for that way of life, that exploitation. Sprawlmart is the largest corporate employer in WV. They've already killed your downtowns, I know, but please consider shopping at the few locally-owned stores left, where the prices are higher because the owners and employees get to have a real life at the end of the day, and healthcare, and a living wage. Plastic is made from oil, too, please don't forget. It's all feeding that insanity.
And back to my pal Chico, whom I can't quite let go just yet, I found our last exchange of emails. Once I cut and paste them into the right order, I'm going to post it here as a bit of a memorial. You'll be able to get at least a little taste of the cool human that was Chico.
permalink posted by cat 8:51 PM