AN ACTUAL MUSIC POST!!

NOT SO ORIGINAL AN IDEA, BUT HEY...

Before I get into things, I don't know exactly if I am feeling good as much as I am readying for my 'moment of exertion'. Next week is my hearing and my anticipated showdown with my ex-wife. Can't imagine her being a happy camper having to use a sick day from work and all to deal with me. But I am actually looking forward to seeing her and getting an opportunity to talk with her.

One of the things about being a 'deadbeat' is that there is more to it than saying 'gotta get back into this thing' and heroically being a part of a child's life. Sure it is one thing to say that the relationships between the adults shouldn't matter, but that is all good in theory. As far as the practice, there is a lot to be desired.

There is always more than enough blame to go around. Only it isn't popular or attention getting to talk about how crappy the custodial parent, who is usually the woman, is to the non-custodial. I don't play the victimization card (yeah, I have been whining lately, but that isn't this post) yet often in this situation, the woman gets to use that trump and more often if able to exploit things to their advantage, do so.

When I say 'to their advantage', I don't mean as far as legal support enforcement is concerned. Me and my oldest daughter didn't always have such a strained relationship. If you were in the trenches with me or at least at HQ getting plans together, I'd gladly expound. But failing that, I will simply leave it to Skye's Mother spreading venom about me in part because she wanted a different relationship with me. I was simply not having it. So there.

GOT TO GIVE IT UP/ AQUA BOOGIE/ 2112

I can't attest to the chronology of release but what I do know is once I heard Rush '2112', pop/R&B essentially ceased to exist in my universe. The main reason I remained aware of what 'the shoplifters' (as in, 'your listeners are our shoplifters, and often were my bullies) is that it was expected that I would listen to some of that stuff. I do know when I was a young 'un that 'Got To Give It Up 'Live at the London Palladium' was the near enough to the line of demarcation for me to say it was the last R&B song I liked as a fan of that kind of music.

To me the reasons were obvious... it was a live recording and I enjoy the nuances of life music. Add to that it was from a show in London and with the personal mystique that being across the pond has had only increased everything that I was feeling. And of course, it was Marvin Gaye... and right up there with Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, he could sing like few others could.

Whenever I hear the low level crowd noise and the start of the percussion soulfully beating underneath, I recognize that song and start feeling good. If I wore panties, ol' Marvin would have had me throwing mine on the stage!

"NEVER LEARNED TO SWIM...

...couldn't catch the rythm of the stroke", is what was sung about Sir Nose D'Void of Funk, one of the many, many characters in the alternate dimension of the Star Child and where George Clinton with the Parliment/Funkadelic made their one of a kind blend of funk, gospel, rock music.

The list of folks who went through his different groups and different personas is alllong. The personally most notable of his musical tree, Bootsy Collins, was a cat that I saw open at 'the old red barn' down on Grand River for Ray Parker (pre-Ghostbusters) and his band, Raydio, WITH my sister Jan!! Man, my Mom would have been SO screwed if she got caught trying to drop two pre-teens off at a 20K arean with NO supervision nowadays! I think she'd have caught heat even THEN if something happened to us!! What can I say... that was how she rolled and I like to think that also inspired all of us to be willing to 'let go of the shore'. Anywho...

There was a local dj who went by the name 'The Electrifying Mojo' who not only had this shtick of being from another planet, as far as the music market was concerned, he brought music from another planet. The B52's, Devo and of course some of the music of the founding fathers of techno all found airplay on his show. He always ample air time for George Clinton as well.

LEAVING THE RESERVATION

Still, before he was found to be 'listenable' (at the time he was on WGPR, a very black R&B station... even had a TV channel, the original TV 62 and a crap local dance show, 'The Scene') enough for me, I had discovered the Rush album '2112' among an older cousin's music to get high to' collection. He had Santana, Planet Patrol, ELO to name a few that he and some of his friends would listen to in the basement and get lit with. None of that stuff really 'stuck', even though I would listen to and dig some of it (this just in ... Santana as rock legend ... OVERRATED!!).

The '2112' album was the first time I saw what music can do, much in the way folks who swear by classical or jazz music say their brands move them in unfathomable ways. So much of it was such a great story and I wanted to listen to more of that kind of music.

At that time there were two outlets for me to really find and listen to the kind of music that was speaking to me. CKLW and later the aforementioned Mojo on WGPR. As I got a little older, I would find other people who shared the kind of music I was growing into... only there was difference.

Most of them were white.

I am going to spare you all the historical and sociological babble. I actually didn't give a damn growing up and I CERTAINLY don't now. Racial and social intolerance, along with my final wishes, is a 'do not fly zone'. If you have a personal issue with folks becaus of their 'this or that', you are going to have a problem with me. If you choose to keep it on a theoretical level and not personalize it, I can mainly handle it, and yes, there will be 'points off' for your grade.

But when my darling brother always wanted to 'be' Jamie Summers whenever we'd role play 'The Six Million Dollar Man', and he let Miss Piggy be who he'd channel whenever he got into trouble, a lot more than human sexuality became tolerable for me. And I got to see how stupid and subsequently ignorant and hypocritical to boot, many people were in their prejudices.

Listening to Rand Paul and pretty much anyone who espouse the rhetoric of the Tea Party grates my nerves as badly as the foolish folks who were willing to give the Cheney/Bush a blank check to repeal many of the constitutional rights they fear the current administration is going to undermind. Too late, Jane Curtin. That horse has left the barn.

And that brings me to my Facebook issues...