Better Red than Never...

Here's a little preview of what you all can expect next week...

Comrades, this is your captain.

It is an honor to speak to you today, and I'm honored to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our motherland's most recent achievement.

And once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess, against our old adversary...the American Navy.

For years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well.

But today, the game is different.

We have the advantage.

It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik

and Yuri Gagarin,

when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets.

Well, they will tremble again…at the sound of our silence.

The order is engage for silent drive.

Comrades, our own fleet doesn't know our full potential.

They will do everything possible to test us, but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our fleet behind. We will pass through the American patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest city…

and listen to their "rock and roll"

while we conduct missile drills.

Then...when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our laughter, while we sail to Havana, where the sun is warm…

And so is the comradeship.

Dozvedanya, babies,

Raj

Hey Lady! Yeah you.

So I'm outside and I see this fuckin cow on her scoot waiting for her kid.
Kid comes up, she's like 12 or 13, about the same age as the Ranette.
Kid's just off school, wearing her uni and humping her book bag an all, and the broad don't say hi, don't even make eye contact, just holds out the kid's helmet, like real impatient like and waits for the little bugger to climb on the back.

What a fuckin bitch, like what's the fucking malfunction here?
I mean, the fuck, she's a 12 year old kid, what could she possibly do to deserve that kind of fucking stinkface?

Seriously, man, I mean, really.
You know, if you see a kid, or you talk to a kid, why in fuck would you want to be anything except nice to them?

Especially here, where their average life consists of an average of 15 mungogingillion percent more misery, drudge, and pointless discouragement than any of us will ever fucking know?

I mean you might be the only nice thing that happened to them all fuckin month, for jumping out loud.

They're fucking kids, for fuck sakes!

They're little, they got no beef with you, and they probably don't hurt anyone.

I'm fuckin shaking my head here.

Some days this whole prohibition of casual physical violence doesn't really seem like such a hot fuckin deal...

Raj

Losing a beloved elder

We try not to get too much into the whole Guess Who Died Today deal, but every now and then, you know, we do lose someone who leaves a gijantic hole that will just never be filled.

As he's known around my house, our much loved "Grandpa Earl" passed yesterday.

Aside from the fact that he was very nearly single-handedly (see what I did there?) responsible for the creation of a musical form that became known (and, at least around The Palace, adored beyond words)

the world over,

and yeah, if you've ever, even once, heard this sound

and tapped a toe or two (and if you DIDN'T, seek medical assistance ASAP), Earl's the one you can thank.

But, aside from all that, in a career that spanned more than 50 years, in which he joyfully joined in on the music that he loved with pretty much anyone who wanted to, he remained a warm, unfailingly courteous gentleman always

I guess/hope he's with old Bill now

who doubtless got grumpy on him about having to wait (NO-ONE keeps Bill Monroe waiting!)...

Here's as good a sendoff as any.

See how sharp you are at identifying the Friends in this one.

(They're just a handful compared to the millions he made.)

Sorry, I was looking for this and just found it.

On November 15, 1969, Scruggs played his Grammy-winning "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on an open-air stage in Washington, D.C., at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, becoming one of the very few bluegrass or country-western artists to give support to the anti-war movement. In an interview after his performance, Scruggs said:

I think the people in the South is just as concerned as the people that's walkin' the streets here today ... I'm sincere about bringing our boys back home. I'm disgusted and in sorrow about the boys we've lost over there. And if I could see a good reason to continue, I wouldn't be here today.

Class act, all the way.

See you, Earl.

Raj

Life renewed for another year

Yeah, well, it looks like it might actually be spring, or whatever passes for same here in Stinkytown.

Anyways, correspondingly, we cracked out some of the hot weather tunes this morning.

First up, Sheffield's favourite sons

Honestly babies, if you can't love the Leps, well, you might as well just pack her in and brick yourself in to a $200/mo one room basement suite and live off canned fucking tomatoes and white bread toasted with a fucking coat hanger over a propane torch.

Honest to fuck, we used to walk around with hair like that, and nobody even batted an eye.

And no, I have no fuckin idea what the deal is there with the forklifts.

You know, the story goes that when Joe

Elliot's Ma first heard Love Bites on the radio, she broke down and cried.

Now, see, that's why you join a rock and roll band...


Raj

We do try to be flexible...

OK, I think my own personal feelings regarding peelers (the Irish kind

not the back home kind)

are pretty much a matter of record.
Just in case, to quote my old High School buddy Kramer

in True Romance

I FUCKING HATE COPS!!!

Even so.

Chick cops

are kind of hot, right?

I mean, chick gets PAID to carry handcuffs, yeah?

Maybe it's just me.

Raj

Oh for crying out loud

Enough all fucking ready, jeez louise...

 

Raj

You're up, you're down

Man I still remember how utterly fuckin devastated I was when they announced that they weren't going to be making any more episodes of St. Elsewhere.

Of course, on the other hand, this was right around the time they started putting nipples on clothing store mannequins

So, you know, you win some, you lose some.


Raj