Fierce Winds and Satanic Rites

There is a hell of a wind blowing across the North State today. The reports say gusts could reach 70 miles per hour. Across the world different kinds of winds are blowing through the Middle East. There is some kind of mess going on in Libya now, with the United Nations implementing some kind of helter-skelter “no-fly zone.” Apparently the mandate is to protect civilians, not to support the rebels who seek to overthrow the government of long-time dictator and certified whackadoodle Moamar Quadafy. Quadafy (who

m I often confuse in photos with psychedelic guitar god Carlos Santana) has been ruling Libya for the past 40 years. During the 1980’s, then President Ronald Reagan, referred to Quadafy as the “mad dog of the Middle East.” There was a tremendous amount of anti-Quadafy sentiment here in the United States. I was in high school at the time and I recall clearly when a friend of mine showed up to school wearing a t-shirt with a print of Quadafy’s face in rifle crosshairs. The caption on the shirt read: “Get Quadafy – Waste Him Now!” No one even batted an eye.

Those were slightly different times though. Another friend, Mark, regularly wore a shirt with the Coca-Cola label on it that read “Enjoy Cocaine.” Event

ually the school caught on to all the “Just Say No” bullshit that Reagan’s wife Nancy was spouting and sent Mark home to change his shirt. Nowadays they’d probably label both my old friends as terrorists and suspend them from school forever. Times they are a changing. While folks in the Middle East are rising up against tyrannical governments, civil rights here in the United States are being consistently curtailed in favor of corporate interests and the omnipresent excuse of “security.”

Security

What a joke. Forty thousand people die in car acc

idents every year. The terrorists who pulled off the 911 job did a hell of a job and managed to kill nearly 3,000 Americans in one shot. Horrific, by any stretch – but now we are ten years removed and since then we haven’t had a meaningful attack on American soil. I am not convinced this is due to the fact that we are putting old ladies through invasive body searches and eavesdropping on American citizens phone conversations.

Ah anyway, who cares about all that? We live here in Northern California. Drink a beer, pop a pill, smoke a joint and forget about all that craziness out there. We’ve got the food, the water, the good looking, natural women. There is no place on this Earth I would rather be in these weird times than right where we are.

Witch Dick

Oh, and sorry about that bummer trip I laid down last week. My mid-life crisis is tempering – I’m going to channel the negatives into focus and get to work. That’s really the best we can do I think. On that note – I want to end this column by telling you to go out and see With Dick if you get a chance. This two-person act is one of the most original and interesting I’ve seen in a long time. The last I saw them Tim and Kenny were dressed in nuns’ habits with their bearded faces painted jet black. The Satanic imagery accompanies a music that is dirge and driving. The whiskey makes it all work out even better.

madbob@madbob.com