Musicians on Selling Out

Four Bits of Wisdom

“Selling out is doing something you don’t really want to do for money. That’s what selling out is.” -Bono-
“Most of the people who call me a sell out were 7 when I was face-down in the punk trenches.” -Henry Rollins-

“It’s not selling out, it is called making lots of money.” -Mick Jagger-
“There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won’t.” -Annie Lennox-

-K-

16 Apr 2021 0

A Trio of Boozy Books

Some Reads Addressing Prohibition

I’ve been discussing a wide range of prohibitions over the past few weeks. Today I want to share a few books that, in one way or another, address America’s Prohibition of alcohol.

Bourbon A History of the American Spirit by Dane Huckelbridge

This one is for the armchair history buffs. Huckelbridge gives us an interesting view of American history through its relationship with bourbon (including Prohibition).

Chasing the White Dog An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventure in Moonshine by Max Watman

This one is for the DIYers. Watman provides first hand experiences along with an interesting history of that classic American spirt known as moonshine (some recipes and distilling advice included).

Moonshine by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

This one is for all the fiction, comic book, and horror fans. Azzarello’s words and Risso’s artwork is a tale a Prohibition, gangsters, lust, greed, and werewolves (yup, werewolves).

If you are looking to expand your reading list for 2021 pick up one (or all) of these books.

-K-

30 Jan 2021 0

Authors on Prohbiton(s)

Six Bits of Wisdom Concerning Prohibitions

“Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.” -Dashiell Hammett-

“There’s an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. It’s reflected in prohibitions and these taboos that we have.” -George Carlin-

“Complete prohibition of all chemical mind changers can be decreed, but not enforced, and tends to create more evils than it cures.” -Aldous Huxley-

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is prohibition that makes things precious.” -Mark Twain-

“Prohibition is the trigger of crime.” -Ian Fleming-

“I believe that it should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general, so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them. The remedy of the majority is not prohibition but avoidance.” -H.L. Mencken-

-K-

16 Jan 2021 0

Winter Time: The Mix Tape

1. “December Baby”–Ingrid Michaelson

2. “Snowin’ on Raton”–Townes Van Zandt

3. “Mid-December Blues”–Samuel James

4. “Snowflake”–Amy LaVere

5. “Get Me Through December”–Alison Krauss

6. “Winter”–Tori Amos

7. “Winter’s Song”–Cowboy Junkies

8. “Christmas Song”–Dave Matthews Band

9. “Christmas in Paradise”–Mary Gauthier

10. “White Christmas”–Otis Redding

11. “New Year’s Resolution”–Otis Redding and & Carla Thomas

12. “Happy New Year”–Lightnin’ Hopkins

13. “Like New Year’s Day”–Sara Watkins

14. “Winter’s Come and Gone”–Gillian Welch

-K-

11 Dec 2020 0

A Winter Checklist

The Good, The Bad, The Cold

Hot coffee, hot chocolate, and hot tea (this is not sweet tea weather)
Scraping ice off your car windows before going to work
Waking up to single digit temperatures
Soups, stews, and chili (oh so many chili recipes)
Owning a convertible (yep)
Walking the dog in below zero temperatures
Whiskey weather (oh so many hot toddy recipes)
Always losing just one damn glove
Snow in your dress shoes
Sledding with friends while drinking the above mentioned hot toddies
Starting the snow blower after it sat idle for nine months (damn two stroke engines)
Hard wood floors and no slippers
Christmas and New Year
Breaking the ice scraper before going to work (try using you driver’s license)
Two words: WIND CHILL

-K-

4 Dec 2020 0

Authors on Solitary Confinement

Four Views of Solitary Confinement

“Incessant company is as bad as solitary confinement.” -Virginia Woolf-

“We’re all mad, the whole damned race. We’re trapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we’re all mad and in solitary confinement.” -William Golding-

“In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.” -Aldous Huxley-

“We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.” -Tennessee Williams-

-K-

23 Nov 2020 0

Authors on Graveyards

Six Bearers of Wisdom

• “Every heart has its graveyard.” -Zora Neal Hurston-

• “As we go on with our lives we tend to forget that the jails and the hospitals and the madhouses and the graveyards are packed.” -Charles Bukowski-

• “Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.” -Elizabeth Barrett Browning-

• “Man is the only religious animal. In the Holy task of smoothing his brother’s path to the happiness of heaven, he has turned the globe into a graveyard.” -Mark Twain-

• “Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.” -Langston Hughes-

• “Cemetery, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target, and stonecutters spell for a wager.” -Ambrose Bierce-

-K-

7 Oct 2020 0