Billy Joel: An Innocent Man (1983)

Some people stay far away from the door
If there's a chance of it opening up
They hear a voice in the hall outside
And hope that it just passes by

Some people live with the fear of a touch
And the anger of having been a fool
They will not listen to anyone
So nobody tells them a lie

I know you're only protecting yourself
I know you're thinking of somebody else
Someone who hurt you but I'm not above
Making up for the love
You've been denying you could ever feel
I'm not above doing anything
To restore your faith if I can

Some people see through the eyes of the old
Before they ever get a look at the young
I'm only willing to hear you cry
Because I am an innocent man

I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am

Some people say they will never believe
Another promise they hear in the dark
Because they only remember too well
They heard somebody tell them before

Some people sleep all alone every night
Instead of taking a lover to bed
Some people find that's it's easier to hate
Than to wait anymore

I know you don't want to hear what I say
I know you're gonna keep turning away
But I've been there and if I can survive
I can keep you alive
I'm not above going through it again
I'm not above being cool for a while
If you're cruel to me I'll understand

Some people run from a possible fight
Some people figure they can never win
And although this is a fight I can lose
The accused is an innocent man

I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am
An innocent man

You know you only hurt yourself out of spite
I guess you'd rather be a martyr tonight
That's your decision but I'm not below
Anybody I know
If there's a chance of resurrecting a love
I'm not above going back to the start
To find out where the heartache began

Some people hope for a miracle cure
Some people just accept the world as it is
But I'm not willing to lay down and die
Because I am an innocent man

I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am
An innocent man

Billy Joel: Big Shot (an awkward drive with Daddy)

Driving around with my father after the divorce, when I was 13 or so, he had gamely changed the station to pop for me (from his usual country or news) when this Billy Joel song came on. Clearly very angry lyrics toward a woman, but what was most awkward: Every time Joel sang "You had to be a big shot," it sounded like he followed it up with "bitch"! As in: "You had to be a big shot, bitch..."

I just looked up the lyrics now on a lyrics site. Joel wasn't saying "bitch," he was saying "didn'tcha":

Well you went uptown riding in your limousine
With your fine Park Avenue clothes
You had the Dom Perignon in your hand
And the spoon up your nose
And when you wake up in the morning
With your head on fire
And your eyes too bloody to see
Go on and cry in your coffee
But don't come bitchin' to me

Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You know what everything's about
You had to have a white hot spotlight
You had to be a big shot last night

They were all impressed with your Halston dress
And the people that you knew at Elaine's
And the story of your latest success
Kept 'em so entertained
Aw but now you just don't remember
All the things you said
And you're not sure you want to know
I'll give you one hint, honey
You sure did put on a show

Yes, yes, you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to prove it to the crowd
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You're so much fun to be around
You had to have the front page, bold type
You had to be a big shot last night

Well, it's no big sin to stick your two cents in
If you know when to leave it alone
But you went over the line
You couldn't see it was time to go home
No, no, no, no, no, no, you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth...

-------------------------------------

If I remember correctly, my dad and I had been chatting before this song came on. But once it came on, we were both silent and listening to it. Its anger was appropriate, I suppose, for how he was feeling toward women in general at the moment. But it was weird for both of us thinking that Joel was singing "bitch" every few seconds. We were both frozen. At the end of it, my dad, trying to break the ice, made a brief comment about why such "bad language" was allowed on the radio. (There wasn't any bad language, yet we both thought there had been...)

George Jones: Me and Jesus

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird - 7/2/1977 - Oakland Coliseum

Silver Singles: Who'd Want Me?!

I haven't seriously thought about it, but I kinda just thought about it: Working from home, I am BY MYSELF ALL THE TIME. For the most part, I am content with myself, but sometimes (especially after watching "90 Day Fiance")... it would be nice to hang out with someone, or travel to somewhere/anywhere with someone! I'm VERY bored with my generic Austin surroundings right now. (The other day, as I was leaving my usual Austin supermarket, I flashed back to the times when I would step out of a supermarket and get a mild thrill looking out at my surroundings, after being interested in the types of people that I'd been shopping with... When I lived briefly in San Francisco, for instance, my supermarket was located right along the ocean...)

Back in the early '90s, right after my breakup with my first girlfriend, was the first and only time I ever tried putting a personals ad in the local weekly paper (which was the only way most people did personals pre-Internet). At that time, I advertised for "woman-seeking-woman." The results: Many offers from couples for sex meet-ups, a few responses from women who were not attractive (at that time, we actually enclosed photos in letters), one response from my ex (she didn't realize it was me placing the ad! Hey, wasn't that supposed to be a fun "Pina Colada"-type reunion?), one punk teenager who sent me a mix tape (we ended up going to see Concrete Blonde together in Austin, and I had to drive her home to her parents' trailer an hour outside of town at 3 in the morning---no, no "love connection"), and one woman that I ended up dating/sleeping with for 3 months or so (at the time, she was a DJ at a local alternative radio station, which I thought was cool; she lived in a rooming-house with a bathroom down the hall; we went to see Siouxsie and the Banshees together; just found out a couple of years ago that she's now a transgender man---which is good for her because...let me just say that oral sex with her as a woman was kind of gross).

I've always been "bi." And the older I get, the more I'm attracted to men, especially after the female weirdos I ran after in my younger years. Not all were "weirdos," of course, but... aside from the actual weirdos, there were many who acted like they were attracted to me, then backed off when I responded. (A girl in college who told me all about her various "bi" exploits, including sleeping with both the male and female of a couple; after she and I slept together, she retreated to her gray-bearded longtime boyfriend. A close friend who liked getting massages from me but was repulsed when I finally expressed my attraction. An acquaintance who hosted karaoke at gay bars and who flirted with me and kissed me and invited me over to spend the night but then proclaimed her straightness. You get the picture. The ones who pretended to be "gay-friendly" caused more psychological damage to me than "straight society" ever did.) What I've always missed about men is their initial forthrightness: If they're interested, they're interested.

All of that said... Yeah, imagine me trying to explain all of the above utter crap to a date from Silver Singles, if it ever became serious! :)

I'd now like to date a man (I find Trump and Bill Clinton and George Jones and Ted Hughes attractive), but just imagine if the unsuspecting mature man (ages 51 to 61) asked me what music I was currently listening to: "Oh, I'm collecting CDs of ballets that Nijinksy danced to, and then Lynyrd Skynrd." Or if he asked me about politics: "Well, I was an Independent, mainly a Democrat, up until Trump in 2016, and now I've become a rabid Trumpist/Libertarian." I don't want an uptight Bush Republican; and I don't want a wimpy, academic Democrat; and I don't want an ignorant, sloppy working-class guy. But I do seek the simultaneously righteous and expansive soul of an artist sans the usually accompanying scuzziness, which is probably impossible---unless he's post 50 and has had a post-menopausal spiritual awakening of some sort! Ha!
 

I do, though, have a sincere interest in travelling around in an RV to all the states when I retire---maybe that might be a selling point. Oh, and I'm sincerely interested in how the Dallas Cowboys do every year...

Sigh. Personals didn't work for me back in the '90s, and I don't think they'll work for me now. I can't explain myself to anyone.

 

Rocks and Fossils

Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in rocks and fossils in a roundabout way---not necessarily in learning their exact names or their exact time periods, but more in thinking generally about how they were millions of years old and yet...here they were, right in the dirt next to my house or embedded in some wall! (What did the world used to be like?) Some people today often think of crystals mystically and "New Age-ily"---and they ARE, indeed, something to be wondered about. To me, it's kind of profound that you can actually touch something that's millions of years old.

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a cheap crystal "natural healing" set from Amazon ("for beginners," it was labelled; $20 for 14 raw and tumbled stones, plus 2 gem necklaces, a bracelet, a wooden moon tray, a selenite stick, etc.). Cheap, but with real stones. I couldn't stop looking at them and touching them. Then, while searching for more stones to order, I came upon other items on Amazon containing the exact same thing, but from a scientific geological perspective... When it's "National Geographic" marketed at 6-year-old children, you get 10 times the same stones, plus real fossils, for the same price! I can't wait to get my National Geographic big pile of rocks to vibe off of! :)

Recent Revelations

Whatever store I walk into, the clerk is not necessarily going to be dismissive of me. He/she is not necessarily going to treat me like my mother treated me, or like a snarky pseudo-intellectual or gay guy would treat me. (Once I left my mean home for college, I was immediately thrust into an equally mean world of both bitchy intellectuals and, once I came out as gay, bitchy gays.) Recently, I figured out that many store clerks are perfectly pleasant and nice young people without attitudes. I have only recently figured out that I could relax a bit. My place in the world is not in relation to my parents---though, online, it's still kind of in relation to the leftist creeps that I first came across when I first entered college in 1983. Despite the fact that I was very bright, I didn't read the "correct" publications, so I was mocked by the University of Texas "Daily Texan" staff when I tried to join. In my early poetry classes in the '80s at UT-Austin, I was ignored for not being either beautiful or Hemingway; in my '90s grad school poetry classes at San Francisco State, I was ignored because I didn't present myself as gay---though, as it turned out, I WAS actually gay! (Today, poetry mags censor writers for using the word "nigger" in context, or refuse to publish writers if they're not black/hispanic/gay enough. Every single system is rigged by idiots-of-the-era who think they're somehow "avant garde" when in fact they're the most bourgeois, generic thinkers of all, responding only to what their cohorts are encouraging them to think.)

George Jones: "The Corvette Song"

Psychiatric Interview: Catatonic Schizophrenic (1961)

After watching this man, the oddest thing to me is the comments on YouTube. Most commenters saying something like, "He's not weird, he's just gay" and "The interviewer is so mean" and "I'd like to give him a hug" and "It's society that made him the way he is" and "It's his father who made him the way he is" and "No one gave him the chance to play the piano."

According to this man's nephew, the subject didn't know how to play the piano (he's fantasizing in this video), he was asexual, his family was extremely patient with him despite all of the chaos he caused in their lives. He ultimately killed himself.

Immediately upon viewing, I was creeped out, thinking this was something from a horror film. And then I read the majority of the YouTube comments saying this guy was completely normal...

There's an AI concept, based on a biological concept, that I heard about earlier but couldn't find the name of online just now: The gist is: A species (like us humans) is hard-wired to innately reject what seems too unusual for the survival of the species.

I was born in 1965, pre-Internet, and this subject in the video was utterly horrifying to me. And the psychiatrist interviewing him seemed utterly patient and professional. But for Millennials raised on creating their own false identities online, the psychotic was somehow sympathetic and the rational interviewer somehow a "bad guy." This is the psychotic world that Millennials (and leftists in general) want to live in.

As a member of the human species, I protest.

Baseball-Sized Hail

Not!

Woke up this morning after a long, intricate dream in which Sandra and I were travelling around together and trying to get jobs with various hipsters at various nightclubs (!). A guy we'd both met and mocked, she ended up making out with. I walked away after seeing them kiss... (I haven't been in contact with her in years. Wondered if this was a sign that she'd died or something.)

Later that morning, my right hand gave out on me upon merely crumpling up a thick sheet of paper! Since there wasn't much to do at work, it didn't affect any keyboarding at that time, but afterwards, it DID affect personal typing and trying to close windows before the storm and trying to hold a glass and even trying to wipe my butt, for god's sake! Whatever particular muscle in my hand that controls these movements hurts like hell!

And then around 3pm came all the Weather Warnings: "Baseball-Sized Hail!" "Tornadoes!" "Take Shelter Immediately!" After looking up "how to protect your car from hail" and doing nothing (since I just didn't feel like breaking down cardboard boxes or putting comforters on my windshields), I sat transfixed before my local weather reports on the TV screen, and I actually moved various big cushions and a blanket and a water container into an "inner room away from windows." I thought this was my punishment for not being so sympathetic toward Ukraine---God was about to blow the roof off my apartment, and I had a hurt hand and 5 cats to take care of!

Yeah, well, there was no hail. (Really? "Baseball-Sized"?). There was barely any rain. I was freaked out for about 3 hours, and then about 6pm, I went ahead and got back online and worked on my Joan Crawford website. Life goes on. (But as I write this at 12:30am, I hear ominous thunder...Fine, just don't blow the roof off my apartment, please!)

Ukraine War

(1) Thank god for some REAL NEWS! I can finally watch CNN again. And I can only hope that the US military is now more concerned with actual world events than with tranny pronouns and paying for sex-change operations.

(2) To Ukraine: When the big nuclear power on your border --- a country that you used to be a part of --- suggests that you don't invite the CIA in to your country for training camps, and suggests that you remain neutral instead of seeking to belong to NATO, and expresses concern because of the US military and NGO money that's been flowing in since 2014 (including paying Hunter Biden $1 million per year via the Ukrainian Burisma energy company)... Then don't be surprised when you don't respond and then Russia bombs the hell out of you.

Sounds harsh? Imagine a similar scenario: Russia establishes bases in Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican border with the US, and gives Mexico a billion dollars in military aid, and then invites Mexico to be a member of a Russian military alliance.

The US wouldn't stand for that. (Well, Biden would, but Trump would not.)

Similarly, Russia is not standing for it. I am incredibly sorry for all of the people who have to leave their homes and families, and for all of the deaths and destruction---it's sickening and awful. (And I keep thinking of what I myself would do if I had to evacuate my home with my 5 cats---I'd most likely have to let all of them loose to fend for themselves.)

But, aside from blaming the Russians, you Ukrainians can also put part of the blame on your own inept, unintelligent, greedy government. All of that money flowing in from the US since 2014---you didn't think Russia would notice? You didn't think Russia might have a security "concern"?

Politically Incorrect Reading Material

In the early '90s, I was at the gynecologist's office and the Indian woman doctor was trying to make small talk, asking what book I was reading at the moment. "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," I replied. She didn't say another word to me for the rest of the exam. 

In September of 1994, during my first poetry class in grad school at San Francisco State, our professor asked us what we'd been reading over the summer. Responses along the lines of "Gabriel Garcia Marquez" were met with nods of approval. My own response of "Norman Mailer" was met with a sneer and dismissal. (Later, when the gay prof found out that I was also gay, he warmed up to me.)

A couple of weeks ago, when I had my monthly meeting with my (female/gay/Asian) boss, we were genially discussing movies and screenplay-writing (we'd both written one). But when we talked about our current interests, she mentioned the web series "Awkward Black Girl" and I mentioned that I'd been on a Roman Polanski movie binge, including "Venus in Fur" (2013) and his '84 bio and a book of interviews and the 2013 autobiography of Samantha Geimer, his 1977 rape victim. Conversation came to a screeching halt.

Now, to me, all of the books that I mentioned would be topics of interesting conversation. For instance, the "Third Reich" book was written in 1960 by an anti-Nazi American journalist, William Shirer. But all the female Indian doctor heard was "Third Reich." All the gay San Francisco professor, at that time already steeped in nascent race/gender theory instead of actual literary criticism, heard was the name of a writer deemed by his academic fellows to be "toxically masculine." All my current boss heard was the name of a director accused of rape. None of them had anything intelligent to say, and so they closed me down in prim disapproval---sans any knowledge of the Third Reich, or of Mailer's work, or of Polanski's work.

I find the above intellectual dishonesty just as threatening as anything that Putin is currently doing. And since 2016, the Thought Police in the US via mainstream media and social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have been out in full force, banning Trump (and banning legitimate stories about Hunter Biden and his Ukraine Burisma connections and the foreign money flowing to his father Joe Biden) but yet allowing China and al-Qaeda operatives to freely post on their sites. And college campuses, not allowing any free speech unless it's "radical speech." And cities, allowing their statues to be torn down based on extreme leftists' desires and not on a civic discussion or votes.

It's a fucking intellectually dishonest AND simultaneously criminally chaotic mess right now in this country. And when the inevitable backlash comes, I'll be right there cheering the fundamentalists on. (Never thought I'd say that, but there it is. I feel like the US is in a Weimar era right now---ENOUGH of scumbags trying to cancel everything that came before just because they themselves are not up to the standard; ENOUGH of the Communist and Anarchist "no borders.")

‘No war’: Russian Protester Detained For Crashing Live Broadcast

According to this uber-dramatic US mainstream media story, this Russian woman (an editor at the news station where she waved her sign) is subject to "up to 15 years in prison."

But according to Al Jazeera, her actual punishment was...a fine of about $280.

Nijinsky and Lopokova: "Carnaval" (1910)

 

Andy Gibb: Flowing Rivers (1977)

Another song written just by Andy Gibb, without help from his brothers. It's good.

Andy Gibb: Me Without You (1980)

He wrote this all by himself (sans Barry)! (Gives me goosebumps.)
(appeared as one of the "new" songs on his 1980 "Greatest Hits" album---his last album)

Shadow Dancing: Andy Gibb (1978)

I was VERY bored by this song when I was a teen. (Was still into the Bay City Rollers and KISS and hated disco, and was about to get into New Wave.)

Today, though, I think that Andy Gibb's "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" (written by Barry Gibb) and "Thicker Than Water" (Barry and Andy Gibb) and "Shadow Dancing"(Barry/Robin/Maurice/Andy Gibb) are all very good songs.

I never bought any Andy Gibb album at the time, but I just now bought his Greatest Hits.

Andy Gibb died in 1988, at age 30. Official version: Heart problems. Real cause: Drugs. He'd long been an addict, even before coming to the States. (His family still blames a bad relationship with Victoria Principal.)

New Kitchen Tools

I like my new red silicone kitchen utensils (at left), but I'm kind of creeped out by the new butcher block with knives. Most every episode of "Forensic Files" that I've watched features an intruder who's grabbed a knife from such a block on a counter.

And also: I don't even know how to use most of the very-big knives. I understand that they're for "bread" and "chef" and "Santoku" and "utility" and "paring"...  But I just bought the set 'cause I thought I should have some red kitchen stuff... I didn't know that I could hurt myself or that someone could stab me with these! Yikes!

 

Hate-crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett sentenced to jail

Thank God this psycho got his comeuppance. Note his screaming "I am not suicidal!" in court.
Now, is he really afraid for his life, or is he---now that his career is utterly over---planning on killing himself and wanting some last-minute drama? 

You might think: "Why would a person claim that someone might kill him if it wasn't true?" Well...Look at what Smollett was charged with: He falsely claimed that Trump supporters attacked him (turned out to be two Nigerian brothers that he himself hired). So, yes, this psycho is capable of anything.

December 1916: Nijinsky in Austin, Texas

Ballets Russes tour of the US (October 1916 thru February 1917). Promoter Diaghileff, after jealously firing Nijinsky in 1913 after his marriage (D. and Nijinsky had been lovers), was offered a lucrative deal for the Ballets Russes to tour the US, but only if Nijinsky appeared... Diaghileff made amends with Nijinsky, who was put in charge of the tour while Diaghileff stayed back in Europe.

The exotic, brilliant Nijinksy actually set foot in Austin, Texas! The troupe appeared at the Majestic Theatre (now the Paramount Theatre) on December 6, 1916.

An account of the Texas leg of the tour by Caroline Hamilton.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm clever enough to know a great idea, but not quite clever enough to see it to its fruition... BUT, please, someone, a film: "NIJINSKY IN TEXAS"!!!

Embarrassing Moments from State of the Union 2022

Surprisingly, this clip is from Newsweek magazine's YouTube feed. (I was pleasantly surprised to see Newsweek mocking the ridiculous---I'd thought they were part of the Democrat Party propaganda machine.)

Pelosi and Schumer are especially awkward. And Justice Breyer: As someone commented on YouTube, he acts like a 12-year-old girl (according to his Wikipedia entry, he's not gay; but I'm guessing he got married back in the "olden days" to avoid any roadblocks to his legal career).

Overall, the whole thing was ridiculous. Biden touted "made in America" but back in the '90s he was at the forefront of shipping US jobs overseas. The Obama/Biden administration told US workers to "get used to it" and adapt to the global economy. One of the first things Biden did upon taking office in 2020 was shut down the Keystone pipeline, and other US energy operations---thus forcing our country, and European countries, to import energy from Russia instead (giving Russia billions of dollars and making Russia think they had an economic hold on Germany, via the Nord Stream pipeline... and so Germany and the EU wouldn't dare object to Ukraine invasion?).

(Sidenote: Trump specifically called out Germany for not paying their fair share of NATO dues, and also took them to task for getting their energy from Russia while simultaneously being a part of NATO---which was created to protect Europe from Russia! One of Trump's tenets was also that the US should be completely energy-independent.)

What Biden naturally failed to mention during his State of the Union speech:

 

Inflation in the US is at its highest rate in 40 years.
The US southern border is wide open, with the highest rate of illegal entries in 21 years.
US murder rates are at their highest in 25 years.

Gas prices are at their highest in 10 years.

Everything Biden, and the left-wing, touches turns to sh**. Let's go Brandon!

Bonding with a co-worker

I am isolated from my current co-workers. Got hired in April 2020, a month after Covid started in March 2020, have never been in-house. All I know of everyone, aside from 3 or so meet-ups in the past 2 years, is how they act during our morning Teams meeting.

One guy, a Subject Matter Expert, I'd always considered a blow-hard, because during the morning meetings, he's always bloviating! And then there's his annoying speech impediment: One day I counted him saying "I...I...I...I...I" five times while trying to start one sentence.

Today, though, he called me on Teams to have a conversation about an upcoming assignment. We talked about the work for about 15 minutes, then spent the next hour or more talking about our lives and experiences and families... (Re the latter: His family sounds great---he's my age, and his grown kids are arguing about who he will live closest to when he retires, versus me: "Geez, when I get sick, my cats can't take care of me" and "Geez, I hope I don't die before my cats, because who will take care of them?")

I'd always been annoyed by this guy before, but after really talking to him for the first time in 2 years, I liked him. And I was energized after the conversation: A real conversation with a real person! Living alone and working from home, I never get to talk to anyone---it was nice!

Life-size Nijinsky on eBay

Currently for sale on eBay: A 40 by 88-inch wood-backed poster of Nijinksy (as Petrouchka, 1911). For a mere $6,000!
I can't afford $6,000, but I might pay $700 or $800 for this --- Beautiful and scary, like Nijinksy.

 

Did anyone really think...

...that Putin would allow a Slavic EU-wannabe nation (Ukraine) on his border? The history of the Ukraine goes back for centuries, of course, but in the past 200 years, between battles with Poland, Ukraine has been a Russian territory. Since the early 2000s, though, the United States has been pumping money into Ukraine (via both the US State Department and International organizations) in an attempt to influence the politics of that country. Current US President Joe Biden's son Hunter received a salary of $1 million per year to serve on the board of the Ukraine natural gas company Burisma while his father was Vice President of the US. In 2016, Ukraine joined a trade pact with the EU.

I don't blame Putin one bit for trying to secure his border. Or for fighting against the EU globalists. It's purely a regional, ethnic matter...unless looked at through EU or Biden financial-interest eyes.

The Beatles: Revolution

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...

The Beatles: Back in the USSR

The Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the West behind...

Nijinsky: 1910 shot by Eugene Druet

The McNay museum in San Antonio apparently owns the original Druet print, but doesn't sell any copies. (A few other sites online offer poor-quality copies, but nothing like this McNay version.)