Ain't Nothing but the Mushrooms

Last night I went to see Mescalito, the great god of trippin' people, and he chastised me at first for taking so long to work up some stuff to come to see him. He also said I should have eaten more mushrooms but I told him I know he's the great god of trippin' people but he's still a fat-ass doper and I'm gone if he keeps rippin' on me.

Eating the mushrooms is a good sign as I wasn't even considering it until I felt like I could do it without the possibility of spending the next six or eight hours feeling intensely sorry for myself.

Lotho, Mrs Lotho, and Baby Anastasia came by for a little while and that was massively good. He got the keyboard back up on the stand and he'll be coming over again later. Nurse Judi will be coming down at one o'clock. That'll be a wonderfully cool confluence of goodness. Sure I'm mooching some psychic power from them but they know that already.

The overall theme last night was I will not seek vengeance and the trick with this will to write it so that it doesn't fall into a religious pit. It could easily wind up as a lecture and that bites. I'll think about it some more but what's live right now is "One Day in May" and I first wrote it a couple of years ago but it's never been recorded for a CD.

Here goes...

We danced beneath the stars
Made love 'til morning
Flew past the orb of Mars (Editor: This bites)
Until the dawning
Then it came
Sun rose again
A new day

Spinning through the night
We trailed stardust
Such a pretty sight
Was just between us
Came the breeze
that blew it all away
as it may.

The heavens sang our song
as long we flew there
an ecstasy of love
that only two share.
Ends the song
quiet comes again
and fades away.

Searching for the love
It's always calling
Walking through the rain
It's always falling
Black the sky
It only seems that way
This day

One day in May
It's going to find you
That bright day
It's going to blind you
In it's way
it's coming back for you
some day.


Right, right. WTF is an ecstasy of love. All of Wisconsin can't crank out cheddar like that. There are some small changes already but the revision isn't final and it'll be interesting to see how it goes later on today. There first four lines of the third verse are ferociously horrible and I'll almost certainly change them.

I'm back to barking at the moon a little and that'd be a cool thing with Nurse Judi. We've been talking about a different blues thing, tho:

Ain't got no neck
haw haw haw haw
I ain't got no neck
haw haw haw haw

Kind of John Lee Hooker thing. Could be some funny stuff and we'll see. Got to be super careful with funny stuff as that dries up quicker than a Republican promise (ha, I knew I could get one in somewhere).

Ain't got no neck
haw haw haw haw

Ain't Nothing but the Blues

When I look at B.B. King playing, I see one of the happiest mofos I've ever seen in my life. Same with Stevie Ray and Nurse Judi and I saw him just a few gigs before his last. He was so happy he was shining. He'd kicked off heroin, had a new love, and was playing smoother and faster than I ever heard. There was no suffering in that at all.

My brother wants to be a bluesman and it cracked me up at first. He's ridiculed my ass for, oh, ever since I started and then shows up with the most gorgeous Ovation guitar. I mean too sweet for feckin' sugar and he's got another one back home. wtf??

This won't be to rip on my brother but rather to teach whatever I can as talking doesn't work. The first lesson is that no-one gives a shit about your pain. Ralph Seneca said blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad in "Crossroads" but I don't believe that at all. I don't see B.B. King feeling bad and I don't see Stevie Ray feeling bad. In fact, they look as happy as they can possibly be.

I also don't believe suffering makes you a better bluesman just for the fact of having been through it. How much suffering could Jonny Lang have experienced. He was just a kid when he started and he plays some monster blues.

The way I see the job as a bluesman is you're channeling the love to people who really are feeling those blues right now. You're not blue when you do it and maybe you never have been but you know how to bring the vision to the people in a way they will feel it and understand it. Perhaps it's partially empathic in that you need to pick up from the audience whether they even need you to be playing any blues.

That's why I say it's all in the touch as it doesn't matter if you know the coolest, most esoteric musical scales if playing them doesn't touch the audience. That touch is what connects you to the musical heaven and connects it through to them to lift them from where they are. If you're playing your blues in front of an audience, it's a very different thing from playing for yourself. That's how it works with me but I can't say how it goes with anyone else.

I'm not a bluesman but I like to get into that "Barking at the Moon" vibe to get into some blues without getting all wimpy about it. I've been listening to it from time to time to try to pull back that attitude. Now when I am as down pretty much as far as I've get, I become a consumer of my own stuff. It's strange but it works.

There isn't any way to teach what I do as I don't know what I do. If you asked me the chords to any of my songs, I'd have to go back and figure them out. It's scattered and I don't recommend it but playing like that makes every gig kind of an impressionist event. People can't predict what I'm going to do because I don't know what I'm going to do.

For me improv is everything. If I'm not making mistakes then I'm just not pushing out there far enough. That's not good for everyone as others like to chart a piece of music and then play it absolutely perfectly. This also isn't something I can teach as there's no telling what will give you the greatest musical fulfillment. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it won't be the same as someone else and that's why bands blow up.

Maybe this reads like it's coming from the patronizing rock god but hopefully I've done better than that. Sure I've got loads of CDs released but no-one buys them. It's all an act and I thought everyone knew that. If you all are thinking I believe my own bullshit, you just haven't been reading.

So this last six or seven months has been the most all-time motherfucker in destroying my life but it won't do one damn thing to make me a better bluesman, a better guitarist, or anything at all. This is not whining, this is for you to understand. It all goes back to that same old joke:

Guy: Say there, cabbie, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Cabbie: Practice, practice, practice

This may seem unsympathetic but actually it's frustration as I know how hard it is to practice, practice, practice. Your fingers get cut up and they bleed. You think all the time that you suck and you're never going to get any better. It takes forever to learn something and it still sucks even when you think you're doing the best you can. People will humor you and you'll feel like a fool. Nothing will make this any easier and there are no shortcuts at all.

There is one thing I know absolutely: Live or alone, the only real mistake you can make is to stop playing.

Don't EVER roll over for what you think other people want you to play. You can easily fuck yourself up so much doing it that way that you never play anything. I backed off on hard rock for quite a while and for that reason. All I accomplished in that was to waste a lot of time.

So, learn those chords to play them blues. Ralph Seneca had that part dead right.

Pig Riots in India

Here at the Ministry of the Internet we're happy that religions fight over really stupid things as it always gives us something to use to feel superior. We feel really, really superior today because they're fighting in India over a pig that was chucked into a mosque. (CNN: Thrown pig leads to religious riots in India)

More than a dozen people have been injured and, as nearly as we can determine, the pig is still dead.

Praise Jesus.

Fiddling About

They call me Uncle Ernie and all I'm wanting is some crumpets with me tea. Or at least I would if I liked tea and knew what to do with a crumpet.

Things are coming along but revenge purfication is a bit slow. My latest is to take "Foreclosure" and make a video. I talked to Nurse Judi about it last night and said maybe she could shoot me playing in some really horrible places. For the soft part in the middle, the screen goes black and then text:

Royal Bank of Scotland ...... fade to black
Took BIGGEST financial hand-out in UK history ..... fade to black
Now they're in the U.S. as RBS Americas ..... fade to black
Do you think they want to break the record here too? 2.3.4 Ka-boom back into the chords....Come, take my house...

(By the way, the CEO for RBS Americas didn't come from Scotland. You'll love where they found her: CitiBank. RIght, tell me they're not out for the record.)

Put it on YouTube, hope it goes viral, and bust their asses.

I know there's a way to do it but I need to lose this kind of thinking. It's a chickenshit bank and it's a chickenshit goal to bust them.

I'm not apologetic over losing my mind. The last six or seven months have been devastating and I suspect would have laid anyone to waste. So now I see things a bit more clearly. I'm still completely fucked but I see you all out there and that's a very good reason to get myself together again.

Some stuff you couldn't know as I've been holding it back. Working is not a possibility as even walking is a problem. The upper body, particularly around the shoulder, is extremely painful as the muscles have atrophied over twenty years and Abbie is waking them back up. I can handle it but I can't perform at all and that includes acting like it's all good on the telephone.

The prostate stuff appears to be mildly-screwed. The test was for cancer and bad medical news always comes back fast. It's been over a week so I'm writing that one off. I'll have to take some medicine but that's as interesting as that story gets.

This is the part where I need to be the supreme bad-ass and pull myself out of things. If you're reading self-pity then just move the fuck on...that's not what this is about. I'm under 130 lbs and extremely weak. The only way to fix that is to step things up so I develop some kind of appetite and turn the cycle around. Barbi has been wonderful and has been helping as she can but she's not my babysitter and I've got to do it myself anyway.

So that's the situation. I'm making some progress but it's hard and it hurts bad. Lotho is coming up this week-end and I'm hoping we can work it so Nurse Judi can see him. Maybe she would even get to see Anastasia. (They'll end up calling her Anne or Annie but Anastasia is a pretty feckin' cool name.)

"One Fine Day" isn't going to be that name anymore. I've known all along that it's also the name of a George Clooney / Michelle Pfeiffer movie and it's pretty far up there for Chick Flicks That Don't Suck. The song is somewhat similar thematically too so I've felt kind of a plagiaristic vibe whenever I've done the song. So...

It becomes "One Day in May" because a lot of muddafuggas fall in love in May. You're out there in Eden Park, walking around and holding hands, looking at the flowers and the lakes. You're gone, man. It's going to happen. One day in May.

Yes, it's another love song. Feckin' sue me (laughs)

Whoops....there's more, isn't there. One day in May is when I got mowed down originally. Hmm....must think on that some.

This is feckin' huge. At that stage in my life, Nurse Judi and I were in the relatively early stages of Big Love and I was off early from work on a beautiful day to ride back home to see her. Splat. Twenty years later, it comes back around and Big Love doesn't even mean the same thing anymore but it's richer than it ever was.

Yep, there's a song in that. Write about what you know.

Lotho, I'm going to try to get the keyboard set up but to stay within the rules. It's much easier to lower the equipment than to raise it and this may go some distance to explaining Viagra sales in the U.S. If I can do that without risk, I'll get it done as it'd be much cooler to see you just for the hell of it than because you need to rescue my lame ass.

ChickenFoot

Now this is Satriani with the hammer right down. Lotho put me onto this and it's like hearing Zappa on the Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar tour which was the most blow-down rockin' show I ever saw from him.

Here's a link to Chickenfoot on iTunes Store

I hardly ever buy anything but I'd have bought this one already if I had a reliable WiFi connection. It's Sammy Hagar sounding better than I've heard him. This band keeps it going real strong. Minimal wax. Very minimal wax.

Introducing Max Meadows

Paul Delph is someone I've mentioned several times previously as giving the ballsiest concert I've ever seen in my life when he played at the old Pickel Barrel in Cincinnati. I was on the periphery with Paul but someone who knew him a whole lot better is Max Meadows.

There was a band in Cincinnati called the Screaming Skulls and it was comprised of Paul Delph on keys, Max Meadows on drums and The Astronomer on bass. I worked with The Astronomer back when I still cared what computers do, a long time ago, but I didn't meet Max until much later and Paul even later than that.

The Screaming Skulls broke up when Paul went out to L.A. for a bigger adventure than Cincinnati could give him. Max and The Astronomer stayed in Cincinnati and we met up at what has come to be known as the Outrageously Feckin' Cool Melrose Jam.

So, yeah, Max is one of The Freezebirds. How about that!

(Max is not his real name. He had a fake name long before it was fashionable.)

Max, no idea if you'll be coming back past. I found you on LinkedIn but that slutty piece of crap wanted me to register an account to send you a message. The last time I registered with LinkedIn, it sold out my corporate email and I got spammed more than announcing how much I want to make financial deals to make millions in Nigerian gold. Anyway, I'm pretty decrepit but I'll find a way to get in touch.

Or corporatively speaking, I'll reach out telephonically and we can chat about future options and pro-active solutions. Every time I hear someone talking like that, I think of those bugs in "Star Trek - Wrath of Khan" that would crawl in your ear and eat your brain.

Here's an example from CNN this morning:

"It's value-based shopping," said Pam Liebman, chief executive of the brokerage Corcoran Group. "People are coming back into the market, but nobody is going to overpay."

So Pam is a chief executve, chief feckin' executive and she says value-based shopping. Er, Sunshine, what other kind is there.

Oh gee, honey, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm sure you're worth every bit of $150K a year. Really. Now you go back to your little spreadsheets and ... how do I say it ... shut the fuck up.

Oh man, there's more. Little Pam's Manhattan condo just dropped hugely in value. Geez, I so hate it when financial analysts lose their asses. If only I had another home to give. (laughs)

Talking with Sister Jacque

There's been a lot of talking of ass-kicking the last couple of days but it hasn't had anything to do with the perpetrator of the nest egg heist. It would be more in the context of what my ass will look like if I don't get things at least marginally together.

Sister Jacque said the Silas stuff needs to be restored or my ass is kicked and that blocking people from being able to help is a sucky thing to do. I told her I would do it but it still makes the room spin around.

We talked about much more than that but not for the blog and there's nothing mysterious in that. She's my friend and we talk about stuff.

I haven't been able to deal with the phone and haven't been carrying it. Nothing ever overloaded me like this and it's all swirling, a roomful of mirrors kind of thing. Yes, this is a back-handed apology but I can't guarantee at all that I'm stable. I know I'm not.

This has nothing to do with drugs and Jacque can tell you I wasn't even that stoned. Well, she doesn't have to tell you anything but have no doubt she would say something if it were a lie.

I haven't got the kit set back up, partly because the vibe is dragging me down and partly because I can't lift it. The second part loops back to the first part and I wallow in self-pity for a while so I'm just leaving it alone.

Jacque said go to ahead and feel sorry yourself so wtf but it's not for the reasons you might think. It's been suggested that Nurse Judi boosted the money and it's a heartbreaker that anyone would think that. She would die before she would ever steal anything from anyone. I'm not trying to slam the one who made the suggestion as it's just the way my family is I guess. I wish they understood that the only thing worse than losing the money is finding out who did it.

The only proof I can give you that I'm trying is that I'm going to the therapy sessions. I don't want to go into details but the news is mixed and the work to get the guitar motions going hasn't started yet. The Daughter of Darkness is very good and I'm giving her total trust in the protocol she is following. It's scary that the guitar stuff hasn't started yet but I'm very sure she knows what she's doing.

She's not that dark, tho. She was apologizing this morning for how much she was hurting me and I was saying (gasping), no, no, you weren't the one who turned the key. It's a very intimate thing with your therapist and part of it is making sure she knows it's ok to keep going.

I'm sorry everything has been so crazy. I'm a pinball and the deaf, dumb and blind kid doesn't know a damn thing about playing the game. I'll keep fumbling along and I know this has something to do with the mouse and the chicken but I'm not exactly sure what they're saying. I'll have a better chance of figuring it out after talking to my sis.

Thank you, Sister Jacque. You're a sweetheart!

Marry Your Dog, Mister?

Advocating gay marriage may be exciting for the Republican Party and you really must forgive them as it's likely the only excitement they ever get. However, here at the Ministry of the Internet we grow weary of trying to understand how allowing more people to marry will somehow be destructive to marriage.

We don't believe that permitting gay marriage is remotely sufficient to remove the shackles of the Catholic Masters of Morality who have bound the human race in sexual misery for centuries. In fact, since the Catholics invented the Inquisition, it seems only fair that they should experience it. They are, after all, the first proponents of an eye for an eye. Therefore, it seems reasonable to put the Pope on a waterboard to ask him, "Just why the fuck did you torture the entire human race for the last few thousand years with your bullshit idea that sex is impure."

Just a thought.

Might also want to ask him why his dumb-ass predecessors didn't know about the child abuse.

(Editor: bullshit)

Go ahead and stretch his ass. He'll talk.

It's ok to do this. We checked with Dick and George. They're Christians.

But not with the Ministry of the Internet. They tried to come here to visit but, not surprisingly, they couldn't find it. George called me for directions but I told him to kiss off. He told me he was going to hunt me down if it's the last thing he does. I told him I've heard him say that before and I wasn't worried.

So, brothers and sisters, we are so happy to announce today that the Reverend Silas T Sasquatch, duly ordained by the World Life Church, is now available to perform marriages, particularly for your housepets. Now you may have some difficulty obtaining a marriage license as the clerk may balk at the paw prints but this is America. Do what everyone else does. Bribe the clerk.

We realize that some of you may want to go beyond the marriage of your housepets and you may be reaching the point where that special feeling you have for your dog is something that you just can't hold inside any longer. Have no fear as you will not be ridiculed at the Ministry of the Internet. You will not be heckled and reviled. Nay, your marriage will be celebrated as for the first time in history, the Ministry of the Internet preacher will get to say, "Please God, bestow your blessings on the marriage of this man and this bitch."

(I believe I'll go climb down a mineshaft somewhere and hide)

Pass the Muskets

Here at the Ministry of the Internet, we're not sure if you praise Jesus and then pass the muskets or the other way around. But we don't have any muskets so it's not as important as it might be.

Now we've had a vision that if we just sit here and write songs, blasphemous sermons, and such then eventually everything will be alright. We do not believe this for a second but we are doing it and will now go off to therapy to experience some righteous pain.

Set Us Free

I'm just throwing out sketches but I could be analyzing the future of the metaverse if you want.

Nah, scratch that. The metaverse hasn't changed in years.

Some talk of love
but it's really just need
They also talk of sharing
but it's really just greed.

This girl called us partners,
told her friends with such glee
but there's one little part
that she said nothing to me.


If you want to ride the bus
and come jammin' with me
You've got to speak the truth
to set us all free.


My bro never learned
the most imporant part
You don't have to win
every fight that you start.


If you want to ride the bus
and come jammin' with me
You've got to speak the truth
to set us all free.


You never can own me
but I'm yours any time
There's never a question
and there sure ain't no line


If you want to ride the bus
and come jammin' with me
You've got to speak the truth
to set us all free.


And so on....

Before you jump me for cheap-shotting my brother, it's a fair one. Neither he nor my sister know how to fight without shouting down the opposition. That's how he blew it with my father and that's how he blew it with me. If they listen to his poems, perhaps they'll get a better grip that they never blew it with him at all.

You can hear his poems at Alex Fraser's Unpublished Poetry. There's only the one but there will be more. (Rather than remembering the URL, you can click the Features button and then you'll get the Features page with a button for Alex Fraser)

This is all a forty-year acid trip and Lotho is the only one who could know what that means. Vincent was pretty much of a fuck-up and you prob'ly wouldn't be seeing many, if any, of his paintings if not for how his brother took care of him. I don't want to be mooching off Lotho or anyone else but what he gives is I imagine very similar to what Vincent's brother gave.

Lotho can hit me with a baseball bat so here's one for him: you're not tone-deaf. That's a bullshit excuse. Ha!

Looking for the Lady

This is just a sketch that partially fulfills a promise to Lotho.

Staring at the ceiling
There's no-place to go
The phone keeps ringing
but I wish it would blow.
I'm not looking for my mother
I'm not looking for my dad
I'm looking for that lady
and the good times we had.

I don't think I'm a sinner
and I'm damn sure not a saint
but there's no filling the holes
in the life that I've made.
I hope you'll be thinking kindly
when I finally shuffle on
I'm not going just this minute
I think I've one more song.

Busker blues on village sidewalks
come alive when you will play
and strings are so much sweeter
when you have no-place to stay.
You do it for the music
There's just no other choice
It's the sound you love forever
It's your finest voice.

Catching Catfish

Here at the Ministry of the Internet, we recognize that lofty principles are always important, particularly when they apply to recreational drugs, but we also recognize that sometimes life is only about catching a catfish. Sometimes the best way to catch a catfish is to hit it with a baseball bat as they don't respond well to lofty principles.

You already know the catfish so the only question is who has the bat and that would be Lotho.

The first thing and he was rightly flaming about this part: is the equipment damaged. It isn't. It's sloppy and ugly but nothing was thrown. I couldn't throw anything if I wanted.

I learned about my rage in a situation I won't describe and I know I can be as terrifying as my ol' Dad ever was. I also learned that can never come out so I either run away or I act like such an asshole that people will stay away from me. There was no rage in taking that stuff down, just deep disappointment.

Random mindfuck
I've just had a call from the realtor and the bank is now reviewing my existing assets as part of the short sale of the house. What that means is that the money would have been taken anyway. Taking it out of the bank was the right thing. Hiding it in this room was something less than the right thing.

I must get this out: I'm well aware I'm crazy but doesn't it seem a little strange to you that the same place for which I work is looking for salary stubs from me when they're the same outfit that hasn't been paying me. Follow your process, my sweets, it's working so well.

They still haven't fired me which I assume means they're aware they're facing the Mother of All Lawsuits.

It's Disneyland thinking to believe that the problem would be solved without me croaking and that puts it in my ol' Mother's face. That can't happen and that was the baseball bat. it's a fair hit and I'll respect it.

it's also Disneyland thinking that someone took the money to protect me from myself but it was a sweet thing to say, Slinger.

I'm trying to keep myself rational and it's not working. All I can do with that is don't do anything.

This part isn't negotiable: no-one will be accused and no-one will be charged.

At the Feet of the Master

There's always something to learn even if you knew it all the time. Here at the Ministry of the Internet, we hold no-one in higher regard than Mohandas Gandhi and we've tried for many years to understand whether his principles would work at any other time.

The Cleric and I differed as he thought non-violence could not possibly have stopped Adolf Hitler. I agreed that non-violence couldn't stop the Nazis but I don't believe they could maintain an occupation anymore than could the Brits.

Perhaps it is the destiny of the human race to have a master class that maintains order through massive subjugation of the lower classes. If that's the will of humanity then so be it but I don't believe it is true. Ultimately even massive subjugation I suspect would collapse of its own weight.

My family didn't understand my motives when I was twenty and they won't understand now. I do not want vengeance but I do want the nest egg returned. The only way that can work is with a hunger strike. There's nothing heroic about that as I don't want to eat anything anyway. If this world can steal a man's last life hope while he's in the hospital then I don't want to be in it. I'll keep drinking Pepsi as the water fast is kind of Old School for me.

I don't see this as needlessly dramatic. Whoever took it is known to the others who have been through this house. They may not know who did it but they know the person. The family can save me if it chooses to do so but know this much: I know how the money was wrapped so I will know if it is someone with a big heart trying to fake me out. I can appreciate charity but I will not take it.

If this backfires, take it to CNN iReport and splash it all over the place. Be sure to give credit to Liberty Mutual and RBS Americas for their part.

Yes, I understand the money could be in the room someplace. If that's the case then I'm so far gone that it really doesn't matter what I do. With the tour gone, it doesn't matter in any case. Even if it were returned, I don't think it could be salvaged so the only thing really important to me now is the principle.

Ruins of Xanadu

You have have heard of the Ruins of Xanadu before but this is what it really looks like:



In a convenient pile, it's much easier for thieves to browse to see what they want to steal next.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself. There's no way to secure the place so there's nothing to be done. I'm going to get back to smoking joints, watching movies, and saving souls.

Yes, I know you're probably pissed off with me for killing Silas but the blog was poisoned by that phony romance bullshit and there's no point in even talking about the theft anymore. Maybe I can make something of Sasquatch.

CNN Says Good-Bye to Michael Jackson

Here at the Ministry of the Internet, we're sad to see Michael Jackson go but we're really disgusted to see the way the media has feigned love for him, particularly after making his life an ongoing nightmare while he was alive. We talked with the people from CNN about this and here's how it went:

Us: We would like to talk to one of your news commentators about Michael Jackson
CNN: Of course, how about Jane Perez-Mitchell
Us: Well, she's got a pretty head but there's nothing in it
CNN: There's Nancy Grace
Us: Sure, the lady who has never known anything so trivial she couldn't get pissed off about it.
CNN: How about Wolf Blitzer
Us: You make our dreams come true

Wolfie: Greetings from Washington
Us: We would like to know more about the cure for pedophilia
Wolfie: There's nothing to say. You can't cure pedophilia.
Us: Michael Jackson was cured, wasn't he?
Wolfie: How do I know that?
Us: It's been many years since CNN last charged him with it
Wolfie: So?
Us: In fifty years, he was charged twice and neither charge had any particular substance.
Wolfie: And?
Us: If he were a pedophile, either CNN isn't much on investigation or it never happened again and that's assuming it ever happened in the first place.
Wolfie: CNN investigation is world-class
Us: So the only other conclusion is he was not a pedophile, correct?
Wolfie: Or he was once and he was cured later
Us: Quite so and this brings us back to the lead question
Wolfie: I still don't know of any cure for pedophilia
Us: Wait a second, you just told us CNN investigation is world-class. You told us Michael Jackson is a pedophile and now you're saying he's not.
Wolfie: I don't know what he is.
Us: Why am I not surprised.

Congratulations to CNN on making a buck on Michael's misery and then making even more on capitalizing on his death. Only in America.