Revolutionary thought of the evening:

If we, as a nation, really want to do something that will change the world, we could start with education.  We should make higher education, at least to the associates level, free to all natural born citizens, and make education a mandatory step for all immigrants.  In addition, we should reform the school systems, to do away with arbitrary and meaningless quotas and prerequisites, which don't encourage people to achieve their goals, but instead teach them to jump through hoops in gaining worthless credits that do not aid them in their live's endeavors.  Why should a person, with a natural talent in mechanics be forced to study english, when they could be taught to fully utilize their abilities and becoming functioning, educated, hirable citizens?  Why should a person with talents in physics or the arts be burdened with limitations of a curriculum, when a more advanced study line would do them better?

These things will not happen in our country, though, not for the majority.  There is too much opposition and fear of education, it is loaded with distasteful memories for many people, and weighted with the actual cost to the taxpayer.  People don't want to pay for the things they need most.

Shit, what do I know?  Never mind, I'm just a little buzzed and out of it.  I don't care that much.

Exposing The Girl Scouts! (Not that way, pervert)

Yesterday my lady friend and I were munching on some Girl Scout Cookies that she happened to buy from an entrepreneurial young lady outside of a Trader Joe's selling boxes for $4 a pop. I ate about 5 of the addicting little things and went to break into another layer of cookies when I found out that there are only 3 layers (15) cookies in a box. Now, I'm not a cookie junkie, and I've never had a Girl Scout cookie before in my life, and at first I was kidding when I said that it seemed like a rip off to pay $4 for such a small box of so-so cookies, but then, since we were bored, we decided to start searching the web on where the money from the cookie sales go.

It was like falling into the rabbit hole! Except, instead of reaching the bottom or coming out in wonderland, the hole just kept getting deeper and deeper.

I don't think anyone has every questioned the Girl Scouts, and why would we, they're just cute little girls who do some sort of activity together like camping or whatever, and wear funny uniforms. It's a good thing, right? But what do they do with all the money that they generate from selling cookies? My first guess was that it helps out the troops themselves, but it turns out that only a small percentage of the cookie sales stays in the local communities, with the lion share of the cookie sales going to the bakeries that make the cookies and a strange Illuminati type organization only referred to as the Girl Scout Council. We tried to research who is on this council and what they do with their money, but every interweb search led us back to the happy-happy joy-joy site of Girl Scouts themselves. It appears as if no one has every questioned what happens to the money that the Girl Scouts raise.

Girl Scout Cookies have yearly sales of 200 million plus boxes of cookies, with revenues of $700 million plus. Each box of cookies costs around a quarter to make, and the bakeries get 85 cents from the sales of the cookies, or about $170 million in sales from cookies. This seems great for the two tiny bakeries that are privileged enough to make the cookies, but a little research shows who owns those two 'little' bakeries. The two companies are ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakery. ABC Bakers is owned by Interbake Foods LLC, which is, in turn owned by George Weston, Ltd. George Weston, Ltd. also owns Loblaw Companies Ltd: "Canada’s largest food distributor and a leading provider of general merchandise products, drugstore and financial products and services." Little Brownie Bakery is owned by Keebler, which is owned by Kellogg's. So these two 'little' bakeries are actually owned by two of the largest food distributors and manufacturers in North America, and one of their biggest marketing schemes is to have little girls dress up in costumes and sell their crappiest cookies for inflated prices!

As far as the Girl Scout Council is concerned, they are so enshrouded in mystery that it seems as if they don't actually exist. Any searches for who is on the inner council or who is in charge leads nowhere. Up to 50% of the profits from the Girl Scout Cookies go to this mysterious council to be spent in ways that no one seems to be able to say, either because they are unwilling or unable. Think of it, nearly $400 million is being funneled into this organization on just cookie sales, but they have nothing to show for it, no links to charities that they support, nothing to show how it's being spent. The council doesn't supply uniforms or services to the Girl Scouts, instead, the Scouts pay yearly fees of $10 and supply all their own uniforms (which they can buy from the Girl Scout website, costing upwards of $60 just for a 'starter' kit of the bare essentials like a sash and vest) have to buy any badges they win, pay for all their events outings, and essentially support their own troops. The den mothers and troop leaders are often volunteers who also supply their own uniforms and pay for many of the events that the troops attend. Camps are not free, but also cost money, so where is the surplus money going to in this "non-profit" organization?

Who is making all the money? It's not just cookies, but there are other scams going on with this organization. One link on the Girl Scouts website led to trips that the Scouts can take, and so we searched to see where they could go. One was a 12 day trip to Europe, which seems great, and something that anyone would enjoy, but the price tag for all 12 days was $3900! A simple break down showed that $400 of that was for the air fare and the rest was recorded in such vague ways that it didn't seem to add up. With just some estimation, my lady and I were able to establish that, with the $400 air fare included, a trip to Europe, with 8 nights lodging (2 of the nights were on ferry boats, 2 nights were air travel) and 10 days of food would cost less than $1000 (the scouts aren't going to stay in luxury suites, with each scout getting a personal room, they most likely are going to be staying in pensions or hostels, with 4 to a room) and the cost of guided tours for 3 days would probably run around $150-300, but that's per the group, not the individual. The person running that particular scam is making a huge chunk of change off the scouts who go with them on their fantasy vacation, all for babysitting some teenage girls for 2 weeks. If 10 scouts go, that's around $38,000 that one person can make! How do I get into this business? I'll gladly take a bunch of whiny kids to Amsterdam for 2 weeks and let them take a tour of the red light district and the coffee shops!

All in all, I wasn't out to find some nefarious conspiracy, but just was curious about what the Girl Scouts do with the money that they make off their cookies, but it seems like I've stumbled across something bigger than a simple thin mint. I'm not saying that the organization is evil or bad, but when a simple question can't be answered simply, it leads one to think that something must be going on.

When did the venue become the Entertainment?

Over the past week or so, I've been trying to book a last minute tour to California, and I've been facing this weird phenomenoa in the LA area: venues that think that they are the main attraction. When did this happen? When did the club owners start thinking that people only came out to see the club and not the entertainment that they hire? I mean, I'm used to the inflated ego's amongst fellow musicians, and the idea that we have to bolster our own persona just to deal with the inevitable let down of playing a show for less people than we expected, and dealing with the constant struggle of trying so damn hard to entertain in a world inundated with entertainers, but when did the clubs themselves decided to get into the act?

I've been looking at these club websites and it's like they are desperate for fans to come and hang out at them, or over the top acting like they are the stars of the shows themselves. Websites with blurbs that say they are the hottest club in town, and the only place to see live music, and it's sort of sickening, because, in the long run, they are only rooms for musicians to play at, and nothing without the musicians.

Look, I don't care what you're reputation is as a nightclub, you're nothing without the performers, but a bar. You may say that people come out to see bands because you have a reputation as a place that books good shows, but you're Nothing without the performers. One more time let me reiterate: You are just a fucking bar without the performers! No one cares about the club itself, they want the music that plays there, so get off your high horse and stop acting like you're the shit, since you're NOTHING but an empty room with a juke box, without the live performers!!!!

Jumping Jesus On A Pogo Stick!

Drinking coffee and pretending to be contimplative...

So, for the past 6 or 7 years I've done all my blogging on myspace, and now that myspace has become, as Seth Meyers put it "the Internet's abandoned amusement park", I'm moving away. It is a strange decision for me, especially since, in the past few months, I've been averaging around 80 hits a day for my blogs there, but I just can't stand the spam anymore. I cringe whenever I think about going to check my inbox or see how many hits I have for my songs, because it means that I'll have to cull the massive amount of junk mail and invites to shows in different countries or states thousands of miles away, and then deny all those people who want to put ads on my comment page.

"No!" I want to scream. "No I don't want to buy your damn beats! I don't want to buy your new CD and check out your new tracks! I don't care! I don't know you, and you haven't made any attempt to get to know me, so Fuck Off!" But I covered all this in a blog on myspace, and if anyone finds their way to this blog from there, it will all seem redundant.

More than likely I'll have to go through all my old blogs there and try to salvage the stuff I like, or maybe I'll just leave it, like I leave my music on there, like a memorial. It will be the same as when my Mom left my brother's room intact long after he had been in college and moved out of the house. (It's strange, my room got converted into a sewing room within months of my departure from the family house, and later, when I would visit, I would always wonder why. I think that Mom was banking on my brother to be the one to take care of her in her old age, which makes sense.)

Anyway... let's see, what's been going on?...

In case you didn't already know, I finished my album, Muloch, a few months ago and it's now available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDbaby. It's my second self released album, and the third that I've been involved with, the other two being Antique Porn and Liquid Panty Remover (with the band Fuq Ninja. If you have a copy of Liquid Panty Remover, I'll gladly pay you to remove that drunken display from the public record. I loved being in that band, but we were drunk most of the time and I'm afraid of the music floating around out there that we made together.) There's also the possibility that there are recordings of me playing drums with Jay Snow and maybe a video of me playing drums with Joey Fender somewhere, but I'm not sure where I'd find those, it doesn't really matter. Muloch is something I've been working on for about 3 years now, and would have finished earlier, if it weren't for a lot of indecision, procrastination, and probably drama. I had been trying to work on an album with my last band, Groups of 3, but after only getting enough material for an EP, going through 2 drummers, losing a bassist to California, and some other unfortunate events, GO3 broke up, and so ended that project.

The end of GO3 coincided with a breakup with a girl, which always leaves me feeling more dramatic than usual, but in order to deal with the emotional turmoil I was feeling, I focused my energy on finishing something, anything, and that became the needed catalyst to finish this long worked on album. So I bought a new usb mic, got a copy of Logic for my Mac, and started recording and mastering songs.

I actually ended up with more songs than I put on the album, and I still have some songs to record, so, if I make enough money, look for another album in the next 3 years (ha.)

About the name, Muloch, I think I should explain. Muloch is actually my own unique spelling of Moloch, which is "something possessing the power to exact severe sacrifice" or an ancient god that demanded sacrifice by fire (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Moloch) which seemed appropriate to me. I came across the name while watching Metropolis, the Fritz Lang classic. During one scene Freder is in the underground city and he witnesses an industrial accident that kills several of the workers. He has a vision of the machine turning into the Muloch (I will use my own spelling from here on, thank you very much), which is an angry god devouring the workers in the flames inside it's hoary mouth. I was so moved by the scene that I decided that at some point I would name something after it, and due to the amount of time, effort, and even heartache that went into this album, I thought it was appropriate.

Although I'd like to write on and on about the Muloch, I'd rather you, dear reader (ooh, I got to say 'dear reader') go check it out for yourself. Just search for my name or Muloch on Google or any of the above mentioned sites, even myspace has a few of the songs on it. So yeah, JFGI.

In other news...

I've been out of work now for about a month. I was working in a group home for adults with DD, a job I really love to do, and also because I have these platitudes hammered into me, from my pious and not so saintly Mother, of things like 'a life without sacrifice and charity is a life not worth living' and 'be the change that you want to see' and stuff. But don't get me wrong, I just like the job, it's not a hugely altruistic job or anything, it's just fun. I was working in a group home, but then, suddenly my bosses decided to clean house and fire a few of us for reasons that I found unfair, unjust, and unjustifiable. Now I'm fighting for my unemployment, because I can't afford to hire a lawyer and sue their asses for being horribly wrong about their reasons. If I can get my unemployment, I'll at least feel some sense of justice in the world, and then I'll feel better. I really would like to rant about this for a while, but it's been an emotionally draining subject and I'm not sure if I can or want to reveal something that might be considered confidential, and therefore a threat to my cause. Let's just say that that company can suck my nuts. I do miss my old clients though, and I wish someone would let them know that they can call me. They are good people.

Other than that I'm playing gigs, and working on a tour of California for spring break with my beautiful and amazing girlfriend, who has been a blessing to meet and share my time with over the past few months. She's a truly amazing girl and I'm glad I know her. We have both been taking things slow, because we both had prior wounds from previous relationships, but the more time I spend with her, the more I like her company, and I'm amazed that she is so supportive of me, even in my moody bitchy times. But I'm not one to gush about such things, I prefer to keep my personal life, well, personal.

Well, that just about does it for this blog, I've got some things to do, and a full bladder from all this coffee, so thanks for reading my little journal of my everyday life.