Terry Allen

I was pleased to see someone added a couple of Terry Allen songs I like to MySpace. I promptly posted them to my profile playlist. Check out Cortez Sail and Our Land. Now that's the America I know.

While you're at it, check out Fred Eaglesmith's Tenderbox. I know, Fred's a Canadian. But he gets an honorary Texan badge for that one.

PS. I also found Ray Wylie Hubbard's Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Throw in The Unrepentant by Steve Earle and I now officially have the best playlist on MySpace. (I'm the only one with a vote in this particular contest).

Cattle numbers down to 1958 levels

According to this article, losses by ranchers and dairies have led to reductions in cattle herds.

But we have significantly more people to feed than we did in 1958. Draw your own conclusions.

Rest easy

knowing that we (American citizens) bailed out Wall Street bankers this year. The cost for their yearly bonuses? A mizerly $500 from every man, woman and child in the land.

What would we do without them?

Facelift

Paul Speir gave my web-site a facelift today.

Trapped in the underbelly

Yesterday I learned my youngest son is in jail again. The crime is old, something he thought had been resolved. One of those cascading affairs that traps the young and poor of our nation. A minor crime that causes suspension of the driver's license and involves fines. You need to drive to get to work to earn money to pay the fine but that's against another law. Etc.

Tonight Levi is at a privately run institution near Austin. He tells his brother the place ain't so bad and he wants to stay until the matter is cleared up.

Last week he fought for his life in a Harris County jail. Gang related shit (he's not a member but the others were).

Another day he woke to find his cell mate hanging, suspended by the neck on his own shoe strings. He called the guards. They hustled him out of the cell, not bothering to get the other kid down until the rest of the inmates were "secured". He figures he was dead by the time they cut him down.

My son is one of over two million, trapped in the underbelly of this country.

Tell me once again so I don't forget how great America is.

Once again, Kunstler is prescient

Here.

Ilargi at The automatic earth provides a needed dose of reality to the sea of lies floating about.

Shit floats

Amazingly, our economy continues to lurch along as if all is well. But it isn't.

Karl Denninger fills in the details.

My father recently dissolved a family trust representing money we earned from the sale of a foreign holding and distributed the money between me and my siblings. As a result, I had the distinct pleasure of writing a big ass check to the IRS. That check represented more money than the entire sum of money I have earned with countless hours of hard work since I got out of prison in 1991.

Someone noted, "There's people on the other side of the tracks ought to be happy about that."

Truth is, I don't care about that (I do care about them). The poor need to eat.

All I could think about was that one Wall Street banker whose Christmas bonus ate the entire sum I contributed.

Kiss my ass you cocksucking son of a bitch.

The tide is changing

Yesterday, Massachusets, perhaps the most liberal state in our nation elected a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's vacant seat in the Senate.

I fully expect to see Democrats get hounded out of office in the next two elections, to the point that their stinking, worthless party becomes obsolete. And they fucking deserve it. Obama was given a chance to change things. More than that. He was given a mandate for change. And we got more of the same old shit. Might have had a sugar coating on it, but one bite and you know...

Not that I maintain much in the way of hope for Republicans. Just that I think they once again assume power.

Either way, we the people continue to get fucked.

Ryan Bingham, a cautionary tale

I am pissed off at Ryan Bingham right now. The little cocksucker has the world in his hands, yet, he's busy destroying himself one fucking drink at a time. A couple of days ago Ryan won the Golden Globe Award for best original song in a movie and couldn't stay out of the bar long enough to receive his goddamned award.

He no longer returns emails I send and seems ashamed of his Eastern New Mexico/Texas/Mexico roots.

Fuck Los Angeles California.

Listen Ryan. You have the right to destroy yourself if you wish. But I also have the right to get in your face and yell like hell.

Anna, what the fuck are you doing? Enabling him?

Goddamnit to hell!

Dustin Welch--Whiskey Priest

Selecting one artist, one song or one cd for album of the year is a daunting task. This year I wrestled between three offerings, Ryan Bingham's Roadhouse Sun, Matt King's Rube, and Dustin Welch's Whiskey Priest. All three are the works of talented young artists but in my opinion, no collection is complete absent any of the three. The word best entails only one so only one must prevail.

Step aside old timers. I present Dustin Welch and Whiskey Priest:

The book of Eli

In a season of fictional post acpocalyptic movies The Book of Eli stands far above the rest (and that includes the Road). Some critisize the ending; I thought it quite appropriate.

Denzel Washington plays a man on a mission, his job, to deliver the last remaining Bible on the planet to some unknown place, West. Washington reaffirms his position among the best actors in the business.

Gary Oldman contributes an excellent performance as the leader of a bunch of predatory survivors; he desires the Bible to be used as it was in days of old to manipulate the masses, only this time for his personal benefit. A good guy is only as good as his advesary is bad, and Oldman is one believable bad son of a bitch.

Mila Kunis plays a fuckable young adopted daughter of Carnegie (Oldman) intrigued by Eli and the apparent goodness he emanates (if you can call a walking dispenser of death good).

See the movie.

Sober economic analysis

I came across an article desribing four possible pitfalls that could derail our current economic "recovery".

The article is not alarmist, but matter of factly points out the obvious; the possibility of a return to what Americans accepted as normal is near zero.

Collapse--last chance

Leah and I drove to Austin to see the first of two screenings of Michael Ruppert's movie Collapse at the Alamo Draft House Ritz. If you live in Austin (or anywhere else in Texas for that matter) and want to see the film at a theater, tonight may be your last chance.

I am told that you can see the film on pay-per-view on some cable networks.

I'd like to tell you I enjoyed the film, but CoLLapse is not the kind of film you see for enjoyment.

You may lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Believe it or not

Joe Stockton mentioned me in a song. Not sure who's singing, but it ain't bad.



For what it's worth, I get the sneaking suspicion I had something to do with Slaid Cleaves' Tumbleweed Stew also.

Here.

What is money?

Here's a primer on money--what it is and how it came to be. About forty five minutes long.

No shit, Sherlock

Is the Fed buying stock?

Can you feel it coming?