Tag: Fascism

A Minor Epiphany

I had a minor epiphany this morning that is meaningless to the greater world but served as an “ah ha!” moment for me.

Back story: I used to have a problem with one aspect of American culture just after the turn of the century. Post-9/11 so much of our society become very militaristic. There were huge examples like… ya know… wars. Plural. Two of them. One of them felt justified. The other did not and was evil and insulting and horrible. I felt like many of my neighbors were very much behind both wars and it bothered me.

There were little things too. Lots of support-our-troops stuff everywhere. People wearing camo all the time. Lots and lots of recruiting ads on TV. Lots of military weapons showing up in police stations. Stuff like that. Much of the US embraced militarism in a way that I found disturbing.

This sort of stuff became so common that I stopped thinking about it. It still bothered me on some level but my level of concern slipped away, more or less.

Fast forward to this morning and I’m in the cellar doing my daily exercise while watching something on Disney+. Our subscription includes ads because I don’t want to pay extra to get rid of them. I noticed after 2–3 ad breaks that each segment included at least one ad that was somehow related to the military. Watching all of those military-related commercials caused a thought to pop into my tiny little brain:

Is it any wonder we devloved into a fascist shit hole?

Immediately after having that thought all of those concerns about the militarization of US culture post-9/11 came flooding back to me all at once.

Holy shit… seriously, is it any wonder that we devolved into a fascist shit hole? Seriously!

And that was my minor little epiphany from this morning. My country fucking blows.

Another Pedal Company Down

I haven’t been as out of control buying guitar gear over the last year or two as I was prior, but I have gone through stretches where I get hyper obsessed with making tiny tweaks to my guitar sound that require me to buy amps and pedals and accessories. I own a bunch of amps and a lot of pedals. I mean, a lot of pedals. Every now and then one of them bites me in my conscious’ ass. That seems to have happened today.

The first time it happened was when I found out the owner/operator of a boutique pedal company that made a really cool fuzz pedal that I really wanted had donated money to a church that sponsored pray away the gay conversion bullshit. When called on it he got defensive and just made a mess out of it. He also apparently ripped off a circuit from a woman and then got really ugly with his verbal attacks when he was called out. The woman was actually trans and he went after her and it was just bad. I never bought that fuzz pedal. I never will. I won’t do business with a putz like that.

Fast forward to 2020 and I put a second pedal company on the no-fly list when one schmuck in California went after people who were protesting the murder of George Floyd. He first implied that his neighbors store windows were more important than a human being’s life, and then when he was called on it he verbally attacked his own customers. He said if we supported the George Floyd protests we were unworthy of using his gear. Can you believe that? What kind of utter narcissist would say something like that? I owned three of his pedals. Two of them were on my main board at the time and one of them is still the best pedal of its kind I’ve ever heard. Those three pedals are now rotting in a box in my cellar where they will spend the rest of eternity. I don’t do business with assholes like that and I won’t let other people see me using his stuff on the off chance it might lead to a sale. Fortunately this asshole’s company went out of business not long after. Unfortunately, he has had some luck restarting it. 

Now there’s a new one to get pissed off about. Early this morning I saw a post on social media saying that the owner and operator of this very successful boutique pedal company that has been around since the birth of the boutique pedal market is a trump donor. The post included screen shots of receipts. I own two of this guy’s pedals. One of them is at my bass player’s house waiting for me to go over and pick it up. It’s possibly the best overdrive pedal I’ve ever played that isn’t made by Klon. The other is a mod of a well known overdrive that I put on my board about a month ago while looking to change up my sound for the demos I was making for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. One great pedal, one very good pedal. I was also thinking about buying another overdrive that this guy sells. I had actually put it into my shopping cart on musiciansfriend.com but had not yet pulled the trigger. Thankfully. I will not do business with a fascist or even a fascist collaborator. Not in this lifetime at least. To hell with this clown. I’ll have to pull his pedal off of my board. I’ll probably replace it with a King of Tone because Analogman is on the record as being very anti-trump and… well… selfishly and musically… its one of the best overdrive pedals on Earth. So… win win, I guess.

I hate it when fascism and racism and sexism and religious bullshit make me feel bad about myself musically. Fuck all of those assholes.

I wasn’t going to name names, but screw that. The gay conversion donation came from JHS, the George Floyd asshole was Fulltone, and the trump donor is Keeley Electronics.

Cold

The weather forecast is calling for an ass kicking snow storm tomorrow. Somewhere between one and 1.5 feet of snow. Yippee.

I’m trying to get things ready for the storm. I went grocery shopping last night so we have what we need for French Toast. (That’s a New England joke, FYI) A few minutes ago I took out the trash and the recycling, to make sure it won’t get too full at a time when it’s not easy to do.

We didn’t get any snow today, but we did see the temperature drop very low. It was three degrees Fahrenheit when I woke up this morning. By the time I finished my morning routine it was down to zero. It’s a smidge warmer than that now. I think it’s seven degrees. My point here is that when I stepped outside with my bag of trash it was so cold I started coughing. Yes, that’s right. It was so cold it was hard to breath.

I. Hate. Winter.

Not that it matters. The US government has declared open season on the citizens of the United States. A second American was slaughtered by government gestapo in Minnesota today. They are gunning us down.

Documentation Crunch Time

Remember back in the ’80s when all of those cold war movies showed the bad guys, the commies, stopping their poor oppressed citizens on the street and asking to see their papers? Remember how evil that felt? The poor saps having to cough up their legal documentation to the secret police at a moment’s notice?

I wonder why I have been thinking of that lately.

So a couple of weeks ago my US passport expired. My state drivers license is going to expire soon as well, and when I renew it I have to get the new federal “Real ID” because we live in a police state now. Unfortunately you need to have an appointment to setup the Real ID and a month ago when I booked one the best date I could get was after my license expires.

The good news is, my passport renewal went off without a hitch and I got it done WAY faster than I expected so I can use my new passport in the Real ID process. That’s cool. I wonder if I can renew my state drivers license first and then replace it a short time later with the federal document. I am guessing I would have to pay twice if I did that and I’ll be damned if I am going to give that tariffing fucker a penny more than I have to. Not that I am cynical about the collapse of my former country or anything. You know how it is.

Papers, please. Fucking authoritarian dictatorship fascist fucking fuckers.

Practice Tomorrow

Band practice is on for 10:00am tomorrow. Morning practice is weird, but it will work. Hopefully the bass player’s family will all be awake before all the noise starts (eek!).

I told the other guys that I put it on my Google Calendar so there’s no backing out now. We’ll see. Lucy still has about 26 hours to pull the football away from Charlie Brown (me).

237/365

I’m rewatching the three new episodes of Andor right now. I’m up to the third episode with that scene with Bix. It is fucking disturbing and really hard to watch. Star Wars for adults is a pretty accurate description of this show.

What else… I don’t know. One work day to survive before the weekend arrives. It’s going to be a long day, I fear. I haven’t taken any pictures of cats yet. I’m sure the opportunity will arise eventually.

I also haven’t looked at the news yet today. I’m always afraid to do so. I’m always in a borderline state of panic to learn about what fresh nazi hell was unleashed overnight. I’m so tired of living in “interesting times.” Fuck this. I want my country back. Failing that, I want my state to just leave and start over. 249 years was a good run, I guess.

What else… I don’t know. Here’s hoping for a nice easy work day followed by a nice and calm weekend… that includes my cousin’s husbands wake… fuck. The universe is just piling on. Hopefully there are brighter, less depressing, less fascist days ahead. Now, where did I put those two cats?

Tired Afternoon

I stayed up too late last night and now I am tired. That’s how it works for all of us, but it seems to be a bigger issue for folks who are old like me. I am going to have a birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m going to be 54. Wait… really? How is that possible? I know in the grand scheme of things that 54 isn’t that bad, I mean it’s not 80 or anything, but damn… I was 27 a few days ago. Wasn’t I?

What was I writing about?

Oh yeah, I am tired. It seems somehow worse than that though as I didn’t have time to follow any news yesterday and today I got caught up on the collapse of civilization. So RFK wants to create a autism database or some shit? Hmmm… didn’t the nazis do that with mental illnesses? Yeah, something like that. No surprise that we’re resurrecting that particular evil, but there you go. That on top of prison time without due process and willfully collapsing the economy in order to scam a couple of bucks off the rubes. Yeah. Are we great again? Maybe I’ll open up a new Signal chat and ask about it.

Ugh. Here’s a cat:

If the cat didn’t temporarily straighten out your soul, maybe a song will help:

Enough is Enough

It is time to stop fucking around and start a serious discussion about secession.

Not only will they not return someone who was incorrectly deported to a concentration camp in El Salvador, but now the so-called president is planning to start deporting US citizens to the same gulag.

In addition to deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members, Trump and several officials have floated sending U.S. citizens convicted of violent crimes to the infamous El Salvador prison or other foreign prisons — something legal experts have said would violate the Constitution.

MORE: Trump says he’d deport US citizens convicted of crimes ‘in a heartbeat’ if legal

“I’m all for it,” Trump said of the idea on Monday.

“If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. Now we’re studying the laws right now … If we can do that, that’s good,” Trump said.

The orange shit clown can have his little tin pot banana republic while the actual Americans can leave and start over. Enough is enough.

I Hate That I Feel This Way

Aw hell… why can’t I just be a hockey fan and enjoy it?

Alex Ovechkin tied Wayne Gretzky’s record for career goals last night by scoring his 893rd and 894th goals. Gretzky broke the previous record of 801, held by Gordie Howe, back in 1994.

I want to just be a fan and enjoy the little bit of hockey history, but I can’t. Politics has ruined this for me. Ovechkin is from Russia and in the past has been a vocal supporter of putin. Gretzky stated publicly that he is a trump supporter. Fuck them both. Fuck them both right in their ears. Two fucking fascists.

Ovechkin could break the record as early as tomorrow and I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut. To hell with him and to hell with Gretzky. Also, just to show that I am not just being a sore loser Bruins fan… Bobby Orr is a trump supporter too. The greatest Bruin ever… fuck him too. They can all just rot.

The Worst Attitude

I think that the worst attitude an american can have right now is apathy. The natural inclination is to look at current events, decide that it’s so far out of our control that there is nothing we can do about it, and then give in to indifference.

I get it. I completely understand the urge to go that route.

But then you read a headline about someone torching a bunch of swasticars in Germany and you start thinking that there is always something you can do to resist the fascists. Even if it’s just sharing news. Maybe you’ll say something that will fall on the right ears and change someone’s mind about the drain we’re currently circling and, who knows… maybe it will make a difference.

  • Luke Skywalker: Look, I can’t get involved. I’ve got work to do. It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now… It’s all such a long way from here.
  • Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi: That’s your uncle talking.

We need to stop listening to Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen. We need to spend more time listening to Ben Kenobi. He’s a cool dude. He knows what’s what.

Close Call

That was close! My wife sent me a text with some ideas for dinner plans and I almost accidentally added a bunch of russian spies and classified military secrets to the thread. Woah, bullet dodged there.

— Rob (@robj1971.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T21:26:24.292Z