Cowboy Confessional

One of my oldest and dearest friends is Mister Jack Daniels. Not only do Jack and I go a long ways back, but we have gotten into a bit of trouble together along the way. Daniels is that age-old definition of a great friend, one who wakes up in the same cells as you and says “Wow, that was fun!”

The good folks at Jack Daniels distillery once gave me a gift for telling them about my first encounter with their whiskey. It is a good story and worth telling again.

The universe is an odd, cantankerous yet often loving witch, prone to smiling upon the same people she wallops. I had been beaten badly by a divorce and was spending way too much time licking my wounds when an old buddy by the name of Jim Conners blew back into town (Jim, I sure hope you are alive and still riding rodeo). Jim couldn’t stand the sight of me moping, and one Saturday night said “Grab you Stetson … we’re goin’ get you out of this funk.”

Since he claimed he was buying, I had few reasons to say no.

We ended up at the County Line Saloon, which by name alone gives you and idea of the clientele and music. The night life was just beginning to bubble as we climbed our stools. When the bartender arrived, I ordered up two long necks, but Jim intervened. “Barkeep, bring us two shots of Jack.” The booze slinger smiled and poured a pair of stiff drinks.

Having not been a whiskey drinker before that night, I was a touch intimidated (a condition that ample doses of JD tends to cure). Jim raised his glass for a toast and said “Son, tonight your life changes for the better.” With that omen uttered, we tossed back the Devil’s own elixir (I assume Satan invented the stuff because it burns nicely, tempting and damning in the same instant).

As we slammed our glasses down on the bar one of the cutest cowgirls I have ever laid eyes upon walked past, smiled and winked at me. Within three seconds, Jim’s prophesy had come true. To this day I am uncertain if the potion or the spell was responsible , but I have been working the combination ever since.

(And for the record, I don’t recall the cowgirl’s name, but I’ll never forget the night)

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Equal mix of native-American spiritualism, spaghetti westerns, Doctor Seuss and the Dragon Riders of Pern.

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To my friends and followers in Nebraska: Do not — I repeat do not firebomb Senator Ben Nelson’s home. Other people live there.

Frankly, Nelson’s heist of everybody’s taxes is trivial when compared to the massive and anti-constitutional nature of the Senate health care assault. I use the word “anti-constitutional” instead of “unconstitutional” with good reason. One can commit an offense against the constitution believing that their actions are allowed. Anti-constitutional actions are committed by demons who openly despise the express, written will of the American people and blindly ignore those words and intents. Ben Nelson’s greed is only a tiny anti-constitutional action inside of grand, open warfare on the people.

Perhaps most interesting is the way in which the Democrats continue to cater to large insurance companies and their K Street bagmen. Anybody with business acumen (and given my degree in Management Sciences, I’ll Include myself on that unsavory list) knows the best way to compete is to have no competition, and the most effective way to eliminate competition is to have the government do it for you. In our federalist framework, this presents certain problems and requires stuffing the pockets of many politicians.

Like Ben Nelson. Check his pockets but wash your hands immediately thereafter.

At the behest of large insurance companies, the American people have been hog tied for decades, resulting in an uncontrolled rise in premiums. By prohibiting interstate commerce in health insurance (a clearly anti-constitutional act), Congress created barriers to market entry for small and agile insurance companies, and those have slowly disappeared. This allowed the large insurance companies — the same ones whose lobbyist wrote these laws — to grow.

These same companies then created in each state various levels of mandatory coverage called ‘mandates’. For example in California, single males who have had vasectomies must pay for in vitro fertilization coverage. This creates free income for the large insurance companies whose lobbyists (wait for it) wrote the laws. The combined effect is that you are cut off from 98% of the potential insurance market and must buy whatever coverage your state legislature deems necessary, regardless of your actual needs, from near monopolies.

Good thing Senate health plans cover Ben Nelson’s cranial enemas.

One might wonder where antitrust legislation comes into view. After all, it has long been national policy that any organization (aside from Major League Baseball) which grows so large as to effectively control its market will be disbanded. Congress saw the potential for their anti-constitutional plans being disrupted by antitrust, so they exempted insurance companies from antitrust suits. Yes, insurance industry lobbyist wrote those laws too.

Combined these laws create a rather formidable machinery of theft. It was so effective in raising health insurance costs that many people opted to exist without insurance. This was unacceptable to the industry because it meant they were being denied free money, which is the main objective of that low form of theft known as democracy (which shares the same root as ‘democrat’). Hence their lobbyist contributed not only to Ben Nelson’s reelection fund, but also to the Senate health insurance assault bill, and forces people — by penalty of fines and possibly imprisonment — to buy insurance.

Create a monopoly, protect it from antitrust, then force everybody to buy from monopolies coverage beyond their actual needs.

To my friends and followers in Nebraska: Do not — I repeat do not firebomb Senator Ben Nelson. Nobody with a soul resides in his body.

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Shortly after 9/11, I said that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Iran.

Being a strategist by nature, bin Laden knew that once the Twin Towers collapsed, he would be a hunted man. He also would have realized that hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora would make him findable and killable — no strategist would ever consider escaping into a wide-open dead-end alley or a place that could be nuked without regret.

However, slipping into Iran offered bin Laden both protection and production facilities necessary to continue the propaganda end of his global terror operation. In post 9/11 video tapes we see bin Laden in clean clothes, in climate controlled rooms and otherwise looking like your typical urban Arab. He was not hiding in a cave — he was hiding in a penthouse.

Today comes word that some of Osama’s closest kin have been seen in an Iranian compound. A wife and kid who were in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks have been spotted outside Tehran, and they have contacted bin Laden family elsewhere. The most innocent reading of this news shows that bin Laden had an operational understanding with the Iranian theocracy, providing his immediate family shelter. A more strategic reading indicates that Osama scooted west, not east, after the towers fell.

And now Iran is making nuclear bombs.

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People watchful for signs of the Apocalypse saw one this morning as news broke that both ABBA and The Stooges will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

To steal yet another line from Mojo Nixon, “What could be less rock and roll than ABBA. The Archies?”

For people fortunate enough to sleep through the 1970s, ABBA was a pop quartet that recorded more mindless and soul sucking AM/FM static than all of disco combined. Devoid of anything aside from a beat and antiseptic vocals, ABBA none the less sold millions of records, proving again that musical mediocrity will always be profitable (hence disco and its inner city sibling, rap).

For the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct this unfortunate Swedish export violates the Hall’s very name and essence. But as Mojo reminded us, its all about the money.

Until Iggy pops ABBA one.

At the same time ABBA strolls into the Hall, Iggy Pop, band front man and source of his own solo insanity, will be inducted with the other Stooges. Unlike ABBA’s homogenized harmonies, The Stooges and Iggy slammed danced in from the other direction, taking the soul of rock and roll to utterly new gritty lows (and I say that in the good sense of low). Instigators of punk and very heavy rock, Iggy and The Stooges are the anti-ABBA.

The universe as we know it may cease to exist on induction night as these two opposing forces collide. Like good and evil, matter and anti-matter, music and whatever it was that stuff was that ABBA recorded – they may cancel one another and all matter out of existence.

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