The Annotated Lamb

It must have been a very rainy day... But still, quite a nice read if you're into ProgRock and especially into Genesis.

"Hackett's guitar weavings became an integral part of the moody atmosphere, as Banks wisely kept his keyboard playing melodic and lyrical instead of succumbing to the obvious desire to create a Third World War like so many of his peers and contemporaries."

The Annotated Lamb

Vot are U plaiying nov...?

ELP - Still You Turn Me On
ELP - Lucky Man
Tony Banks - Still It Takes Me By Surprise
Steve Hackett - Every Day
Styx - Fooling Yourself
Kansas - The Wall . Miracles Out Of Nowhere
Queen - Procession / Father To Son

For now...

Fresh crop for sunday

Managed to get hold of the complete Emerson Lake and Palmer. 'Still you turn me on' and all that.

Also got my hands on some Pendragon, Pineapple Thief and some more bands like that. Quite interesting, and always good to have when you DJ a ProgRock set.

The Downfall Of A Would-Be Empire

America is definitely decaying fast. Yes; although both big parties have been fucking about since Reagan, thinking politics first and country(perhaps) second, the Republicans are to be blamed by far the most, with their idiotic hate-speeches, their tea-parties, their death-panel hoaxes and so on. Not to mention putting a complete political nobody, an empty head like Sarah Palin right smack into the middle of national politics. Also; one would think that after eight years of 'Compassionate Conservative' G.W. Bush in the White House, the Republicans would have learned some humility. Not so!

The Republicans have turned renaming and rebranding stuff they don't like into a high art form. 'Anti-abortion' became 'Pro-Life', trying to restrict the ownership of weapons of course became 'Constitutional Infringement', 'Creationism' became 'Intelligent Design', 'Government Healthcare Plan' became 'Socialism', 'Fascism' 'Communism' and 'Nazism' at the same time(quite an accomplishment!), etcetera etcetera.

Oh! And Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born muslim socialist as well as the Anti-Christ who has illegally usurped the presidency... Such idiocy makes european politics pale by comparison.

What I feared for some time now is coming true fast, which is that at some point-of-no-return, part of the american public will actually start to believe these republican fables and fantasies. And that is the moment that you will lose control Mr. and Mrs. Republican. That is the moment that you will become Pontius Pilate, washing your hands in innocence while your raging idiot-followers burn down the house and threaten children.


Coffin placed on Carnahan's lawn

A coffin was placed on a Missouri Democrat’s lawn, another in a string of incidents against lawmakers after their vote Sunday on a health care overhaul.
Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) had a coffin placed “near his home,” a spokesman said Wednesday evening. This came after Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother’s gas lines were cut, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) received death threats and Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) received a message saying snipers were being deployed to kill children of those who voted for health care overhaul.

Several other Democrats have had threats leveled against them, prompting a closed-door briefing of Democratic members by the FBI, Capitol Police and the House Sergeant at Arms.

"Carnahan appreciates thoughtful feedback received both in favor and opposition of health insurance reform,” Carnahan spokesman Jim Hubbard told POLITICO Wednesday evening “We can disagree on important issues facing our country without resorting to this kind of thing. Russ Carnahan isn’t going to shy away from the importance of reform when 45,000 fellow Americans died last year due to a lack of health insurance.”

When a population goes after its own children it is only a matter of time before the house comes crashing down. This may only be a threat, but just wait; once an idea has been floating around there will ultimately be some ungodly asshole to turn it into a reality.

Back to the old lyrics freak angle...

The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You climbed upon a burning rope to escape the mob below,,
But you had put the flaming out so that others could now follow,
To be out of the bounds and the barks of those who do not wish you well.

You must blaze a trail of your own, unknown, alone,
But keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,

You're old and disillusioned now as you realise at last,
That all all you have accomplished here will have soon all turned to
dust.
You dream of a future after life, well that's as maybe, I don't know.
But you can't take what you left behind, you're all alone.
So keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon...

But you had put the flaming out so that others could now follow,
To be out of the bounds and the barks of those who do not wish you well.

You must blaze a trail of your own, unknown, alone,
But keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

You're old and disillusioned now as you realise at last,
That all all you have accomplished here will have soon all turned to
dust.
You dream of a future after life, well that's as maybe, I don't know.
But you can't take what you left behind, you're all alone.
So keep in mind
Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon...

(One of my five favourite lyrics)

Can't dance, can't sing, can make a little money...

Boys will be boys...

Axl Buffett!

Fuckheads, retards and bureaucrats

Around 09:20 this morning I was reminded by my phone that I had to be at the dentist... Fat lot of good that'll do, something wrong in the configuration, it should have warned me yesterday. As should my email here at work have done btw.
 
So I immediately called the dentist to check and lo and behold! I did have an appointment. So I said 'Sorry about that, and can we check the other appointments to make sure that they are ok?'. 'Of course sir, yes... they are all correct. We'll see you on the 26th'. Also, they said they had called me and emailed me. Ri-i-ght... both my email address and my phone number were registered incorrectly. That's one hell of an achievement considering I wrote the info down for them myself, and that they had already contacted me several times by phone...
      
Oh well... So ten minutes later I get a call from the same dentist office to inform me that they will have to charge me for the missed appointment. Ok, I can understand that, you have to pay a fine... Until they told me that the cost would be the complete cost of a normal treatment! That means including the shots, the gear, the whole fucking lot. So just because they can go and have a coffee instead of overcharging their patients I also have to pay for their unused materials!!!
  
I told the lady politely that I had been extremely flexible every time they called me up to ask if I could come the next morning because someone else cancelled an appointment, and that I find these cost completely over the top. I also stated that there was nothing to be done about it anyway so I did not see the use of getting into a discussion about it. The lady then said that I had missed appointments previously and that this was/is one of the reasons that they would charge me for the treatment. I informed the woman that that then would have been over 5 years ago(!!!) AND that I had cancelled those appointments perfectly ahead of time AND with perfectly valid reasons.
  
She had to look it up and what I said was completely true. She said she would discuss it all internally. I told her that would be nice, but that for the rest I am not counting on flexibility from anyone in this world any more. I was very polite but also very annoyed to be honest. On the one hand I can service them(while being the patient!) when they have holes in their schedule, but on the other hand they show no flexibility whatsoever.
  
Of course this means one thing for sure : the next time they call me and ask if I can be flexible and go to the dentist at a different date than the appointments that already have been set, they can forget it. Flexibility works both ways, I am not going to go to my boss to rearrange my schedule to please the dentist anymore. Let them charge someone else for their valuable time...


It seems to me that this kind of unreasonable shit is occurring more and more in life. A friend of mine just put an article up on his own blog pondering over what it means to get to be fifty years old. Well Alfred, from what I have seen(and I am not yet 50, I'll grant you that); one of the things it means is that you start to get more and more impatient with people trying to shit you.

Am I right? :)

Just a great poem that inspired great songs

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Late Night Song - Another One...

Get out of the way fat man. You got something to do
Go fill up your hands till they're shining up at you.
You gotta get out while there's gold in the air
It's falling like water, coming down from the hills.

Go West young man
Earn a dollar a day just like your family said.
You're rolling your days right on into the night
The head of the line's going way out of sight.
Go West young man like your family said

All along the wagons
All along the dusty trail.
Seventeen years not over a day
Like children in the wild.
Your mother's milk still wet on your face
And no one to pray for your safe journey home.

Out beyond the desert
Across the mountains by the fall.
Servants who leave their masters house
Are walking all the way.
The golden fields that beckoned you
Are darkened by the years.

Go West Young Man
If you knew then what you know today
You'd be back where you started a happier man
And leave all the glory to those who have remained.

So Go West Young Man
Go West Young Man, like your family said.

Late night song...

A Song With A Real Song Meaning...

Fifty thousand men were sent to do the will of one.
His claim was phrased quite simply, though he never voiced it loud,
I am he, the chosen one.

In his name they could slaughter, for his name they could die.

Then one whose faith had died
Though many there were believed in him, still more were sure he lied,
But they'll fight the battle on.


Then one whose faith had died

Fled back up the mountainside,
But before the top was made,
A misplaced footfall made him stray
From the path prepared for him.
Off of the mountain,
On to a wilderness of ice.

This unexpected vision made him stand and shake with fear,
But nothing was his fright compared with those who saw him appear.
Terror filled their minds with awe.

Simple were the folk who lived
Upon this frozen wave.
So not surprising was their thought,
This is he, God's chosen one,
Who's come to save us from
All our oppressors.
We shall be kings on this world.

Follow me!
I'll play the game you want me,
Until I find a way back home.

Follow me!
I give you strength inside you,
Courage to win your battles -

No, no, no, this can't go on,
This will be all that I fled from.
Let me rest for a while.

He walked into a valley,
All alone.
There he talked with water, and then with the vine.

They leave me no choice.
I must lead them to glory or most likely to death.

They traveled cross the plateau of ice, up to its edge.
Then they crossed a mountain range and saw the final plain.
Still he urged the people on.

Then, on a distant slope,
He observed one without hope
Flee back up the mountainside.
He thought he recognised him by his walk,
And by the way he fell,
And by the way he
Stood up, and vanished into air.