I was raised Roman Catholic. I had an extreme allergic reaction to it when I hit 13 and campaigned so vigorously to end my participation that my whole family bailed on the Church for decades.

To this day I believe that LSD taught me that attitude and perception is everything and that's why a fuck authority guy like me excelled in the Army. I loved the Army and the Army loved me.

I grew up in the Deep South and was raised in the Southern Baptist Church... so you can probably imagine what my upbringing had to say about doing drugs. Heck, it took me a long time to realize that drinking alcohol wasn't the worst thing a person could do. When I finally accepted the fact that I was gay and that was OK, I started to question much of what I had been taught growing up.

It's funny (probably not using this word correctly) how illegal drugs are EVIL, but prescription drugs are perfectly OK for us to abuse in full view of everyone. I was hooked on pain pills when I was 16 after suffering multiple concussions (yes, I know... "well that explains a lot!"). I was lucky to survive this time of my life, and it only strengthened my opposition to drugs.

I tried my first "illegal" drug right about the time I turned 30. My boyfriend and some close friends finally convinced me that I would be OK trying it. I popped an Ecstasy and stood on the dance floor trying to will myself not to be affected by it. After 5 minutes, I looked at my friends and said, "I don't think it's working on me. Hey, why did the music suddenly slow WAYYYYY down?" It ended up being a great night.

As someone who has suffered from depression most of my life, I found it amazing how much easier it was to talk about some of the worst events in my life when I was high. MDMA, ketomine and GHB opened my mind to allow me to see and speak about things that I had never felt I could talk about. It's why I am a huge supporter of these drugs being used in a clinical environment to help those suffering from PTSD and chronic depression. It made accepting myself much easier.

Even the Democrats in the Senate are not expressing optimism about the midterm election.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/senate-prepares-judicial-pick-pace-00052402

And, yes, we shall continue next Sunday! Maybe others will join in, too ...

But, I was blown away by the opening act. Yeah, I went to see Styx but came home with PRiSM ... er, a lifelong fan. The next day, or soon thereafter, I went out and bought their eponymous debut album, released just a few months earlier in the summer of '77. (I bought my first Styx album in 2020!)

This album was the first debut album by a Canadian artist to achieve platinum status in Canada. I've always been thrilled to have been in on that from the beginning - first time that has ever happened as I'm always very late to the party when it comes to appreciating great bands with PRiSM being the only exception that proves that rule.

Anyway, as the 45th anniversary of the release of this iconic album approaches, I will be purchasing a blue vinyl edition to replace my long lost original. Guess I'll have to invest in a good turntable, too. :) I've been wearing out the cd, needless to say.

Here are all the tracks ...

Side One

Spaceship Superstaaaaaaaaaaaaar

Open Soul Surgery

It's Over

Take Me To The Kaptin

Side Two

Vladi-o-vostok

Freewill

Amelia

Julie

I Ain't Lookin' Anymore

All songs written by Rodney Higgs (aka the inestimable Jim Vallance, who will very soon be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with a sort of PRiSM honorary member, Bryan Adams) except Freewill, written by Tom Lavin (original PRiSM member, rhythm guitar, before founding Tom Lavin and the Legendary Powder Blues Band) and I Ain't Lookin' Anymore, written by founding PRiSM member, Lindsay Mitchell, including the delicious line, "I hope you'll believe me when I tell ya, baby, I love you more than my guitar!"

*I'm trying to substitute things like mindfulness, exercise and Stoicism for the psyche meds, but Seroquel-- don't leave home without it is something I'm willing to go to the mat for.

Woot!

Background always enhances the experience, plus it's your original words. As opposed to endless paragraphs of cut-and-paste.

I'll check out your offerings for which it'll be a little different listening while knowing it's one of your favorites.

I have five more albums all trees up to post...

Next Sunday?

I'll check out your offerings for which it'll be a little different listening while knowing it's one of your favorites.

I have five more albums all trees up to post...

Next Sunday?

And my all-time fave,
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

The story behind this is that the guy who's been my BFF for 45 years convinced my to

1-try acid and

2-try this album. So I dropped and started listening to side one and side two and then flip it back to side one. For some hours. Never even got to sides 3 and 4. It completely blew my mind!

After that I went out on adventure and did things I never much did before, like tree climbing (no way Jump School was gonna work for me*yikes*) and hanging under a Railroad bridge over the Huron River... while a train passed overhead.

To this day I believe that LSD taught me that attitude and perception is everything and that's why a fuck authority guy like me excelled in the Army. I loved the Army and the Army loved me.

Waiting for Columbus ...

I wondered what happened to you!;D

I've played this one a lot over the years, especially when I just need to relax and rejuvenate...

Madonna - Something To Remember (1995)

From the album sleeve,

"So much controversy has swirled around my career this past decade that very little attention ever gets paid to my music. The songs are all but forgotten. While I have no regrets regarding the choices I've made artistically, I've learned to appreciate the idea of doing things in a simpler way. So without a lot of fanfare, without any distractions, I present to you this collection of ballads. Some are old, some are new. All of them are from my heart. "

This is one of the few albums that I listen to from start to finish - ALWAYS, without fail - enjoying getting lost in this full album experience.

I like to think that she does have some regrets, particularly with respect to a love that she always will have for Sean Penn. For me, that feeling comes through so clearly, as a running thread from one song to the next. I guess that's the romantic in me. Heh.

And, I think we should continue with this theme for the next few weeks. There are too many great albums and not enough time in one short evening.

I've got one more for tonight - it's a special one for me!

A reunion of original members, including Tabak, was in the works before Ron's tragic death. The band reassembled in 1987 with Darcy Deutsch singing lead vocals until 1993 when Al Harlow took over lead vocal duties and is currently the only really original member now.

But, Al is a prog rocker from a way back - mid sixties - before PRiSM. He always wanted to release a solo album but that was put on hold for some forty odd years. Just this last Valentine's Day, he released his debut solo album, Al Harlow NOW! It's pure rock energy from start to finish and an album that is meant to be savoured, one tune at a time ...

Here is just a sampler of this fine album that is getting some airplay all over the world!

The original Who album is excellent but they fleshed out the music for the movie.

(thinking)

And what's not to like about Ann Margaret slithering in baked beans? Another Canadian product, I believe.

Anyway, it reminded me of a live album recording that I would play to death if I had it and I may yet get it!

It's PRiSM, live at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Detroit from 1978, sponsored by that radio station there with the strange call letters - WWWW or W4 - featuring the definitive and classic lineup (Ron Tabak, lead vocals; Lindsay Mitchell, guitar, Al Harlow, bass; John Hall, keyboards; Rocket Norton, drums).

PRiSM Live Tonight at Detroit's Royal Oak - Side One

PRiSM Live Tonight at Detroit's Royal Oak - Side Two

Paul Simon is my favorite artist. He's never produced anything but top shelf quality and is underrated as a guitarist. I was bummed when the Beatles broke up but devastated when he and Art Garfunkel broke up.

My two picks are,

Bookends

And...

Hearts and Bones

My Dad, on the other hand, brought home albums from his Library (often my Library, too.)

This is one of them,

Sweet Baby James

<a href="https://youtu.be/SC79QWauNkc
Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5

THIS is the first album I played to death, namely <a href="https://youtu.be/SC79QWauNkc
Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5

I've been working on a list of my top ten albums* over half a century. I'm going over to YouTube to see if I can load albums with song lists.

*Not necessarily the BEST but what I've listened to the MOST

With doors open at 8pm Left Coast time, it's a little late even for us night owls on the correct coast. :)

What d'ya say we get things going a bit earlier ... doors open now with the show getting underway in about an hour?

So, to recap ...

So, I thought it would be fun to post our favourite albums (bonus points if you can post the full album youtube playlist!), the ones we always love to play from beginning to end and enjoy the complete album experience.

Here is an open invitation to all music lovers at CW.com to come out this Sunday evening and showcase your favourite albums - new, classic, and everything in between.

I was thinking of something like:

(Janet Jackson playing in the background)

Tell me, Republicans, what have you done for me lately? Explain to me if you can, how do these things benefit me in ANY WAY???

- Taking away abortion rights for women?

- Your party claiming that they cannot wait to conduct endless investigations into Biden and his family in retaliation of Trump being investigated?

- Your refusing to pass The Pact Act out of spite and trying to hurt veterans so you can falsely blame Democrats for causing it?

- Voting to block insulin from being capped at $35 for all users -- causing my nephew's insulin to cost $300 per prescription?

- Forcing anyone participating in a women's sport who is accused of being trans to have to be medically examined before they can participate in their athletic event?

- Voting against legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies for the first time ever?

- Refusing to vote to secure marriage equality at the Federal level?

-Voting against new gun laws meant to make it harder to purchase assault weapons?

So, again, I ask you Republicans...

"What have you done for me lately? Heck, what have you EVER done for me?"

I couldn't agree more. The Democrats between now and November CAN AND MUST run on their record! When in power, you win re-election by building up, i.e. informing your constituents what you HAVE done. When you're out of power, you tear down, i.e. convince voters that your opposition is terrible and informing them what you WILL do.

If the Democrats *don't* lose the Senate, I will take a sigh of relief - and look forward to even more Biden appointees occupying the federal bench in 2023 and 2024.

If the Democrats *don't* lose the House, they will be defying historical trends (of which pundits have been informing us since at least 21 January, 2021). In THAT case, I will dance a jig! :)

But, you have to use the other type brackets.

Hi Dan!

Ok, so there's one thing Trump is exonerated of. Even he can't be guilty of everything.

No corporation that makes billions in profits is going to get off scot-free ever again, because Democrats stood up to them and told them: 'The free ride is over -- it is time for you to start paying your fair share now.'

Here's the text of a Facebook post of mine, from 2019, possibly in a box:

Corporations are not people. When a corporation owns something or buys something or sells something or transfers some money, and so on, there isn't really an additional person there who owns, buys, etc. There's the management, workers, shareholders, bondholders, and so on.

It does not matter how much tax a corporation itself pays. You can't be fair or unfair to a corporation, because it's not a person.

What matters is how the tax burden is distributed among the people involved: customers, suppliers, management, workers, creditors, shareholders. If a company gets paid for something, the customer is really paying the workers who made it, the engineers who designed it, the managers who ran the process, the shareholders and bondholders who paid for the buildings and equipment, and so on. It doesn't matter, for its own sake, whether the customer paid an income tax before deciding what to buy, or whether there was a sales tax nominally paid by the customer, or whether there was a sales tax nominally paid by the seller, or whether there was a value-added tax charged incrementally at several stages of production, or whether there's a tax on the firm's revenue, or whether there's a payroll and dividend tax nominally paid by the firm as the money goes to the workers shareholders etc., or whether there's an income tax paid by the employees. What does matter his how the effect of the tax on actual people is distributed, and what incentives actual people face when making decisions at work and as customers.

Taxes are costs that have to be paid, if we're going to have government do the stuff we've collectively decided that it's going to do. Those costs should be allocated so as to do the least harm. Taxes do harm in two ways: directly, by depriving people of the stuff they could have bought with the money if the hadn't had to pay the tax, and indirectly, by distorting the incentives people face when deciding what goods and services to buy.

If there's a tax on product A but not on product B, people will buy more B and less A. Normally, that makes things less efficient. Not always: if A has hidden costs that aren't reflected in its price, via its effects on the environment for example, then the tax can make the economy more efficient by shifting consumption to B. Likewise if B has hidden benefits that aren't reflected in its price. But that kind of situation can't cover the entire cost of government; normally, taxes decrease efficiency, causing a so-called "dead-weight loss" in addition to costing the taxpayer the money that's actually collected.
Those costs are effects on real people, and they should be minimized, within the constraints of having to pay for government. Effects on corporations don't matter. It can't be unfair that one corporation has to pay too much tax, or unfair that another corporation gets to pay too little.

A tax on corporate profits is good if it means the tax burden on actual people gets allocated more fairly or efficiently, and bad if it means that that allocation is less fair or efficient. To say that it matters in itself is to implicitly buy the assumption that corporations are people.

I don't think this is the tag for putting text in a box that was mentioned a while back, but it's the tag I found on the "Commenting Tips" page.

Don't know where that came from. I never said that the stimulus checks "should not have gone out", nor that tax cuts for the rich are OK!

If somebody were to ask my opinion on monetary inflation for economic stimulus purposes, I'd say fine, just don't be surprised at the consequences.

True about "binge printing" (binge 'creating' would be more accurate. Nct much money is actually 'printed' anymore.) However, all 'creating' is NOT equal, nor even close to equal. The infamous QE was definitely a case of creating vast amounts of money 'out of thin air', as we say about the Fed, but it wasn't distributed "helicopter money" style, as was the 'stimulus money'. It was actually loanded to banks in hopes that people would borrow it, but most of it never circulated.

And monetary inflation really doesn't amount to "providing for their people". As Milton Friedman pointed oudt, money only has value as an exchange medium. You can't eat it, you can';t wear it, you can't shelter under it, and if there is so much of it that nobody will accept it (think Venezuela, etc), it becomes worthless.

Or God forbid, showing video of him "dancing" (AKA using both hands to jack off invisible dicks) to the Village People singing Macho Man!

Oh. My. God.

That's simply priceless.

[6]

Much of the inflation is due to Covid related supply chain issues. This is why inflation is worldwide with America ranked in the middle of the pack.

All governments in the development world have been binge printing money for years now -- how else could they provide for their people amid economic chaos.

The best way to take money out of circulation is to roll back Trump's tax cuts. We the People will put it to far better use than sitting in an offshore account, no?

The price inflation we are currently experiencing is almost totally the result of the monetary inflation ("aka stimulus payments") of the last three yrs created to restore the demand lost during the 'Dempanic'.

Neither party has offered any solution to that problem, because the only possible one (monetary DEflatio) simply is not realistically possible.

The videos that played just before this one had been 3 or 4 videos of Trump talking to the public about... well,it wasn't always clear what he was supposed to addressing in his speeches, but they always ended up being Trump talking about HIMSELF!

It didn't matter if it was Trump complaining about how he was the victim of the mean liberal media or if it was Trump praising himself for all that he had supposedly accomplished; he might as well have just stood there hugging himself while mumbling "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!"

Or God forbid, showing video of him "dancing" (AKA using both hands to jack off invisible dicks) to the Village People singing Macho Man! Whoever told Trump that the people love it when he dances like that did/does not have Trump's best interests at heart -- that much is clear!

I think that is why the Biden video was so striking to me... Joe Biden wasn't talking about himself in the video. Biden was lavishing well earned and heartfelt praise to everyone else! Biden did not need to be the focus of the praise! And it was clear that he took great job in lifting up others for their deeds. It was incredibly refreshing to remember that this is WHAT WE USED TO EXPECT when a President spoke to us!

And the three messages [1, 2, 3] that start us off are all spot on!

The ads Democrats put out there should be hitting all of the things that Democrats have accomplished so far, while highlighting as well the things that they would have gotten accomplished had the Republican Party not voted to block them.

I want to see Republican politicians have to explain why they decided that my nephew's insulin should cost $300 instead of being capped at $35 like the Democrats were trying to get it capped at?

I have to believe that Janet Jackson would authorize her song, What have you done for me lately? being used and playing in the background of commercials where we ask Republicans to answer the question while educating the public on all of the ways the GOP has worked against Americans.

"It's a simple question, Republicans... "What have you done for me lately?"

So what happens when the Dems don't lose control in November? Because they're not going to. The Senate will see Dems add seats for Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and they'll keep Georgia (Hershel Walker -- are you kidding me?)

The House is NOT a lock to go Repug. CW didn't make up anything in today's cheery FTP column and what do Repugs offer in comparison?

But with this FTP I will gladly 'eat crow'. Bravo, Chris, for this exciting, motivating list of 'Democrats getting things done'.

*THIS* is what every week's 'Talking Points' should be like when the Democrats control the agenda in Washington (attempted coup or Supreme Court gutting women's rights weeks excluded).

You can bronze this one as the paradigm of what voters want to hear when your party is in power.

I would just add the following ...

TP#8: A common perception out there - which extends beyond the borders of the US, I might add - is that Republicans are better stewards of the economy than are Democrats. But, this has long been an un-truism.

In fact, the Republican cult of economic failure (an apt phrase coined by David Fiderer -see link below) has a long demonstrable record of leaving economic messes on the Herculean order of magnitude of the Augean Stables for Democratic administrations to clean up, time and time again.

And, just as bad, congressional Republicans, especially these days, work to block any and all Democratic tax and fiscal policies that improve the economic outlook for Americans and make the economy more resilient.

Democrats are by far the better stewards of the economy, anyway you slice that pie!

Republican Cult of Economic Failure