I'm playing Dave Alvin's wonderful Fourth Of July from his forgotten album of 1987 and it reminded me of this glorious time of year we celebrate with lots of fireworks, music and monsoons which seems to be the norm around this area. Fact of the matter is my GF doesn't even talk to me when I go on rants about the damn rains around here and good reason. Every 4th of July we seem to get hammered with rain, just like we did in June. I believe that I didn't sign up for this fate of fucking rain all the time, I think I mentioned I wanted dry and dusty and that fell on deaf ears. I do not like rain for the fact that the last three years and counting that we have gotten flooded out in one place or another in this damn state we call Iowa. I don't buy this global warming jive but perhaps this may have altered the damn jet stream on top of us so that we get the infamous highway of storms every fucking June/July. Amazingly we had seven dry days in a row before yet another 2 inch monsoon soaked everything down and that fucking mud puddle we had that dried up is back to being a mini lake again. And so it goes.
The 4th also brings memories of long ago back into this life. The biggest fireworks happened on July 4, 1996 when my ex GF Clairese blew up a big tantrum while fighting her ex and her three screaming boys and I picked the wrong time to go over there. Prior to that we had two years and three months of happiness but after that little explosion, we started on the long road to decline before finally putting that relationship out of its misery on Feb 14,1998 when Clairese said that she was seeing somebody else for six weeks but didn't know how to tell me this. That led to a splitting of the ways and constant badgering to finally get my name off that damn trailer i co-signed and I vowed never to ever go down that road again.
I wasted another day watching the damn Chicago Cubs get whopped by the Cincinnati Reds and thank God I don't follow The Muckrakers anymore or I'd be hearing how great the Reds are with Dusty Baker, who got ran out of town by the Cubs in 2005. It's bad to see the Reds hit 7 home runs in a game to which the Cubs only had Tyler Corwin doing any hitting and lots of bad baseball and bad umpiring. Certainly Cincinnati didn't need no umpire help but at this point of the year, the Cubs are not going to the playoffs. They can't hit, nor they can pitch. Carlos Silva has been a great pickup and done fine, Carlos Marmol, though wild and unpredictable has been a good closer. Marlon Byrd is the only Cub going to the All Star Game and the rest outside of Tyler Corwin, the less said the better. Derrick Lee has become Double Play Lee for all the DPs he's been hitting into, and Amaris Ramirez has the bad case of the swats, swatting at everything and striking out. It's pretty damn bad to watch a game to which after two outs in the 7th the damn Reds scored 8 runs and Jeff Stevens couldn't get a damn out, hell he couldn't throw a strike unless somebody was hitting out on Waveland Avenue. Used to be Lou Pinella would go out and fight and yell and scream in the past but nowadays, he makes excuse after excuse and rarely gets off his ass and argue close plays to which two of them went against the Cubs. The Cubs have been awful but the Orioles are worse and they will lose over 100 games this year. The Cubs might lose 90 this year judging by their lackluster June and shitty July. With the season becoming lost, perhaps its time to have a fire sale and unload the Derrick Lee who has lost his batting touch and Ryan Theriot whose no longer the darling but dead weight and a very poor baserunner. I'll give him this, he was safe at third but I would have fined his ass for bad baserunning. And it's time for Lou to retire, he simply doesn't care anymore this year and neither do I. I may as well start work on my next recording project and not waste anymore time watching the Cubs find ways to lose and lose bad.
This Saturday I did go up to Dubuque, to may the old hippie at Moondog a visit and find vinyl at CDs 4 Change but I'm a bit miffed at the old hippie for have a 4th of July sale to which you buy 2 used CDs and get a 3rd free. But then again that has been the story of this year. No miracles whatsoever, too much rain and a wet basement and bad baseball to boot. But then it's better there than going to Iowa City and deal with a different set of bullshit. But at least Moondog had the new Alejandro Escovedo CD for 12.99 and I managed to catch a bit of the Blue Angels flying overhead above the Mississippi River, but never did find the Blood Sweat & Tears/3 Dog Night concert and just went home instead. But at least in the music chat, our old buddy Steve Anthony returned to hang with us for 3 hours, first time he's done that in over a year.
And finally, I don't consider the 4th of July the halfway point of the summer, that would be either the Jones County Fair or Madison Summer Trip later in the month. The end of summer will be the Arizona Buyout and I predict that I will find about 40 cds to jam out to in the desert. As for the Immigration Boycott by California, don't think I'll be paying California a visit and Arizona remains a fun place to find things. But don't go near the border around Nogales. Drug wars are going on and lots of human trafficking too. I'll keep my eyes opens and know my whereabouts too but where I hang out I'll should be safe.
But in the meantime it is raining again and trying my patience. Guess I'll go back to building my ark....
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