Sunday, June 14, 2015

Crabb Bits: The Rainy Season, ARSA, Coral Ridge Mall Shooter

Tis the season I guess.  We have had a dry April and May, but Thursday we began the rainy season with about 3 inches of rain.  Parts of Cedar Rapids got four to four and a half inches of rain and of course the low lying areas got a lake for a few hours.  Usually Center Point Road and 42nd Street and the parking lot of the former K Mart.  For the first time, it was a test to see if our 8,000 dollar waterproofing job would hold up against the pounding rains and so far so good, the basement remained dry.  Since this is June and since more stalled fronts will sit upon us and give rain after rain, it will be put to the test once again, to see if we stay dry from the June Monsoons that are on the horizon.

Had my first colonoscopy Friday and hope it's the last one.  I didn't think much of the solution that they give you to clean you out (think Sprite with salt water) and having no food on the day before sucked.  I guess it went okay, although I knew I would not remember much of anything after that, and just like the script went, I did not.  I recall Do Do Do Dah Dah Dah playing in the background and bitching that KOKZ played it on the way to the hospital (they may have the FOX on, corporate classic rock radio all sounds the same) and next thing I know, I am back in my room, with my clothes on.  My brother says I did put them onward but dammed if I remembered anything about that or going home.  For most of the afternoon, I was entertained by a bunch of ducks outside the door and Callie the cat peeking in through the window.  I spent the evening with a DVD, the Sex Pistols The Filth And The Fury, and it did recall the times of 1977 and how the band fell apart in our very eyes, ending with an ill fated US Tour that ended things.  Strange to go see them play in San Francisco which the encore song they did was a cover of The Stooges No Fun and seeing a frustrated Johnny Rotten saying his famous line of Ever got the feeling you've been cheated, thanked the folk and walked off.  The weakest link was Sid Vicious, a character upon himself that could do a nice poser of a bass player.  I'm sure John tried his best to keep some sense in Vicious but when Nancy Spurgeon came into the picture and that heroin messing up Sid for life, he was beyond saving.  A strange couple to which had a sad ending and a chapter to the Rock and Roll Babylon book, she did him in, before he did her in and then did himself with a lethal dose of H.

The Sex Pistols in my youth, I didn't like them much, it may have been the Conservative in me at that time, but they were no different than The New York Dolls, although early in the movie John Lyndon gave us a peek of who influenced him, the Quasimodo of a movie comes to mind and basically a working class pissed off attitude of no future. After all, the UK in 1976 wasn't a fun place to be.  Certainly while Malcolm Mclaren may have been the money making villain that took advantage of these four white trash Brit boys, he did find ways to get the band going.  Glen Matlock, the original bass player got booted out for a love of the Beatles and keeping clean in favor of Vicious, who fit the criteria of the Sex Pistols.  The legend of them being bought out by EMI and A&M, which the latter 45 collectors have been paying big bucks for, and finally Virgin Records which has kept their memory alive with their only album Never Mind The Bollocks, and a few other comps along the way. Certainly back then while the classic rockers wanted The Pistols to fall flat on their faces, the Pistols music is today more tolerable, radio still doesn't play them.  But I do recall their 1978 US romp, with stops in Atlanta and Texas, playing at a road house where Merle Haggard would play a week later, and some rednecks throwing a beer bottle and hitting Vicious in the face, but he kept playing.     In the end, they only played 8 times, mostly down south before concluding at Winterland.


Still The Filth And The Fury is a better overview of what the Sex Pistols were all about more than The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, a dvd that I once had and watched once and filed it away.  While The Original Pistols reunited a few times (The 1996 Filthy Lucre Live album is a nice wrap up and victory lap, with Rotten-Lydon at his best recreating the angry young punk as angry old man).  Lydon has done better with Public Image Ltd. it's the Pistols first and only album that defined an angry generation of UK punks to give us punk rock and give that a genre a good kick in the pants.  And hopefully Sid and Nancy are happier, wherever they may be in the afterlife.

Strange days are here.  Coral Ridge Mall Friday Night.  Some security guard comes up and hassles a young lady, young lady reports him for harassment, security guard gets fired.  Security guard goes berserk, goes home and gets a gun, goes back to the Mall, shoots and kills girl and then runs, only to be caught outside of Walcott, arrested on sight and admits his crime. Welcome to the world of Alex Kozak, some psychopathic kook.  It seems like in this day and age you can't go to the malls anymore without some sort of this shit happening.  In social media land, Kozak has his own FB page full of the NRA gun rights and redneck lunacy.  So now they have to bury Andrea Farrington whereas Asshole Kozak goes to prison forever.  Which leaves another victim as well, his wife, which he married last year and seemed to be that happy couple that starts out after being married. And who knows what happened after that. Dumbasses never know the damage that they cause when it's done and changed forever.

On a better note, my best friend's parents Russ and Ida Swearingen celebrates 60 years of being together.  Congrats and may you have many more.

If you like archives of radio top 30 surveys try this site: http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/index.php

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