Mega-tired, as usual on Sunday night (cause of getting up early for church) but the singing was good and we had a good rehearsal also. Besides our weekly anthems, I am really enjoying becoming more familiar with the hymns. It's taken me a couple of years to learn and remember them all. or at least the ones we sing on a rotating basis over the course of a year. My favorites are the ones that have a melody line that seems to play off of organ counterpoint, with a lot of vocal "jumps". A famous one in this style is "All Creatures Of Our God And King". I love to sing that song, and it is the perfect example of what I am talking about. It has a very English sound, like "Jerusalem" or "Holy, Holy, Holy". My favorites are all the ones where you can "go up the ladder" vocally, with some jumps, so that you can ascend up into the high register. "All Creatures" is a goosebump song for me.
I miss writing to the SB.
SB, if you are out there, I miss writing to you, asking about your day, etc.
I need to start thinking earlier in the day about topics, so that I am not just starting at half past Midnight going, "what am I gonna write about"?
When I have a movie to report I can always talk about that. Tonight I did not watch a movie, but I did watch a classic episode of "Outer Limits" from Season Two (1964). It was called "The Duplicate Man", and was really far out. A scientist has a clone made of himself in order to catch a very dangerous Alien he had secretly imprisoned, and which has escaped. Sounds weird, eh? It almost falls into the "What Were They Smokin' ?" category, but it is actually well done, with a very thoughtful script and the Usual Great Television Acting From That Era.
One of these days I've gotta get back to my research about 1989. What I really need in that regard is the help of a professional researcher, or at least someone who can help me with FOIA requests. I go about my life and try to enjoy it on a daily basis, and of course I realise - I know - that I have been blessed many times over in so many ways, and so I do try to focus on each new day and all the beauty it brings.
But then, from just out of the Daily Spotlight, a small voice will call to me saying "Hey, Ad......you had something happen to you which was almost beyond comprehension. Aren't you going to do anything about it? You are almost 60 years old. It happened half your life ago. What are you waiting for? Time goes by"...........
And I know I need to do something, but there really isn't much I can do. How does one go up against the military? Against the Feds? Against a secret group that no one knows who they are?
As my knowledge of 1989 has evolved since I wrote my book in 2006, I have come to realise more than anything that Whatever The Hell It Was, "What Happened In Northridge" had to do with The Feds, and something Beyond Top Secret they were interested in protecting. Was it as Top Secret as Roswell?
Hell yeah.
That's why you've never heard Word One about it. Not word freakin' one.
So I need some help; a top-of-the-line researcher like Dr. Farrell or someone of his ilk.
I don't think about 1989 in depth all the time like I used to, but still, not a day goes by when I do not at least have it "at the surface". I used to think, long ago, that it all evolved out of drug deals and other youthful shenanigans.
But as my research evolved over the years, and thus my analysis, I kept thinking about The Feds.
Why were the Feds on the scene so quickly, at that apartment building? They were on the scene in less than two hours, I would estimate. One day, I would like to talk to Ann. She was actually present with me that night, and may have recollections that could help.
But Federal Agents (agency unknown to me) were on the scene, when in any other situation of that type, police would have been there.
My memory has come back in a bit more detail since I wrote my book.
I have wondered if it was all a set-up, and if I was part of an experiment of some kind. I know I have brought this up several times before. Sorry.
But I just feel like I was part of an experiment, and that the Federal people who took part in it, don't give a hoot about me. I was left to twist in the wind, for almost 30 years.
Despite what I remember, I basically have no idea what happened to me, or especially Why.
Why did it happen?
I need to know before I get too much older. That's "Need" to know, as in, "I have to know", so that when my time finally comes (hopefully at a ripe old age) I can die in peace.
To the people who induced amnesia in me, and caused me to forget what happened to me, I can only say : "You guys are The Devil Himself".
But one day, God will resolve the situation, and at that point I'd rather be me than you.
Beware the Secret Keepers, my Fellow Americans. They are our worst enemy.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Blackout + Beetle + Putting A Tear
The blackout was the big news of the day. It started about 6:45, all the power went out at Pearl's. This sometimes happens here in the Valley during Summer months, especially on days like today when it's super hot (109), but when we get what they call a "rolling" blackout, it usually just lasts a few minutes, maybe a half hour. I began to worry because almost an hour had gone by, it was now about 7:40 and it was getting dark and hot in Pearl's house. But then we got lucky, the power came back on, thank goodness, so I left to go home and take my evening break as usual, and as soon as I got to Lindley Avenue I could see smoke from a fire that looked to be a few miles away. Not far.
I thought to myself, "maybe it's the DWP" because it was in that direction, and the fire coincided with the blackout. And when I got home, I Googled it, and sure enough it was the Northridge DWP.
Weirdly enough, I had power at my apartment building. The power had been out all the way home, the traffic lights were out, everything. It was still light out at that point so I went to the roof of the Trusty CSUN Parking Garage, my platform for many sunset pictures, and I snapped a couple pics of the smoke.
Because I had power, and because Pearl's power had come back on also, I figured everything was back to normal. But when I went for my walk a while later, I could see that it wasn't. CSUN was totally blacked out. The campus cops had cars parked at certain spots with all their lights flashing, so I didn't follow my usual route through there. Instead I went north toward Lassen, through the neighborhood, but it was pitch black all the way. Only headlights of passing cars could be seen.
Back home, I discovered a big ol' beetle in my apartment. Not John, Paul, George or Ringo, either. This thing had wings. I tried to catch it under a cup but it was too fast. Shades of the Horrible Cricket Infestation of 2014. Thankfully, there is only the one Observed Bug as of this writing. He or she (I hope it's "he" because of the Baby Factor) is hiding somewhere in The Tiny Apartment. I had to break out the glue traps before I came back to Pearl's. Cruel, I know, and I am one of those guys who does really try to catch and release spiders and such rather than kill them, but this thing was enormous. And it had wings.
Gross, I know. I live in an old building from the late 60s/ early 70s. It is not well sealed and bugs get inside during the Roasting Hot Summers when they are looking for water. I'd like to move, but what are you gonna do these days with rents being what they are? I could rent a house in many states for what I am paying on an apartment that amounts to a bedroom and a bathroom, no kitchen. It's crazy, but so is life these days. One day I will have a house to live in (and probably more bugs, lol).
Man, I wanna go to Disneyland so bad. I haven't been there since 2011. I wanna do something fun, and D-Land is #1 on my list. Anybody wanna go with me? SB?
At least I get to sing with the choir tomorrow morn. That is something I always look forward to, despite the Gettin' Up Early. We have a really cool church.
Tomorrow's anthem is another Contemporary Christian song called "Grace Alone". Our director has a somewhat negative attitude toward the schmaltzy aspect of many of the songs in that genre, and I agree with him, especially when you compare them to the historic canon of songs going back to the 18th century. However, this particular song, though simple and contemporary, has a nice melodic structure.
The key is to sing it in a way that dignifies the emotion, rather than just playing to it.
A lot of pop songs do that too. The writers know that certain keys and progressions, with an emotive vocal line, will result in a Tear In The Eye. As a listener, I am susceptible to that format, and I'm sure you are too. But I appreciate it most when it is done with honesty, in a song that is not cloying.
If you, as a musician or singer, can honestly put a tear in the eye of the listener, then you have a rare gift.
Well, on to tomorrow. Supposed to be not quite as hot, only 96.
See you in church.
I thought to myself, "maybe it's the DWP" because it was in that direction, and the fire coincided with the blackout. And when I got home, I Googled it, and sure enough it was the Northridge DWP.
Weirdly enough, I had power at my apartment building. The power had been out all the way home, the traffic lights were out, everything. It was still light out at that point so I went to the roof of the Trusty CSUN Parking Garage, my platform for many sunset pictures, and I snapped a couple pics of the smoke.
Because I had power, and because Pearl's power had come back on also, I figured everything was back to normal. But when I went for my walk a while later, I could see that it wasn't. CSUN was totally blacked out. The campus cops had cars parked at certain spots with all their lights flashing, so I didn't follow my usual route through there. Instead I went north toward Lassen, through the neighborhood, but it was pitch black all the way. Only headlights of passing cars could be seen.
Back home, I discovered a big ol' beetle in my apartment. Not John, Paul, George or Ringo, either. This thing had wings. I tried to catch it under a cup but it was too fast. Shades of the Horrible Cricket Infestation of 2014. Thankfully, there is only the one Observed Bug as of this writing. He or she (I hope it's "he" because of the Baby Factor) is hiding somewhere in The Tiny Apartment. I had to break out the glue traps before I came back to Pearl's. Cruel, I know, and I am one of those guys who does really try to catch and release spiders and such rather than kill them, but this thing was enormous. And it had wings.
Gross, I know. I live in an old building from the late 60s/ early 70s. It is not well sealed and bugs get inside during the Roasting Hot Summers when they are looking for water. I'd like to move, but what are you gonna do these days with rents being what they are? I could rent a house in many states for what I am paying on an apartment that amounts to a bedroom and a bathroom, no kitchen. It's crazy, but so is life these days. One day I will have a house to live in (and probably more bugs, lol).
Man, I wanna go to Disneyland so bad. I haven't been there since 2011. I wanna do something fun, and D-Land is #1 on my list. Anybody wanna go with me? SB?
At least I get to sing with the choir tomorrow morn. That is something I always look forward to, despite the Gettin' Up Early. We have a really cool church.
Tomorrow's anthem is another Contemporary Christian song called "Grace Alone". Our director has a somewhat negative attitude toward the schmaltzy aspect of many of the songs in that genre, and I agree with him, especially when you compare them to the historic canon of songs going back to the 18th century. However, this particular song, though simple and contemporary, has a nice melodic structure.
The key is to sing it in a way that dignifies the emotion, rather than just playing to it.
A lot of pop songs do that too. The writers know that certain keys and progressions, with an emotive vocal line, will result in a Tear In The Eye. As a listener, I am susceptible to that format, and I'm sure you are too. But I appreciate it most when it is done with honesty, in a song that is not cloying.
If you, as a musician or singer, can honestly put a tear in the eye of the listener, then you have a rare gift.
Well, on to tomorrow. Supposed to be not quite as hot, only 96.
See you in church.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Christian Petzold + Depression
Saw an excellent movie tonight from Criterion : "Phoenix" (2014) directed by a guy named Christian Petzold. He is a German filmmaker who I think is one of the best currently working out of Europe. I've seen several of his films, including "Barbara", "Jerichow" and "The State I Am In", all top notch. Petzold has an identifiable style : he chooses simple but unique stories about human relationships and the way that a crisis situation can affect the people involved. His films are spare : few actors, little to no action, dialogue that informs the story but nothing extraneous. His pacing is slow but constantly moving forward - hypnotic is a good word - and he pulls you inside every film he directs. You can't stop watching a Petzold film, and his photography and sense of color is exquisite. He reminds me of Krzysztof Kieslowski ("Three Colors Trilogy") in his technical perfection. I won't go into too much detail about "Phoenix", because it is so good that I don't want to give any spoilers or even make headway. It is the story of an Auschwitz survivor who is brought back home to Germany by a Jewish woman friend who hid in Switzerland during the war. She sets the Auschwitz victim up for facial reconstruction surgery, which when completed leaves the woman looking somewhat like she used to, but not quite.
The woman then wants to see if she can find her husband, a Gentile who is a pianist. She was a nightclub singer before the war, and they had an act together. She being Jewish was arrested, while he went free.
This is a big part of the plot, so I'll tell you no more, except to say that she does find him, and he does not recognise her. However, he is interested in her due to what he perceives as a slight resemblance to his "late" wife (who he believes has died), and he enlists her in a scheme to impersonate his wife to collect money that was stolen from the family bank account by the Nazis. But she really is his wife, and he does not know this.
Man, it is one hell of a set-up, storywise, and director Petzold plays it out for all it is worth. The other thing about Petzold that makes him great is that he gets it about movie length. Most of his films are right around the 90 minute mark, my ideal length for a film (in most cases). "Phoenix" runs 98 minutes, never drags, and every scene counts. It's a love story more than anything, but laced with possible betrayal and the hope of redemption. I give it a 10, and two big thumbs up.
Well, Elizabeth, I don't know if you are still reading, but it was nice to see you post something on FB, even if it didn't have anything to do with me. That was a great photo (as usual) and I am glad to see that you are enjoying your Summer. I keep hoping that you don't wanna throw this whole thing away, our communication over the past five years, because I have thought we made a good team and I have hoped you got something out of it. If you remember, when I met you, you were planning on getting your degree in linguistics, a worthwhile pursuit but your heart wasn't in it.
Well look what has happened instead! I know that I didn't "do anything" to make that happen; it was all your hard work and initiative, and talent. But I hope I provided some of the inspiration. :)
I won't bug ya anymore about it, but I just hope you'll consider that some good things have happened since 2012. And also, I still don't know what the problem is. If you wanna tell me, I'm all ears.
Other than that : mega-tired as usual; trying not to be depressed. It's not easy. I am a believer that communication can solve all problems, or at the very least bring understanding to all problems.
Communication opens things up; people speak about what they feel, and in doing so they are unburdened, because they are releasing something that is bothering them, i.e. getting rid of negative energy. Sometimes, a person will hold in such a problem because they might feel it won't be understood or cared about. And that causes communication to stop. But when trust is in place, there is no need for this to happen. That's why I say "you can tell me anything".
I will write more tomorrow, maybe more rock concert stories. It was Super Hot today : 111 degrees! And in the old days, say 2014-15, that would have meant exploration and hiking, today it just wipes me out because I don't want to have depression at my age. I have said, for many years and because of our age difference, that if anything ever happened and you didn't want to communicate any more, to just please let me know. That was all I ever asked, nothing more.
To be cut off without a reason given is what hurts, and at my age, after all I have written to you, it's causing a lot of depression. Communication is better.
I hope I deserve at least a send off, if that is to be the case.
But if it's just a communication problem, something that is bothering you, just let me know so that I can understand.
The woman then wants to see if she can find her husband, a Gentile who is a pianist. She was a nightclub singer before the war, and they had an act together. She being Jewish was arrested, while he went free.
This is a big part of the plot, so I'll tell you no more, except to say that she does find him, and he does not recognise her. However, he is interested in her due to what he perceives as a slight resemblance to his "late" wife (who he believes has died), and he enlists her in a scheme to impersonate his wife to collect money that was stolen from the family bank account by the Nazis. But she really is his wife, and he does not know this.
Man, it is one hell of a set-up, storywise, and director Petzold plays it out for all it is worth. The other thing about Petzold that makes him great is that he gets it about movie length. Most of his films are right around the 90 minute mark, my ideal length for a film (in most cases). "Phoenix" runs 98 minutes, never drags, and every scene counts. It's a love story more than anything, but laced with possible betrayal and the hope of redemption. I give it a 10, and two big thumbs up.
Well, Elizabeth, I don't know if you are still reading, but it was nice to see you post something on FB, even if it didn't have anything to do with me. That was a great photo (as usual) and I am glad to see that you are enjoying your Summer. I keep hoping that you don't wanna throw this whole thing away, our communication over the past five years, because I have thought we made a good team and I have hoped you got something out of it. If you remember, when I met you, you were planning on getting your degree in linguistics, a worthwhile pursuit but your heart wasn't in it.
Well look what has happened instead! I know that I didn't "do anything" to make that happen; it was all your hard work and initiative, and talent. But I hope I provided some of the inspiration. :)
I won't bug ya anymore about it, but I just hope you'll consider that some good things have happened since 2012. And also, I still don't know what the problem is. If you wanna tell me, I'm all ears.
Other than that : mega-tired as usual; trying not to be depressed. It's not easy. I am a believer that communication can solve all problems, or at the very least bring understanding to all problems.
Communication opens things up; people speak about what they feel, and in doing so they are unburdened, because they are releasing something that is bothering them, i.e. getting rid of negative energy. Sometimes, a person will hold in such a problem because they might feel it won't be understood or cared about. And that causes communication to stop. But when trust is in place, there is no need for this to happen. That's why I say "you can tell me anything".
I will write more tomorrow, maybe more rock concert stories. It was Super Hot today : 111 degrees! And in the old days, say 2014-15, that would have meant exploration and hiking, today it just wipes me out because I don't want to have depression at my age. I have said, for many years and because of our age difference, that if anything ever happened and you didn't want to communicate any more, to just please let me know. That was all I ever asked, nothing more.
To be cut off without a reason given is what hurts, and at my age, after all I have written to you, it's causing a lot of depression. Communication is better.
I hope I deserve at least a send off, if that is to be the case.
But if it's just a communication problem, something that is bothering you, just let me know so that I can understand.
Friday, July 7, 2017
More Concert History + Don't Smoke
Tired tonight, and melancholy if not outright depressed. It hurts to have someone cut you off - for whatever the reason is - after you have written to them nearly every day for five years. Just "boom", like flipping a switch, and you're gone. No reason given, no explanation, nothing. It does hurt, but I am not gonna let myself get depressed. It sucks to be in your late 50s and have nobody in your life, and to have something like this happen, but one thing you learn as you go along is that you've gotta keep going, hard as it can be at times. I guess I'm a bit of a wimp, and maybe that's part of the problem. Once, a long time ago, I heard a girl named Lys use a phrase I found puzzling at the time : "Too nice".
She had a short-term boyfriend she had broken up with, because he was "too nice".
I wondered what that meant. It seemed to make no sense. Wasn't "nice" the way people were supposed to be? How could a person be too nice?
Then it was explained to me that the phrase wasn't quite literal. It instead meant that the guy was kind of a wimp, that in Lys' case he sort of followed in her footsteps, trailing her like a puppy dog and telling her he loved her all the time. She grew tired of it, and as it was described to me, I got the picture.
For men, there is the age old question of What Do Women Want? I don't profess to know, because for one thing I am not a woman, but mainly because I don't look at women (or men or anyone) in such a generalised way. I am a nice guy, and in my heart I am romantic. That may not be an asset in this day and age, but I can't fake who I am. Say what you will about me, but I am not phoney, not putting on an act. I don't think I'm "too nice", i.e. a wimp, but maybe I am just a bit of a wimp. And they say women don't like wimps, or nice guys. The cliche is that women like edgy guys, or even outright jerks.
There is no doubt some women like guys like that, but again, I don't generalise, and in the case of the SB, she is too sophisticated for that kind of cliched baloney. SB, you are awesome. I don't know why you have shut me out, but you have done so. It hurts, but all I can do is keep going. So here I go....
Okay, enough wimpiness by me. More rock n' roll is called for.
Early rock concerts. Well, you know that my first concert was the California Jam, on April 6, 1974, ten days before I turned 14. Black Oak Arkansas, then Black Sabbath, then Deep Purple, then ELP (all for ten bucks). I was blown off the map, and my life was changed forever. I had to go to more concerts!
The next one was just a month or so later : Electric Light Orchestra at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, with Elvin Bishop opening. This was my first time in an actual concert hall. May of 1974. I went with my friend David B. (who I visited last year in Northern California). We had been turned on to ELO by the clerks at College Records. This was back before they went super commercial and highly produced. We were fans of the albums "ELO 2" and "On The Third Day". At Santa Monica, they were hard rockin', and if I remember correctly, the cello player smashed his cello ala Hendrix. I could be wrong about that, and have it mixed up with another concert memory, but I don't think so. I am pretty sure he did it. It was a great concert, and......(drum roll please.....) it was also the first time I "smoked" marijuana. What happened was that some older fans next to us had lit a joint, and they passed it to us 14 year old kids (David was 12). Good job, guys! Neither me nor David knew what we were doing. I took the thing as it was offered to me, and imitated what the older fans were doing. I "took a puff" but like Bill Clinton I did not inhale. Nothing happened and I did not get high. Neither did David, who played along just as I had.
The thing was - his Dad had come along to the show. He had driven us there, and had bought a ticket a few rows behind our seats. We already had tickets, we'd bought them in advance. At any rate, in the car on the way home, he told us that he'd seen what we were doing. That's when we insisted we were just playing along with the elder fans, and that we didn't get high.
David B's dad didn't get pissed. This was the 70s and it was no big deal. And, we were telling the truth. We really didn't get high, and we only each smoked one puff.
Of course, things changed for me in 1978, when I began smoking pot in earnest.
It's weird - and I mean it's really weird - because my nature is not that of a drug person. As of this month, July 2017, I have been entirely drug free for twenty years. But once I began smoking pot, I found it very hard to stop and I did not want to. I smoked it every day, pretty much, for 19 years. And I did other things, all kinds of things, things I never would have even considered if it weren't for pot opening the doorway. So, while I am not a crusader about drugs (I believe that people will do what they will), I will tell you that marijuana is definitely a gateway drug, and don't let anyone tell you any different.
Oh well, screw it. I'm getting on a soapbox now and that is something I don't wanna do. All I would say, is that - of all drugs - don't start smoking pot. Yep. It'll make you lazy and stupid, and you will waste a lot of your time.
But the ELO concert was awesome, and I am pretty sure that the guy smashed his cello.
My third concert was Rick Wakeman at The Hollywood Bowl, in September 1974, and my fourth was Camel at The Whiskey A Go-Go, two months later in November. That was my first club show, and the first time I met a rock star. But I am too tired to tell you about it tonight. My job is pretty demanding, and if I don't balance everything out during the twenty four hours of the day, I will be toast. So I'd better sign off and get some sleep.
All I can do is keep going. But it sucks being alone.
That's another thing I do not recommend.
She had a short-term boyfriend she had broken up with, because he was "too nice".
I wondered what that meant. It seemed to make no sense. Wasn't "nice" the way people were supposed to be? How could a person be too nice?
Then it was explained to me that the phrase wasn't quite literal. It instead meant that the guy was kind of a wimp, that in Lys' case he sort of followed in her footsteps, trailing her like a puppy dog and telling her he loved her all the time. She grew tired of it, and as it was described to me, I got the picture.
For men, there is the age old question of What Do Women Want? I don't profess to know, because for one thing I am not a woman, but mainly because I don't look at women (or men or anyone) in such a generalised way. I am a nice guy, and in my heart I am romantic. That may not be an asset in this day and age, but I can't fake who I am. Say what you will about me, but I am not phoney, not putting on an act. I don't think I'm "too nice", i.e. a wimp, but maybe I am just a bit of a wimp. And they say women don't like wimps, or nice guys. The cliche is that women like edgy guys, or even outright jerks.
There is no doubt some women like guys like that, but again, I don't generalise, and in the case of the SB, she is too sophisticated for that kind of cliched baloney. SB, you are awesome. I don't know why you have shut me out, but you have done so. It hurts, but all I can do is keep going. So here I go....
Okay, enough wimpiness by me. More rock n' roll is called for.
Early rock concerts. Well, you know that my first concert was the California Jam, on April 6, 1974, ten days before I turned 14. Black Oak Arkansas, then Black Sabbath, then Deep Purple, then ELP (all for ten bucks). I was blown off the map, and my life was changed forever. I had to go to more concerts!
The next one was just a month or so later : Electric Light Orchestra at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, with Elvin Bishop opening. This was my first time in an actual concert hall. May of 1974. I went with my friend David B. (who I visited last year in Northern California). We had been turned on to ELO by the clerks at College Records. This was back before they went super commercial and highly produced. We were fans of the albums "ELO 2" and "On The Third Day". At Santa Monica, they were hard rockin', and if I remember correctly, the cello player smashed his cello ala Hendrix. I could be wrong about that, and have it mixed up with another concert memory, but I don't think so. I am pretty sure he did it. It was a great concert, and......(drum roll please.....) it was also the first time I "smoked" marijuana. What happened was that some older fans next to us had lit a joint, and they passed it to us 14 year old kids (David was 12). Good job, guys! Neither me nor David knew what we were doing. I took the thing as it was offered to me, and imitated what the older fans were doing. I "took a puff" but like Bill Clinton I did not inhale. Nothing happened and I did not get high. Neither did David, who played along just as I had.
The thing was - his Dad had come along to the show. He had driven us there, and had bought a ticket a few rows behind our seats. We already had tickets, we'd bought them in advance. At any rate, in the car on the way home, he told us that he'd seen what we were doing. That's when we insisted we were just playing along with the elder fans, and that we didn't get high.
David B's dad didn't get pissed. This was the 70s and it was no big deal. And, we were telling the truth. We really didn't get high, and we only each smoked one puff.
Of course, things changed for me in 1978, when I began smoking pot in earnest.
It's weird - and I mean it's really weird - because my nature is not that of a drug person. As of this month, July 2017, I have been entirely drug free for twenty years. But once I began smoking pot, I found it very hard to stop and I did not want to. I smoked it every day, pretty much, for 19 years. And I did other things, all kinds of things, things I never would have even considered if it weren't for pot opening the doorway. So, while I am not a crusader about drugs (I believe that people will do what they will), I will tell you that marijuana is definitely a gateway drug, and don't let anyone tell you any different.
Oh well, screw it. I'm getting on a soapbox now and that is something I don't wanna do. All I would say, is that - of all drugs - don't start smoking pot. Yep. It'll make you lazy and stupid, and you will waste a lot of your time.
But the ELO concert was awesome, and I am pretty sure that the guy smashed his cello.
My third concert was Rick Wakeman at The Hollywood Bowl, in September 1974, and my fourth was Camel at The Whiskey A Go-Go, two months later in November. That was my first club show, and the first time I met a rock star. But I am too tired to tell you about it tonight. My job is pretty demanding, and if I don't balance everything out during the twenty four hours of the day, I will be toast. So I'd better sign off and get some sleep.
All I can do is keep going. But it sucks being alone.
That's another thing I do not recommend.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Van Halen 1977
Grimsley came over tonight. He had a tape he wanted me to hear (yeah Grim is old school, he still uses cassette tapes and has a guy who make him bootlegs). The tape was a live recording of Van Halen from 1977 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. This was right before their first record came out in early 1978. It's a pretty good recording, perhaps off the board (I think it can be heard on Youtube), and what you notice most of all, besides the explosiveness of the band, was just how Off The Charts EVH was as a guitarist at the time. My friends and I (me, Grim & Ono if I remember correctly) had seen Van Halen a year earlier, on New Year's Eve at the Santa Monica Civic. This was December 31, 1976, a full 14 months before the debut album hit the stores. VH was a hot club band at the time, all through 1976 they played at every club on Sunset, and you heard their name all the time, saw posters and flyers, "Van Halen this, Van Halen that"........in 1976, in Hollywood, they were everywhere.
My friends and I absolutely hated Van Halen that year. And it's funny, because we had never heard them. :) We simply hated them because we thought, "who the hell are they"?
You don't go around acting like you are the Kings Of Rock & Roll if you are just a local band out of Pasadena. And to my 16 year old mind, that's what these guys were doing. To me, you had to earn your egotism. It was one thing to be a cocky rock star if you were in a huge band and could play your ass off.
Ritchie Blackmore? Okay fine. He was pretty cocky back then, but no biggie. He was in Deep Purple and he could also back it up. I read Creem magazine, and Circus (and Circus Raves, too!), and you had to be a big band to get in those mags. A well known band who played real concert halls. Who was this Van Halen who thought they were big shots, but with no record out and only club gigs to their name?
It was an affront to everything I thought was cool, and when you are 16, things are pretty cut and dried. Anyhow, during the Summer of 1976, you heard "Van Halen" everywhere, but only in Los Angeles.
And then on New Year's Eve, we finally "had" to see them, because they were opening for (now here's the hard part) either The Runaways or Sparks. I have always thought it was The Runaways, but Googling tells me different. Grim swears it was The Runaways, too, but the point is that we "had" to sit through Van Halen first. They were the openers, and we were prepared to hate 'em because we already did (though I was secretly interested to finally see them after all the 1976 publicity).
The verdict was that they were pretty good. Not great or incredible, but certainly professional, and the guitarist seemed to be talented, even if he was not blowing anybody away (yet, lol). But the cockiness I had suspected was on full display, especially with the singer, who looked and acted like the more well known Jim Dandy of Black Oak Arkansas. After the concert, we all thought, "who the hell was that guy"? And the guitarist I remembered as a posturing little guy who had his licks down and had a big sound but was nothing special.
Then the first album came out 14 months later. And in the meantime something happened. Maybe they started to eat dynamite for breakfast (or at least Wheaties), with Edward taking a double serving, because when you hear this bootleg from the Pasadena Civic, just a year later in December 1977, it's like hearing the first nuclear powered band. Fans remember what a great rhythm section Michael Anthony created with Alex VH, an underrated and excellent drummer. And in those days, David Lee Roth (the cocky guy, haha) was "on point" and still sang all the words in every song. The downfall to his high level live performances would begin in 1983 with the Drunken Debacle at The US Festival, but I digress. In the early years, Diamond Dave sang 'em the way they went.
But what you notice more than anything on this live recording from 1977, is the playing of Edward Van Halen. It is, in a word, Supercharged. And when you hear it, you remember why he had such an impact when Van Halen finally hit it big in 1978. The first album was one thing, but seeing him live at that time (and up to the Us Festival) was a life-changing experience, especially for hard core fans of guitar playing. This was a guy who was, to paraphrase the VH song title : "On Fire". And that's putting it mildly. You kind of have to hear it to believe it (and it helps if you're a fan), but what I can testify to, as a long time fan of guitar, who has heard them all and seen many, is that EVH, at the time, was the most energised, "alive" guitarist I have ever heard. He's not just playing fast. He is playing "plugged in", with a stick of dynamite up his you-know-what, and he is doing it to an extent that has never been heard before or since.
I am not .kidding. Nobody ever played that kind of "live-sounding, electrified, over the top but in total control, humongous guitar" before, or after, EVH came along.
There have been many "faster" guitarists, ala Yngwie Malmsteen, but all one needs to do is listen to Edward at his peak, and there is no comparison with any shredder. It's not enough to play fast (nor is there any reason to, just for the sake of doing it), but to play with energy......that is a whole 'nuther thing.
I have only heard one other guitarist play with that kind of fire, and of course it was Sir Richard Blackmore. He was at his peak during the Rainbow days of the mid-80s. And his style was quite different from that of EVH, and he preceded him by a decade or so. But both gentlemen played as if connected to an energy that is nearly unfathomable to other players, but - most interestingly - readily identifiable to the listener.
The listener, the rock n' roll fan (the guitar fan), the fan who knows what makes rock so great, at least in part, hears Edward Van Halen in 1977, when he was only 22 years old (and only seven years after The Beatles broke up), and thinks to himself : "Yeeahhh! That's what I've been waiting to hear"!
It's an energy transfer, seemingly from the core of the Universe.
It's like he was plugged into The Speed Of Light.
I went from hating Van Halen (without ever hearing them) to them being my favorite band by 1979. And Edward became my hero, as he did for so many players.
There has never been anyone like him.
It is a mindblower that he came along forty years ago, but it seems like yesterday.
And nobody has surpassed what he has done.
That's all for tonight.
My friends and I absolutely hated Van Halen that year. And it's funny, because we had never heard them. :) We simply hated them because we thought, "who the hell are they"?
You don't go around acting like you are the Kings Of Rock & Roll if you are just a local band out of Pasadena. And to my 16 year old mind, that's what these guys were doing. To me, you had to earn your egotism. It was one thing to be a cocky rock star if you were in a huge band and could play your ass off.
Ritchie Blackmore? Okay fine. He was pretty cocky back then, but no biggie. He was in Deep Purple and he could also back it up. I read Creem magazine, and Circus (and Circus Raves, too!), and you had to be a big band to get in those mags. A well known band who played real concert halls. Who was this Van Halen who thought they were big shots, but with no record out and only club gigs to their name?
It was an affront to everything I thought was cool, and when you are 16, things are pretty cut and dried. Anyhow, during the Summer of 1976, you heard "Van Halen" everywhere, but only in Los Angeles.
And then on New Year's Eve, we finally "had" to see them, because they were opening for (now here's the hard part) either The Runaways or Sparks. I have always thought it was The Runaways, but Googling tells me different. Grim swears it was The Runaways, too, but the point is that we "had" to sit through Van Halen first. They were the openers, and we were prepared to hate 'em because we already did (though I was secretly interested to finally see them after all the 1976 publicity).
The verdict was that they were pretty good. Not great or incredible, but certainly professional, and the guitarist seemed to be talented, even if he was not blowing anybody away (yet, lol). But the cockiness I had suspected was on full display, especially with the singer, who looked and acted like the more well known Jim Dandy of Black Oak Arkansas. After the concert, we all thought, "who the hell was that guy"? And the guitarist I remembered as a posturing little guy who had his licks down and had a big sound but was nothing special.
Then the first album came out 14 months later. And in the meantime something happened. Maybe they started to eat dynamite for breakfast (or at least Wheaties), with Edward taking a double serving, because when you hear this bootleg from the Pasadena Civic, just a year later in December 1977, it's like hearing the first nuclear powered band. Fans remember what a great rhythm section Michael Anthony created with Alex VH, an underrated and excellent drummer. And in those days, David Lee Roth (the cocky guy, haha) was "on point" and still sang all the words in every song. The downfall to his high level live performances would begin in 1983 with the Drunken Debacle at The US Festival, but I digress. In the early years, Diamond Dave sang 'em the way they went.
But what you notice more than anything on this live recording from 1977, is the playing of Edward Van Halen. It is, in a word, Supercharged. And when you hear it, you remember why he had such an impact when Van Halen finally hit it big in 1978. The first album was one thing, but seeing him live at that time (and up to the Us Festival) was a life-changing experience, especially for hard core fans of guitar playing. This was a guy who was, to paraphrase the VH song title : "On Fire". And that's putting it mildly. You kind of have to hear it to believe it (and it helps if you're a fan), but what I can testify to, as a long time fan of guitar, who has heard them all and seen many, is that EVH, at the time, was the most energised, "alive" guitarist I have ever heard. He's not just playing fast. He is playing "plugged in", with a stick of dynamite up his you-know-what, and he is doing it to an extent that has never been heard before or since.
I am not .kidding. Nobody ever played that kind of "live-sounding, electrified, over the top but in total control, humongous guitar" before, or after, EVH came along.
There have been many "faster" guitarists, ala Yngwie Malmsteen, but all one needs to do is listen to Edward at his peak, and there is no comparison with any shredder. It's not enough to play fast (nor is there any reason to, just for the sake of doing it), but to play with energy......that is a whole 'nuther thing.
I have only heard one other guitarist play with that kind of fire, and of course it was Sir Richard Blackmore. He was at his peak during the Rainbow days of the mid-80s. And his style was quite different from that of EVH, and he preceded him by a decade or so. But both gentlemen played as if connected to an energy that is nearly unfathomable to other players, but - most interestingly - readily identifiable to the listener.
The listener, the rock n' roll fan (the guitar fan), the fan who knows what makes rock so great, at least in part, hears Edward Van Halen in 1977, when he was only 22 years old (and only seven years after The Beatles broke up), and thinks to himself : "Yeeahhh! That's what I've been waiting to hear"!
It's an energy transfer, seemingly from the core of the Universe.
It's like he was plugged into The Speed Of Light.
I went from hating Van Halen (without ever hearing them) to them being my favorite band by 1979. And Edward became my hero, as he did for so many players.
There has never been anyone like him.
It is a mindblower that he came along forty years ago, but it seems like yesterday.
And nobody has surpassed what he has done.
That's all for tonight.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
A Good 4th + Fireworks Geniuses
I had a nice 4th, and SB, if you are reading I hope you did too. At 5pm, I took Pearl & Kobi to Lake Balboa for a little while The place was jammed, as it always is on July 4th, but we got a parking space and stayed for about an hour. The Kobester loved the smell of all the barbeques in use.
At 7pm, I met Grimsley up at Aliso for a short hike, and then at 8:00 I made the short drive to Shepherd Of The Hills Church in Porter Ranch for their annual fireworks show, which I've been going to for about ten years now. They stopped the old Devonshire Downs show in 2002 (I think), and then for a few years I went to Santa Monica to see their show with my sister, but in 2008 I discovered Shepherd, and I've been going ever since. It's as good a show as you will see this side of Disneyland, 25 minutes of non-stop fireworks set to patriotic music. There is always a huge crowd, and the event always features a short speech by our local Congressman Brad Sherman, the only member of Congress to have actually written up Impeachment Papers against Trump. Now that's patriotic!
Yeah, I know I said I don't wanna talk politics these days, and I don't.
But this guy has got to go. ////
'Nuff said.
Well, so I was driving back to Pearl's after the fireworks show, and I get back to her street in Reseda, and the geniuses across the street are blowing off their own stuff, fairly powerful as public-available fireworks go. I see not just the usual bottle rockets as I turn left toward her driveway, but actual "up high in the air, big colorful flower fireworks that go boom". Of the public variety, but rather substantial to be shooting off in the middle of a narrow residential street with trees and shrubs surrounding, not to mention shingle roofs and wooden houses.
I slowed before I made the turn into Pearl's driveway, because the neighbors were in the middle of the street lighting off a new batch. I had to watch my turn radius closely to make sure I would not run over any hot or smoldering fireworks. The neighbors had seemed to scatter as I drove up. Not in a "bank robbery" kind of way, but more in a "we know this is not cool" kind of way.
"Oh shit; here comes the guy who takes care of the old lady". More like that. They had lit their skyrockets just before they saw me, and when I turned the corner, they hid.
Here's what happened next. I saw the skyrockets go up in the air as I paused to negotiate my turn into Pearl's driveway, avoiding the smoldering casings. So I pulled in and parked, and I grabbed my shopping bags from the passenger seat, for I had stopped at Vons before heading to Pearl's, for water, avocados and yogurt. Then I got out of the car......
And the first thing I noticed was the heat. You could feel the heat waves coming at you.
The next thing I noticed, a split second later, was the brightness. High Bright Yellow.
Fire.
The skyrockets that the Geniuses Across The Street had lit, as I was pulling into Pearl's driveway, had - by the time I pulled in and exited the car - set a twenty-five foot palm tree on fire, and it was already engulfed. It took maybe 15 seconds for this to happen. The palm tree was their own, and immediately they ran back out of their hiding places, first staring at the Flaming Tree, which was giving off real heat, and then finally realising They Had To Do Something About It.
I don't know these people, and I was not gonna interact with them, but I did inquire if they wanted me to call the fire department. I did not call automatically because they had set the tree on fire in an illegal action (fireworks), and these days you must be cautious in what you involve yourself with, when dealing with the lowbrow element. But I was watching carefully as the tall tree burned, shooting sparks and embers.
Pearl has had experience with fire. Her house burned to the ground on Christmas Day 1972.
It was rebuilt, of course. But I was watching the sparks and embers from the tall palm tree very cautiously.
Ultimately, the Geniuses produced hoses and began spraying the flames from two crossed angles. A random driver had by that time stopped and proclaimed that she had called the fire dept.
The Geniuses seemed nervous, because they would be in trouble if the dept. were to respond.
Fear can produce motivation, and results, and in this case, the Fireworks Geniuses kept pointing their hoses and spraying, and pointing and spraying, and lo and behold.......they managed to Put The Palm Tree Out. By that time, there was nothing left but a 20 foot charred trunk, but they did it.
Good job, Geniuses!
Imagine having that kind of smarts and wherewithall to put out a none-too-shabby tall tree fire, fully engulfed and shooting enough sparks to where it could have caught on a neighbor's roof, and yet being Stupid Enough to shoot said fireworks off in such a location in the first place.
Amazing!
The combinations of human thought processes, and their often divergent nature, are thought provoking to say the least.
But man, it's hard core and a bit weird how much heat you feel, just from a single tree on fire across the street.
Thank God the Fireworks Geniuses were good with hoses.
Other then that, it was a good 4th.
The Fourth Of July has great meaning to me, and it always will.
That's all I know for today.
At 7pm, I met Grimsley up at Aliso for a short hike, and then at 8:00 I made the short drive to Shepherd Of The Hills Church in Porter Ranch for their annual fireworks show, which I've been going to for about ten years now. They stopped the old Devonshire Downs show in 2002 (I think), and then for a few years I went to Santa Monica to see their show with my sister, but in 2008 I discovered Shepherd, and I've been going ever since. It's as good a show as you will see this side of Disneyland, 25 minutes of non-stop fireworks set to patriotic music. There is always a huge crowd, and the event always features a short speech by our local Congressman Brad Sherman, the only member of Congress to have actually written up Impeachment Papers against Trump. Now that's patriotic!
Yeah, I know I said I don't wanna talk politics these days, and I don't.
But this guy has got to go. ////
'Nuff said.
Well, so I was driving back to Pearl's after the fireworks show, and I get back to her street in Reseda, and the geniuses across the street are blowing off their own stuff, fairly powerful as public-available fireworks go. I see not just the usual bottle rockets as I turn left toward her driveway, but actual "up high in the air, big colorful flower fireworks that go boom". Of the public variety, but rather substantial to be shooting off in the middle of a narrow residential street with trees and shrubs surrounding, not to mention shingle roofs and wooden houses.
I slowed before I made the turn into Pearl's driveway, because the neighbors were in the middle of the street lighting off a new batch. I had to watch my turn radius closely to make sure I would not run over any hot or smoldering fireworks. The neighbors had seemed to scatter as I drove up. Not in a "bank robbery" kind of way, but more in a "we know this is not cool" kind of way.
"Oh shit; here comes the guy who takes care of the old lady". More like that. They had lit their skyrockets just before they saw me, and when I turned the corner, they hid.
Here's what happened next. I saw the skyrockets go up in the air as I paused to negotiate my turn into Pearl's driveway, avoiding the smoldering casings. So I pulled in and parked, and I grabbed my shopping bags from the passenger seat, for I had stopped at Vons before heading to Pearl's, for water, avocados and yogurt. Then I got out of the car......
And the first thing I noticed was the heat. You could feel the heat waves coming at you.
The next thing I noticed, a split second later, was the brightness. High Bright Yellow.
Fire.
The skyrockets that the Geniuses Across The Street had lit, as I was pulling into Pearl's driveway, had - by the time I pulled in and exited the car - set a twenty-five foot palm tree on fire, and it was already engulfed. It took maybe 15 seconds for this to happen. The palm tree was their own, and immediately they ran back out of their hiding places, first staring at the Flaming Tree, which was giving off real heat, and then finally realising They Had To Do Something About It.
I don't know these people, and I was not gonna interact with them, but I did inquire if they wanted me to call the fire department. I did not call automatically because they had set the tree on fire in an illegal action (fireworks), and these days you must be cautious in what you involve yourself with, when dealing with the lowbrow element. But I was watching carefully as the tall tree burned, shooting sparks and embers.
Pearl has had experience with fire. Her house burned to the ground on Christmas Day 1972.
It was rebuilt, of course. But I was watching the sparks and embers from the tall palm tree very cautiously.
Ultimately, the Geniuses produced hoses and began spraying the flames from two crossed angles. A random driver had by that time stopped and proclaimed that she had called the fire dept.
The Geniuses seemed nervous, because they would be in trouble if the dept. were to respond.
Fear can produce motivation, and results, and in this case, the Fireworks Geniuses kept pointing their hoses and spraying, and pointing and spraying, and lo and behold.......they managed to Put The Palm Tree Out. By that time, there was nothing left but a 20 foot charred trunk, but they did it.
Good job, Geniuses!
Imagine having that kind of smarts and wherewithall to put out a none-too-shabby tall tree fire, fully engulfed and shooting enough sparks to where it could have caught on a neighbor's roof, and yet being Stupid Enough to shoot said fireworks off in such a location in the first place.
Amazing!
The combinations of human thought processes, and their often divergent nature, are thought provoking to say the least.
But man, it's hard core and a bit weird how much heat you feel, just from a single tree on fire across the street.
Thank God the Fireworks Geniuses were good with hoses.
Other then that, it was a good 4th.
The Fourth Of July has great meaning to me, and it always will.
That's all I know for today.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Wright-Patterson & My Problem With Aliens (how do they build 'em?)
I'm reading a book called "Inside The Real Area 51 : The Secret History Of Wright-Patterson". Wright-Pat, as they call it, is an air force base near Dayton, Ohio, long suspected by UFO buffs as being the hiding place for the Roswell wreckage. I've read a dozen or more books on Roswell and have kind of exhausted the subject, but I checked this one out from The Libe because of the Wright-Pat aspect and also because the authors, Thomas Carey and Donald Schmitt, are two of the better ones where Roswell is concerned. Of course, you don't really know nowdays how much info in such a book is truth (or an approximation of it) or simply outright disinformation ( a deliberate mixture of small amounts of truth with curiosity-inducing fabrications, designed to confuse the interested reader and generally make a myth or a mockery out of a given controversial subject). Disinformation is a favorite tactic of the CIA and one never knows for certain who is working for them, including and especially members of the media, or authors, anyone disseminating information. The CIA is all about Information Control.
But having said that, this book is semi-interesting, simply because the authors seem hell-bent on driving home their point : that the remains of the Roswell Flying Saucer and the bodies of the poor little guys who were piloting and riding in it (and who died in the crash) are all still being stored at Wright-Patterson to this day.
I began the book kind of thinking, "Ho Hum, not much new here", because Roswell is the prototype of all UFO/Government Conspiracy stories, and because I've read all the books, including Col. Phillip Corso's very interesting confessional book, supposedly written on his deathbed, which turned out (so they say) to be Total 100% Disinformation and a bunch of baloney. Apparently Corso was a Company Man to the end, writing a last minute book to confuse people and throw them off track, which is what the CIA wants (always).
But as I have gotten about two thirds of the way through it, I am forming a different opinion. And this is because the authors have uncovered and had access to several obscure (formerly unknown) witnesses, who have testified to them about what they saw. These are pilots who were stationed at the base, a secretary who filed highly classified information, even the base commander. These people were all very elderly when interviewed, and unlike Col. Corso, they seem to be telling the truth. I mean, you can't know for sure, but what you can go by (if you are me) is the "ring of truth" test. Does a particular story have that Ring Of Truth? These do.
I believe that the Roswell UFO and perhaps bodies as well were, and maybe still are, stored at Wright-Pat.
But I have a "pet-peeve" of a question, one that has bugged me for a while now, concerning the Aliens themselves and the construction of their spaceships. No one ever talks about this.
These guys are shrimps, by all accounts. They have scrawny bodies, sticklike arms and legs. And yet they can construct Flying Saucers that weigh perhaps 30-50 tons for the small ones, and God Only Knows How Many Megatons for the ones that are as big as football fields or even bigger : Flying Cities.
My question is : How, and where, do they do that? Think of our human shipbuilding facilities. We have humongous factories with giant machines to smelt and prepare the steel, and then other factories to put it all together to make a ship. The guys that work there - humans - are macho men (big or smaller), who have homes, maybe families, they go to work, bring a lunch, work on building an aircraft carrier all day. Then they go home again.
No one ever talks about how the Aliens might construct their airships. Again, these are tiny little guys with very thin arms and legs. They don't seem to wear clothes. They do not seem rugged, in other words, or built for hard physical work. Is there a factory on Mars, or Alpha Centauri, where a bunch of Small Guys work, building a massive UFO? Do they go home after a day's work? Do they live in houses, in cities? We are usually shown, in movies, Aliens living in hives of some kind. So if they can build a factory, aren't they civilised enough to have homes and cities? Or are they just brilliant insects? This is the part that bugs me.
I do believe in UFOs, though I'm not sure I've ever seen one. And I do believe in Aliens, or whatever you want to call them, because I'm pretty sure I have seen one. But I wonder if maybe they are just doing the flying and exploring, and have somebody else building the craft for them. Otherwise, where's the factories? Where are the cities? (Oh, yeah, I know about the photos of the Moon and Mars, and it's pretty obvious that there were civilisations on both at one time, or in the case of the Moon, at least there was a base or station there). But those photos show ancient ruins. And I still don't believe that Scrawny Naked Little Guys who are four feet tall could, or would, work in factories to build flying machines that some have reported are over a mile long.
This problem bugged me even more when I saw the otherwise excellent Alien movie "Arrival" last year. Great movie, right? I thought so. But when I left, I thought, "wait a minute - how could those guys on the ships, who looked like Giant Octopi, build these huge sophisticated spaceships?
They didn't even have hands! Or legs or feet.
So I rest my case.
Maybe they've got Humans up there, or Bots, or somebody else, building the things for them. And then they get inside and fly them around, using only their minds as a control system.
And the workers are the ones who go home for dinner every night, after a day in the UFO Factory, in the Cities On Mars, or wherever.
None of what you have just read has been disinformation.
Just look up in the sky at night. Do you really think we're the only ones in the whole joint?
I didn't think so. :)
That's all for tonight.
I think maybe the SB has been taken away on a spaceship....I'll be looking up to see if I can find her.
But having said that, this book is semi-interesting, simply because the authors seem hell-bent on driving home their point : that the remains of the Roswell Flying Saucer and the bodies of the poor little guys who were piloting and riding in it (and who died in the crash) are all still being stored at Wright-Patterson to this day.
I began the book kind of thinking, "Ho Hum, not much new here", because Roswell is the prototype of all UFO/Government Conspiracy stories, and because I've read all the books, including Col. Phillip Corso's very interesting confessional book, supposedly written on his deathbed, which turned out (so they say) to be Total 100% Disinformation and a bunch of baloney. Apparently Corso was a Company Man to the end, writing a last minute book to confuse people and throw them off track, which is what the CIA wants (always).
But as I have gotten about two thirds of the way through it, I am forming a different opinion. And this is because the authors have uncovered and had access to several obscure (formerly unknown) witnesses, who have testified to them about what they saw. These are pilots who were stationed at the base, a secretary who filed highly classified information, even the base commander. These people were all very elderly when interviewed, and unlike Col. Corso, they seem to be telling the truth. I mean, you can't know for sure, but what you can go by (if you are me) is the "ring of truth" test. Does a particular story have that Ring Of Truth? These do.
I believe that the Roswell UFO and perhaps bodies as well were, and maybe still are, stored at Wright-Pat.
But I have a "pet-peeve" of a question, one that has bugged me for a while now, concerning the Aliens themselves and the construction of their spaceships. No one ever talks about this.
These guys are shrimps, by all accounts. They have scrawny bodies, sticklike arms and legs. And yet they can construct Flying Saucers that weigh perhaps 30-50 tons for the small ones, and God Only Knows How Many Megatons for the ones that are as big as football fields or even bigger : Flying Cities.
My question is : How, and where, do they do that? Think of our human shipbuilding facilities. We have humongous factories with giant machines to smelt and prepare the steel, and then other factories to put it all together to make a ship. The guys that work there - humans - are macho men (big or smaller), who have homes, maybe families, they go to work, bring a lunch, work on building an aircraft carrier all day. Then they go home again.
No one ever talks about how the Aliens might construct their airships. Again, these are tiny little guys with very thin arms and legs. They don't seem to wear clothes. They do not seem rugged, in other words, or built for hard physical work. Is there a factory on Mars, or Alpha Centauri, where a bunch of Small Guys work, building a massive UFO? Do they go home after a day's work? Do they live in houses, in cities? We are usually shown, in movies, Aliens living in hives of some kind. So if they can build a factory, aren't they civilised enough to have homes and cities? Or are they just brilliant insects? This is the part that bugs me.
I do believe in UFOs, though I'm not sure I've ever seen one. And I do believe in Aliens, or whatever you want to call them, because I'm pretty sure I have seen one. But I wonder if maybe they are just doing the flying and exploring, and have somebody else building the craft for them. Otherwise, where's the factories? Where are the cities? (Oh, yeah, I know about the photos of the Moon and Mars, and it's pretty obvious that there were civilisations on both at one time, or in the case of the Moon, at least there was a base or station there). But those photos show ancient ruins. And I still don't believe that Scrawny Naked Little Guys who are four feet tall could, or would, work in factories to build flying machines that some have reported are over a mile long.
This problem bugged me even more when I saw the otherwise excellent Alien movie "Arrival" last year. Great movie, right? I thought so. But when I left, I thought, "wait a minute - how could those guys on the ships, who looked like Giant Octopi, build these huge sophisticated spaceships?
They didn't even have hands! Or legs or feet.
So I rest my case.
Maybe they've got Humans up there, or Bots, or somebody else, building the things for them. And then they get inside and fly them around, using only their minds as a control system.
And the workers are the ones who go home for dinner every night, after a day in the UFO Factory, in the Cities On Mars, or wherever.
None of what you have just read has been disinformation.
Just look up in the sky at night. Do you really think we're the only ones in the whole joint?
I didn't think so. :)
That's all for tonight.
I think maybe the SB has been taken away on a spaceship....I'll be looking up to see if I can find her.
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