Another trip to one of our favorite venues, the Independent in San Francisco.
Tickets for this show were a birthday gift from my daughter, so that made this show just that much more special!
This was our 4th time seeing Des Rocs live and it certainly won’t be the last!
The first time we saw Des (Daniel Rocco, by birth), he was the opening act, and we were floored. He’s an incredibly talented vocalist AND guitarist, but what really seals the deal is his charisma. He’s one of the most engaging front men I’ve ever witnessed, and he’s been better every subsequent time we’ve seen him.
Needless to say, both our excitement and anticipation levels were very high for this show.
The opening act was First in Flight, whom we’d never heard. Talk about an unexpected surprise! The band was fired up from the start, and the whole set was a high energy affair. Their music is a little tough to describe…the best I can do is “modern/alternative rock, with a very slight nod to hair metal”. And I mean that in a good way…strip away all the hairspray, eye liner and spandex from “hair metal”, and you will often find talented musicians and catchy tunes. Overall, they put on a great show and are now on my watch list for future gigs. Well done gentlemen!!
First in Flight from SF
Next up was The Blue Stones, also new to us. This is yet another 2-piece guitar/vocals and drummer/vocals group, and they weren’t messing around! Their set was powerful, and both these guys obviously knew their way around their instruments.
Not to be confused with the Black Keys!
My only “gripe” with their set (if you can call it that) was that the guitar got a little lost in the mix. He had a really tasty, overdriven, fuzzed out tone, which I love, but it got a bit swamped in a live setting. I suspect – though have no proof yet – that their recorded material is stellar. Some really fine musicianship was on display and I look forward to digging deeper into their catalog.
A LOT of sound from just two guys!
When Des hit the stage it was electric, right outta the gate.
The band (drummer and bassist) are the same two guys that have been backing him since the first time we saw Des, and they were both on their game and obviously still having a lot of fun with it, which is infectious!
Des himself…what can I even say? If you’ve never seen him, you are missing out. A musician like this comes along so very rarely, it’s difficult to describe what he does to a crowd. Aside from his singing and guitar work (which are exceptional, without question) he just comes across as so genuine and personable, he just draws you in immediately and you get totally enveloped in what’s happening on stage.
Des Rocs,a legend in the making!
I’ve been going to rock shows for 40 years now, and have seen literally hundreds of bands. From the biggest bands the world has ever heard to the flash-in-the-pan, never heard of ’em groups and I can tell you with 100% conviction that Des Rocs is SPECIAL.
If you ever get the opportunity, go check him out, you will not be disappointed!
Thanks to all the musicians (and crew that makes all the magic on stage possible!) for a hell of a night. This was a fantastic night of music, with unexpected treats, and I couldn’t be happier about it!
The Mrs. and I woke up and realized we didn’t have anything pressing, so we threw some cold drinks, some mixed nuts and beef jerky in a cooler and hit the road to the coast.
We didn’t have a specific destination in mind, we kinda let traffic lead our decision making, and we ended up at Manresa State Beach in La Selva Beach, CA – about 20 minutes south of Santa Cruz.
Manresa was one of my haunts as a teen, first learning to surf. Later it was a family favorite where we often took our daughter. But today was the first time back there in a dozen years at least.
It was a little overcast when we first got there, but it burned off by 11:30, and was just gorgeous after then, a perfect day at the beach!
I’m inclined to head back tomorrow with my board, for old time’s sake…
Sunday evening on the Pitch with my daughter, a great night.
Chicago was racking up penalties like they were collectable, the first half brought them half a dozen penalty calls, as well as two yellow cards and a hand-ball. Not exactly top notch playing from the windy city team.
The first half ended scoreless, but the Quakes got on the board about 2 minutes into the 2nd half.
At the 90 minute mark, the Quakes were up 2-0, in spite of a self-goal by Chicago that was not counted against them, for reasons I cannot fathom…
About 3 minutes into extra time, the Fire managed to eke one in, for a final score of 2-1.
We had a good time, as we always do at soccer games, but I have to say it’s disappointing to see “professional” athletes performing 2-handed shoves from behind, blatant holding and other childish tricks in an attempt to gain advantage.
I’m happy for another Quakes win, and had a nice time hanging out with the Kid, but I’d really love to see Chicago clean up their act, it was disgraceful. They may take Salt Lake’s position as my least liked team in the league!
Anyhow, that’s enough of that. It is just a game, after all.
As we head into this July 4th weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of our country, and the state of our populace. These last couple weeks (and let’s face it, years!) we have seen and heard much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and some spectacular twisting of logic by both our so-called representatives and media pundits. America these days is in a sad state of affairs.
The America I was born into was still widely considered to be a “melting pot”, which to my adolescent mind meant just that – the people of the world were all mixed together-melted into a big pot of America, to become American.
To me, American people didn’t have a color or a religion. They had ALL the colors and religions, and that was all good. One nation under God, INDIVISIBLE.
I can vividly remember the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, yes there were certainly problems in our country (the Nixon/Ford years) but as Americans, we all came together to celebrate the duration – against all odds, I might add – of our country for 200 years! It is hard to describe the general feeling of the time; it is so completely foreign to how people operate in America now, it would come off almost as a fairy tale. But yes, there was UNITY. We were celebrating America and proud to be American. I’ve haven’t seen or felt any such unity as Americans since then.
Growing up there were of course cases of ethnic pride. You’d see bumper stickers, t-shirts and ball caps with things like “Proud to be Italian” or “Kiss me, I’m Irish”… little things that pointed to something that made the wearer of said things stand out, or to just show pride for their ancestors and in their ancestry. But above all, we were all AMERICANS. If you asked Eddy Spaghetti (a made up, fictional name to make a point) “what are you?”, you would get something along the lines of, “American, but my family came over from Genoa 3 generations back”, or some variation of that theme. Most people seemed proud of their roots, but they identified as Americans of “x” ancestry.
It wasn’t long after that “political correctness” and the dreaded hyphen began to rend the fabric of America. We’re now 3, maybe 3 1/2 decades into what I’d consider the American Identity Crisis.(c)
I’ll be honest and say I don’t understand the ubiquitous “Hyphen-American”. In the mid to late 1980’s, when we as a nation were first admonished to refer to all black folks as “African-American”, I thought, “well, that’s dumb…” What about black folks from the U.K.? What about black folks from the Caribbean? From Brazil? But what really started rubbing me the wrong way, was when everyone under the sun jumped on the bandwagon. Before you know it, we were cajoled into using only Mexican-American, and then Asian-American to add to the mix. But that wasn’t “good enough”, they cried, it isn’t DEVISIVE ENOUGH!! Evidently referring to someone as Asian-American is offensive, so they need to be sub-divided into Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Filipino/Indonesian-American categories… And then there are all the rivalries amongst the Central and South American folks, that don’t want to be lumped in with the “Mexican-American” moniker, and whatever you do, don’t refer to them as Latinx! Or maybe ONLY refer to them with that term? It changes so often, it’s hard to keep track of all the infighting. And to what end?
I’ve been watching all this for decades now, and I swear it gets stupider every time you turn around. The exact same thing that happened with “African-American” happened with LGB, which morphed into LBGTQ and now I believe contains nearly the entire alphabet, and some punctuation marks added for good measure. Every little obscure niche demands to be included in every stupid club. Again I ask, to what end?
I don’t mean to be offensive, I really don’t. I’m sure if anyone is reading this, then someone is offended. It seems virtually impossible to utter more than a single syllable these days without offending somebody, somewhere. But I’m not sorry for saying it. The media and government have been pushing division for a long time now, and rather than reject it, most people not only embraced it, they started throwing fuel on the fire, until we find ourselves in the place we are now as a nation. And what have ANY of these “marginalized” groups gained from this, aside from the animosity of every other group? Zilch. Zero. Nothing.
Honestly the entire thing just seems silly to me. If you are American, why do you need to use the little extra descriptive words? Especially if you were BORN here. If you consider yourself whatever it is they call folks from where your ancestors came from, then own it and just drop the American part. “American” isn’t a race, a color, a religion. America is a belief in personal freedom. America is a place to shape your own future. America is the place where you can speak your mind without fear of punishment. At least, it USED to be before basement dwelling SJWs, their Karen parents and social media came along… But I digress.
America only provides an OPPORTUNITY to WORK for whatever in the world makes you happy. America doesn’t owe you, me or anybody ANYTHING.
Our government, for the last few decades, has been decidedly un-American in its pursuit to divide the populace and we’ve been falling for it, hook, line and sinker. We can be better as the HUMAN RACE, without being crammed into a bunch of little separate boxes. The thing is, while each and every one of us is unique as an individual, you aren’t “special”, because of what you “identify” as. Likewise, if you ACCOMPLISH something that does indeed make you a standout, someone actually “special”, your race/ethnicity is completely, utterly irrelevant. Should someone discover say, a cure for cancer, does that discovery become more important because the scientist was blue, green, or purple? Of course not, the discovery is the important thing, the person that discovered it IS special to all of mankind, but the race/gender/orientation is irrelevant TO the discovery.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure everyone has their “something” that sets them apart, that makes them feel special…but in the big scheme of things? Not so much. We all have more in common than not. We all need air to breathe. We all need food and water. We all feel discomfort when too hot or too cold, we all get sick from time to time. We all are looking for security in our person and home. We all laugh, we all get angry… We all want our kids to succeed and have a strong future. We all want a better, cleaner world. I could keep going but I think I’ve made my point. There isn’t one single thing listed above that has anything to do with ethnicity, religion, orientation or any other “marker” you want to try on.
Maybe it’s because I’ve always considered myself a mutt, with a varied assortment of ancestry, that I don’t ascribe to identity politics. But the bottom line is, I was born in this country, my folks and their folks were born in this country, and I am an American, full stop. Not a Dutch-American, not a French-American, not a German-American, nor any of the other crumbs I’ve got swimming around in the ol’ DNA. And really, what difference does it make anyway? Other than (maybe) to persons in your same “group”, I’m pretty confident that NOBODY cares what you “identify” as. Unless they are USING YOU as a tool for their own purposes, that is. Don’t be a sucker. Be American, think for yourself, forge your own path, and make your own decisions. If you’re feeling so insecure in yourself that you feel compelled to align yourself with one of these identity politics groups, STOP. Take a breath. Then focus on things you can do to build YOUR self-esteem. That’s what you’re looking for after all, a way to feel better about yourself and your place in this crazy world, right?!?
Take a minute over the holiday weekend to reflect on what WE are celebrating. We are celebrating INDEPENDENCE DAY. The 4th of July is but a date, the reason for the celebration is INDEPENDENCE. We’ve forgotten that thanks to the “marketing” over the last few decades. Independence Day isn’t ABOUT BBQ, beer and fireworks. It’s about standing up against tyranny, it’s about bravery, it’s about self determination.
So last week (give or take – been so busy it’s all a blur these days) I wrote a blurb about going through CPR/AED training. It was great to get my recertification, and even if the instructor was less than stellar, the material was VALUABLE and I felt it was a really good use of my time.
Today, I had to go through – and I swear I’m not making this up – “Unconscious Bias” training.
Suffice it to say, 2.5 hours of my life I will never get back and not only did I not learn anything of value, I’m actually irritated that I was forced to go through this excersize for no other reason than to check yet another box on the Home Office’s “woke corporations” checklist.
Hmm, I’m both male and Caucasian…I wonder what I will be taught in this class?
They gave us this disclaimer:
So I gave them these responses:
“Allyship”? Really? We’re co-workers, not family, not friends. Certainly not allies.
And:
And since they asked:
Long story short, “everybody has unconscious biases”… these things happen “automatically” when your brain is essentially on auto-pilot. BUT, even though it is automatic and “unconscious”, you need to think about your unconscious biases all the time, so you can keep them in check. Oh, and if you are a woman or non-BIPOC person that hires or promotes a woman or BIPOC person, don’t think that lets you off the hook, you are still biased. And always will be.
Isn’t Science awesome?!?! Now that they can graph our biases, all our problems are solved!
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!
The department I run has 12 employees, aside from myself. In addition to me, there are exactly TWO other Caucasians in my department. (and one of them is literally in his 2nd week on the job-the ONLY applicant in the last 4 months that both showed up for his interview AND passed the background check) The entire facility has a tad over 300 employees and I would be hard pressed to locate 20 Caucasians. Yeah, we’ve got 99 problems, but diversity ain’t one.
As a nation, I’m afraid we’ve reached peak stupidity. At least I HOPE this is the peak.
But hey, kudos to the two ladies that put this grift together, packaged it up all nice and pretty and sold it to Corporate America. I’m sure it beats working for a living!
Today it was time to get my recertification for CPD/AED and First Aid. Good times…
I did my first CPR certification back in 1982 or so, and have been through more of the classes than I can count, as the certification expires every two years. And in spite of having been trained over and over and over again, I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never had to put these skills to the test. Well, I’ve done first aid about a thousand times, but fortunately have never (knock on wood!) had to administer CPR or use an AED machine on anyone in duress.
Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to brush up on these skills if you’re rusty. If you’ve never been trained in First Aid or CPR, what are you waiting for?
The entire course was just shy of four hours. Just about anyone can find four hours to make themselves a more prepared and useful citizen…
I get it, Real Estate prices have gone through the roof…especially here in the Bay Area. But seriously, I cannot wrap my head around this:
One hundred MILLION dollars for a home? Don’t get me wrong, Atherton is really nice but…
Even the “bargain basement”, luxury listing is just shy of 20 million. In SAN FRANCISCO!?!
In “traditional” terms, a mortgage for the “cheapest” listing would require a 20% down payment of nearly $4 million. I have a really well paying, Director-level job, and at my current salary, if I saved 100% of my take home pay (after taxes and health insurance, in other words), it would take me 62 YEARS to amass a 4 million dollar down-payment. Sixty-two years of full time employment. Of course, someone that can buy a 20 million dollar home probably doesn’t go through traditional routes, meaning “cash” deals…
Who are these people that keep this insanity afloat?
The Top 10 on this list equal nearly half a BILLION dollars ($448,600,000)!!! I imagine the county treasurers salivate at the skyrocketing property tax revenues, but it pushes the armies of people these wealthy folks depend on for EVERYTHING from mowing their lawns, cleaning their pools, to cooking their meals, cleaning their homes, to raising their children and everything in between further and further away. With fuel in this area right at $7/gallon, a lot of ’em aren’t going to want to commute 100 miles a day for a Housekeeping job at $15-17/hr.
I can’t imagine this can keep going, and I can’t imagine a scenario that ends well…
I write this as an American that was raised with firearms, taught to respect firearms, and also to respect “the Law”.
We have been enduring an onslaught of talking heads and politicos telling us we have a GUN problem in the USA. Anyone espousing such nonsense is either a complete moron or they are a liar. My money is on the second one, but it’s entirely possible some of these people could be both…
Firearms, and more specifically the dreaded semi-automatic firearm have been around a hell of a lot longer than “mass shootings” have. And more importantly, they do not shoot themselves.
When Cain killed Abel, God blamed Cain, not the rock. For my entire adult life, all you ever hear about is how evil the “rock” is…
There are a lot of “reasons” why somebody might go off the rails and kill someone, too many to list. Some even justified, in my opinion. But a gun is simply a tool, it isn’t the reason somebody does what they do. If somebody REALLY wants to kill someone, they’ll find a way to do it, regardless of the access to a firearm.
And if you happen to be the poor bastard on the receiving end? You’d better hope you’ve got more than 911 on your cellphone for help, or your ticket is gonna get punched.
There are only two reasons the political class gets involved in gun control – neither of them being care for their constituents – money and control.
On the money side, pols that “take a stand”, either for OR against, can count on “donations” to their election campaigns from the various gun organizations for toeing the line. If you want to get “endorsed” by anti-gun orgs for example, you better not say ANYTHING about the responsibility of the criminal or mental health – ALL your ire must be directed at the gun. “Guns are bad, mmm’kay?”
As for the control side of things? Does that REALLY need to be spelled out? Every despot over the last 100 years disarmed their populace before visiting unspeakable horrors ON said populace. China. Russia. Cambodia. Cuba. Germany. The list goes on, you get the idea. I’m curious to see what happens to Australia and New Zealand over the next decade or two… Judging by the gratuitous strong-arm tactics employed by the cops during the Plague, I’d guess the general population is basically under complete “iron fist” control down under, which is bad news for the citizens.
Seriously, think about how bad things are right now, half way through 2022. Think back to the unbelievable restrictions /they/ put their people under during the Plague. And that’s what /they/ did knowing we have more weapons than PEOPLE in this country…just imagine what they might try to roll out on us if we were unarmed?
If, and that’s a BIG if, the politicos tried everything at their disposal and we still had a problem with violence, then maybe, just maybe it might be time to see if there are in fact some “common sense” solutions around the guns themselves but we are a looooong way from that. That isn’t the place to start, making the law abiding sitting ducks for the lawless. All you ever hear about “justice reform” involves leniency for repeat offenders, and all you hear about mental health care on a National level is…zip, nada, ziltch.
I believe anyone charged with a felony crime committed with a firearm should have 20 years added to their sentence and no “gimmes” for juvenile offenders. Make the penalties that much harsher. If they can add on “hate crime” penalties, why NOT? Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows a loaded gun could go off in someone’s hands, especially in a heat-of-the-moment situation. Why not consider every brandishing of a firearm in the commission of a crime, attempted murder? If you actually kill someone in the commission of a crime – I say you should get the death penalty. No 20 years of appeals, no legalese nonsense, you just get your lights turned off, forever. Maybe 90 days for a post-trial review, to make sure no glaring mistakes were made. Felons caught with a firearm? 20 years, hard labor. If that firearm happens to be stolen? 20 years AND your thumbs removed… When getting caught up in “the system” is seen as a right of passage and not a deterrent, clearly things aren’t working and you’ll never have a civil society, much less a safe one.
As for the whole mental health angle? That’s a whole different ball of wax, but yes I’d wager that ALL mass shooting events were due to seriously disturbed INDIVIDUALS, that may have been stopped with the proper mental health affirming intervention. Duh. But since that didn’t happen, and likely never will because our government is far too corrupt to help its citizens, we get whackos going off instead of simply being put to sleep for the benefit of society. Yes, I know, very non-PC there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we as a society are doing ourselves an unforgivable disservice by allowing so many mentally deficient people to run rampant over our country. Hell, some of ’em even get elected to office!
And now, in this day and age, knowing what we do about these sub-human wretches that do these things, I also believe any “news” outlet that publishes photos of these killers should be fined substantially at the very least, and publishers jailed if they make a habit of it. Same for social media. No more “press darlings” made from psycho/socio-pathic cretins, please and thank you.
In short, crazy people are gonna do crazy stuff, guns or no guns. How many maniacs have gone on knife attacks in the last decade or so, racking up double digits of victims? How about the bombers? Or the twisted sacks of excrement that drove vehicles into crowds to rack up a nice, high body count? Or the dealers cutting their product with Fentanyl, killing untold thousands? There are myriad ways to take someone’s life, guns are just one. The flip side of course, is that a gun is the BEST self defense tool you can own. And with all the ways someone else can try to ruin your day and/or end your life, I think being a responsible gun owner is the smart way to go for strictly defensive purposes. “If it saves one life”, right?!?!
Compassion and empathy are very valuable traits, but when your compassion leads to actually endangering your society on behalf of the criminal element, it’s past time to reassess. If there is a truly “revolving door” in prison and recidivism is really as bad as they say it is, that’s your low hanging fruit right there. Put a hard stop to that, and watch violent crime decrease. How many times do they let a dog bite before it’s deemed a dangerous animal and euthanized? We should follow the same guidelines for “career criminals”. We need to face up to the reality that some people are just no damn good, and deal with them as the problem they truly are, not some sociological experiment.
I’m no scientist or social worker, but I’d guess that IF criminals are locked up, or buried, the chance of them committing violence against an innocent victim are pretty slim…regardless of how many guns are in the hands of responsible citizens.
Of course, this is just my 2 cents on the subject…
The Boring Old Man 