Chess

More geopolitical dryness. Here's what the Russians are thinking. Lifted again from a friend.

Russian Analysis of US Intentions:

Plan one: a symbolic and limited intervention

This plan is already underway. We know that there are US military advisers in the Ukraine, including at least one general, we know that the Dutch and Australians will be sending in a lightly armed force to "protect" the investigators at the crash site of MH17 (although how a few men armed with assault rifles can protect anybody from Ukie artillery, tank or mortar fire is anybody's guess). Then there are all the reports of foreign mercenaries, mostly US and Polish, fighting with the Ukie death squads. There is also some good evidence that Poland is sending military equipment, including aircraft and, possibly, crews. Well, all of that is dumb and serves very little useful purpose, but that is what the West is so good at: pretending. If this plans stays at this level I would say that it is not very important. But, alas, there is a nastier possibility here:

Plan two: a tripwire force

This is just an extension of plan one: bring in a few men, and then have them killed. This would trigger the needed "popular outrage" (carefully fanned and reported by the corporate media) to force the Europeans to accept more US sanctions in Europe or even some kind of "EU-mandated" "peacekeeping force". Of course, if the Russians or the Novorussians do not take the bait and fail to kill the "observers", US/NATO false flag teams could easily do that. Just imagine what a heavy-mortar strike on a building with these OSCE observers would look like. The junta in Kiev would be more than happy to "invite" such a "peacekeeping" force into Novorussia and since this would be an "invited" force, no UNSC Resolution would be needed. Finally, such a "peacekeeping" force would be regularly reinforced and augmented until it could basically cover the flanks of the Ukies in their attacks against Novorussia. This force would also assume the command and control of Ukie forces, something which the Ukies could greatly benefit from (their current command and control is a mess).

Plan One and Plan Two assume that Russian forces stay on the other side of the border and that the only opposition to such a deployment could come from the Novorussians. But what if the Russians decided to move into Novorussia either to protect the locals or stop his limited US/NATO/EU "peacekeeping force"? Then the US/NATO/EU would have to take a dramatic escalator y step send in a much bigger force, more capable of defending itself.

Plan three: UPROFOR on the Dniepr?

This is the “Yugoslav scenario.” The West would send in something on the order of 10 battalions which would each be given an area of responsibility for "peacekeeping". Then police forces would be also sent to "maintain law and order" and EU commissars would be sent in to "help" the local population "express their will" and "organize" a local government. Soon there would be some kind of EU-run election and all the Novorussian forces would be declared "bandits" from which the local population need to be "protected". Since Strelkov himself fought in Yugoslavia, as did many other Russians, I don't believe that the Russians or Novorussians would fall for this one. I think that Russia would express its opposition to such a plan and that if she was ignored, she would move in her own forces along the line of contact.

This might be the US/NATO/EU endgoal: to create a Korea like "line of demarcation" which would isolate the Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics from the rest of Novorussia and the rest of the Ukraine, this would mean getting plenty of Kosovo-like "Camp Bonsteels" all along the Russian border and it would make it looks like the "Wartime President of the One Indispensable Nation" "stopped the Russian Bear". Finally, it would create a perfect Cold War like environment.

Plan four: Operation Storm in Novorussia and Crimea?

I would not put it past the folks in the Pentagon and Mons to try to pull off an "Operation Storm" in Novorussia and even possibly Crimea. That is the scenario Glazev fears: the US/NATO/EU would put enough forces inside the Ukraine to allow it to survive long enough to mobilize a sufficient number of men and equipment for a lightening fast attack in Novorossia and even possibly Crimea. And, in theory, if we assume the Banderstan does not collapse under its own weight and the economic disaster, the Ukraine has the resources to mobilize far more men and equipment that the tiny People's Republics of Donestk and Lugansk or even Crimea. But that, again, assumes that Russia will let that happen, which she won't, so now we have to look at the really crazy plans:

Plan five: First "Desert Steppe Shield" then "Desert Steppe Storm"

That is a crazy notion: to do with Russia what the US did with Iraq. First, to place down a "protection force" in the Ukraine, isolate Russia, and then attack in a full-depth and full-scale determined attack. We are definitely talking about a continental war with a fantastic potential to turn into a world war. This plan would have be based on two crucial assumptions:

1) The US/NATO/EU conventional forces would be capable of defeating the Russian military.

2) If facing conventional defeat, Russia would not use nuclear weapons.

I think that both of these assumptions are deeply mistaken. The first one is based on a mix of propaganda, bean counting and ignorance. The propaganda is something which western military are very good. They are not. Most western armies are a pathetic joke, and those who can fight well (the Brits, the Turks) are too little to matter. That leaves the US military which have capabilities far in excess of what its NATO allies can muster. Just as in WWII all the serious fighting had to be done by German units, in case of a WWIII (or IV?) all the serious fighting would have to be done by Americans. The problem is that the Americans would have an extremely hard time bringing in enough forces to really make the difference. In any case, I have the biggest doubt about the current fighting capabilities of the US Army and Marine Corps. Faced with a Russian battalion defending its own soil I think that an equivalent USA/Marine force would get slaughtered.

The "bean counting" is when you compare all the NATO APCs or tanks to the number available to the Russian military. The corporate media loves this kind of charts in which soldiers, APCs, tanks, aircraft and other gear are compared. Professional analysts never use them simply because they are meaningless. What matters is how much of that gear is actually available for battle, the kind of tactics used, the training and morale of the soldiers, the skills of their commanding officers, and stuff which is *never* mentioned: supplies, logistics, petroleum, lubricants, ammunition, lines of supply, medical standards, even food and weather. Bean counters simply never see that. But one could argue that the number of trucks is more important to a military than the number of tanks. Yet trucks are never counted. But yes, on paper NATO looks huge. Even though most NATO gear could not even survive your average Ukrainian road, never-mind the Russian winter.

But let us assume that the Hollywood image of the US military is true: invincible, best trained, best armed, with a fantastic morale, led by the very best of the best officers, it would easily defeat the primitive Russian military, armed with antiquated weapons and commanded by fat drunken generals. Okay, and then what? If the official Russian nuclear deterrence doctrine holes then in this case Russia would use nuclear weapons. Since even in Hollywood movies nobody makes the claim that the US anti-missile systems could stop Russian Iskander behemoth missiles, cruise missiles or even gravity bombs, we would have to accept that the invincible US force would be turned into radioactive particulates and, that, in turn, would leave the US President two terrible choices: a) take the loss and stop b) retaliate and the second option would have to include the location from where the strike came from: Russia proper. That, of course, would place the following choices for the Russian President: a) take the loss or b) strike at the continental United States. At this points nuclear mushrooms would start appearing all over the map.

Now make no mistake: Russia can not only destroy Mons, the Pentagon and Cheyenne Mountain (just a matter of placing enough warheads on the right spot and we've had the technology since 1965), but also every, single major city in the United States. Sure, the USA can retaliate in kind, but what kind of consolation would that be for anybody left?

I cannot believe that the US deep state would truly, deliberately, want to start a planetary nuclear war. For one thing, US leaders can and do blink and they will not want to take such a monumental decision. A far more likely version is that being stupid and arrogant. Then they will stumble upon just that outcome. Here is how:

Plan six: American football's "Hail Mary"

In American football there is a specific pass which is used only when seconds are left on the clock and your teams is badly losing anyway. Basically it works like this: every single person who is not defending the quarterback rushes to the endzone, as do all the defenders, and the quarterback then just throws the ball straight into that zone with the very slim hope that one of his own players will catch it and score a touchdown. This is called a "Hail Mary" for very good reason as only a miracle makes such a desperate plan work. Most of the time the ball is either fumbled or caught by the other team. But, very rarely, it works.

I can very much imagine a desperate Obama trying to show the American people that he "has hair on his chest" and that he is not going to let "regional power" challenge the "indispensable nation". So what he and, really, his administration risks doing is the following: to play a game of chicken hoping against all odds that the Russian will yield. This is my worst nightmare and the worst possible assumption to make because Russia cannot yield.

In March of this year I issued a warning which I entitled "Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine - now Russia is ready for war". What prompted me to issue that warning was the fact that the Council of the Russian Federation has just unanimously passed a resolution allowing Putin to use Russian armed forces in the Ukraine. Since, this resolution has been repealed at Putin's request and for obvious political motives, but the mood, the determination is still there. In fact, I think that it has grown much stronger.

There has been much useless speculation about Putin, his motives and his strategy. This is way bigger than just Putin. If the US/NATO/EU really push too far, and that includes a genocide in Novorussia, an attack on Crimea or an attack on Russian forces, Russia will go to war, Putin or no Putin. And Putin knows that. His real base of support is not in the Russian elites (who mostly fear him), but in the Russian people (with whom his current rating are higher than ever before). And Putin himself openly spoke about the "threats to Russian sovereignty" though he did add that because of the Russian nuclear forces there was, in his opinion, no immediate threat to the Russian territory.

If the US decides to play a game of chicken with Russia, then it will do the same thing as a car driver playing a game of chicken against an incoming train: regardless of the train's driver, the train is on tracks and its momentum is too big: it cannot stop or veer away.

The problem is that the USA has a long record of making absolutely irresponsible statements which end up putting them into a corner from which they cannot bulge without losing face. Just look at the MH17 disaster: the Obama administration immediately rushed to blame the Russians for it, but what will it do when the evidence to the contrary comes out? What if Obama also draws a red line somewhere (it does not really matter where) and then forces Russia to cross it?

Sadly, I can imagine the USA declaring that the US/NATO will defend the Ukie airspace. I think that they are dumb enough to try to seize a Russian ship entering or leaving the Black Sea. Remember - these are the folks who hijacked the aircraft of Bolivian President Evo Morales to try to find Snowden on board. Their arrogance knows no limits. For them the organization of false flag operations is a normal, standard procedure. They almost triggered a war between the DPRK and South Korea by sinking a South Korean military vessel. They used chemical weapons in Syria not once, but several times. And the last time we had a Democrat in the White House, he was crazy enough to send two US Aircraft Carrier Groups into the Strait of Taiwan to threaten China.

My biggest fears

This is my biggest fear: some kind of desperate "Hail Mary" maneuver in which the US will try to convince Russia that "look, we are crazy enough to start this thing, so you better back off" not realizing that Russia cannot back off. The other thing which really scares me is that during the Cuban Missile Crisis everybody was aware of the stakes and most people were truly terrified. Now, thanks to the propaganda of the corporate media, almost nobody is afraid and hardly anybody is paying attention. Russia and the USA are on a clear collision course and nobody cares! How come?

Because if 9/11 proved anything is that there are things which most people are simply unwilling to contemplate, no matter how close and real they are. It would only make sense that the Empire of Illusion would be populated by a people in total denial. After all, illusion and denial usually go hand in hand.

Most of you in the business of western analysis seem to be sharing with me a sense of total distrust in the sanity of our leaders. When I asked you whether you believed that the US/NATO were crazy enough to use military forces against Russia, an overwhelming number of you answered that "yes" and a good part of you was even emphatically sure of that. Why? Because we all know how crazy and deluded are Imperial Overlords are. Crazy and deluded enough not to quality as "rational actor"? Crazy and deluded enough to play a game a chicken with a train? Crazy and deluded enough to risk the planet on "Hail Mary? Alas, I think that this is a very real possibility.

But what does Uncle Sam really want?

There is a gradual realization in Russia that for Uncle Sam this is not about the Ukraine. It is about Russia and, specifically, about regime change in Russia. A vast majority of Russian experts seem to believe that the US wants to overthrow Putin and that this entire war in the Ukraine is a means to achieve that. As a very cynical joke going around Moscow now says "Obama is willing to fight Putin down to the very last Ukrainian". I think that this is correct. The US hopes that one of the following will happen:

1) A Russian military intervention in Novorussia which will allow the US to restart a Cold War v2 on steroid and which will also fully re-enslave Europe to the USA. Putin would then be blamed for falling in the US trap

2) The creation of a US-run "Banderastan" in the Ukraine. That would 'contain' and destabilize Russia. Again, Putin would be blamed for letting that happen.

3) A "nationalist Maidan" in Russia: this is what is behind the current Putin-bashing campaign in the blogosphere: to paint Putin as a weak and/or corrupt man, who traded Crimea for the Donbass (you know the tune - these folks even comment on this blog). These efforts are supported and, sometimes, even financed by Russian oligarchs who have a great deal of money involved in the EU and who really don't need the current tensions. Here Putin would be blamed for not doing enough.

In all three cases, Putin would risk a (patriotically) color coded revolution which would, inevitably, bring either crazy rogue ruler or a clueless fossil to power (a la Zhirinovsky or Zuiganov) or, much better, a pro-American "liberal" (a la Medvedev). I think that all of these plans will fail.

Putin will not give Uncle Sam the intervention he wants. Instead, Russia continue to support the Resistance in Novorussia until Banderastan goes "belly up", i.e. for another 30-60 days or so. As for the "nationalist Maidan", the Russian people see straight through this "black PR campaign" and their support for Putin is higher than it ever was. It's not Putin who does not want to intervene overtly in the Donbass, it is the Russian people. The attempts at stirring up anti-Putin by first stirring-up anti-Strelkov feelings have completely failed and, in fact, they have backfired. A lot of these "hurray-patriots" are now overly called "useful idiots" for the CIA or even provocateurs.

At this point, I would not put anything, no matter how crazy, past the US deep-state.

And that is a very scary thought.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils

(Click Pic to See Video!)

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue

 Making wishes that never come true

 Going places where you've never been

 Ooh Jackie, you're going again...

"Jackie Blue"

Up until four minutes ago, I didn't know the lead singer was a guy. I've heard this song probably 6,000 times since '74 and automatically thought it was a girl. It's the same reaction I had to Nick Gelder's “Hot Child in the City.” I thought he was a girl too, till I saw the video.

“Jackie Blue” is a great song but completely insensitive or at best, somewhat ignorant. I'd listen to the lyrics and been reminded of people like Jackie. You've known them too. People who live inside their heads or daydream constantly, doing their best to avoid the here and now. They managed to connect to the day to day world long enough to meet the demands life places on them, then they retreat to their inner world where it's “better.”

Fucked up in the head? Crazy? Not playing with a full deck? That's right.

And the reason they are is because they're nearly destroyed by PTSD. Living in your head may be simple denial but it's better than living in the present where the horrid event of your past gets to nag you constantly. Denial/avoidance may be simple but it's a powerful defense your psyche activates when faced with events that it cannot manage. This usually occurs in childhood where you don't have the coping mechanisms ready to combat whatever truly horrendous situation confronts you. Even adults get bent by this. Survive a plane crash, live through a B-52 bombing or whatever bizarre violent circumstance and you come away a changed person, perhaps VERY changed.

Would the writer of Jackie Blue say: “So, go see a therapist, get over it!”

It's not that easy Clyde.

The only thing the best and the brightest in the therapy field can do is somehow, someway, make you incorporate the memories into you, make them part of you and then teach you how to manage it. It's no curative, but mitigation. It works well from some people and not so well with others. The point being is that you carry this with you for the rest of you life like one would carry multiple sclerosis. You just don't “get over it.” And at worst, it crops up again and again like zits, only to have you beat it down again.

Ok, I'll stop...I'm harping on my days in the social service field.

I like the song, it 's great. One/Two Hit Wonders like these guys always have a place in my collection.  

Dog Days

Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time. "The Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other Creatures became languid; causing to Man, among other diseases, burning Fevers, Hysterics, and Phrensies." according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813

*****

Sirius, the Dog star, should be ascending soon and in conjunction, the prime of the summer swamp heat. As a kid, we had no a/c in the house at all. My bedroom was upstairs in a sort of finished ½ attic that had two windows. The summertime sun beat on the roof all day long and turned it into an oven. Though as a kid, my cardio was in great shape so I could bear it. Yet it was still uncomfortable and sucked. The old tale of turning the pillow to get it's “cooler side” was true, as I did it as well.

In '74 my Dad bought an a/c for our room. I bet the thing weighed 90lbs as it was an all metal construction needing a little platform outside the window to support it. After that, my Dad moved into our room most of the summer, denying us our secret delights of having fun there w/o the parents interrupting with a “cut that out!”

I don't know why but I can recollect heat waves, the bad ones. There's one memory, as a kid, when we had a cold front blow through. My parents were rejoicing at that fact. It was hot but not that bad, but I was a kid with great cardio and apparently they were suffering. Want to know how bad the air was then, before the Clean Air Act? When that rain hit, my parents and I commented on the smell. It was a bit like sulphur. “The rain is washing the air out.” my Mom said. Ugh, that's how filthy it was.

When I was 15 there was a Goliath of one that wouldn't quit. It was the kind of heat where even the bugs give up and go quiet. The weather would tease us with thunderstorms from cool fronts that petered out before they pushed off the coast. All that did was dump more water on the ground and you could watch it steaming as the sun came back out again. Gee, thanks. I can remember walking from room to room in this house, hoping I'd find a cooler one. My brother and I escaped it by going into the cellar, which was cooler but it had the faint smell of mildew because of the stagnant air there. No matter, we hung out there watching Dick Cavett on a small black and white.

1988 was a bitch. I was working in western Cranston then and I would pass a “time and temperature” sign near the entrance to Rt 37W on my commute. For about 20 days, all it read was above 90 degrees. That finally broke at around 2 AM on that last day. How do I know? The wind was rushing so hard when the cold front passed, it woke me up. When I went around the house opening all the windows as wide as I could, the upstairs one made a whooshing sound as I got it open. All that heat was rushing out. Weird...

I did finally get a/c for my bedroom back in '96. I would come home from work and strip down and lie spread eagled on the bed, in glory as the cool air spread over me. Once I was cooled enough, I'd get up and not always dress immediately. Why should I? I was alone in my house. A problem arose due to the fact I usually kept my doors open in summer for the air. One time, I was coming down the stairs at the same time the mailman was coming up the short two steps to my mailbox at the front door. We both saw each other clearly, our eyes met then quickly diverted. I knew he saw me. HE knew he saw me and I think we both made a mental note to one another to pretend it didn't happen.

As turned away at the bottom step into the living room I thought; “Ah well, chalk this one up to my list of embarrassing moments!” Luckily for you T. it wasn't you on the route that day back then!

So again it comes, the Dog Days. Tonight I'll be up late, reading as I've always done in this heat. I'll hear insects, the rustling of neighborhood cats, opossums and God Knows What Else on four feet out there in the dark. An occasional teen or two will walk down the street, preceded by their talking and then illuminated by their iPhones as they walk past my window. I might step outside for a bit, patrolling the yard and see that pink illuminated sky Pawtucket always has in the humid haze above it. I used to be barefoot for these walks, until I stepped on a big, fat Leopard slug. They're the size of your index finger and make a definite GOOSH when you step on them. I wore sandals after that.

Then I'll yawn too much and realize it's time for bed. I'll turn on the a/c, kneel and pray to it then off to bed.   

Another One Lost

People make the best topics to talk about. When one of your group has to go home, invariably we all start talking about him/her once they've left. It's not always spiteful, it's just what people do. One time, while at work, I looked at everyone and said: “So, who do we scar up tonight? Who's not working today? We'll talk about them!”

I do this..YOU do this..we all do.

**

If a new relationship lasts long enough and I mean beyond the first couple of months, there comes a time when the guy start to change. He becomes tame.

I listened while a male friend lamented the loss of one his friends to a girl. “God, he's changed so much...I miss the old Pauly. He no longer has that 'edge' anymore.”

Girls are elusive. The demands they can make on you are at first small, slight...almost inconsequential. They are slowly building a nest and training their new beaus to become stable Dads. While they do this they also keep other guys on their fingers in case this one will not work.

There was one epiphany I had many years ago that alerted me to my quickening descent into pussywhip-dom. I found myself down in the cellar, ironing a shirt. I never ironed a shirt in my life unless there was a job interview, wedding or funeral. If you just hang it up, the wrinkles fall out in time, well, enough of them.

I then started to think. What else have I been doing that's not in my personal repertoire? I thought back and found that I had re-prioritized my friends against a girl I was smitten with. Blue fishing off of some mud flat in Warren at 2 AM was quashed so I could be up early enough to spend the day around Washington county beaches. She shopped the tourist shops and I walked behind her trying to stifle the boredom. I wondered how much fun the guys had had the night before and how I was not there.

The big change is in how you dress. Single guys rank clothing by “it's not too dirty.” That's good enough. If you can shove a tee shirt into your face, inhale and not smell reeking sweat, it's still good!

“Here. Put these on...” is what I was told once at a Nordstroms once. I come out of the changing room and I look very neat. I was a well kept upper-middle class guy in khakis and a nice Burberry Poplin shirt with a high thread count. I stood there like a statue. The stiff demeanor comes from years of experience with Mom. You are dressed up as a young boy and then told, with the threat of DEATH, not to “spoil it.” So you stand there or sit on the couch, hoping not to disturb all the work Mom has done. The other thought I had was, “Uh-oh...I'm slowly being absorbed by the blob! I'm being broken in!”

There was a time I put my foot down on one issue though and that was Pink Floyd. They had been touring the US in 1994 and were coming to Foxboro and I had tickets. I had told her a couple of weeks before, that if she wasn't ready to go exactly at 6PM, I was going to leave her ass there. This must've simmered in her because I basically told her, “You are worth NOTHING to me that night and I'll throw “us” into the garbage in an instant when it come to this.” I could perceive her annoyance with that in her. I was a huge Floyd fan and how many times do you get to see this band play? I could see her pretty much any other time.

She was punctual that night though.

“How OLD are these guys? Who's the guy with the white hair? How come the guitarist is a fat pig? “You can't dance to this!” Is what she had to say about it.

“Honey...they were part of the first psychedelic scene from the 60's. Carnaby Street! They came out along with Beatles's “Revolver,” Beach Boys “Pet Sounds!”

I should've guessed...a girl born in in 1976 wasn't going to know..or I was being made to pay for my independence..or both.

**

Ok, I guess some domestication is ok, just some. But the fun in being a male is still keeping part of that wolf in you. The part that allows you to grow your beard out for three days and carouse with the pack once in a while.  

"I'm the Guy that Found the Lost Chord!"

A Krell Evolution Home Audio Amplifer. Just $20,000

Absurd price huh? What does it do for $20,000? How can it possibly create a truer sound vs. any other amplifier that's cheaper?

In double blind studies, it was found they cannot. Double blind studies are where the researcher and the test subject don't know exactly just what is being tested. It removes bias. When it comes to hi end audio equipment, the tested doesn't know the brand of the amp he's listening to and the researcher doesn't either. Someone else is doing the wiring in another room.

They tested the above Krell against a Pioneer amp and 50% said Krell was better, the other half said Pioneer was better. Statistically, this is just pure chance. There was ZERO correlation. Of course, Krell went ballistic over the findings. They have a lot to lose if it's been found that people found Pioneer was better and that meant lost revenue for Krell. Pioneer didn't say a word, but I assumed they smirked.

I have written before how I adore music and the tools to reproduce it. I have been too wowed by the higher end stuff and the literature that comes with it. Prior to the internet, audiophile magazines would produce adds that showed stereo equipment in the best light. There was would be pictures of an amplifier next to a bust of Beethoven or a turntable upon a small Greek column, with ferns around. Their equipment was surrounded by deep colors and put in strange environments, much like seeing a commercial with a car driving along the salt flats in Utah, with the dust billowing behind the car.

“Oooooh...look at that!”

Although being a Doubting Thomas about everything, I too was taken in. They don't pay marketing people unless they can subvert your logic and get you to think emotionally about a product. I believed that the better equipment was just hi-end and that I probably couldn't' afford it. That until about ten years ago when I found website about building your own speaker systems.

The guy laid it out plain and straight. Electronic equipment is just science, not an art. You can use formulas to design just about anything and he had them for building speakers. “For about $400 in parts, using the highest quality drivers, capacitors and coils you can buy, you can create a speaker that'll sound like the ones costing 10x as much. Not only that, I can prove it to you.”

He goes on to show one of his builds and then tests it using same parameters they test the hi-end stuff, Theile/Small Parameters. His speakers tested the same but the difference was in cost. In real life, speaker building isn't rocket science. You do have to do a bit of math but you can find programs on the internet to flash out crossover points and dimensions of the box itself. If u can solder, run wires and use a table saw w/o taking your hand off (and I was especially careful about that! Make a “push stick” and you'll save your fingers) you too can build speakers.

In three months from when I found that site, I had built my first pair. I have since built a second pair. I would not have had my pony sized dog hadn't charged through the house and knocked one of them over, busting out the woofer speaker.

Anyways...this hobby is addictive. You can build up a component system and sit back and listen to the equipment work or you can listen to the music. That's the annoying part of it! Forever improving the sound is an everlasting task because you'll never reach perfection as it cannot exist. Not only that, human ears are imperfect...and mine are no great exception. And I'm not paying $20k for a amp that may be correcting mistakes my ears can no longer hear anyway. When young I could hear every thing from 50Hz to 20,000Hz, now I can't get past 13,000. Play a note at 13,000Hz and I'll just stare off into space. My ears hear dead silence at anything above that.

A side story that's a bit funny. Kids in schools learned that if you downloaded a ring tone for your cell that was above 15,000Hz, most adults over 30 could not hear it, but young teens still can! You could respond to your heart's delight because that craggy, bitchy old teacher of 42 couldn't hear your phone go off. There was another story where a Quickie Mart installed a noxious noise generator to repel teens from hanging out in front. It would blast annoying sounds, at 16,000Hz at high volume into the parking lot. The teens left. The older adult customers couldn't hear a thing as they walked in.

Back to my story. Every now and then, I get the Jones for new equipment, to find a way to approach that unapproachable 100%. I lately was drooling over an equalizer that can shape the sound from the amplifier. I've had equalizers in the past but the damn things introduce so much noise it wasn't worth it. That was until I heard a pro-sound piece of equipment turn on and it produced...no static at all. The problem with pro-sound (the stuff you see powering live concert venues) is that it's completely wired for itself and not home audio. But being the scrappy, always digging, always searching dog that I am, I found my bone. An RTA pro-sound equalizer that has unbalanced RCA jacks. Hey presto! It'll synch with my home audio.

Soon I'll be sitting on my carpet, sliding sliders, adjusting the sound. “A bit more...just a bit more...Damn! I've gone to far! It sounds like crap! Back off!” I can do that for all bands from 50 to 13,000. I won't be needing the ones above apparently though it does go to 20,000.

To me, this is fun.

Hopefully UPS delivers this toy soon

Click the picture below and watch and learn why Beethoven finally went deaf.

Good Doggy...Goooood Doggy!

You understand the picture above? It's not too far off from the genuine condition, I swear.

OK, I've never been married so I don't know all those intimate dynamics that can occur. That's why it shocks me when I see husbands accidentally reveal how short a leash they're on. “It really does EXIST!” I say to myself.

I've known some husbands who were slightly corralled but I didn't know the full extent. That's what was astonishing to me, the degree it can be taken. 

Over this past holiday weekend, I was singled out by a couple of wives as, “You can't play with that one anymore, he's a bad influence!” I'll get to this later, but first...

At McCoy's fireworks, I cracked open a beer and handed to my friend. He raises it to his mouth and I noticed he shot a hard, left look to his wife, who was standing about twenty-five feet away and he takes one swallow. He recaps the beer and hands it back to me. “Yueling is too strong.”

“Too strong?” I think. It's a slightly, just barely, a hoppier beer than that rice/water beer, Budweiser. This guy used to love Canadian Moosehead or St Pauli Girl which is far heavier than any of the light Pilsner's made in this country.

A few seconds later and I “get it.” He was seen imbibing by the Queen. That's a no-no.

Now I've known this guy for years. He has the identical chance at becoming an alcoholic as a dead Pope has. He always was like this.

The finale rack is fired and people turn to one another to talk, now that the show is over. As I was speaking to my friend, I see his wife pile the kids into the SUV. She's now in the passenger seat, leans over and pop's open the driver's door and then just sits there, looking at us.

About six seconds later, he notices this and hurriedly rushes our conversation to an end.

“Well, time to go! It's late! (It was 9:50pm) I'll see ya sometime soon.”

He walks towards the truck. I stand there with my mouth half-open as I witness this.

I then see other wives corralling their husbands to other SUVs and I think, “Well, this is over.”

I walk to my car, with a ear to ear smirk on my face, knowing just what has occurred.

**

On a different night, I watched another husband escape the kennel for a couple of hours. This one I've known for a bit less time than previous one but we're closer in age. Now that he was out of kennel, and that he was kept in one for far too long, he acted like any dog does when freed. They go crazy and run all over.

John was pounding down the beer, eating burgers, dogs and anything else that wasn't too raw. He bopped from one circle of friends to another chatting it up. He even got on a temporary dance floor that was set together by the river with a few girls.

I haven't seen him do this since...I'd say the late 90's. When he was married, he sort of dropped off the edge of the Earth. But I'd see him on occasion, with the wife, but he was thoroughly domesticated in her presence. Neutered, tamed and housebroken.

Around 11PM, the Queen arrives at the party.

By this time, John's got a bang-up buzz and acting like the guy I knew when he was younger. He was vibrant, animated and alive. She comes onto the scene and the first comment she makes to him is:

“How did you get mustard on your shirt?”

Now this is something a Mother would say to her 10 year old son.

Of course he had mustard on his shirt! He also has beer stains on it. He's been eating Hibachi food and drinking. I had grass stains on my pants, am barefoot and I smell of BBQ sauce and saltpeter from fireworks. After her comment I think, “This isn't a formal dinner. This is a backyard party where you get silly buzzed and dirty.”

With the Queen there, the transformation in John took seconds, literally seconds. The spontaneity in him dropped dead like a heart attack would drop you to the sidewalk. She might as well have taken out a napkin, dipped it in water and tried to remove the mustard stain while muttering, “Where would you be without me?”

Then the two found an open space at the tables, sat down and and became sedate. Respectable, staid and predictable...a nice picture of a stable life well lived. (Picture me shoving my finger into my mouth, making gagging and puking sounds)

After a bit, I go over, with a fresh beer for John and sit down. I aim my attention at the Queen to placate her, bring her into the festivities, make her one of us. I get a stare, a cold shoulder and am finally asked, “Do you know what time it is?”

Jesus H. Christ...

“Yeah, it's 11:45” I say

Then the two have quick conversation only marrieds can have. Under the breath, very quiet and meant only for them. I know what it is, it's the talk, the preparation to leave in about ten minutes. PS. There is no babysitter to get home to and pay.

Eventually they leave.

**

I've heard guys give thanks for their good luck to have been married. Some were drinkers, others fuck ups and others did need the stabilizing influence that marriage can bring. Some actually became better people because of it. OK, I accept that. Some of the ones I did know, before they got married, needed their claws clipped as they were wild.

But...then there were the others who were in no danger of being rounded up by the dog catcher to be put to sleep for being feral. It's those guys I felt bad for, and am shocked to see how deeply they've been castrated. And, how their wives look upon me as a pimp/drug dealer/bad influence/and infected with disease.

No, I'm not going to hold your husband down while I pour liquor down his throat. I'm not procuring prostitutes for them either. Your husband will not be found in jail, with charges of lewdness and lasciviousness, after being goaded by me.

What I will do is this. I will play! But it requires the right people and a few margaritas to start. Playtime involves risk, going to the boundaries and allowing that part of yourself that that gets suppressed for the sake of “looking normal” to come out. We're all older adults now and we know how far to push it. That's where the fun is. The fun is in teasing the Big Junkyard Dog. The fun is in moderate danger that can be managed quick. What danger? Looking like the fool. Teasing the wives. Unashamedly chasing the single girls. Drinking till you're silly but not dumb enough to drive. Eating crap food that'll go straight to your belly. Slightly damaging your own rep because you chased fun. Fun that creates stories for a few years.

The Who has a great song that explains this “pushing it to the boundary” but not over the cliff.

No crisis!

Just you having fun

There's no crisis!

Getting burned by the sun

You got no crisis!

This is true

This is no social crisis

Just another tricky day for you!

“Burned by the sun” is a great way to have fun. Just push it a bit further than usual. But for some I know, their wives slather them in SPF 500 sun block. Or don't allow them to go out at all.  

4th of July at Lido's

Lido's beach (now incorporated into Scarborough) once used to be the beach for moderate, slightly right leaning beach-goers. Why did I believe this? Because my brother once asked my Dad why we never when to the Olivo's Beach to the north.  The answer came quick. “It's full of damn hippys! They drink bottled beer on the beach! You want sliced up feet?!”

As a kid, I once ventured far north of our blanket to see this Olivo's. I saw a lot men with long hair and girls who seemed very, very tan. That and bikinis. The women all there were wear wearing bikinis. In contrast, everyone at Lido's was Irish white as a sheet. Except for a few men who had red arms and necks, from Hanes Tee shirt sunburns. My Mom never had a bikini. She wore a one piece that you'd find on a six year old. My grandmother, who could've been admitted to a nice restaurant in hers, had a black one-piece with tons of ruffles that made it look like ribbon candy. If my Dad was an example for all the other Dad's on Lido's, he wore plaid shorts, black socks with penny loafers and...a Hanes White tee shirt.

The drive from Pawtucket was a long one, long in Rhode Island terms. We'd pack up my Dad's Chevy Impala whose trunk could hold three dead mob informants. Actually, my Mom would pack it with:

1. One blanket
2. Towels
3. More towels
4. CopperTone Suntan Lotion in the New Squeezable Bottle
5. My Dad's Hibachi
6. Kingsford Briquets
7. Kingsford Starter Fluid
8. A shitty styrofoam cooler filled with ice, hamburgers, mustard, ketchup and relish.
9. One radio, a Panosonic. Tuned to WPRO, The Station that reaches the beaches!
10. Six months worth of Ladie's Home Journal (my mom would read on the beach)

This picture doesn't do the Impala justice. This car was easily 13 feet long

Of course, the July sun had baked the Impala to oven temperatures. We'd open the doors and this cloud of flaming hot air would billow out. I'd howl and complain as I slid across the vinyl back seat. My brother and I, in our swimmng trunks, would sit so far forward on the seat so only an inch or two of our butts would be burned. After a while, you could inch yourself back on the whole seat once it cooled somewhat. Remember, the skin on the back of your exposed thighs was still young and new, which meant EVERY nerve worked well. 

On the ride down there were two different conversations. The back seat kid's one and the adult one in the front.

Dad: “Your brother, Joe isn't going to be there? Is he? The last time I could've bitten his head off! He's such a know-it-all!”

Mom: “Richard...he'd say the same thing about you, you know. Why can't you two just get along?”

Dad: “Get along? Now It's MY fault? Your brother started that argument about Carl Yastrzemski! I didn't start yelling! He did!

Mom: (now looking out the passenger window and almost to herself) “...well..if you two hadn't drank so much...”

My Dad and Uncle Joe didn't get along so well back then. They were two wannabee alpha males thrusting their chests out and seeing who can piss the furthest.

I never got bored of the ride down. To me it was sort of new each time. I'd sit there, looking out the window as we passed familiar landmarks. Boring landmarks like certain rotting bridge abutments, Route 4's forever filled in cracks with liquid tar that made the car go thump-thump-thump, like railroad tracks and that horse farm on the right somewhere there in Narragansettt. Oh, and that wooden lookout tower on Route 4. My brother said it was where they shot the TV show “F-Troop” and the tower was part of the set. "They film F-Troop here? Really?"   He lied so much then to me!

I tried to engage my brother in some fun in that back seat. He'd have no part of it. He hated any drive to anywhere and sat there fuming. It wouldn't matter if we were going to the beach or even if Disneyland, it was the drive that made him miserable. After a while, say by the time we passed Warwick, it was time to bug the shit out of little brother...me. Since he was older by five years, he'd get me to bitch and yell about something, which then brought the wrath of the parents in the front seat to shut me up. He was good at that...getting me in trouble when in fact, he caused it all.

“STOP PINCHING ME!” I'd scream

“Ronnie! Stop yelling! I'll turn the car around NOW!” yells Dad.

My brother, snarky even at 10, said:

“We're five miles from Lido's....you're not turning anything around!”

Dad's bluff was called and he had to come up with a more realistic threat. Eventually I felt vindicated when he threatened the two of us. Good, now I got my brother in trouble too!

We'd pull into a very large cut grass lot with a zillion other cars and forever go up and down the rows trying to find our relatives, who promised to save a spot if they got there first.

Finally Mom says: “Oh! There's Audrey...and Frank! Pull in Richard! There over there!” Then she'd yell out the window: “ Hiya Joe!”

I bet my Dad said under his breath: “Oh shit...Joe's here.”

We kids would meet up with our cousins while the adults set up the picnic area. My Dad's hibachi was set up and he'd flood the thing with starter fluid and we'd have this wonderful diesel fire going that stunk to High Heaven. That time, Dad had forgotten the aluminum foil he'd wrap around these heavy iron cooking grates. He shot down my Mom's advice to sponge some off of her brother, Joe. You know why. My Dad wasn't about to admit to fucking up and crawl like a coyote to Joe for “help.”

“Maureen...i think this time I'll do the burgers on the grate...it'll taste better...the grease will add flavor.”

My Mom wasn't that stupid. “You just don't want to admit to Joe you forgot something.”

“No no! The grease will add flavor!” he retorts.

“Uh-huh” she said.

My aunts and Mom would set up a spot on the beach, claim it with our blanket while the guys would finish the burgers.

My Dad, Frank and Joe plus the older boy cousins, Tommy and my brother would stand around the grill and talk early '70s guy talk. I forget what it was they talked about. The Red Sox probably. I and my younger girl cousins would romp about playing tag or whatever.

“Richard,” Joe says, “I got some Reynolds wrap for that grill...you want some?”

“No...it'll taste better this way.”

Joe says: “But you'l l have a hell of a time flipping those burgers...that meat sticks like hell to that steel.”

“I can do it” retorts Dad.

I almost wanted to bust my Dad's balls and blurt out he forgot the aluminum, but I thought better of it. I saw my brother turn to me with a knowing, evil grin. Yep we both know full well what's going on.

We'd eat our nearly crumbling burgers and then head to the beach.

And I remember this. We kids couldn't go into the water for a FULL hour after eating. Apparently we'd all drown if we did. My cousins and I would complain that this was not true but no matter, we'd have to wait.

I never had a sister so I didn't understand girls at a young age. Girls didn't like to be tossed down into the surf or have their heads held under the water. They also squealed when seaweed would slime across their legs. It seemed all my girl cousins would complain to their Dads that I was “playing too rough.” Except one. Cindy. Cindy would beat the shit out of me. Cindy had a temper that she let out, usually in taking a baseball sized clump of wet sand and fling it at me. It hits like a rock and has a sandpapering effect of cutting into your skin. She also was strong enough to hold my head under the water.

I learned to give Cindy space.

Later in the afternoon, we'd be tired out. The parents would be talking softly or snoring on the blankets. I can remember that weird bluish, but translucent, fog that would come in off the ocean. My Irish skin would be tingling, even though I had that CopperTone on. Then someone would say, “time to go home” and we'd start packing everything up, shaking out the sand that got into every single thing. A bunch of goodbyes and we'd be hitting the road.

Driving out, I can remember seeing the full moon rising oddly early and Yes's “Round a Bout” coming through the Panosonic. That was July 4^th 1972.

I've been to Scarborough a zillion times since and many times when I did go, I'd tried to find any trace of Lido's, but it's all gone. The bathhouses, the commissary and even it's grass field has been paved over. There are a hundred thousand stories of that time you'd never suspect happened on a one time beach called Lido's. But there is ONE relic that I remember seeing as I peered into Olivo's and beyond, as the beach curved away in the distance. The old stone house. Even then it was derelict and falling down.