Everything Old is New Again

Well, well... the Mac is no longer an entity in Chez Black. I am typing this on the old PC - so far, so good. It's a bit slower, but we'll get by. It's always fun to get used to a new keyboard (thank the gods for delete and backspace buttons!). The happy news is that I now have the scanner hooked up and running, so my artwork images will be clearer ('til now, I've been taking pictures of them with the digital camera). I've got a lot of studio rearranging to do (again), but it's all good.

Tom and Dad got here last night around 8 p.m. We've spent most of the day together and they've gone back to their hotel to do some paper work and/or nap. We'll be getting together again shortly to find some dinner (which, according to Tom, will not be eaten out of a garbage bin). Sure is good to see them again though, albeit briefly.

I made the mistake of paying attention to the news the other day for half an hour (that's what I get for waking up too early!). I learned that, in Missouri, they're trying to pass a law that bans swearing in bars. No great irony here, but my first thought was, "What the fuck?!" And then I laughed. It's a bar people! It's where folks go to drink and lose their inhibitions. Heck. Gosh. Get a couple shots of tequila in me, and there's no telling what I'll say.

It seems that the reasoning behind this idea is that they want people to be able to have a good time without having to put up with, and I quote, "rowdiness." Ummm. I didn't realize that going out on a Friday night for a brew and turning to a friend and saying, "I tell ya, it's been a rough week - I'm fuckin' whupped," constitutes rowdiness.

First smoking was banned in bars, and now those who want to light up can't say shit about it. Mark my words, prohibition is next.

Freedom of Speech aside, who would expect NOT to hear swearing in a bar? I mean, that's kind of like telling church goers not to say 'amen.' And then, what constitutes swearing? As a kid, I used to get in trouble for saying the word, crap. Does that mean sports bars will have to mute the tv so no one has to hear the sportscasters say, "That was a hell of a play!" Egads.

No one will even be able to tell any more of those 'so a guy goes into a bar' jokes in a bar!

I'm stumped. There's so much that Americans could worry about and get worked up about that is being completely ignored. Stuff like this makes me feel that my mother didn't, in fact, give birth to me, but that I came from another planet and my parents were kind enough to take me in. Stuff like this makes me feel that wherever that planet is... I wanna go back. Beam me up, Scotty - there is no intelligent life here! Because there is something intrinsically wrong with this kind of thought process. As my old piano teacher used to say, "Shit fire to save matches, and damn it all to Hell!"

To quote the Wicked Witch of the West, "Curses!"

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em. Let it rip. Just don't fool yourself that it's a free country.