The Grass Roots-Midnight Confessions

Funny how I played their Greatest Hits a million times and never knew what any of them looked like. I didn't even have it on Album.... it was an 8 track for pity's sake.
For the MId-Week Video Muse--- here's to musicians whose music we loved and we never needed to see a video!

Underlying Depression

If you are over forty and depressed, you are not alone. And it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, married or single, kids or not. A new study measured data on depression, anxiety levels and general mental health and well-being taken from some 2 million people in 80 countries. And it's perfectly clear:

For men and women the probability of depression slowly builds and then peaks when people are in their forties -- a similar pattern found in 72 countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe, the researchers said.

Of course they go on to speculate about why. They said middle-aged people come to realize that they may not fulfull a lot of their aspirations. I guess that is pretty depressing. I'm depressed just reading about it.

I got to thinking, perhaps cavemen and women never lived long enough to be depressed. Very few probably saw their 40th birthday. Not much time for depression anyway back then. It took too much effort just to live in the moment. You know. Stay out of harm's way, find and kill food, clean it, cook it, maintain fires and such. If you sat around on a rock all day depressed you wouldn't last long.

State of the Union... You Better Sit Down.

"My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions."

--George W. Bush, The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007
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No this post will not be about the State of the Union. Actually, I almost posted a YouTube Video about what GW said he was going to do last year.... and how way off base it all went, but that stuff is just water over the bridge, and talking about it tends to upset my digestive juices. (Or it could be the Chinese I ate today.) Do you think he will mention anything about how great it will be to get out of the White House and clear brush at the Ranch again in less than a year? Okay, that's probably not Presidential.

--- Incase you missed these on the late shows:

"In political news, our old friend Dennis Kucinich has dropped out of the presidential race. Yeah, we like Dennis. ... He's going back to his old job as a Keebler elf." --Jay Leno
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"Sylvester Stallone announced today he is endorsing John McCain. I think that's what he said. He might have said, 'Hand me my cane.'" --Jay Leno
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What about that Mitt Romney? He looks like a guy who would run a seminar on condo flipping. He looks like a weekend weather man, doesn't he? He looks like the neighbor who spends way too much time on his lawn" --David Letterman

Mona Lisa... Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you

You're so like the lady with the mystic smile

Is it only 'cause you're lonely they have blamed you?

For that Mona Lisa strangeness in your smile?
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Incase you missed it, the world now knows who the Mona Lisa really is. A researcher in Berlin discovered that she is "Lisa del Giocondo, wife of Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo, according to notes written in the margins of a book by a friend of Leonardo da Vinci's as the artist worked on the masterpiece."

Now... onto the next mystery. Whose lovely, but sanguine face is in that Maio painting hanging in my studio?

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Hmmmmmm.

Leonard Cohen - The Future

My Dream Job: Back up singer for Leonard Cohen.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 27, 2008

Here it is Sunday again. I came across this painting I did when I was in high school. Linus was on one of my binders... and I sketched him and painted him. I kept it all these years.

Dontcha just feel like you need a security blanket sometimes?

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I mean everyday we get pounded with "the sky is falling" type news. We are in a RECESSION... what are we gonna do about GLOBAL WARMING... more people were blown up by SUICIDE BOMBERS..... not to mention the REAL IMPORTANT STUFF like what are we gonna do about Erectile Dysfunction? Shaky leg syndrome? Cholesterol?

I really need a break from TV.

Al Bundy, The Godfather

For this week's Mid Week Video muse, I was looking only for something to make me laugh out loud. This did it.

Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise - Once Upon A Time

Here is a song I like in honor of the MLK Holiday today. Once Upon a Time by Robert Bradley. Born the blind son of an Alabama farmer, he sang in churches and on the streets of Detroit before his dream of life as a soul singer came true. One verse begins
... "I remember Martin Luther King...Lord, he was the man who gave us all a Dream..."

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 20, 2008

Whooo whooo.... we are almost, maybe, kinda, headed for a (gasp... don't say it...) recession! And since us common folk don't care how far in debt our government is.... and many have their own credit cards maxxed out... the government wants to print money and give it out as a "tax rebate"....so we can buy more things--- so that this.... uh... recession.... won't be as bad as it could be.

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Do I get it or what?

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So.... What will it be.... a vacation? For some people -- who are working 2 or 3 jobs it would be a great way to spend their money. Take me, too!

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Or why not a big screen TV? All of us who didn't get one for Christmas can have one NOW! YEAH.......

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Of course the money could go to pay my gas bill. (big downer) It would be the responsible thing to do. I wouldn't want the gas companies with their previous record profits, to have a bad year.

Can You Say "Nuclear?"

Dennis Kucinich was screwed this week.

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It's worth listening to Dennis to hear his thoughts on why.

I learned a lot from this short clip ---about General Electric, the parent company of NBC --who excluded him from the Democratic debate in Nevada. They don't just make light bulbs. (Maybe it was in their best interest to take back the Anti-nuke candidate's invitation to the debate...... Which is what they did..... Because they can.)

General Electric owns NBC, and General Electric is one of the largest nuclear power contractors in the world. They build nuclear power plants, and they also, of course, want to make sure that Yucca Mountain in Nevada remains a site for the dumping of nuclear waste, so that they have a place to put the waste that is created by the plants that they want to build.

GE also owns Raytheon, which is a major defense contractor, and, of course, they benefit and profit from war. That they have a major network in their portfolio only gives them an opportunity to enhance their power, being able to promote war - even one that was based on lies a few years ago - and being able to promote an energy policy that has been proven to be very expensive, and has cost us alot of jobs, particularly in the Industrial Northeast.

Now, I think that it should be of interest to the general public that GE, Raytheon and NBC have also contributed to candidates who are in the debate today. So they have an interest in excluding someone who disagrees with the promotion of war, and the promotion of nuclear power, and they have an interest in narrowing the field to those who believe in their policies.

---snip----

I believe it serves the process of election to be able to at least hear other candidates who have an important viewpoint, but that's just me.
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Right now big corporations control whose voice is heard on the networks and sadly, we have come to simply accept this in America. It is often said, people get the government they deserve.

I disagree. We get the government that is bought by and beholden to corporate America.

Two cats talking and translation

Sweet Pea got to choose this week's Mid Week Video Muse.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 13, 2008

“There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters . . . I could be their leader.”-- Charlie Brown

I'd be willing to bet most of the Presidential candidates feel this way right about now. I can't imagine living with the beating these people take day after day. Every campaign stop they are followed by reporters who record every action, every sentence, every outfit, everything they do in a day--- then it gets analyzed endlessly. Much ado was made by the right wing shouters about Hillary Clinton's alleged tears, (and there weren't any, just a quavering voice) prior to the New Hampshire Caucus.

Plus, every day there is a constant drumbeat of personal attacks, name-calling, etc., it must certainly take a toll on the human spirit. There will be a time when no one with any brains is willing to put themselves through this. I see this already on the local level, where altruistic intent to serve gets trumped by the need to keep a positive, or at least neutral image in the community, if only to keep their day job, or run the family business, if they have one. If you don't believe me, follow a few school board races and watch how ugly it can get.

Transportation for the Masses-- Minus the DVD

One of my coworkers this week showed off his brand new Jeep Commander. I'll admit it was an impressive vehicle---with Blue tooth technology that incorporates your phone with your sound system somehow, DVD player, automatic starter from his keychain, hell, and it's off road rated, whatever that means. I don't suppose, with his car seat in back and baby in tow, he's going off roading but you never know.

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American's want a lot out of their automobiles, and the automakers would put an expresso machine in them if they thought they'd sell more.

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But I can remember a simpler time, when all I wanted was transportation. Something to take me further than my bike. Something I could afford as a starving college student. No frills,

just get me where I want to go. My first car, my dear little 1984 Toyota Tercel, wasn't much bigger than the TATA Nano, above. It was standard shift, no air-conditioning, wind-up windows, and no power steering.

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But I was in love.

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The Tata above, with no radio, and no frills, is a cool $2500 bucks. It's being marketed in India. I hope it brings as much joy to some poor Indian family as my little Toyota brought to me.

Maude: Nixon v. Humphrey

Politics doesn't change much, this Mid Week Video Muse proves it. A different war, a different time, yet the same arguments.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 6, 2008

Good Sunday morning. Last night the price at my local gas station, for regular unleaded gas, was $3.19. Two weeks ago it was $2.99. No one really knows the reason for the 20 cent hike. Cold weather? Benazir Bhutto's death? Greedy oil companies? President Bush? More Chinese with cars?

Every newscast, without exception all week kept up the mantra of Gas will hit $4.00 a gallon. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they repeat it over and over then it will come true. Just like months ago when 100 dollars a barrel was the mantra. Now it is.

I shouldn't let myself get upset over this, because there are bigger fish to fry with my gas stove, in my kitchen warmed by a gas furnace. My home gas bill last month was $220 dollars. And I live in an apartment! This month was actually cold, so it will be much higher I'm sure. My point in all this: I waste a lot of energy being mad over this stuff. And I can't change any of it. Or so I thought.

It occurred to me this morning that if I lived further south in the warm weather, heating bills wouldn't be a problem. I like very hot weather. I wouldn't spend the money on air-conditioning.... I'd have ceiling fans. And if I could live somewhere that I didn't have to own a car, maybe just walk or ride a bike to work, that would be great. There are millions of people right now, living just like this, who can walk past a gas station, see the $3.19 a gallon sign and barely notice it. I would like to be one of these people someday.

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I'd be mad less of the time.

Betty #13: That's Nacho Resolution!

Gotta love Betty! My resolution is to make those NACHOS.

New Year's Resolutions

If you haven't checked out Average Betty's videos yet... I really like Nacho Resolution posted above. She makes me laugh.

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It's the start of the year.... millions of people are vowing to give up some bad habit or perhaps start some new project to begin anew. I know it's the perfect time to profess some desire to go out and help the poor, save the whales, or do some do-gooder thing, or lose weight, or find a new love, or learn to be patient with children, the elderly and intellectual half-wits, but I can do this anytime of the year, and right now just isn't the time. I'm too busy being cold. It is a full time occupation for me.

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My favorite gift this year was my new blanket.

President Bartlet takes on Dr. Jacobs

Mid Week Video Muse.The West Wing. One of the greatest series of all time.

Mid Week Video Muse Debutes for 2008

Welcome to the second year of The Goosepath. Our little trip around the sun the first year certainly veered off in many directions. Thanks for all the feedback, I really enjoyed doing this, so I've decided to sign on for another go at it. That said, I want to introduce a new weekly feature... The Mid-Week Video Muse. On Wednesdays I'll post a video of whatever happens to catch my fancy that particular week. Kind of a partner to my Sunday Morning Muse written weekly feature... The Mid-Week Video Muse will be a no holds barred-type hodge podge of videos--- music, TV interviews, silly things, anything that I feel is worthy of reproducing on this fine blog.

So, happy watching!