Bill O'Reilly is one more gift who keeps on giving for progressives in this country. Phil Gramm has nothing  on O'Reilly.  The latest gaffe  from Mr. Misogynist himself is his "defense" of John McCain's tortured response to the question regarding insurance coverage for Viagra, but not for birth control. Check out this clip. Does Bill have to "buy you dinner before you use your  birth control?" 

This is the comment from the guy who was sued by a coworker for sexual harrassment just a couple of years ago.  You cannot make this stuff up.

Finally, my sweetie and I will have something on television this Sunday to fully absorb our attentions while we escape into the wild advertising world of the Mad Men. We watch and discuss this show to death. We caught up with all the buzz the past few weeks, and the 16 Emmy nominations this very unwatched show received. We like Matthew Weiner's previous work on The Sopranos, but Mad Men is a cut above Tony and his crew for existential insight by my barometer. I think my better half would agree.

The first season took place in 1960 amid the backdrop of the Kennedy-Nixon election run up and result. Jon Hamm plays Don Draper, one of the more conflicted and complicated lead characters ever brought to life on the little screen. Hamm's performance rivets your attention, but the cast brings all the surrounding characters fully to life in a 1950s American world we have forgotten much more of than we can ever remember.

Mad Men is a quest for identity. It is highly ironic that the leading advertising man at one of the top Madison Avenue firms really has no idea who he is, but defines who all his clients are to the American public. 

If you are a history buff, interested in psychology, a pop culture junkie or looking for an intelligent escape from today's news you owe it to yourself to check out Mad Men.  Every reviewer and television critic I have read has this show at the top of their list.

http://www.amctv.com/origin...

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As summer blisters along this year with non-stop economic woes interspersed with  never ending election coverage  I'm looking forward  to a modest break this August when Steve Miller  comes to town with his special guest, Mr. (Mad Dog Minus His Englishmen) Joe Cocker. 

These past few weeks some friends and family  cruised into Bako-land to hang out and commiserate on the state of things in the world. Things are tough all over I discovered. My best friend and I hooked up for a lunch at Red Robin to chew on some salads and topics of interest. We took turns agonizing over poor performing investments, and when we finished we decided to cruise the mall. 

To my utter amazement  I confirmed my permanent relic status in the universe. There was not one store in Valley Plaza selling music or movies. Everyone knows books and magazines vacated the VP world a long time ago, but movies and music now require too much time for the ADD society of Bakersfield mall goers as well. I guess Transworld gave up on the Valley Plaza location, and closed both the FYE and Sam Goody stores that operated under the corporate TWE  moniker there.  Are clothes, jewelry and cellular phones the extent of culture today? Must be.  

I scan the RIAA website occasionally to view the carnage of the current music industry. CD sales are now at their lowest level in sixteen years with a little more than 500 million units  shipped in 2007.  The CD has shrunk in total dollar value from a high of $13 billion in year 2000 to just about $7.5 billion for 2007.  The whole industry  is now  pegged at $10 billion with about  20% coming from the digital world. That is a lot of lost store fronts to go with all those video stores that disappeared several years back. 

You don't hear much real diversity on the airwaves unless you subscribe to a digital service, but the subscription model is already trending down as dispensable dollars become scarcer for most households. I don't know what today's artists can expect. I read recently that Lyle Lovett has never seen a dime from the sales of his albums. He has sold on Curb/Universal some 4.5 million albums in twenty years of recording. It ain't a bright picture for aspiring musicians when the world is controlled by suits.

I remember my first Steve Miller Band LP, Children of the Future. A great psychedelic cover that was a testament to all things San Francisco in 1968. Baby's Calling Me Home was the brilliant opening track, and the Glyn Johns production throughout the album was extraordinary. Johns had done a bunch of work with the Who in England and ended up as the producer of Steve Miller's first four albums. I had never heard a record to that point with so much head room. The album epitomized space with a rock and blues back beat. Boz Scaggs was a member of the band and co-wrote a couple of the tunes.

Steve Miller at the outset of his career was an underground radio phenomena. He could not buy a hit, but his first five albums sold steadily and were all critically acclaimed. By 1972 when an auto accident and hepatitis put him out for the year he was intent on taking full control of his career after two albums of his were put out without his final approval. The first record he produced on his own resulted in his first hit, The Joker. 

There is a great two disc CD of two Steve Miller concerts in 1973 and 1976 put out by the King Biscuit Flower Hour, which presented rock concerts on the radio for many years. The CD captures the band doing familiar songs and unfamiliar blues jams.  If you can't make it out to hear Steve Miller on August 13th and want to hear an honest document apart from some greatest hits package check out the King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents The Steve Miller Band CD.

The photo attached is by David Stahl.

Maybe in the heat of a Friday with all the focus on Barack Obama's overseas trip, and a US delegation meeting with representatives from Iran scheduled in Europe to discuss the ongoing nuclear questions, the subtle changes introduced to change how abortion is defined might get overlooked. The proposed changes in definition, which would transform many forms of contraception into acts of abortion, has caught Hillary Clinton's full attention. It has caught Nancy Pelosi's full attention, too.

Pelosi recently described Bush as a "total failure", and in response to questions from reporters over the remark candidly stated she was just being polite. Pelosi demanded that Bush "reject this policy."

"We will fight you every step of the way," Clinton said of the president. "It is an end run around the rights of women to make choices about our own health and we are not going to stand for it," said Clinton. "We will not put up with this radical ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights."

Bush and his enablers can now argue with this change that women should never have an abortion, and should never use contraception either.  It is what a barefoot and pregnant government ideological policy is all about for females in this country.

Over the years popular music often reflected popular culture's view on a variety of mundane social pastimes. Songs about cars, dating, work, places and the like are everywhere in popular music. School is one of those subjects that always provides ink for the quills of pop songwriters.

I was thinking of how songs about school have changed so dramatically over my lifetime. School Days and Be True to Your School have no relevance today. Alice Cooper gets prophet props for penning School's Out back in 1972. "School's out for summer, School's out forever, School's been blown to pieces." After Alice's anthem songs like Another Brick in the Wall, I Don't Like Mondays, Don't Stand So Close and Cherry Bomb became the prevailing view from the musical mainstream and fringe alike.

No one can be surprised to read the various papers' accounts these past couple of days pointing out the extent of public education failure in our great state, and our little Congressional districts. Jim Costa's 20th Congressional District has more than 47% of people without a high school education. The median income for individuals living in the 20th is about the average for the nation back in the 1960s. The state average for drop outs is 24.2%. Kern County finds the rate a little higher than the state average with 28.9% dropping out before graduation.

It is tragic (no one can say funny these days) to watch Superintendents from all over the state exclaim this is a crisis, or say one student failing to graduate is not acceptable. You know what is unacceptable these days? I would say the job performance of elected and appointed public school administration officials for allowing education to become a scrap heap in this state.

There is very little money to be made teaching kids in our public schools. There is much more money to be made at the administration level where all contracts are drawn and money is allocated. Overpaid-underperforming fat cats on the top living in a bubble world totally removed from the reality of the everyday school experience take way too much of the education moneypie. 

We have repeatedly seen the gun-violence horror shows on the campuses at our schools over the past thirty years, and very little has changed in the classrooms. We don't see the usual bullying and intimidation that takes place every second on every campus and that gets lost in our media clutter of advertising noise. We have transformed schools into giant factory feedlots complete with probes and detection devices while penning our young people inside just like we do to our livestock. 

Until we decide to make education a priority, and change the student to teacher ratios significantly, school will be out forever for an even larger segment of  our youth.  It hurts to know that Alice Cooper nailed it  thirty-six years ago.

An old Hollies song, The Air That I Breathe, wafted on the speakers this morning as I was meandering through the web pages. I was thinking the collective-musical-powers-that-be don't make songs like this anymore, but we don't breathe the same air we used to either. As I hummed and mumbled the chorus after the second stanza I came across an article in the Sacramento Bee, talking about how our air quality is reported to us here in beautiful sunny-smoked California. While reading the article I decided to change the channel when I heard the signature Deep Purple riff ripple the airwaves. Art and reality need to take a break, so I'm moving down the dial to the classical channel.

It's official, Anheuser-Busch announced this morning it will be sold to In-Bev for about $50 billion. I am not certain what most Americans think about saying goodbye to an American business icon. This is the company, formerly headquartered in St. Louis, MO, which sells half of all the beer sold in America today. We now live in a global economy  where  the very idea of home grown business and enterprise means nothing. 

In-Bev is a Belgian consortium with operations headquartered in Brazil.  Their offer to shareholders speaks a lot more forcefully than keeping a bunch of people employed with benefits and living wages. In-Bev will certainly do what comes naturally, and consolidate operations with cost savings measures to reward their shareholders with perceived value. To many current "King of Beers" employees this translates to resume` work and network building exercises to locate new employment. How many high-paying fast-food jobs are in our little world today?

What I find both hilarious or tragic (depending  on  the second)  is the hostility and hatred focused on socialism in this country while unrestrained and unregulated global capitalism of the past 25 years has reduced  the American standard of living  to the Great Depression era equivalent.

I have never seen so many vacant homes in cities throughout California. I have never seen so few job opportunities where a middle class existence is achievable.  I never thought I would see the day in this country where the majority of companies offer no vacation time for the first full year of employment. I never thought I  would see a quarter of the American population either uninsured or under insured for medical coverage. I never thought I would see a third of our high school student body drop out and fail to graduate. 

But here we are, all sold out.

In spite of the dead zone Friday for the news cycles, and with our big holiday vacationing across the land to celebrate our Declaration of Independence, a big (but hardly surprising) story emerged from the shadows yesterday. Iraq really was all about the oil.

Ray L. Hunt is the son of H.L Hunt who founded Hunt Consolidated Oil, and is a key advisor to our fearless Decider. Mr. Hunt also sits on the Board of Directors for Halliburton. Apparently documents unearthed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reveal that the rumors about a big oil deal in the Kurdish region of Iraq between Hunt's company and the Kurds are true. The deal flies in the face of trying to strengthen the Iraqi central government. The documents also reveal that the Bush Administration was not caught off guard, as they have publicly proclaimed, by this deal even though it was made in violation of their own stated public policy.

You can read about this if interested at this LA Times link.

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Just finished mowing the back yard, but what do I smell? Not the fresh lawn clippings, or succulents on the patio in bloom. No. I am inundated with the fresh aroma of oil residue. I must be living in mosquito hell. I've watched the pest abatement trucks come by with their oil and chemical mixtures to stifle life out of insects. In this town the city does the same for people by smearing heavy doses of oil and chemicals onto neighborhood streets. 

What is the point of any citizen trying to do anything about the pollution levels in this town if government is going to just give a bunch of money to their cronies for toxins to lay out on all the streets? There are other sealers on the market  to  look into  that are not  made from oil, and far less toxic. And given the rising costs of oil, asphalt itself might be rejoining the dinosaur as a fossil of the past, because we won't be able to afford this road material for too much longer.

Maybe if oil hits a high enough level all those wild horses the feds want to euthanize will come back into vogue as our means of local transportation.

My wife and I moved to Bakersfield five years and five days ago. The first week in town was a tough one, with temperatures at over 105 degrees every day and lots of unpacking and fixer projects that needed scheduling for the house.

I remember being out early one morning, having been raised in town before departing for thirty years taught me to get any outdoor work done really early in the day. A man approached me and offered his gardening services for a really reasonable sum. He mentioned he cut most of the lawns on the block, and that Monday was the scheduled day houses in this neighborhood got his full treatment. 

In Sacramento I had used a push-mower for a very small front lawn. The back yard was a combination of pool, coping and brick with a tiny side yard dog-run. This new yard was a mess with a lot of grass and weeds front and back. The gardener's appearance was a blessing. We agreed to terms, and Greg's Gardening had another client on the block. My wife commented to me when he left how easy he was on her eyes. He had just a few few flecks of gray in a healthy looking close-cropped head of black hair. I wasn't sure of his nationality, it didn't make any difference to me, but he had that cosmopolitan mixture of the entire world in his make up and a quiet-friendly-serious demeanor  that made the decision to contract with him very easy.

Over the next couple of years mowing, seeding and trimming my yard we would chat periodically on some mornings. We would talk about our kids. Greg's son, when he first started lawn service with me, was in Utah at a trade school, but the son joined his dad in the family business within the year. His son was also named Greg, and we both owned the same make and model car.  My lads were both in school up north at the time, and we would share our hopes and aspirations regarding our real futures on this planet.    

Periodically, respiratory problems would bother Greg, and he might be absent for a couple of weeks to recover from these bouts. My wife and I had moved back to town to help take care of my father who also had respiratory ailments that were taking a toll on his ability to get many things done. Living here invites lung problems, but you do the best you can.

At the beginning of 2006 for financial reasons, no traction in the local job market, I met with Greg to let him know I would have to resume yard duties on my own. He understood. I would occasionally see Greg at one of the houses he worked on in the neighborhood, and we would share a greeting and some conversation on how things were going. We always said we were fine.

One of my wife's friends moved into an area not that far from our home, and we hooked Greg's Gardening up with her. The friend also noted that Greg was easy on the eyes, and did terrific work.

Time passed, and I didn't see Greg for long stretches. Not long ago, we got a call from my wife's friend, who told us that Greg had become seriously ill, and was selling his  business to qualify for Medi-Cal in an effort to get medical treatment he could not afford. It was a heart ailment, and the costs were prohibitive for someone with enough money to live and provide in the moment, but with not enough money for health coverage.

I am not sure if Greg sold his business or not, but he died at KMC this past Sunday. He was fifty years old, and one of the most honest and kind people I've had the pleasure to meet in my life. I cannot help but think he should still be with us making our world a little more pleasant to gaze upon. He is not, and we are all the poorer for it.

Dire Straits chicken plucks and powers through Setting Me Up, a Mark Knopfler tune on their first record . The chorus goes:

"You're setting me up to put me down, You're making me out to be your clown,
You're just setting me up to put me down, You better give it up, Quit your messing around."

The lunacy of politics and the failure we all share in not resolving the key problems our country faces reminded me of this song. After thirty years our government still teases us that actual governing and problem solving takes place as the country merges into giant cartels smothering all industries while reducing choice and competition. Promising ideas still float to government officials after all these years, but meet the same fly swatter by corporate lobbyists who now write laws of their own choosing while reducing the influence of the electorate to zero.

CBS and Business Week reports that the pharmaceutical industry spends over $57 billion dollars a year directly on doctors for fees and services in this country to push their drug agenda. This dollar figure does not include the promotional prescriptions, pens and other office adornments found at all clinics throughout our land, or what this industry spends on advertising. This spend is actually higher than what drug companies lay out everyday to catch your attention on tv, radio and print. 

Maybe $57 billion seems like a small sum to you these days given our trillion dollar debt that nobody understands, or the more than $2 trillion we spend on our health industry. It represents approximately all of Bill Gates fortune. The entire pet industry in America totals a little more than $42 billion annually . These fees and services to doctors represents more than 35% of all the money Americans spend each year on all their animals. This yearly doctor payout by  the pharmaceuticals is five times more  than all the money the music industry makes in a year here in America.

Families USA had a report three years ago on how many non-elderly Americans were without health insurance during 2002-2003. Here's the quote:

"One out of three non-elderly Americans spend some time without health insurance every two years, and the majority of those remain uninsured for more than nine months."

Some people are fine with this situation, until it affects their personal space. The dialog about necessary changes to the way we conduct health business has been going on since Nixon was in office. You do know who has profited by the few changes that have taken place and the derailment of other changes proposed, don't you?

Here is a link to a proposal for universal health care coverage.  Many really bright individuals have about given up even trying to address extremely important issues today given the toxic partisan political climate. Health care should not be about candidate fund raising, political ideology and excessive profit. Certainly not when a third of our population can go  without health insurance for  extended periods of time. 

Really, it is time all Americans were covered.