master of chooch
Friday, December 04, 2009




m @ 6:40 AM
Wednesday, November 04, 2009









m @ 5:50 AM
Thursday, October 29, 2009


















m @ 4:11 AM
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

in the past month alone, just amazing....

the anti-Semitic card

A Democratic state senator in South Carolina recently opined in The State that Sen. Jim DeMint (yes, he is Jewish) does a poor job of bringing money home for his state. An unfair criticism, declared Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer:

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

the race card

The Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to marry an interracial couple said on "The Early Show" he doesn't see what the problem is. "I did help them and tell them who to go to to get married," he said. "And they went and got married, and they should be happily married, and I don't see what the problem is now."

Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in southeastern Louisiana, wouldn't issue a license to or preside over the nuptials for Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, of Hammond, La., who is black. Bardwell, who's held his post more than 30 years, said he refused to perform the ceremony because of his concern for the future of the couple's children.

"I've had countless numbers of people that was born in that situation, and that they claim that the blacks or the whites didn't accept the children. And I didn't want to put the children in that position."

Bardwell denied that he broke any laws. "The law says that I cannot deny mixed race marriages," he said. "And that means prevent them from getting married. And I did not prevent them getting married."

When asked if Bardwell refuse anyone else a marriage ceremony, he said he would refuse to marry a couple if one -- or both of them -- was intoxicated.

the hitler card

On Tuesday morning, as the Senate Finance Committee prepared to vote on the Baucus bill, someone at the National Republican Congressional Committee posted a bizarre Tweet to an altered three-minute section of the 2004 Hitler biopic "Der Untergang" -- with a voice-over of the The Fuhrer ranting about how only Nancy Pelosi shares his vision of health care reform.

The Tweet was titled: "Funny Video: Moonbattery: Hitler Reacts to ObamaCare Maneuvers"

An NRCC spokesman didn't immediately respond to a call for comment but later National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman John Randall says they have pulled down the Tweet and offered this: "We saw the video this morning and thought, like other parodies, that it was funny. In 20-20 hindsight, we realized it was in poor taste and pulled it down... I don't want anyone to think we're comparing Democrats to Nazis and to Hitler."

family values

The parents of family values champion Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev, Mike and Sharon Ensign have admitting to giving $96,000 to Ensign's mistress and her family. He had carried on an affair with Cynthia Hampton, a staffer and wife of one of his top aides, Doug Hampton. Hampton say that Ensign helped him obtain lobbying clients after Hampton learned about the affair, and then helped push those clients' interests.

mccarthyism redux

FOX News' Glenn Beck has been on a tear lately about all the "communists" he thinks are working in the highest levels of the Obama administration and in the major media.

a hahahaha gun joke

Republican Mississippi Rep. Gregg Harper answering the question "What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus do?"

"We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition." Hilarious. Especially in a state with a history of political assassinations like Medgar Evers, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman.

more gun references

Earlier this month, Robert Lowry, a Republican candidate and potential GOP opponent of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) squeezed off a few rounds at a paper target with the initials "CWS" scrawled on it. He apologized, saying it was inappropriate. He initially described it as a "joke," but after answering several questions he said it "was a mistake" to use a target labeled "DWS."

the religious victim card with an extra dose of finger pointing

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, yesterday in which he said "The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels. What motivates them most of all is a pathological hatred of Christianity. They know, deep down, that what they are doing is wrong but they continue with their death-style anyway."

right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation defends keeping tax dollars flowing to military contractors accused of covering up rape

The Senate this week passed an amendment offered by Al Franken (D-MN) that bars any contractor with the Department of Defense from using mandatory arbitration for rape and sexual assaults. If found guilty, it also bans them from receiving any more federal funding.

The justification for this is a horrific case in which Jamie Jones, a Halliburton employee in Iraq, alleges that she was gang-raped anally and vaginally, suffering genital mutilation. After she was examined by a doctor, the evidence was handed back to KBR, where the rape-kit, photos, and notes disappeared. She claims that when she reported the attack to her supervisors, they placed her in a container under armed guard and did not let her leave or call her family for several days. Agents were called at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, where they took Jamie out of KBR custody.
Halliburton HR officials allegedly told her to "get over it" or lose her job, and she asserts that Halliburton attempted to short circuit her lawsuit by sending the case to arbitration.

The best part comes from the statement released by The Heritage Foundation: You might assume that she was not able to bring her claims in court instead of to an arbitrator. But then you would be wrong. The courts ruled that Halliburton could not arbitrate her claims of rape and battery, false imprisonment, destruction of evidence and the retention of employees involved in the assault.

Real classy. In other words, she was allowed to sue thanks to outside (activist?) court intervention, so why jeopardize Halliburton's tax dollars, no-bid military contracts and ability to handle all future sexual assaults differently.

30 Republican Senators voted against this amendment including party bigwigs John McCain (R-AZ), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS) and David Vitter (R-LA).

However, it passed with 100% of the Democratic Party senators votes.

then there are the hypocrites (well, all of them)

67 Republican members of the House of Representatives have now made public presentations of giant checks from the stimulus to their cheering and enthusiastic citizens. As part of the ceremonies, not one of the representatives mentioned President Obama's recovery bill, the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill or the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, the sole reason the money is available to their districts.

Some of the best quotes from the public ceremonies by the people who voted against it:

Rep Kevin McCarthy (CA-22) "I applaud this funding for the Bakersfield Federal courthouse. Over the years, we have faced many obstacles related to this project, but worked together as a community to ensure that this project remained a high priority and would come to fruition."

Rep Mary Bono Mack (CA-45) "This funding will provide much-needed assistance to local residents who are at risk of losing their homes or experiencing homelessness... I am pleased that our community will benefit from this funding."

Rep Judy Biggert (IL-13) "These important investments will create local jobs and help keep our area’s road and transit systems working for commuters."

I guess it's no longer socialism, communism and every other-ism they attempted to pawn off as legit when the discussion was taking place and their votes were cast. The red states cannot pull their own economic weight, yet thanks to the "elites" in the northeast, the "hollywood elites" on the west coast, and everyone else not in "real America" who provide them with the money to exist, they are not starving to death in the streets. On behalf of all of us who have tried to vote with everyone's best interests in mind, you are welcome.

As a last kick in the balls to how sad the reality of actually this, to date not a single one of the Republican Senators or House members who voted against it have refused the money.

just one more year until the next elections. very exciting.











m @ 5:24 AM
Thursday, October 15, 2009

here is how it went down. i have been coughing a lot the past few days but have made it through work by taking it slow. my cough had gotten worse on the ride home and i barely ate any food for dinner. around 9:30 last night i was exhausted and went to lay down. i started to read a book but slowly lost my breath and started sweating profusely. i stood up for awhile but was sweating massively and still couldn't catch my breath. i used my asthma inhaler but it wasn't helping. basically, my lungs felt as if they were already full of air but i couldn't use them and was suffocating. i actually didn't have the lung capacity to speak. i walked out to the living room and meredith could see i looked like hell and wanted to call the ambulance but i refused and so we decided to go to rhode island hospital.

i gulped down hot tea (this seemed to help a little) on the ride there, and went into the emergency room. they took me into a room right away and took my shirt off, took my blood pressure and threw a mask on me and all these ekg pads with wires attached all over me. then then gave me this plastic mouthpiece with whiteish smoke in it and i breathed that in for about 15 minutes. they said my vital signs were good and rolled me into another room and took more tests and then gave me another mouthpiece with white smoke.

then they gave me some oral steroids. then then wheeled me down to get x-rays of my chest, which after ninety minutes turned out to be clear. meredith was awesome and stayed with me while i drifted in and out of sleep the entire time.

i should also add one unintentionally funny thing that happened. the mattress pad wasn't secured to the gurney i was laying on, so i would end up scrunched up at the lower end of the gurney over and over and as each new person did tests on me they would have me get up and read adjust but gradually i would slide down into this pile of person at the end of the gurney after another 10-15 mins. this happened about 4-5 times. to wrap up, they gave me a script for steroids and sent me home at 2:15am. needless to say, i didn't drive to work and am working from home. i also had an appt with my regular doctor so i saw him at 10:15 this morning. more antibiotics, more steroids. yes, i still have the wristband on. the end.

m @ 12:12 PM
Friday, October 09, 2009

for those who have never witnessed this in their lifetime, it's called (right or wrong in his opinion is irrelevant) "a democrat with balls"

October 08, 2009

Maddam Speaker I have words for both Democrats and Republicans tonight. Let's start with the Democrats. We as a party have spent the last six months-- the greatest minds of our party dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote for health care reform. I want to remind us all... Olympia Snowe was not elected president last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America's population.

What America wants is health care reform. America doesn't care if it gets fifty one votes in the Senate or sixty votes in the Senate, or eighty three votes in the Senate-- in fact America doesn't even care about that. It doesn't care about that at all.

What America cares about is this. There are over one million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bill. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are forty four thousand seven hundred eighty Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care. That's a hundred and twenty two every day. America sure cares a lot about that.

America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition even if you have health insurance, it's not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don't need any. America cares about that a lot.

But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities-- America doesn't care about that at all. So we have to remember that as Democrats. We have to remember that's what's at stake here is life and death, enormous amounts of money and people are counting upon us to move ahead. America understands what's good for America.

America cares about health care. America cares about jobs. America cares about education, about energy independence. America does not care about process or politicians, or personalities or anything like that.

And I have a few words for my Republican friends as well. I guess I do have some Republican friends. Let me say this. Last week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there's forty four thousand seven hundred eighty nine Americans who die every year according to this Harvard report-- published in a peer reviewed journal-- because they have no health insurance.

That's an extra forty four thousand seven hundred eighty nine Americans who die, whose lives could be saved-- and their response was to ask me for an apology... to ask me for an apology. That's right... to ask me for an apology. Well, I'm telling you this-- I will not apologize. I will not apologize.

I will not apologize for a simple reason. America doesn't care about your feelings. I violated no rules by calling this report to America's attention. I think a lot of people didn't know about it before hand.

But America does care about health care in America and if you're against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way. You can lead. You can follow-- or you can get out of the way. And I'm telling you now to get out of the way.

America understands that there's one party in this country that's in favor of health care reform and one party that's against it and they know why.

They understand if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world, the Republicans would blame him for over-population.

They understand that if Barack obama could somehow bring about world peace, they'd blame him for destroying the defense industry.

In fact they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon.

But that's what America wants. America wants solutions to its problems and that begins with health care. And that's what I'm speaking for tonight.

m @ 5:16 AM
Wednesday, October 07, 2009















m @ 6:04 AM
Friday, September 25, 2009

your mom probably did










m @ 12:46 PM
Thursday, September 17, 2009

See, this is what we are dealing with - (from Wonkette)

Republican House Rep Kevin Brady of fuckin’ Texas wants an explanation of why the government-run subway system didn’t, in his view, adequately prepare for this past weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter saying "These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration. These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them."

Back in July 2009, HR3288, a Transportation and HUD appropriations bill, came up for a vote. It included $150 million for emergency maintenance funding for the DC Metro.

Brady voted against it.

The comments are even better:

A. Why doesn’t this system that I won’t pay for work when I need it? I want answers!

B. Why doesn’t this system that I won’t pay for work when I need it to protest it's existence?

C. WHY DOES THE METRO HATE AMERICANS?

D. WHY IS IT THAT WHEN I DIDN’T BUY A NEW REFRIGERATOR WHEN THE OLD ONE BROKE, THAT THE FUCKING THING DIDN’T WORK AFTER THAT? THIS IS INJUSTICE.

E. Why didn’t they ride in on their privately owned and maintained horses, or cows, or other livestock?

F. Today, we are all the D.C. Metro.

G. Didn’t they want to secede or something?

The hits keep coming, Part 2:

Wednesday, newly famous Republican speech interrupter shouter outer Joe Wilson is terribly upset that President Obama will not be stopping by Fox News program this Sunday, despite visiting all the other major networks to talk about health care.

"If people are going to be on the Sunday talk shows, they should be on all of them."

Just two weeks ago, FOX, alone among the major news networks, refused to air Obama’s health care speech, instead showing "So You Think You Can Dance" - the third time FOX has opted out of carrying an Obama speech.

m @ 4:29 AM
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

amazing article on pitcher doc ellis from the wfmu blog website.












m @ 5:34 AM
Thursday, September 10, 2009

we should all be used to this by now. a quick history of conservatism in action













m @ 5:57 AM
Tuesday, September 08, 2009

m @ 5:33 AM
Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Dog makes meal of NC deputy cruiser's 4 tires

HOPE MILLS, N.C. (AP) — Some dogs chase cars. One in a North Carolina town decided to try and eat one. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office says a pit bull deflated all four tires of a deputy’s cruiser near Hope Mills on Sunday.

Spokeswoman Debbie Tanna says the deputy parked his car in a woman’s driveway while responding to her complaint about another dog. When Deputy Lynn Lavallis went to speak with Gloria Bass, the dog chomped into the tires. The dog didn’t attack the deputy in the town near Fayetteville. Tanna says the dog’s owner, Bass’s next-door neighbor, will be billed $500 for a new set of wheels.

m @ 4:37 AM
Friday, August 14, 2009

m @ 5:38 AM
Tuesday, August 04, 2009





















m @ 5:57 AM
Friday, July 31, 2009

1600: The Pappenheimer Family (from executed today)

On this date in 1600, Bavarians thronged to a half-mile-long procession in Munich for the horrific execution of the Pappenheimer family.

They were marginal, itinerant types: the father, Paulus Pappenheimer, cleaned privies (”Pappenheimer” would remain as Nuremberg slang for a garbageman into the 20th century, according to Robert Butts); the mother, Anna, was the daughter of a gravedigger. They wandered, begged, did odd jobs. They were Lutherans in a Catholic duchy.

So they were vulnerable to their extreme turn of bad luck. Fresh to the throne of Bavaria, young Catholic zealot Duke Maximilian I wanted a crackdown on the infernal arts, and when others accused the Pappenheimers of witchcraft, they found they had become the stars of a show trial.

Tortured into a spectacular litany of confessions, Anne Llewellyn Barstow, records, they were stripped so that their flesh could be torn off by red-hot pincers. Then Anna’s breasts were cut off. The bloody breasts were forced into her mouth and then into the mouths of her two grown sons … a hideous parody of her role as mother and nurse …

Church bells pealed to celebrate this triumph of Christianity over Satan; the crowd sang hymns; vendors hawked pamphlets describing the sins of the victims.

Meanwhile, Anna’s chest cavity bled. As the carts lurched along, the injured prisoners were in agony. Nonetheless, they were forced at one point to get down from the carts and kneel before a cross, to confess their sins. Then they were offered wine to drink, a strangely humane act in the midst of this barbaric ritual.*

One can hope that between the wine and loss of blood, the Pappenheimers were losing consciousness. They had not been granted the “privilege” of being strangled before being burned, but in keeping with the extreme brutality of these proceedings, they would be forced to endure the very flames.

Further torments awaited Paulus. A heavy iron wheel was dropped on his arms until the bones snapped … [then] Paulus was impaled on a stick driven up through his anus …

The four Pappenheimers were then tied to the stakes, the brushwood pyres were set aflame, and they were burned to death. Their eleven-year-old son was forced to watch the dying agonies of his parents and brothers. We know that Anna was still alive when the flames leapt up around her, for Hansel cried out, “My mother is squirming!” The boy was executed months later.

m @ 5:22 AM
Wednesday, July 15, 2009


























m @ 3:34 AM
Thursday, July 02, 2009

This week's police report. my only regret is that none of this happened in my neighborhood

An Eisenhower Street caller told police children were playing ding dong ditch.

A Wood Street caller told police he found a needle in the street.

A Water Street caller told police a customer refused to pay his food bill, then threatened him, and attempted to run him down with a vehicle.

A Liberty Street caller told police a beaver was struck by a vehicle.

A Third Street caller told police a young boy was screaming. Police spoke to the mother who told police the young boy recently had surgery and was in pain.

A Hanley lane caller told police a possum ran into her house and into a dog crate. She then found a possible dead baby possum head on the floor.

A Market Street caller told police a person is praying for a friend in front of Mallory Manor.

A Market Street caller told police her daughter refuses to come home.

A Brown Street caller told police a woman is lying down on the East Bay Bike Path possibly intoxicated.

A Market Street caller told police there are people crying.

m @ 5:32 AM
Friday, June 05, 2009





m @ 5:57 AM
Wednesday, May 13, 2009










m @ 6:09 AM
Thursday, April 16, 2009

while i won't get involved, if this kid believes that higher taxes took away his trip to disneyland, his parents are pure evil. if they now pay higher taxes, his parents make over $250,000 a year. If they make less, they got a tax cut. sorry, kid.
























m @ 6:09 AM
Monday, April 13, 2009

Photobucket




















































The big day is coming on April 15 when the pro-Bush, Trillion dollar Iraq War, Seven consecutive years of tax cuts for the rich supportin' Americans are taking the day off work to gather and complain about the government spending their tax dollars. It is possible that thanks to Bush's economic plan that their jobs were outsourced overseas already and they have nothing else to do that day.

Sure, the people going to these "protests" have no problem enjoying all the benefits that taxes provide like roads and a strong military. Sure, they never had an issue with paying over one trillion in tax dollars for a war that would pay for itself. But the credibility of these kind folks who lost an election a few months ago by nearly 10 million votes shouldn't be merely laughed off, no matter how much fun it would be. The real fun is watching them make it worse. This is why I will be glued to my internet machines throughout the day following all the news coverage of the GREAT TEABAGGING PARTY OF 2009!!!!!

While I have never personally protested anything other than the dredging of the Kickemuit River in 1976, I do know that protests are not supposed to be sponsored by major networks. This is the FOX NEWS TEABAGGING PARTY and people like Hannity and Greta will be hosting...

Here is an alternative name for these protests: Only Republicans are Allowed to Run Up Huge Deficits and Tell People That They Must Hate America If They Disagree With It but can anyone carry a sign that large?

Ok, just to review so I have this straight-

You surround us.

And you have teabags.

Teabagging? You are in favor of teabagging?

The unintentionally hilariousness of this is off the charts and the footage of this event will be precious.

Morans.

m @ 4:39 AM
Wednesday, April 08, 2009






John Stewart explains to the Fox News crew/Beck/Conservatives what the difference between losing a democratic election and tyranny. classic clip.

m @ 6:51 AM
Friday, March 27, 2009

i am not making this stuff up

this week alone......

Minnesota Republican Michelle Bachmann introduced legislation that would bar the dollar from being replaced by any foreign currency. "She's talking about the United States," Bachmann's spokesperson said. "This legislation would ensure that the U.S. dollar remain the currency of the United States."

Nevada Republican Governor Jim Gibbons was one of the Republican governors to resist accepting federal stimulus aid relating to unemployment funds. Though the move was opposed by lawmakers in both parties and the state's Chamber of Commerce, Gibbons said the unemployment aid was too generous, would help too many people, and undermine Nevada's sovereignty.

This week Mr. Gibbons learned the state's legislature was poised to override him, which they are statutorily permitted to do, to get the expansion of benefits. Governor Gibbons officially changed his mind Wednesday afternoon.

In a statement, he said: "As our economic crisis deepens, Nevadans are suffering because of layoffs, business closings and other cutbacks. We have the responsibility to do everything we can to help our unemployed workers get through these difficult times, even if that means passing legislation that we would not necessarily approve during prosperous times."

The House GOP handed out their budget titled "The Republican Road to Recovery"

In it was a "budget" with no numbers or even budget estimates. Instead their plan says the nation will thrive if we cut taxes, stick with Bush's energy policies, and pursue more deregulation. How much would this cost? They don't say. How would this affect the deficit? They don't say.

When Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked what his goal for deficit reduction would be -- President Obama aims to halve the nation's spending imbalance within five years -- Boehner responded simply: "To do better than Obama."

They have now promised to deliver a budget complete with numbers on April 1.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele was interviewed by CNN and claimed that every silly comment and action he's made since he became the head of the RNC is really a cold calculated step that he's got down to a science.

Steele: I'm a cause and effect kind of guy, so if I do something there's a reason for it. Even, it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, a logic behind it.

Q: Even with the current news and events there's a rational behind Rush, all of that stuff?

Steele: Yep, I want to see where the landscape looks like,. I want to see who yells the loudest. I want to know who says they're with me , but really isn't....

Q: How does that help you?

Steele: It helps me understand my position on the chess board. It helps me understand you know, where the enemy camp is and where those who inside the tent are, ahhh

Q: It's all strategic.

Steele: It's all strategic.

Sarah Palin told a story about praying for strength before last October's Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden in St. Louis.

"So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." She eventually joined hands and prayed with her daughter.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) backed out a scheduled meeting Thursday with state legislative leaders who have publicly criticized her plan to turn down a portion of the state’s federal stimulus funds.

Gary Stevens, the state’s Republican Senate President, at an afternoon press conference said "We’re here, we’re available, and unfortunately she is not." Palin fired back in a statement released during the press conference, claiming that the lawmakers canceled the meeting with her so that they could "host their own press conference."

Stevens said Palin’s account of events "is absolutely false. To say that we canceled the meeting to have a press conference is absolutely untrue and somebody should be brought to task on that," he said.

A Palin legislative aide told them that the governor could not meet with them and offered to have members of Palin’s staff speak with the lawmakers instead. The lawmakers turned down the offer because Palin’s staff "often has trouble answering questions."

pure comedy gold. all of it.

m @ 6:49 AM
Monday, March 23, 2009

for all the hubbub, there is still zero proven cases of someone falsely registering to vote through ACORN and actually casting a vote.


























m @ 4:47 PM
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

literally wishing to turn back the hands of time









how about instead you come up with ideas that have a positive effect on our future?

m @ 5:31 AM
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

This is the note from the Knoxville church shooter in February

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

nice.

The past few days with nutty Chuck Norris and nuttier Glenn Beck ranting about their hope for domestic militias on CNN- literally clinging to their guns and bibles - and proposed Texas succession from the Union (or as we call it up here in the northeast, "treason"), I wonder how many more of these right wingers that are only 50 days into their well-earned political impotence will be turning to violence against innocent Americans who fairly and overwhelmingly defeated them in the two elections. It's far more demented than we ever suspected.

In two short months, the Republicans I know have become scared shitless of social conservatives.

m @ 5:42 AM
Monday, March 09, 2009

Obama is proposing a top rate lower than Reagan's first term, lower than Nixon's, lower than Eisenhower's, and lower than FDR's when he pulled us out of the Great Depression.

m @ 5:46 AM
Monday, January 26, 2009

take ten minutes to watch this clip.


It isn't just horrible advice and 100% of dead wrongness. Their treatment of liberal economic naysayer Peter Schiff, who compared to these arrogant chumps comes off like Nostradamus, is pathetic and dismissive. Ben Stein, Neil Cavuto, all the other FOX News and CNBC "experts" may have given you advice that has led to you being broke. the next time you see them giving expert advice, think of these clips.

m @ 1:12 PM
Tuesday, January 20, 2009

in honor of president bush's last day in office, please go to the nearest storm drain and pour in one quart of oil and one gallon of anti-freeze.










m @ 5:21 AM
Friday, January 16, 2009

remember when they were tapping your phones and emails and told you "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about?

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is aggressively pushing back against a federal court order instructing the most important offices in the White House to preserve all of their e-mail.

In court papers late Friday, the administration argued that a federal court has no authority to impose such a requirement on the offices of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Council.

and they wonder why the legacy tour of the past month has failed to change anyone's opinion of this massive presidential failure. please, just go.










m @ 5:00 AM
Wednesday, December 24, 2008

helpful flow chart for the holidays



we are all confused about the changes coming but this should clear it up


have a safe and happy holiday.

m @ 5:53 AM
Thursday, December 18, 2008










m @ 6:23 AM
Friday, December 12, 2008

You want a manger with Baby Jesus, they want a "Santa Claus will take you to Hell" sign, the other guy wants a Flying Spaghetti Monster statue, another wants a Festivus pole and another person wants a sign offering blessings on all people.

The Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based church that has blamed deaths in Iraq on U.S. tolerance of homosexuality, has asked Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire's office to approve a "Santa Claus will take you to Hell" message to display among other religious statements in the state capitol's third-floor hallway. The message would be near a Nativity set, three signs mocking atheism, and an atheist sign that celebrates the winter solstice.

The State Department of General Administration also has a request for a display depicting "The Spaghetti Monster" and "a Christian woman in Bellevue who wants to erect a sign offering blessings on all people." along with a request for a "Festivus" pole, a reference to the mock holiday "Festivus for the Rest of Us" popularized by the "Seinfeld" sitcom in the late 1990s.

Where is your religious tolerance now?

m @ 5:24 AM
Friday, November 21, 2008

you can't make this crap up

Sarah Palin yesterday gave a press conference in front of a guy slaughtering turkeys - despite being on camera to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey. Equally hilarious are the breaking news headlines that MSNBC ran while Palin was speaking. These are real.

m @ 5:28 AM
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

why does everyone love sarah palin

1. the religious right see her as the natural heir to their wing of the republican party.

2. democrats and independents love her because incompetence, by itself, is not entertaining. however, when the incompetent are supremely self-confident, full of certitude, have the vocabulary of a fifth grader, and are absent of insight or the curiosity to seek out knowledge, it’s absolutely compelling - and it never has a happy ending. man, this is gonna be great.

m @ 6:04 AM
Wednesday, November 05, 2008

the final stage is ACCEPTANCE

repeat after me-

America is now clearly CENTER-LEFT.
President -
52% to 46%
66 mill vs 58 mill
365 vs 173 Electoral Votes


For the second election in a row, not one Democratic Senator lost his seat.
In the House, Democrats beat 12 Republican incumbents, captured nine open GOP seats while Republicans were only able to knock off four Democratic incumbents.
Democrats could have a net gain of 20 seats in the House.
In Governor races across the nation, Democrats won 7 of 11.




m @ 6:04 AM
Tuesday, November 04, 2008

m @ 7:45 AM
Friday, October 31, 2008

when are you going to understand that you and others like you do not have the corner on spirituality or patriotism.

I and countless other liberals are church-going, flag-pin-wearing, marching-band-loving, speed-limit-obeying, hard-working, Pledge-of-Allegiance-saying, cause-donating, fellow-human-helping, fireworks-adoring, American-history-reading, litter-avoiding, God-believing, tax-paying, 9-11-commemorating, National-Anthem-singing Americans.

No Neo-Cons.
No New McCarthism.

m @ 5:26 AM
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

tues november 4




Dear America,

Mine.
Mine mine mine.
Me Me Me Me Me Me Me!
Mine mine mine mine mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine!
Blame them.
In conclusion: Fear fear fear fear. Very scary fear!
Sincerely,
The Republican Party
P.S. If you liked Joseph McCarthy, you'll love us!

Dear America,

We.
Us. We. Together. Americans. United States.
Hope, compassion, equality, inclusiveness, competence.
Brains, common sense, community, respect, hard work, accountability.
Action, change, more viewpoints, smarter solutions.
Hold those who brought us here responsible.
In conclusion: We have not given up.
Sincerely,
The Democratic Party.
P.S. Vote.

m @ 5:12 AM
Tuesday, October 07, 2008

To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men!



m @ 5:18 AM
Tuesday, September 23, 2008

20 bands that should be in the rock and roll hall of fame but are not

(eligible based on 25 years since their first album)

most deserving to least deserving:
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Three Dog Night (13 gold albums, Twenty One Top 40 hits, Three #1 hits)
Rush
Moody Blues
Genesis/Peter Gabriel/Phil Collins
Alice Cooper
Journey
Grand Funk Railroad
Kiss
T Rex
America
Abba
The Cars
Deep Purple
Yes
Hall and Oates
Thin Lizzy
Link Wray
Dick Dale
Herman's Hermits
The B-52s
The Cure
Devo
Brian Eno
Sonic Youth

some more overlooked but equally deserving:
the guess who
lou reed
frank zappa
cheap trick


bands that are already in which is why all of the above deserve to be in too:

The Pretenders
The Police
The Ramones
The Talking Heads
Jackson Browne

m @ 5:21 AM
Thursday, August 14, 2008

m @ 6:13 AM
Friday, August 01, 2008




















m @ 6:00 AM
Tuesday, July 15, 2008



running from democrats



























bloop, bleep, boop

























Laurel Park is a haven between the beach and the bustle


Sunday, July 13, 2008

By Christine Dunn Providence Journal Staff Writer

Residents say that Laurel Park, a neighborhood built on the hills near the Warren end of the Kickemuit River, is a friendly place, a mix of long-established families and newer arrivals who get together at neighborhood association parties, beach cleanups and children’s events.

Laurel Lane, a main road that leads to the Laurel Park Improvement Association’s playground and beach, is accessed from Metacom Avenue, but this quiet neighborhood is a stark contrast from Metacom’s multiple traffic lanes, fast-food restaurants and strip malls.

“It’s like you’re in a completely different world” from Metacom Avenue, according to Lori Van Amberg, who recently moved to Bay Road with her husband and their young children. Van Amberg said her husband, who is a chiropractor, works on Metacom Avenue; they are renting a house facing the river that is owned by Lynn Babbitt.

Van Amberg said her mother-in-law met Babbitt in Hilton Head Island, S.C., and that is what ultimately led to her move to Laurel Park. The Babbitts are one of the families that has deep roots in Laurel Park; the MacDougall family is another, she said.

The Laurel Park Improvement Association was established in 1925, in the days when the area was a summer cottage community. Though it is largely a year-round neighborhood today, it still has the feel of “a funky little summer neighborhood… with a great view,” said Mark Bosco, a builder and a musician who owns property in Laurel Park.

Last week, Bosco was working on the renovation of a sunny two-family house on a hill at 17 Fairview Ave. Bosco said he and his business partner, Frank Correia, plan to rent the apartments in the 1926 house and use the detached garage building as a music studio.

Lori Nunes built her house on Third Street in Laurel Park after the death of her 17-year-old son, Jason M. Nunes, in a drag-racing car accident in 2003.

She said the neighborhood has been “a healing place” for herself and her two daughters. In the years since the accident, Nunes has also worked with state legislators to toughen penalties for street racing. But Nunes said it’s time for change in her life, and she is planning a move to North Carolina. Her three-bedroom Colonial is on the market at $319,900.

Nunes said that although many residents have built large waterfront houses or added on to older houses, the neighborhood’s smaller cottages “add that little summer flair.” She said the diversity of house sizes and styles also make the neighborhood “affordable for almost everybody.”

“It’s like a little community within itself,” Nunes said. “People really embrace the river.”

Many of the neighborhood association events are held near the water. Every spring, around the time of Earth Day, volunteers join in a beach cleanup. An annual cookout and fireworks display takes place on the night before Independence Day. There is an ice cream social in August, a chowder cookoff in September and a Halloween party for children in October. December brings a Yule fire on the beach.

Nunes said the neighborhood also has a kayaking club, and a posted notice near the playground invites residents to join the Laurel Park Book Club.

“There are also events for older, retired people,” she said. “The neighborhood is very family-oriented… Because it’s at the end of the river, it’s very private. You just sit down on the beach, and it’s incredible.”

Only a handful of properties were listed for sale last week in Laurel Park, starting at a price of $179,900 for a 1935 Colonial with 3 bedrooms, 1 full bath and 1 half bath at 10 Terrace Ave. Listings also include a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house to be built next door, at 12 Terrace Ave., for $299,900. The most expensive house on the market was a 4-bedroom, 3-full-bath 1940 contemporary house at 4 Bay Rd., with 3,954 square feet of living space, and a list price of $599,000.

POPULATION:

(Warren, 2000) 11,360

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Warren, 2007) $280,000

INTERESTING FACT:

The Luther Memorial Playground on Laurel Lane was named in honor of the late Henry W. Luther, an early association leader who was beloved in the neighborhood

m @ 5:38 AM
Thursday, July 10, 2008













m @ 5:34 AM
Thursday, June 19, 2008

New police chief finished last on test



BRISTOL — At 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 23, the doors to Room 286 in the Roger Williams University School of Law building closed. Nine men sat in chairs, as several women, volunteer members of the Bristol Personnel Board, began instructing them on the test they were about to take.

One hundred questions. Two hours and 30 minutes. Testing their knowledge of police procedures; laws; concepts of supervision and management.

The nine test-takers included all of the top brass in the Bristol Police Department (excluding retiring Police Chief Col. Russell S. Serpa, whose job they were all seeking), as well as current and retired police veterans from Bristol and other communities.

When they finished the tests, the women collected the exams and sealed them in an envelope. Shortly after, the envelope was mailed to the University of Maryland's testing center.

Two weeks later, on March 10, the five women of the personnel board were together again in a conference room at the Bristol Statehouse building on High Street. They opened a sealed envelope to reveal the nine test scores. The high score was 83. The low score was 57. They rejected that person's score, because they had determined 60 was the passing mark for this exam. They sent the other eight scores to the Bristol town administrator's office.

Two months later, on May 7, the man with the 57 on the test was publicly introduced as the new chief of police in Bristol. Josue "Josh" Canario received a hearty round of applause in the Bristol Town Council chambers at Town Hall upon his promotion from deputy chief.

The trail connecting that law school classroom to the office of Bristol's top cop is a twisting path. It was carved by the wheels of Bristol's highest public servant, Town Administrator Diane Mederos, the woman who steered the hiring process and ultimately chose Chief Canario for his new role. A few carts were overturned along the way.

Back to the beginning


The trail actually begins last fall, when Chief of Police Col. Russell S. "Rusty" Serpa told his boss, Ms. Mederos, he planned to retire at the end of 2007. He was finishing his 39th year as a member of the police force, his 11th as chief.

His second-in-command was Deputy Chief Canario, a 22-year veteran. Some would say he was the obvious heir apparent, hand-picked by Chief Serpa to be the deputy chief four years ago, and hand-picked again as the interim chief in March of this year.

When Chief Serpa's intentions became clear last November, Ms. Mederos began planning for his replacement. One of her first steps was to contact Earl Sweeney, principal of EMS Affiliates Inc., a New Hampshire consulting firm that specializes in police department management studies.

Mr. Sweeney has a history with Bristol. The firm conducted a comprehensive study of the Bristol Police Department in the early 1990s, under the direction of then-Town Administrator Joseph Parella. Mr. Sweeney returned to consult on the promotion of Col. Serpa to police chief in 1996. He returned again to help the police department draft a policy and procedures manual that remained in effect until last year. And he returns almost every weekend in the summer, using Bristol as a launching point to reach his summer home on Hog Island.

He jumped aboard, and he and Ms. Mederos began outlining the process for hiring a new chief. The first thing Mr. Sweeney wanted to do was implement a system he was familiar with — a model they use in most of these hirings — which he calls an assessment center. It places candidates into real-life scenarios and assesses how they handle various situations.

But Bristol law does not allow that.

The town code has a detailed section devoted to the promotion of a police chief. It outlines a specific 100-point evaluation system, with 60 points determined by performance on a written test; 30 points by the evaluation of the town administrator; and 10 points by police experience.

The town code also gives authority over that test to the town's personnel board — though just how much authority is debatable, and that debate is critical to the events that followed.

Preparing for the test

Ms. Mederos advertised the police chief opening in mid-November in both The Providence Sunday Journal and the Bristol Phoenix. Twenty-one people applied for the job.

At the same time, Mr. Sweeney began advising the personnel board on what they should be doing, and how. Because the written exam must come from an agency outside the state, he steered them toward International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR) of Alexandria, Va. The firm, which offers management tools, including tests for job applicants in diverse fields, has been utilized by Bristol many times for evaluating job applicants.

The Virginia firm offers a Police Administrator Test, designed for the rank of lieutenant. The cost is $15 per test-taker. Mr. Sweeney said there was no prepared test for police chief, and he told the personnel board this test would be sufficient.

"This was a lieutenant's test, and since this was being used for chief of police, anyone applying for police chief could be measured by this," Mr. Sweeney said in an interview this week.

Though the testing firm does not have a prepared police chief test, it does offer a custom testing service. For about $1,300, it can design a 100-question test specific to a community and its opening, according to Jacob Jackovich, the firm's association coordinator.

The town apparently never gave that serious consideration. The lieutenant's test was considered sufficient.

The interviews

There were several smaller steps in the hiring process, but the most significant next step occurred the first two days of February, when a three-person panel selected by Ms. Mederos sat down to interview 12 applicants. Ms. Mederos had whittled the field down to only those qualified candidates from the immediate region of Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Seven were from Bristol, five from out of town.

The interview panel consisted of the former town administrator, Mr. Parella, zoning board chairman Charles Alexandre and Mr. Sweeney. Retired high school principal Margaret "Peggy" Vendituoli was supposed to be a member of the panel, but at the last minute was unable to take part.

One applicant walked in to meet the interview panel and withdrew from consideration immediately. The Phoenix was unable to identity him.

Mr. Sweeney had developed a series of questions that were asked to all applicants over a two-day period, Feb. 1 and 2. Each interview was about 30 minutes, and the panel evaluated the men on their ability to think on their feet, their verbal skills, their sense of compassion. They asked them who had the biggest influence on their life? Who was best police officer they'd ever known, and why? Who was the worst police officer they'd ever known, and why?

Ms. Mederos was not there during any of the interviews, but she arrived as soon as they ended and met with the three men on the panel.

Asked why she decided not to take part in the interviews, she said: "We had the candidates do extensive questionnaires, so I had a good idea of who they were, what their philosophies were. I had their resumés ... Plus I had a personal knowledge of some of the candidates. I've worked with them over the years. I knew what their strengths and weaknesses were. So I was very comfortable letting the panel do the interviews. Then I stepped in and got very fresh information, and an outside perspective, from them."

Ms. Mederos used that information to give a rating to each applicant from 0 to 30. She did not share those ratings with anyone at the time. They were sealed in an envelope and delivered to the personnel board, but it was revealed later that Deputy Chief Canario scored extremely high. Mr. Sweeney said it was well-deserved. He said the deputy chief interviewed very well, and had a very high sense of compassion.

"I thought Diane went pretty much in order of the way the interview board had appraised the candidates," Mr. Sweeney said. However, asked if he was surprised by any of her ratings, high or low, he said, "I would have thought that perhaps one of them would have been a little closer to the 30." Because of confidentiality restraints, he would not identify which officer that was.

Pass or fail?

The next step in the process was the test administered Feb. 23 at the law school. Personnel board members were operating under the premise that the passing mark on this test was 60 correct questions out of 100.

There is wide disagreement over where that passing mark of 60 originated. Several personnel board members say the consultant, Mr. Sweeney, steered them toward setting 60 as a mark. He denies that, though he remembers a discussion about setting a passing mark.

"I honestly don't remember the total discussion, but they talked about setting a cutoff score," Mr. Sweeney said.

However, he added, the testing firm does not set a passing mark, which Jacob Jackovich of IPMA-HR confirmed. "We provide agencies with data to help them make a decision. We provide scores from the last few years, but it's up to the agency to decide whether to set a passing mark," Mr. Jackovich said.

Rosetta DeLuca of the personnel board still believes the standard of 60 came from Mr. Sweeney. "That's what he advised us," she said. Personnel board secretary Linda Arruda agreed. So did Chairwoman Rhonda Nunes. Furthermore, the board has used passing grades on many applicants' tests in the past, said Ms. Nunes, the person with the longest tenure on that board.

Mr. Sweeney said he asked the testing company about a pass/fail standard for the exam. He said some communities have set a pass/fail standard of 50; others have used 75; others have used none at all.

The town administrator said the personnel board had no authority to establish a pass/fail standard on the exam. Town code does not say anything about a pass/fail level for the exam, the testing company does not set a standard, and there was no pass/fail standard used when Col. Serpa was promoted 12 years ago, according to Ms. Mederos. She called the 60 an "arbitrary figure."

Ms. Mederos said: "If the personnel board had made it known ahead of time, if they had informed all the applicants ahead of time, it would have been easier for me to support it. But nothing in the town ordinance, nothing in the testing procedures itself, set a passing grade.

"What we're governed by does not allow a failing grade. The town solicitor supported that. There's nothing in writing that says there's a cutoff score."

Yet cutoff scores are used by the Town of Bristol. At nearly the same time the police chief hiring process was taking place, the town's personnel board was testing for new police patrolmen.

On Feb. 9 — exactly two weeks before the chief's test took place — the personnel board administered a test to 17 candidates for police patrolman. The passing mark on that test was 70. One person scored below 70, and that person's application was rejected.

Asked how the personnel board has the authority to set a cutoff score of 70 for patrolmen, but not set a score for police chief, Ms. Mederos said, "I don't know what the process is for the patrolmen's exam. I wasn't that privy to that information. That is a whole different process. I really didn't have any part in that."

Board rejects his score

When the personnel board met on March 10 to review the police chief test results, they had a cutoff score, which they all had agreed to, and 60 was the mark. They saw Deputy Chief Canario's score. It was a 57. They talked about what to do.

"We decided, as a board, we all agreed, that 57 was not a passing mark, and was not even up for consideration," said Ms. DeLuca.

"It was, in our interpretation, a failing grade," said the chairwoman, Ms. Nunes.

They certified the other eight scores on the test and wrote those actual test scores (from 61 to 83) on a grid prepared by Ms. Mederos. Already written on the grid were the names of the applicants and their respective scores on the interview, as determined by Ms. Mederos. They wrote in no score for the deputy chief.

They then started to compute the seniority/experience score for each candidate (up to 10 points each) — and because of confusion over how to score that, they called Ms. Mederos at home to get her opinion. She told them to sit tight, drove to her office and read to them from the town charter. All of the top candidates received the same 10 points in that category.

When all the scores were recorded, the personnel board members signed to certify the list and sent it to the town administrator's office. Ms. Mederos finally had her list of the top three candidates to choose from. Deputy Chief Canario was not one of them.

Legal counsel intervenes

When Ms. Mederos received the personnel board report, she was confused. For one, because the personnel board had written in the actual test score — 61 to 83 — instead of converting those scores onto a 60-point scale, the overall scores for the top candidates added up to more than 100 points. Secondly, the deputy chief, the man who she had given the highest interview score possible to, had been knocked from contention.

"I needed to make sure that the process was fair for all of the applicants," said Ms. Mederos. "When one person wasn't even included, I had a problem. One person had not even been included in the scores. He had been left off. That wasn't fair, I don't care who the person was."

The town's lead attorney on most matters of municipal affairs is Michael Ursillo. He attends most town council meetings and frequently advises the town administrator on legal or procedural issues.

Ms. Mederos consulted with Mr. Ursillo and he backed her up. Town code says nothing of a "passing mark" on the exam. He contacted the personnel board and told them he needed to meet with them.

That meeting did not take place until nearly a month later, on April 8. By that time, people throughout town were wondering, and asking, why it was taking so long to hire a police chief. Rumors were flying, too.

The April 8 meeting, held again inside the Bristol Statehouse building, had more firepower around the table than any personnel board meeting ever had before. In addition to the five women on the board, the town administrator, the town's lead attorney and the hired consultant were all in attendance. "There was a lot of pressure applied to us," said Ms. DeLuca. They quickly went into executive session to discuss the police chief scoring system.

The minutes of that meeting, which were initially sealed by the board but released to the Phoenix earlier this month by the town's attorney, show they met for a little over an hour in executive session. The minutes are only a draft, as they have not been formally reviewed or accepted by the personnel board — but then again, the personnel board can not accept them, since four of the five members have since resigned.

The draft minutes state: "Mr. Ursillo advised the Personnel Board to include the score of Candidate Josue Canario in the March 14, 2008, Certified List, to re-certify the entire list and to re-submit the Certified List of Candidates to the Town Administrator. Chairperson Rhonda Nunes did as directed and asked for a Motion."

In addition to including the deputy chief in the new list, the personnel board was directed to re-calculate the scores so they would comply with the overall 100-point scoring system set forth by town code. In other words, they had to take out their calculators and reduce every score to 60 percent of its original. The low score of 57 became a 34. The high score of 83 became a 50.

The motion, made by Liz Harvey and seconded by Elizabeth Rene, passed 3-2. Ms. Arruda and Ms. DeLuca voted against it, and they both refused to sign the new certified list. Minutes later, Rhonda Nunes announced her resignation from the board. The next day, Ms. Arruda resigned. A month later, Ms. DeLuca and Ms. Rene did the same. The four who resigned from the board had all been appointed by the Bristol Town Council. The one who remains, Ms. Harvey, is a town administrator appointee.

In her resignation letter, Ms. DeLuca wrote: "I cannot compromise myself, my ethics or my principles ... Apparently, these are the requirements to serve on this committee."

Asked to elaborate this week, Ms. DeLuca said, "Personally, I was just so, so upset, and felt that I was used. Why do you have a personnel board? Why do you waste their time? I felt like I had been duped."

Asked about not signing the new the list, she said: "I refused to sign it. Someone who scores a 57 is not capable of leading a police department of 38 or so people. They're not qualified."

Ms. Nunes said she was most upset by an article in the Bristol Phoenix in March, when Deputy Chief Canario was named the interim chief of the department, and it was clear he had been groomed to be the next chief. "That really bothered me more than anything. That let me know it was a foregone conclusion that he would get that position. It really should have been a level playing field," she said.

Ms. Arruda said she too was frustrated. "It just felt like there was a real lack of management leadership," said Ms. Arruda. In the end, she felt like she and the other members of the personnel board had been reduced to simple test proctors, with no real authority.

The top three

With the new list of scores in hand in early April, Ms. Mederos could choose the next police chief. She had to choose from the top three candidates, and Deputy Chief Canario was in the top three. She interviewed those three men, a group believed to include two other high-ranking members of the police department. She chose the deputy chief.

"If he had a score that would have not put him in the top three, then I couldn't have chosen him," said Ms. Mederos. "His test score, regardless of what it was, enabled him to be in the top three. You need to treat everyone the same."

She admitted she had tremendous influence in determining who landed in that top three. In the end, her extremely high rating for Deputy Chief Canario in the interview enabled him to make it into the top three by just a few points. She has no apologies for that.

"I based my points on the people I had the most confidence in to do the job. So my points were skewed by the people I felt were the best fit for the job," she said.

"I don't have any regrets. I think this young man has not only distinguished himself as a deputy chief, he has some on the job experience that makes him an outstanding person for this role. Plus, he works great with the deputy chief [newly promoted Nick Guercia]. I think we're very, very lucky that we have these people in our department."

After she named Deputy Chief Canario as her choice, she asked the consultant to do a comprehensive background check on him. That included a search of criminal and personnel records, and interviews with people throughout town and law enforcement.

"Based on my background investigation, I think she hired a very well-qualified person," said Mr. Sweeney. "The right person? The test of time will tell that. Do I think she made a mistake? No. She hired someone who has deep roots in Bristol, and has been second in command for a long time, and is very well qualified."

Mr. Sweeney's work was done. He was paid $6,861.47.

Conclusion

Chief Canario has been on the job for more than a month. He signed a three-year contract that will pay him $75,700 in the first year.

Asked Wednesday to comment for this story, he said he does not feel comfortable talking about the test or the process used to promote him. "I couldn't tell you who scored what on anything," he said. "I don't know what I scored. I made it to the top three, and the town administrator chose me. Anything else, I can't tell you."

By Scott Pickering

m @ 5:37 AM
Friday, June 06, 2008































m @ 5:47 AM
Friday, May 16, 2008

























m @ 5:27 AM
Friday, May 09, 2008



75orLess Live Showcase Saturday June 7 at The Penalty Box Providence, RI with Six Star General, The Masons and Ketman. No cover, 21+.


m @ 9:01 AM
Friday, April 25, 2008

























m @ 11:17 AM
Friday, April 11, 2008

























m @ 5:15 AM
Friday, April 04, 2008

























m @ 5:50 AM
Tuesday, April 01, 2008

‘I hate you, I’m out of here,’ says the groom, injured in 30-foot fall in Middletown


By Meaghan Wims Providence Journal Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — A would-be groom feuding with friends and his future father-in-law early Saturday morning, the day of his wedding, leaped from a third-floor motel balcony, suffering serious injuries, according to the police.

The apparently intoxicated groom survived the plummet — a rental car cushioned his fall —but he missed his scheduled nuptials; he’s remained hospitalized since the incident.

The Middletown police responded to the Comfort Inn Saturday at about 1:50 a.m. for a report of a man who had fallen. In the Aquidneck Avenue parking lot, the police found the groom, coherent but in the fetal position and bleeding from his head and face. He was taken to Newport Hospital and later transferred to Rhode Island Hospital, where his condition was not being released yesterday evening.

The police spoke with the groom at Newport Hospital, but he appeared drunk and was uncooperative, telling the police he didn’t remember where he lives or what had happened that night, according to a police report.

Members of the wedding party told the police that they had gone to dinner at Sardella’s restaurant, in Newport, and then to the Sports Ticket Bar and Grill, next door to the Comfort Inn. Friends told the police that the groom had had several drinks, the police said.

Back at the motel, the groom argued with one of his friends, and when another buddy tried to separate the two, the groom allegedly punched the peacemaker in the chin, the police said. The brother of the bride-to-be separated the men, but the groom went to another room and began arguing with his prospective father-in-law.

(At some point during the scuffles, a Comfort Inn staffer went to the third floor to try to quiet the loud group. The staffer told the police that the groom was acting aggressive and tried to attack him but was restrained by members of the wedding party, according to the police.)

The groom’s friends told the police that they saw the groom grabbing his fiancée’s father. A friend put the groom in a headlock, but the future father-in-law told the group that he would handle the situation, according to a police report.

The two continued yelling at each other in earshot of the groom’s friends, who heard the groom tell his fiancée’s dad, “I hate you, I’m out of here.”

The groom then jumped from the third-floor balcony, striking the fender of a 2007 Toyota Avalon before falling to the pavement.

--thanks to leeron for the tip.

m @ 4:15 AM
Friday, March 28, 2008






















m @ 5:01 AM
Friday, March 14, 2008

2008 Providence Phoenix Best Music Poll finalists have been named and 75orLess did very well with 8 finalists in 16 categories. You can vote here-. The nominees are:


Local Act
Six Star General

Breakthru Act
The Cold War

Male Vocalist
Johnny Carlevale

Roots Act
Barn Burning

Acoustic/Singer Songwriter
Ben Pilgrim

Punk/Garage
Fashion Failures

Category-Defying Act
Sharks Come Cruisin

Best Album
The Cold War - Le Petit Morte

The members of Six Star General will be playing DJ at Jake's Bar and Grille in Providence tonight from 10pm-2am. Expect lots of JJ Fad, Kazoo bands, horrible cover songs, alternative mixes and live tracks of songs you know and love mostly gathered from the links over at the 75orLess found music blog.

m @ 5:32 AM
Tuesday, March 11, 2008




















m @ 5:28 AM
Friday, February 29, 2008

some people need to live where the action is. then there's the police report from my local paper


fire
A caller on Bridge Street reported about four children trying to build a small fire to jump over with their skateboards.
pee
A caller on Arlington Avenue reported that neighbors were urinating out of a window at 2:44 a.m. Police investigated but did not make an arrest.
cows
A caller reported that his sister's cows were loose on his Touisset Road property at 2:42 p.m. Police said they notified the animal control officer on duty.
toothpaste ingestions
A caller on Main Street said there was a possible poisoning. When a dispatcher asked what the poison was, the caller said toothpaste. An officer responded and confirmed that the substance swallowed was toothpaste, and that there was no need for rescue.
garage door open
An open garage door was reported on Colonial Drive at 1:27 a.m. Police spoke to the homeowner, who closed the door.
wake up everybody!
A caller on Water Street reported a woman banging on the walls, playing loud music and screaming, "Wake up everybody!" When police responded, they said there was no music. No arrests were made.
taping neighbor
A man on Palmer Avenue told police his neighbor was taping him with a video camera. Police said they spoke with the parties and resolved the issue.

m @ 4:21 AM
Thursday, February 28, 2008















m @ 5:51 AM
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

it's funny that four years after the bloggies took notice, my home state weekly alternative paper gets in on the act. the phoenix has always been very kind in their coverage and keeping us in mind is greatly appreciated.

m @ 4:47 AM
Monday, February 18, 2008





yes, the rumors are true. a few of my photographs taken inside Rocky Point back in August 2001 will appear in the closing credits of an episode of assy mcgee sometime this season.

i guess this is a sign things are officially getting weird.

in a completely unrelated note, Thank you, each note secure.

m @ 4:27 AM
Monday, February 11, 2008

i had the ultimate nightmare last night


i cannot imagine ever having a worse nightmare. while i am not into dream analysis, here is what i remember.

i left my house and it was 10 degrees outside with 40 mph winds and i only had a light jacket. before i could get to my truck, a pack of hostile dogs kept me cornered until i broke free, made it to my car and drove away. As i drive away, i notice my low gas warning light is on but before i can do anything about it, i get stuck in gridlocked traffic which is due to the yankees world series victory parade. after the longest time stuck in traffic and having to go to the bathroom really bad, i park my car, get out and start walking but get find myself in this mob of people where everyone is wearing cologne or perfume or smoking cigarettes or cigars. as a bonus, i can't find my asthma inhaler. i ask someone what all these people are waiting for and they tell me they are selling tickets to the blue collar comedy tour however everyone had on those purple band-aids on their faces so i realized that i was really at the republican national convention. so i start running as fast as i can away from there and duck into a building i don't recognize but the sign outside says "free beer" which i start to think, finally some redemption, but then i realize the fine print says "dark beer only". when i get inside i notice that i am in a steakhouse which doubles as a piano bar.

seriously what the fuck. forgive me if i never sleep again.

m @ 6:25 AM
Thursday, January 31, 2008



75OL-037 The Spectacular Fantastic's "Consume" EP has been released in a silkscreened edition of 75 copies. The Spectacular Fantastic is a pop leaning rock band from the outskirts of Cincinnati. The duo, featuring multi-instrumentalists' Mike Detmer and Jonathan Williams, return with their new EP "Consume", co-released with Cincinnati's Ionik Recordings. This EP contains a link for a free download of the online only 'Reward' EP. Having made some of their back catalog available for free downloads, the band believes that allowing the listener to decide what to pay for music is the wave of the future for independent artists. For fans of The Beatles, Neil Young, and Sebadoh. You can download the track Tiny Little Heart or order a copy at the 75orLess Records website for only $6.00 postpaid.



m @ 6:02 AM
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Twenty five free mp3s from the 75orLess Records label


Here is a collection of free downloads from the 75orLess Records roster. All of the bands listed below are from the Rhode Island-Southeastern Massachusetts area and have been kind enough to allow these songs to be available.

The Propellers
Crop Circles
Colt State
Man On Edge
Torches
Vint Spiders
Deshingling
Guntaard
Spraying Black and Gold
Get Naked and Roll Around In It
Killing Pablo
The Eunich from Munich
aHOFF
The Cold War
Tender Truth
New Romance
Fred Kendal Abong
Messy
Vultures
Six Star General
Hamburgini
Sun Up Pants Down (Jordan Kitchen Sink Remix)
Smokers Tooth Polish
Fashion Failures - Society's Flaw
Baylies Band - Let's Get Stabbed
Frenzy of Tongs - The Traffic
Ben Pilgrim - God Should Have Made You Ugly
Chris Evil and the Taints - Watch You Die
The Inclined - Is That Enough?
The Followers - Has Its Moments
The Masons - Spaceman
The F.I.D.'s - Mummy vs Robot vs Me

m @ 6:06 AM
Friday, January 25, 2008

six star gneral on wbru

i finally remembered to listen to terry on WBRU hosting the retro lunch today. they were promoting the Rhode Island Community Food Bank compilation which we were asked to be on. Although it has many classic punk and alternative bands form Providence, they did ask three contemporary bands to be on it and we were one of them. they started with rash of stabbings then hope anchor's "means to an end" then the bass line for "Chesthair Plus One" comes blasting out of the speakers. after it was done he got on the mic and talked about us as "no band around here is doing more for local music than these guys" and mentioned we have a label 75orless Records 'that releases a ton of local releases and we also put on a great live show".

even though i haven't listened to WBRU in 15 years, i have to admit it was a thrill to hear our retarded song being played at 12:15pm on a friday.

apparently the compilation had a typo for our listing and it says

Six Star General - Chesthair Plus

which i can totally live with considering the potentially disasterous typos-

Six Star General - Chesthair Pus One
Sex Star General - Chesthair Pus
or my favorite
Sex Star Veneral - Chesthair Pus

m @ 6:55 AM















m @ 6:44 AM
Friday, January 04, 2008











m @ 5:40 AM
Friday, December 28, 2007

MACDOUGALL, BRUCE L. SR. Age 67 of 32 Ninth St. passed away at his home on December 24th. Born in Providence a son of Delores V. (Lessard) MacDougall and the late Robert H. MacDougall Sr.

Mr. MacDougall was employed by Monarch Ind. as a Finishing Specialist for many years. He was a communicant of St. Jean BaptisteChurch, and a Graduate of Warren High class of 1958.

Besides his loving mother, he leaves his children, Bruce MacDougall Jr. of East Providence, Rebecca Grandgeorge of Bristol, and Stephanie Theroux of Saunderstown RI. Brother of Robert H. MacDougall Jr. of Newport, Scott MacDougall of Cranston, James K. MacDougall Sr., Rebecca R. MacDougall Both of Warren, and Delores V. Donnelly of Barrington. Grandfather of Michael, Brian and Jason Grandgeorge, Gabriella, Ariana and Phillip Theroux. He was also the father of the late Jason MacDougall and brother of the late Claude D. MacDougall.

His funeral will be held on MONDAY at 8:45am from The WILBUR-ROMANO Funeral Home 615 Main St., Warren, with a Mass of Christian Burial in St. Jean Baptiste Church at 10am, Interment will follow in St. Jean Baptiste Cemetery. Visitation will be on SUNDAY from 4 to 7pm, in Lieu of flowers, memorial gifts to; St. Jean Baptiste Church Main St. Warren RI 02885 in Bruces' memory would be deeply appreciated.

m @ 5:59 PM
Friday, December 21, 2007

75orLess Records year end accolades



Providence Daily Dose was the first to ask me my favorite releases of the year and they posted them today. The rest of the 75orLess staff will be submitting theirs shortly and I will compile them for your reading pleasure.



The local music writer for the Providence Phoenix posted his best of 2007 list in this week's issue and 75orLess had three mentioned plus Barn Burning, which is one of my favorites local releases from this past year. Not sure how he missed the Wrong Reasons "Bury Your Problems" though.


for everyone who visits, please have a safe and happy holiday.

m @ 4:56 AM
Tuesday, December 18, 2007











m @ 6:18 AM
Friday, December 07, 2007










m @ 5:52 AM
Monday, December 03, 2007

Monday, December 3 at 8pm, tune into your local PBS station for You Must Be This Tall The Rocky Point Movie

if you tune in, you might see a familiar face answering phones in the background.








This Saturday, December 8

75orLess Live Music Showcase

The Cold War, Six Star General and Hope Anchor

21+ $5.00 9pm





DIRECTIONS

Firehouse 13 is located on the same street as Jones' Storage Warehouse near the Broad St./ Elmwood Ave split.

From downtown:

Take WEYBOSSET ST. across I-95. WEYBOSSET ST. becomes BROAD ST. At the 2nd light turn RIGHT onto PEARL ST. Take the first LEFT onto CENTRAL ST. Firehouse 13 is in the middle of the block.

Interstate directions:

From the North:

Take I-95 Southbound To the ATWELLS AVE. exit- EXIT 21. Stay STRAIGHT on SERVICE RD. No 7. Turn RIGHT onto BROAD ST. at Crossroads RI (4th light). At the 2nd light turn RIGHT onto PEARL ST. Take the first LEFT onto CENTRAL ST. Firehouse 13 is in the middle of the block.

From the South:

Take I-95 N. Take BROADWAY EXIT 21. Turn LEFT onto BROADWAY. Go over the highway and make an immediate LEFT onto SERVICE RD. NO 7. Turn RIGHT onto BROAD ST at Crossroads RI (2nd light). Turn RIGHT onto PEARL ST. Take the first LEFT onto CENTRAL ST. Firehouse 13 is in the middle of the block.

m @ 10:06 AM
Friday, November 30, 2007

75OL-031 Six Star General's "Sick Stars, Sister Cyst" has now been released in a silkscreened Edition of 50 copies on silver jackets. Their second full length release of 2007 is a collection of new songs, covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Butthole Surfers and Jonathan Richmond, a remix from The Masons' Kraig Jordan, unreleased four track recordings and a live performance on WBSR Radio.

Track Listing

1. Fortunate Son
2. I Saw an X Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
3. Jack's Bar Friday Night
4. Sun Up Pants Down (Jordan Kitchen Sink Remix)
5. Pablo Picasso
6. Clocks Go Round
7. Salted Trees
8. Pay to Stay
9. Shit On Sale
10. Off Duty Cop
11. Runaway Bride
12. Homewrecker
13. Vodka



Only $6.00 postpaid. Order it here.




m @ 10:21 AM
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

what are you doing this holiday season?



Plenty of chances to see Six Star General live and pick up their brand new full length cd "Sick Stars, Sister Cyst" out December 1 on 75orLess Records. Thirteen tracks, all unreleased, recorded at various places over the past three years.



12/08/07 @ Firehouse 13 in Providence, RI w/ Hope Anchor, The Cold War - $5
12/14/07 @ The Bullpen in New Bedford, MA w/ Chris Evil and the Taints, TBA
12/28/07 @ The Elbow Room in Bristol, RI w/ Mustache Ride - Free
12/29/07 @ Jake's Bar in Providence, RI w/ Von Doom, Ben Pilgrim and the Free Union Band - $5
12/31/07 @ Jake's Bar in Providence, RI - 75orless New Year's Eve Blowout - info soon
01/12/08 @ The Blackstone in Pawtucket, RI w/ TBA

m @ 2:33 AM
Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Suicidal driver gets 8 years for crash that killed 3 musicians
November 26, 2007

Jeanette Sliwinski, the former model convicted last month in the deaths of three Chicago musicians who were killed when she rear-ended a car in which they were riding during a failed suicide attempt, was sentenced today to 8 years in prison.

Cook County Circuit Judge Garritt Howard, who found Sliwinski guilty but mentally ill on reckless homicide charges Oct. 26, imposed the sentence during an emotional hearing in the Skokie courtroom where he presided over her bench trial.

Prosecutors had asked that Sliwinski of Morton Grove receive the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Sliwinski, 25, who has been held in the psychiatric ward of Cook County Jail since the July 2005 lunchtime crash at Dempster Street and Niles Center Road in Skokie, apologized to the relatives and friends of the victims who were in the courtroom, before being sentenced. She could be released from prison in a few years if she receives good-time credit.

"There's not a day that goes by I do not think about the grief and the pain I have caused," Sliwinski, weeping, told the judge while looking toward the victims' families. "I never meant to hurt anybody. I'm sorry."

Mental-health services would be available to Sliwinski in whatever prison she is assigned to, prosecutors said.

Sliwinski's relatives were on hand for the sentencing as were relatives and friends of the men killed in the crash- Chicagoans Michael Dahlquist, 39, John Glick, 35, and Douglas Meis, 29. At the time of the accident, the men were on their lunch break from work at Shure Inc, a Niles company that makes microphones and other audio electronic products.

Sliwinski pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the crash after being charged with first-degree murder. She told authorities she had gotten in a fight with her mother in the family's Morton Grove home before she got in her car, drove east on Dempster and slammed into Dahlquist's car at a stop light.

In his ruling, the judge rejected the first-degree murder charges and said he believed that Sliwinski was trying to kill herself.

m @ 6:40 AM
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

m @ 5:30 AM
Wednesday, November 14, 2007

how is it that the pretenders are in the rock and roll hall of fame but hall and oates aren't?
















m @ 6:52 AM
Friday, November 09, 2007


I didn't know who this guy was



A Bristol man charged in a bizarre theft late last month appeared in court last week and had his case filed for one year. Police had charged Dennis Headrick, 45, of Bristol, with stealing a pumpkin from the front porch of Warren Town Council member Joseph DePasquale on Friday, Oct. 26. Mr. DePasquale said it all happened after he looked out the window and saw Mr. Headrick take one of his son's pumpkins and put it in his car. He called out and asked what he was doing, and Mr. Headrick allegedly said, "I'm taking your pumpkin. I'll carve it and bring it back." Mr. DePasquale replied that his family had their own plans to carve it, and that he should return it. After the man refused, and also refused to leave after being asked, the police were called. Mr. DePasquale said the episode was bizarre and disturbing, and at one point he thought he was on a hidden camera television show. "I didn't know who this guy was," he said.

m @ 5:47 AM
Tuesday, November 06, 2007











m @ 5:56 AM
Monday, November 05, 2007

What we learn from the dying. A doctor shares what his patients’ last moments have taught him By T.E. Holt, M.D. MSNBC Nov. 6, 2007



My first day of medical school was a series of inspirational talks. The tone, set by the anesthesiologist who led off, was lighthearted. His subject was "Everything you will ever need to know about medicine." This turned out to be just three things, which he had us all recite: Air goes in and out. Blood goes round and round. Oxygen is good. Just keep these in mind, he said, and you'll be okay.


By the end of the day, we were as blank as the huge whiteboards at the front of the room. Within the next 24 hours, these would start filling up with diagrams of cell-transport mechanisms, cartoons of developing embryos, maps of the brachial plexus. But on that first day, the lectures were so inconsequential that only one speaker bothered to write anything down. This was a pathologist who also wanted to reduce medicine to its essentials. He scrawled a single word on the board: DEATH.

Just avoid this one thing, he said, and we'd be okay.

The word stayed up there on the whiteboard the rest of the day. I waited for someone to notice and wipe it away, but no one did. It was gone the next morning, replaced by the Krebs cycle, that happy intracellular Rube Goldberg mechanism that keeps us all alive, whether you can diagram it from memory or not, thank God.

Whoever scribbled the Krebs cycle in place of that single stark word gave us our real orientation to medicine. Despite death's modest appearance that first day, what we were really learning wasn't "Don't Fear the Reaper" so much as "Don't See the Reaper."

We don't like to find that word staring down at us from the wall. If we do, we'll hang it on somebody else, shrouding it behind a screen of medical abbreviations, and then we'll be gone. The word's still there - it follows us, of course, as the moon follows a moving car - but as long as we don't have to keep looking at it, we're okay.

The problem is, death keeps looking at us. When I'm forced to think about this, what I see most clearly are the faces of patients at the moment they recognized the incredible fact that they were going to die soon. This is what I can't forget: the look they had as they read the writing on the wall like Belshazzar did at his feast in the Bible story, faced at the height of his power with the message that he was about to die. Just what people see as they read that message is, I suspect, the most important fact about death. I know that fact escapes my grasp, but I keep reaching for it, all the same.

He was 18 years old with cystic fibrosis. By unspoken agreement, we had left him until last on morning rounds, because overnight the lab had analyzed his blood and cultured Burkholderia cepacia - an organism that flourishes in the pus that overwhelms the lungs in end-stage cystic fibrosis. It's notoriously resistant to antibiotics. (It's been found growing on penicillin.) Once B. cepacia escapes the lungs and enters the bloodstream, death is inevitable: sepsis, circulatory collapse, multiorgan system failure, the end.

After a muttered conversation in the hallway, we edged into the room. I was nervous: I was going to have to tell this kid he was dying. He was awake, sitting up in bed. The room was dark. It had that lived-in look CFers cultivate -posters, clothes strewn everywhere, a game console flickering on idle. A wasted-looking father slumped in the corner chair. The patient watched us file in. When I saw the expression on his face, my anxiety about what I was going to say seemed suddenly unimportant.

He knew. He already knew. He barely listened as I reported what we had learned from the lab. Then there was silence. He looked back at me as if I weren't there and said, "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

It wasn't really a question, the way he said it. My answer was as irrelevant as everything else that we had left to offer him. The attending stepped in and started talking, but I could tell the patient wasn't listening.

A year or so later, I was the resident on the oncology service, responsible for two dozen or more patients, all of whom were doing badly. Doing badly with cancer means terrible things: organs malfunctioning as tumors squeeze them off, pain that soaks up morphine like water, treatments with a list of possible side effects that includes death.

Into this substation of hell one day walked a strong man in his early 40s, looking about as healthy as a man can look, though perhaps a little pale. Earlier that day, a blood test had revealed a swarm of misshapen, blue-stained cells that should have been functioning parts of his immune system but instead were leukemia. He was in what they call "blast crisis"; our job was to help him survive the night so he could start chemotherapy in the morning.

Over the course of that night, his blood levels of oxygen started to drop, his left eyelid developed a droop, and I had to explain to him that if I didn't insert this honking big catheter into his femoral vein, he wasn't going to live to see the morning.

I could see him change. He had walked in as a functioning adult. He had asked intelligent questions before signing the consent form. He had been calm, helpful, determined. He had a pleasant smile. That was until about 4 p.m. As things started to unravel, he became at first bewildered, then querulous, and then, as the leukocytes started clogging the capillaries of his brain, confused. He tried not to groan as I probed for that vein in his groin, but despite the lidocaine, when I sliced into his skin to widen the opening for the catheter, he screamed. After that he settled into a silence that deepened throughout the night.

He lived to see morning, and beyond, but over the next 3 weeks, he never smiled again in my presence. The misery that had settled around him deepened as his blood counts dropped, and even the most trivial infections swept over him like brush fires. By the end of his third week, he was unrecognizable: gaunt, with crusted lips and a look in his eyes. Hollow, haunted, certainly, but also sullen, as if he resented us and everything we'd done in the name of curing his disease. We should have warned him, I thought his eyes might say. We should have told him just how bad it would be. But by that time he had stopped speaking to anybody.

He wasn't that sick, understand, not until the very end. What stopped him from speaking wasn't anything physical. I think it was the knowledge that had started growing in him that first night, that all of this could unravel. That everything he had taken for granted - his health, his body, his life - could all turn out to be so fragile that a wayward sneeze could blow it away. In the face of that knowledge, what is there to say?

Another case: A nice enough guy in his mid 40s came to the E.R. complaining of chest pain. Changes in his EKG and the results of blood work showed that his heart had been damaged. I managed to meet the patient for about 5 minutes before they wheeled him off to the cath lab. A nice enough guy, a little giddy from the morphine, not really able to take any of it in.

He came out to the CCU a few hours later, still groggy, surrounded by a forest of IV poles running all of the latest anticoagulants. A few hours after that, a nurse paged me to say she couldn't wake him up. He was answering questions in a sleepy, fretful voice. His answers just weren't making sense. When I arrived at his room, I pulled up his eyelids: His pupils were tiny black dots, and they were pointing in different directions. We had him in the scanner 12 minutes later.

I put the CT frames up on the view box and they showed a big white blot in the middle of the patient's brain. The blot was blood: an artery had ruptured. The neurosurgery resident on call was looking over my shoulder.

"We can't touch it," he said.

And that was it. Over the next several hours I was going to watch this patient die. In fact, he was already dead. The process is well described in the literature, inexorable and orderly in its progression. A classic. I'd seen it a dozen times in textbooks, but I'd never watched it happen in real life.

The blood collecting in his skull was starting to build up, pressing on his brain. Soon his brain would have only one place to go: down a very tight opening in the membrane that supports the brain within the skull. There it would squeeze off its own blood supply and die. And a little while later, it would bear down on the brain stem and squeeze off the nerve centers that kept him breathing.

I called my attending and gave him the story. When I was done, he said, "Just keep him comfortable. And let him go." And then the attending said, "Have you seen this before?"

I told him I hadn't.

"Go examine him periodically. Check his retinas. Watch the posture change. Everyone should see this once."

Every half hour or so, in between trying to keep others alive in the ICU that night, I went into the room and peeled back the man's eyelids. I don't remember, really, what I felt as I watched the retinas bulge out as the pressure in his skull increased. I memorized the way it looked, because sometimes you will see this in, say, a case of meningitis, and it's important not to miss it.

The last time I came into the room, the man's eyes were open. They were blank as a pair of billiard balls. He was panting, his pulse was 42, and his pressure was dropping. The end was near. I thought to look one more time at his retinas. But as I leaned over him, in both of his open eyes I saw my own reflection hovering, a figure robed in white, immense, hazy, and distorted.

In my fourth year of medical school, I spent a month in the neurology consult service. Many of the cases we were consulted on were sad: a teenager in the eighth day of an epileptic seizure; a man who had come in because of a twitching thumb and left with a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease; a 52-year-old who couldn't remember anything since a car accident on Christmas Eve in 1964 and kept asking where his parents were. But the worst times were when the admitting team wanted us to decide if its patient was brain dead. This is a dismal question, and the request is usually prompted by a family struggling to accept what has happened. We averaged one of these each week. The first that month was a 22-year-old housepainter who had set an aluminum ladder against a high-voltage power line. He lay in a bed in the burn unit, surrounded by a dozen relatives who followed our every move.

The brain-death determination involves some startlingly crude maneuvers, one of which is a test for "withdrawal from noxious stimuli." This means hurting someone to elicit a reaction. I stood and watched as the attending demonstrated this. As he worked, a murmur arose from the relatives lining the wall. When the attending rolled the patient's head from side to side, yanked on the endotracheal tube, and poured ice water in both ears, the murmuring grew louder. When we left the room, I was sure the expressions that followed us were reproachful.

My last brain-death evaluation that month involved a 32-year-old man who had been found unconscious on a stifling hot July day. When brought to the E.R., his core temperature had registered 107.8°F. The man had shown no sign of mental activity in 4 days, and the ICU team was starting to worry.

The room was almost empty when I found him: no relatives, just me and the form in the bed and the ventilator at its side, hissing and chuffing in its stately rhythm. The man's pupils were fixed and midline. Ice water in the ears produced no movements of the eyes. There was no withdrawal from noxious stimuli. I recorded all of this and took the story to the attending.

"Let's go see," he said.

When we got back to the room, his family members had arrived. They stared at us solemnly as the attending began the exam all over again. There was no murmuring this time. Even at the application of noxious stimuli, the entire group - parents, siblings, spouse, children - simply watched us.

When the patient's eyes flew open, I may have gasped. Certainly the family did. The attending let out a satisfied crow: "Did you see that?" The man on the bed was staring, eyes wide. Behind me, voices were rising, uncertainly at first, then breaking into cries of jubilation. I think the attending actually took a little skip in the air before he turned to the bed again. He was busy for 1 or 2 minutes, his hands waving this way and that before the patient's gaze. Ecstatic sounds filled the room.

In their joy, the family didn't hear, as I did, the attending quietly say something that sounded like "Uh-oh." With a guilty sideways glance at them, he turned to me and beckoned. I leaned over. "Look at this." He waved a penlight up and down before the patient. The eyes followed it exactly.

"Do you notice anything?"

The eyes had moved. They were clearly tracking. Our patient lived, aware of our presence, probably hearing voices of people he loved crying out in exultation. Yet, despite the precise activity of the eyes, despite all the tumult around us, the patient's face revealed nothing. His limbs were motionless. Not even a finger was twitching.

I looked at the attending. He was staring down at the patient, looking stricken. "My God," he said quietly. "He's locked in."

"Locked-in syndrome" is one of those things you learn about in medical school, not because it's common, but because it's terrible. Every year, when the neurology lecturer introduces it to the second-year class, everyone makes that gasping sound reserved for special cases - the ones we hope we never see ourselves. The man in the bed had suffered a small stroke in the area of his brain stem called the ventral pons. It had cut the connections between his brain and every muscle in his body except the few that make the eyes move up and down. Above the stroke, the mind is awake, aware, as alive as a mind can be. The body below is as inert as death itself. Without the ventilator, he would suffocate in less than a minute. He would never speak, never grimace in pain, never again lift one finger off the bed. Awake, aware, he was buried alive in a body that was already dead.

As I stood at the bedside, looking down on the eyes that occasionally locked with mine, I felt the closest approach to horror I've ever had. It was the absolute absence of expression, I think, coupled with eyes that still somehow signified a living presence, that made this thing so horrible. Compared with people looking death in the face, these living eyes staring back at me were simply intolerable.

As the chorus of voices at our backs faltered, died away, and then, as the attending talked to them, rose up softly in a moan, I had to catch myself to keep from joining in. This was, I told myself, the worst thing that could ever happen to a human being.

When we returned the next day, the family members were still there, gathered around the bed. We heard them before we reached the doorway. They sent up an excited chatter that rose and fell as if they were spectators at a fireworks display. As we entered, they drew aside. At the bedside a figure in blue scrubs was chanting "there, there, yes, that's it, there." At each of her words, the patient's right hand responded with a wave. And as we reached the bedside the patient's face changed, rearranging itself into an expression I could not at first understand, until I realized the left side was twisting upward into half a grin. The stroke was resolving. We had been completely wrong.

The attending found his voice when we'd left the room.

"You've just seen a miracle," he said. "And now, for the rest of your life, every time you come up against a hopeless case, you're going to remember this guy." He shook his head. "God help you. And God help your patients." I didn't need him to explain. He meant that from then on, I would keep expecting miracles, and they would never come.

He was right, of course. No miracle, nor any medical machinery, is ever going to scrub that word off the wall. But in the years since, I have come to think he also missed the point. It wasn't about miracles at all. It was simply a matter of (as the old vaudevillians used to say)...timing. We hadn't really been wrong. The patient was locked in - as locked in as we all are, in this mortal shell, with only one way out. But the prison door hadn't closed on him quite yet. Knowing as much as we do, spending so much of our time staring at something we don't want to see, under the tension of not death so much as our denial, we had simply assumed the worst.

What I have learned from my patients since that day is that we give death power (as if it needs it) - power not to kill us but to rivet us, to silence us, to drive us from our humanity while we still live. We give death power precisely to the extent that we work to ignore it, to blind ourselves to its closeness, to imagine we have the power to stave it off forever. If we go through life imagining that, then the moment when we are forced to look at death can only rupture everything we know and paralyze us, still alive. That's not a good way to die.

Death may be, as Wallace Stevens has it, the mother of beauty. But it's also a lot like that Krebs cycle: It just keeps happening, whether we pay attention or not. You really can go about your business, as long as you remember that death is taking care of his. Air goes in and out. Blood goes round and round. Oxygen is good. Take care of yourself.

m @ 6:31 AM
Wednesday, October 31, 2007

For your viewing pleasuring this lovely Halloween, Fark dusts off this classic article.

m @ 6:13 AM
Friday, October 26, 2007















m @ 6:11 AM
Friday, October 19, 2007





m @ 12:12 PM
Wednesday, October 17, 2007







75orLess Records latest release is "The Further Adventures of Ben Pilgrim EP", available in a silkscreened Edition of 175 copies. The label website is limited to 25 copies with blue-green inks. Providence RI's own folk troubadour Ben Pilgrim releases his first EP on 75orLess. The well crafted songs run the gamut from personal to political, from humorous to deadly serious, with Ben joined on several tracks by regular side-kick Mary Bee and his band, The Free Union. Listen to 'God should Have Made You Ugly" here and order your copy here.

m @ 5:36 AM
Tuesday, October 09, 2007

75orLess Night at the Penalty Box 10-6-07- The Recap


The show at the Penalty Box Saturday night was highly entertaining. Not a great turn out but the Von Doomers did not fail to entertain. The Suicide Liquors played first. After they were done, one of the owners that I had never met before comes up, introduces himself and explains how the first band was too loud and the people at the back of the bar couldn't even talk to each other and he felt that people were leaving because the music was too loud. I said I would ask the next band to turn it down and walked away.

Midway through the first Von Doom song, I knew that the volume would be the least of his worries. Ray must have drank a gallon of moonshine and smoked crack because halfway through the first song, his pants are down around his ankles and he keeps playing. During the second song, he kicks his pants completely off and now he is playing in his best Fruit of the Looms, t shirt and boots only. Between songs, the band was taunting the people at the bar and swearing, while also doing shots. After a few songs, Ray must have gotten bored not wearing pants because he put them back on and then took off his shirt, which led to the line of the night from George who yelled "Take off the sweater too!". Ray then stripped off his pants too and then lost a boot. At various points he had his leg up on a table while doing guitar solos and also walked repeatedly into the pole in the center of the room, banging his head over and over, backing up and doing it again. He also must have accidentally disconnected his guitar cord 3-4 times, so while he was rolling around on the floor playing a guitar solo, he was unplugged from his amp but didn't realize it. The entire time, Kraig and I were in hysterics, imagining the owner guy approaching me after they finish and saying, "Yeah, you know how I asked you to have the bands turn down, well could you also ask them to keep their pants on, not taunt the customers at the bar, to please keep their shirts on, to stop yelling "Fuck yeah" into the mics, and to not roll around on the floor in their underwear? if you could, that would be great". The crazy part was that at the end of the night when it came time to get paid, I apologized for all the antics and he said "I don't care about that, it was hilarious! I texted ten people to get down here to witness it!"

Despite all that, the craziest part of the evening came when it was time to load out our equipment. I went to move the truck closer and noticed that because it was close to the 2am closing time, they weren't allowing anyone else into the bar and once you left, you couldn't get back in. A lot of drunken people were stuck outside pissed off that they couldn't get back in to their friends. So, Kyle decided to be the guy to go in and bring the amps to the door, where I would take it and roll it down the sidewalk to the truck and load it into the bed. So, the angry crowd outside is now threatening the same owner guy who had asked me to turn it down, screaming at him and swearing while Kyle and I keep making trips through the chaos moving these giant cabinets. It was really weird how what had slowly turned into an angry mob would peacefully move aside for us but then go right back to threatening to kill the owner guy, and when we weren't passing amplifiers through the doorway, they would be punching, screaming at and spitting on the door - but always politely stopping to let us through whenever we needed to get by. The owners paid Kyle and said to call them for another show. I will need to think about that. It really took a lot to make them forget about the Von Doom fiasco but the angry drunken mob threatening to kill them did the trick. Thank you drunken Pawtucket thugs!

m @ 5:58 PM
Friday, October 05, 2007

75orLess Records has released Torches - "Forest" EP in an edition of 50 copies. Debut EP recorded in Providence, RI during 2006 and 2007, Forest is a collection of experimental home recordings and conversations. Featuring a wide array of instruments and electronics, Forest has something for everyone. This record is energetic, harsh, and cuddly. Influences include The Swirlies, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, The Boredoms, and Need New Body. Only $7.00 S&H Included. Order it here.

m @ 2:56 AM
Thursday, October 04, 2007

AVILA, ERLINO 'LEON', 87 of Warren, died Tuesday at RI Hospital. He was the loving husband of the late Marcia (Luther) Avila.

He was a founder and owner of Avila Brothers Service Station and Towing. He was a WWII Veteran of the Navy having served in the Pacific Theater. He was a past President of the Warren Portuguese Club and was instrumental in founding St. Thomas the Apostle Church. He was a 40 year member of St. Albans Lodge No. 6, F&AM, serving as Master for nine terms. A charter member of the Elks BPOE of Bristol, and member of the Mount Hope Chapter Order of Eastern Star. He was an avid Red Sox fan, attending opening day for many years when physically able.

He was the devoted father of Forrest L. Avila of Warren and the late Timothy L. Avila. Grandfather of Bethany Avila-Lane, Andrew and Meredith Avila. Great grandfather of Gavin and Jonas Lane. Brother of Frank Avila Jr., of Warren and Robert J. Avila of Sarasota, FL.

Arrangements are with Smith Funeral & Memorial Services, 8 Schoolhouse Rd., Warren where family will receive friends, Friday 4-8 pm. Funeral Saturday, 9 am from the funeral home with a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 in St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Metacom Ave., Warren. Visit: www.celebratewithsmith.com
Published in The Providence Journal on 10/4/2007.

m @ 6:11 AM
Wednesday, October 03, 2007

road trip



Six Star General had their first show in New Hampshire this past weekend. Our friends The Frosting had come down here a few times and decided to return the favor to both us and Mustache Ride. The ride to the hotel went pretty quick. When Kyle went into the lobby to check in, the hotel staff was like "Are you with Six Star General?" and told us how they were looking forward to the show and how to get to the club. weird. Of course I went to the hotel room to sleep for a quick hour while Kyle and Kathy went to M Ride's hotel room for beers.

We decided to eat at the club, which was a good decision as they gave us a 50% discount on our dinner. Too bad the garlic bread was cold, they give Kyle white instead of wheat, Kathy got regular fries instead of spicy fries and she found a piece of metal in her asparagus dip, which prompted the lady who made it to come out to our table and display all her jewerly she was wearing to prove to us it couldn't have come from her. One gig flyer that caught my attention was for the band "Camarojuana" that was playing there in a few weeks. The flyer had a bong powered muscle car on it and the locals noticed me taking pictures of it and proceeded to tell me how great they were and how they could play "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden note for note.

The surprise of the night was when I was upstairs and a bouncer approached me:
"Are You Mark?"
"Yes"
"There are two guys here to see you but they are too drunk and we aren't letting them in"
"I live in Providence, I don't know anyone from here"
"Are You Mark __________?"
"Yes"
"No, they definately know you, come on down"

I walk outside to find old friend Scott Shuttles standing there with some other guy. Damn, now this was a shock, haven't seen him in almost two years. Apparently, he teaches some classes up here every few months and was planning on surprising me, so he never let me know he was coming. The bouncers (who took themselves a little too seriously and even though I have seen much worse- like the bouncer at Goff's in Bristol a few years ago who tried to break up a fight outside by getting between the fighters and yelling "I am a off-duty Bristol Police Officer!" which only made both participants and their friends to attack him, before a female Bristol Police Officer came flying into the parking lot in a cruiser without any sirens or lights and promptly ran into one of the fighters, knocking him out cold on impact and sending his lifeless body grinding on the cement seven feet or so. The best part was reading the paper a few days later, where the incident was reported as "Bristol Police broke up a fight in the parking lot at Goff's. One of the participants fell backwards and hit his head on the bumper". As someone who was standing 15 feet away, this is like saying the planes on 9-11 "scraped" the twin towers and I was sure the kid was killed on impact.) then explained to me how the 21 year old Scott brought with him got out of the cab with a rum and coke in a cup and when they asked him what the hell he was doing, he poured it out on the street right in front of the club. So, I couldn't get him in and we hung out for 20 minutes or so and then they walked off.

Despite the fact that both Mustache Ride and SSG play 35 minute stets, they insisted on making us go on at 9:30 or so. It was a $5.00 cover to get in and there were a lot of people in this place, all sitting at tables and looking on. It was evident that there is not much to do in Dover. We played a pretty solid set, even though the sound guy seemed mystified by us and no one could hear the bass. Not wanting to complain, I just shut up and played the set. Nate from the Frosting jumped up and sang lead vocals on "Cold" and "Off Duty Cop" and the guys from the Ride joined us for "Homewrecker".

We had brought some cds, pins and stickers as usual. Thanks to Nate promoting us around town for the show, people started wandering over to our table asking about the cds during Mustache Ride and it continued every now and then for the rest of the night. Once we got back to the hotel, we realized we made over $100 in cd sales and another $100 for the gig, plus we sold out of the second pressing of Ice Machine, all good news.

The Frosting let me decide the order of their songs and rocked it out for their set and of course, got finished with plenty of time to spare so they got to do an encore. The locals love them up there and they filled up the place really well. Sampson, Young Nathan and I almost got arrested in the parking lot by a bike cop but I will spare you the details of that. Dover had a police force like I have never seen. Every two minutes a police car or bike cop would go by. I told the bouncer I was either in the most dangerous town ever or the safest town ever. I am still not sure.

After loading up the gear, I was forced to drive because everyone else was too drunk and of course, Kyle got us lost and we had two cars following us but even though we were lost and Kyle was giving us directions, he was denying getting us lost, so Kathy and him yelled at each other the entire way, driving me crazy and I seriously was close to pulling the car over and walking back to the hotel. Good thing I didn't as it was a good 15 miles. I showered and went to sleep and they went to a party in the 'Ride's room.

Something tells me when the Lord calls me home, I am not going out like John Entwistle.

m @ 6:40 AM
Wednesday, September 26, 2007










m @ 6:30 AM
Wednesday, September 19, 2007





m @ 6:16 AM
Tuesday, September 11, 2007



75OL-026 Johnny Carlevale - Music from the "You Must Be This Tall" Soundtrack. Silkscreened Edition of 150 copies on various colored jackets. Label limited to 25 copies.



$8.00 S&H Included


Track Listing

1. You Must Be This Tall
2. You'll Be Pleased
3. Clam Cakes N' Chowder
4. The Road Less Traveled
5. The Diving Horse
6. If I Didn't Have Bad Luck
7. Carousel
8. The Corkscrew Swing
9. I'll Keep Dreamin'
10. Frumpy The Clown
11. The Flume
12. Your Own Amusement Park
13. Slow Down
14. Roller Coaster Baby
15. Why Did You Leave Me This Way?



This feature length film, which opens on September 7, 2007, documents the long history of Rocky Point Park, an amusement park and shore dinner hall situated along the coast of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The soundtrack features 15 tracks by Johnny Carlevale performed by his many musical projects - His Band Of All Stars, The Rollin' Pins, The Acoustic Trio, The Big Kahunays, and The Bomboleros! Carlevale takes a folk approach to fusing the sounds of rhythm & blues, jazz, swing, and country blues. Available at the 75orLess Records website.


m @ 6:30 AM
Monday, September 10, 2007















m @ 5:35 AM
Friday, September 07, 2007

Rocky Point rides again in You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park By Michael Janusonis



The Skydiver whirls again in David Bettencourt’s nostalgic documentary You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park, premiering tonight in Woonsocket.

Rocky Point Park, the fantasy playground that drew Rhode Islanders to Warwick Neck for more than 150 summers, may have met an unhappy end when the last remnants of the place were demolished early this summer.

Yet it lives again in David Bettencourt’s entertaining, warm-hearted documentary You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park, which has its world premiere at 7 tonight on the big screen at the Stadium Theater in Woonsocket.

Bettencourt’s film chronicles Rocky Point’s history — from 1840 to the turn of the last century, through two destructive hurricanes, several makeovers, and on to today — in old paintings, archival photos, home movies and, especially, in the memories of fans who traveled there every summer for a day of fun. You Must Be This Tall is a nostalgic trip that’s often funny, sometimes poignant and definitely lots of fun.

If you’ve ever ridden the Ferris wheel, the Cyclone roller coaster or the rocket ships at Rocky Point, swum in the huge salt water pool or chowed down on chowder and clam cakes in its famous Shore Dinner Hall (“the world’s largest,” as was proclaimed in big letters on the roof), You Must Be This Tall is not to be missed.

Who knows? You may even catch a glimpse of your younger self in someone’s home movies from the 1950s or ’60s.

Those who may have come to the park late in its existence in the early 1990s, when it had grown shabby and a little seedy, will be surprised to see it in its heyday in the late 1950s, when families crowded the place and a couple of thousand people sat elbow to elbow at the long tables in the dining hall over bowls of chowder. It was, reminisces Nick Cardi (of the Cardi Brothers furniture dealers) “just like Oz.”

Bettencourt, ably aided by film editor Harry Cawthorn, has put together a fast-paced, feature-length documentary. They’ve crammed in more than 70 interviews, hundreds of old shots of the park, some dating back to the 19th century, in a snappy hour and 21 minutes that goes by in a flash of rekindled memories. One can gauge their success by the fact that when You Must Be This Tall is over, one wishes there had been more. (Following a recent press screening of his film, Betttencourt said much more will be included in a later — he wasn’t certain when — DVD release, including the fact that on the hot August day in 1892 when Lizzie Borden allegedly murdered her father and stepmother with a hatchet, the entire Fall River Police Department was having its annual outing at Rocky Point Park.)

There are plenty of interesting tidbits and sights that do color the film, however. You’ll see the 10-story observation tower that loomed over the park in 1881, looking like a Chinese pagoda. You’ll see President Rutherford B. Hayes at Rocky Point in 1877 making the first telephone call by a sitting U.S. president, on the line to Alexander Graham Bell, who was in Providence. You’ll see President George H.W. Bush, on a campaign swing through the park, wishing that the Secret Service had allowed him to ride the Corkscrew roller coaster. You’ll hear about Babe Ruth’s controversial 1914 home run at Rocky Point. You’ll see trolley cars carrying hordes of vacationers to Rocky Point, see the destructive aftermath of the 1938 hurricane, hear about the monkeys who escaped from the park’s zoo during the storm to live for years afterward in surrounding trees.

Some memories of Rocky Point’s fans are amusing.

There’s the man who recalls his family testing the parameters of the Shore Dinner Hall’s advertised promise of an “all you can eat” meal.

There’s the man who recalls being inside the pitch-black Castle of Terror when the car he and a friend were riding in ran off the track. An employee had to push them out of the building, now with all the lights blazing inside, and they could see, much to their delight, all the pulleys and gizmos that were used to make the horrors of the place so scary in the dark.

There’s former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. turning up to offer one of the film’s funniest lines about that scary ride, which by then had had its name changed to the House of Horrors.

Some memories are poignant.

John Gould, who ran the Castle of Terror ride for many years, is near tears as he looks at the crumbling ruins of the place just before it was razed.

You Must Be This Tall hits its high spots thanks to the anecdotes of dozens of Rhode Islanders, whether it’s the woman fondly recalling the goldfish she won on the midway that went on to live 12 years, or Governor Carcieri sharing fond memories of riding the Ferris wheel to look out across Narragansett Bay.

One knows going in to You Must Be This Tall that Rocky Point’s story will come to a sad end, with the auction of many of its rides on a rainy day and its later demolition. Bettencourt does not spare us those sights. Yet he manages to end the film on a somewhat brighter note than one might have expected. Peppered with toe-tapping tunes throughout and a flood of fond memories, Rocky Point Park truly does still live on.

*****
Rated: Not rated, but is definitely G material.

m @ 5:35 AM
Tuesday, September 04, 2007

m @ 6:28 AM
Friday, August 24, 2007

tijuana brass, an interview with tiny showcase and another 75orLess Records release.



WFMU Blog has a 100 track homemade tribute to the Tijuana Brass.

Yahoo has an interview with my longtime friends over at Tiny Showcase.



75orLess Records has another new cd out! Six Star General's "Already On One", their third full length release in 18 months, has them returning to Plan Of A Boy Studio in Providence to record with The Masons' Kraig Jordan. Clocking in at 26 minutes, it's their longest release to date and includes a pair of instrumentals. Influences include Mudhoney, Spacemen 3, Silkworm. Silkscreened Edition of 75 copies on brown jackets. Only $6.00 postpaid. Order It Here or listen to some tracks at their myspace page.







Always remember, in the words of the immortal Tripper Harrison, "It just doesn't matter."

m @ 6:07 AM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Court wants Mollicone to speed up restitution

PROVIDENCE -- The state's most notorious embezzler was back in Superior Court yesterday because a judge wants to speed up his restitution payments. At the rate he's paying now, Joseph Mollicone Jr. needs 13,000 years to make good his debt to the court. He's paying $75 a month toward a $12 million restitution bill. Mollicone was convicted of embezzling in 1993, sent to prison and ordered to make payments for his role in triggering a statewide banking crisis. The resulting financial crisis closed 35 credit unions and 10 banks. In 1993, Mollicone was tried and convicted. He was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, ordered to repay the $12 million and fined $420,000. Mollicone was released from prison in 2002, but is on parole until 2023.

m @ 5:19 AM
Tuesday, August 21, 2007










m @ 5:51 AM
Friday, August 17, 2007















100 things that don't apply to me


m @ 7:54 AM
Wednesday, August 15, 2007











m @ 5:13 AM
Friday, August 10, 2007

TWO NEW RELEASES FROM 75ORLESS RECORDS

75OL-022 The Followers - Secret Handshake

Silkscreened Edition of 50 copies. Label limited to 20 numbered copies with blue, bronze, green and red inks on silver jackets.

$6.00 S&H Included

Track Listing

1. Has Its Moments
2. Helter Shelter
3. Turning On The Charm
4. Intentional Walk
5. I'm On It
6. A Day In The Afterlife
7. Pretty Sneaky Sis
8. Suicide Pact
9. Secret Handshake
10. Never Trust A Junkie

After a decade spent as ghost detainees incarcerated at an undisclosed detention camp, the legendary and incendiary Followers return with an album hailed as "Un-American" and labeled "Subversive" by the Department of Homeland Security and the hegemonic Christian Coalition. Long feared confiscated or deleted under the auspices of the inestimable Patriot Act, the insurrectionary and vitriolic album dubbed 'Secret Handshake' finally makes its commercial debut. Admittedly an intractable reaction to animal vivisection, authoritarianism, and rampant fascism in America, and inspired to a great extent by psychotropic and flammable solvents, the release of the mercurial and vehement 10 track recording promises to deliver The Followers back into CIA hands to be remanded in Eastern Europe for another decade.



75OL-024 Killing Pablo - A Collection of Songs on Compact Disc

Silkscreened Edition of 150 copies with white jackets. Label limited to 10 numbered copies with silver jackets.

$6.00 S&H Included

Track Listing

1. turquoise mountain
2. the eunich from munich
3. live from the point five
4. opinionated
5. das funk
6. new weathermen
7. the spaceman lee
8. dancing marxist

Recorded and mixed in two marathon 8 hour sessions with engineer Jason Macierowski, "A Collection of Songs..." revisits the mammoth crescendos and washed out space guitar of their previous release and expands them, taking tense quiet melodies and then throwing them at a brick wall of guitar shrapnel and shattered drum sticks. For fans of Built to Spill, Shellac, the Who, Hum, Mogwai, etc.



m @ 5:40 AM
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