Jim Varagona

>

I made ’em myself, and ate ’em myself.

>I have not posted in a week. Things have been nutty. My parents are off in Italy having a swell time. My sister flew in from San Antonio for my granddad’s funeral. She went back to people fleeing Rita. Luckily, all they got was some wind.

Sadly my escape has been through Madden 2006. Video games are so addicting. Maybe that’s why I try to stay away from them.

The plumbing at the homestead became a big, black, sludgy mess a few days ago. I spent my time sending Drano down the pipes and waiting. Then I snaked the pipes for a bit, to no avail. I called my handyman friend Travis over. He did everything I did. Then he tore up the pipes in the basement. Ye gads! There was layers upon layers of crap in the pipes. The collective crap of god knows how many people. And Travis was covered in it.

He did fix the problem though, with the help of a makeshift tool made from a broomstick and a toilet brush duck taped to it. Even better, he did it for $50 and breakfast, which were some damned good biscuits and gravy I cooked up.

Clean up was a bitch. Well, I am still cleaning…on my hands and knees. The smell is awful, but isn’t all crap? Thank god for Clorox Clean-Up and for friends that are willing to touch our sewage.

>I mentioned this exchange between White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and NBC’s David Gregory a few posts ago. I also was pointed towards this swell one dealing with the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative, who happened to be the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Thanks to Steven Fitzpatrick Smith’s STL Streets Blog for that tidbit. It’s amazing that the government makes these humorous exchanges available to us. It only makes them look sillier. It’s bad enough I have fuel like all those stupid quotes Bushie makes. I don’t support any effort to fire anyone on this staff, simply because they are all idiots and hilarious to watch.

>

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening
with an insurance salesman?

—-Woody Allen

Is it wrong to joke after a death? To me, it is the only way to stay sane. I can only imagine how my mother feels. Yesterday, September 18th, was her 53rd birthday. Fifteen minutes into the day, at 12:15 AM, her father, my granddad, Jim Gifford, died. He was 84 years old and had dealt with several strokes recently. We were told a few days ago that things weren’t good, but the doctors gave him 3 months. So much for that. I think she takes it personally, because they say we can control when we die to an extent. I don’t know what to think.

I just dropped my parents off at the airport for a trip to Italy to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They’ve been planning it for years. I hope they have a swell time, because I won’t. I do have a funeral to go to, but it has more to do with the accompanying family drama. My mother was written out of the will along with one out of two uncles. Apparently they didn’t visit enough at the hospital. As people are ill, life goes on, and so do jobs and families. Either Granddaddy didn’t understand that, or his wife (Grandma passed away 15 years ago) helped him to not understand that. And I am left to deal with this psychodramatic bullshit. I don’t blame my parents…they invested a lot into their trip. I still do not comprehend why families like my mother’s feel the need to bicker over petty crap when they are a family. They came from the same blood.

I am going to the visitation and the funeral. I owe it to my Granddad and my mother. That doesn’t mean I am not completely uncomfortable. It’s a shame.

Aside from the crap pertaining to his second marriage, Jim was good to have around. He watched and played more golf than anyone I’ve ever met. He even taught me and my late brother how to drive balls at the range, which I still do to this day on occasion (it is great for aggression). As a child, I fished with him at his lake house and learned a thing or two from that. Thanks Granddad, so long. And Happy Birthday Mom.

>

As Mississppi deals with the loss associated with Hurricane Katrina, they lost one of their greats on September 1, 2005. R.L. Burnside, one of the great Mississippi delta blues singers and musicians, passed away after declining health following heart surgery in 1999.

I was first introduced to his music by a friend in 1999. I honestly did not like the blues much at the time, but could appreciate it. Burnside’s music was different though. Just as Johnny Cash‘s music was reinvented and introduced to my generation, Burnside enjoyed a similar resurgence. His blues was remixed for a new generation. He signed to Fat Possum Records in the early 1990s, which was created for aging bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and himself. He recorded A Ass Pocket of Whiskey in 1996 for indie music label Matador Records with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who modernized blues themselves by infusing it with flavors of rock and hip hop.

The first season of The Sopranos featured the Burnside tune “It’s Bad You Know,” which also made it onto the HBO series’s first soundtrack. I prefer “Shock Dub,” which made it onto the second Sopranos soundtrack, “Pepper & Eggs.” It is hypnotic, like much of Burnside’s stuff, and it puts a lot of the crap kids listen to today to shame.

In 2004, he released “A Bothered Mind,” which Rolling Stone gave a not-too-shabby three stars. Kid Rock and rapper Lyrics Born help out on the album, but reviewer Tom Moon wishes they didn’t. It is a fine line when you take something as classic and raw as the blues and try to modernize it. For the most part, I think it works with Burnside. If you want the pure blues that he is rooted in, check out “Burnside On Burnside,” a live album from 2001, which showcases just that.

Either way, the man was genius. He is a good introduction to the blues for my generation. As he wished on his album title for 2000’s “Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down,” I only hope he’s doing just that. Rest on old man.

Check out R.L. Burnside through these free downloads at Amazon.com.

>I never thought I’d hear of it. Dubya took the blame for something. He admitted fault. Someone in the press should take advantage of this and question him further on Iraq and the WMDs now.

I like the tension between the press corps and the President’s Press Secretary. Finally, the press is showing some testicles in all of this and not accepting whatever the government feeds them. David Gregory of NBC is especially entertaining from what I’ve seen. He fights back with the attitude that most of the crap coming out of Scott McClellan’s mouth is ridiculous. I also caught Gregory anchoring the Today Show for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He was giddy like a school girl, cracking jokes and acting like he was made for that job. I prefer he stay with the White House press corps and stick it to the man though.

And a joke of the weak (sent to me by former World Wide Magazine cameraman, Mike Perez):

Q: What’s George Bush’s position on Roe v. Wade?
A: He really doesn’t care how people get out of New Orleans.

>Over the weekend, I got my boy, Dan, a gig playing music at my sis’s hubby’s birthday party, which was held in Soulard at the Juniper Grill. It was real swell.

Mmm…rum and Diet Coke…hey, I do have diabetes.

I will post pics and maybe a vid soon.

I also hope to get Dan on CD soon, so that the world may hear his mad skills on the guitar…playing originals and covers of Dylan, the Dead, Phish, the Stones, and more.

>Finally, news I like to hear. A day after I blog about him leaving the devastation in New Orleans for Washington, FEMA chief Mike Brown, went ahead and stepped down today…like a good boy…putting himself in the corner. I only hope his replacement has more experience dealing with people, and people in emergency situations especially. Although, maybe it would be cool to have someone like Jack Hanna as director of FEMA. He can deal with all kinds of animals that he brings on Good Morning America and The Late Show with David Letterman, so I guess he could deal with a catastrophe the size of say, Hurricane Katrina. His experience with wild orangutans, reptiles, and birds is close enough to that of a category five hurricane, that I think he would be a fine choice. So Jack Hanna, you have my vote to lead our federal emergency management into the future.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0590673246&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0385247311&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0399141936&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr

>Farewell, Mike Brown, head of FEMA. Two days ago, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff relieved you of your duties with the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Good riddance.

Did he pad his resume to get the job, or did the White House simply get it wrong in his bio that he had emergency services oversight through a job as assistant city manager in Edmond,OK? Apparently he was simply an assistant to the city manager, which TIME magazine quoted someone from Edmond’s government saying the position was “more like an intern.”

Apparently he had no emergency management experience before coming to FEMA. Before joining FEMA in 2001 as a general counsel, he was a lawyer, also serving as a commisioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Did he get this job because he was the college roomie of the former head of FEMA?

And Bush says, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” And that’s why he’s no longer doing that job, correct?

Even if some of this information is not accurate, as Brown has stated, isn’t it a tad disconcerting that the man in charge of emergency management for the country doesn’t have much of an extensive background with the field?!

I could understand if the citizens of this country were horses, then he would be great, but the media knew more about the suffering people down there than this man. Shame on him.

4 years since 9/11, and look at how this country has imroved its emergency management skills. Keep pumping money into the military and cutting funds and programs from these poor people. It seems to be doing wonders. Let those stars and stripes fly high.

>

I discovered a disturbing article on the cover of yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Metro section. “Church posts bond for convicted priest” read the headline, which is enough to piss me off, but I read on.

Using ten checks with values ranging from $10000 to $350000, church officials posted bond for the Rev. Thomas Graham on the same afternoon that jurors recommended that Graham spend 20 years in prison for performing oral sex on the boy in the late 1970s, court records show.

The Archdiocese defends the move with excuses of exhausting all appeal opportunities. I really wish I could have a job that supports me after I am convicted of a crime, not even taking in to account the horrible nature of this crime. And he did it on company time.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests criticized the move by the church. That makes perfect sense. The SNAP victim outreach coordinator, Barbara Dorris, pretty much said the money is going straight from the collection plate to defending these nut job priests (pun intended). I don’t know that for sure, but you wonder where all of the defense money comes from and the payoff money to victims. For a job that pays little, these guys have a lot of money to toss around.

Is this why my Catholic grade school didn’t have air conditioning? Was the money that they were even collecting from the grade school children’s small envelopes being put into legal defense funds, just in case the altar boys started coming out of the woodwork???! And the Catholic Church is always asking for money. They got their Bingo, Arts and Crafts Fairs, School Picnics, Homecomings, Flea Markets…you name it. Where does the money go? They should really share that with their congregation. Meanwhile I am going to go rob an old lady. It’s nowhere near molesting a little kid, and I am pretty sure my job will cover my legal fees.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0001DBHG2&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0521853044&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=diabetoboycom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0002ERX22&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr