For those about to rock…
January 27, 2012
We salute you.
It’s time, my friends. It’s time to get serious.
I mean, I love to goof around as much as, if not more than, the next guy but…
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around.
This ain’t no mud club or C.B.G.B.
I ain’t got time for that now…
OK, maybe we can goof around just a little.
Also known as, there’s always time for a quick story…
So, I did a little traveling in the past few weeks. And, if you’ve been following my adventures over the years, you know what happens every time that I get into an airplane. Well, there I was… Sitting in seat number 11D. An aisle seat, in coach, on the starboard side of a Conti-nited Seven Forty-Airbus Something or another. Yes. I continue to prefer aisle seats, in spite of the inherent dangers. Mostly, the risk of falling asleep and then getting smacked in the side of the head by the hips of a flight attendant who doesn’t quite fit down the aisle.
See "Jiggly Butt" at http://www.illwillpress.com
I think Conti-nited has been poaching employees from US Air. But anyway…
There I am in my aisle seat. Some guy is sitting at the window. And we have an empty seat in-between us. As you probably know, an empty seat next to you when flying coach these days is like winning the lottery. Usually, at the last minute, just when I think I’ve won, a huge smelly guy shows up, carrying two backpacks, three laptops, and a four-foot Subway party sub.
Well, this time, something amazing happened. About the prettiest girl that I can remember ever seeing randomly enter an airplane is standing in the aisle next to me. She points to the empty seat and says to me, “hi…excuse me. That’s my seat.”
Of course, I look at her all confused like. “What? Yeah. Probably not.” But she seems pretty convinced, so I let her in and she sits down, settles in, flips her hair, makes the area smell all pretty, then starts to read a trade journal. I think it was something like Supermodel Today.
I look over and the guy at the window is dancing in his seat as if he were listening to the soundtrack from a bad 1970’s porno-flick and dabbing on some Old Spice. I think he’s feeling randy, baby… Then he gives me a side glance and makes that face that Butthead makes when he says to Beavis, “Heh, heh… We.. are going to score.”
But suddenly, the needle scratches off the record and there’s a giant woman standing in the aisle, holding the world’s largest duffle bag, three sandwiches and some left-over vegetable lasagna, and she says to our supermodel, in a shrieking voice, “you’re in my seeeat”.
Now things are making sense. Sure enough, the blond supermodel had confused seat 11B, across the aisle, with 11E, next to me. Naturally, the easy thing to do would have been for the woman still standing to take seat 11B. However, based on her size and the size of the people in 11A and 11C, not only could they not all fit in the same row, but it would have probably capsized the airplane. So…you guessed it…
Out with the supermodel and in with the vegetable lasagna.
Austin Powers was not happy. I quickly fell asleep, as usual.
And we can all rest assured knowing that all is normal in Archie Travel Land.
Now, let’s get down to business!
Did you watch the State of the Union address?
I did.
Do you know how easy (and fun) it would be for me pick apart the speech? Well, I’m not going to do it. No more distractions. El Presidente delivered a very nice election year speech. He said a bunch of stuff that got his fellow party-following-drones all excited. He said a bunch of things that, undoubtedly, moved some on-the-fence Americans to believe in his leadership. He even went as far as to say…
America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline… /…doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Wow! I guess, while I took a few days off to visit the Vegas strip…
View from The Mix @ Mandalay Bay
Do a little skiing with my friends, Stonsey and V-Nap, in Steamboat Springs…
Stonsey, V-Nap and Archie @ Steamboat Ski Resort
And watch a little football action in San Francisco…
Giants vs. 49ers NFC Championship Game
…President O must have balanced our national budget, figured out how to pay down our national debt, corrected our trade deficit, made us competitive on the world market, and put a few million Americans back to work. Excellent. This means that none of us should have any trouble selling our houses, obtaining financing for a new home, or asking our employers for a raise. Party time! Someone send that guy an intern (in a blue dress, of course).
But hey… I’m not here to criticize the President, the Democrats, the Republican candidates, or the Republicans at large. The reality is that, I don’t care who wins in 2012 because, at the end of the day, it won’t matter.
As long as the system is broken, and we continue to be distracted by politics as usual, we’ll never fix the root problems. Power will continue to shift from side-to-side and Washington will remain broken. We have to focus. Let’s fix Washington first. We can worry about electing the right candidates later. Right now, it just doesn’t matter. In fact, for the first time since I turned 18 years old, I may not vote this year. Why should I waste my time?
Root Cause Analysis
Right now, Washington is broken. Instead of making sound decisions to get our country back on the right track, Washington just backs the special interest groups that have purchased our politicians in an auction. In order to stop the extraction of America, we have to loosen that financial grip. Today, 96% of the time, the politician with the most money win. Essentially, the position is bought. That doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t sound like the plan that America’s founding fathers had in mind, but it’s the plan that we have and we need to change it.
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama mentioned that many Americans believe that Washington is broken, but he failed to mention the primary factor in the breakdown. That’s because he is one of them and therefore, avoids the topic of campaign reform. He is dependent on their money for re-election. As will be the next President and the next President, until we get the money out of politics.
Our only hope is focus.
I truly believe that our two major political parties constantly work against us. They purposely keep us divided. They pick issues that many people get very passionate about and they bring those issues to light, in order to distract us and prevent us from teaming up against the real issue that is keeping our country down – bought politicians.
They always want to talk about religion, abortion, gay rights, healthcare, military spending and national defense, jobs and social security. Some are excellent topics that should be discussed. Others are purely personal issues that have no business in the politics of a free society. But they are all topics that deeply affect many Americans, in one way or another, and the two political parties don’t see eye-to-eye on any of them. The parties are divided and therefore the nation is divided. And I know we’ve all been taught that divided – we fall.
This is brilliant on their part. As long as the general population continues to foster this “us vs. them” mentality, and we continue to root for our party, as if we were rooting for our favorite football team, we will never get together enough support to pass a constitutional amendment to get the money out of politics. So the AIGs, Enrons, Halliburtons and the like will continue to buy their politicians and continue to profit at America’s expense… at YOUR expense.
Imagine the United States without dependency on foreign oil. That’s not going to happen until we end the flow of dollars from oil company lobbyist into Washington. The oil companies are making too much money. Being dependent on foreign oil is bad for you and me, but it makes the oil companies filthy rich. That is the primary reason why our cars don’t already get over over 50 MPG and why we don’t have competitive fuels at the pumps.
We could go down the list and hit banking, the financial markets, trade – everything that extracts money from our citizens, sends our money overseas and ultimately ends up in the pockets of the tycoons, we could fix. We can get America back on track. We just have to stop lining political pockets with cash and restore a sense of doing what’s right for our country first. If the rich want to get richer, they’ll have to invest in our new America, led by innovation and the drive to be self-sufficient.
So what do we do?
Here’s Archie’s roadmap:
1. If you really want to vote in this year’s elections, join Americans Elect. This organization has now earned the right to be on the ballot in a number of states. They expect to be in all 50 states by the November elections. The goal is to get a candidate on the ballot by Americans, not by a political party. This may seem silly but this would be a major step forward in showing that America is tired of political party driven politics as usual. Check it out. I was skeptical at first, but it’s an awesome and growing idea.
http://www.americanselect.org/
Also, their tour ends in the next few days and they were only going as far South as Orlando but, it would have been great to catch the Crash the Party tour. Check it out. Maybe you can still make it to UCF on Monday…
http://crashtheparty.org/
2. We have to reverse Citizens United. If you don’t understand it, read about it. Learn about it. Stick it into GoogaBingHoo. If you trust me to give you some reasonably unbiased articles, you can read this one.
Citizens United Turns Two: Democracy is Not a Game
Read this article to understand why I will NOT be voting for Mr. Romney…
McCain Goes Off Message: Predicts Unlimited Political Giving Scandal
3. Do something. Tell someone. Educate someone. Get involved.
There are a number of organizations out there fighting for the same cause.
Be careful. Remain focused. Let’s get the money out of politics first.
We’ll fix everything else later.
While I hate to endorse what may appear to just be another website trying to be point-counterpoint. I am behind the folks at United Republic. This is a non-partisan group, trying to report the facts as they see it and trying to create a national movement to get the money out of politics and regain control of our country.
http://unitedrepublic.org/
My favorite, however, is… Move To Amend – http://movetoamend.org/
You should join Move to Amend. If not, at least read through the website, watch the videos, understand what we’re talking about about and help us get the money out of politics.
I love these guys. They just recently organized Occupy the Courts on the two year anniversary of Citizens United. Unfortunately, I was traveling.
Otherwise, I would have been at my local court house.
Read more: http://movetoamend.org/OccupyTheCourts
Well, I think that’s all I have for today.
Although, have I put you guys onto Lissie yet?
Barnsley! Have we played Lissie yet?
Barnsley?
He was just here. You’d think after going back to England for a month he’d be paying attention to the show. Hmmm..?
OK. I think I haven’t played Lissie for you, so here she is… Normally, I would be highly offended by anyone trying to remake any Metallica song, but when it comes to Lissie, I’ll make an exception.
First of all, she’s a pretty girl…
Lissie
Then, I think she has Ashton Kutcher in her band…
Not Kutcher
Finally, take a peek at her remake of one of my favorite Metallica songs…
Nothing Else Matters
And I think by the end of the video, you’ll agree with me.
She’s talented and…
“I need me some Lissie.”
Anyone else feel tingly?
I think it’s the smile at the very end that does it for me. Too cute.
And did you get my subliminal messaging…?
- Let’s get the money out of politics.
- Nothing Else Matters
Thank you.
That is definitely all the time I have for today. My apologies for not posting more often. Unfortunately, life has been busy and it doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon.
Enjoy. Keep up the fight. Peace…
– Arch
MP3 DVD Rumple-Packed Guitar…
October 7, 2011
Funny, several people seemed to have had the same reaction to my money rant from last week. At the begining they were thinking, “wow… he used to owe a huge pile of money and now he owes a lot less, he must be rolling in the dough”. But then, as they read on to understand how, quite often, it cost a lot of money to make money, and then repaying your debts can absolutely kill you on taxes, instead of thinking that I was rolling in any kind of dough, they sent me sympathy cards… Thank you very much. 😉
In either case, the sentiment was, “but if you ever do get paid-off to zero, then you’ll be rolling in the dough, right?” Well…maybe. You see my goal was never to roll in dough, my goal was to build a great company…and yes, it’s easier to do that if you have a lot of dough. So getting to the “lots of dough” stage is important. But the reality is that, if all our debts were paid to zero, I’d make sure that all of our people made more money. So I’d still end up with less. My goal has always been to have the best people, making the most money possible for the job that they do. For example, if we hire a janitor, I want him to be the best janitor, and I want him to make more money than any other janitor around. Keeping in mind that, with great pay comes great responsibility. This isn’t charity or corporate socialism, each employee would be making top dollar, because we’d have the very best employees …and, theoretically, we could command a premium price for our services. Yes, we’d be that good. And then, maybe, we’d all be making so much money that we’d have to consider ourselves, “rolling in it”…but, again, not just me… everyone who got us here/there.
Anyway…enough about money. This week, I’ve sent Barnsley to South Central Los Angeles to see if he could drum up a bottle of Ripple. Now, you can’t just say Ripple. You need to pronounce it like Fred Sandford pronounced it… Ripple!
I hope it’s a strong wine. We’re going to need it.
Because this week, we’re gonna talk about…
Racism
One word, and I bet I already made some people nervous about whatever it is that I am going to say. You know who you are. Do you know why you’re nervous? Because you are probably an overly politically correct Democrat who would prefer to not mention racism and hope it goes away.
Well, let me set my stage… I have a problem with racist people, but I also have a problem with political correctness. You see, to me, whether or not you are a racist has less to do with what you say and do, and a lot more to do with what you believe and what you feel. Anyone can adjust what they say, in order to be politically correct. That doesn’t change what they actually believe and feel. I could innundate you with examples, but I will try and limit it to just a few “annecdotes”.
In planning to discuss this topic, I first went on a search for an official definiton of racism. Here’s what I came up with… “Racism is the belief that inherent differences among human racial groups, justifies discrimination against one group or another.”
That’s perfect. That definition agrees with me that it’s about belief.
But today, someone could easily be tagged as a racist, not by what they believe, but simply by what they might say, do, not do, or even find humorous. No one is better at pointing this out than black comedians. Black comedians tell a lot of black jokes. The basis of their comedy is quite often a giant verbal yellow highlighter on the differences between races. Their audiences laugh because a) it’s usually very funny; and b) it’s a black comedian telling the jokes. And as Chris Rock (an excellent entertainer, performer, and one of my favorite comedians) has pointed out in the past, sometimes the white people need to look around and see if it’s OK for them to laugh. By all rights, they and their jokes should be labelled as racist. Yes/No?
Speaking of black comedians, I saw a guy not too long ago, who was very funny, and I must apolgize for not remembering his name but, at one point, he started talking about his parents and said, “my parents are old school, which means they are… uh… racist”. This got a big laugh from his audience, including me, because we all know what that means. This means that his parents grew up in a time before the intense need existed for everyone to be politically correct. So, they say what they are thinking, instead of thinking one thing and saying another in order to avoid the possibility of being thought of as racist.
I know a thing or two about this. By today’s standards, no one could be considered more racist than my father. My father is an “old school” Cuban. By today’s standards, the Cubans are a racist bunch. They like to make fun of, just about everyone… Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Jews, Arabs, Asians… They really do not discrimate when it comes to making fun of others.
By the way, if you’re reading this and saying, “hey… I’m Cuban. I’m not that way.” Then it’s because you are one of those rare, most likely Democrat, Cubans, who has been Americanized and you’ve adopted the era of political correctness. But even then, you know exactly what I’m taking about. Don’t you?
…but in spite of my dad’s lack of political correctness, is he’s a racist? Not a chance. Most of my dad’s closest friends, personally and in business, were black Americans. I grew up in South Florida visiting neighborhoods who hadn’t seen a white guy, other than my dad, in years. If you came to a party at my house, there were always a handful of black Americans who were like familiy to me. I think I once asked my dad, “hey, <Archie’s dad>, have you noticed that most of your friends are black?” I honestly think that he’d never given it a second thought. Instead he just looked around, possibly ackowledging that I was onto something, and he said, “all I know is that my friends are loyal, honest and trustworthy”.
But it’s not like he’s blind to race. Believe me, it’s not unusual to go into any Cuban coffee shop in Miami with my dad and have him address a dark skinned woman behind the counter with, “Con permisso, Negra…”, …which means, “Excuse me, black woman”. …but he’s not being racist. I think, he thinks he’s being complementary. He’s saying, I looked at you close enough to notice that you’re dark skinned. I think, in his mind, he’s flirting with her, and doesn’t see a difference between saying that or saying, “hey you, with the blue shirt”.
I believe, that my dad believes, as do I, that all people, from all races, deserve equal opportunities and deserve to be treated as equals. But that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the fact that we’re all very different. Let’s face it, everything that has ever happened to you, and in your family’s past, since the begining of time, has played a part in making you who you are today and in making you different from everyone else… and we (you) should celebrate that. It’s good that we’re all different and it’s great that people notice. Noticing doesn’t make us racist.
So am I racist? I don’t think so. Although, I did notice that most of my dad’s friends were black. Did that make me a racist or is it possible that this observation only served to verify that I wasn’t blind? I guess it would bother me if anyone considered me a racist… It would bother me because, I used to have a black business partner. Now that I’m thinking about it, I have a number of black friends, who I never think of as any diffrent from any other friend. I also miss Willie James, my dad’s best friend, who passed away a few years ago. I never thought of him as black, instead I called him “Uncle Willie”, because he and my dad were like brothers…and I say all this realizing that, having a few black friends or relatives is still no litmus test for racism but then, what really is?
Funny. I saw something the other day that said…
If you voted for Obama to prove you weren’t a racist, now
you’ll have to vote for someone else to prove you’re not an idiot.
I love that. In case you’re wondering, by the way, I voted for Obama. I voted for Obama knowing that I wouldn’t agree with his politics and knowing that immediately after he took over, I’d be looking forward to a different President. But I didn’t vote for Obama to prove that I wasn’t a racist, I felt compelled to vote for the candidate who was least like the previous President. The country needed that. Now we need a President who will stop worrying about re-election, and/or his party platform, and do what’s right for the country. Of course, neither political party seems to have anyone like that …but that’s another story.
In conclusion, I do not believe that inherent differences among human racial groups, justifies any kind of discrimination against anyone. But I also don’t want to pretend that by forcing everyone to be politically correct, we’re fixing the problem. Instead, I think political correctness only serves to mask the ongoing, underlying issues that continue to exist in a country with a history of great racial inequalities, and we have a long way to go before we outgrow that history. That said, it should be pretty impressive that, no so long ago, white people imported Africans into this country and sold them as slaves but today it’s possible for a black man to be elected President, arguably the most powerful political positon on the planet.
And THAT is just a small part of what still makes America, in spite of all of our nation’s problems, the greatest country on Earth. But every single one of us needs to understand that being the greatest country on Earth doesn’t allow us to be on cruise control. There’s no auto-pilot here. Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility and… I think that’s the perfect lead in to today’s guests…
Before listening to any music, I have a video for you….
In case you don’t know him, Felonious Munk is a “comedian” and the founder of Stop It B!
FM finds topics that need addressing, he makes videos that are somewhat funny but very on point, and he puts them on You Tube. I must warn you that, FM’s video contain language which some people may consider offensive, yet others would argue that they should be required viewing. I agree. In fact, I think that if I ever get my new political party going, we might need FM to be our spokesperson.
So, I give you Felonious Munk, the new “America’s Party” Leader…
Yeah. Stop It B!
OK, so… Maybe he’s only about 80% on point. (Remember: He’s a comedian.)
That’s still better than most of our politicians …at least this guy is entertaining. 🙂
And do you still want a musical guest?
OK…but, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a mood.
You want music?
I give you, singer / songwriter, Doug Kwartler…
Hmm…
Maybe after Felonious Munk, we needed something a little more upbeat?
Oh, well. I guess someone from the Musical Guest Department will have to face the firing squad.
And so, the end is near…
Although I’ve probably said more than enough for one day, I would be remiss if I were not to acknowledge the crazed, lunatic, slave driver, genius who passed on Wednesday, and/or if we failed to thank him for the technological future that he helped to expedite into our present…
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know,
to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
– Steve Jobs
We’ll miss you , brother.
– Arch
Archie Kobain 