No Crowd Aloud

Joe Biden has finally agreed to debate Donald Trump after establishing a few rules for the confrontation. Most importantly, there can be no audience at all - just the candidates, the moderator, and the small tech crew that will be operating the Biden animatronic. The lack of audience noise will also make it easier to edit sections of the debate later, patching together words that may make Joe look cognizant.

Another requirement is that the candidates' microphones will be cut off without warning at the end of their allotted speaking period. This is allegedly to keep Trump from interrupting Biden with zesty bon mots like "you're full of shit." But I suspect the actual reason is that it will establish exactly how much time Joe needs to ramble before his microphone is cut off and he (and his handlers) can breathe a sigh of relief. And he can easily fill the time; ask him about inflation and he'll launch into a story about his arch-nemesis Corn Pop. Ask him about America's border crisis and he'll list the many, many places where his son, Beau, was killed in action. Ask him about nuclear war and he'll share the jolly story of the day in the Oval Office that he confused the terms "lunch secrets" and "launch sequence."

While the debate should be a debacle for Ol' Joe, he admittedly fooled us when debating the last time around. Hopped up on God knows what kind of drugs, he presented himself dynamically and "politician clearly" by saying meaningless but seemingly lucid things he'd learned through a training program of treats and electric shocks.

Then again, people have been surprised that the first debate will happen so early in the campaign season - but maybe there's a reason for that. Biden's staffers may be planning to send him onto the stage unmedicated to have him self-destruct publically, thus allowing the Dems to substitute a different candidate who might stand a chance against Trump. 

THE SOUND OF (ALMOST REAL) MUSIC

I continue to play around with AI music generation for fun. Here's a recent creation that I'm quite happy with. Somewhat inspired by The Byrds "So You Wanna Be A Rock and Roll Star," this 60s-flavored piece of jangle pop has a warning for wannabee rockstars and anyone else who finds that old aspirations are standing in the way of new directions. I hope you enjoy it!

STULTIFYING STILTON STUFF

I want to apologize for my infrequent posting these days. I still care very much about this site and, especially, the wonderful community here. But being somewhat more fragile emotionally than I was previously (I pause to theatrically raise my wrist to my forehead, chin ever-so-slightly elevated in wistful martyrdom) I'm really not invested in the idiocy and fear-mongering of day-to-day news. Oh sure, I still mutter aloud about whose heads I'd like to see on a pike, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I should explicitly put in print.

Plus, Fauci's plague is still kicking my rear-end. I currently can't walk more than about 30 feet without getting breathless. If I make that a 60 foot round trip, I'll be gasping afterwards. Unsurprisingly, it's hard for me to get anything done: by the time I can walk to my lawnmower, I'm too breathless to push it. I have bags of mulch sitting on my porch that seem as immoveable as the stone slabs used to build the pyramids.

I've had oodles of medical tests and no one actually knows what's going on. Right now, the smart money is on micro blood clots screwing up my lungs and circulatory system. It's not an uncommon reaction to Covid and it can A) go away, B) become a chronic condition or, C) lead to stroke or heart attack. Currently there's no medical protocol for treating it, although I'm pretty sure we've got people in Wuhan working on it.

Side note: Congress has only now cut off funding for the EcoHealth Alliance, the group which funded (with taxpayers' money funneled through Anthony Fauci) the gain-of-function Covid mischief at the Wuhan Institute of Effing Up The World.  And in the most jaw-dropping show of chutzpah I've ever seen, this is the image you'll see when you visit the EcoHealth website...

And since they didn't answer their own question, the answer is "citizens with pikes."

Only You Can Prevent Dumpster Fires

Based on the above, humorless Joe may be thinking about asking Kristi Noem to give Smokey Bear a personal tour of her favorite gravel pit. Although the likelihood that he's capable of thinking about anything other than ice cream time and poopy time (which is frequently the same time) is diminishingly small.

As are the odds that the world is going to turn saner anytime soon. Let's see, we still have Trump on trial for things that aren't crimes, colleges in chaos owing to demonstrations in support of anti-Semitic terror, Boeing whistleblowers dying mysteriously (meaning by causes other than standing under the flight paths of disintegrating Boeing aircraft), multiple fronts for possible nuclear war, Bird flu threatening to end mankind (and news about mRNA vaccines perhaps making the birds' efforts redundant) and, saddest of all, we've still got over a month to wait before "Deadpool & Wolverine" hits the theaters.

Which is why it's so important for each of us to occasionally take a deep breath and let go of our stress. Or, as this pillow from Amazon Vine suggests...

And really, shouldn't we all try to be more Hom Enow? Personally, I've been able to find some ongoing escape and enjoyment by fiddling about in the world of AI music generation. Because when we express ourselves in song, we speak in the voice of angels...

A Biden In Every Pot

To paraphrase a very old joke, a young cannibal boy once sat at the dinner table and said "I don't like Biden." To which his mother said "Then just eat the noodles."

In this case, according to a heartfelt speech recently given by Joe Biden, the main course might have been the president's beloved "Uncle Bosie" who was a heroic World War II pilot whose plane was shot down (or perhaps speared) causing him to crash into cannibal territory in New Guinea. The savages ate every bit of him after first forcing him to watch erotic native dancers so there would be "more meat."

None of this happened the way Biden said, of course. His uncle, who was in the service, was a passenger on a military plane that had engine failure and subsequently ditched in the ocean. And that was the end of Uncle Bosie. You'd think that giving his life in the service of his country would be story enough for little Joey (he was 2 years old when it happened) to be proud of, but Joe just had to embellish the story to the point of utter ridiculousness. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is in no way related to any flesh-eating tribespeople, found subsequent questions about the cannibal story to be tasteless. Presumably, unlike Uncle Bosie.

But as long as Uncle Joe has put the subject of cannibals on the table, so to speak, it seems an appropriate time to revisit a fond memory from my politically incorrect youth. I loved watching "The Little Rascals" and no episode made me laugh harder than the mistaken-identity romp, "The Kid From Borneo." I assume that there are many here who will remember that episode, which is why I've used AI to create this (suddenly topical) song about the chaos that occurred when "Uncle George" came to town.

And as long as I'm trotting out my AI songbook (seriously, I just can't force myself to follow the news closely these days), here's another little toe-tapping tune that only took me about 30 years to create. Back then, I got the chance to meet a famous cowboy vocal group and pitched them an original song that I thought would fit nicely in their catalog. They politely declined which is hardly surprising, considering that I can't play any instruments and so just had to sing a cappella on a cassette that I may or may not have recorded in my sound-enhancing bathroom shower.

But thanks to the miracle of AI, which is willing to play with us a bit longer before taking over, I finally brought the 30-year-old song to life this week (along with AI generated visuals - though I still had to do a bunch of video editing). It's not politically relevant (assuming that Biden didn't also lose a beloved uncle in a cattle stampede), but I think it's a good idea to kick off a Monday with a toe-tapping cowboy tune anyway!