Live Mirth, 2007 (Seven blogs on seven continents)

One nation, One people, One earth.

Well, I have to admit that this concert has me a lot more jazzed about saving the planet than I would have believed possible. I’ve even learned a few things as the day has progressed.

That’s right; I’ve learned for instance that the only thing shakier than Sharkira’s booty is her vocals. I was a bit dismayed to learn how just how badly swelled John Legend’s head has become with a small taste of success when he tried to steal Corrine Bailey Rae’s thunder and only succeeded in crapping up what could have been a nice duet.

Thanks to all of the signs in the audience I learned that the Amazon needs saving. Before today I never even knew she was in danger.

T K Tungsten taught me how shallow and vacuous many of today’s performers truly are when the only eco-tip she could think of to offer her fans was, “to eat more soil or something.” Duh...

In all seriousness though, there are some important bits of information I’ve come away with today. There are indeed significant changes I can make in my life to help ease my carbon footprint upon the eco-sands of the planet. As of today I am pledging to implement the following changes into the production of my blog.

My Pledge

1. From this day forward this blog is completely vegan. That’s right! The only animals used in the production of this website will be the cat I use to mix up the natural pigments to produce the colors of my background graphics.

2. No petroleum products or fossil fuels of any kind will be used in the production of my blog. From now on it is all solar and the illumination you'll see here will be all generated by L.E.D. and florescent light bulbs.

3. All of my posts will now be entirely written using recycled megabytes and all natural corn based compositions easily broken down by the environment.

4. Last but not least. I am asking that each one of you join me in my eco-friendly venture and to please compost these pages when you are finished reading them.

If we all come together we can make a difference. Thanks to Al Gore, an incontinent truth has been brought to the awareness of all the people in the world, (with the possible exception of Reverend Al Sharpton), and we must respond to this global threat before our children inherit only a sandbox planet incapable of sustaining a civilized industrial society. Its not too late people if we all act now.

Live Mirth update: Worst eco-tip of the day goes to Ben Affleck who encouraged us to purchase our songs online instead of buying C.D.s that use a lot of petroleum being trucked back and forth across the country. Think about it...

Live Mirth update: It has been sad to see so much good music being played upon so many venues around the globe and every time we get to the American stage it has been rapper after rapper after rapper. Everybody say, "Lame..."

Live Mirth update: Is it really music when all you have on stage is a sound box? One of my friends just asked me if Germans really like rap music after a performance by Snoop Dog. I said," sure they do, it reminds them of old Hitler speeches."

Live Mirth update: Has anyone else noticed the use of recycled music? This is not a one hundred percent live concert event after all. We've been watching since the show started this morning and they are playing clips we've already seen.

Live Mirth update: The tires on the stages are recycled and painted. Where are they going after the stages are torn down? I'm hoping they will be up for sale on Ebay so I can hang one in the living room as a memorial to this historic event.

Live Mirth update: How many of the kids in the audience do you really think are going to participate in the Green Movement after the concert is over? Will it be as many who went to the polls after attending similar concerts during the days leading up to the election?

Live Mirth update: God bless Melissa Etheridge who just laid truth to the bone and gave one of the most inspired performances I've ever witnessed in my entire life. After a seemingly endless parade of daisy-duke-short wearing wiggly jiggly bimbos singing their same old tired songs of sexual promiscuity someone finally came through and sent the message out loud and clear.

Like Melissa encouraged each one of us to do.

Are you awake now?

Do you get it now?

Then get your heads out of your asses and do something!

God bless Melissa Etheridge for speaking the truth when all the young performers have done all day long is shake their booty and party like it don't really matter.

Eddy is not kidding, folks. Why do you think I do this?

It is because I believe in the power of one voice and I do believe in making a difference. For the love of God, our very democracy is in danger and the forces of evil are catapulting us into the abyss of doom for a lousy handful of silver and gold coins.

If we simply sit by and do nothing, for whatever lame excuses we offer in defense of our complacency, then we are just as guilty of their crimes against humanity as if we were committing them ourselves.

Thank you Melissa Etheridge for speaking out the truth. Thank you for giving this concert its one shining moment.

By the way Mr. Sharpton, did you hear what a real spirit filled speaker sounds like? Compared to the message Melissa delivered you are nothing more than a jangling bell; loud as hell but lacking any clear or valid message.

We are the world...

Don't worry Al, I figured out a way to help!

Recently I have received a number of emails that have placed me in somewhat of a quandary. As regular readers of my blog have come to realize over the year, I am a deeply compassionate individual, and whenever one of my fellow beings reaches out and asks for my assistance I am quick to offer whatever aid it is within my humble powers to provide. I do not require anything in return nor do I ask for compensation from those I have been fortunate enough to assist in their journey towards our mutually assured final destination point in heaven.

Therein rests the kernel of my current dilemma. Truly, it is nothing more than any other lowly servant in the service of the Almighty would do under similar circumstances, and it is my joy and spiritual pleasure to provide substance and sustenance to my fellow brethren in their time of need. Therefore you can imagine my surprise when riches began falling upon me as if delivered by the heavenly father himself.

When the first email arrived, straight from the desk of Mr. Paul Jones, informing me of a $500,000 pounds sterling lottery prize currently being held for me in an escrow account in their affiliate bank in the United Kingdom I simply could not believe my good fortune. I didn’t even know my own email address had been entered in the lottery!

Imagine my further surprise when I opened yet another email from a Mr. Mark Nikiema, with the auditing and accounting section of the African development Bank, who shared with me a story of a terrible plane crash. Apparently an entire family died leaving behind a monetary sum totaling some fifteen million U.S. dollars in an African bank account. Now, I’m a little fuzzy on the finer points of the tale, but apparently this money will somehow be claimed by the banking institution of which Mr. Nikiema represents unless I assist him in the liberation of those funds for which I will be rewarded a 30% finders fee.

Now, my immediate reaction upon reading these emails was that God had witnessed what a good and faithful steward I had thus far proven to be and I was being rewarded ten-fold with his bounteous blessings. Of course, once I ceased dancing around the house, speaking in tongues and proclaiming the wonderful glories of the most holy one another thought entered my head. What if this was a temptation sent from Satan to test me much in the same way Job had been tested in the Old Testament.

It was a vexing dilemma as you can plainly see. Well, as I always do when confronted with a spiritual pickle I sat down in the dark confines of my bedroom closet and began an intense session of prayer and meditation. I implored the lord to provide me an answer and several times I rebuked demons who tried to interrupt my parlay with Jesus by filling my mind with visions of lewdness the likes of which I had no inkling existed before that day. Finally, after several grueling hours of supplication the answer was given to me and I knew what I had to do.

As I stated in an earlier paragraph I am a humble man, living in a humble home with a humble wife and child, plus two humble dogs and one even humbler cat. The sums of money with which I was being tempted could easily prove to be more than I could cope with and I could easily find myself indulging in iniquities and pleasures of the flesh you simply can’t imagine unless you’d been sitting with me in the closet of my bedroom on that fateful day I did battle with Satan and prayed to the great, I Am.

Friends, an opportunity has been presented to us to change the world in a profound manner. Beginning Saturday morning a chain of rock and roll concerts known as “Live Earth” will begin around the globe. Although the concerts have not been set up as fund raisers it will be possible to make donations to Al Gores website promoting a greener planet. Good souls that I know you to be I have a favor to ask of you.

Knowing that it is important to lead by example I will not ask you to do more than I have already done myself. I know that not many of you have been recipients of emails from Mr. Mark Nikiema of the African Development bank. I am also aware of the odds of many more of my readers having been contacted about winning the U.K. lottery. However, if only twenty or thirty of you will join me in contacting these individuals (and any other agents of the African banking community) who may have contacted you by email, and strongly encourage them to donate these funds (anonymously of course, because after all we are not Reverend Al Sharpton) to the “Live Earth S.O.S. fund” so that we can help Al Gore save the planet.

My Christian brothers, I see it as a win-win situation for everyone involved; monies liberated from the corrupt financial institutions in Africa will be used by fiscally responsible individuals to save the planet, we as beings of light and humility will not be tempted to commit acts of unspeakable iniquity by attempting to manage sums of money beyond our humble abilities to handle and Al Gore finally wins the big one. Please, I implore you, give these monies to a worthy cause and help to save the planet. Trust me, it is the least we can do for a worthy rock and roll concert cause.

Humbly yours, DirkStar

Oops, I did it again...

Why, the baby isn't even safely harnessed!

Now, I'm fairly certain that if this was a picture of Britney Spears and her child it would already be the featured headline on N.B.C. and Fox News, the Reverend Jerry Falwell would be spinning in his freshly turned grave and C.N.N would be camped outside of our domestic compound demanding an explanation of how we could be so cavalier with the safety of our infant child.

Since it is only a picture of my wife, Felicia, in the privacy of our own home I am somewhat certain that we will not awaken to find that nappy-headed-media-ho, Reverend Al Sharpton, standing outside our house in the morning, claiming that this is a clear example of our society’s hypocrisy in how the suburban mother is treated differently than her inner city urban counterpart. Which oddly enough, brings me to tonight’s topical discourse; where the hell is Reverend Al Sharpton during the great public outcry over the commutation of Scooter Libby’s jail sentence by our beloved president, George W. Bush?

Could it be that Mr. Sharpton has already squandered his available spiritual currency by attacking only television personalities and a certain incarcerated female blond celebrity? After engaging in a rather mindless debate with an author, in which Al seemed only to challenge the title of the book, “God Is Not Great”, rather than present any type of logical rebuttal of the salient contents of the man’s position, could it be that the news cameras went looking for a fresh voice with genuine substance to put upon the television airwaves?

When Paris Hilton was prematurely released from jail, and big Al announced his intentions to travel to Los Angeles in protest of the inequities of their judicial system, it truly dawned upon me just what a shallow media hog he really is. Is Paris Hilton a legitimate adversary worthy of the intellectual sword wielded by the champion of justice and equality, Al Sharpton? Could it be that what he saw was nothing more than potential television cameras and titillating media coverage of an ebony and ivory version of beauty and the beast?

Al has spent a lot of time in the public eye lately at the expense of one television personality, one hotel heiress and an author with a juicy book title. He has promoted himself quite effectively while waving the banner of gawd about as if it were some sort of sacred Baptist talisman. It has been self-aggrandizement on a scale of Barnum and Bailey’s circus. Ah, but an interesting thing has been happening lately. The crowd has begun asking legitimate questions about your ministry.

Why aren’t you angry with the musical artists who fill our children with talk of gold, debauchery, wine and lascivious women? Why is it the only devils you see are pale skinned? Why is it only your opinion I hear and not the word of God?

Your answer was to stand in front of nameless steel and glass buildings with a bullhorn blaming the music industry for forcing young black artists to make records of hate. You did not mention a single individual’s name. You held no one accountable. You bowed down before the temple of mammon and kept your jewels safe. What a disgrace it was...

You have become enamored with your own self and have fallen into the trap of pride, which has ensnared greater men than yourself throughout the ages of biblical history. You sir are filled with hubris and are now lost in a wilderness of your own making. While you were attacking overly hyped windmills like Imus and Paris Hilton a new prophet began standing before the pillars of mighty institutions and demanding personal accountability and genuine change.

As always happens with old windbags such as Al Sharpton, who claim to be the sole protectors of our youth, when in fact they are the greatest dead weight holding them down, the divine force at work in the universe steps in and corrective measures are instituted to correct the situation. Remember the lesson of Kadesh Barnea, Mr. Sharpton? Remember how the adults all wailed about the youth needing to be protected from the giants in the land? Do you remember what transpired, Al?

LET ME REMIND YOU.

The adults walked in circles in the wilderness until they died off and it was the young people who walked into the Promised Land and took it for themselves. That's right, the very kids who the old leaders claimed couldn't take care of themselves let alone each other were the warriors who took the Promised Land when the elders lacked genuine faith.

There is a new voice in the land, Al. Can you hear it? It is the voice of Barack Obama and he is speaking to the young and they are hearing his message loud and clear. He is demanding personal accountability instead of media recognition. He is demanding service to the people and not just an audience of the masses.

Barack Obama is the new voice of the people Mr. Sharpton while you are now simply another tabloid character like that of Imus or Paris Hilton. You have become a fool, sir and it is now time for you to go walk your circles in the wilderness and allow serious young warriors like Mr. Obama to stand in the market square and speak the real truth of God. He is the real leader of your people into the future, not you Mr. Sharpton. Now, go on home, watch television and dream of your bygone glory days.

Really Al, Imus and Paris Hilton, what were you thinking?

Sorry, dude, but consider yourself rebuked in the name of the Lord.

I hope you like jammin too...

Judy and Glen Miller;
nice folks who reached out and said hello.

Sometimes it seems like we live in a world where there are only two ways to feel about the people who inhabit it with us; we either fear them because they are different from us or we judge them because they are not the same as us. It is rare that folks simply get together and enjoy the company of their neighbor and share the good times only people mingling together in a community spirit can produce. There are times these days when it just seems harder and harder to find good groups of folks to hang out with and share good times. Then again, some times good people find you and good times just happen as if by magic.

The other day as Felicia and I were preparing to leave the new Frisch’s restaurant that just opened up in Kettering, Ohio she noticed a small white card beneath the wiper on my automobile's front windshield. On it was the name of a local P.T. Cruiser club and the email address of Glen and Judy Miller. Now, Felicia had been encouraging me to see if there was a cruiser club in the Dayton area but I hadn’t had much luck in finding one. Needless to say I was pretty excited about finding the little card and I send off an email to Glen Miller as soon as I got home.

Later in the evening I opened my Hotmail folder and there was an email from Glen Miller. He warmly invited me to join the Cruiser Club and to participate in an event on the Fourth of July. Soon, Judy, Glen and I were exchanging correspondence and they put me in contact with Bob Riffle who was the event leader for the Fairborn get together. He invited me to participate in the parade with the Gem City P.T. Cruiser club and I marked it up on my calendar.

This morning I woke up bright and early and after a thorough car wash I drove up to Fairborn, Ohio and met up with the members of the Gem City Cruisers. From the moment I pulled my Cruiser into the gathering group of fellow P.T. enthusiasts I was embraced by a warm and fun loving group of people. Introductions were cheerful and hearty and smiles were as plentiful as the handshakes given to me. I felt at home the moment these folks came up and made sure I was going to participate in the next event at Young’s Dairy.

The fun bunch who made me feel at home all day long.

By the time the parade started and I got to drive in formation honking and waving to the crowd I knew that this was a group of people I wanted to spend more time with. They have a diverse membership of fun loving folks who enjoy driving P.T. Cruisers, meeting new P.T. enthusiasts and getting together after events and eating at quaint little eateries. Yes, they are indeed Felicia’s and my kind of people. There were a number of pimped out P.T. Cruisers to be seen and I got a lot of good ideas for tricking out my own ride.

The "Great Grape Ape". So fine...

Yellow flames on black, always a classic.

Seriously, the food at "The Broad Street Grill" was so good.

After the parade we gathered at "The Broad Street Grill" for a bite to eat and I got to meet more of the Gem City cruisers and a few folks from other clubs in the area. We laughed told stories, talked about our P.T. Cruisers and upcoming club events. It was a grand time and I’m truly looking forward to participating in future events. If you live in the Ohio area and are free on the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth of July I would encourage you to stop by Young’s Dairy and catch the P.T. Cruiser show. They serve wonderful ice cream at Young's Dairy and there are lots of activities for the entire family to enjoy on the working farm. I guarantee you'll find me there and hopefully, I'll be able to introduce you to some of my very cool new friends in the Gem City P.T. Cruisers.

Thank you all for making my Fourth of July the very best it could possibly be.

Trailers for sale or rent...

Once upon a time a very smart man watched as a very bad thing happened in America called “The Great Depression”. Now, the very smart man knew that the reasons for what he’d seen happen were really quite simple; there existed a flaw in the method through which wealth was distributed throughout the masses working together within the confines of the capitalistic economic system. Oh yes indeed good friends, although the American way was a lot better than many other processes at work in the world it was not the perfect utopian system that many thought it to be.

Now, the very smart man knew that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them and having just watched what happened during the great depression he wanted to send a warning to the future that would alert people in times to come that something bad was happening and how to recognize that bad thing when it started to happen in the world around them. So he created the game Monopoly.

That’s right boys and girls. Did you ever the read the inside box top of the Monopoly board game? You see, the reality of the game is that it isn’t really a game at all; it’s a message in a bottle. It is a warning against doing things in a certain way that appears all well and good but in reality is a recipe for disaster. Now, I’m not going to go into a lot of the economic lessons contained in the game of Monopoly but I will list a couple of the insights we need to be very concerned about right now.

1. In spite of the preaching’s of conservative prophets like say, Rush Limbaugh for instance; the concept of “infinitely renewable resources” is in error. Just like the board game of Monopoly there are only so many parcels of real-estate available and a limited number of players capable of vying for them at any given moment. Just like the board game there are also limited available resources for developing the properties.

2. As long as the little green houses of individual ownership are the primary buildings dotting the landscape the game is in pretty good shape for all the players concerned. As long as a balance exists in the ownership of the properties and the buildings upon them the game is good for everyone. It is when the properties begin to become overdeveloped with the big red hotels of the corporate entity that things begin to turn ugly.

3. The Regan theory of trickle down economics is wrong. When you keep giving more money to those who already possess a disproportional amount of the available cash flow they do not pass any of it on down to those who are truly in need of it. They just spend it buying up even more of the property around them and replacing the green houses of individual ownership with even more of their big shiny red corporate monoliths. Oh they think they are so very clever and so very rich.

4. Here is the clincher. The more money is in the hands of fewer individuals the worse it is for the game. The more foreclosures remove private individuals from their homes and land the fewer players remain in the game. That’s when it really gets ugly folks. You see, the few folk holding all of the cash and resources just don’t realize that if there are no little green house people left to spend money on things that the game comes to a screeching halt. Suddenly, all the accumulated resources of the corporate winners lose their value because the economic movement of the game has ceased. The game stalls and the wealth the winning players hold is worthless. The banks close, the rich jump from the roofs of tall buildings and everything has to be redistributed and the game reset.

From what I see upon the game board of America right now we are nearing the reset phase of the economic game. Greed has once again corrupted the corporate entity and the shiny red hotel people have forgotten that they are not the economic engine that drives the economy but merely those who benefit from it the most. The truth, it is the little green house people who are the real engine that drives the economy. The less of us there are spending money, the less money you greedy red bastards can accumulate.

The great red selfish corporate machine is doing desperate things to keep their game afloat but here is truth. For every Mexican you import and displace an American worker with you push another green house off the board and you lose a customer. Every job you send overseas leads to yet one more loan default and one more foreclosure on a home. Every automobile you repossess, every piece of property you reclaim and every family you turn out penniless into the world only serves to bring your own well deserved ruination one day closer.

Did you not hear us in the last election? Did you not hear our anger and desperation? Are you truly so arrogant and insensitive to the people of the land? Have you become so disassociated from your fellowmen that I, me and mine are all you truly understand? Arrogant fools! Then let me leave you and yours with another message of warning from the past.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land; a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in the ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here ‘I lost my land’ is changed; a cell is split and from the splitting grows a thing you hate-‘we lost our land.’ The danger is here, for the two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first ‘we’ there grows still a more dangerous thing: ‘I have a little food’ plus ‘I have none.’ If from this problem the sum is ‘we have a little food,’ the thing is on its way, the movement is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mother’s blanket-take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning-from ‘I’ to ‘we’.

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I’ and cuts you off forever from the ‘we’.

"The Grapes of Wrath"

by

John Steinbeck

My friends, our fight is not with the Mexican who is simply another pawn in the game of the corporate entity. Our fight is not black against white nor male against female. Our fight is against those who are making us hate, fear and suspect each other. Our fight should be and must be against those who keeping us at war with each other so that we do not unite and turn our attention to the real enemy of our well being, the corporate entity that has grown so fat that it consumes our lives, our homes and our families in order to fill appetites that have become unholy, unrealistic and insatiable.

How much longer will we simply sit by and swallow the lie that shit simply happens? How many more of us must come together in the ditches before we truly remember the power of ‘we’ versus ‘I’? At this point, what do we really have left to lose?

Happy Independence Day...