If You Think That Politics Stink, Then Give Generously to Sewer PAC
It has been over four years since the 2007 Quantum Leap Celebration in Taos, New Mexico. Since that time, new energy has been available for those who wish to partake. Yet, with the current global face-off between Old Energy and new, change is stifled. Entitlement thinking among self-appointed elites leads to abuse of power. In the news, selfishness, fear mongering and greed are the current winning strategies.
The 2010 Supreme Court decision favoring “Citizens United” is a good example. Through that decision, the court allowed shadow groups an unlimited voice in federal elections. Without divulging their contributors, “Super PACs” may now accept and spend unlimited amounts of money. In August 2011, Mitt Romney said, “Corporations are people, my friend”. According to our Supreme Court, perhaps they are.
After taking “appropriate expenses”, Super PACs use the remainder to produce negative political ads. Most of that ad money will go to media corporations that are key Super PAC contributors. For the energy, entertainment and media moguls, it is a case of having your cake and eating it too.
As they say, “Negative ads work”. With so much to lose, Big Money quickly pledged tens of millions of dollars to Super PACs. The resulting Super PAC ads have created a negative aura around the Republican primaries. With their inevitable negativity, Super PAC ads are likely to determine the outcome of the Republican primary race.
During a recent TV news show, I heard someone say “Sewer PAC”. What a fitting moniker, I thought. After my recent miss in registering “ChristianTingle.com”, I quickly bought the URL http://sewerpac.com.
If corporations and billionaires need a place to flush their money down the toilet, I can now provide one. Rather than writing about new energy and the environment in 2012, I plan to sell out. So hold your breath against the stench and watch for further developments at SewerPAC.com.
SewerPAC.com is for sale. The minimum bid is a “billionaire’s bargain” at only $1.0 million.
In LA Traffic, Design Purity Outmaneuvers Common Sense
In July 2011, Caltrans contractors demolished the southern half of the Mulholland Highway Bridge, which spans the busy Interstate I-405 Freeway at Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles, California. The reasons for replacing only one-half of the stately structure at a time are obscure. Suffice to say that local homeowner groups held out for purity of design. Rather than allowing the road to jog at either end of the bridge, those groups forced Caltrans to build the same bridge twice, one-half each time. As they say, “Only in Los Angeles…”
People who drive in Los Angeles know that “The 405” is the only freeway route through the Santa Monica Mountains within twelve miles. Connecting the San Fernando Valley with West Los Angeles, the I-405 is an ever-widening ribbon of concrete, and one of the busiest highways in the world. In January 2012, I drove southbound past the construction site to Marina del Rey. My return trip that afternoon took me northbound over the same route.
On that morning, I timed my approach to the Sepulveda Pass for 10:00 AM. With luck, the morning rush would be over, producing a lull before afternoon traffic built to yet another peak. All went well until I neared the intersection of I-405 and U.S. Hwy 101. There, traffic slowed to a crawl and did not regain equilibrium for the next ten miles.
As I ascended the Santa Monica Mountain grade, traffic snapped and bucked like a Chinese dragon. In terms of vehicular energy flow, it was equivalent to an acute myocardial infarction. As I approached the crest, I could see why our traffic moved so listlessly. Appearing atop the hill since my last visit, two enormous mobile cranes stood like sentries, one on either side of the freeway. From my viewpoint, the cranes appeared to be twice the height of the 100-foot tall bridge. The scene was so startling that traffic slowed to a crawl and then stayed that way until I was well beyond the construction scene.
Based on traffic delays alone, the current replacement plan makes no economic sense. Once this slow motion economic disaster is complete, Los Angelinos can then look forward to doing it all over again. From the coming Carmageddon II, right through construction and opening, those who drive in LA shall experience traffic jam déjà vu all over again. With the uncountable hours wasted by drivers sitting in traffic below, we hope that the hilltop locals who blocked the single-phase project are happy now.
Thanks to the local “design purity movement”, motorists will experience inconvenience for years to come. I wonder what the late Steve Jobs would think of this version of design purity. Unless he personally owned a house with an unobstructed view of the finished bridge, I doubt that he would have supported this cause.
As traffic loosened up, my vitriol for the Mulholland Drive locals faded from my consciousness. Traffic broke free near Wilshire Blvd. in West Los Angeles, and I sailed along at 65 mph. After crossing under Interstate I-10 (the Santa Monica Freeway), I observed a complete absence of vehicular traffic on northbound I-405. As I approached Venice Blvd., I witnessed the culmination of a California Highway Patrol traffic break on the northbound side of the freeway. Led by an animal control van, two CHP cruisers and several CHP motor officers sped away from a phalanx of stopped traffic that stretched for miles into the distance.
Listening to a later radio traffic report, I learned that someone had called to report an injured cat on the freeway. For the sake of that feline and in honor of the kind soul who reported it, perhaps 25,000 vehicles came to an extended halt on the busiest freeway in Los Angeles. Upon entering an LA freeway, a small animal’s chances of survival are almost nonexistent. I am an animal lover and have a pet cat myself. Still, I hope that iPhone toting animal lovers do not report every small animal that enters the roadway. If they insist on doing so, Los Angeles traffic may never move smoothly again.
On my return trip, later that day, I approached Sepulveda Pass from the south. From there I could see the Mulholland Drive Bridge and its attendant cranes. Silhouetted against the northern sky, the two cranes, new concrete bridge supports and the remaining bridge deck manifested as art. It is a sight so awe-inspiring that despite traveling uphill, many drivers involuntarily slam on their brakes. As traffic-engineers know, if enough motorists hit their brakes, somewhere behind them, traffic will stop. My morning traffic had stopped three or four miles short of the dramatic hilltop scene.
As witnessed by their reactions to car crashes and brush fires, LA motorists have a perverse relationship with those who trail behind them. During such events, the collective reaction is predictable. To themselves motorists say, “I’ve been delayed by the unknown and now I can see it, so I am going to slow down and gawk to my heart’s content”. That day, of course, group consciousness among LA motorists was true to form.
My slow trips through Sepulveda Pass that day allowed me to see the sights. If you hope to view this high art sculpture for yourself, come to LA before 2016. If you miss the first round of bridge building, plan your visit for the second round in 2013 or 2014. Perhaps Caltrans can rejoin both halves of the new Mulholland Drive Bridge by 2015. Then, hilltop homeowners can emerge from their survival shelters and enjoy the purity of design that they forced upon us all. Thank you again, local homeowners, for triggering the super slow motion Carmageddon that we now endure.
More than any other decade, the 1970s were fertile times for innovation in the genre known as rock and roll. A great deal of what we remember as happening in the 1960s actually happened in the early 1970s. The history of 1970s rock events, especially concert dates and lineups are often incomplete or garbled. For instance, I remember seeing Linda Ronstadt opening for Neil Young at the Long Beach Arena in the early 1970s. Although I Googled each performer and the venue, I could not find definitive documentation regarding that magical night. The best I can say is that it happened sometime between 1970 and 1972.
Arriving late at the arena that night, Linda Ronstadt had already taken the stage. When I say that Linda had, “taken the stage”, it was as if she owned it. As we entered the far end of the arena, a beautiful sound echoed down the concrete tunnel that led us to our seats. Already, the First Lady of Rock had captured the house. As she sang "Desperado", her clear voice extended out, reverberating off the back wall and then harmoniously to our ears.
Just as startling and beautiful as Linda and her voice was the sound of her band. From their acoustic backing of Linda’s ballads to their all-out rocking solos, they had the inevitable sound of greatness. Every note and every backing vocal sounded just right. They knew it and we all knew it. Later in her set, Linda announced her backing band as, “The Eagles”.
Author's note: In June 2014, I received the following comment from Ms. JG Wilcox, who also attended one of Linda Ronstadt's Long Beach Arena concerts in 1972. As you will see, her experience was different than mine.
Jim - thank you for your memories! Regarding Linda opening for Neil at the Long Beach Arena? Am not sure how many nights they were booked, but my memory of the concert I attended (at age 13) was that Ms. Ronstadt - of whom I was/am a HUGE fan - was pretty tipsy and got booed off the stage. Then, Neil Young - of whom I was/am a HUGE fan - came on and the audience was impossibly rude, shouting out requests even as he played. He got angry, brought out Crosby and Nash, played Cinnamon Girl, and walked off the stage! Sounds like your experience was better than mine. I just remember sitting on the curb outside the Arena waiting for my mom to come and pick up my friend Sally and me...the parking lot was empty when she arrived because the concert had been so short! It was the summer of '72. And not long after that, the Eagles entered my world as well. Thanks again, Jim!
That night was the start of my love for the Eagles unique style, which blends rock, country rock and folk rock. With a string of hit singles and six albums, the Eagles songs fit perfectly with my life’s events. Their breakup paralleled the breakup of my first marriage. From “Life in the Fast Lane” until “After the Thrill Is Gone”, my personal experiences paralleled the lyrics of the Eagles’ songs.
Years later, after buying two of the forty-two million copies of The Eagles Greatest Hits album sold worldwide, I yearned for new music from a group that broke up in 1984. Between then and their reunion in 1994, we heard plenty of solo efforts by various band members, but rarely did those songs resonate like the Eagles songs of old. When the Eagles resumed recording and touring in the mid-1990s, I listened again for new songs from the Eagles.
On December 31, 1999, I attended the Eagles Millennium Concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. In a repeat of my first Eagles experience the early 1970s, we arrived at our seats after the concert had begun. This time, a bomb-scare, not traffic, delayed our entry into the arena. While thousands waited outside, security took their time checking every ticket and “wanding” every attendee. Once again, Linda Ronstadt was on stage, her voice often lost in a crowd that was milling around or trying to find their seats. On any other night, the promoters would have waited for at least half the audience to be inside before starting the show. By the time Jackson Browne arrived onstage, things settled down, but from our $145 seats at the far end of the stadium, most of the music that night seemed vacant and distant.
When they finally took the stage, the new Eagles sang just like the old Eagles, but a chorus of numbskulls sitting behind us insisted on singing along to every word of every song. As midnight approached, the songs seemed out of order, and then the music ceased altogether. Inaudible to most of us in the arena, Glenn Frey gave his Millennium New Year’s Eve salute to the world on live TV. By the time that the Eagles got back to their music, but the thrill was gone.
To be sure, the Eagles in their 1994-to-present incarnation have written and produced some great music. In recent concerts, the Eagles pay homage their old fans by singing some of their early songs. Like the rest of us, however, the Eagles have moved beyond the ethos and the pathos of the 1970s. Just as they have moved on in their lives and with their music, they hope that we will move right along with them. With $450 concert tickets now the norm, that is not likely.
That is where the Eagles tribute Band, “The Long Run” comes in. Taking their inspiration from the title track of the Eagles final pre-breakup album, “TLR” takes us back to yesteryear when country rock ruled top-40 AM radio. Having attended several of The Long Run’s concerts in recent years, Carrie and I were thrilled to hear that they would again play live at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center in Southern California.
A former church, the Cultural Arts Center splits its four hundred seats between the main floor and a balcony. Having last seen TLR at this intimate theater on a rainy night in December 2010, we bought our tickets early for their September 9, 2011 show. Upon arrival, we were pleased with our seats, which were in the third row of the orchestra. Although TLR did not sell out their two nights in Simi Valley, the many fans in attendance were not disappointed with their show.
In an email update a week later, TLR wrote, “First,a special thank you to all who joined us at theSimi Valley Cultural Arts Center this past weekend. Both nights you gave us one of the warmest receptions we'vehad anywhere and we shared an energy that far outweighed the capacity of the theater. Friday night felt like playingat the Nokia and Saturday night felt like the Greek! We still don't know what they served y'all at intermission but we're gonna find out and then stipulate in ourcontract that it's served at every show.”
As The Long Run played all of our old Eagles favorites, we remembered why we love live music. It is not so that we can make some corporate ticket agency rich. It is not because we like fighting crowds and overcoming bomb scares to watch a show. It is because there are still performers out there like the members of TLR who love the same music that we do. At the end of the accompanying “The New Kid in Town” video, you can hear Carrie say, “They’re so good”, and she means it.
In true bootleg tradition, that night I also recorded videos of "Hotel California", “Desperado” and the Jackson Browne classic, “Take it Easy”. The cheapskates at Warner Chappell Music must have thought that TLR sounded too much like the Eagles, so they blocked two my YouTube videos on "copyright grounds". Although TLR’s big sound overpowered the tiny microphone from time to time, you can still hear that authentic Eagles sound echo off the back wall of the Cultural Arts Center. Next time I hear that The Long Run is playing anywhere near my town, I will purchase tickets as soon as I can. The Long Run’s version of the “Eagles Experience” is so good that we hope to be there when they “Take It to the Limit”, one more time.
On March 11, 2011, I awoke to stories about an earthquake and tsunami in Japan. My heart goes out to all who suffered loss in that epic event.
By 8:30 AM PST, I was online and watching our live webcam at the MoabLive website. The webcam faces east on to the beach from the Port of Port Orford. I did not have to wait long before the water surged around the Port Orford Heads and into the Port. Over the next ninety minutes I counted at least five surges, most of which rose to cover the entire beach.
In order to capture the moment, I copied a series of JPG images from the webcam. Since the camera uploads a shot every three seconds, there was plenty of action to record. After saving the images, I compiled them in WMV file format. The generic term for such a file is a "wave movie". After uploading the video to YouTube, I embedded it here on my blog.
Luckily, there was no apparent damage at Port Orford, although Coos Bay to the North and Brookings Harbor to the south did not fare as well. After all of the excitement was over, we developed a bug in the webcam. In this case, it was a real bug that walked in front of the lens and stayed there until the webcam shut off for the night.
During a recent TV news show, I heard someone say “Sewer PAC”. What a fitting moniker, I thought. After my recent miss in registering “ChristianTingle.com”, I quickly bought the URL http://sewerpac.com. 
Email James McGillis
As I ascended the Santa Monica Mountain grade, traffic snapped and bucked like a Chinese dragon. In terms of vehicular energy flow, it was equivalent to an acute myocardial infarction. As I approached the crest, I could see why our traffic moved so listlessly. Appearing atop the hill since my last visit, two enormous mobile cranes stood like sentries, one on either side of the freeway. From my viewpoint, the cranes appeared to be twice the height of the 100-foot tall bridge. The scene was so startling that traffic slowed to a crawl and then stayed that way until I was well beyond the construction scene.
That is where the 
