Go to work for ICE, and be the worst worker in the history of America. Then you earned your money gumming up the works of an evil organization, and you can feel good about taking their money to hurt them.

I’ve been self-employed for about 30 years, which puts you rubbing elbows with other self-employed business people.

I have learned that while MOST people want to run a friendly, moral, legal business, and would never cross the line, there are a plenty of amoral businesspeople who don’t have any problems crossing the line.

Furthermore, they are well-aware that many businesspeople won’t cross the line, so that makes their willingness to act illegally or immorally their personal competitive edge, and they absolutely look at it that way.

They watch for decent, moral businesses, and they target them in various ways, either as a competitor, a supplier, a contractor, etc.

I found Animals to be the most difficult to get into, but once it clicked, it became one of my favorites. It’s a great album, but The Wall still beats it, in my opinion.

Most people have missed it. I have seen anyone in the media report on this or ask anyone in the administration about it. It should be one of the biggest stories in America.

I’m old, too, and going back and filling in gaps in my music knowledge base, and listening to a lot of stuff I’ve been meaning to for decades.

However, I have also realized that my favorites have solidified, after decades of listening and deciding. Pink Floyd, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, Yes, Led Zep, and a few others have fought their way to the front of the pack.

The Wall is not only my favorite Pink Floyd album, it’s my favorite album of all time.

I was a music history major when it came out, and I studied it like it was a Beethoven symphony. I became convinced that it was a 20th century music masterpiece along the lines of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue or Porgy & Bess, Bernstein’s West Side Story, Rogers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific or Sound of Music, The Beatles Sgt Pepper or Abby Road, etc.

Almost 50 years later, and my opinion still stands.

BTW, Paradoxically, DSOTM is probably the greatest album of all time, from an artistic and influential point of view. I just think The Wall is a masterpiece.

Pay the lady!

One of my favorites is Stephen Foster’s Hard Times, Come Again No More (1873):

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

There are frail forms fainting at the door:

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say –

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away

With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:

Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days have lingered around my cab in door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

‘ Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,

‘ Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave, –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

Yeah, they plan on housing tens of thousands of people at a black site on foreign soil. If they were illegals, they’d be deporting them, so who are they planning on keeping here, and why?

Also, I’ve been tracking this development since he first signed the executive order for it several months ago, but I’ve never heard a single journalist in any media mention it, or ask any member of the administration about it. Most Americans aren’t aware of this in the slightest, and the media is helping keep it that way.

Speaking of that, I’ve been saying that the Democrats should officially retire the term Republican Party. Hold press conferences, release press releases, etc. the Republican Party abandoned it’s long held principals, and have evolved into the MAGA Party. From now on, all Democratic statements and material will not acknowledge the Republican Party, because they ceased to exist. It is now officially the MAGA Party. And then make all their members adhere to that rule in all statement, interviews, etc. No exceptions, except when discussing history.

It will make the Republicans crazy, and take away their ability to claim that they are the “Party of Lincoln.” They are officially the MAGA Party, whether they like it or not.

Have you heard the latest in the Diddy trial?

They have already awarded a $250 million contract to build a 30,000 bed facility in Guantanamo.

For context Guantanamo currently houses up to about 250 people. The average maximum security prison hold 800-1200. The largest prison, in Angola, LA, holds about 8300. So the new prison in Guantanamo will hold almost 4 times as many as the largest prison, which is already several times larger than average.

This facility will be on foreign soil (Cuba!), far away from the prying eyes of the media, the courts, lawyers, protesters, family, etc. who do they plan on putting there, and for what crimes?

I’m an old musician, who remembers the role that musicians played in the Vietnam War Resistance. The current population music industry would never allow their artists to be so openly resistant today.

So I’ve been looking for music to revive, and create a soundtrack for the growing resistance. This might be a good one.

It’s also time to revive all those good old protest folk songs by Woody Guthrie and the like. Songs like This Land Is Your Land.

Society has sunk to a level where living in your vehicle is acceptable as a valid housing option.