Stealth Care

“Doctor I'm leaving
But don't turn out the lights
There'll be a cigarette burn victim
Who just like me has lost the strength to stand and fight
Above all it made me sick
I wanted the truth
But he just licked his lips and smiled
That's just the price you pay” Doctor Doctor – Razorlight

I’m starting to wonder if I can even associate with Republicans now as their insanity baffles me even more than people that want to make accessories from human skin.

The ones I’m related to and grew up with think the U.S.A.’s BIGGEST problem is people on welfare that don’t deserve it. When I ask them do they have any names of people that they know well who are on welfare but “scamming” the system, they never have any. In fact, one guy got pissed at me and said he didn’t have to justify what he believes in. I wasn’t asking him to do that, I just wondered if he knew these folks because I don’t know any at all. I don’t know anyone on welfare, let alone someone who is getting it but doesn’t need it.

I do, however, have a long list of names of people that need health insurance and I do KNOW them. Some have lost their insurance when they got sick, some can’t find jobs with insurance offered, some can’t afford the plans their jobs offer, and some have pre-existing conditions and have been denied coverage. I know one person who lost everything when they got cancer and was denied Medicare/Medicaid when they applied.

Republicans don’t want to hear these things. They tell me they don’t think people that sit on their asses deserve health care and will do whatever it takes so they don’t have to pay for THESE people. It's more important that THESE people, that they don’t know the names of, are "put into their places" over the well being of the ones they do know that have either fallen on hard times or chose a more artistic path.

Fuck it, maybe it doesn’t even fucking matter, I mean, there are other options besides the government helping out right?

If American women need health care, they can get pregnant. The state pays for your health if you have a kid, even if you hate the kid and can’t afford it and end up on …wait for it…WELFARE. If they're barren we can start a web site for mail order brides to other countries (Saudi Arabia is always looking for some hefty, pale, white girls). My back up plan is prison, they accept my pre-existing condition (heart stuff I was born with) there and I kind of salivate at picking whose house I'm going to burn down when the time comes (I'll make sure the pets are out) or whose dick will meet with my baseball bat on unfriendly terms (my bat is bipartisan).

Both women and men, if healthy, can join the military like some of my friends are doing. Musicians, artists, designers, writers, models, actors, etc that have to work weird hours to support their habits can hang it up, there really is no need for new American music, or acting, England has that covered. Everyone can get an accounting job or become a nurse and we'll all be the same, yeay!

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It won't ever come into fruition here, we all know nothing ever changes except gas prices, which nobody seemed to have a problem paying $1.50 per gallon extra for that two years ago for some reason. (Those poor oil companies!) Maybe pretend we’re still paying that but instead of the cash going to some fat, fucking suit at Exxon, it saves the single mom down the street raising three kids on her own, or the life of someone born into poverty that will someday write your new favorite song.

I've come to the conclusion that it's ridiculous to worry about it one way or the other. I don't give a shit who’s for or against it, but I do know I could never look another non-murdering human being in the eye and tell them that they don’t deserve to live.

I think the BIGGEST problem in the U.S.A. is that too many people here can.

Alex Chilton R.I.P.

"Every night I tell myself,
I am the cosmos,
I am the wind
But that don't get you back again
Just when I was starting to feel okay
You're on the phone" I Am The Cosmos - Big Star

When I heard Alex Chilton died today, I genuinely cried, then fell asleep and missed all of the St. Patrick's festivities I had planned, but I really didn't care.

I'll raise a glass with friends later this evening to the memory of this legendary and inspiring man.

To most he's the teenage phenomenon from "The Boxtops" (duh "The Letter") or the dude who sang "That'70's Show's" theme song "In The Street", but to musicians he's on Bowie levels aside from the fact that he was not WELL known. A fact in which he reveled.

"Big Star" live was awesome, and I miss the days of being able to catch them in small, out of the way places after they reunited in the 90's. I miss who I was at that time as well. I believed in love, I wasn't yet broken or used. I felt invincible and vulnerability was never given a thought. I thought the people that were my friends would be in my life forever (some are yeay!), but some have died, and some I wish were dead (the bitch part of me is still VERY intact). I believed in a higher percentage of goodness in people than the sad reality I've witnessed in the years since.

That was a time where there were "passwords", if you will. Naming the right influences was the deciding factor in your status and ranks amongst your peers in the overly snotty music world. "Alex Chilton" or "Big Star" were the right answers to 90% of the questions that were never asked. I can't tell you how many doors were opened for me when I ignorantly mentioned my admiration of them. Eyebrows raised, interest sparked, opportunities were relinquished to me just because I mentioned them first. Knowledge was power, but now it's more accessible and I'm beginning to think knowledge has become simply random.

Sometimes when I'm lost in "For You" or "I'm In Love With a Girl", I feel like that person who still believes in love for a minute, but then I think and she's gone.