Good morning comrades, from Bertis

Warning: dude blogging in his PJs at his childrens’ house…
File under: the joys of insomnia,🕰. Part 1940-ish; long-post alert; 1/2 joking (well maybe a little less than half)

#ThugMovesWontWork #useitorloseit:

(And now for your listening pleasure and as you enjoy your first cup of кофе (kofe) or чай (“chay”):

http://bit.ly/DamnWorldsReallyǝpısdnuʍop

I know this might sound nuts but I remember back when the Internet first affected the music business, the Napster area in the late 1990s. Some wag somewhere said they had the perfect solution to combating music piracy: “just turn off the Internet.” I used think it was a pretty good “joke“ I still sometimes throw it in to some of my occasional presentations about “the future the music” etc etc (I mean, you can’t turn off the Internet haha and it usually gets some laughs)

I hope this latest crazytown stuff James Mattis resignation is just the usual conventional wisdom that a crusty old conservative general got tired of being “the adult in the room” and quit in protest of the prevailing ideology on the White House and Fox News, etc.

But to be honest I am less worried about the immediate effects on various geopolitical hotspots (and yes I am worried about those of course, we all should be) and really hope that this hysterical sounding theory that this POTUS turns out to really be a puppet of Russia 🇷🇺 —and that they really are calling some of the tunes in Washington…. I hope that is is incorrect. I really hope so because, etc.(hey I’m glad people who want to live “off the grid” can do that. I just hope we all continue to have that choice– and me, I would like to stay on the grid please! Haha still, right⁉️

I told you this was going to sound crazy, and maybe it is and I am. I just hope this blind loyalty to this POTUS on the part of the Republicans in DC is, as commonly believed, merely a product of tribalism and thus their total devotion only to the R party is stopping them from doing anything that might mean the Democrats could win anything (but see midterms thank God)— I hope that that is the real explanation. Maybe that’s all it is. And obviously we all hope so. Heck, I am old enough to remember back when it was us lefty Democrats were the commie pinkos and “soft on crime” and the Republicans were the ones who hated Russia and were all about the “rule of law.” ☪️

I told you this would sound crazy and maybe I am and it is.
But one musical note: as I was getting my usual “suggested soundtrack for this one,” “Red Army Blues” by the Waterboys, I could not seem to pull up any of the many “fan fiction” user-generated videos on Google-owned YouTube– there were several created over the years and they each included graphic and gripping footage of “back in the day” Mother Russia, the wars, the gulags, all that historial stuff.

Here’s the error message I keep getting:

“(❗️) Potentially inappropriate video. To view this video, please confirm you are old enough by entering your birth date.”

I am not going to keep looking but if anybody finds a Waterboys “Red Army Blues” video with that sad old country footage please post in the comments.

In the meantime, there does seem to be multiple working links to this one, which packs some of the same punch but with still photographs and other static images:

bit.ly/DamnWorldsReallyǝpısdnuʍop

If you see something, say something– I guess that seems like pretty good advice, for now, in this mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Red Army Blues
The Waterboys

“When I left my home and my family
My mother said to me
“Son, it’s not how many Germans you kill that counts
It’s how many people you set free!”
So I packed my bags
Brushed my cap
Walked out into the world
Seventeen years old
Never kissed a girl
Took the train to Voronezh
That was as far as it would go
Changed my sacks for a uniform
Bit my lip against the snow
I prayed for mother Russia
In the summer of ’43
And as we drove the Germans back
I really believed
That God was listening to me
We howled into Berlin
Tore the smoking buildings down
Raised the red flag high
Burnt the reichstag brown
I saw my first American
And he looked a lot like me
He had the same kinda farmer’s face
Said he’d come from some place called Hazzard, Tennessee
Then the war was over
My discharge papers came
Me and twenty hundred others
Went to Stettiner for the train
Kiev! said the commissar
From there your own way home
But I never got to Kiev
We never came by home
Train went north to the Taiga
We were stripped and marched in file
Up the great Siberian road
For miles and miles and miles and miles
Dressed in stripes and tatters
In a gulag left to die
All because Comrade Stalin was scared that
We’d become too westernized!
Used to love my country
Used to be so young
Used to believe that life was
The best song ever sung
I would have died for my country
In 1945
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
The brute will to survive”

I told you this was going to be a long post and might sound crazy . . . but me, I say long live the American experiment and the ideas of America.

And apologies to whomever wants to unfriend me– please feel free!

I told you this long post might sound crazy.

Some good news: as of this morning, Google search, (might be time to change that one0, the Twitster, bitly, YouTube mostly (except for those pesky old Russia real films), ʇxǝʇdıןɟ, Siri, authINcorrect– all that jazz is working! So that’s good– ʞuɐɥʇ God for small favors!

And the next video YouTube videos just served up are a little peppier and more fun:

bit.ly/WholeMoonLive85
“I saw the crescent ⚒, you saw the whole of the moon 🌜🌛”

bit.ly/ThisIsTheSeaOriginal
“That was the river, thus is the sea”

(BTW the songs for this post were from the Waterboys’ mid-80s masterpieces “Pagan Place” and “This Is The Sea”)

God bless America, no really❗️‼️❗️

The End.

PS from an early comment below re the unsuccessful YouTube search: the one I remember specifically that had actual footage from long ago, grainy and home movie quality. And obviously, to be clear from my musings, I of course hope there is a mundane explanation that just proves the old adage “the Internet is always a little bit broken”