With apologies to Lee

Years ago, in another life, I used to listen to a radio show that had an edit of the Jefferson Airplane live at Woodstock attempting Volunteers in the wee small hours of the morning, an offering Grace Slick claimed was 'morning maniac music.' At some point, long after he'd made a name for himself, the fellow who invented the show rotated back 'to the world' as we used to call it and I ended up in his chair, where I stayed for a number of years.

I thought about Lee, who'd hosted that show, and about Maniac Music over the weekend, after he and I had exchanged some notes on a recent release from a denizen of the swamps of Jersey whose odes to Wendy and hemi-powered drones have resonated with music fans literally around the world. I'm a lost cause, I admit; he could record the white pages from Manhattan and I'd purchase it. As a matter of fact, he may already done so.

I am a bit dismayed at how I haven't mellowed in my dotage, or near-dotage (it's not yet official but approaches). Having been a thirty and forty something year old who attempted quite often to stay the middle course and see the merit in the vitriol masquerading as debate from both ends of the lunatic fringe, I've awakened to the realization that the ideologues are ruining our country. I don't really care whether you see yourself as Tea Party Hearty or one of the 99% but if you're swallowing your own snake oil in terms of whose to bless and whose to blame, you and me, my friend, we're coming to the place where the road and sky collide.

I've been getting cranked emotionally on the way  to work on Monday mornings hurtling past the wonders in the woods of Southeastern Connecticut after a weekend off, knowing I have to get out of the car at the office with a smiley face, a song in my heart and my "A" game already in gear. This is the tune I've been using to get pumped, I'm calling it Monday maniac music (hence the apology to Lee at the top of the page). Between now and Election Day, I fear I'm gonna wear the song out reminding myself and anyone who'll listen (= you) that each of us and ALL of us are what makes this nation the last best hope of the world.

We seem to have some doubts about that at the moment and we need to remember we can never forget the sacrifices of all of those who've come before us and those that will be made by those who are to follow. "They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin. They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind. They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're still dyin' now. The hands that built the country, we're always trying to keep down."   
-bill kenny