This promises to be a busy weekend.

Tonight I’ll be heading over to the Post to set up for what should be a memorable party tomorrow night. Tomorrow, it will be more setup (ice and a few other details) and then the party itself, at which I will be the emcee. I consider myself to be rather a shy sort and often lament being the emcee at such things. However, those who know me would say that: (a) I am full of shit, and (b) It’s an “only child, center-of-attention” thing. They may be right.

Sunday will be spent at the Post with the Usual Suspects and there is something special planned for Monday.

Point is that some of this stuff may turn out to be blogworthy, and I even have what I consider to be an OK post (albeit unrelated to the aforementioned) swirling around in my cruller, but I have to wonder when time will permit.

We’ll see, I suppose.

I was unable to access this site today, and I assumed that everyone else was having the same problem. However, according to Sitemeter, others apparently were connecting at times when I could not.

Which proves that there are more things I do not understand about the Internet than there are stars in the universe.

Of course, when I saw that connecting would likely be impossible, I let the germ of an idea I had just sit around in my cruller and atrophy. If I can breathe live into at this point I will, but, after sipping a bit of Everyday Bourbon, it may be difficult to fire up those three or four content-producing neurons.

Smart money is betting on Mr. Recliner.

I doubt I’ll get to do any writing tonight, as I will at the Legion Post doing what I have done there this time of year for the past three years.

It’s a good thing, particularly at a time when this crap is going on.

Sharpe James, the five-term Mayor of the corrupt political cesspool City of Newark announced that he will not seek another term as Mayor.

PRS Operatives have learned that Mayor James has been making frantic phone calls trying to purchase one of these – for cash, of course.

It’s often said to be every criminal defense lawyer’s worst nightmare.

You break your butt building a case designed to produce just enough “reasonable doubt” in the minds of twelve jurors to win an acquittal for you r client (or to keep your client from being executed). At a minimum, you try to plant a sufficient amount of “reasonable doubt” in the mind of at least one juror in order hang the jury, which will force the government to start from scratch with a new trial. (A verdict of guilty or not guilty must be unanimous.)

Then your client insists on testifying. You explain to your client why that is very, very bad idea, but he insists, and proceeds to hang himself with his own words.

That’s what appears to have happened today in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

Ignoring the advice of his attorneys, Mr. Moussaoui took the witness stand and proceeded to admit that he was aware of an impending attack on the World Trade Center, that he was happy about learning of the 9/11 attacks, and that he (along with Richard Reid – the Shoe-Bomber) was slated to fly a plane into the White House in a subsequent attack.

Of course, instead of it being a nightmare, Moussaui’s testimony may have been a moment of deliverance for Moussaoui’s lawyers, particularly if they had been appointed by the court to defend Moussaoui (I frankly don’t know whether they were appointed or were paid for).

This is so, because a lawyer’s sworn obligation is to zealously represent his or her client within the bounds of the law, even if the lawyer knows that his client is a despicable, murdering swine.

If after you’ve done your best to zealously advocate your client’s position within the bounds of the law, your client insists on hanging himself, you can sleep well at night knowing that you discharged your sworn duty, but at the same time justice was done.

After all, how well might you sleep knowing that your “win” put a guy like Moussaoui back on the street?

Adios, Zacarias.

I suspect that many, if not most, folks who use computers for work and non-work-related things consider them to be mysterious black boxes. I know I do.

I’ve often asked myself, “Yo, Jimbo, how do these things woik?”

Well, my friend Brian, the Air Force Vet, sent me a simple animated schematic (with sound) that makes the whole data process thing crystal clear.

Check it out.

Dana, at The Origin of Soul, is being jerked around by Dell. I have some sense how she feels, as I too have spent some exasperating telephone time with Dell Customer “Support” as noted here and here. Dana’s problem is worse than mine was. In fact, my problem turned out to be an easy fix (having nothing to do with Dell equipment), but which should have been patently obvious to a Customer “Support” person who had any idea what the hell he/she was doing.

As for Dana, her problem does directly involve the computer, which is still under warranty, and yet Dell is still not willing to replace the unit with a new one or to refund her money.

I am now in the market for a new computer, but based on my personal experience with Dell and the experience Dana is having, I think I’ll look into other manufacturers’ products.

It is hardly a secret that I am scared shitless of alligators. With that in mind, kindly head over to Tammi’s Place and follow the link that she suggested I NOT follow (Of course, she knew with metaphysical certainty that I would click away on the link).

The “incident” Tammi refers to took place just down the road from the place where the Usual Suspects always “do” Florida in May.

Jesus H. Christ!!

No writing for me tonight. Instead, I paid a visit to my friend Sol. We sat around his living room sipping I.W. Harper bourbon and chewing the rag about the way things were before my time. You see, Sol is about ready to turn 100, and he’s sharp as a tack and is still going strong.

He’s an amazing guy..

For several years before settling in with the five-piece group, I played drums with a trio (guitar, bass, drums – three voices), and we managed to play fairly regularly. Back then, many corner saloons had live music on Fridays and Saturdays, and a trio didn’t take up much space and was not a budget buster for the owner.

Anyway, we had received a call from an agent to play a Saturday night at a pretty well known place at the Jersey Shore. It was bigger than most of joints we had been playing, and we thought it might provide us with additional exposure. As I recall, the summer season had ended, but there were still plenty of people in the area, as it was the time of year when the owners of the zillions of rental properties down the shore would come to their homes for vacation.

We took the job.

Shortly after we struck the first note, the sky opened and unleashed a thunderstorm with monsoon-like rains that lasted just about the entire night. As a result, at any given time, there wasn’t more than a handful of people in the place, and, at that, they appeared to be friends of the “Manager” rather than locals out for a Saturday night.

The “Manager” (We’ll call him Mario) was built like Tony Soprano and looked a lot like him too, except he had a full head of greasy hair. He was your typical Bent-Nosed Bomb-thrower type. He also wore the obligatory pinky ring. Anyway, he was not happy about having almost no customers, and, consequently, he spent a good deal of time giving us dirty looks, as if we had somehow caused the farookin’ monsoon.

We finished the night, even though we played to just about no one. We packed up, and it was time to get paid. We were hanging around waiting for Mario to show up with the money.

He finally showed up, only to tell us, “I’ll straighten out with your agent.”

Our guitar player took the lead and explained that it didn’t work that way. He told Mario that the deal was that we were promised X dollars for the night; we played the gig, and we expected to be paid.

Again, Mario said, “I told you; I’ll straighten out with your agent on Monday. You can get the money from him.”

Smelling a rat, we all suggested that if wanted to “hold back the agent’s end”, that would be fine with us, but we had a right to be paid. (Anyone who has ever worked in the music business would have smelled the same rat. The problem is that, with music, once you play it, it’s gone, and collecting money for music that is already “gone” is always dicey). This went on for a few minutes and Mario finally relented and said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back wit your fuckin’ money”.

We were feeling pretty righteous about having won the argument with this gorilla.

A few minutes later, Mario showed up and handed the guitar player a check for the entire amount (including the agent’s piece). The guitar player looked at the check and said, “Wait a minute. The deal was cash. We want to be paid in cash.” (We had taken the trip down the Rubber Check Road at least once before.)

Mario was beginning to become agitated, and he said, “I ain’t got the cash. Take the fuckin’ check.”

The guitar player stared at the check and then looked Mario in the eye and asked, “Mario, is this check any good?”

That did it. One look at Mario’s face made it plain to all three of us, having grown up around the Marios-of-the-World, that things were about to get sideways. He was silent for a moment or two, then he glared at us and said very matter-of-factly, “Take the check and get the fuck outta here before all tree a you guys wind up in fuckin’ Barnegat Bay.”

We headed immediately for the door and drove home in relative silence, each of us more than a little shaken up.

Of course, the check bounced.

When the agent heard that we (and therefore he) got stiffed, he sent a pinky ring guy who was bigger and meaner than Mario down the shore to pay Mario a visit. I never asked how the visit went, but I do know that everyone ended up getting paid.

That wasn’t the first time I bumped up against Bent-Nosed cruds in the music business and it wouldn’t be the last. And each time I did, I would take an extra long shower afterward to wash the extra layer of stink off myself.