Tell Me, Where Do We Go?

It seems like everyday at some point I think about those poor children from Newtown. I can't imagine for an instant what may have been going through their minds as this pathetic mutant took away their breath. In the aftermath, I listen to the outrage that we display at such a despicable event. That outrage once again leads to the debate of gun control. Many feel that the time has come for a change in the 2nd ammendment. As a responsible law abiding citizen, I just don't believe that should happen. I don't believe for a second that by taking away our right to bear arms the sick bastards among us will not have access to them. Not in a million years! Now, I can't say for sure that a solution like that will not help, but I just believe that taking away our ability to defend ourselves will only make it easier for those bastards. I just think the whole approach is ass backwards. We tend to want to punish law abiding citizens by taking away more of our rights, while at the same time, we go to extreme measure to safe guard at any means the rights of the criminal that wants to murder us.

As this debate goes on, my attention was brought to Wednesdays Arizona Republic newspaper. Two stories got my notice. "Grieving Father Claims Girl's Body" was the first. A 2-year old (Savannah) at a Phoenix day care was beaten to death by her 2 baby sitters. Badly beaten from "head to toe" and "front to back" is how they described it. Her mother left her there for weeks at a time. The father came from Colorado to claim the body and take her home to bury her. A 2-year old!

The 2nd story was, "Girl Seriously Burned; Dad, 2 Others Held". In a home with the dad, his girlfriend and her brother, this 3-year old was burned by the girlfriend, under scalding water for the crime of urinating in her clothing. The dad heard the girl scream for 7 to 8 minutes before he went to check on her. They didn't take her to be treated until several days later. A 3-year old!

These stories were in just one newspaper, on one day, in one town. How many similar stories were there in papers across the country on this same day? How many in the past week, or month? I would bet that they weren't isolated stories. Chances are there were most likely more than 20. My point is, although what happened in Newtown was exceptionally horrific just by the fact that 20 of the victims were innocent children, there are children suffering torture and death every single day. Maybe the 3-year old would be okay today if we had only banned the use of scalding water. Or, if we could make a law that at a certain age we all have our hands cut off, then no child like Savannah would have to suffer being beaten to death.

My final word is that I don't believe there is any way possible to stop any weapon or method from killing our children, or us for that matter. Finding ways to stop the mutant bastards behind them is our only hope. Humans are an inherently violent species. We have been killing each other since the beginning of time and I don't see that stopping tomorrow because we ban a certain weapon. We are so intelligent we even killed Jesus, and it wasn't with a gun, we nailed him to a cross, remember?

Coming Events for May 2012

Check out Valerie Barrymore and The Foundation of Funk, May 19th at Billy's in Grand Rapids. You can view The Funk's complete schedule at: http://www.valeriebarrymore.com/schedule.html

Check out The Voo Doo Doctors, May 26th at Booby Mac's Bayside Tavern & Grill in Fair Haven, Michigan. You can view The Doctors complete schedule at: http://www.voodoodoctors.com/vd%20band%20schedule.html

Come on out and support these great bands! Get your funk on, or dance to the oldies! And of course, tell em' Charlie sent ya!

The Billy Wolf Band, Rock & Roll with a Bite!

My friend Bruce Keefe celebrated his 59th birthday recently, so I put together this video of the old band for him. That is Bruce on the far right, Craig Worley on his left singing, Billy Wolfe on the skins and yours truly on the bass at left. Unfortunately I don't have any actual video footage of the band and these are the only photos I have, but it came out nice with the song. The song was recorded on a small boombox tape cassette. Back then we never really recorded the songs for any type of quality, it was just to listen back to for any mistakes that we could discuss and correct. We didn't have the best of equipment either, the drums were never even miked. But, I got to say, at the time I left the band, we were one tight unit. This show was in Port Huron at some charity event, don't remember what, but it was kind of chilly out. There might have been maybe six people listening to us. I believe it was between 1980-82.