Just got my revised tax bill. There was an error and I’m sorry if I misled you in my previous post. There I stated that my tax liability for the year was S$52.00. After the recalculation, it was actually S$14.93.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Peace be with you.

Yeah, I know, I wasn’t going to post anymore. But the tax time post is something of a tradition here so I will say a few words.

As usual, I received my 200+ page federal income tax manual from the US. Anyone who can actually understand it or even tries to gets an extra 10,000 points.

Here in Singapore it was a little different. My employer filed my income and deductions electronically so all I had to do was log into the tax portal and verify that those numbers were correct. Then I hit the submit button.

Done. Tax filing complete. Took about 3 minutes. Oh, and BTW, my total tax liability for the year was an excruciatingly burdensome $52.00.

Enjoy your filing. Hope you meet the deadline.

After about 4 years and lots of posts, I’m gonna leave the blogsphere. Just don’t have the time anymore. I’ll leave the blog up for a while because it gets a lot of hits on a few of my past posts and pics.

I’ve cyber-met many wonderful people here, Libby, the Fogg man, Bob Rini and a dozen or so others and I’ll still check in with them from time to time. And I’ve had a lot of fun.

This is therapy for many of us. A way to yell and scream out our points of view to a world that seems to no longer listen or care. We see the injustice every day, many of us do, but the injustice never seems to change. It just gets worse.

I wish our new president all the luck in the world, but I really don’t think it makes any difference who sits in that office from one election to the next. The real power stays in the background, manipulating the money supply and selling out the country for profit.

Between them and the horrific environmental deterioration we face, I pretty much think future generations are doomed.

I’m busy now, but soon I will retire, spend more time enjoying my kids and grandkids, and just sit back and watch it play out for as long as I have left.

Like it says in my header, I’m just along for the ride.

Peace be with you.

Brian

I’m sticking to the guy greats tonite. If your as old as I am, close your eyes and remember what you were doing when this song was hot. While the video shows an older, very subdued audience, we 12 and 13 year olds were rockin and rollin to this, dancing far and close, trying to steal a feel and gettin’ crazy to this wonderful beat. Dion and the Belmonts followed this super tune up with The Wanderer. Good times.

Neil Diamond was just  honored for a spectacular career. He is deserving. My favorite performance, though there are many, was singing America in the movie, The Jazz Singer. Timely and inspirational. If you haven’t seen the film, see it. Enough said.

26 years after his super hit, Runaway, he appeared on Letterman to sing this classic song and he still sounded great. Paul is jazzed to the max and watch him get into the short keyboard solo. Good stuff from a great old rocker.

I’ve supported you from the beginning of the campaign. Just WTF are you and your people doing nominating not one, not two, but three high level people without checking out their tax liabilities. Or did you check them out and think that we wouldn’t care? A bunch of fucking already rich people who cheat on their taxes and you didn’t check that all out before you selected them? This is CHANGE?

No. This is fucking Washington business as usual. You’re right. You fucked up. We’ve had enough of presidents fucking up. Get better and get better quick. Or you won’t last past 4 years. You made promises. Keep them. Or join the ranks of all the other big talk lying politicians that we’ve gotten used to.

The suicides have begun. But with a modern, 21st century difference.

In 1929-30 businessmen who lost everything in the stock market crash were jumping out of windows to their deaths. Maybe back then, every family didn’t stockpile guns. Today it’s different. The murder/suicide of a family of 4 in Ohio whose mother and father had both lost their jobs. The murder/suicide of a family of 7 in LA who were awash in dept. All shot.

Back in the depression, broke businessmen just killed themselves. Today they take the whole family with them.

Progress in America.

Last night we visited the chaotic but wonderful shops and displays set up in Chinatown to welcome in the year of the bull. Here you see the Rats from last year escorting in the Bulls for this year. If you want to see all of the pics, I have them posted on Facebook here. Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!

At the very least. After decades of mediocrity, it seems that America has chosen the right and the best man for the job. I feel like, overnight, I became proud to be an American again. And I don’t think I’m alone. His words, his demeanor, his very presence just screams sound leadership.

As Bush slinked away like the wounded badger he is, Obama grabbed the reins of the huge, crazed but sickly bull that is America. Can he stay in the saddle and control this beast? Only time will tell. But hope abounds around the globe that he can and will.

They all say it, but this is truly the beginning of a new era. I believe Obama and his associates are up to the task. I hope the American people are, too.

After 5 1/2 years in Singapore, I finally went back to the US during the holidays. It was wonderful to see my kids and grandkids again and I spent every available second with them. I went earlier than expected because my daughter had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Ouch! But she’s had all the nasty junk removed from her throat and it looks like she’s gonna be ok.

I was surprised how comfortable I felt in my hometown after so long. Some things had changed but some remain the same. I drove a car for the first time since I left in 2003 and, like riding a bicycle, it came back to me immediately.

I met a lot of my daughter’s friends who have supported her and helped her immensely during her illness and the moods that brought. I am profoundly grateful to all of them. I guess the only thing better than a home where people love you is two homes where they do.

I saw Sonny and Cher at the Civic Auditorium in San Jose way back in the year this song came out. Think it was 1965 when I was 16. The song was a hit but they were new and unknown. Along with Bobby Freeman (The Swim), they opened for Paul Revere and the Raiders that night. In this clip from that year, Cher is shy with her crooked teeth and funny nose and Sonny looks like a pauper right out of the Robin Hood days.

Of course after their divorce, Sonny went on to become the mayor of Palm Springs, and later died, and Cher went on to become a superb actress, superstar performer and deserving diva. This is my fav clip  of her after the transformation.

As Buffalo would say, life is sweet when you have entertainment like this.

Obama is in, the murdering, traitorous criminal is out. McCain is trying to regain a little respect and Palin….god, what a joke….is really thinking she still has a chance after showing the world what a moron she is. Oh well.

I’m feeling a little bit of hope for the first time in a long time.

I’m turning 60 today. I really don’t want to spend anymore days or weeks or years talking here to a very limited few about politics and the world’s woes. I don’t enjoy it anymore.

Instead, I’m going to post what I like to post the most. Good old music. So if you’re looking for some commentary on the zealot, Mugabe or the latest nightmare in Iraq, you best go somewhere else. Here, I’m gonna stick to music. I know, it’s only rock n’ roll. But I like it.

I  also thought it might be fun to post a little memorabilia of those same days. Anyone remember what a 66 GTO sounded like?

I couldn’t afford anything like that so for a while anyway, I scooted around on one of these.

Yup, the Honda 50 Sport. Very popular. Remember when the Honda 250 was the baddest bike around?

I didn’t drive for nearly 3 years while in the army, but when I got home my very conservative father had bought one of these for me to tool around in. My mom told me later, it  was just for me.

It had the big  400 cc engine and looked just like this. On the stretch of Highway  17 straightaway coming down from Santa Cruz to Scotts Valley, I had it up to 140. I’m not a car nut, but that was special. Thanks, Dad.

There were lots of great cars back then to go with the great music. What was yours?

A reuniting of The Byrds is, in itself a good thing. They close the concert with their first single, and the song that made them famous – Mr. Tambourine Man. During the first verse they are joined onstage by the song’s composer. Classic.

I listened to a lot of versions of this before deciding on this one. Although Mark Knopfler doesn’t need it, Clapton playing backup tends to add another dimension to any tune. My question is, does rock and roll get any better than this?

So many great hits, so short a career. This is a group I wish would have stayed together. This song was my favorite.

Anyone who was a teen in the 60’s and involved in the music of those days will remember Cream and their two classic albums of that time, Fresh Cream and Disreali Gears. Here they reunited for a stint at the Royal Albert Hall. I do love it when the old rockers come back.

I’ve never been this remiss before about posting to this blog.  But alas, my excuse is good as I have been blogging elsewhere. That link will take you to the blog I set up at the school for foreign students where I teach.

Anyway, since I already heard the fat lady singing, there hasn’t been that much to talk about. Sure, the campaigns have continued. McBush is down double digits and like the ignoramous he is, he says he’s happy where he is. Palin has “gone rogue” in the words of some inside staffers. In other words, as might be predicted, the dingbat is out of control, gone completely crazy with the media frenzy that surrounds her, and will certainly do something so incredibly stupid that her political career will implode if it hasn’t already.

I’ve been especially amused by the various opinions expoused lately on what a “real American” is. It seems to be anyone who falls between Walter Brennen’s “Old Rivers” and Andy of Maybury. Somehow, those of us who are educated, professional, thinking adults have been excluded from the definition.

Bloggingdino was right in his (her?) critique of one of my earlier comments over at The Swash Zone. The American voter is not mind numbingly stupid as I overgeneralized. It is only approximately half of them that are. Well, in the case of this election, less than half and that number is deteriorating rapidly. In any case, the moronic ones are quite simply the Republicans, who, with all of their failures so blatantly exposed, continue to support not only their ridiculous “team” of McCain/Palin, but continue to preach – to an emptying room – that their way works the best! They are apparently absolutely blind to their own recent history!

Like so many others, I feel like I have been politically brutalized by the Republicans for so long that I find it nearly, if not completely impossible to be in any way optomistic of the future. Yet, with Obama in charge and a 60+% in congress, who knows. Maybe, like Michelle, I’ll get a renewed sense of pride and hope.

While the superstitious might hold back from saying it too soon, why wait? McCain has lost and lost big. It’s over and in the process he’s dragged a little known governor down with him. Life is sweet. Barring another 9-11 and a proclamation of martial law, and barring anything unforseen happening to Obama, we should be looking forward to a great new president. If we can expand the democratic presence in congress, hell, our future might even be bright.

So go home, John, and take that dingbat Palin with you.