Doug Mastriano Is A Dumb And Dangerous Animal

     I knew before I started writing this that Doug Mastriano, who is currently running for governor of Pennsylvania, was a piece of shit but after the lightest surface scratch of research it became clear that he is such a large piece of shit that he induces vertigo in all who gaze upon him.  The only thing I will give him credit for is being honest and straightforward about how big of a piece of shit that he is.

     He is so steeped in his own shittiness that he thinks he's right and couldn't imagine anyone thinking differently than he does.  He is a very dangerous person because he thinks that he has God on his side even though he is a hate filled little bigot of a man.

     Mastriano is a white Christian Nationalist who is not afraid to cozy up to known antisemites and violent hate groups.  He's one of those people that sees everyone as inferior if they aren't a straight white male that agrees with him.

     Everything about this guy is more of an air raid siren than a red flag.  Take a deep breath and strap in. Here's just a smattering of the batshit lunacy Doug Mastriano thought would be a good idea to say out loud:

     He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state.  He wants a ban on abortion with no exceptions.  He's anti-immigrant and thinks that DACA recipients should be deported. He supports conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ folks because he thinks they're confused and abusively jamming Christianity down their throats will help clear up that “confusion.”

     Add all of that to his participation in the attempted coup on January 6^th, 2021 he removes all doubt that he is dangerously stupid.  He says that if he is elected governor that he will throw out any election result that he doesn't like and would also appoint a secretary of state that would go along with his plans to invalidate democracy.

     Doug Mastriano's entire existence is more proof that our education system has been severely eroded over the past several decades.  He is clearly a product of the “Red Scare” era and is deathly afraid of anything different from what his church and the military have taught him.  He sees everything that isn't a mirror image of himself as an enemy that must be defeated and that is an outlook that doesn't belong in public service.  He is proving himself incapable of caring for all of the people so he should not be trusted with the care of any of us.

     He has shown a distinct hatred of a large swath of the populace and disguises this hatred as “Conservatism.”  The sad thing is that a lot of people will be in denial of this and flat out refuse to see this piece of shit for what he is and will vote for him anyway because of their cult/sports mentality.  A growing part of the electorate has chosen to vote for authoritarianism as long as it makes someone else feel bad at the end of the day.  I'm so tired of these bullies that don't want society to move forward because they are clinging to an imaginary past that never existed.

     We are only four years past the mass shooting at the Tree Of Life Synagogue and Doug Mastriano holds many of the same beliefs as that murderer.  It makes me sick to my stomach that we went from condemning hate to being really close to electing that same hate as the governor of our state.  Are we really going to adopt fascism because everyone was afraid enough and dumb enough to fall for that great replacement theory bullshit?  There is no putting these scumbags back in their holes.  They are pushing for violence and shout it as loudly as they can all the while people that point this out are considered alarmists and go mostly ignored.

     In comparison, Josh Shapiro does seem to be an alright person.  As Attorney General, he did go after people that deserved to be gone after.  To name a few, he went after the Catholic Church for diddling children, pharmaceutical companies for creating a new generation of opium addicts and health insurance companies that wanted to fuck over the sick and elderly just because they could.

     I'm sure I would have more than one disagreement with Shapiro when it came to policing and any number of other topics but at least he doesn't want to usher in the end of the republic because of some fake white boy grievances.  So here we go again having to vote to save our already broken system instead of laughing these assholes out of the room and sending them on their way before they got anywhere near a position of power.  And I wonder why there's never any progress.

Hey, Dr. Oz. Go Fuck Yourself

 

     There has been a lot made of the constant blundering of the Dr. Oz campaign for the U.S. Senate.  Other than the fact that he's running for Senate in a state that he doesn't live in, the campaign has been poorly run from day one.  And I could give a shit about any of that.

     My rage for that motherfucker runs hotter than hot.  I was visiting my mother around the time that she was first handed her cancer diagnosis.   We were sitting in the dining room while she was going over all of her new medications and trying to figure out if anything she was currently taking would have an adverse reaction.  Almost half of her dining room table was covered with bottles that were filled with various supplements.  This presented a large problem with the calculus of the new cancer meds that she was going to have to start taking.

     The first question that popped into my head was, “Who told you to take all of these pills?”  Some of them were off of the suggestion of her primary care doctor and others were because she saw them on Dr. Oz's television show.  My second question was me wondering out loud if any of these supplements actually helped her with whatever ailment they were supposed to alleviate.  Her response ranged from not really to not at all.

     This brought on the obvious question of why take all of these supplements if they weren't doing anything.  From what I could put together, her doctor had a very “if they aren't hurting anything, you may as well keep taking them” approach.

     Howard Zinn's Manufacturing Consent was not at the top of my mother's reading list so she did not put the media that she consumed under much scrutiny.  She was from a generation that trusted radio and television personalities because they wouldn't be on the radio or television if they couldn't be trusted.  To her, the fact that Dr. Oz was a doctor and was on television meant that he could be trusted.

     Dr. Oz's preying on the elderly that watched daytime television is part of how he was able to become a successful television personality.  He used his charisma and charm to sell my mother snake oil supplements.  And for that, he can go fuck himself for all eternity with a jagged metal dildo.

     I am no fan of John Fetterman's.  I don't like the way that he cosplays as some sort of working class everyman and there are a lot of stories of him being ineffectual or worse as the mayor of Braddock.  As Lieutenant Governor, he has done some good work on the board of pardons (with the one glaring exception in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.)  This has drawn the big money ire of a few super PACs that are dumping millions of dollars in ad buys across the state to claim that Fetterman is “soft on crime.” These ads are using the same War On Drugs/mass incarceration language that would be easy to see through for anybody with a brain in their head.

     The local news stations have been useless in exposing Dr. Oz.  They are feckless starfuckers that won't take him to task because of their fake impartiality and both sides-ism.  They want to get to talk to the celebrity doctor that had the television show for a chance at boosting ratings and don't want to lose access by pissing off his campaign.

     The majority of Oz's blunders are happening in the bubble of the internet so the people that need to see that he's a fraud won't end up seeing it because they only watch local news or the Facebook algorithm won't put the information front of them.  There are very online reporters that point out Oz's bullshit on a regular basis but they end up screaming into the void of their own echo chamber.

     I do find it weird that someone that considers themselves to be a doctor would go after a person who recently had a stroke.  Oz claimed that it wasn't him but someone that worked for the campaign that first started posting about Fetterman's stroke.  Which then poses the question if he's not in control of his own messaging who will be making the decisions if he wins the election?  He has clearly demonstrated an inability to take responsibility for his own actions by way of being hauled in front of Congress for shilling pills that don't do anything.  And scapegoating a staffer was all bullshit anyway since his campaign has more recently gone after Fetterman's recovery like a teenager that's just discovered masturbation.

     The debate over debates was as tiresome as it could possibly be.  Fetterman has lingering auditory issues as a result of his stroke and asked to use a closed captioning system so he could read the questions as they are presented.  Oz's campaign jumped on that to say that if Fetterman can't debate, he can't be a senator.  Which, again, seems odd behavior coming from a doctor.  If you're worried about having a senator that is recovering from a stroke, go take a look at the current roster of United States Senators.  The bulk of them have been in office since the Paleolithic Age and trail off mid-sentence when telling stories about the price of rock candy in nineteen aught six.

     It seems like a day cannot go by without some embarrassing story about the TV doctor.  News broke about his fake products being tested on animals with an impressively high bodycount and it barely left the news cycle before footage came out of him speaking at a fundraiser while he was standing in front of Hitler's car.

     That one was so stupid it made my brain hurt.  The lack of self-awareness and optics that this new breed of Republican proudly demonstrates is astounding.  If I were a piece of shit, scumbag politician purposely pushing the country toward fascism and white Christian Nationalism at breakneck speeds, I would at least try to not stand in front of Hitler's car while doing it.  And I have so many questions and a baseball bat for the owner of Hitler's car that hosted this fundraiser.  First of which would be, “Why the fuck do you own Hitler's car?”

     All of this makes me wonder if Dr. Oz knew what he was getting into when he signed on for a vanity campaign for a Senate seat in a state he doesn't live in.  Or if he even cares.  He does seem to be the type of person with an obscenely large ego that is also empty and vapid so things like caring about what he's doing might not register with him.

     What's worse is that I don't think a large portion of the electorate even cares that he's an empty suit with an expensive haircut.  No amount of evidence pointing to the fact that Dr. Oz is a failure of a human being will sway them because of the cult/sports mentality they've adopted when it comes to our elected leaders.

     I have voted in every election since I was eighteen years old and for once in my life I would like to vote for someone instead of voting against someone.  I'm not voting for John Fetterman.  I am voting against Mehmet Oz.

Yatra At The Shred Shed On October 9, 2022

     Here are pictures that I took at The Shred Shed on October 9, 2022.  The lineup was Yatra, Ancient Torture and Negative Thirteen.

Yatra:

Ancient Torture:

Negative Thirteen:

Two Nights Of The Get Up Kids And Sparta

     Once again I pulled a Pittsburgh/Cleveland doubleheader.  This time it was for The Get Up Kids at the Grog Shop on September 18^th and again at Mr. Smalls on September 21^st for the twenty-fifth anniversary of their album Four Minute Mile.  Reaching out to a band over the internet for a photo pass doesn't always work but this time around it did and a massive “Thank you” to The Get Up Kids for passes to both shows.

     I didn't think I was set for passes because I didn't hear back from anyone after the band said they sent my information to their tour manager.  As I was walking into the Grog Shop, the guy working the door saw the name printed on my ticket and said “Wait a second, I've got something for you.”  Then he handed me the little sticker pass.

     The last time I saw The Get Up Kids was on June 30^th, 2002 at the 9:30 Club, in Washington, DC.  I remember the date because on the following day Fugazi was playing at Fort Reno Park as a part of the yearly concert series that was held at the park.  This ended up being Fugazi's last show in the United States.  It still sticks in my craw that I had to head back to Pittsburgh instead of crashing somewhere in DC to see Fugazi the next day.

     If I remember correctly, I may have seen The Get Up Kids every time that they played at Club Laga.  I certainly remember sitting in the balcony on the night the half-assed stage barrier gave way and someone in the band was telling clergy molestation jokes to pass the time while it was removed.

     It took me all of a minute and a half to be reminded that Matthew Pryor is a goddamn national treasure. Whether it's his work in The Get Up Kids, The New Amsterdams or playing music under his own name he deserves to be part of the conversation when people are talking about great American songwriters.

     I hadn't listened to my Get Up Kids records in years but I could still remember every word of those damned songs.  I listened to those records endlessly, in my younger days.  As I was watching them play at the Grog Shop, I couldn't remember why I shelved their records and it was starting to bother me that I couldn't figure it out.

     Halfway through their set at Mr. Smalls, my brain became unstuck in time and I was suddenly transported back to a failed relationship that crashed and burned at the end of 2002.  And that's when it dawned on me that that was why I put those records away.  Good thing that I was done taking pictures when it hit me.  My brain was having a twenty year old meltdown and the tears started streaming.  It took me several minutes to shake myself out of it.  At least those memories didn't hit me on the two hour drive home from Cleveland and I only had to manage driving across town to get back to my fortress of solitude.

     They played Four Minute Mile from front to back followed by the Woodson EP before heading off for the fake encore and then came back out for a handful of their greatest hits to close out the night.  Jim Ward, from opening band Sparta, came out to sing on “Mass Pike” and I think that was my favorite part of the night.

     I missed that part of the show in Cleveland because I decided to get a head start on the long drive home knowing that I'd see them again in a few days at Mr. Smalls.  That and the Grog Shop was packed beyond any possible comfort level for me so I hit the eject button and made my way to the turnpike.

     The last time I saw Sparta was in 2003 when they opened for Pearl Jam at the Civic Arena and they were the only reason I went to the show.  I will always remember the non-reaction they got from the Pearl Jam crowd even though they definitely had the better set of the night.  Being the opening act for an arena band is always an uphill battle.  Drunky McDrunkface doesn't care about hearing unfamiliar music and only wants to scream along, out of tune, to their favorite songs from the radio.

     I remember there being more people in the band back then.  There was another guitarist and maybe a synth/keyboard player but now Sparta is a stripped down three piece.

     I could really hear the strength of their older songs come through played as a three piece and less “Big Rock.”  Over production can hide a lot of the weaknesses in a song but once all of that is removed there is nowhere for those weaknesses to hide.

     Before Jim Ward was in Sparta, he was in At The Drive-In and he was the guy in the band that I gravitated towards when they broke up.  He always seemed like he just wanted to play music and not stand around enjoying the smell of his own farts like the Mars Volta guys did.  I really can't fault him for bailing on that band.  I couldn't imagine how big of a pain in the ass working with Cedric and Omar would be.

     I picked up Jim Ward's solo record, Daggers, at the merch table before I left the show in Cleveland. When I got home, I threw it on while trying to write just to have some background noise.  I was half expecting one of his country records that he puts out from time to time but that was not the case.  When the first song kicked in I was completely blown away and distracted by it.  So much for writing when there's new music to be heard.  I will blindly buy anything with his name on it.

Submachine At McGarvey's On September 23, 2022

     Here are pictures that I took at McGarvey's, in Altoona, PA, on September 23, 2022.  The lineup was Submachine, The Downstrokes and Abstentious.

Submachine:

The Downstrokes:

Abstentious:

The Get Up Kids And Sparta At Mr. Smalls Theatre On September 21, 2022

     Here are pictures that I took at Mr. Smalls Theatre on September 21, 2022.  The lineup was The Get Up Kids and Sparta.  Thank you to The Get Up Kids for the photo pass.

The Get Up Kids:

Sparta: