Reblogging Michael Jochum - Sticking it to Ted Nugent

(Note from Jenn: Michael had me in absolute stitches with this one. Nugent is such an arrogant prick, and I love that Michael screwed with him some.)

I was thinking about the great guitar players we all love and admire—the Jeff Becks, the David Gilmours, the Mark Knopflers, the John McLaughlins, the Allan Holdsworths, the Eddie Van Halens. And then, while scrolling, I was tortured for five seconds by a clip of the Nuge playing live. I lingered just long enough to read one comment:

“Ted Nugent is one of rock’s most underrated guitar players.”

That comment unlocked a memory, one of my most vivid, and satisfying, professional remembrances.

These Boots Are Made for Walking

It was around 1986. I was one of those “in-demand session guys,” and I got called to play on a Ted Nugent song. At the time, I was deep into some illicit drugs that made me far more arrogant than I am now, and somehow even more opinionated, which seems almost impossible in retrospect. I was also, inexplicably, very into cowboy boots.

For the record, cowboy boots are not ideal footwear for someone with my foot size. But they were fashionable, and I was wearing them.

I arrived at Capitol Studio B. Naturally, Nugent wasn’t there yet, just his entourage: an engineer of note, a producer of some credibility, and assorted enablers waiting for me to start dialing in drum sounds at 9 a.m. I delivered sonic excellence, as was my habit. And then Ted Nugent finally strutted in.

He did his trademark pantomime of friendliness, pretending to like everyone in the room, before marching straight into the drum booth. He didn’t offer a handshake. He stared at my feet.

“Are you going to wear those cowboy boots when you play the drums?”

“Fuck yes,” I said. “I’m going to wear these cowboy boots while I play the drums. They’re what I have on my feet.”

He stared back at me with those milky, lifeless eyes and declared,

“Drummers don’t wear cowboy boots. You need to go home and change your shoes before we start the session.”

So I stood up, walked out of Capitol Studio B, crossed the parking lot, drove through the guard gate, and headed home to change my shoes, at his command.

Here’s the part Ted Nugent hadn’t thought through: he had no idea where I lived, or how long this little footwear pilgrimage might take.

On my way down Sepulveda Boulevard from my Gucci house in the now-gentrified Royal Oaks neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, I decided to enjoy myself. After all, this was his dime. I stopped for gas at my favorite 7-Eleven, where, fourteen years later, I would bump into O.J. Simpson, because America is nothing if not consistent.

I got hungry, so I swung by In-N-Out for a Double-Double with cheese, fries, and a vanilla milkshake. Then I realized I was out of my favorite illicit substance, so I made a quick stop at a dear friend’s house, known professionally as “the dealer”to stock up for my evening with Teddy.

By the time I returned to Capitol Studios, four and a half hours had passed.

Triple scale is a beautiful thing when you’re a sideman. Sidemen don’t get the glory, but occasionally we get the satisfaction, and the invoice reflects that.

I walked back into Studio B without acknowledging Nugent, the engineer, or the producer. I sat down at the drum kit and played one of his stupid songs.

And that, in a nutshell, is how one of rock’s “most underrated guitar players” taught me that power is often loud, insecure, and deeply concerned with footwear.

—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition

Sonnets about the asshole in the White House

I've been writing sonnets all day. I'm sharing the ones I like best. Here's one, called Parchment Scolds The Crown.

I am the charter, inked in freedom’s hand,  

A covenant to guard the people’s right;  

Yet you would twist my words to seize command,  

And march your armies through the city’s night.  

No clause permits a tyrant’s vain decree,  

No parchment yields to whims of selfish power;  

My checks and balances were forged to be  

A shield against the strongman’s darkest hour.  

I scold you now, for every breach you make,  

Each act that stains the oath you swore to keep;  

The law is not a toy for you to break,  

Nor silence meant for citizens to weep.  

Remember well: I am the nation’s frame,  

And history will judge your reckless claim.


Another:

When law is bent to serve a tyrant’s will,  

And soldiers march where citizens should stand,  

The city’s quiet hum grows sharp and shrill,  

As boots of war defile the nation’s land.  

No statute grants this power, yet it’s claimed,  

A show of force to mask a hollow crown;  

The Constitution’s voice is left unnamed,  

Its parchment trampled, freedoms beaten down.  

But walls of steel cannot suppress the song,  

Nor silence truth that rises from the square;  

The people know when justice has gone wrong,  

And rally fierce to guard what all must share.  

So history will mark this dark parade,  

A warning carved where liberty was frayed.

Another:

Beneath the gilded towers of false might,

A tyrant stirs, with cruel hand and glare.

He builds his walls and shuns the wronged and right,

And floods our streets with fear beyond repair.

The huddled, seeking refuge, plead in vain,

While soldiers march where neighbors once were free.

His edicts choke compassion, bind in chain,

And hollow justice bends to tyranny.

O nation torn, where once your heart held grace,

Now echoes of oppression scar the land.

Yet still, the truth endures, it finds its place,

Though foul command may strike with iron hand.

Rise, conscience, rise — resist the shadowed way;

For dawn returns, though night may claim the day.

Fuck UrgentCare2Go in the ass with a cactus!

House call doctors just fired me as a patient.

Said I'm too complex.

They wasted weeks of my time. Then they had me spend 45 minutes talking to a PA today, telling her all my medications and dosages. Then the doctor told me to fuck off. He didn't use that wording, but that's what it boiled down to.

I am ANGRY!

Now I have to find ANOTHER PCP, set up an appointment ASAP because I need refills on ALL my medications, and I could just fucking scream.

Avoid this company, they will waste your time.

I fucking love AI sometimes

 

House Call Doc!

 I finally found a physician whose entire practice is house calls, and who accepts my insurance and comes all the way out here to Assfuck Nowhere, Texas. He is coming Friday regarding the UTI I developed in the last few days...

Psych update and coping mechanisms

I have been unable to get one of my psych meds prescribed for some reason. my shrink can't do it and neither can my PCP. I'm pretty sure that it's a controlled substance.

Anyways, I have been very stable and doing well, so I think I'll stop trying to get the scrip written. If I start having symptoms, I'll take buspar for a few days until it mellows out. That's what I did this last time, and it worked well, although I was kind of a zombie while I was taking it every 6 hours. But it was only a few days, and then I felt even again and stopped the tranquilizer...

The Greatest Peace Prize in the History of Peace: As told by Donald J Trump - Reblog Michael Jochum

Let me tell you something, folks, and the fake news is going to HATE this, but what happened tonight? Incredible. Historic. People are saying it may be the greatest honor ever given to a president. They’re calling it the “Peace Prize,” but really, it’s THE prize. The only prize. And honestly? It makes the Nobel Prize look like something you get in a cereal box...

(Reblogging Michael Jochum) The Man Who Forgot the Room (or, Clots and Prayers in the Oval Age of Confusion)

 

Let’s talk about the photograph taken today, President Donald J. Trump, sitting slack-jawed at a table, eyes half-closed, posture melting into his chair like a wax figure left too close to a Florida window. This isn’t a retired celebrity sighting. This is the current President of the United States, looking for all the world like a man who has forgotten not just where he is, but who he is, and why the room around him keeps stubbornly refusing to turn into a golf cart.

This is the man with the nuclear codes.

This is the man making life-or-death decisions about wars, alliances, famine, immigration, climate, surveillance, and democracy itself...

Not a thankful day for First Nations peoples

I am observing a day of remembrance and mourning for our land's Native Americans. Her first stewards, who loved her, and the cultures we destroyed and women and children and innocents we slaughtered so we could steal their homes and colonize, pollute, and desecrate.

Never forget. It was theirs and we stole it. It belonged to the Choctaw and the Blackfoot and the Nez Perce and the Apache and the Mohican and the Aztec and Inca and Maya and the Inuit and the Miq Maq and so many beautiful civilized nations.

We should really clean it the fuck up and give it back.

"The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact's a fact

It belongs to them

Let's give it back.."

-Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning, about the destruction of Australian aboriginal cultures, but it suits our US and south and north of the the border massacres as well.

Embolism now, please. America is waiting.

Not really, since you'd go to fucking Club Fed and live like a goddam king in there.

I'll be happy if you get the death penalty in a court of law as a result of your treason against the US Constitution and your oath of office. I'll be happy if you have a massive fatal embolism during one of your insane and unhinged tirades.

I will be happy when you're in your grave through no help of any but legal channels or your own poor health choices. This is not a threat. This is a prayer. Please, God, prove you exist, strike down this blaspemous, hateful, cum guzzling, son of a whore QUICKLY! Stop his heart with extreme prejudice. Make it painful, make it hurt, make him SUFFER.

Either that, or I will be happy when you lose absolutely everything and are living in a single room occupancy coakroach infested hell down by the fucking docks, subsisting on top ramen and tap water until you die, alone, forgotten, unloved, and unnoticed until your corpse stench informs the nation that its nightmare is finally completely over.

My health is incredibly poor, and right now, my only goal in life is to keep my heart beating and my lungs pumping for 24 hours AFTER your shit stops, you motherfucking slimy, cocksucking, ball nibbling, dog fucking, cat shit eating bastard.

Why? Because I HATE you! M O U S E.