Psychotic Views Part Fourteen:
Here, I would like to put pen to paper a few brief musings I have on various subjects which have cross my mind, the first one is cures. Are they actually ever going to cure any diseases. For years, the public has been fed this stale green pablum about how close they are to finding cures for various diseases. They’re close, oh, they’re really fucking close. Yes, they are, a cure is always just around the corner. Let’s examine this phrase, ‘just around the corner’. Peace is always just around the corner, a cure for world hunger is just around the corner, a cure for cancer is just around the corner, a thousand positive outcomes are all just around the corner. What corner? Where is it? Where is this fucking corner anyway?
Get out a map and point to it, is it on the map? Is that why we can’t ever seem to get around this corner is because it isn’t on the map? Or is the map wrong? Maybe we need a new map, one that correctly shows where this fucking corner is so we can go around it and find all of this great shit. Maybe the power elites know damn well where this corner is and they just don’t want the rest of us to know. They keep it a secret, no one outside their exclusive little club of perverted assholes are allowed to know. To me, they are never going to find a cure for any serious disease. Hell, in this age of modern living and modern medicine, we have higher rates for diseases, not lower. The rates for asthma, emphysema, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimers disease, diabetes, brain tumors, cancers, as well as other diseases, have all gone up. Why is that? Is it explainable? Do they want to explain it, or do they just want to sit back and enjoy all of the billion dollars in profits they are making while people are getting sick, suffering and dying.
People in the health care system can deny it all they want, but the priority in the U.S. health care system is profit, not care, not prevention, not accessibility, not affordability, profit. What kind of a goddamn heartless country allows insurance companies to control the health care system of an entire country? What kind of a cruel soulless country would rather allow tens of thousands of its own citizens to die every year instead of enacting universal coverage for all. No, there isn’t going to be a cure. Look at muscular dystrophy. How many years has that telethon been on the air? How much money has been raised in that time, over one billion dollars, yet are they any closer to a cure than when they started? What has all of the money been spent on exactly? The same goes for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, pulmonary diseases, brain tumors, mental diseases and all of the rest. How much money has been raised for these afflictions? Where exactly has the money been spent if they were going to find cures for any of these diseases, wouldn’t they have done so by now? Wouldn’t they, at least, found a cure for just one of them?
There is a question, too, which needs to be asked in the profit driven world of diseases. Do they really even want to find a cure for these diseases, and here’s two related questions that also need to be asked. Is there more money to be made in cures, or is their more money to be made in treatment?
Let’s take diabetes, for instance, is there more money to be made curing all of the people who have it, ir is there more money to be made treating all of the people who have it week after week, month after month, year after year until they die. Let’s not forget that diabetes is the leading cause of total kidney failure. Total kidney failure means dialysis treatments, which is three times a week, fifty-two weeks of the year. This adds up to one hundred and fifty-six dialysis treatments a year. If, let’s say, you manage to live five years, there would be a total of seven hundred and eighty dialysis treatments, that’s a lot of money being made. People with diabetes are also at risk to have other health problems as well. Why, because body systems are related and interconnected to each other. Kidneys and the heart, the heart and the lungs. Dealing with diabetes is difficult enough, but it’s guaranteed that because you have diabetes you will have other major health problems as well. No, I don’t believe there’s a cure coming for anything, not if big pharmacy has anything to say about it. The mega multi-billion dollar profit industry. The industry that spends twice as much advertising as it does on research. What does that say about where its priorities are, and why, for that matter is it fucking advertising at all? Huh?
Prescription drugs are supposed to help people with health problems. Many people’s lives are dependent on prescription drugs. They would die without the prescriptions, and many do. For the sole reason they can’t afford them. This is people’s health we’re talking about. Sometimes it’s even a matter of life and death. It is not a product to be marketed like shoes, TV’s, PC’s, cell phones, cars, etc. It is a product like no other. There should be no advertising of prescription drugs anywhere, not even billboards, that’s why doctors go to medical school. They’re supposed to tell their patients what’s best for them. The patients isn’t supposed to go to the doctor and tell him or her what pill they want because they saw a well-funded ad for it on TV. What am I, as a patient basing my opinion on, test studies, serious side affects, inconclusive results, no, marketing on TV.
Cure diseases, you want us to cure diseases. You actually want us to cure the life threatening, life ending afflictions people suffer from. How dare you sir to suggest such a thing in my presence. How dare you. You obviously have no fucking concept of how the U.S. big pharmacy industry works, cure diseases? Get out, get out! Get the hell out of my office now you -----, you anti-capitalist, anti-free market, communist, socialist, pinko, hippie, motherfucking son of a bitch!
UFOs and beings from outer space, now there’s a fun subject, huh? Most people, I think, are either in the absolute believer category or absolute non-believer category. Me, I’m in the ‘I’m not sure’ category, which translated, I guess, means maybe yes, maybe no and I don’t know one way or the other.
It’s an interesting thing to think about. Are we the only thinking, reasoning type of beings anywhere? Some say there has to be other similar type being somewhere, the cosmos, the outer space, the outer, outer space is just too vast. The odds would favor such beings somewhere. Many religious people have trouble with this concept, but much of their doubt is human ego centered. They want to believe their god not only created humans, but made them the most important species on Earth or anywhere else. This notion is pure egoism. Humans don’t like the idea of human beings as just another species or anything less than the superior species that’s ever been in existence.
I really don’t know how true believer religious keep all of their conflicting ideas straight in their head. I know this is always a suspiciously dangerous thing to do, but I’m going to use a little logic here. True believer religious people should believe in other similar beings out there somewhere more than non true believers. Why? Think about this, your god creates Earth, all of the other planets of the space contained and outside of our solar system with all of the bodies contained within it. He goes through all of this work, effort, time and tide and yet he creates only life here on Earth? There are a couple of good important questions to ask on the subject. One is: Is the government capable of lying about their knowledge of contact with other world beings and the vehicles that brought them here. The answer to that is an obvious: Yes.
They have lied and deceived about so money thing. Someone could write a book and fill it to be brim with all of their lies and still have plenty left over. Another good question to ask is: IF there are beings from other worlds who are capable of advanced space travel, why are they so fucking secretive? Why not direct open mass contact with all of humanity? Why not land your goddamn vehicle in the middle of Central Park in NYC, or on the LA freeway, or in downtown Tokyo? Why is it always they always land in places where so few people can see them? Oh, they’ve been seen in higher populated areas, but only in the air. They never land in such places.
One possible answer is that UFOs are U.S. military experiments. The military is covertly working on new aircraft and this is what people see and maybe these experiments only took place afer the U.S. military had gotten its hands on a real vehicle from another world. Maybe they know first hand there are beings from other worlds and don’t want the public to know. They have told obvious lies on the subject in the past, but what is the nature of these lies? Another answer is that there are actually being from other worlds, but they don’t want to make direct contact for a variety of reasons. The first could be they mean to do us harm, but if this were true, why haven’t they done so already? What are they waiting for? Are they studying us, like lab rats racing through the maze? Do they fear us? Given the violent history of human behavior they’d have plenty of reason to do so. There is also the possibility that there are beings out there from other worlds, but they, like us, are not capable of otherworld space travel.
I can’t speak for all of the true believers in beings from other worlds, but I can speak for what, I believe, is the reasoning behind their thinking. It is of a philosophical nature, maybe even a spiritual nature, if using the word spiritual outside of a religious contact is acceptable. They have looked at the world, they have looked at human existence. The entire history of it, they have asked the question: Is this all their? And they are not satisfied with the answers given. There are mysteries, things beyond comprehension, things not so easily explained.
True believers in otherworld beings are very similar to true believers in a god creator religious belief in many respects, both want the answer to the question, ‘ Is this all there is’ to be NO!. Both want there to be something out there greater than themselves. Neither is willing to accept that human existence consists of a short life, eternal death, and nothing more. There has to be something more for both of them. There has to be something more, but the reaction society gives out to each is quite different, isn’t it? True believers in otherworld beings are mocked, derided, laughed at, ridiculed and are called delusional, mentally unbalanced people, but true believers in this religious creator god are portrayed in a completely opposite light.
Someone can see the face of Jesus on a piece of burnt toast, it’s treated like a legitimate news story. Is this person treated like a mentally unbalanced person in need of help? IS this person branded a nut, a kook, or a lunatic? People say all the time: ‘God spoke to me’. ‘Mohammed spoke to me;, ‘Jesus spoke to me; and other things of this sort of religious nature. Does anyone say, ‘Really’! Did anyone else beside you hear him speak? Were there any other witnesses? What language did he speak? Latin? Hebrew? Arabic? English? Would you like to come with us sir. We have a private room with padded walls reserved just for you.
When some people die, you feel a deep sense of sadness. When certain other people die, you feel a deep sense of sadness too, but also a deep sense of anger. In the latter case, I don’t mean people who are murdered or die in any way by someone else’s hand. No, I mean people who die by their own self-destructive hand through alcohol, street drugs, prescription drugs, etc.
There are two particular individuals I have in mind to illustrate the differences in emotional reactions I have mentioned. Gary Moore and Phil Lynott. When Gary died in February of 2011, I felt a deep sense of sadness. When Phil died in January of 1986, I also felt a deep sense of sadness, but I also felt a deep sense of anger. Sadness and anger are conflicting emotions and can bring you to absolute ruin if they get beyond your control. Phil’s death still angers me to this day. Its strength has dissipated in the 26 years that have passed, but it is still there. Of the two emotions I felt after his death, anger clearly seemed to the stronger of the two, it still might be. I think he was a special kind of man. A complicated, conflicted man.
Like everyone, he had his flaws. God knows, though, what it was like for him growing up. What insecurities were ingrained into mind during this time, I can’t say, what doubts. Much has been said about the difficulties blacks have had to endure in the U.S. from the beginnings of the slave trade to the present committed through these centuries of time. It’s said that , ‘It’s a white man’s world and its true. Its always been true. The struggle for identity, a true sense of self, is difficult. Hell, difficult is a Jupiter sized understatement. Imagine, then, the difficulty Phil had growing up. He was a child (I hate the word illegitimate. It sounds as if the child isn’t fully human or something.) of a single mother. The absent father was black, his mother was white. Not only was he a mixed race child with an absent father, he was a mixed race child in Ireland. This was back in the 50’s and 60’s. What I liked about Phil’s songs and consequently Thin Lizzy, was the variety of styles. Most musical people, even when they’re very good play to one style, one genre. Phil’s song writing could be pure, in your face, hard rock, but it could also be poetic, melodic, lyrical and mythical. Thin Lizzy was known as a hard rock band. Well, if they are to be defined as a hard rock band, they are like no other hard rock band then or now. Hell, they are like no other rock band period.
I have never based my musical tastes on record sales, ticket sales, or CD sales. A lot of pure, fly infested shit has sold out concerts year after year and tons of music sales, year after year. High sales and sold out tours doesn’t mean the music is any fucking good. The same is true of TV, movies and books. Quantity isn’t quality. You can have a string of hits as long as an anaconda for all I care, that doesn’t mean your music isn’t a big, steamy pile of wet, smelly doo.
My favorite musical artists are people who have range and variety to go along with their high degree of musicianship. Some people like to listen to nothing except slow, light songs. Some people like to listen to nothing except hard, fast songs. Most musical listeners, I think, stick mainly to listening to one particular type of music. To me, this is fucking boring.
Phil had a great gift for variety and range in his songwriting. He had a unique way about him and a very contagious sort of smell. This is why his death at the age of 36 angered me so much, because this great gift was silenced too early and the reason was not a car accident, plane accident, or some other similar type of death, No, Phil did it to himself. He self-destructed. I don’t know hwy. I don’t know if it was because he took on too much, tried to live up to a false identity he’d created for himself or some other reason. The truth is, though, Phil died of self-inflicted wounds.
My reasons for wanting Phil to still be alive are selfish, I know. I keep thinking of all of the lost music of his that I could’ve been listening to for the past twenty plus years. Our sadness though, over someone’s death, is always largely motivated by selfishness. Yes, we are sad because they are no longer here and living life, but much of our sadness is about us and not about the person who died. He was a gifted man and gifts such as these should be shared. Yet, for the past twenty-six years there has been no sharing. That is the cause of my anger. With Gary’s death, on the other hand, there was just a profoundly deep sadness. Gary might have very been the most talented man ever to pick up a guitar. If Gary had played classical music, say a cello, a violin, or a piano, he would’ve been recognized by the world as a master musician in the same vein as YoYo Ma or any others in this field of music. He would’ve been recognized for what he was, a prodigy. Those moronic, imbeciles who are always ranking the top guitarists and leave him either way down the list or off the list all together, they don’t know a god damn thing about musicianship.
More than name recognition and reputations made long ago. Listen to Gary’s music, watch his live DVDs. If they don’t impress the seven hells out of you, then you’re tone deaf, tasteless, mother fucking idiot. If guitarists are going to be rated, it has to be done on the basis of musicianship, not on concert ticket sales, CD and record sales, or any other irrelevant bullshit! Gary played the music he wanted to play, even when it frustrated or confused his fans, like the recordings, ‘A Different Beat’; ‘Dark Days in Paradise’. Personally, I like them just as much as his blues or rad rock recordings. That, to me, is what the best artists are supposed to do, stretch out, try different things, veer off the well beaten road, but critics and fans want predictability. They want to pidgeon hole, type cast. To a real artist, this is fucking boring and tedious. Just keep the same shit over and over again, blah, blah, blah. Gary could have played regurgitated crap, marketed himself more, sold out, sold a hell of a lot more cds and concert tickets and made a much bigger name for himself, but musical integrity was more important to him and he held onto it until the day he died. He played with such intense emotion ad feeling and he could play any kind of music well. He never toured the U.S. much. I only wish I could’ve seen him play live. His music was often the only thing that got me through the day. It has been with me for a long, long time. It will continue to do so for as many days as I have left. He is one of my two favorite guitarists and musical performers. The other is Robin Trower. Each of these two men have many hard core fans. I’m not sure how many are hard core fans of both of them, but I am one. I like them both for the same reasons, damn good musicians.
Down to earth people, uniqueness, musical integrity. Musical integrity is a rare thing in the music business, a rare thing. It is having your own sound. A lot of people are said to have their own sound and a lot of times it’s just standard music patter bullshit. Having your own genuine sound has never been more true for an electric guitarist than Robin Trower. He is a master of sound. Like Moore, Trower exhibits a high degree of emotion and feeling in his music. His sound can often times take you to other worlds. You can literally close your eyes and be transported to another place. He can take you somewhere you’ve never been before.
Many of the so called greatest electric guitarists are known for their excellent technique and ability of making extended lightening fast runs, but there’s no real depth, weight and resonance to it. Tobin can get more out of a single prolonged note than other players could get out of a hundred. Speed is fine, but if there’s nothing underneath it, nothing deeper than surface water, then fuck it Robin, too, has gotten me through many long days in my life. Robin, too, could play different styles and different tempos and do them all well. Now in his 60’s, he still continues to impress me with the quality and range of his music. It is not a calculated repetition over and over again, each CD can be different from the previous one, with a different feel, a different tone, yet not lose anything in the way of quality. I’ll choose these two every damn time. This concludes this episode of ‘My Little Musings’. I think I’m going to call myself on my cell phone now and see if I answer. Probably not though, that asshole never answers his phone.