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Greg Jacobs – Music Videos

From his Bio on his website:

“As part of a group of “red dirt” musicians who migrated to Stillwater in the late 1970’s – a rag-tag outfit that includes Jimmy LaFave, Tom Skinner, Bob Childers and the Red Dirt Rangers – singer/songwriter Greg Jacobs helped set the standard for great Okie songwriting. His latest CD, “Encore” serves as proof this standard is still alive and well.”

Greg, Randy Pease, and Grammy nominated John Fullbright were gracious enough to do a house concert at our abode here in Chesterfield 10 or so years ago.  After they completed their regular set, John started playing Robin’s 100 year old Mason & Hamlin piano and wowed everybody again.

So many of the images he uses in his music videos remind me of being in Checotah, Oklahoma at my grandmother’s house in the 50s and 60s.  Greg is a long time resident of Checotah where he taught history in the high school.  One of his students was Carrie Underwood. It always amazes me how many really talented musicians never make the big show.

A link to Greg’s website is here: Greg Jacobs’ website

Greg’s YouTube channel

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YouTube Curation

YouTube uses an algorithm to feed the user videos that they might like.  Of course the goal is to keep you on YouTube as long as possible to feed you the most advertisements possible.  I started to call this algorithm, curation, but the definition of curated is: “carefully chosen and thoughtfully organized or presented.“  While this may be what YouTube is doing on one level, it is more than a little nefarious on another.

As long time readers will know (ad nauseam) that I am studying Spanish.  As part of this journey I subscribe to various YouTube channels for learning Spanish and others in Spanish for their entertainment value.  So now the YouTube curation algorithm feeds me videos in English and Spanish.

A while back, for reasons unclear to me – perhaps it figured out that I am old and male, it fed me a video from an urologist.  The video captured my attention as the presenter was a very attractive young female who turned out to be a M.D. in the field.  Being a man of a certain age, urological topics have a bit of an interest for me.  Then you add in the mujer linda, and I just had to click. Bad move on my part. Now YouTube is feeding me tons of videos dealing with urological topics.  However, what really floored me was that it was also feeding me urological videos from urologists in Spanish speaking countries… in Spanish.

Everyone is concerned with Big Brother being the government, for my money, Big Brother is  here and he is the personification of these huge technology companies coming after your wallet and your mind.

And yes I know it is possible to erase your YouTube history and start fresh.  Or for that matter simply turn off their algorithm. But then how would I find videos of a pretty young urologist preaching to me about urological measures I should be following?

And so it goes in La Casa de Viejos.

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The Most Accurate STL Anthem Ever?

Song just about says it all, no need for comments from yours truly.

I came across it in an article in the alternative newspaper, Riverfront Times: ‘How Does St. Louis Do It’ Is the Most Accurate STL Anthem Ever

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Word of the Day -Malheureusement

  • Adverb: Malheureusement
    1. to express regret about what you are saying
  • Synonyms:
    1. Unfortunately
    2.  Unhappily
    3. Unluckily
    4. Regrettably
  • Usage:
    1. “If you used this word, malheureusement, in TEXAS. It might get you an ass whooping. “
  • Encountered:
    1.  In an email from my cousin Perry, who grew up in the wild hinterlands of west Texas, riding his horse Rocinante and tilting at working oil wells with his Mexican buddy Sancho Panza.
    2. He encountered this  French derivative word via WordDaily.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.328

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

Twas the day after Thanksgiving, and neither Señora nor I had even the glimmer of ambition to get out there amongst them on this day of  frenzied consumerism known as Black Friday.  In other words, we were staying home and taking it easy.

Normally, my day begins by drinking a little coffee, flipping through the news on my non-Apple phone, followed by taking care of the three “S”s.  Of course, the last “S” being showering.   One reason I do this is that I have scheduled my Spanish conversational practice classes fairly early in the morning, mainly to give myself an inducement to get out of bed at a reasonable hour. Since I have the dubious honor of having my picture next to the definition of bedhead in most standard dictionaries of the English language, I definitely need to shower before I talk to someone in another country.  After all I need to represent the US of A in a somewhat acceptable manner.

This morning I lounged around longer than normal, drinking coffee and reading the news as I had no class – and yes, I just tossed someone a softball. I even skipped showering at this juncture of the day, opting to go to the basement somewhat late to utilize the treadmill and weights.  When I was done I fixed myself lunch consisting of a turkey and dressing sandwich.

With both of us being retirees, we have flexible schedules, but stay busy enough to suit us.  One of our standard questions to the other is what does their day look like. When I got up from the kitchen table Señora asked me a variation of this question.

“Where are you headed next?

Replying I said, “I am going to go shower.”

With surprise in her voice, she queried, “You’ve not showered yet?”

Responding, thinking of my bedhead, I countered, “Do I look like have showered?”

Her unhesitating retort was, “I just live with you, I don’t LOOK at you.”

Well… reckon I was rapidly put back into my proper place.

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Quote of the Day – Paulo Coelho

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own”  ~~ Paulo Coelho

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Word of the Day -Palimpest

  • Noun: Palimpest

    1. writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
    2. something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface
  • Synonyms:
    1. article
    2. document
    3. text
    4. diploma
    5. papyrus
    6. scroll
  • Usage:
    1. “In some cases, the long history of expulsions echoes down the years in the changing names of a particular place; a living palimpest in which one period of history is erased and replaced by another. “
  • Encountered:
    1.  While reading Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted by Daniel Sokatch

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #6,573

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

 

El cascarrabias

I wish I could draw.  If I could I would create a cartoon and label it: The Typical American.

It would feature a grossly obese person of whatever sex, one whose gender was  indeterminante might even be more to the point. Our typical American would be sporting shorts, regardless of the season, that were much too big, a screen printed t-shirt pushing a political opinion, religion, vacation destination or sports team, the ubiquitous sneakers or flip-flops, and a baseball cap, more than likely worn backwards. They would be in a mega warehouse store, like Sam’s or Costco, pushing the oversized shopping cart mandatory at these venues.  The cart would be filled to overflowing with soft drinks and junk food. And, of course, teetering on top of all, there would be a brobdingnagian bail containing a two year supply of toilet paper.

Yup, I was recently in one of these stores. Yup, guess what I saw.

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It’s Not That Hard Folks | Golden Rule

I came across this cartoon this morning.

Which reminded me of a story I had read about Rabbi Hillel…

The Talmud is the second most important book of the Jewish faith. As described at the website Sefaria.org:

“The Talmud is the textual record of generations of rabbinic debate about law, philosophy, and biblical interpretation, compiled between the 3rd and 8th centuries and structured as commentary on the Mishnah with stories interwoven. The Talmud exists in two versions: the more commonly studied Babylonian Talmud was compiled in present-day Iraq, while the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in Israel.”

There is a story attributed to two second century rabbinic scholars of this book , Hillel and Shammai. As recounted at the website Forward:

“[They were]…contemporaries paired together by Jewish tradition as archetypical opposites: Hillel the tolerant and liberal ‘loose constructionist’ of the Law, Shammai the exacting and inflexible ‘strict constructionist.’

In one story about them, a gentile comes to both and asks, with the obvious intention of provoking them, to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai is indeed provoked and gives the man an angry whack with a measuring rod. Hillel replies, ‘That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.’“

How hard can this be people? Apparently too damn hard.


To see the Golden Rule as expressed by many other religions follow this link: The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #323

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all my random thoughts.

Indubitably, you are aware of the old saw, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”  Contemplating the recent drama in my abode, Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.304, I decided that we have had this prosaism  wrong all these long centuries.  I am thinking a more accurate platitude might have been, “An onion a day keeps the doctor away.”

Bear with me, here is my reasoning.  If you were to eat an onion everyday, then the likelihood of the majority of folks being close to you diminishes rapidly.  You would thus keep the opportunity for them to transmit any number of human illnesses to you at a very low percentage.  Thusly preserving yourself in a healthy state.  Ergo, the doctor would be a stranger. Without a doubt, a proof my logic professor would be proud of.

Just to be on the safe side, if you were to throw a couple cloves of garlic into the mix, then vampires would be out of the picture, while also eliminating those final few hardy souls not put off by your force field of onion infused belches.

Just saying.