A musician's life is not a happy one

I was supposed to play at a company holiday party at the Four Seasons Hotel tonight. At the last minute I was informed that the son of the CEO had already been hired. A glitch, no doubt, though possibly a lie. Maybe when they found out it would cost them $700 for a jazz trio they balked. Why, Trent's band will play for NOTHING!
Awesome, dude. I bet they rock.

But I am not crying into my beer. Instead, I have been posting on various boards for about--yikes! 5 hours now. Mostly Randi Rhodes' message board. I like a lot of the people there--they are clever and have a sense of humor. There are also many socialists so I don't feel so all alone. The latest big news stories are 1) Repig senators walking out of closed door meeting to decide whether to pass 14 billion auto company bailout bill. (House already passed it) Of course the steaming white male piles of excrement (as Mike Malloy refers to them)did the following:
[from Fox News, which is reporting real news now out of desperation]
Republicans, after reviewing the latest version of the proposal in a closed-door meeting, balked at giving automaker federal aid unless their powerful union agreed to slash wages next year to bring them into line with those of Japanese carmakers.

Oh, and one other thing:
Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio, a strong bailout supporter, said the United Auto Workers was willing to make the cuts, but not until 2011.


Where have we heard this vile shit before?
Only every single time a U.S. company gets into trouble through the ineptness/malfeasance of its upper level management. Blame the unions! It's their fault, dammit, for insisting on a living wage and benefits! Whatever you do, don't blame COMPANY POLICIES which over and over again refused to build fuel-efficient vehicles and so led Americans to buy foreign cars in droves. COMPANY POLICIES that fought emissions standards every step of the way.
Be sure that all the top level guys (and I do mean guys) get at least $4 million apiece of our hard-earned taxpayer money as they have at AIG. They really need to be bailed out! Shit, they are only earning seven figure salaries because the damn unions are forcing them to hand over the company profits! They could be earning BILLIONS!
It's great being a bankster. You get to hold up the American people without even using a gun.
And now that whiny wimp Harry Reid is afraid to see the stock nmarket fall tomorrow as the result of NO BAILOUT (yet) Why did he and the other Dems cave and say the unions should concede? Why doesn't anyone ever ask the fatcats to concede any of their millions? People who never built a car. Or if they ever did, they forgot what it was like to really work for a living, work as in getting your hands dirty. Not work as in
diddling around on your Blackberry while you ride in your corporate jet drinking expensive booze.
It makes me sick.
I'm so angry I could spit.
b) Oh yeah, and story b, I totally forgot in my outrage: the gov of Illinois with the unpronounceable and unmemorable name and a penchant for filthy language has gotten busted for a "pay to play" scheme in which he has attempted to extort money from Obama's successor in the Senate. Naturally the wingnut lunatics are trying to paint Obama with Rod Blagojevich's (sounds like a character on The Wire) brush--guilt by association. Even though they dislike one another and Obama's campaign refused to allow Blago to speak at the Dem Convention. Apparently Blago is a real Clay Davis (The Wire again, sorry, I saw all 5 seasons on DVD recently and it's all too easy to find life imitating art) and has a history of shaking people down. His wife is a nasty little twat, too. So there is a lot of outrage over yet another corrupt pol (I'm shocked! shocked that extortion is going on in Illinois politics.) I don't believe Obama has anything to do with this particular scandal, though it doesn't mean he's squeaky clean. You can't be uncorrupted by years of playing the Chicago political machine game.
I have a bad taste in my mouth which is only going to get worse.
I don't want to see 3 million auto workers get laid off, but it looks like it is going to happen because our lawmakers didn't care enough to bail THEM out, not their bosses.
This could have been done but the political will wasn't there. For shame.
Bank of America is letting 30,000 go.
Citibank has let go I don't know how many.
This nation is teetering on the brink of a depression, a depression caused by the implosion of capitalism.