HOORAY!!! I am so happy the Bush-hole is GONE!!! Goodbye JERKOFF!!

For the first time in eight years I feel a real sense of hope and promise for the future, that the dark clouds lingering over us all for nearly a decade are beginning to give way. I have lived the majority of my adult life under the fascist warmongering Republican right and their Neocon empire building agenda. Today I celebrate the possibilities the future holds.

I am not so naive as to think things will change overnight, nor nearly as much as I might like, but Barack Obama as President, a black President in my lifetime (!), is certainly a reason to believe things *can* change. It is no coincidence the most prolific years of Mastermind were during the Clinton administration. So drink a toast with me to the promise the future holds.

In the past two months music has been spilling out of me like water as the Neocon regime coming to an end seemed like it just might happen. I have written and assembled 3 hours of new music! At least an hour of which is destined to become new Mastermind, not to mention another two hours of music in the can. So now the task at hand is to get it all recorded and get it out there.

Rich was here and we watched Obama’s speech as the President-elect together, so I know he feels pretty much the same way I do… hopeful. We can do it. Yes we can! Hallelujah!!

[UPDATE: Hasn’t quite work out as I had hoped. Could be worse I suppose. -Bb]

Five years ago today at around this exact time the United States of America – MY country – attacked Iraq in a preemptive war. I recall vividly the sinking feeling in my gut as I watched with horror the initial “shock & awe” bombardments on live television… like seeing a loved one in car accident, I could feel a dark cloud of despair move in over top of me.

This was not MY country doing this, it was the Neocons who have hijacked the place. There are a million other web sites discussing that so I won’t get into it here. What I want to say today is the dark cloud that hangs over us all really put a damper on my enthusiasm for… most things. Including making music.

I have said in passing that I am waiting out the current U.S. administration to be able to breath again and I really think this is true. Looking over old date books, the final mixing sessions for (what may someday be) the 7th Mastermind studio album were during that fateful month of March 2003. In fact they were during the two weeks preceding the attack.

There are other factors that contributed to Mastermind getting bogged down which I shall discuss at some point, but I can’t relax and feel creative when so much is wrong in the world. The insidious feeling of something major gone awry made music seem so trivial. Ignore the smoke and smile…? I couldn’t do it.

Since 9/11 (and I don’t believe the “official” story for one moment) the world is a different place. An uglier, less friendly place. And I don’t like it, not one little bit. Now I feel at least a faint glimmer of hope as the 2008 Presidential elections loom. Not that the choices are all that good, but at least it is SOME kind of change. Ron Paul is the only guy who seems to be telling the truth in any fashion, but I’m not holding my breath… oh wait, yes I am.

[UPDATE: learning more about RP and his libertarian B.S. I decided he is a total dick. -Bb]