Actual screen capture from a Facebook profile:

I have a new song recorded:

Mourning Comes the Dawn (page with lyrics, player and mp3 download link)

We’re Number One

An evil man with fierce intent,
Wanted by the government,
For heinous crimes condemned to roam,
Hiding in his desert home,

Was brought to justice yesterday.
The power of the USA
In less than ten years took him out.
Let freedom’s children give a shout.

His body laid to rest at sea,
Raise a glass to victory!
Raise the flag and raise the gun:
We’re number one.

In shock we watched the jealous roar
Against our humble, peaceful shore.
We paid the slaughter back times ten,
Then moved next door to start again.

We live in fear of terror cells,
Pocket knives and liquid gels.
We spread our legs and show ID,
And thus defend our liberty.

His body laid to rest at sea,
Raise a glass to victory!
Wave the flag and wave the gun:
We’re number one.

© 2011 by Randy Fellmy
“We’re Number One” is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Okay, no big deal in most parts of the country, but here in what’s supposed to be the desert, we’re confused.

This is really meant for a female singer, but here’s my version of my newest song:

Miss Me for a While

I don’t have a web page for this yet It has a web page now; it was one of those “couldn’t stop to do anything else” things, from conception to completion in about 24 hours (and a night’s sleep before adding it to my web site):

Old Man Rock

My newest song, Cinema, now has lyrics and a recording on my web site.

With two recent songs unrecorded, instead of getting to work on them, I’ve written another one.

The first major step in my move back to the United States has been taken. Earlier this evening, Andrea from World Pet Travel came to take Coconut Joe:

to prepare for his flight tomorrow to Las Vegas, where he’ll be taken to live with greydoe. I’m scheduled to follow on September 30th.

It really changes the mood of a home when there isn’t a dog in it anymore.

Edit: As of 8:30 pm Wednesday, August 25th, Las Vegas time, Joe is happily looking over his new home.

Something is wrong with this song.  I don’t yet know what it is.  It might be the lyrics, it might be the tune, it might be the piano line, it might be something I just don’t have a fix on at all.

All I can show you now is the lyrics. This is the first song I’ve written for a female voice:

( Just Bring Me HomeCollapse )

Comments and suggestions are most welcome.

I got this song recorded and (heavily) engineered last week, but I see I never mentioned the final version here.

Sunday Clown tells the story of a father separated from his wife and child, but determined that his child will still know him and feel his love and support. The web page linked gives the lyrics and an mp3 of my recording of the song.

I have a new song; you can read the lyrics, download the sheet music and listen to my recording of it on my web site:

Meet Me in the Sunset

This is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) to be held in Vienna, Austria from July 18th to 23rd:

The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed.

The complete declaration is linked above. Also on that page, the conference welcomes web users to join in signing the declaration. The most destructive war the United States has ever waged is joined by countries around the world under U.N. auspices. This declaration focuses on AIDS, yet it reaches a wider scope; it is a rebuke of global “War on Drugs” which is sorely needed. I urge your support.

One day, following a blog link to a blog link to a blog link, I came across the Wil Wheaton/John Scalzi Fan Fiction Contest to Benefit the Lupus Alliance of America, which involves writing a story based on this picture. Being of neither sound mind nor body, I decided to try my hand at it. It probably doesn’t count as “fan fiction,” but I submitted it anyway. It’s Creative Commons licensed; see Cat’s Claw on my web site for details.

I was looking at the Tea Party signs linked in warsop’s comment in her journal and it struck me that these folks are so concerned about “Socilism” and “wealth redistribtion”... somehow, it doesn’t look to me like most of them would be on the losing end of that proposition. Perhaps they’re just so honorable that they’re unconcerned with their own best interests?

My statistical chops are not really that good, but analyzing data here:
     http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig_2008_05.html
I was able to put a couple twos and twos together (corrections welcome, if I have misunderstood):

• Somewhere around 6-7% of American households have a net worth of $1 million or more.
• About half of the wealth in the United States is held by households with a net worth of over $1.7 million dollars.
• About 2/3 of that is held by the top 1%, who have a household net worth of nearly $15 million or more.

So if you are “just” a millionaire, your dollars are in the bottom half compared to where most of the net worth in the United States is found. Were we to get a real socialist streak and seriously decide to redistribute the wealth a bit, a person with a mere $1 million would be on the receiving end.

Think about that for a moment.

Still, the top 1% has convinced most of the middle that it’s all those illegal immigrants, welfare mothers and other n’er-do-wells at the bottom who are a threat to what remains of the American middle class. Were it possible to take from the top 1% enough to triple the net worth of every household in the bottom 40%, it would cut the astounding net worth of each household in that top 1% by less than 1/5th.

Edit: Though no doubt mathematically inclined readers have already caught it, it’s bothering me that I did not note that my division of “who gives” and “who gets” at the point where half the money is with richer households and half with poorer is entirely arbitrary... especially since that point would move once any transfer of wealth occurred. A more obvious point of division would be the mean household net worth, about $430,000. That’s still somewhere around the 80th percentile, and over 5 times the median of around $80,000. (The data I’m looking at is the bottom row of this table summarizing 2004 household assets and liabilities. I’m not sure if the source data is available online; using just the few numbers in the table, many of the figures I’m giving are estimates or interpolations.)

A serious proposal would no doubt take into account the nature of the wealth — treating a home, for example, differently than a stock portfolio; but separating “financial” wealth from tangible property like one’s house and car makes the distribution more lopsided (which is unsurprising when you think about it).

A month and a half ago, we didn’t think Joe would see his sixth birthday... but he made it today!

He’s had quite a life... born in a shelter... came home with parasites... was with us two days and got bit by a rattlesnake... lived in six different houses with DJ (sometimes with me as well), then went to stay with a Costa Rican and got sick with Ehrlichiosis... and now is back with me, here in a second floor apartment in Costa Rica (making plans to move back to the States before the end of the year).

I thought of this song because he was bitten by a rattlesnake when he was young... but it’s also right because dogs are all belief.

“Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols.”

An interesting and readable analysis by Stratfor if you are intrigued by geopolitics, the Middle East and/or the fate of Israel.