Music Friday: "Grown"

I'm in a grouchy mood for a number of reasons today.

One song that consistently puts me in a better mood when I hear it is Isbell's "Grown," which is from his first solo album. 

Here's to getting in a better mood.  

Random Notes from a Crank

Existential Comics is back it again by taking down Plato through David Hume. The comic explains why people vote for imbeciles and take positions on issues without a lot of forethought. 

As reported by The New York Times, The U.S. is back to bombing civilians in Iran: "New U.S. Missile Hit Iranian Sports Hall and School, Analysis Shows." 

As a result of President Adolf "excursion" (sarcasm intended), gas prices are skyrocketing, especially the price of diesel that drives up the costs of lot of products because semis haul all kinds of stuff around the U.S. 

Inflation and possibly stagflation here we are. 

Making America More Expensive

And the idiotic attacks on Iran are simply going to create less safety for Americans because many terrrorist groups are aligned with Iran from a philsophical standpoint. 

Making America More Dangerous

Here are some interesting stats and figures from the March "Harper's Index":

• Portion of people detained by ICE between October 1 and November 15, 2025 who had a prior violent criminal conviction: 1/20
• Who had no prior criminal convictions: 3/4
• Port of U.S. small business owners who plan to hire new staff or otherwise expand this year: 1/10
• Who worry that their business will not survive the year: 3/4

The cost of diesel fuel is going to drive costs for everyone. So I see why business owners are worried. 

Music Friday: "Behind the Sun"

This week I watched the documentary about the Red Hot Chili Peppers that's on Netflix. It's titled The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother Hillel. 

It covers the period of albums that I got into the band--the albums I prefer. I don't have any of their albums after Blood Sugar Sex Magik. 

Here's "Behind the Sun" that featured prominently in the documentary. 

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Bourbon Chicken

After watching a video about this dish from America's Test Kitchen, I made it tonight with some modifications. 

It's called Bourbon Chicken, but it's very Asian inspired because of the use of soy sauce and ginger. I added peas since when they made it had no vegetables. 

Ingredients

2 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1/2 cup of diced onion

1/2 cup of soy sauce

1/2 cup of light brown sugar

1/4 cup of water

2 tablespoons of bourbon

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

1 cup of frozen peas

1 tablespoon of corn starch

1 tablespoon of grated ginger

2 cloves of minced garlic

2 green onions, chopped finely 

Process

Trim the fat off the chicken thighs and cut them into small pieces into a mixing bowl. 

In a glass measuring cup, add the soy sauce, brown sugar, water, bourbon, sesame oil, and black pepper. 

Microwave the sauce for two minutes and set aside to cool. 

Add two tablespoons of the sauce mixture to bowl of chicken and then add the tablespoon of corn starch. Mix thoroughly. 

Add some avocado oil to a skillet and heat to medium-high. 

Put the chicken and onion in and brown the chicken. Once the chicken is browned, add the ginger and garlic and cook for roughly a minute. Add the rest of sauce mixture, add the peas, and let the sauce simmer until it thickens some. Add in the green onions at the end. 

Serve over rice and enjoy. 

Music Friday: "Call to Arms"

I'm patiently waiting for the new album (in CD form) from Sturgill Simpson Johnny Blue Skies to arrive.

In the meantime, here's the final tune from A Sailor's Guide to Earth, which is one of my favorite albums of his. 

The lyrics are below the videos, lyrics that are highly relevant to what's going on. 

Lyrics

I done Syria, Afganistan, Iraq and Iran
North Korea. Tell me where does it end?
Well, the bodies keep piling up with every day.
How many more of em they gonna send?
Well, they send their sons and daughters off to die for some oil
To control the heroin.
Well, son I hope you don't grow up
Believing that you gotta be a puppet to be a man. 
Well, they cut off your hair and put a badge on your arm
Strip you of your identity. 
Tell you to keep your mouth shut boy and get in the line
Meet your maker overseas. 
Wearing that Kim Jong-Il hat, 
Your grandma's selling pills stat. 
Meanwhile, I'm worried I can't pay my fucking bills. 
Nobody's looking to up to care about a drone. 
All too busy looking down at our phones. 
Ego's begging for food like a dog from our feed
Refreshing obsessively til our eyes start to bleed. 
Serve up distractions and we eat em with fries
Til the bombs fall out of our fuckin skies.

Turn off the TV.
Turn off the news.
Ain't nothing to see.
They're serving the blues. 

Bullshit on my TV.

Bullshit on my radio.

Hollywood's telling me how to be.

Bullshit's got to go. 

Random Notes from a Crank

For the US to elect a pathologically-lying, corrupt, bloviating, narcissistic, pedophilic criminal twice and be run by a total kakistocracy right now, we should be renamed Dumbfuckistan.

Carlin said it well with this joke, which is dark humor and not really funny when you think about it. 

  it. 

And by the way, Dan Quayle would be a help to this administration. At least that guy might have some morals and respect the Constitution. 

And speaking of crazy people like Carlin did, during Covid Facebook showed me who the crazy people are. 

Once The Late Show with Stephen Colbert goes off the air, I'm not watching CBS anymore. 

I'll more likely frequent The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Myers more often. 

As mu hometown TV station reports, the Iran War is going to drive up fertilizer costs for farmers: "Fertilizer Costs Soar: Strait of Hormuz Closure Impacts Farmers." 

FAFO, farmers. Many of you idiots supported President Adolf. 

Nice job, you chuds. 

I'm interested to see who shakes out as the winner of the Democratic primaries here in Illinois. I voted this morning. I'm closely watching the U.S. Senate race. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Gas prices are crazy high because of President Adolf's Iran War to distract us from the fact he's a pedophile. 

The tire pressure point is a good one. It's one factor I've paid more attention to over the past few years. 

When I was at a car dealership today to get my car's oil changed, it is difficult not to overhear the salespeople talking to one another and to customers. The one sales guy on the phone and in his interactions with other males has a tendency to call those guys "brother." 

As someone who grew up watching then WWF wrestling, I automatically associate the term "brother" with the likes of Hulk Hogan and other wrestlers who liked using that word. I just find it odd that "brother" when addressing a male person is a constant in some peoples' lexicons. 

The idiocy of President Adolf is on full display with European leaders not willing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.

The Guardian informs us about Moscow Don trying to get help with the Iran War: "European Countries Reject Trump's Call for Help to Reopen Strait of Hormuz."   

Musing of the Moment: Attacks at Home

The Iran War is only going to motivate people prone to violence to attack the U.S. 

It appears many of the recent attacks on Americans on our own soil is the result of President Adolf's attacks on Iran and the bellicose rhetoric from the senile white supremacist and his drunk Secretary of Defense. 

There are all kinds of terrorist groups sympathetic to Iran. 

Check out the article in the New York Times: "'Sleeper Cells' and Lone Attackers: Security Experts Brace for More Violence at Home" 

Making America More Dangerous. 

Music Friday: "Home Again"

I've been listening to the albums of Delta Spirit a lot this week. 

I just really dig their sound and the lead vocalist's timbre of voice. 

Here's "Home Again" from the 2020 album What Is There. The band's most recent album is One Is One that came out in 2022. I'm hoping for a new album sometime soon. 

Music Friday: Mutiny After Midnight

Johnny Blue Skies (Sturgill Simpson) has a new album coming out on LP, CD, and cassette, but it's not available to stream although he did drop the whole album on YouTube. 

So here it is. Enjoy the country-rock-disco mashup that it is. 

Musing of the Moment: MAME-Making America More Expensive

I gassed up my vehicle before President Adolf initiated a war with Iran. At that time the price per gallon in my area of east central Illinois was $2.91. 

I drove past the station where I get my gas, and if I remember right, the price jumped to $3.19. 

As The New York Times relates, gas prices are soaring because of the administration's dumb military strikes in Iran: "Oil and Natural Gas Prices Extend Rally as Iran Attacks Escalate." 

The MAGA brand is really MAME: Making America More Expensive. 

And it's also maiming democracy and the Constitution. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Gary Markstein provided a great political cartoon related to how the administration is using the Justice Department for their own ends and to cover up President Adolf's pedophilia. 

The strikethroughs are true. 

So the guy who ran on no more "foreign wars" is doing all kinds of unconstitutional foreign wars while the craven GOP sits back and does nothing. 

Markstein is on the mark again with his latest. 

The US attacking Iran is simply going to move up someone else similar to the previous leader. 

President Adolf is a puppet of Netanyahu in regarding the Middle East. 

And the attacks are going to create more terrorists who will target the United States. The GOP has learned nothing from Afghanistan and Iraq.  

Music Friday: "Banditos"

This song came across SiriusXM's Lithium channel when I was driving around this week. 

It's a classic one-hit wonder of the 90s. It has that 90s pop-rock alternative rock sound that was so prevalent during the decade. Very Third Eye Blind like. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I finished the documentary on the ABA the other day titled Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association.

It's quite good, and I learned that the ABA started the three-point shot and the slam dunk contest. And during the 70s the ABA served up a better brand of basketball than the NBA. 

I'm not much of a watcher of the current NBA although I grow up watching the Bulls on WGN when they were a bad team, suffering through Jordan's Bulls losing to the Pistons, and finally reveling in the glory of the Bulls dynasty. 

If you want to slog through the lies and bullshit that were spewed on Tuesday night by President Adolf, check out "Read NPR's Annotated Fact Check of President Trump's State of the Union." 

I've gotten to the age that half the time I don't know much or if anything about the guest host of SNL. And I usually don't like the musical guest. 

One of the books I'm currently reading is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. 

After he finally took over as Khan and united all kinds of clans on the steppes, he instituted "The Great Law of the Genghis Khan" that, for its time, was quite progressive and helped stop the cycles of exploitation and violent paybacks.  

The Great Law of Genghis Khan instituted these rules (and I'm quoting directly from the book):

• "forbade the the kidnapping of women"
• "forbade the abduction and enslavement of any Mongol"
• "he declared all children legitimate, whether born to a wife or a concubine" 
• "forbade the selling of women into marriage"
• "outlawed adultery" - "adultery applied to relations between married people of separate households. As long as it did not cause a public strife between families, it did not rank as a crime." 
• "made animal rustling a capital offense"
• "forbidding the hunting of animals between March and October"
• "decreed complete and total religious freedom for everyone" 
• "exempted religious leaders and their property from taxation and from all types of public service"
• "extended the same tax exemptions to a range of professionals who provide essential public services, including undertakers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scholars"

So in the 13th century, the Mongol leader instituted reforms that would reduce strife and conflict, moved the perception of how women should be treated, created a hunting season, established religious freedom, and gave tax exemptions for people who work for the public good. 

I would especially like that tax exemption for teachers and scholars. 

Random Notes from a Crank

After reading last week's Existential Comic about David Hume, it's clear to me that I need to work "dullard" more into my vocabulary. 

There are way too many of them out there. 

Lalo Alcaraz got this right. 

The Supreme Court did the right thing. Well, six of the justices did. The three dissenters are simply obsequious ass-kissers to President Adolf. 

And Joe Heller is spot on with this one. 

The coverup is so clear by the American Fascist Party's Justice department. 

The blizzard that shut down the east coast is something to behold: "Millions Under Road Travel Bans as Blizzard Conditions Slam US North-East."