Sam Smith is totally my newest favorite male artist!!

I was soooo happy that Sam Smith won the Grammy for Song of the Year! (Not to mention all of the others.)

If you have not heard this young man sing, or if you have not seen one of his gorgeous videos or performances live (he did a stint with the SNL crew - blew my socks off. I recorded it, luckily, and played the live performances over and over and over), well, if you've not listened to this angel sing, you MUST!!!

YOU MUST!!



He is, for me, a young incarnation of Boy George. I loved me some Karma Chameleon back in the day, but Sam's music (I refer to him like I know him personally - that's how GOOD his writing is) is a new level of lovely.

Harmonically and lyrically speaking, this kid is just DA BOMB, to use a very old and worn-out phrase.

I watched the Grammy's of course, because I love love love music and musicians and lyricists and producers, BUT!!! Mostly, this year? I wanted to see Sam Smith do another of his magical performances and I was NOT disappointed.

All of my favorite people were there!!!!!

Prince! Beyonce! Mary J Blige!! Rihanna! Sam Smith! Jessie J (who, by the by, looked incredible), Pharrell Williams! Katy Perry!!! MADONNA!! Sia! Kristen Wiig!!  (WOW!)

And Ed Sheeran. Could he possibly be any more adorable?

Beck!!

Even back up bands were filled with amazing talent like Quest Love, Herbie Hancock.

ELO performed. Do you know how much I loved Electric Light Orchestra in my highschool days? That band was the background music to my entire teen life!

Hozier and Annie Lennox. Absolutely stunning song. Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani? Holy schniekies! I do believe that Adam and Gwen have been drinking from the fountain of youth. Just flawless the both of them.

John Legend, LL Cool J!

Jimmy Carter for Spoken Word. Really powerful if you've not read it or heard it - "A Call to Action." Our Congress would be wiser for even having this pumped into the building.

Jeez with the food stamps now under attack? Heaven forBID we feed hungry homeless poor people.

We don't want kids actually eating FOOD, right?

They should go live off the land like the rich, fat, white bloated assh*les running our country right now.

Oh. Right. These assh*les have free lunch and free haircuts and free health care and free-DOM. More like FREE-DUM.

I cannot believe that these idiots were VOTED into office by the very people they are enjoying screwing out of their hard-earned dollars and now food? Read about it. It's a thing.

Ok. Back to the Grammys. You know how I get on a rant and can't let it go. I just hate that everytime I turn my computer on first thing that pops up is another horrid act by our GOP leadership. I seriously don't know what happened to these entitled people as kids, but they are forgetting basics like free speech and the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to our Constitution. I wonder if they could even sing our National Anthem? Or say the Lord's Prayer?

These are basic things that our original leaders cherished above all other things. Common Decency. I come from the COMMONWEALTH of Massachusetts. Most people don't know the difference between a State (like Alaska) and what it really, truly means to be a Common Wealth.

It means we take CARE of each other. When I'm up, I'll help you if you're down. And Vice Versa.

The pay-it-forward culture is alive and well and it resides firmly where I grew up in Michigan and then for almost 30 years in Massachusetts. My friends and family over there on the East Coast are fiercely smart, fiercely independent thinkers, fiercely challenging at times (which I appreciate) and FIERCELY LOYAL.

If you knew about the outpouring of love and offers of help I received from my buddies and friends and even acquaintances when I just had my identity stolen here in Alaska? You'd be shocked! And maybe jealous! I had people wanting to fly me back, I had 10 young men who call themselves my little brothers all ready to hop on a plane to take shifts protecting me and my home!

Luckily, it didn't come to that because the police (God Bless) came to my aid and took my reports very seriously. Crime is pervasive in Alaska due to the transient nature of the work force in the oil fields called "The Slope." With oil prices plummeting, the funding is drying up here, so we've got a huge homeless problem and a BIG drug and alcohol problem which fuels the domestic violence problem.

Big Oil has retreated elsewhere, leaving a lot of people without hope. Plus the return of many vets from Iraq and Afghanistan is also creating some really sad situations. PTSD left untreated? Now we've got suicide rates going through the roof and leaving behind wives and husbands and children that are lost without benefits...I've helped a load of lovely young families just to feed their children. I'm part of a couple groups here that make sure the kids and families are being aided. Clothes, boots, food, bedding. Basic stuff.

So, when Congress decides to cut funding to the VA and now for food stamps?  Yet the kickbacks of BILLIONS of dollars to Wall Street? Corporations that operate tax free?

I pay 35% tax on my income. THIRTY FIVE PERCENT. And I'm a tiny tiny tiny business.

So, I get to earn 65 cents on the dollar.

Great. Thanks, Congress.

Oh, well. I digressed again. See? You get me going and I just explode!! But it's all true.

I'll continue my Grammy post tomorrow. So many more artists to talk about! Really a great show this year, I thought.

Ciao for now. And think about how and for whom you'll vote coming up. Please.

I Am Officially A Crabby Old Fart!

Ohhhh, I'm just pissy lately.

My phone has been on the fritz for a week, I'm having a doozy of a period, my back hurts, I have a groin pull, arthritis in BOTH hands now (so fun), I have degenerative disc disease in my back and neck, my husband mistakenly head-butted me right on my nose as he was turning over in bed yesterday morning (OWCH) and I just got the nastiest set of messages from a certain person on facebook trying to make me feel GUILTY for not calling one of my relatives.

Well. Let's see.

I live in effing Alaska.

Do I have phone service in Alaska?

No.

Why, you ask?

Well, Apple sent me an "update" for my phone. That little gem of a thing made my phone do very bad things and completely locked my phone out. So, I can't UNLOCK it and I also cannot ACTIVATE my new AT&T service unless I go and visit one of the other states in the goddamn United States.

Now I've learned on facebook that others are all having issues with their phones, as well.

Just so happens I'm heading to Massachusetts in October, so once I enter into Seattle, I should hopefully miraculously have phone service again. Unbelieveable.

So, that said - can I make a phone call right now?

NOOOOOO! I CANNOT!

So, hey there Miss Guilt Trippy person. F*CK *FF.

Unreal.

Does the phrase "Mind your own business" mean anything? Ever heard of that?

And, last I checked, phones work in both directions. If my relative wanted to speak with me? HE. IS. CAPABLE. OF. USING. A. TELEPHONE.

Oh, I'm just all in tither about that little exchange on facebook. I kept saying "I HAVE NO SERVICE" and she kept right on saying how it just "breaks her heart" when she asks my relative if he's heard from me and he says, "No...maybe tomorrow..."

Good LORD.

I just talked to him for an hour on Sunday.

Oh, I'm pissy.

So, today's lesson? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

The other lesson? You do YOU, and I'll do ME.

Another lesson? Don't try to guilt other people. It's a type of control and it's bully-ish and frankly, you simply don't know what the hell you're talking about.

And the FINAL lesson? If you're so goddamn perfect, why your life be so messed up?

The worst part of all of this is I feel terrible for her. She's pregnant. AGAIN.

The father of this child - who she is about to marry - is a guy who's been arrested on domestic violence charges.

More than once.

And those are just a couple of things with her.

And SHE'S worried about my phone call frequency?

Riiiight.

I'd rather say she's got bigger effing fish to fry, wouldn't you?

So. There's that.

In an effort to feel better (which I do now), I will leave you with a couple glam pics from my trip to Columbus Air Force Base, where they had the MOST beautiful Air Force Military Ball! It was really something else. I danced the night away with their incredible band and all my relatives that I love so very much! Here are pics from the graduation day and that night:

This is decidedly not from the Columbus visit! This is my co-pilot, Phoebe!
We were on our way home from Seward when I took this.

My crazy, wonderful cousins! Both are pilots now for the Air Force, flying C-17s!
So COOL! Bless them both!

Doesn't this look like Snoopy? I love this picture!

Fun with airplanes! This is one of the training jets.

At the Ball, daaaahling! That's my cute purse in the foreground! My Auntie bought that for me and I LOVE it.
That's my beautiful Auntie in purple. And my wonderful Uncle is right next to her. I adore these humans.

One FIIIINE looking group, if I do say so myself!

For PETE'S SAKE.

So, I realize I've been a bit ranty lately. But the incredible amount of bullshit being exposed via the lovely thing that is the Internet has got my britches all up in a bunch.

Here's the thing. A person I know and love and care about was a victim of domestic violence last week. She didn't deem it as such because she didn't have any bruises to show for it.

Well, I'm not going into detail, but suffice it to say that her ex-boyfriend (and I use the term "boyfriend" rather loosely because people who love you don't do shit like this)...Anyway, this ASSHOLE M*THERFUCKER showed up at my house where she was sleeping. It was 5:00 am, he was DRUNK as shit, and he repeatedly pounded on our door, demanding to see "his woman."

GIVE ME A BREAK.

Long story short, the police came, the idiot would not follow their instructions to leave, so he got himself arrested.

Good going, kiddo. Way to be a good guy. Nice boyfriend, eh?

The kicker is that this idiot was blaming ME for his woes. Like I caused the situation where HE comes to MY house and gets arrested. Yeah, riiiight.

Nope. Sorry kid. You and YOU ALONE are to blame for the whole ridiculous mess.

Long story short, I now have a 19 year old woman and her little dog living here.

A victim of domestic violence.

At 19.

I immediately got her to an abused women's shelter called Abused Women Aid in Crisis (amazing) where a wonderful counselor spent two hours talking to my friend, gently informing her that she was actually in imminent danger from her "boyfriend." We then spent the ensuing hours going through the proper legal channels at the courthouses here to make certain that we were safe from another terror-inspiring visit from the "boyfriend."

Phew. What a fucking day THAT was.

Again, so now here comes the ranty part. What the fuck is UP with the males of our world? And, yeah, blah blah blah, I know there are women who commit acts of violence against men and children, but the statistics show a VERY heavy skew toward the variety of humans who carry that pesky Y chromosome.

Even the President of George Washington University - a prestigious and liberal university - made the MOST IGNORANT comments yesterday about rape on college campuses. Here's an open letter from the Huffington Post from an alumna from GWU. She addresses his ridiculously stupid comments with a biting letter that just made me want to cheer...

It's time for us to address this bullshit. I watched a powerful TED talk a few weeks ago about the subject of rape and how, INEVITABLY, the victim is asked what she was wearing. Or if she had been drinking. Or if she was "teasing" the rapist.

Huh?

It doesn't MATTER what she was wearing. Or if she was drinking or if she had even initially been sexually interested in the rapist.

What MATTERS is that there was a VIOLENT act made against this person. Something against her will. It's not any different than what happens when some asshole beats up a homeless person. Just because. Or when an unarmed black person is shot by police. Or when guerillas beat and kill children because they are so sick in the head that they think they're acting under the will of God.

There is no God anywhere that wants acts of violence to be made against another soul.

So, ok. End of rant.

I will leave you with some ridiculously cute pictures of my 19 year-old friend's doggie named Jax. He's a French bulldog, but he more resembles a piglet. I actually don't call him Jax, I refer to him as Piggie or Lil Pig. He snorts and snuffles and eats the crab apples off the ground in my back yard. He plays with ice cubes and is best friends with my little dog, Phoebe.

They play and play and then CRASH! Right now I have a quiet house with only the sounds of the seaplanes flying overhead, the fridge running and dogs snoring.

And my 19 year-old friend is asleep peacefully in her blue room. And I'm so very thankful she is alive.