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.

Homeless Students in the United States

Well, between the news this morning about what happened in Jerusalem and then the ISIS attacks, I'm feeling pretty grim about now.

It sort of makes my fluff about flowers and cooking seem ridiculous.

I was listening to NPR this morning as I was making breakfast and feeding the puppies. A journalist was asking a question about how the people in this certain country view America, as the United States has not responded to help many people who have been under attack recently.

The man being interviewed said that most of his country, at this point, see Americans as stupid and selfish. Stupid and selfish because they seem ignorant to the plight of other people and the government doesn't seem to care about certain countries unless there's oil or some other natural resource at stake.

The interviewer then went on to ask if there was any sense of a normal life for the other people in his country - and the man said "What is that?" and then sort of laughed a sad laugh...

Then the interviewer asked further, "Do people go to work, do the kids go to school?"

And the man being interviewed explained that, of course, there's still "life" there, and makeshift schools when people are able to leave their homes. But then he also explained that when there's no food to eat and you're going hungry, school is about the last thing on your mind.

So, there I was in my nice, warm kitchen, overflowing with food, feeding the dogs their kibble and reindeer sausage.

My dogs, I realized, eat better than probably millions of people in the world.

There is so much suffering elsewhere. We have the luxury of bitching about phone service or the internet being slow.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of suffering right here, too. There was an article I read yesterday about the issues facing the homeless here in the United States. The recent recession and policies by our lawmakers have forced thousands of families out of their homes.

I was really saddened when I went to our local homeless shelter to find out they feed thousands in Anchorage per day.

It's called Bean's Cafe and they do an amazing job. There were lots of families there. Little kids. There were older people, middle-aged, too, but I was shocked and disheartened to see the sheer number of families who are clearly living out of their cars or vans.

The stats are all just shocking and expected to get worse:

Here's a link to a piece by PBS about it.

Here's a recent Huffington Post article about the alarming rise in homeless students throughout our country.

National Coalition for the Homeless is a great organization that offers solid solutions and financial aid to help people find affordable or free shelter so that they can get on the road to feeding and clothing themselves and live in dignity instead of going to jail.

Now, on the ranty side:

How can corporations look the other way while children are suffering on a daily basis? 

How can these people fill their pockets with millions of dollars and their corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes? 

How about bailing out the banks that created these sham loans in the first place? Why do the banks get bailed out while families lose their homes? 

How can our government and law enforcement justify confiscating the meager belongings that many of our homeless people have and then send them to jail or just send them along into the cold?

More than 600,000 people are homeless in the United States on any given night. 

On average, in the winter, about 700 people will die of exposure each year.

Now, that's a lot of deaths. We would be outraged if that many people died in one winter at war or after a hurricane or earthquake...

But, because they're homeless, they don't matter. Societal discards.

Most people, I think, have a vision of homeless people as older, 

disheveled people who are dirty and many of whom are drunk. 

The truth is that it's entire families and mostly people suffering from untreated mental illness.

Well, this Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah, you might think about one less gift for each of your family members and instead contact your local homeless shelter, women's shelter, fire station or Department of Social Services office to see what you can do to help. A $20 gift to a homeless child or a $20 food donation can make a huge difference.

Peace out. Thanks for reading.