They took our Jobs!

Yesterday the Mexican who runs the neighbor's seed cleaning plant brought his friend by looking for a job. Actually, his friend drove him by as I think E. no longer has a license.
I have been reading the VDARE.com website as my daughter asked me about Roanoke Island last night.
I get continual updates in my email from NumbersUSA.com talking about the need for e-verify and how those illegals, They Took Our Jobs!
Here is the deal...
I've had a few people come by looking for work lately.
The one white guy needed more than $15 or it would mess up his unemployment. The other white guy was rather twitchy and I didn't trust him. The third white guy kept telling me how he could run stacker and weld and all his incredible abilities but I already knew he was a moron. The 19 year-old girl who wants a job would be a hard worker and offered to wash farm equipment in the rain in exchange for hay and I actually may get her to help. But she swears, A LOT!
So E. comes by with his Mexican friend who has been spot spraying and doing general labor type work for a neighbor. His English is passable, he has a family, he is polite and seems interested in our farm and what we do. He has a grasp of the concept of farming. He said he does not mind working in adverse conditions and said he does not need a lot of money to start out.
I ask you, which one would I hire?
And, where is my large helper this time of year?
Frankly I don't give a rip if he is illegal. I really object to doing e-verify and double checking his social-security number. I am not the one who left the door open at the US border and I am not the one who makes people wait in line for a week to get a US Visa. E-verify is just an excuse to track every person in the USA. Just like the question of why should I have to prove MY citizenship to get my driver's license renewed. Do I have an accent?
Why does it have to be this difficult?
If I were president I would issue an executive order. All illegals have six months to return to the country of origin. I would set up a fast track visa application where potential guest workers could move to the front of the line if they had a sponsor or proof of employment in the US. The idea would be to make it so they could go back across the border and show their info to the visa office and come back in a matter of days or hours.
Then, if you were arrested for a crime or found here illegally you would be promptly sent back.
I think there should also be a path to citizenship but the applicants would have to take classes in US history and do perhaps, volunteer work, or something.
Just some ideas which I think are quite sensible but nobody on either side of the immigration debate will come anywhere close to anything sensible.
OF COURSE, you know THEY would screw it up....
(THEY-meaning the clever educated folks who know more than you or I)
In the mean time I ain't hirin' no crack heads!

Anyone Remember DAK and Drew Kaplan?

When I was a kid I was always interested in electronic gadgets and sound. The highlights of the holiday advertising season were the Sharper Image and the DAK catalogs. I had already had a few months of the Montgomery Wards Christmas Catalog, but for an interesting look at funny and quirky electronics I enjoyed Drew Kaplan's DAK mail order catalog.
I liked his interesting combination of bulk audio tapes and interesting stereo equipment. Just what would you get if you bought 500 blank tapes? How could you write 500 words about a cassette tape that you could buy at BiMart and make someone want to buy them in bulk though the mail?
He disappeared for a while, there was a bankruptcy, pain and suffering in the 1990's, but I see he is back. On the internet plugging LP to CD conversion. Looks like he has a pretty good setup really. Not sure if it is all a good price. But, it is interesting.
Click here for Wikipedia
Click here to go to his website. I just like reading his copy. I never buy anything!
Click here to learn all about cleaning records!

Why you should get married and have your family at age 19...

The family decided to camp in the living room. I can only guess that it was an off shoot of the occupy movement. Unfortunately we could not find the pump for the air mattress. Then my lovely wife was not feeling well and opted for the comfortable bed.
My daughter was quite excited by the idea of camping on the floor. So....I volunteered.
Never volunteer for anything!
She was going to read to me but we ended up in a discussion of why we have difficulty in large groups of people somehow ended in a discussion of my childhood vs hers.
When I was a kid, the stories told to me by my Grandparents were of steam trains and going to Colorado in a covered wagon and Grandma going sledding and getting her tongue frozen to a fence wire. My parents stories were also of steam trains, farming with horses, the first airplane they saw, the first car, the first radio, first telephone.
But, the stories I tell my daughter are tractors without CABS, the one hand crank phone I saw, tube RADIOS, hand crank record players, typewriters, and cars without airconditioning. In short, the stuff we still use...
It is not like two different worlds. Grandpa is so old that of course that is ancient history. And we just had a foot of snow a couple years ago.
Anyway, I forgot the point of that line of thinking.
The point is... I slept on a sleeping bag on the living room floor with my daughter. I am suffering for it. Every joint in my body hurts. I'd go smoke a joint if I just had a medical card and if being high didn't really annoy me.
Plus we will probably die of radiation poisoning as the carpet is where all the nuclear fallout from the ongoing Japanese reactor fallout collects from our shoes.
Perhaps I will go eat some Chinese lettuce...
I will feel better after five cups of coffee...Then I have to grind some pig feed.
The sun is out!

Thanksgiving day

When I was a lad we always went to a big family Thanksgiving dinner at an old church. The potatoes were always cold but the gravy was usually amazing.
My dad's cousins were all characters. They grew up together on a big farm where they did everything. They had prunes and pigs and cut firewood and grew grain and had a prune dryer and broke horses. In the winter they would cut firewood and load the cordwood into boxcars that went to Portland.
With the advent of WWII the government decided to locate a training base in the area and they had to sell the land and everyone scattered. Thanksgiving was the big get together.
After dinner there was a time for everyone to talk about what they had done that year. There was often a devotion and several hymns were song. As kids we always pretended to hate it all but I will admit it was usually very entertaining.
That era is over with. There seems to be no real shared heritage anymore.
We are going to my wife's sister's house in Portland. She is already up there. She has four sisters and they all like to get together they day before Thanksgiving and make pies and tell each other what to do. They enjoy this a lot but all the talking makes me a bit claustrophobic so I am home.
I was attempting to organize my record collection and vintage stereo, 16mm move, and reel to reel collection, as well as books and computer stuff and Marx toy barns and...and...
I think I will listen to the Legendary Stardust cowboy as I am alone and the Ledge seems to get the cats really agitated.
I bought some new speakers.

They are Dynaco A-25's.
I took Lulu with me to look at them. Before we went in I explained my theory of buying stuff off of craigslist.
First I only had the amount of money I wanted to spend. This was not a lie as I was pretty low on cash and I wanted to eat lunch.
Second I was going to look for something to complement the fellow on to build empathy. My goal was to get him to want to sell me the speakers because I was a nice guy. This was all kind of academic as I was not doing one of those deals where you offer the guy a fraction of his asking price and just walk away. I have been doing a fair amount of research and was pretty shocked at the price of 1970's era speakers on ebay.
I took one look at them and cringed.

They were pretty ratty looking and had funny sparkle grills. Sort of groovy, which is kind of a problem. I'm not so much of a groovy fellow. We don't have any shag carpet in our house.
But they sounded amazing. And they turned out to be the A-25XL model which is somewhat sought after by collectors.

I got Lulu to give me a second opinion. She said I should buy them.
She may have been a big preoccupied by the fellows kitty-cat but she has better ears than I and she lends a somewhat critical eye to the crap I drag home.
So I made my offer and there was silence.
I said, well that is what I've got and if you want to wait another couple weeks and advertise them, just give me a call and I will come back.
He helped me carry them to the car.
He was a very interesting fellow. Collects records and plays music. I hope I didn't offend him.
Then I got home and saw my statement from Case Credit...
And there is the issue of paying my rent. I am glad I am completely anonymous and no one to whom I owe money reads this blog.
Then there is the issue of water leaking around the window frame in the house, and the woodstove I was going to buy and... whatever...
After enjoying a complete album side of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, I wonder if Sam Adams would not have been better off trying to roust the occupiers with a blast of The Ledge, instead of a blast of pepper spray?
Have a happy day!

Happy Thanksgiving...

In order to put us in the mood for Thanksgiving I give you some holiday music...

Over compensated

Here is a link to a blog I enjoy and the one story that incensed me today.
I've been washing farm equipment in the rain. I just moved a large piece of equipment through town in the pouring rain because my very useful and hardworking employee went fishing instead of finishing the field and the fellow I borrowed it from wanted it back. It was kind of embarrassing. I had to apologize for keeping it for two months.
Then while the neighbor was talking to me I just discovered that for the fourth straight year, no one dumped the lorsban out of the insecticide boxes on the corn planter, nor did they clean out the corn. This is also embarrassing as it shows I am a pathetic farmer. Saying that you told your helper to clean it out brings you no glory. Only pity...
I have to wash my two disk mowers, two balers, a rake, and it looks like the stacker.
It is raining. Not just raining but it is pouring.
I have to get this stuff done.
AND I come in the house to dry off and I see that the U of O football coach is getting a five million dollar retirement. You tell me that guy made the world a better place, or contributed anything useful to society and I would be happy to shove a football up your arse. (Unless you are Sam Adams, oh-wait, I'm too old for him!) Actually that is all a figure of speech. I would not want to do anything that unhygienic. I wouldn't even hit you. I'd probably just leave. I might try to get the dog to pee on your tires when you were not looking. I would certainly overcharge you for your chicken feed. Perhaps spike it with some round-up ready alfalfa.
Anyway, I get to deal with all the morons driving up and down 99W with their green flags and the big "O" on the back of their cars. Every one of them is a jerk who is in such an incredible hurry to see college boys touch each other on the bottom that they can't wait five minutes for me to find a wide spot in the road to pull off.
Does anyone really think I want to be blocking traffic on a Saturday?
So when I come into the house to dry off and have a cup of coffee when I'm soaking wet and cold and irritated and I see people so over-compensated for doing so little I get a little annoyed.
Not that I plan on occupying anything other than perhaps the bathroom for a while...
$40,000 a month...
It's a playground game people!
There is no point to it...
Update:
After washing a tractor and trying to figure out how to get the insecticide boxes on the corn planter dry-and thinking that I'm an idiot because up to last week I could have just taken them off myself and put them in the barn... And worrying about slugs eating our wheat an annual ryegrass and thinking how stupid it is for me to be washing hay equipment in the rain when I should be working on broken stuff in the shop....
I got to thinking about my rant.
Mike Bellotti is one of the special people. Those who are over compensated by far. This class includes the CEO's of large corporations, sports figures, entertainment stars, and heads of various other agencies and people who are not me.
Whose fault is it that they are over compensated? Would you turn the money down? What kind of a messed up society pays a college football coach 4 million dollars a year? Put that into perspective with the cost of tuition. People end up with thousands of dollars in student loans due to outrageous expense of higher education. A service you buy which has gives you no recourse if do not get what you thought you were buying. A service which has no customer protection at all. You can't even refuse to pay that loan. Of course you can come back which the argument that sports are paid for though private donations. All that argument does is bring to light the corruption that goes on inside the sports programs.
The problem is the utter moral corruption of our society and no amount of yelling at police officers will do a dadgummed thing about it. The only thing that works is capitalism and a return to some sort of moral code rather than this I'm special and the rules don't apply to me BS that has become our cultural mantra. Withhold the funding and the market responds. Give people a conscience and the greed is tempered. Of course the belief system we are going to get is probably going to be a bit painful for those of us who cling to the old religion. Off to the re-education camps we go!
But, I digress. I refuse to spend a dime on sports tickets. I almost never go to a movie. I do not support packaged entertainment and I complain a lot. I'm not sure what else to do but I think a few more people should try. I tell my kid to do the what is right, to be honest care about others.
Not very revolutionary but I really don't know what else there is...
And now, I'm going back out into the rain. Well, perhaps after I do some dishes. My wife seemed a bit tense this morning.

We Go To the Big City and See Joe Ely and laugh at hipsters

In 1989 I saw Joe Ely at the Pine Street Theater in Portland. It was an a amazing show. I think he played every song he ever wrote and sang with such intensity and energy he was drenched in sweat by the end of the show. There were no reserved seats at the Pine Street, in fact the only seating was in the bar so everyone stood to watch the show.  I was right up against the stage.  He gave me a smile and I took his photo. I even got a guitar pick. He seemed like a pretty decent guy.
Last night my lovely and gracious wife took me to see Joe Ely at the Aladdin theater in Portland. It is always a bit of a culture shock for me to leave the farm. I am a bit amazed at how much the guys look like Scruffy from Scooby-Doo and the girls all look like refugees from an 80's punk band. I get the thrift store thing. Yes, we did that back in college when we were trying to be hip and happening and we had so much more insight into world events because we just took lit 101, and had some freaky angry instructor expose the evils of capitalism and Christians and tell us Jesus was a Marxist, and music was so real and all that BS.
It would seem that 35 years later, not much has changed. Other than the fact that everyone under 60 years of age in Portland is doing this and everyone looks the same. It kind of seems that the whole "Keep Portland Weird," slogan is a cry of desperation. What was cool about Weird Portland in the old days is that no one knew they were weird. They were just doing their weird stuff and living their weird lives and then it was cool. If you have to try to be weird you are pretentious.
But, I digress...
We went to bulk Goodwill were I picked up an Irish Rovers album and some not very good jazz. The scruffies were kind of aggressive. It really bugs me to see people throwing books and records around in the bulk bins. I know they are destined for the trash but I am a polite and respectful person.
I found a dual 1019 in a record console. Someone had pulled the cartridge and the spindle, of course...
Then we wandered around the Sellwood area for a while. It has a lot of old buildings and old neon which we think is cool.
But, again I digress...
Joe Ely was at the Aladdin which has the distinction of showing "Deep Throat" for something like 20 years straight. I'm kind of afraid to use the restrooms. However, the kid taking the tickets was probably born the year the Aladdin peeled "Staring Linda Lovelace," and the "XXX" off the marquee and started booking concerts.
So, I didn't get to use my "two for Deep Throat," line that got a laugh 20 years ago when I saw Ian Tyson there.
The opening singer was terrible. Not that she was a bad singer or guitarist. It was that she talked. She tried to affect a "I'm just a poor black child" attitude and she kept giggling and rolling her eyes. She was very good technically but the in between the songs banter sort of ruined it.
Joe Ely was good. The guy is working class. He grew up in Texas and has pretty much spent his life touring small clubs and singing and playing music.
He brought with him only one guitarist. Well, the guy played guitar, mandolin, and slide guitar, and was pretty incredible in his own right.
The sound was good and tight. They played well together. There was a nice mix of old and new songs. My wife got him to play "Down on The Drag," and he said that was a good choice.
The crowd was older. Of course, since the death of FM radio, where would you hear Joe Ely other than KBOO. I heard him on KFAT/KLOO years ago when they were an alternative country station and played albums. I've heard him on internet radio, but you do have to look to find anything non-mainstream it seems to me.
It was over much to soon. He came back and did a couple more songs. He ended it with his song, "have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night," which was really good. "Down on the Drag," was good.
I just wished he would have played a bit more. Money is a bit tight and this is a once in a couple decade event for me.
Anyway...
It is pouring down rain and we have 50 mph winds scheduled for tonight.
I'm going to bed.