The Joe Rossi Report on INTERNET RADIO

Ok, it's part deadhead hour, part anything I feel like playing hour, and then some. Until I can get the kinks worked out on the microphone end, I'm not comfortable doing the live talk format I want to do. Still hopefully soon, the Joe Rossi Report on glpradio will feature live broadcasts of some really cool jams, spoken word, poetry, political commentary as well as complete goofiness.

Elbop THRIVES

A long time ago, in a city called Pasadena.. so far far away... I knew a naked cat named Elbop.
His art and his spirit thrive.

Double Down! A Rock & Roll Road Novel

Maybe you''ve heard of or even read Double Down--a Rock & Roll Road Novel--or maybe not. No doubt if you know me, you might be aware of it. Well, for only $1.99 you can download a .pdf file of it at lulu.com. As this is my first venture into the world of online publishing and print-on-demand publishing your support would be appreciated. The book is available as well as 6x9 paperback for less than $10. My good friend Skye has whipped some deliciously dark and dreamlike artwork for the cover.

Double Down was born in the wake of the movie Pulp Fiction's commercial success, during an outing to Laughlin Nevada, where I played black jack. It is deliberately cartoonish, as well as melodramatic. It seeks to entertain while at the same time serving as what Al Franken calls "nutritious candy." It matters little to me lately, that some of the plot, dialogue or events might seem a bit absurd, having watched Pulp Fiction again; and having seen what passes for entertainment from Hollywood these days, with films like Herbie Reloaded, which I watched at my kid's school on movie night this past weekend.

What can I say about a book features the word "shit," twice in the first paragraph and the very last sentence has the word hell in it. I can say that in between the shit and hell, is plenty of gratuitous cartoonish violence, graphic sex, drugs, rock and roll, foul language, gambling, pornography, and heady heated, discussions about all of the above, then some, with sporadic dialogue concerning the meaning of life, love, god and war.

Double Down is Austin Powers meets Pulp Fiction. It is absurd in the ways these films seem absurd. It is darker than Austin Powers, but not nearly as sadistic as Pulp Fiction. I mean if Doctor Evil can have a hideout carved out of a rock in a mountain, why can't Rooster have his hideaway in the Nevada desert? Clearly, there is a vision of a film at hand. I can see the "film" every time I play the song Sugar Spun Sister. I can see the way the film begins as well as the way it ends with another song by the Stone Roses, called I am The Resurrection. I can see the panaromas of the grand canyon, the white van streaming through the desertscapes. I can see Hillary Duff as Ginny. I can hear Jack's voice narrating here and there. I can see it all.

Double Down! A Rock & Roll Road Novel

The Joe Rossi Report on godlike Productions Internet Radio

Sundays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Central Standard Time, I'll be doing a live Internet Radio show courtesy of the good folks over at GLP radio, the People's Radio. I
went live last week and played from a selection of music: everything from my own music, to the Doors, Grateful Dead, Stone Roses, Oasis, Selena, Eminem ... and so on.. hope to expand the show to include news commentary, spoken word, improvised poetry and the likes. So tune in every Sunday at glpradio.com for the Joe Rossi Report at 3 p.m. central standard time.

We tell each other fairy tales

We tell each other Fairy Tales

A lyric from a song keeps running through my head; the lyric captures the essence of how I view religion and the relationship believers have with each other when it comes to people of faith of all religions. The lyric is from Counting Crows Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones and I tell each other fairy tales

Even some of the other lyrics fall magically into place.

I want to believe in something; I want to believe

Of course it'’s not a perfect fit but nothing ever is.

And in this scenario, the Christians tell fairy tales to the Muslims who tell their fairy tales to the Hindus and so on ad infinitum. And only the worst among each of these groups believes their particular fairy tale is THE ONLY TRUE FAIRY TALE, and that all other fairy tales are heresy and deceptions of the devil. These are the kinds of people who fly airplanes into buildings and seek constitutional amendments banning same sex marriages.

The less extreme are usually pretty decent people who go out of their way to respect and honor the differences in others's fairy tales and give these people the benefit of the doubt even if their fairy tales are different than their own. They perhaps subscribe to the idea that as long as they have a fairy tale they believe it's OK, because it's probably the same God, and they are just a little confused.

And the only people who are really suspect are the atheists and agnostics, cynics and skeptics who are reduced to shouting the Emperor wears no clothes. There are either inclined to say there is no God, or that the existence of God cannot be proved. And this is perfectly rational.

The Big Disconnect

I tend to believe in God, but not in any one set of beliefs. Because I have had countless experiences both induced and some just purely incidental in which things I've read in the Bible, snippets from other religions I've seen, maxims and adages expressed by sages and saints, ideas peddled in self-help books and on television make a whole lot of sense. My own spirituality is perhaps closer to Buddhism than anything else, in that I find the greatest peace and the greatest self-knowledge and clarity when I meditate. And in those experiences I unify with something that defies description. It's what the Taoists call the Tao that cannot be told.

By all means most people today are rational, logical, and even resigned to accepting science in most aspects of our lives. After all when we are ill we may go to church and pray but more importantly we go to a doctor. And if we are really sick we go to a hospital. And there we trust our mortal lives to those whose techniques and methods are based not on scriptures or fairy tales, but on solid science.

And when these same types of people come to us and tell us that we evolved, or that greenhouse gases are causing global warming, we put our hands to our ears and over our eyes, because we don't want to hear it. I mean right wing conservatives were OK with science when DNA testing proved that was Bill Clinton's semen on that blue dress, but not when science tells us we evolved, or that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing global warming.