Stick inside the Blogosphere with the Mobile Blues Again

Christina Grace Rossi

Born October 5, at 10:14 P.M. Weighing 7 lbs 4 OZ.

why do they call it Rush Hour?

Ever wonder why they call it rush hour? How many people you actually see rushing during rush hour. They should probably call it “crawl hour” or “creep hour” or start and stop hour.

Ever see those Progressive Commericals where they say, and I paraphrase, if we treat you that good while you’re shopping for car insurance, just imagine how we treat you once you’re a customer. Bonk. Wrong answer. Ever hear of a thing called courtship. Bait and switch. The fat lazy husband drinking beer of the couch watching football who was all sweetness and romance when you were dating. If they're that nice to before you become a customer, just think how poorly you'll be treated once you take the bait.

By the way I did save a bunch of money by switching to Geico from Progressive. True story.

Presenting Pam Rasada, David Osti, Old Classmates, & YouTubing!

Back in 1991 or so, when the Presenters were doing their thing, and I had written Sex w/An Angel, Pamela Rasada briefly joined Loose Connection and contributed some gorgeous background vocals to Sex W/An Angel. So out of the blue she dropped me a line, and we've been playing catch up, and connecting the loose connections.

David Osti has a new website: http://www.davidosti.com Check out him ripping out Cold Shot at B.B. King's in L.A. David played the drums for Heaven Can't Make Up Her Mind, which sits on antiquated tape in my closet. David Osti is awesome. He is gotta be one of the best musicians I've ever known.

On a lark, I registered with classmates.com figuring it would be worth the few bucks to see just who I could catch up with. It's been a blast. Neecie & Julie F, we go back to grade school, and that's a rush. Old neighbors as well, that I remember but don't remember me. :-) LOL Glenn, the midnight creeper, ol CB buddy, he's in Dallas, just up the ol' interstate. As a social networking site it really sucks; wish there was an alternative.

YOUTube is a blast. I wish had more time to check out everything that's there. Here's my site http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=looseconnection or
http://www.youtube.com/joerossi42

Help Somebody By Van Zant (Featuring Jerry Rossi)

This strange dance

is life not a strange dance we play
from the moment of our birth till they lower us in our grave
from nothing to pure nothing
rage about for the better part of a century
tasting, smelling, seeing, believing, speaking
succumbing finally to the pull of time & nature
back into the dust from whence rose your momentary fame

a soul to be reckoned with on this 3D plane
a person who walked down streets w/ no name
an identity just one among billions, to march in this parade
did I win the lottery somehow being manifested on this stage

seems a miracle itself, a fluke, a chance event, just one of gadzillions
that I might find myself here in this place & time, staring into a future that
will fade w/ my dying eyes

looking back upon all that is to be remembered
knowing full well all must join the ranks of the forgotten
one day when the supernova comes
or the asteroid bears down
and the dinosaurs die again a second death
& pluto may have the last laugh yet
in her outsider role.

musings on our predicament
this quaint, hairless, ugly, gorgeous ape-like creature man
& all of our self-importance
& all of our good-intentioned plans.

matters for what, who the hell knows
up against the vastness of the span
of a universal event, from glory to the pangs of
the big bang

just as they called in their witnesses
& the dinnerbell rang
I ran out into the street & shouted at the cosmos
& at the sky, & at the ku klux klan,
polygamists, and pseudo intellectualists
like so many cardboard men
you cannot prophesize nor punish
nor reveal what God has planned

so step down from that head trip
back away from that ancient parchment
& look, examine, the fine lines in your hand

its nobody's place to teach others what
they know from deep within
ancient shadows reveal simple truths
& there is no grander plan

than this, to exist & find in the moment here & now, the reason why
is right before your unbelieving eyes.

Rock & Roll Socks: The Video

Michele Bauer's Trip to the Chapel

Remembering, wondering whatever came of Michele Bauer. She had married Walter Mattheau's son, whom she meet kind of via me, via Greg Davis, whose Dad, the late oil tycoon who bought Fox back in the early 1980's I believe.. maybe it was just the studios, or I don't' know?!? I know or think I know that it is now owned by Rupert Murdoch.

But that's not my point. Greg was my roomie for a short time at USC, and Michele ran off with him to party at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and met Charlie there. And they dated for years, and finally they married in the late 80's or early 90's. That was the last time I saw Michele. I was living in Sierra Madre at the time, in Munchkin Land, up in the canyon. She came by a couple times to visit and was upset because Charlie was asking her to sign a Prenup agreement.

She wanted to dump him but then relented, and I guess it was a good thing for Charlie because recently I saw Charlie's picture in the newspaper, with a new wife on his arm, a blonde, and no mention of Michele; just that it was his second marriage.

Freeways & Mirrors: The Video

Seventh Heaven & the Seven Seas

she's in Seventh Heaven or so they say
& the evening news rolls & blends
images of hemorraghing violence in the restless
eastern sights

beyond the seven seas of crimson doubt
in her troubled heartland; an ocean apart
a dog's daydream, or poet's scene
in the husky voice of sailors
& Wenches on their starboard side.

this thing never grows old or cold
in a brand new day you might find a way
to dance sublime in a crystal cage

dispel Jesus, yet embrace a cloister's crown
the same Jewel the builder tosses out, the cornerstone
to her crown in the (Night She is Splendid.)

Grow without
& within the gilded cage built by men

who walk in circles
with their heads down & bowed
before an unseen God & an UnSeen Mind

a voice beyond the voices, but hearing voices is insanity.

wake into a new of hearing saner voices in between thing
& the white spaces in between the black lines of words.

Hell Yes I listen to Jeff Ward

Well, I've been wanting to write for some time, and here it is August 4th and I haven't updated my blog in a few days.

Jeff Ward, BTW, is the only, and I MEAN THE ONLY reason to listen to KLBJ-AM here in Austin Texas. The rest of the programming: Rush Limblah, the cantankerous Neil Boorring Bortz, Fox News every hour for news. And yet Jeff has the nerve to actually make fun of his employers.

He is mostly libertarian, and not too fond of Big Brother Republicans. He can be pretty in a deadpan almost self-deprecating kind of a way, likes Van Halen and AC/DC for bumper music, and, oh he's a big sports guy too. Loves football, is overly analytical but hell, he knows football. I guess he was place kicker for the Longhorns and even played for Cowboys, I hear.

I've always wanted to make up some bumper sticker that reads: Hell Yes I listen to Jeff Ward.

Retired Air Force Major weighs in on P.S. Kiss The Duchess For Me

(editors note: I appreciated this reviewers harsh assessment of my grandfather's situation, because it puts it rather bluntly while giving him the respect and integrity he deserved having risen above his shady origins.)


P.S. KISS THE DUCHESS FOR ME



I had a book sent to me that was written by the grandson of a WWII army infantry soldier. A soldier who was dead on the battle fields of France before he was in-country thirty days. The book is "“P.S. Kiss the Duchess for Me" from Hats Off Books (www.hatsoffbooks.com). What was different about this soldier was that fact he was thirty three years old when he entered the army and his wife kept all the letters he wrote home, right up to the last ones written from a fighting position in France. His grandson Joe Rossi found the letters and used them to create the story. The average age of a soldier in the US Army during WWII was twenty six years old. That seems old by Vietnam statistics, where a GI was between 21 and 22 years old. Private Joe R. Moss was an "“old-man" by WWII standards. He was born in Ottawa, Canada to Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents. His family moved to Detroit in 1920 and there are questions as to the legal situation of the family's immigration status. In the body of the book you discover Private Moss did not get his legal status as a resident until he was in army basic training. His family was in illegal gambling rackets in both Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The impression I got about pre-army induction Joe Moss was he was bit of a loser. He was smart enough to get into college in California, but did not stick it out for very long. He married his high school sweetheart and had a daughter in the second year of marriage. The daughter is the "“Duchess". He worked in the family business of illegal gambling but never amounted to much. He was always borrowing money from older brothers also in the family business. When WWII came alone he was a married man with a daughter and the draft was not looking hard at that category of potential soldiers. In 1944 Joe Moss is in the army. The family does not know how he got there. Was he drafted or did he enlist at the age of thirty three, deliberately leaving his wife and nine year old daughter? I suspect he enlisted and there was some underlying feels of abandonment in his family. He never seemed to finish or accomplish anything in his life, perhaps the military was something else he was running to or what was it running away from? The book is based on the 150 letters he wrote home to his wife and daughter while he was in army training and during his few days in combat. This is an important note; the saving of these letters is why this combat killed veteran is remembered by his family and now the readers of the book. Too many veteranÂ’s stories and history have been lost because no one kept the correspondence from the veteran and no one documented the personal military history. As I have said before in my column and I say yet again, we must remember. When that veteran is gone he or she is only as good as the memories we have. If they died on the battlefield we have even fewer memories. As you read the letters mailed home by Private Moss you find a man who like all new military members is in a world completely out of his normal elements. And what you discover is the loneliness that sets in very early for a new recruit going through basic military training, knowing he is headed to combat. As I read it I remembered my days at Officer Training School. The first six weeks they kept you so busy you were too tired to be lonely, but as things loosened up in the second six weeks you had time to dwell on what you missed back home. Also I knew I was going to see my wife in a few weeks and I was not headed straight into combat. I had no daughter at that time, where as Private Moss through his letters was most assuredly missing his child. He got a ten day leave prior to shipping out to France and was able to see his family for the last time. The book is only 100 pages and an easy read. If you have a deployed GI in your life, read the book to learn, then start documenting and saving the history of your veteran. We must always remember. Memorial Day 2006.





24 May 2006

Major Van Harl USAF Ret.

vanharl@aol.com