Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

Possible (albeit clunky) sub-title: If Tasers Were Outlawed in Schools, Then Only the Police Would have Tasers in Schools.
Student Who Was Tasered Said She Had No Warning — More on this, and stuff like it later. –

Here is a second installment of Your Montag’s new awesome way to do semi-random Friday music.

You’ve heard of ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’? Well this is like ‘Nine Degrees of Musical Bacon.’ Your Montag traverses the myspace music scene, following the trail of comments from one page to the next and picking out the song I like best from each artist. Links take you into the seedy world of the artist’s myspace music page.

This week, we examine the local music scene. (Local to Maine and New England.)

1. Crow in the Garden — Cursillistas — Ethereal? Haunting? Nah, fuck it: indescribable.
2. Poor Boy — Dominic and The Lucid — Pretty straight forward alternative rock, possibly a “jam band.”
3. Ampersand — Bass Box — Sounds like one of them artsy European movie soundtracks… with human beatbox. [Pictured.]
4. Tigris and Euphrates — Dylan — Crisp instrumental guitar work. The other selections have other stuff going on too, though.
5. Fragments (Check out Showdown as well.) — SayLove — Hip Hop. She’s got a killer show on WMPG (Double Degree Program) Mondays 3-5pm, too.
6. Against the War — Kristina Kentigian aka K Soul — Hip Hop/R&B… and I’m feelin’ the message of dissent.
7. The Bunnyman — Moshe — DJ/producer of progressive hip hop.
8. Decay — Hiss & Chambers — Alternative rock with an 80′s aesthetic. (Stuff I like.)
9. The Colour of Women — Cambiata — They combined “rock, indie, and hardcore/metal music,” and ended up sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place on a commercial modern rock station.

No legitimate reviews or ratings, but if you’re pressed for time, I suggest checking out #s 5, 1, 8 and 6.

We survived the storm. Though, many places don’t have power yet. Last evening there were 123,000 customers without electricity. There are a lot of roads closed due to flooding, and there is more flooding expected today at high tide. The wind has thankfully died down.

The national guard is out in force directing traffic at the closed roads and intersections with powerless traffic signals. The humvees they travel in are used to block off the closed roads. I remember the humvees being forest green when I was a kid. They are now painted desert tan in kind of a weird contrast to the evergreens, and the rest of the natural backdrop here as it struggles despite this spring’s weather to turn green again.

Here is a picture of a large fallen portion of a tree, (a near miss!), on the Montag homestead:

It fell in about the only direction it could without hitting anything.

It seems that many people are struggling with flooding basements, and will be dealing with roof repairs over the coming days. Having been through a few hurricanes down south, while the winds weren’t as strong here, locally, the aftermath looks pretty much the same.

Making it especially hard to take, is that this week is school April vacation: the week that has always been remembered by me as the first time each year that fully warm— no jacket required, go outside and get some sun —weather starts. Not this year. We might see the sun and sixty degree temps by this weekend, though.

To mention it just one more time, BioDiversity Research Institute’s live eagle webcam is incredibly riveting. Watch the real-world drama of nature this evening as two parental bald eagles fight to protect their young during what is expected to be high winds, heavy precipitation and flooding in the form of a serious April Nor’easter*.

Click the link and then press “watch live” for streaming video (of amazing quality,) with sound. These eagles are somewhere in Hancock County Maine, and you can read all about them on the blog where you can read about these animals, and about (ahem) fund raising efforts for the project.

Go watch the eagles. It is truly fascinating to see. Thrill as the mother eagle calls for her mate to come so she can go get her eats on. Watch as they feed their young ones. Become enthralled as you imagine the meaning of their calls and personify their conversation. They’re like a regular Lucy and Ricky.

The weather alarmists are predicting widespread power outages. If that happens, Your Montag may be absent temporarily. If so, I’ll see you on the flip side.

Mourning Drive

If April Showers bring May Flowers, then what does 18 inches of April Fucking Snow bring? Other than fallen tree limbs, power outages, and seasonal affective disorder (i.e. abject misery.)

I’ve alluded to it in this space before: if you believe that we are so deeply divided along party lines, that our leaders can’t possibly work together successfully, you might take a look at how effectively the two-and-only-two party political system is protected by those in power who were put there by the two political parties.

Case in point.

First Your Montag should acknowledge two — what may seem at first — contradictory views I hold:

1. The financing of elections is flawed.
2. Maine’s Clean Election law is flawed.

Indeed, money buys way too much influence with our leaders. However, Clean Elections — Version x.0 beta, isn’t the answer.

Lawmakers are looking to upgrade the Clean Elections system in Maine. Here is the lead paragraph of an article on the debate:

Maine taxpayers gave gubernatorial candidates more than $3 million for campaigns last year. Just imagine what the cost might have been if more than four candidates had qualified for money from the state’s Clean Election Fund. [Portland Press Herald: Election funding may get stricter]

And imagine what the cost might have been if the incumbent candidate, Democrat John Baldacci hadn’t gamed the system by letting donors— (I believe the Democratic Governors Association played a large role here, if I remember correctly) —outside his campaign spend the advertising dollars, thus limiting the matching funds paid out to his Clean Elections opponents. The result of this being that he, the Dem candidate, had plenty of television ads and message proliferation; and the Republican candidate— who was a Clean Election beneficiary but also got help from the Republican Governors Association, (if I remember correctly) —likewise enjoyed decent television ad time and message proliferation; while the other Clean Elections candidates, (a Green and an Independent,) languished with relatively minuscule television budgets and suffered in the name/message proliferation department.

See how that works?

So, yes. The Clean Elections law needs to be overhauled. No, it isn’t because it costs taxpayers $3 million every fourth year in Gubernatorial campaigns. (What’s that amount to in a $6.7 billion/year state budget, really?) What of the changes being discussed now? Your Montag will be surprised if they don’t do exactly what opponents of the proposed changes are paraphrased as saying in the article:

…tougher rules would disenfranchise independent candidates, who lack a party apparatus to help them qualify, and give political parties a stranglehold on the electoral system.

See how that works?

And here’s a little side-bar for you, the grassroots Dems who told me, “A vote for LaMarche (the Green candidate) is a vote for Woodcock (the Republican candidate.)” Or to make this post a little more relatable to the non-Mainers, “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Or to make this post a little more relatable to non-liberals, “A vote for Perot is a vote for Clinton.”

The answer to all three of these statements is the same: “No it isn’t.”

[Rage continued below the fold.] (more…)

Whatever Happened to Bowzer from Sha Na Na? The bass singing greaser and childhood hero of Your Montag is now the steady anchor for the harmonies of the Truth in Music Committee of the Pennsylvania-based Vocal Group Hall of Fame. And he’s lobbying Maine lawmakers to ban “‘impostor’ bands who lift the names of real groups to give their own acts undeserved authenticity. Give ‘em hell, Bowzer. [Associated Press: Sha Na Na bass urges Maine to ban pretenders] –

It’s that time of year when, in the state of Maine, time slows to a near standstill and the fabric of space bends into a horseshoe shape, its theoretical ends, drawn as if by magnetic force, extend out toward a vergence on the event horizon of . . .
The Tournaments.

Nonetheless… (ok maybe somewhattheless,) here are some headlines:
1. Propane shortage still acute in Maine — Kind of important to hospitals, nursing homes and residences that rely on propane for heat.
2. York County sued over cell blood cleanup — Of import to inmates, and people who wonder about what’s up with our prison system.
3. PROPOSED BAN Lawmakers hook into bait fish issue — In all honesty, probably more important than The Tournaments to bait sellers and environmentalists; for mixed reasons.
4. Family skiing, cheap and close to home (Image.) — Amusingly important to women who dream of using motorcycle propelled pulley systems to launch their loved ones off ski jumps and bring them back to them like some kind of extreme motorized human yo-yo. –

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. You spoke loud and clear the other week when Your Montag dared ask:

…is it even worth carrying on with [the Gang Activity] feature? From my standpoint, other than forcing me to post on Wednesdays, it hasn’t served its purpose. Our underpopulated comments section is just as underpopulated as ever.

Given the amount of discussion that went on in the comments on that post, and the fact that, as I warned, “‘new and improved’ Bazooka comics are for shit,” it may be hard to believe that I’d be back with more.*

“Here is what the interweb meteorologists have to say about the St. Valentine Storm.”

And looking out the window…

“Yep it’s snowing like all get-out.”

(If you were hoping for an actual riff on the actual joke, it’s been done before in this space.)

Indeed, it is storming. The shifting wind gusts are prefect for creating the condition that when snow-blowing one has a choice:

1. Blow the snow back onto the area one has already cleared.
2. Blow the snow up onto the side of one’s house.
3. Blow the snow back into one’s face.

Note: this may be a corollary to the old campfire adage, “The smoke follows the fool.”

If you’ve ever been ‘the fool,’ you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Here’s a few of today’s Maine headlines:
Supreme court grapples with Dirigo Health
Indian inmates claim right to practice religion is denied
Price tag grows for Hollywood Slots project

*This will be the last awkwardly forced Gang Activity installment. I do still have a few of the old B.J. comics laying around, but will only drag them out when they are well-suited enough to the days events to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

I don’t know what kind of lottery this guy won to get in on this witch hunt, but the article only names five (5!) “tunes.”

The allegation is that Hinds used an “online media distribution system” to download tunes, then distributed the copyrighted material to others. [Kenebec Journal: Augusta man sued by music industry]

“Distributed” meaning they were in his file sharing directory, it seems.

I think the recording industry is committing hara-kiri with this approach to stopping music sharing. Especially when the stuff you can get free and legal from independent bands and the smaller record labels on the internets is better than the shite the record companies are trying to protect.

Fuck exploitive corporations! I say we take our music money and tip our local independent musicians. Who’s with me?

There’s a new Stump Lane category in town. ME. (No, news from Maine.)
1. More on these two items on school consolidation later: Legislators hear merger views and Critics say small schools at risk
2. Dude, this place sucks. There’s, like, no chicks in this sausage factory. Loon count finds low number of chicks — The number of chicks was the second-lowest on record since Maine Audubon began holding its annual loon counts in 1983. — The figures may be an anomaly, but anyone who’s heard a loon call will tell you these creatures would be missed. –