TO HELL WITH POVERTY!!

You, my fellow users n abusers o the Blogosphere, may have the impression that most Pop-Sloppy Drop Outs, such as the S t O n E d h o L Y b L o G G e r, are, if they're not eating pussy, subsisting on a diet of baked beans straight from the tin, take-away pizza and beer. We here at Roller Central, being the quintessential square pegs in round holes that we are, choose to buck the trend somewhat....though, it must be noted, our lack of pussy eating is a regimen forced upon us rather than one proactively adopted!!  Be that as it may, we mostly eschew the kinda vittles mentioned above in favour of fare more refined or rustic in nature : delicately crafted beetroot chutney on home baked sweet potato & roast red pepper loaf are more likely to be seen on the Stoned Holy Smorgasbord than the kinda nosh furnished by yir local take-away outlet.

The sink in the Stoned Holy Scullery is as yet precariously filled with a haphazardly assembled heap of  the assorted crockery and utensils used in preparing our evening repast.....and oh, what a plateful it was!  Time now to take our ease bethankit and bemoan our flagrant lack of restraint as our swollen bellies threaten to rive.....or, seeing as Politics is never off the menu here at Stoned Holy HQ, take time to ponder on the poor souls, less fortunate than we, who ate tonight thanks only to the charity afforded them at a food bank. Or, heaven forfend, went hungry!! And what a howling outrage and damning indictment of Humankind it is that there should be even a one in this ill divided world who is not afforded the Justice of a Meal!!!

Let's ignore all the claptrap about over-population ; Hunger is a Political problem! Hunger exists because of the stunted imaginations and pitiless hearts of the Cretins & Creeps who run the Political Systems of the world. Morally Bankrupt, they preside over a world prepared to spend untold billions in its never ending mania for Death! Mentally Deficient, they wave as their armies parade before them in their sterile and mechanised uniformity as millions die for the want of a glass of clean water!! See their happy faces as their high tech toys and updated technologies fill them with self-importance!! Choke at their mock solemnity, marvel at their loathsome hypocrisies as their instruments of destruction are propelled onto their malevolent trajectories!! "Come, Ye Masters of War. You That Hide Behind Walls, You That Hide Behind Desks. I Just Want You to Know I Can See Through Your Masks!!" These were the vitriolic words spat out to call them out by Lord Bob of Dylan...before motorcycling accidents and Visions of Johanna & Mortality prompted him to dabble in various world religions and, generally, go a bit rubbish!

Meantime, in our Disunited Kingdom, a lot of people won't get no supper tonight. Maybe we should remember when we hear about fuel poverty or food poverty or this n that poverty that these are just good old-fashioned POVERTY! Happening right now in what is supposed to be one of the most 'developed' countries in the world. And all this whilst the Fat Cats get fatter and the Big Shots get Bigger and the new Super-Rich Elites indulge their Soulless, Spiritless, Pointless and ultimately Meaningless Fetish for MORE! More Objects! More Commodities! More Trappings! More Belongings! More Depravities! More Debasements! More Degradations! More Social Decay!

The Trickle-Down School of Neoliberal Lies & Cack- Economic Deceits tells us it is these 'wealth generators' who make it possible for the rest of us to eat......without their get-up-and-go all economic activity would grind to a halt ; it is their entrepeneurial spirit that provides employment for the rest of us : and so we are consigned to stumble lost through their hard, remorseless financial deserts looking for a stream where something can 'trickle down' to the likes of us. We wander in search of our fatted calf.  We wait, cowed, for our Manna from Heaven, sops thrown down from on high as benefaction from our False Idols.  Modern day alms-giving from the New Gods of Greed. We wait, wide-eyed and covetous, to be showered in good things from  the shiny piñata dangled above our heads .......maybeez now is the time to remember that for the piñata to give up it's contents it has to be hit HARD with a stick!!

So, Pop-Pickers, in these Armagideon Times, we must

REMEMBER TO KICK IT OVER!!

TO HELL WITH POVERTY!

Still Raining, Still Dreaming!

"S t i l l   R a i n i n g ,   S t i l l   D r e a m i n g ." All of which is fine if yir name's Jimi F*****g Hendrix & you happen to be Sheltering from the Storm in some plush hotel suite, lost in Opium-Induced Reveries while libidinous young ladies anoint your inner thighs with
Q-Tips dipped in Unctious Oils from the Orient....but if yi happen tae be in the woebegone part of Scotland where S t o n e d H o l y H Q is situated and the rain has fallen unceasingly from the leaden heavens all day long, it's quite another matter entirely!! In those circumstances, I hope you will see, my Web-Logging Compatriots, that it's not so much a Purple Haze then as an Unremittingly Gray, Dull Fog!! And if, like me,  you happen to have only £11.68 to yir name in this world, you will quickly realise that it's not a case of 'still raining, still dreaming' as 'still raining, still wondering where the fuck it all went so lamentably wrong in your pitiful life as a Purveyor of Pop-Slop'...or put another way, how comes it to pass that the most exciting thing that happened to you today was seeing Susannah Reid's legs on BBC1's  'Breakfast' !! (Just as an aside to that, I'd like to mention Reporting Scotland's Catriona Shearer; one seriously Foxy Lady!!....and that, you should know, is another Hendrix reference!!)

Anyway, leaving attractive lady newsreaders aside (at least until 7.30 tomorrow morning!), it's still chucking it doon outside....and inside,
It's Raining In My Heart. Not so much because as was the case with Buddy Holly; 'the weatherman says fair today, he doesn't know you've gone away'  but because I have a melancholic disposition which is given free reign to plaque me with pleasing thoughts of sadness given my abject failure to prosper in the field I chose to dedicate my life-energy to.....and, perhaps more tellingly, the Pluvially Bedrenched Scottish Climate!!!

The Outcasts might've complained "I'm in Pittsburgh and it's Raining" but they were young and privileged American youth of the shiny 1960's who later on in the day, after they'd recorded their Classic Punk Rock Nugget, were to be found Draggin' on Main Street impressing the girls who had Mary Tyler Moore haircuts & Angora Sweaters!.....but I bet a lifetime of frustration amidst the near constant Scottish Drizzle n Downpour woulda wiped that Punk Rock Sneer off their Plooky Yankee Faces!!!

And still it rains...and still I dream :  Maybe Someday A Real Rain Will Come & Wash All The Scum Off The Streets.....yeah, maybe I should Thank God For The Rain To Wash The Trash Off The Sidewalk...

Maybe, like Tom Waits, I feel 'The Night's Too Quiet, Stretched Out Alone. I Need The Whip Of Thunder & The Wind's Dark Moan.'  Maybe 'I Want to Believe In The Mercy Of The World Again....So Make It Rain!'  

Or maybe it is that I seek respite from the Storms & Vicissitudes of life? 'Suddenly I Turned Around & She Was Standing There. With Silver Bracelets On Her Wrists & Flowers In Her Hair. She Walked Up To Me So Gracefully & Took My Crown Of Thorns....Come In She Said, I'll Give Ya Shelter From The Storm!' 

Ah Hell! It's just like John Lennon said; That When It Rains & Shines, It's Just A State Of Mind!!  I'd believe anything if it was accompanied by that guitar riff & Bravura Bass performance!........but enough of this Precipitational Flim-Flammery!!

One thing I do know in this Ripped Up, Tattered & Torn, Mixed-Up, Battered & Worn Old World and these times of Phoney Economic Austerity we currently find ourselves subjected to...& that is that A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL!!

Bring it on - my heart's made outta Stainless Steel!!

Musings on Bob Dylan & Iggy Pop

Hey there, you Rockers n Rollers! Ola mis Hermanos Y Hermanas! Once more, my Salutations to all the good people of Worldwidewebness....or to put it a little more realistically perhaps, the odd one or two of you idle surfers who have, through various diverse, if not downright bizarre, paths found themselves somewhat astray, virtually speaking, and clicked their way onto these pages! The STonedHOLybloGGEr extends both a warm welcome and the reassuringly firm Handshake of Eternal Fraternity to all who would peruse his meagre efforts within the Blogosphere.

Meanwhile, at StonedHoly HQ we have convinced ourselves that the number of you out there who are Hip enough to Plug into the Literary Perambulations of the stONEdhoLYBloggeR is growing. So, may I draw to your Attention, those of you Dedicated to all things 'Stoned N Holy' (a small number, admittedly!) and also those amongst you who have, for no discernible reason, made good their return to our estimable pages, our New HolyBlogger Livery. Our Internet Duds, if you will! It has been a Steep Learning Curve! We have fumbled in the Virtual Dark, so to speak. A Click here, a Click there.....We must admit hereby to there having been 'Distractions' en route. So many Pretty Gals, so few items of clothing! But the Clicking is done and the Cyber Re-Spray is finished ; to a fashion! The Tips of my Index Fingers have now Calloused over! Our Image Make-Over is complete. We trust you CyberBlogPeepers will, at the very least, appreciate our efforts.

Now, if I can climb up into my Rock n Roll Pulpit for a minute or two, maybe we can look at this New Layout mallarkey in more depth : Methinks everyone in this life is entitled to some kinda Make-Over. Indeed, can we not all Meld ourselves wholly anew? A little City Livin' is a Dangerous Thing, after all - It can Get a Man to thinking he's as Good as a Goddam King! These Democratic Reverberations can, it seems, to paraphrase De Tocqueville, make everyone forget his Ancestors and Isolate him from his contemporaries. Identity can be Fluid if we wish it so! To Seek Out An Identity, You Must Alienate Society. Constraints of Gender & Creed, History & Culture can, indeed Must, be Subverted. Too often, the Expectations of those closest to us, Family & Friends, can be limiting and deny us Free Expression of our True Selves. Sometimes a complete break is required so that we can create the person we want ourselves to be.

So, Dig this : Young gun / Collar High / Slips Outta Hometown & Strait-Jacket Identity / Shoulders his Duffel-Bag / Spirits High / Heads for the 2 Lane Blacktop that's Gonna Carry Him Far from Mezuzahs N Talmudic Apocrypha to Big City U.S / He Thumbs / He Bums N Mooches / He Strums His Guitar / His Given Name is Scuffed Off by the Roadside / Soon it's Big apple Time N Whoopyjivin' In Soho /  Then it's over to East Orange to touch the Hem of Woody's Garment / Meanwhile Rock n Roll has Fizzled Out N Charts are Empty / One Good Review later & he's on his Way / Soon he'll be Dancing Beneath Diamond Skies With One Hand Waving Free! And Thus is Robert Zimmerman, curly-headed kid from Desolate Deluth, Minnesota, refashioned as Bob Dylan! And Thank the Musical Gods he was, otherwise he could not have Brought it all Back Home & we wouldn't have an album that can transport us into the Heavenly Firmament!

Let us now examine the strange case of Mr. James Osterberg from Ann Arbor, Michigan. The STOnEdHoLYbLoGgEr can only hope you are familiar with the Sonic Output of Mr. Osterberg for, verily, it is the stuff of Legend. He has on more than one occasion Hit the
G-Spot of Rock n Roll but perhaps, methinks, his greatest artistic achievement was the side-stepping of all that was mapped out for him in Industrial Small Town America and his creation of Iggy Pop as a persona which allowed  him the Freedom to explore the Waters he thereupon wholly immersed himself in.

So, Pop Pickers, if you feel like a change, then you too can Go To It! The Voluptuary Excesses of Mr. Pop may not be for you but in a quiet and perchance, wholly unnoticed way you can Make Yourself Over. Truly, for the Sake of this Ramshackle Old World we're living in, we must Believe the Leopard Can Change His Spots!...For Does Not This World Need Changing?

'Be The Change You Want To See In The World.' were the Sage Words of The Mahatma. Fine Words and here's some more courtesy of yir Resident Secular Preacher of Brethren-ness - 'It's Not Water Down The Drain If It Brings Us Closer Together. It's Not An Ocean & One Drop Of Rain If It Makes Things A Little Better.' If that means as little as a Smile instead of a Frown or some kind words freely given, if that means a Splash of Colour to liven up the Monochrome, then it's Enough for now. Think On It, CyberPeople, is all ahm sayin'.....Think On It.

Catch Y'All Next Time - This Is Yir Concrete Prairie Crooner & Stoned & Holy Blogger signing off. Glad Tidings For All. Over N Oot.