"Elected Officials are Fundamentally Dishonest"

What you are about to read is a letter to the Editor of the Newtown Bee.  I became aware of this by an email forwarded to me from a friend of mine in Florida who didn't know if it was real or not.  I googled it, and it's real.

You will never, in one hundred thousand million lifetimes, ever read or hear about this from Organized Media.

That's one reason why there's a blogosphere, and you're now going to read this here.

It can also be found at this link:  LINK

To the Editor:

This letter was forwarded to Barack Obama, John Boehner, Chris Murphy, Dick Blumenthal, Elizabeth Esty, and Harry Reid

I live in Sandy Hook, CT. My family and close friends weren't harmed on December 14. That day impacted 26 families with an indescribable, staggering pain and anguish. For most of Sandy Hook, it merely affected us with an inescapable intensity of sadness and grief.

Gun control has long been a focus of many in this country. Though I'm not knowledgeable of all the nuances of the Second Amendment, based on the Founding Fathers' circumstances, it had far more to do with enabling the citizenry to protect themselves against tyrannical government than against local psychopaths. It is about providing a balanced firepower so when King George's successor came knocking on your door, you could fight back. Government today is no less inclined to abuse its authority than it was then. Based on the absurd and ongoing power grab that is present day Washington, it's as threatening as ever.

That so many of you view the NRA with its resistance to further restrictions on firearms as intransigent lunatics has far more to do with how you conduct yourselves in office than it does with the NRA's actions.

You in public office are fundamentally dishonest people. You lead lives of deception at every turn, structuring your lives as comfortably as you can while governing with an indifference and arrogance that is absolutely maddening. When the country is reeling from financial disaster, you waste a trillion dollars on a health care bill we can't afford and you've never read. You claim it's critical because health care costs are killing this country... no they're not, you are! You are killing this country. You endorse the ongoing slaughter of millions of unborn children and whine when terrorists are water boarded. You can't lecture us right in Newtown High School about not doing enough to keep our children safe, while simultaneously slaughtering the unborn. You fabricate the intense, media laden drama of the fiscal cliff and lack the courage to do anything about truly reforming the obscene gluttony of government. You know you'll be out of office before the bill comes due… you don't care and have no integrity nor honor.

You lie whenever and wherever you need to to move forth your agenda. Were you able, you would purge the US of guns… every last gun in the country, if you could. So please forgive Wayne LaPierre and those of us who don't trust you as far as we can spit. You're a dishonest lot, motivated by a distorted worldview. If mass murder prevention were truly your goal, you would welcome armed security wherever needed. It is outrageous that we protect our money with far more firepower than we protect our children.

I have never owned a gun, nor wanted to as intensely as right now. You'll stop restricting guns when only you have them.

Brendan Duffy

4 Chestnut Knoll Drive, Sandy Hook January 8, 2013

40 Years of Bachman-Turner Overdrive!

Forty years ago today the first album by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, called Bachman-Turner Overdrive, was released by Mercury Records under catalog number SRM-1-673.  The band had been formerly known as Brave Belt and had released two albums on Warner/Reprise under that name.  Sales of the Brave Belt albums weren't much to the Warner execs' liking, and the band itself was undergoing some changes.

It is said that their name was inspired by the trucker's magazine Overdrive.  The band was at a truck stop outside Windsor, Ontario, where they had just concluded having lunch.  Stopping off to pay for it, Randy Bachman and Fred Turner noticed the magazine.  They were thinking about changing the band name and were considering "Bachman & Turner" back then but wasn't sure about how that would fly since Seals & Croft were using a similar naming scheme and they weren't a soft rock act.  The word "overdrive" seemed to fit the style of music that they were playing, and thus they became Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

As the name was being changed, Randy Bachman asked Warner/Reprise for a release from their contract so that they could sign as "Bachman-Turner Overdrive".  An album that was to have been called Brave Belt III had been recorded, and as soon as they were released from their contract Randy offered that album to Warner/Reprise, who refused.  Randy kept on sending the tape to various record companies, encountering 23 rejections before being signed by Charlie Fach of Mercury Records.

From what I know, Randy had spent $100,000 on the recording of that album, plus touring costs.  Mercury offered them $100,000 for two albums, that is, $50K per album, but Mercury also wanted them out on the road to promote the album.  What followed in 1973 was an exhaustive tour to promote the album.  The album stayed on the charts for over a year, but never got higher than #68.  What happened was that the album would sell well where they played, but wasn't selling where they hadn't played yet.  It went on to achieve gold record status in the United States and Canada, but took a long time in doing so.  I didn't get my copy of it until November 1975, so there's no doubt that back catalog sales were helped out in their heyday of 1974-75.

BTO went on to record several albums before disbanding in 1979.  They re-formed in 1983, and again in 1988.  The "Not Fragile" lineup last played together in fall 1991, and Robbie Bachman led a version of BTO which played the county fair and casino circuit until the end of 2004.

If you've read my past posts, you already know that Randy and Fred reunited in 2010 to record and tour as "Bachman & Turner", as that Blair Thornton and Robbie Bachman hold the rights to the BTO name.  I can't tell you what Randy and Fred are planning to do this year.  Chatter has it that new dates are being planned but I have not emailed Fred to find out what's going on, and even if he tells me I may not be able to pass that along, nor would I without his permission, and no, I'm not going to ask for permission.  I do personally believe that he wants to go out with Randy this year and we can only hope that Randy feels the same.  Their last gigs were in New Zealand a few months ago, and it could be that Fred's on a break and working on restoring his collection of vintage Corvettes (I would like to be in his garage some day to see his 'vettes!).

Incidentally, today is also the birthday of Jim Clench, who played and sang with BTO from fall of 1977 until the spring of 1979.  He would have been 64 years old today.

It will be a year and a half before I can claim 40 years of fandom, but that will likely arrive quickly the way life seems to be accelerating for me.

I can say that the songs sound just as good today as when I first heard them.

To all the members of BTO:  "thank you for the feeling"!