Once again it's time to visit my oft-ignored blog site that nobody ever reads to put down for posterity those things that lurk in my skull and need to be let out for a walk. (Or just plain escape!) In a matter of weeks, some of you may be reading my recap of DJ Cruise 2009 in Mobile Beat Magazine. Anyone who knows me also knows that I always, ALWAYS tell the truth. But I don't always tell all! (And no, I don't believe in "lies of omission." Saying nothing is neither a truth or an untruth. One CAN practice deception by omitting details, but again, that's not lying.) So, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm forewarning you that this WILL be LONG! If you're up for a good read, then grab a beverage, put your feet up and enjoy.

Here is where you're going to hear it all, starting at the beginning: I HATE FLYING.

Now, it's not that I'm afraid! I love jets. I love being in the air. I love the feeling of take-off, when you're pressed back into your seat as the huge, air-breathing rockets boost your ass into the sky through sheer brute power! There was a nervous woman on one of my flights, so I struck-up a conversation. I told her that the three most honest things I know of in this world are dogs, children and jet engines! Because jets exist to do one thing: provide MASSIVE thrust! You give 'em fuel and air, and they'll shove your ass wherever you direct 'em!

What I find most boring, tedious and nonsensical is the unnecessary mayhem of the airport, which seems designed to do the exact opposite of what it's job is: getting you and your luggage to the plane easily. Instead, it's sprawling, and nobody seems to have one of those luggage carts that any self-respecting hotel would routinely have. Then there's the silly security screening process that treats anyone and everyone like a suspect. I mean, while I can certainly see the moral issues where racial profiling is concerned, the simple TRUTH of the matter is that, thus far, EVERY airline terrorist has been a Muslim from a middle-eastern country. Even Dr. Phil will tell you that the best predictor of the future is the past, so in this case, a little bit of "racial profiling" would be absolutely fucking astute! Seriously, does making ME take off my shoes make anyone safer?

While I sympathize with the TSA crew and the job they have, I think their leaders are idiots. Imagine the billions of dollars we spend annually, unnecessarily screening 99.9999% of all passengers and their bags, STEALING innocent things like nail clippers and antiperspirant cans and, of course, paying all those screeners, when the situation could be solved immediately, almost for free. Shift the screeners to CHECKED baggage, keeping just a minor few to screen carry-on bags. Then, pass a law that concealed carry permits issued in one state are recognized in ALL states and simply ALLOW LICENSED CITIZENS TO CARRY THEIR LAWFULLY OWNED, CONCEALED WEAPONS WHILE THEY FLY! I can guarantee that any hijacking attempt would be short-lived and unsuccessful. And the PAYOFF would be that flying would be MUCH less stressful and convenient!

Or just make everyone check all baggage and fly naked. That's where we're headed.

But I did get to my boarding area in plenty of time -- long enough to catch a bit of CNN and a bit of breakfast -- and then it was off to my first connecting stop in Phoenix. I always ask for either a bulkhead seat, or one by the emergency access doors, because of my long legs. US Air not only accommodated me, but seemed happy to help! (I'd heard of some airlines charging extra for this.) Once in the air, the sun came up over a deck of clouds that were so thick, it looked as if I was flying low over an arctic snow field. I could easily imagine a polar bear running along side the plane! It was utterly beautiful.

My connection in Phoenix went smoothly and I arrived in Long Beach, California, bags and all. I was surprised, because I had planned on carrying on both of my bags, but since February, my suit bag has been deemed "too large" by the airlines. (Probably because they wanted the extra $25 to check the damned thing.) Yet it did manage to arrive intact, although a bit dustier than it was the last time I'd seen it.

Long Beach airport was a bit of a surprise. It looked like some banana republic airport with lots of portable/temporary buildings, rolling stairways and actual free standing "gates" on the tarmac! I also learned that LAX wasn't all that far away and that more seasoned travelers would've gone there instead. Just my luck! Yet I did manage to find a shuttle van and, $20 later, arrived at the Carnival Cruise dock, scene of yet another total clusterfuck.

They'd made me print out bag tags when I'd registered for the cruise, but the trams that I saw loaded up with bags looked so jam-packed and chaotic that I decided I'd carry my two paltry, non-hard-sided bags. A workout, to be sure, but MY bags were going to arrive on-board and intact! So I went off to the entrance... and several long, LONG lines! They seemed to not move at all for a good long time, but once they did move, things started happening fast. The Carnival people took my crappy printed out "fun pass" and exchanged it for a nice, plastic card that looked a lot like a hotel room key card. In fact, it would indeed be the key to my stateroom on board, but it was also the key to everything on the ship. Once in hand, it was now off to yet another TSA fiasco. The building itself was interesting; a large, geodesic golf ball! Once again, off came the shoes, my travel vest went into a tray (I'd been told by a savvy traveler in my family to get one -- they have lots of pockets so you won't need a bag OR anything in your pants pockets) and my bags went through yet another X-ray machine. It seemed to me that the search here was even more stringent than at the airport! A bit stunning since I haven't heard of any cruise ships being rammed into any skyscrapers lately. But once again, I was finally through and could proceed to the boarding area.

Another set of lines, another set of gates, another parade by unsmiling men with guns, and with a flash of the all-important card, I was finally directed toward the gangway that lead to the ship. A very HIGH gangway! It put us right around deck 3 of the ship. Looking down on the dock, I could see hi-lo drivers moving around huge luggage containers, loading them on the ship. Presumably porters would then deliver the bags to the various staterooms. According to my travel agent, fellow DJ, Debbie McKenzie, they "magically appear." I wasn't convinced.

The ship itself is absolutely immense! I was reminded of a gigantic hotel building, except that it was (or would be) a moving vehicle. The first deck we stepped onto was just below the lifeboats, which are a far cry from those of bygone days. These are small craft that would make most of my boat owning friends back in Michigan envious, equipped with powerful engines, GPS, first aid and food packs, and fully enclosed against the elements. Another passenger told me that the two larger ones amidships could be used as tenders when visiting ports without hard docking capabilities. Quite fascinating. Aside from the safety orange of the upper parts of the lifeboats, everything was white! Carnival cruise ships are clean and white. Then we went inside, were checked-in with the all-important card and it was off to find our rooms. The size of the ship can be a bit disorienting, but you quickly begin to get a grasp it's logic: my room was on deck 7. I found an elevator and up I went.

The hallways leading to the staterooms are a bit narrow, reminding me of the mobile home I'd once lived in as a kid, but seemed to go on forever! It turned out that my room was near the aft of the ship, which would later turn into an advantage. The hallway seemed even narrower, because some of the bags I'd seen being loaded onto the ship had actually made their way up and were awaiting their owners by their doors!

At last I found mine, room #303. I stuck in my key, a green light blinked and I was in. My room was meant for two, and I'd been told that my original cabin mate had canceled, but I might have another -- a female. (Debbie had asked me if that was OK, and being a happily married man, I assured her that it was, as long as the female in question didn't mind!) For the moment, though, the room was all mine. There was a "luggage mat" one one of the beds, so I put my bags down and began to explore. This was easy, because the room was TINY. Two twin beds separated by a small nightstand, with just enough for another before the bulkhead/wall, made up the far end of the room. At the foot of the beds, there was a desk with a mirror on the left, and a small table and counter with a mini-bar (read "camping refrigerator") below. To my surprise, there was a champagne bottle on the counter for me, with two glasses and a full ice bucket! (No opener, of course, but it was the thought that counts -- LOL!) Behind the desk was the head (a closet-sized room w/ vanity, WC and shower stall -- the entire room looked like a one-piece injection-molded unit with a decided LACK of electrical outlets), and across from the entry hall was a row of closets. I began to put away my things. There was a flat-screen TV in the room running Carnival propaganda, and a message saying, "Welcome aboard, Chisholm, Stuart!" Personal and corporate cold, all at the same time!

Once settled in, I ventured outside to both get my bearings and to attend the pre-departure "mandatory safety drill" that I'd been told about when boarding. Everyone seemed a bit confused as we were herded back out onto the boat deck (which is what I called it), which was the one above the deck we'd arrived on, putting us directly in line with the entrance to the lifeboats. After standing around for what seemed like forever, an almost laughable safety presentation was made that basically said, "In an emergency, grab your life vest from your closet and come here to jump on a boat." Obviously this was one of those maritime requirements that the crew was compelled to perform, yet did so half-heartedly because it was just so obvious. Well, maybe there were some "developmentally challenged" passengers who would benefit. The rest of us groaned and headed off to the port side of the ship to watch the departure. This would turn out to be weird.

I hadn't yet gotten my feel for the ship (yes, I got lost), so we were actually underway when I finally got out on deck. I looked down on the dock and, no surprise to me, saw two full containers of luggage still sitting there. Most of the families were done waving and we began to put serious water between ship and dock. I retreated to my cabin to get dressed for dinner.

When I arrived, there was a flyer on my bed. It said to be on the lookout for a couple of lost bags (surprise!) -- and the message was also scrolling along the bottom of the Carnival Channel on TV. I decided that it was time to change the channel, so I could have something interesting to listen to while getting dressed. I found CNN. Ironically, they were doing a story... on another cruise ship! The largest one ever! "The Oasis Of The Sea" was the biggest moving man-made object ever created, said the reporter, and the program detailed all of the ship's amenities... And here I thought that MY ship was huge and elaborate! Silly me. I pondered this as I changed into my tuxedo. Each night on board the ship had a different theme, and the dress code for the restaurant during the outbound leg was formal. (Although there were informal dining options.) I decided to play along. First, though, it was time to meet my fellow DJs in a room called the "El Morocco." I managed to find it and, at last, met our cruise organizer, Debbie, who had only been a voice on the phone up to this point. She introduced me to her husband, Alan, who I realized I'd met in Vegas just last February! They're both very nice people, and I wish I had Debbie's seemingly endless energy. Going around the room, I also met Alan's brother and his daughter, plus their family friend who I only knew as "mo" (short for Monique? Mona?), David Louis who had come from Hawaii, Mike "Mirada" Daehne, DJ Merlin, who I would later find out is a talented trumpet player, Ron Michaels and his wife, Ken Heath, who I'd also last seen at MBLV.09, Michael Smith and a few other folks whose names escape me at the moment. Debbie handed out ID badges as everyone got to know each other. She also gave us the details of this year's scavenger hunt -- apparently a DJ Cruise tradition. We then said our goodbyes until dinner later that evening. I took the time to poke around the ship. This would become a habit all during the cruise.

All I can say is that dinners were OUTSTANDING! The Black Pearl Restaurant was also aft, not far from my cabin. We were assigned a seating time, and we had the "late seating" time at 8:15 PM -- perfect for me (my usual dinner time is late night). Each day brought new menu items, and Debbie decorated our tables in a different theme. And the food... INCREDIBLE! I really had to work to pace myself! Every night was like dining in a five-star restaurant. The host and his crew also put on a show of sorts each night, singing and dancing, making the whole experience a lot of fun.

The next day, a "sailing day," was when our workshops would take place, and my presentation would be first! I found the room -- the "Pink Pearl Conference Room," and began to get ready. I felt well prepared, the only irksome thing being that the tech hadn't arrived yet to set up the projection system before people started to arrive. When I'd first heard about the cruise and was invited to speak, I had no idea that I would be the keynote speaker! I also had no idea what it would be like -- I had the Riviera ballroom from Vegas in my head. This was much smaller, with maybe 15 people or so in attendance. Finally the tech arrived and the party was on! My talk went well, at least from my perspective, and a few people bought a copy of my book.

There were a few other presentations after mine, all detailed in my Mobile Beat piece. My favorite one, though, had to be by David Louis. He came up with a great concept that not only helps couples, but can bring massive business referrals as well! I'm pretty excited about it and plan on doing something similar in Michigan.

After the seminars, it was once again time to have a bite to eat and explore the ship. It's become a bit of a blur, even just a couple of weeks after the cruise, but here are the highlights...

Deck 9, I believe, is the Lido deck. It's the one you see on TV, with a pool surrounded by deck chairs, and a huge TV screen that is always on showing something. To the rear are both the pizza station and the burger-n-dogs grill, flanking the entrances to the casual restaurant. Soft-serve ice cream and/or frozen yogurt is always available, and there's all manner of food that, again, one must truly work to avoid overeating! I think I ate more apples that week than I have in a year at home. The exits at the rear puts you on the ship's fantail (?), which has another small pool and two Jacuzzi-type spas. There's an outdoor bar there, too, along with a deli. (Did I mention the food?)

I began to hang out with my new friend, Mirada Mike. (There were several Mikes around, so that's how I began to think of him, Mirada being his company name.) Coming out on deck one night, we were sucked into a huge dance party. I was a bit surprised by how much FUN I had! Not being a dancer and thinking most things like that are cheesy, it was a pleasant surprise to walk into such a "party in progress" and have such a great time. Afterward, we made our way to the "Red Carpet Disco," the ship's nightclub. This would be our nightly habit, Mike being single and on the lookout, and me being a huge music and equipment nerd and wanting an interview with the ship's DJ. We got to meet him that night; a thin, Jamaican guy with a huge smile named JonCarlos. Great guy.

On another evening, Mike decided to enter the karaoke fray, singing his version of "The Monster Mash," in-character, of course. For the next few days, people would stop him and say, "Oh, you're the Monster Mash guy!" I think Mike enjoyed the well-deserved notoriety. For the first time ever, I actually sang karaoke as well! My voice, having been trashed because of trying to talk in the disco, was pretty limited. I managed to croak-out a passable "Rapper's Delight," and later, a fairly decent "Rock This Town." Nobody threw anything. Mike later repeated his performance near the end of the cruise in the El Morocco Room during a high-end karaoke show, where the singers were all several levels above your average bar crowd. Mike fit right in!

Some of my favorite parts of the cruise were spent alone. When I was very young, my parents (mother and grandmother) had taken me on a cruise to Buffalo, NY. I remember very little of it -- I was less than 10 years old -- but I remembered them telling me that it was good luck to lap the ship. With all my kid energy, I lapped the ship on every deck! I would set out to do the same this time around, too. After all, I have all that good food to work off! Plus, I'm a bit hyperactive and a night owl. I discovered, though, that you can't really lap the decks on modern cruise ships without ducking back inside and walking hallways, because people like "balcony" cabins. So I spent some time being "that creepy guy whose room isn't on this deck." But I lapped all but deck one (which was usually closed, except for an infirmary). Such exploring brought a few surprises! I discovered that the running lights were switched off on the forward decks, making them extremely dark at night. I always carry a flashlight, and I also have these fun lasers that project a spray of green beams -- those looked outrageous! But the most amazing sight was when I looked straight up. The night sky out on the ocean is STUNNING. The stars literally took my breath away! Away from all the light pollution of the city, the night sky is jam-packed with stars, planets, nebulae and even other galaxies. It caught me totally unprepared -- a great moment.

Another unexpected find was the ship's gyros! Mounted on platforms similar to coin-operated binoculars, the lighted dials and LED readouts showed the ships heading and position, blinking in the darkness.

I also went out onto the bow, which was accessible only via the deck below the lifeboats. The bow isn't lit either, but is always alive with voices -- the crew hangs out there. They have their own Jacuzzis, and I also noted a boxing bag hanging from an overhang. I went as far forward as I could, looking out over the water and enjoying the breeze.

OUR PORTS OF CALL

The itinerary was the "Mexican Riviera," with ports of call in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas. David Louis told us about a mutual friend, Mitch Taylor, who had gone on the cruise before and raved about a few places. We decided to try and find them, dubbing this the "Mitch Taylor Tour!" The first spot was a restaurant that serves you food right on the beach in Puerto Vallarta! Debbie and Alan arranged our reservation -- one of the only group activities we did during the cruise -- and not only did it exist, but the food was excellent. It captures all of the charm/ambiance of Mexico all in one place. There are lighted palm trees and a hotel nearby that would look at home in LA, but the building that the bar/restaurant was in would never pass code in downtown Detroit. The streets are cobblestone, but well worn and, in some places, badly in need of repair. While enjoying dinner on the beach, various people will come along, offering to sing songs or selling things like flowers. I got a bit tired of the musicians offering to play cheesy, touristy style songs like "Tequila" or "Guantanamera." Finally I asked one if he could play "Bamboleo." "You know Gypsy Kings?" Si! He got a big grin and pounded out a decent rendition -- along with an ad-lib or two -- that got a big hand from our table.

A few of us skipped Mazatlan, my reasoning being that every time I got off the ship, it cost me money! Only once did I save some bucks...

One of the more ponderous things about Carnival Cruises is the strange way they regard pop (or soda, to you non-midwesterners). All your food is free (except for the Pinnacle Steak House), and they provide coffee, tea, lemonade (or, more accurately, a lemon "drink"), and milk, chocolate milk and orange juice with breakfast, but no pop. That will set you back two bucks a can from your mini-bar, and if someone HANDS you a can, there is a gratuity tacked-on to it! To a guy like me, this is unacceptable. Nearly a deal breaker! They offer a "soda card" for just over $50, but I found that ridiculous -- I don't drink $50 worth of pop in ANY week -- and they STILL hit you with that gratuity if you get it from one of the bars! I managed to get by until Puerto Vallarta on only six cans of Sprite. Imagine, then, when we got off the ship only to find... A WAL-MART!!!! Yes, right near the dock is a Mexican Wal-Mart! Mike and I went there and found a case (24 cans) of Dr. Pepper for just $9.60 American! I brought it on board, walking by the inspection guys saying, "I've got your soda card right here!" (To their credit, they all laughed.)

Cabo San Lucas was perhaps the most interesting port. They have no dock, per se, so tenders have to come in to bring passengers back and forth to shore. Some people on the ship, Ken Heath's wife being one of them, had a bit of trouble handling the motion of the ship. You can imagine, then, how some felt as the small tenders bounced up and down making their way to shore! Once on land, I decided to simply take a good look around. There were all kinds of offers for fishing trips, ocean excursions, private beaches... but, being alone, I was simply wanting to take in some local flavor. I must've walked ten miles that day. I went into town and, for the purchase of a $1 can of pop, was able to use their internet cafe to send a message home. My cell phone wouldn't work at all south of the border (fucking T-mobile!), and even people who did have service were complaining about the $2.50-per-minute roaming charges! After letting Janette know I was alive and well, I went in search of some good Mexican music stores.

The sad part of the cruise was that none of the ports of call were overnight, so we never got the chance to take in any of the nightlife of Mexico! Being a "DJ Cruise," this seemed to me like a pretty big oversight. My bet is that this was due more to Carnival's M.O. than anything that Debbie and Alan had planned. (In fact, they no doubt felt the same!)

In summary, I had way more fun than I ever thought I would! Initially, this cruise sounded like some huge obligation, and I only agreed to it because I agreed to do everything I could to support the sale of my book and represent Mobile Beat. My publisher, Ryan, chipped-in for my passage, too. With visions of Kathy Lee Gifford and seniors playing shuffleboard in my head, I decided to go through with it like Mike Rowe might go through with a particularly distasteful dirty job. I was SO pleasantly surprised! Yes, there was plenty of cheese there if you wanted it, but there was also plenty of fun, interesting things to do if you chose to avoid it. Plus, Debbie, Mike, David and my other colleagues and their friends and family made the cruise a really good time. My thanks to you all, and a big congratulations to DJ Merlin, for being asked to sit in with the ship's band for the grand finale show! Represent!!!

And thanks to you, my scarce reader, for enduring my little... okay, HUGE... recap! I look forward to your comments, if any. Until then, smooth sailin'!

The only way I can describe this week is that it's been a week of contrasts.  Starting last Sunday, the first day of the week, when I headed up to Canada.  I had the great honor of being asked to present my seminar that I first broke in Las Vegas last February at the Mobile Beat Show & Conferences.  This invitation came from the Canadian Disc Jockey Association, and they had somehow either heard of my presentation or someone was there and recommended me.  In any case, it was quite a gratifying moment!  Nothing like people you don't know actually creating "buzz" around something you did, especially when it was the first big conference where I've been a featured speaker!

The south has nothing on Canadian hospitality.  Doug and his crew went out of their way to accommodate me and my buddy, John, a fellow DJ and long-time friend who agreed to do the driving.  I got to meet a whole bunch of my DJ colleagues to the north (and a few Yankees who sneaked in like we did) and I'll never get used to people coming up to me with a copy of my book asking for me to sign it!  My seminars were well attended, considering the overall attendance numbers, and after returning, my phone and e-mail have been buzzing with messages from said colleagues.  In short, it's been quite a high!  And all coming together on the exact month that marks my 30th year in the DJ business.

So maybe I needed tonight...

I arrived early, as is my habit, at the venue where my scheduled wedding reception was taking place.  The weather outside was a miserable mix of drizzle and cold air topped-off by gloom, but my roadie (John again!) and I loaded my equipment in through the back door as quickly as we could and then I parked my big cube truck against a back wall of the parking lot.  We don't need much guidance at this venue, since I've been doing gigs there since I started out back in '79.  We have a routine, and set-up was clickin'.  That is, until we went to stash our "left-overs" -- the bags, road cases and hand trucks -- that keeps my equipment safe and easy to move.  For 29 years I've been discreetly storing it around the corner of a service hall, as I'd been previously instructed.  But not THIS time...

"You can't put that there," says Hadji, a managerial-type of Eastern Indian (I think) persuasion that I'd never seen there before.  (And no, that's not his real name, but every time he spoke, I just wanted to ask him, "Can you say, 'seem seem sala-beem' just once?)  I explained how I've always put my stuff there, and it's even smaller now than it used to be, but he's having none of it.  When I ask him if there's another place I can stash it, he says, "Back in your truck."  Yes, gang, the guy in charge was a complete and total douchebag!  Pasting a smile on my face to conceal my outrage and taking a deep breath so I don't end up punching the idiot, I walked away and pulled my stuff out, stacking it neatly behind my rig.  Not the most attractive option, but I sure as shit wasn't going back out into the swirling toilet bowl that passes for Michigan weather, and there was nothing Hadji could say to me about it.

Then there was the chair... or rather, a lack of one.  While I don't use a chair when I perform, my roadie does, since there's long stretches of time where he does nothing more than keep my program log on a laptop.  Like me, John is an older guy, and he's also a BIG guy!  He can't stand nearly as long as I can... but then again, few people can.  In any case, we'd asked about three or four of the hall zombies, including Hadji, for a chair, and were told, "In a minute."  It took nearly 45!  Did we accidentally drop into a Star Trek movie and hit a time warp or something?  No, Hadji and his buddies were just making it clear: DJs are the lowest of the low, and unworthy of any respect.  We should be lucky to be allowed to breathe the same AIR as such as they!

To put a finer point on it, John had asked several times -- and again, several PEOPLE -- to bring us some silverware for dinner.  We include ourselves in the dinner count by contract -- the customer agrees to it in writing! -- because we often get involved in preparation and travel and can sometimes arrive at a gig having had nothing, including breakfast.  This was one of those days.  With plates of cooling hot foot on our table, another manager finally arrives with the silverware... three forks.  No knives, no spoons... and thinking nothing of handing three forks to TWO guys.  I know that managers don't have to be rocket scientists or anything, but that's some pretty piss-poor math!

The next insult was completely unexpected: the food was awful.  Simply wretched.  The beef made us miss the knives, because it was almost impossible to cut with the edge of our forks.  The meatballs were OK if you don't mind salt (and I don't, but my wife would've passed out from it), but the truly horrible things were the potatoes, which seemed to have the flavor of cleaning products mixed into them.  Even the pasta was rubbery, as if it had been made the day before.  I'd have suspected tampering if Johnny hadn't walked through the buffet line himself, taking food from the same servers that everyone else was using.  While the food at this venue had never been anything to make a cooking show around, it had always been good and filling.  Could my frustration and anger be coloring my other perceptions?

At the end of the night, the groom is pleased, shaking my hand and saying, "We're SO happy with you, Stu!  With all the crap that's happened today, you and the photographer were the best part of our day!"  That one negative word made my antennas go up; "Really?  What went wrong?"  "The hall, man!  These guys seemed like they didn't care about us at all!"  "I'm feelin' ya," I said.  No, it wasn't just me.  We were both one-day inhabitants of Planet Douche.

Yet as bad as all that was, at least I'm working.  It's no secret that this economy has kicked our industry square in the balls, and every DJ company is feeling the pinch.  Even if their numbers aren't down, then the amount of time and expense bringing in work is much higher than in days gone by.  So I count my blessings.  As the old saying goes, every dark cloud has an even darker, more sinister lining, and that lining is called... well, if you really want to know the location of Planet Douche, shoot me an e-mail and I'll spill.  Until next time, thanks for letting me control your eyeballs for a few!

While rooting around in a cabinet, I ran across an old hurricane glass from a nightclub I used to work in back in the '90s; "Wooly Bully's."  Seeing that old familiar logo brought back all kinds of memories.  Back when I first heard about the club in 1980, I'd been a professional DJ for less than a year.  The original bar, out on Hayes Road, seemed like a distant dream.  A few years later, as I approached my first decade in the business, a brand new feature appeared on Gratiot Avenue; a gigantic jukebox with a big sign out front that said, "Wooly Bully's Rock-N-Diner."  When I lost a job at another club, I sent out a flyer to all of the local entertainment venues alerting them to my availability, and the first one to call me was Wooly Bully's.

Everything about the place was a treat for the ear or the eye.  The awnings were keyboards, a pink Cadillac was hanging out over the entrance, as if it was flying by and crashed into the wall, and once you entered the place you were immediately surrounded by a museum of Rock & Roll artifacts.  Gold records, autographed guitars and drum heads, jackets and other clothing worn by various music legends were on every wall.  The bar itself was shaped like a giant guitar!  Dominating the front of the place was a huge, 12-foot "record" dancefloor (of what else -- Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs) and the front end of a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air that had been converted into a DJ booth.  Although it was cramped, I loved that little booth.  Over the years it would be my "office," and the scene of many a great night of music, dancing, drinking and debauchery.

The first guy I met was their head DJ, "Moose," who is better known around the Detroit area as the leader of the band, "Moose And Da Sharks."  All business, he outlined the rules n' philosophy, asked some questions and then asked me to step into the booth and play for a while.  He hired me on the spot, and that would be the last time I saw him.  Apparently he and the owner had a bit of a dispute going on, so finding and hiring me allowed him to make a smooth exit.  I should've paid attention to this detail, because it might have prepared me for what was to come.

The next person I met was the owner, Mark Roman.  On first impression, I really liked the guy.  He has an air of intensity and focus, coupled with a great sense of humor that immediately gives you the impression that you're working with a professional.  It was he who presented me with a copy of the "Wooly Bible," that outlined all of the duties of the DJ and what their policies were as to music and entertainment.  I took it home and studied it from cover to cover.  Before I worked my first day, I created a series of hot clocks -- radio graphics that detail what is played at which part of the hour, where announcements go and so forth.  The other DJs seemed pretty impressed.

The admiration would turn out to be mutual, because Wooly Bully's had one of the best DJ crews I'd ever worked with.  Their senior DJ was Bob Koske, a tall, rail-thin, blond man with a delivery reminiscent of a fast-talking Joey Bishop was a tour-de-force of musical trivia.  A rabid Beatles fan and collector, his musical tastes ran the gamut from Chubby Checker to Billie Holiday.  Because he worked with a local FM morning show, he always had a great story to tell whenever the DJ staff got together to set the schedule for the upcoming week.

Then there was Johnny Prince, a guy with curly dark hair whose face seldom didn't have a smile and was always ready to lend a hand or pitch-in whenever asked.  His thing was the blues, and he knew I was also a fan, so every time he'd be working and I walked in, he'd always toss in some special tune that he knew I'd either like or come running up to the booth to ask, "What is that?"

Another long-time Wooly Bully's vetran was "Rockin'" Rick, a UPS worker by day, skilled DJ by night, and full-time dead ringer for Elvis Presley.  Of all of the DJ staff, Rick was the guy with the ego.  But he definitely had the skills and knowledge that made him a perfect fit.

Finally there was Kevin, a young guy who sometimes wore headbands that made his resemblance to "The Karate Kid" even more obvious.  Another radio guy, he had been hired by local AM daytimer, WBRB, just after I had left, so we always had some good war stories to trade.

These guys were the central core of the club's entertainment, that ran seven days a week, two shifts per day except for Sunday.  This was a very rare situation for most nightclubs even back then, yet as DJs we often liked the "happy hour" shift even more than the evening one because you didn't have to worry so much about keeping people dancing, and could pull out those great old rare or obscure tunes that even radio seldom played anymore.  On occasion, they'd even have birthday parties, and the kids would arrive wearing poodle skirts and bobby socks and request songs by Elvis Presley.  I would joke with their parents that they were bringing up the next generation of Wooly Bully's customers!

One of the best parts of the job was that you never really knew what was going to happen on any given day.  The owner had a partner or associate of some kind who was able to work out deals to get various celebrities to stop by the bar and be presented with a "Heroes Of Rock" award that the owner had made up, not to mention all the free food and alcohol that they and their entourage could handle!  I hadn't been on the job for very long at all when I came face-to-face with Flo and Eddie of The Turtles.  Over the years I ran into The Contours, Martha Reeves, Carl Perkins, Wolfman Jack, Peter Frampton (whose extremely brief appearance became the fodder for many jokes afterward), Motor City legends The Rockets, Bob Seger and many more who escape my memory.  Very seldom did we have any advanced notice, with the exception of one Wayne Newton.  On that occasion, I made sure that I was not on duty and as far away from the club as possible.  As I thought, the place had been jam-packed and out of control!  That was the one night I was happy to let one of the other guys man the big red Chevy.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Over the years there were many squabbles and run-ins, both betweem the DJs and with the owner.  Of course, that's going to happen anywhere, but at Wooly Bully's it took on a whole new level of heat.  For instance, one day I came in early for my happy hour shift and ordered lunch before my show.  The waitress, a dark-haired beauty with the most clear, white skin I'd ever seen, giving her the appearance of a Japanese geisha, was handling my order and, as we chatted, the owner noticed that she had a stain on her shirt pocket where a pen had broken.  He ordered her to change her shirt.  When she said she didn't have another one with her, he demanded that she buy a new one.  Now, Roman was notoriously tight about handing out freebies, and after the first shirt he handed out upon hiring, the staff had to pay for any others.  He also paid the barest minimum in wages.  When the waitress said that she couldn't afford to buy another and would have to go home to change, he told her to go home and stay there -- fired her on the spot.  She and I looked at each other in stunned silence; she was one of the best waitresses in the club.

This became a pattern, the once jovial, friendly owner became more and more authoritarian and heavy-handed.  For a while my brother-in-law worked for him, both as a bouncer and as a personal assistant.  Eventually he got fired as well, although I forget the infraction.  It didn't matter.  When Mark was through with you, you were dismissed.

Despite the tensions, I stayed because of all of the great people who became my regulars.  There was the baseball team who always had to to their routine to "Kung-Fu Fighting," my cute little girl who could beat just about anyone doing the limbo, the insecure guy who spent a lot of his time and money on his appearance and stylish clothes only to be snubbed by the girl of his dreams, who also frequented the place.  Then there was the man who dropped nearly $500.00 in tips onto my turntable to impress his girlfriend!  That remains the biggest tip I've ever gotten.  There were my wild Canadians, the sisters who would hang upside-down in the go-go cages, my friends who would come up to celebrate their birthdays or anniversaries.

There were those very special moments, too.  The day I heard that Motown legend, Mary Wells, had passed away, I arrived for the evening shift with a set of three of her greatest hits.  I stepped into the booth, switched on the mic and said, "Tonight, I'm dedicating my show to the late, great Mary Wells," and started playing "My Guy."  A few moments later someone handed me a flyer.  It was advertising a candlelight vigil at the Hitsville U.S.A. building downtown.  Scrawled across it was a hand-written note.  "Thank you for your tribute.  I hope to see you there."  It was signed by Martha Reeves.  I didn't notice, but she and her entourage were seated in a corner booth.  That note meant a lot to me.

On a similar note, I was spinning on a rare weekend night and the place was jam-packed.  That day, I'd gotten word that the comedian, Sam Kinison, had passed away.  We were supposed to end the night with the bar's theme song, but that night I said, "Tonight, let's remember one of the greatest comedians who ever lived," and then played his version of "Wild Thing."  The place went nuts, and as I stepped out of the booth, several people were on their knees doing the "we're not worthy" bow.  That made my night, and still makes me feel ten feet tall whenever I think about it.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE, PART DEUX

As a Wooly Bully DJ, the music format was solid and almost automatic: we played '50's, '60's and '70s Rock & Roll, Motown and a touch of disco.  We could get creative by finding a rare gem that slipped by us, like the time I brought in a collection of the Dave Clark 5 that was extremely hard to get at the time.  Sometimes a new group would do a great re-make of an old song that we could drop in, so that the entire show didn't sound stale.  Yet these are very small tweaks, requiring so little attention that we were free to focus on the audience and our interaction with them.  Then the alternative craze hit, and our owner got the brilliant idea to have an alternative night.

I objected -- it just wasn't "Wooly Bully" music.  The owner insisted; alternative was the new trend, and our audience trended toward the mid-20's age range.  As a mobile DJ who kept current, I was tasked with running "alternative Wendnesdays."  For the next year, I had to explain to customers why they were hearing Elvis Costello instead of Elvis Presley.  The evening became quite a success, and I attracted some clientele away from a neighboring club who was also running an alternative night.  It was a nice change of pace for me personally, since I'm an alternative fan myself -- it's what I listen to when I'm at home alone.  Then, at the end of a Tuesday night DJ meeting, our fearless leader said, "Oh, by the way, no more alternative night."  Ended... just like that.

So I spent the better part of the following year explaining why Elvis Presley was back and The Cure were out.  My alternative fans disappeared, although a few loyal friends n' fans remained, but our Wednesdays were never the same.

At one time -- and for a very LONG time -- Wooly Bully's was THE place to be!  Wednesday through Saturday nights brought so many people into the little club that there was a line outside waiting to get in, and we'd be at capacity nearly all night!  Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays were less packed, but today might be an enviable attendance.  The only night I was ever sent home early was on a Sunday.  To me, it seemed like the crowds began to thin out just after the end of the alternative phase.

With attendance dipping and the senior DJ and I admonishing the owner to make good on his promise to give us a raise, he instead let us both go.  I wasn't unhappy, because I'd about had it, but I felt sorry for Bob, who had been there from the beginning.

I returned briefly a couple of times.  I was asked to take a single night, and because I have mobile DJ equipment, I was put in charge of their cruise nights out on the outdoor deck.  When the bar began making too many demands, I got a friend who is also a mobile to take my place.  I eased him in and eased myself out!  Everyone was happy.  On another occasion, one of the managers -- a great guy named Tim -- called to tell me that one of their DJs had walked out and asked me to fill in.  I did, and took a couple of nights afterward before spinning the final night.  It was a Thursday and I was sent home early.  How far the mighty had fallen!

In the end, the club was done in by mismanagement.  The owner had tried to sell one of his locations to undercover I.R.S. agents, not having the good sense to not explain his double-bookkeeping system.  Both he and his wife eventually went to jail and lost their ability to hold a liquor license.  The appearance of professionalism apparently had been just that: an appearance.

I drove by the place the other day, coming home from a wedding reception.  The club has gone into disrepair since it's sudden closure.  The giant guitar sign that stood out in front like a monument to Las Vegas is gone completely, weeds grow through the cracks in the parking lot and there's holes in the custom keyboard awnings.  Some are missing entirely.  A sloppy "For Sale" sign is fastened to the grill of the jukebox facade.  When I stumbled across the glass in my cabinet, reminiscing out loud here in my blog, I thought I'd take a moment to run "Wooly Bully's" through Google and see what might be out there on the web.  I found something interesting: Wooly Man Productions, Inc.

Apparently the owner is still grasping tentatively to the cash cow that was once Wooly Bully's by packaging the concept and trying to sell it as a franchise.  Further searches seem to reveal no takers, at least at present.  As much as I cherish the memories of that old place, I'm sad to say that the franchise idea is as ill-conceived as the botched sale.  The '50s are a half-century back in our past, and our fascination with them has not been passed on to the current club-hopping generation, most of whom have never seen an episode of "Happy Days," or know about the movie "American Graffiti."  An oldie to a 21-year-old is Nirvana's "Come As You Are" or most of Janet Jackson's catalog.  Wooly Bully's is a phenomenon that had an incredible run that, through very unique circumstances, allowed it to persist long after it should've been yesterday's news.  Because you can never go back, those cherished moments are all the more valuable to me and those who lived them with me.  As for Mr. Roman, I wish him and his family all the best, and these words of advice: create something new.

Okay, I know what this is going to look like.  We've all had these kind of discussions, usually following more than a couple of drinks at our favorite watering holes.  This one, however, came after several posts on a chat thread I subscribe to.  I simply got tired of the Obama bashing and armchair economic "experts" parroting media know-nothings.  So here, folks, is what I would do if I was handed GM or Ford to run as my own.  If anyone from the Big Three sees this and wants to give me a call, I guarantee that I'd be much less expensive than your current CEO!

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RE: "20/20" on ABC, Friday, April 10th, 2009.  Segment: "If I Only Had A Gun"

There are times when I've gone to a movie or turned on a television program knowing full well that I'd either be disappointed, but I've been pleasantly surprised on enough occasions that I tuned into this program thinking, 'maybe this won't be what I expect.'  It wasn't; it was far WORSE.

The segment's title reminded me of what Dr. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp said when she testified before the Texas legislature after having survived the infamous massacre at Luby's Cafeteria.  Because of Texas law, she left her handgun locked in her car when having lunch with her parents.  When the shooting broke out, she dove under her table.  She recollects having a great vantage point and reached for her purse to get her gun... but then remembered that she followed the law.  Now she was defenseless.  Due to her law-abiding nature, her parents didn't survive the attack.  She ran for a seat in the legislature afterward and made it her mission to improve the CCW laws in Texas.  She was successful.  All based on "If I only had a gun."

ABCs goal seems to be to discourage you from even THINKING such a thing!  They pull out all the stops, opening with 911 calls of accidental shootings of children.  Although such incidents are rare, this is obviously meant to rev-up emotions.  Then they toss in some fear, stating that "in a nation of 250 million guns..." as if it's the number that is at fault.  Wow... 250 million guns!  That's a pretty big number!  Yet the actual incidence of children finding and shooting themselves or a companion has dropped at the same time that gun sales have soared.  ABC doesn't bother to explain.  They just ask:  "Do your children know where your guns are?  Do they play with them when you're not there?  What do your teens REALLY do, even when they know guns are dangerous?"

Aside from the obvious attempt to creep viewers out (an old writer's trick), they obviously didn't talk to any responsible, gun owning parents.  They would answer: "Of COURSE my kids know where the guns are!  That way they can't stumble on them by surprise, and know to stay out of [where they're stored].  No, they do NOT play with them when I'm not there!  They've been trained and KNOW better.  Besides, if they did, the alarm from my gun safe would tell me that it was tampered with.  Yes, I know what my teens REALLY do.  They've had even MORE instruction."  See, keeping knowledge away from kids is never the solution.  We seem to treat guns the same way as we treat sex: spare the child's "innocence" and don't breach the subject!  Yet this is life and death.  Any child of mine would be familiar with guns from day one.  My mother taught me, and I've never had an accidental discharge, never shot anyone, never shot myself.  I never got arrested or drew a weapon in anger.  I had my first pistol when I was about 12 or 13.  I'm 51 now and I'm NOT atypical.  It's all about GOOD PARENTING.

Diane Sawyer and her crew then ask the question, "Could the average citizen really make a difference with a gun?"  Citing an unattributed "fact" that, over the past 10 years, over 130,000 of "us" have been killed by guns -- as if nobody was attached to the gun, pulling the trigger -- they move on to disprove the idea that a concealed weapon could have any effect in a shooting situation through a "series of experiments."  (When they introduce this segment, they flicker shots of recent mass shootings at schools and nursing homes, falsely equating legal CCW with such tragedies and / or implying that it didn't help in such situations, ignoring the fact that even legal CCW is prohibited on most school grounds and medical facilities.)  To add to this false implication, the very first official they cite is Jonathan Lowy, from the Brady Center (formerly known as "Handgun Control, Inc.", whose main mission is to ban guns and repeal or negate our 2nd Amendment rights.  He complains how Congress would "spring into action" if tainted peanut butter crackers killed as many people as guns do, yet they do nothing about them."  I won't nitpick the fact that, due to peanut allergies, many kids DO die from those evil crackers, but will only say that the legislature has already done all it CAN to prevent these shootings!

The single tool possessed by Congress to combat gun violence is making law.  Murder is already illegal.  Unless the state says otherwise, it is already illegal to carry a firearm without a license, which usually requires a background check and training.  It is also illegal to be armed on school property, again, unless the state says differently.  And that's the thing: criminals, by definition, break the law.  In the case of CCW, this places the law abiding at a disadvantage, just like Dr. Gratia-Hupp.

To offer some sort illusion of balance, they next quote Representative Steve King, who says that "we have responsible gun owners, and more make us safer."  Immediately they toss out the question: "What about promises to close 'loopholes' after Virginia Tech and Columbine?"  The implication being that he was lax and his statement is false.  They ignore some measures that were indeed taken in the wake of those shootings, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Next, they cite the following statistics, again unattributed:  In America there are 80 shootings a day, 2,500 per month, 30,000 per year.  Not taking issue with these numbers, which could easily be verified (or not) by a Google search, I would simply point out that everything looks large in aggregate.  These numbers undoubtedly include all drive-by gang shootings, bad drug deals, shootings by police and other criminal activity.  Licensed CCW permittees have an exemplary record of behavior -- even better than police!  It's not them causing the trouble.  But you're not given time to think this through before the disarming statement immediately following: "This is NOT a debate on the right to own a rifle, pistol, assault weapon...."  True, at least not directly.  But they just added one more boogeyman to the conversation: the dreaded "assault weapon."  In the minds of the non-shooting public, this conjures up images of that UZI and other machineguns that, except for rentals at a shooting range, are by and large prohibited to the general public.  In short, no real assault weapons are available to the general public!  They're more correctly called "assault STYLE weapons" -- semi-auto versions of M-16s, AK-47s, etc.  They're no more accurate, powerful or deadly than other, generally accepted firearms and hunting gear.  Yet the writers of 20/20 slipped that term in... why?  Ask yourself: why would they do that?  And in such a casual, offhanded manner?

So now comes the "experiment" designed to answer the question, "Can you really defend yourself with a gun?"  ABC got some instructors and local police to work with them, and designed their decidedly non-scientific experiment to show the folly of even trying!  First, they provided some basic firearms training that they claim is more than over half of the states that allow CCW requires.  Based on a real life classroom shooting, these students are then given a gun, loaded with special paintball ammunition, and told that they're "the only student" with a gun.  During the "class," armed men then suddenly break in, taking shots at the instructor and students.  The other students, made up of cops and ABC staff, then add to the confusion by acting as real people in a panic do.  Naturally these novice students fail, rather dramatically.  A voice-over then says that in such an incident, there's also a real risk of the bad guy taking the gun away from the victim!

This would have some pretty serious implications if it wasn't more full of holes than the student's oversized, bulky shirt.  Yes, the students not only were green, with no tactical training at all, but they were unaccustomed to the gun, holster and the clothes they were wearing!  The shirts were so long (to conceal the guns) that they SAT on them!  No CCW would let that happen.  Next, the "lecture" was conveniently on safety gear, and the shooting didn't happen until the students had a full-face mask and gloves on.  Now, I'm a pretty experienced shooter, but I'd have a hard time with a bulky paintball mask over my face, and the gloves would interfere with my finger from getting inside the trigger guard to fire my weapon.  In short, the experiment was seemingly set up to fail.  I'd love to see it repeated with some CCWs I know!  The show states: "even police say that handling a gun in a holster can be tricky."  The infamous internet clip of the cop who shot himself in the foot during a classroom demonstration was inserted to great effect, implying that citizens don't stand a chance if a cop can screw up like that!  Sawyer says, "How much more difficult is it for [student] Danielle?"  Lastly, I would point out that the bad guys in the experiment were the firearms instructors, so they also knew which students were armed, giving them an unfair advantage that real perps don't have.

Moving on, the program shows the effects of extreme situational stress on the body, something every CCW class also discusses.  The point seems to be that you'd be incapable of using a gun at all.  Sawyer is shown twice failing a police training scenario, and goes on to explain the extensive training that police use to instill "muscle memory" so that they'll properly react even when their body is under stress.  A cop being interviewed pooh-poohs the ability of the average citizen to achieve such training nirvana.  The reality, though, is that the average CCW permit holder spends much more time training than your average cop!  I know because I was told so by my instructor, himself a cop.  According to Jim Binder of the SAS group, most cops show up long enough to qualify (the barest minimum) and that's it.  Few are firearms enthusiasts, but see the gun as a tool for work.  They also seldom clean them, so if you're planning on any criminal behavior, do NOT get shot by a cops' linty, dusty, nasty bullet!  If the shot doesn't get you, the infection will!

Oh, and one more thing: most average citizens don't face the situation that Sawyer was training in (a traffic stop).  A better scenario would be a home break-in, but cops seldom face those!  The cop in the interview goes on to say that their training is a "perishable skill," and after 1 or 2 months, would be gone.  This, of course, is inconsistent with reality.  I haven't been on a bicycle for nearly 20 years, yet I can still do so.  I learned some tricks on roller skates that I can still perform on demand, even though I haven't had them on in nearly as many years.  I've trained with my holsters and I can present my weapon in under a second.  (From both my primary and back-up location!)  And I'm no pro.  I can't afford to even go to the range more than once a month!  I disagree: muscle memory does NOT have such a short shelf life.  Before the commercial break, one of the students who failed the test is heard to say, "There was no advantage to having a gun.  It might've made me more susceptible to getting shot!

DAVID MUIR: "Every 3rd house has a gun.  If you think yours is safe for your children, what about your neighbors?"  Yes, Muir wants you to be suspicious of gun owning neighbors!  He shows footage from a report done 10 years ago where kids found guns mixed in with toys.  Despite having seen an NRA gun safety video, they supposedly played with the guns they found.  And yes, this IS alarming, yet I would also suggest that the gun owner that allowed a weapon to be mixed in with TOYS is few and far between!  Such a thing would happen only under the grossest negligence.

Sticking with the kid theme, they again show a young boy, supported by his father, having fun shooting a rented UZI submachinegun.  Then they show him firing a full-auto AK.  This is a SET UP: the next picture is a young boy who lost control of the gun he was holding and killed himself at the same range.  I read the account when it first happened, and according to police, the range had a spotless safety record prior to the accident.  Both the child's father and a certified range instructor were present.  Details are sketchy, but something went extraordinarily wrong!  It hadn't happened before or since.  Shooting accidents at ranges are an extremely rare event indeed!  More people die in swimming pools than shooting ranges.  Yet the program stated: "Nearly every other day in America, a child is accidentally shot with a gun, at a gun range, a friends house or at home."  So this is a rather blatant lie, and in more ways than one!  In order to for that figure to be accurate, the term "children" must include all minors under 21!  So this includes teens, gang bangers and even military recruits, although the word "children" evokes images of babies and toddlers.  You can bet that this is done on purpose!

More emotional strings are pulled by an account of a teen who accidentally shot his best friend.  Of course he did it by aiming a gun at him and pulling the trigger!  He assumed it wasn't loaded, a basic violation of gun safety!  (Not to mention pointing it at him.)  He's been devastated and even suicidal.  Yet his marching band played for President Obama's inauguration!  THIS reveals the program's true target: asked what message he would give to the president, the still grieving teen said, "Lock them all up."  This will happen again...

After another break, we're introduced to 10-year-old Damon Weaver, an aspiring journalist who lives in a horrible neighborhood.  Save enough by day, he claims, at night the 'hood erupts in gunfire as the gangs and drug dealers do their thing.  There is ample footage of all the shooting victims and the program again cites "guns" as the cause, ignoring the gang bangers.  To me, that's called a gross oversight.  Again, via this child, the program asks a question of the President: "What are you going to do to help my town?"  A question of my own: how would a new law / ban stop the criminals that dominate it?

The centerpiece of the special, though, is the gun show segment!  ABC asked the brother of one of the victims of Virginia Tech to take $5,000.00 into a gun show and see what he could buy in an effort to see if guns are any harder to buy since the incident.  Before he even enters the show, a "private seller" approaches him and offers him a Glock pistol for $450.00.  What we're not told is that the seller had nothing to DO with the show!  He could've offered it in a classified ad, or hung around outside a regular gun store.  He was simply a regular guy selling a pistol and no doubt wanted a few more dollars than he could get from a licensed dealer.  This distinction isn't made: it's all part of the mythical "gun show loophole!"

A pertinent sidenote: The Virginia Tech shooter DID NOT BUY HIS WEAPONS FROM A GUN SHOW!  He got his from a regular dealer who had to run the mandatory background check.  Because mental health records weren't included in the database, he passed.  ABC called it "a breakdown of the system."  More accurately, it was an unfunded Bush mandate, and Virginia just couldn't afford the manpower to have all that data entered into the system!  What ABC ignored was that Congress, working with the NRA, passed the NICS Improvement Act, which fixed the oversight.

Back to our gun shopper, he went back in and proceeded to buy a bunch of rifles and shotguns.  It was an impressive enough group that a man passing by asked him if he had any .22's for sale, mistaking him for a dealer!  Our shopper explained that he bought them all easily, no questions asked.  No checks required!  This plays on the ignorance of the non-gun-owning public.  GLARING HOLE: he never purchased another handgun from a licensed dealer!  If he had, then he would've faced a NICS background check!  Yet most states don't require them for long guns and never have.  Is this possibly a good idea?  Perhaps, but both Columbine and Virginia Tech's shooters used handguns.  Those evil "assault style weapons" are seldom used in crimes because they're bulky, and therefore hard to conceal, and more expensive than a cheap handgun.

So, with all of this, ABC still yammered on and on about the mythical, non-existent "gun show loophole."  The most glaring outright LIE was when they stated that, according to the BATF, gun shows are "a major source of crime guns," but then backpeddle, saying that actual figures are sketchy.  They should've checked with their own John Stossel, who visited a prison and asked violent offenders where they got their guns.  NONE cited gun shows!  In fact, actual figures put crime guns from gun shows at less than .001%.  Yet ABC closes the segment with the statement, "Omar and some of the nation's mayors are asking that something be done about the assault weapons!"  Me thinks it's ABC doing the asking.

For the final segment, we return to footage from several video surveillance gunfights and are asked, "Have we learned any lessons on survival?"  So-called "experts" then suggest running away!  They pooh-pooh gun effectiveness (leaving me to wonder why cops would then bother with them) and suggest hiding, playing dead or leaving.  (Which didn't work so hot at Columbine.)  V/O: "Of course guns have been used to run off intruders, but..."  As Dr. Phil says, the word 'but' means, 'forget whatever I just said.'  "...police have another warning for the average citizen."  And that turns out to be that the average boob will shoot an innocent bystander, friend or family member if the time ever comes to defend himself.  While my CCW class drilled into our heads the fact that WE are responsible for our target and EVERYTHING BEHIND IT, this program used the possibility as another reason to fear ever touching a gun!  They again speak of the effects on the body, turning again to the scenes from their classroom experiment.  Sawyer says, "Ashley comes within inches of hitting another student!"  They toss-in an anecdotal story about a case of mistaken identity, which while sad because it is real, violated another basic safety rule: be certain of your target.  These were presented to show how bad the students were, how horrible things worked out for another, and how bad YOU would be.  It's not subtle, the message being "guns are useless for defense and dangerous to you and your kids."  Funny, but I know a great many gun owners, but never met anyone who lost a child to accidental gunfire.

At the close of the show, Muir and Sawyer say, "Oh, and if you're wondering where all the studies are about the effectiveness of guns used by ordinary Americans for self-defense, keep looking.  We couldn't find even one reliable study!  Those we could find were contradictory.  The CDC says that over a 10-year period, over 60,000 kids and young people have died from a gun.

This is an amazing admission from a professional journalist, since there have been a great many studies published over the years, some of which are in use by law enforcement!  Economist John R. Lott's book called "More Guns, Less Crime" shows, in great detail, how guns directly impact violent crime.  Other studies by Gary Kleck and David Mustard corroborate his conclusions.  Further, each month the NRA collects newspaper clippings from around the country and publishes them in their member magazine in a segment called "The Armed Citizen."  Each story details how someone successfully used a gun to stop an attack and save their lives, or those of their family.  Perhaps they could hire a few more interns to work the Google machine and find those studies and stories for themselves!  Depending on the study, defensive gun use in the U.S. happens between 800,000 and 2.5 million times each year, making their legal use between 3 and 6 times as often as their illegal use!  So while guns are misused, and we really do need to do what we can to prevent it, the cost-to-benefit ratio is undeniable.  Unless you're ABC news.

I can only describe the last few weeks as AMAZING.  Yea, I know -- it's an overused word these days, but it's the absolute best fit.  MBLV.09, also known as the Mobile Beat DJ Show & Conference was the first expo I've attended since 2003.  That alone is stunning; has it REALLY been six whole years?  Hard to wrap my head around the fact that I could've become the father of a toddler in school since I was last in Vegas!  Yet my memories are so clear; I left just before tragedy struck Seigfried & Roy -- I'd seen their tigers just days -- maybe hours -- before the attack.  I'd never been a fan, but it was impossible to ignore their signs / images seemingly everywhere!  That year I'd stayed at the Tropicana Hotel, across from the MGM Grand.  This year the conference, and our rooms, were at the opposite end of "the strip," at the Riviera.  (Why do they always add "Hotel & Casino" to their names?  Don't ALL the hotels on the strip have casinos?)  The Stratosphere looms over that end of the strip -- an awesome sight from just about any vantage point!

BACK TO THE POINT

Okay, okay, enough of the "touristy" stuff!  This year was also my very first time presenting a seminar for a major show!  I'd done some talks for some of my local DJ (and non-DJ) groups, but the Mobile Beat show is a HUGE departure -- the biggest DJ conference of the year.  I'd developed my seminar, called "Supplement Your DJ Income... WITH DJ INCOME!", based on my new book, "The Complete Disc Jockey."  So I had TWO debuts in one day!  Since my book details all of the options available to the aspiring or established DJ, and has come out during the biggest economic recession since The Great Depression, it seemed like an easy fit.  Not only are there options beyond weddings and radio, but there are all sorts of jobs in the periphery.  If a mobile DJ MUST take a day job, there's no reason to leave the industry.  I'd also prepared some material on preventing losses and saving money on expenses, but the first of many surprises was going to prevent me from getting to that...

I was originally told that my seminar was scheduled on Monday, February 16th, from 3:00 PM to 4:30.  I'd prepared enough material to cover the 90 minutes, and even cobbled together my very first Power Point presentation ever!  My buddy, colleague and frequent traveling companion, Lane O'Neill (who calls his company "Acclimated Sounds") brought his laptop computer and engineered the nuts-n-bolts of setting it all up.  When we first got there, though, the sign said that I had from 3:00 to 4:00!  So it looked like I'd have to talk fast!

And "fast" is a pretty good description of how it went.  Worried that I hadn't prepared enough to cover all the time, I added a whole section on DJ Security issues (that loss prevention I mentioned earlier) just in case I'd run short.  Well, I took the stage and began to talk, and it went by in a flash!  I'd only gotten through about half of the original material I'd prepared when everyone was telling me to wrap up!  Since I was the last speaker that day, I asked if I could roll over.  Given the green light, I ended up going for another 20 minutes -- nearly all of the time I originally thought I had.  At the end, I noticed that nobody had fallen asleep, I got a good amount of questions and comments, and, when all is said and done, I didn't suck!  In fact, I'd heard some of the organizers talking about having me back for next year.  I'd happily accept -- I had a total BLAST!!!  (Can you tell that I have zero stage fright?)  :D

CHANGING BACK TO CLARK KENT

After my presentation, I could take my place among the "just plain attendees" and enjoy the rest of the show.  The conferences were well attended and the dealer's room was surprisingly packed, considering the doom-n-gloom forcasts of the show's size.  While there was a dip in attendence, it wasn't near what anyone had speculated!  There were a ton of dealers, all sorts of great deals to be had and the freebies and give-aways flowed freely.  Both Lane and I spent far more money than either of us expected!  That could've been a problem had things worked out differently...

Once again my friends, Kathy & Jake, met us for some prowlin' around Vegas.  They like to vacation there often and really know their way around.  One morning they took us to a restaurant in "Paris" that, as Kathy put it, have the best Eggs Benedict on the strip.  She wasn't kidding!  Breakfast was great, although a bit comical: the waiter our "French" restaurant was an Asian guy named Chad.  Where else but Vegas?

Lane also had some friends meet him in Vegas; an extremely nice couple, Dave & Carol.  I'd actually met them before, when we all stood up in Lane's now undone wedding.  To describe Dave, Lane suggested thinking of what a love child might look like between Wolfman Jack and Grizzly Adams!  It fits, and he's got a very pleasant voice for DJ work to go with the image.  (Not at all like the Wolfman!)  Carol is one of those deceptively normal looking women that occasionally rips-off a comment, wisecrack or joke that you might miss if you're not paying attention.  She also has some formidable skills (or maybe just dumb luck) playing the penny slot machines!  She ended up making over $200.00 during the two times I saw her play.  Of course, it took her a while.  Once, while waiting for the guys with Carol, I was sitting at the machine right next to hers.  After tipping my room service maids, I had a single dollar bill in my pocket.  I put it into the machine and, on a single spin, turned it into nearly $10!  I'm no fool -- I immediately cashed out!

Jake had similar luck.  When we were walking through one casino, we stopped so that one of our gang could use the restroom and Jake beelined to a slot machine at the end of a nearby row.  He slapped the button, cracked a smile and came over to us with a $20 payout slip!  Another time, he got lucky even when he wasn't...

GAME ON!

We'd gone to one of the sports palaces in Vegas that was showing the Red Wings game for dinner.  Of course, Jake placed a bit on Detroit.  Of course, in Vegas, it's not enough to simply vote on who wins or loses, but you've got to guess the spread... over four games!!!  Jake had bet low, but the Wings had scored high.  "No biggie," Jake said, "It's only five bucks."  Well, it turned out that they had goofed, writing in his bet on the wrong side of the ledger: HE WON!  Needless to say, we were all in a great mood for the whole trip.

LIFE AFTER VEGAS

When we got home, we were beat.  We'd spent too much, and Lane, who had financed our little excursion and who I still owed a good chunk of change to, began to have a bit of "buyer's remorse," asking to be paid right away.  To my surprise, though, I had several deposits waiting for me when I got back home!  Two days later, a couple more came in!  So paying Lane Iand my spending boo-boo) wasn't going to be fatal.  Even better, my publisher managed to send me a box of my books in time for my local ADJA chapter meeting and sold almost all of them!  It's not often that I come home from these meetings with money -- it's usually the other way around!!!  Still, it was great to be square with Lane, see everyone at the chapter and share my "baby" with them.  Oh, and let me share it with YOU!  Just point your browser to:

www.completediscjockey.com/

Buy a stack for yourself and all your friends!  :)

While I'd been gone, another good friend of mine called.  She wanted advice on buying a gun!  It was a surprise, since I never knew she had an interest.  So the day after the ADJA meeting, I took her and all of my Glocks up to Double Action to let her try 'em out.  My buddy, Mitch, a colleague from the meeting joined us.  He brought his expensive Kimber 1911 pistol and also let my friend try it out.  Guess which one she liked best?  LOL!  Looks like my newbie friend is going to spend the better part of two grand on a Kimber!  Mitch should get a commission.

Meetings and deposits have continued to roll in, and I'm fighting off the "everything is back to normal" mindset.  It's nice to have some good things happening for a change, but the reality is that the economy isn't fixed, especially here in Michigan.  In any case, hopefully it won't be long before I have some sort of tally on the sales of my book, both at the show and online, to see what my summer is going to be like and what kind of projects I'll be able to tackle.

ONE LAST THING...

Some disturbing news from the music world: it looks as if INXS, one of my very favorite bands from the '80s and early '90s, have parted company with their new lead singer, JD Fortune.  This was a bit of a gut-punch around our place!  Janette and I have seen them several times in concert.  I'd picked JD as the winner from the very first show of "Rockstar: INXS," the global search / reality show they used to find their new lead after the death of Michael Hutchence, the original voice of the band.  This hit the fan when JD appeared on the Canadian version of "Entertainment Tonight" in tears, describing how he'd been unceremoneously dumped after a long silence.  When the band wrapped-up their tour, everyone went to their respective homes.  JD had bought into a Canadian bar that showcases up-and-coming talent and was also working on a solo project.  Busy with all of that, he didn't think much about not hearing from the band.  Across the ocean, the other members brought in a manager from their glory days, Chris Murphy, while preparing a brand new album with no input from JD.  Apparently Mr. Murphy isn't much of a JD fan and has said that he'd refuse to work with him even if the band decided to mend fences!  Truly a sad situation.  I have much less respect for the band and how they treated JD.  I have even MORE respect for JD after hearing his new project and how sophisticated it sounds!  His "Product Of The System" sounds like a mash-up of the White Stripes, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson and the best stuff from "Switch," the one and, for the time being, only INXS album featuring JD.

Where will all of this go?  Only time will tell.

So, in the meantime, be sure to look for JD's new album, entitled "Death of a Motivational Speaker" and pick up a copy.  (But only AFTER buying MY BOOK!)

Later...

In the extreme outside chance that anyone has been wondering why I haven't posted anything in my own blog, especially during the exciting events of recent months, I'll let you in on my secret:

MY NEW BOOK HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED!!!

Yes, in the immortal words of Mike Myers, "I'm as giddy as a little schoolgirl!"  I'm still waiting to wake up!!!

My book is called, "The Complete Disc Jockey," and if you've ever wondered what the heck I do for a living, or maybe even thought about taking the plunge yourself, then this is the book for you!  Working DJs will also like it, because it opens up many different possibilities that they might not have considered.  Here's what I mean...

A while back I wrote an article in Mobile Beat called "The Frill Is Gone," that spoke of how the wedding / mobile DJ industry was being impacted by the economic mess we're in.  While researching it, I was shocked to find that a good many of my DJ brethren (and sisterns!) have taken day jobs!  Even more alarming, most were jobs outside the industry!  One was selling insurance.  Another doing IT work.  Yet another was waiting tables at a not-so-fast-food joint.  I began to wonder WHY, because there are SO MANY places where DJs are found!

Coincidentally, at the same time I was pondering this, I was scanning my book shelf in search of an answer to another problem I was having.  I actually forget exactly what it was, but I do remember looking at my book shelf and thinking that there were a whole lot of books on radio.  I had a couple of good books on doing mobile DJ work.  (The one I went to consult was the landmark "Spinnin' 2000."  I noticed how dated it's information now is!)  What struck me is that there were NO books on being a roller rink DJ, none on doing car cruise work, none on spinning at the local pub, nothing on working in an ice arena, nor was there anything that addressed DJ work on a cruise ship.  The more I thought about it, the more of these areas of the DJ universe popped into my head.  And where was the book about them?  Where was the tome that would tie all of them together?

After a few moments on the web, I found out that if I wanted such a book, I'd have to write it myself!  Then it dawned on me: this is the answer!  This is the lifeline I need to toss out to my fellow DJs so they don't have to leave the industry!  I just HAD to get this out of my system and into print!

I approached my publisher with the idea and he immediately liked it.  In fact, he began to rattle off even MORE places that DJs work and I began to scribble notes!  That conversation sent me into some extensive research, I'll tell ya!  And now it has all come together -- my book is a reality and available NOW!  If you're interested, just go to:

http://mobilebeat.com/xcart/home.php

If you don't see my book right away, just click on the "bookstore" tab.

I'm SO excited about this book!  I've also been invited out to Las Vegas to present a seminar based on my book during the Mobile Beat Conferences and Expo.  It's called, "Supplement Your DJ Income... WITH DJ INCOME!"  I'll be presenting it on Monday, February 16th at the Riviera Hotel & Casino.  (And yes, copies of my book will be there as well!)  If you're in the neighborhood...

So that's where I've been, basically.  Since April of 2008 on through the Thanksgiving weekend in November, I've been working on my book.  I hope you'll forgive my absense in this space... as if anyone READS this -- LOL!  But if you DO pick up a copy, I promise you'll find something there that'll be of benefit and / or give you a laugh.

Oh, and another great reason to pick up a copy is because I need the money!  I mean... REALLY.  :D

Until next time...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  My goodness, I can't believe that it's been nearly FIVE MONTHS since I've written here!  Of course, my time has indeed been in pretty short supply.  I've had to spend more and more of it trying to drum-up business -- it's not easy staying afloat here in Michigan, land of the Moving Van!  Just today the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan leads the nation for the third year in a row in move-outs.  No surprise to those of us who remain.  Our market is shrinking and those that remain don't care to spend any money.  So far we've been able to stave-off anything too dire, but the future doesn't look too rosy.

Looks like the one shining moment of 2008 is going to be the election of America's first black president, not to mention the SMARTEST one in the past eight years!  I don't normally get too excited about elections, especially the presidential ones.  I can count on one hand the number of presidents I actively worked to elect.  The first was back in 1968.  I was just shy of 11 years old.  I couldn't vote, so I volunteered at the local Democratic Party HQ and went door-to-door for Hubert Humphrey, who was running against Richard Nixon.  Humphrey won our school's mock election.  My mother was undecided, so I got her to cast her vote for my candidate.  Sadly he lost.  Later on, when Watergate broke, I had the pleasure of saying "I told you so" to all of the people who chided me for my efforts.  After that, I was fairly ambivalent politically, although I did vote each and every time.  I just never got excited about a candidate until Bill Clinton came along.  That was the year when H. Ross Perot, the crazy businessman, decided to run.  While I liked the idea of having a successful businessman at the helm, Perot wasn't it.  When he spoke at the debates, it became clear to me that he was a guy who had just gotten cosmically lucky: he'd won the business lotto!  In many regards, he was crazy as a loon.

Clinton, though, was the real deal.  A Rhodes scholar, whip smart and charismatic; a perfect Democratic response to Ronald Reagan.  For the first time in decades, I was once again going door-to-door, working phones and campaigning for the Democrats.  This time Clinton won.

Anyone alive and aware during the '90s knows what happened; Clinton was outstanding when it came to the economy and the military, and generally did a good job, but his detractors -- neo-conservative Republicans mostly -- hated him with a passion and looked for anything and everything to hang him with.  And he gave them an opening with sexcapades.  It's hysterical that, throughout his campaign, both Clinton's friends and detractors compared him to JFK, my favorite president of childhood, yet when it came to his sexual proclivities, nobody said anything.  Yet he WAS much like Kennedy -- he loves the ladies and didn't mind a little fooling around on the side.  Unlike the administration and government of the '60s who worked hard to keep Kennedy's indiscretions off of the public's radar screen, the Republican lead Congress spent millions hounding Clinton and mercilessly parading things like BLOW JOBS before the American public.  The whole dog-n-pony show culminated in a totally partisan "impeachment" circus, making Congress look worse than Clinton!  Mean-spirited, petty, anti-sex curmudgeons, they made sure that Clinton, despite his many successes, would always be remembered for his wandering ways.

As much as I might like a politician, none have always been perfect.  For some reason, Clinton took an irrational, unconstitutional stance against the Second Amendment and the rights of Americans to own and use firearms.  Most famously, he ordered and signed the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which resulted in no measurable reduction of violent crime, yet created an underground of profiteering among arms dealers and making things harder for the law abiding.  Of course, that's always the case with most gun controls.  A famous bit of testimony was provided by Dr. Susanna Gratia-Hupp, who made an excellent argument against the ban and against restrictions on concealed carry.  SO excellent that I'm posting a link to it here.  It's well worth viewing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675&p

That was the bittersweet side of Clinton's reign.  after the Clinton presidentcy, none of the candidates who followed excieted me except for those from the Libertarian Party.  While I didn't actively work for them, my votes went to Harry Browne and Michael Badnarik.  Their outlook was the closest match to my own.  As we know, Bush ended up winning and became the worst president we've ever had, bar none.  From a multi-billion-dollar surplus to trillions and trillions in debt; from a thriving economy to massive job losses and the biggest drops since the Great Depression; from the best-equipped, best trained military in the world to a depleted, ill-equipped, overworked force deployed illegally and immorally for profit, vendetta or both, Bush ruined us, maybe to the point of no return.

Early on in the election, I was excieted by two candidates: Ron Paul, a former Libertarian running as a Republican, and Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois.  The former's view of the Constitution and role of government best matches my own.  The latter seemed to be the most intelligent, had a well considered PLAN and hit my major issues: Jobs, the economy, shutting down the Guananamo detention facility and ending torture as a public policy (another evil gift from the Bush people) and, above all, ending the WAR.  The war was and IS the biggest issue for me.  American lives are being squandered, and there is little to nothing purchased with their blood.  We haven't captured or killed the main terrorist responsible for 9/11, nor have we stopped his organization from mounting attacks elsewhere.  We haven't liberated the Iraqi people from anything except dependable power and sanitation.  We haven't even benefitted from all that OIL that the war was supposed to be for!  (By outright admission by the administration, no less!)

When my neighbor's boy came home in a body bag, the whole thing became far more real for me.  The war HAD to stop.  At any cost.  McCain said he'd keep it going for 100 years, if necessary, in order to "win."  Yet the definition of "winning" wasn't mentioned and maybe never existed.  Like an open-ended "war on terror," the war in Iraq could be justified in one way or another for decades.  It is bankrupting us; it is unsustainable.  We cannot -- and SHOULD not -- tolerate it.  Obama was the only choice.  Then there's jobs.  McCain didn't seem to have a plan.  Obama, early on, promised to end our involvement in NAFTA and GATT, which would stem the tide of outsourcing that plagues our job market.  While he hasn't given voice to that idea much since, his plan at least exists.  He also has better policies on energy and the environment, both of which are important to me.  (And the latter to most sportsmen!)

Yet Obama seems to share many of Clinton's views when it comes to guns and the Second Amendment.  This makes me wary despite the optimism and hope of everyone around me.  The only thing that keeps me from distress is Obama's background as a Constitutional scholar and his support for Heller in the recent court case in Washington DC that affirmed, once and for all, that the Second Amendment supported an INDIVIDUAL right to bear arms; that the "militia" mentioned is US.  Not the National Guard, which didn't exist when the amendment was written.  The colonial army and the minutemen were farmers, shopkeepers, blacksmiths -- just plain volunteer citizens -- who happened to own firearms.

The audacity of MY hope is that Obama is uninterested in making any more ineffective laws or restricting the rights of the law abiding (intentionally or unintentionally) because his hands are full trying to deal with the economy, our energy problems, jobs and the environment.  Yet the gun banners -- the Sara Bradys and her Million Minions, the VPC and the liars who intentionally confused the public on regular semi-auto guns vs. machine guns, the CeaseFire gang who don't really care about crime as much as taking away guns -- are all excieted and ramping-up their efforts to pass draconian laws restricting OUR rights to self-defense.  Dr. Gratia-Hupp's words once again become important and worthwhile to consider once again.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675&p

Also, I've adopted as my mission for 2009 the task of actually DOING something about violent crime!  Gun owners and firearms enthusiasts know how devastating a firearm can be.  One might think that groups intent on actually having an IMPACT on violent crime might want to work WITH them to come up with REAL SOLUTIONS without making things more dangerous for the law abiding.  But the NRA and the Brady Campaign aren't doing it.  It is up to US, people on BOTH SIDES of the issue to reach out to one another and do something effective!  In that spirit, I'll be shopping my series of articles around starting with this one.  I hope to see it published in as many mainstream publications as I can.  (A separate series is being aimed at firearms enthusiasts and activists.)  Knowledge is power, and we need to filter out the nonsense, use the true data at hand and promote strategies that WORK.  So, if you've got the time, enjoy my first article, with a title my wife invented...

The Conversation We’re NOT Having

A Dialogue About Guns, Crime, Fears and Solutions

By Stu Chisholm

 

I’m one of those guys who aren’t really into sports.  I didn’t play any in high school and took just enough gym class to meet the minimum required to pass.  (Only around 1994 did my wife and I acquire an interest in hockey, just in time to see the Red Wings start winning Stanley Cups for the first time since before I was born!)  My first cherished piece of sporting equipment came in the form of a .22 revolver that my mother bought me when I was about 12 or 13 and introduced me to target shooting.  In those days, it not only wasn’t a crime, but never raised an eyebrow.  She took the time to teach me safe gun handling habits that serve me well to this day.  Shooting has been the one and only sport I’m good at.  In fact, it had always been a recreational pursuit until much later on in my life when I got involved in a very high-profile line of work.  As a result, have had the occasional kook crawl out of the woodwork.  I decided it was time to take the necessary training and obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.  Thankfully, in the dozen or so years I’ve been doing so, I’ve never come anywhere near needing it.

 

In sharp contrast, my wife isn’t a shooter at all.  She’s never had any interest and, in fact, is a bit uneasy around firearms.  Beyond patiently and almost heroically learning how to clear my handguns and make them safe in case anything ever happens to me, she’s otherwise happy to ignore them.  (Although she does agree with my decision to carry.  I wouldn’t have pursued it without her consent.)

 

Besides being Red Wings fans, she and I are news junkies.  We have a nightly habit of pigging-out on various cable news programs during dinner and discussing them.  From time to time, as is inevitable, some horrible crime triggers a discussion about firearms and prompts my wife to ask me questions, since I’m the “gun guy” of the house.  She’s thoughtful, emotional and extremely intelligent, so when she asks me a question, I make a point of answering her as completely as I can.  If I don’t know something or am unsure of my facts, I’ll take the time to hit the Internet, or crack open one of the many books on firearms and firearm law that I have around the house.  The conclusion of these sessions often ends with her asking, “So why don’t I hear this stuff from anyone but you?”

 

That question at first left me at a loss.  For one thing, my wife is a cable television producer with a degree in broadcasting from Central Michigan University and I’m a professional disc jockey and part-time writer, which makes us both a part of the media.  Therefore, neither of us buys into the “liberal media” myth.  Sure, there are going to be plenty of liberal TV personalities and editors, yet there are arguably just as many of the conservative variety, too.  (The biggest explosion in talk radio and cable news has been in the conservative sector!)

 

I wasn’t at a loss for long, though, since it dawned on me to ask my media-savvy wife why SHE thought this information might be scarce.  It seemed to come easy for her; the national mainstream media has tough time constraints, ratings considerations and advertisers to appease.  Less spectacular stories of a grandmother thwarting a carjacking with her revolver get sidelined for bigger, more attention-grabbing pieces.  The old “if it bleeds, it leads” line isn’t a joke!  Combine that with the fact that news people don’t generally use or carry guns and don’t understand the culture, it sets up an automatic informational deficit.  In their haste to put together a story, they will often go to the wrong sources for their information.  Instead of experts, they find activists.

 

This leads to another, more insidious reason that the general public is deprived of a better, more balanced picture of the firearms issue: it has become politicized.  Somewhere in-between the time that my liberal mother, a life-long Democrat, gave me that pistol all those years ago and today, when Republicans lay sole claim to being the “pro-gun party,” gun use and ownership have become political lines in the sand for some.  TV news talking heads often yell past one another and zealous lobbyists, whose job it is to gin up support for their agendas, come off sounding radical.  Opinions become entrenched and activists take an “us vs. them” attitude, effectively shutting down any meaningful dialogue.

 

Luckily this doesn’t happen at home.  My wife and I both share an important common ground: we abhor violent crime.  So we can have a discussion, without any heat, and any jargon is kept to a minimum.  I try to take the same approach when talking to other non-gun-owners as well.  I look at it a lot like talking to people who don’t build and fly radio-controlled airplanes or don’t ride horses; they have some ideas about it, but in reality might know very little.  I find that most people want to learn more and will readily ask questions.  Answers prompt more questions, and soon you’ve built a dialogue that is far more edifying than any talking head cable TV show.

 

The first time this happened to me was one summer night when my local Representative, Sander Levin, decided to hold a “town hall meeting” close enough to my home that I couldn’t resist attending.  Looking around the hall, I noticed that there were more women than men, and there were also a lot of senior citizens in the group.  I decided to just sit and listen, as the biggest concern for most of the crowd was jobs, the worsening economy and Social Security.  Yet unknown to me, a gun rights activist was in the front row.  When it came time for Q&A, he took the Senator to task for some of his votes.  While I might’ve agreed with his sentiments, he made the mistake of using the term “anti-gun,” which prompted a woman sitting next to me to say, “Well, I’M anti-gun!”  This was an opening I couldn’t resist.

 

“Are you really anti-gun,” I asked, “meaning that you oppose a senior citizen from having protection in their own home or a divorcee with a restraining order against a bully ex-husband being able to have a gun, or would you more accurately describe yourself as anti-violence?”  A few people nearby heard us and turned their heads, expectantly waiting along with me as she considered her answer.  “Yes, I suppose that’s a better description.  I’m just sick of all the violence.”  I shook her hand and said, “So am I, and I’m an NRA member.”  She and our onlookers seemed genuinely surprised, and it touched-off a friendly side-conversation after the meeting that had more people gathering around me than the Senator!  There was no yelling, but some very sincere questions posed by people who, up until then, hadn’t thought much about firearms beyond the bad stuff they saw paraded by on the nightly news or in action movies.  A lot of them thanked me, shook hands and uttered words that were all too familiar: “Why haven’t I heard this anywhere else?”

 

It was that sincerity and open-minded inquisitiveness that struck me the most.  Whether you’re a member of the “Million Mom March” or the NRA, everyone wants their kids to be safe in school, their neighborhoods free of gangs and crime, and not feel like walking up to the corner store is a risk to life and limb.  That’s a huge patch of common ground!

 

In this spirit, I write these paragraphs to begin a process of sorts; a coming-together of our collective concerns and brainpower.  Political agendas must be set aside in favor of progress.  To have a real impact on violent crime, while at the same time preserving our hard-won rights and freedoms, we must focus on what works and dispel any false assumptions or misinformation that is readily supplied by those with other agendas.  We need to carefully distinguish between fact and opinion, and the impossible from the fanciful.  We need to acknowledge that the fears of both sides of the debate have merit: we are ALL responsible for the safety of our children and our neighborhoods.

 

Hopefully we’re all in agreement thus far.

 

The big disagreements seem to come from ideas on how to combat violent crime.  Let’s go through some of those ideas and consider their efficacy…

 

Although there are some 20,000 different laws on the books regulating firearms, from manufacture right on through shipping, advertising, sale, use and storage, there seems to be an idea among some groups that our gun laws are “lax” or lacking in some regard.  They call for more laws.  Yet when asked, those they suggest are either already on the books in some form making them redundant, or they might be impractical or even illegal.  Even if a great new law could be created, isn’t the definition of “criminal” that of someone who BREAKS the law?  Do gangs or the mentally ill stop their behavior because of what the law might say?

 

Obviously they do not.  Good laws do have their place, of course.  They can give police and prosecutors the tools they need to catch, convict and jail violent offenders.  Penalties for committing a shooting or other assault should be harsh enough to both give the rational person pause and the criminal a good, long and perhaps permanent stay behind bars.  Still, we need to face the fact that laws have their limitations, one of them being that they cannot prevent a crime.

 

Another common idea is to “get rid of the guns.”  After all, there can be no shootings if there are no guns, right?  It seems simple!  Yes; too simple to be true.  The U.S. Census bureau reports that there are about 150 million cell phone subscribers (as of 2003).  The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that as of 2005, there are 62 million registered vehicles on U.S. roads, along with another 6.4 million that aren’t registered, for a grand total of just over 68 million.  In comparison, it is estimated that there are some 200 million guns in circulation in the United States, or nearly one for every other American household!  Not only is it very hard for the average person to truly comprehend such a number, but also reveals the immensity of the undertaking.  By sheer number alone, guns would be nearly impossible to totally cleanse ourselves of!

 

It’s also not a completely desirable idea when all things are considered.  For instance, if a new law was suddenly enacted requiring everyone to turn in their guns, those who follow the law would then be completely disarmed.  Criminals, who are predisposed to ignore or flaunt the law, would keep their weapons and thus be given the upper hand -- a very dangerous unintended consequence!  We have laws that outright ban illegal drugs, but those laws have had the consequence of creating an underground.  Just as in the days of prohibition when alcohol created wealthy criminal empires, drugs are doing the same today for drug lords and cartels.  Despite some very harsh laws, drugs are cheap and readily available.  What makes anyone think that the same wouldn’t be true if guns were banned?

 

Hunting and the shooting sports are also a multi-billion-dollar industry.  It employs thousands of people and the sale of hunting licenses pours a lot of money into state coffers.  Sportsmen and women fund most of our state parks.  Given the current state of our economy, such a ban would only make economic matters worse.

 

Another thing to consider are those guns that are in use by our police and security professionals.  It would be all but impossible for them to do their jobs effectively without firearms, yet they can be (and are) stolen.  Even our own FBI famously lost several fully automatic machineguns!  The bottom line is that firearms do have a vital and necessary place in our society, and those very supply lines can be vulnerable to criminals.

 

In this light, “getting rid of all of the guns” becomes all but impossible and not at all practical if it was.  (And all of this is aside from arguments about Constitutional rights and freedoms.)

 

From the opposite angle, there is good evidence that guns in the hands of law abiding private citizens, as well as legal concealed carry, actually reduces crime.  This is why so many states have enacted concealed carry laws in recent years.  The first state to enact what is known as “shall issue” concealed carry was Florida in 1987, in response to rampant crime.  “Shall issue” means that a state or county gun board cannot arbitrarily deny a law-abiding citizen a permit as long as that citizen passes an FBI background check and meets all of the training requirements.  This check is far more extensive than the NICS (National Instant Check System) check used for simply purchasing a gun.  The result was a resounding success!  Crime rates dropped with record speed.  Also, in all of the news accounts of crimes involving firearms, very few involve those who are legally licensed.

 

Not long ago, ABC News reporter, John Stossell, interviewed prisoners who were convicted of so-called “gun crimes.”  They admitted that they had little fear of police or the law.  Their biggest fear was meeting an armed homeowner or victim.

 

One more fact that we can all be thankful for: military weapons aside, the vast majority of guns go from factory to scrap heap without ever being used to commit a crime.  A good thing, considering how many there are!  So unless you’re a hoplophobe (a person with an irrational fear of guns), then guns in the hands of peaceful citizens should never be viewed as a problem.

 

In our continued search for ideas to combat crime, another often mentioned concept is “safe storage” for firearms.  That seems like good, common sense thinking at first glance.  Shouldn’t people, especially parents, make sure that their guns aren’t accessible to children or thieves?  Of course!  I’ve never heard an argument against the spirit of this idea.  What bothers many gun owners is that, when “safe storage” is codified into law and made mandatory, it often requires that all guns be unloaded and even disassembled, and then locked up with a trigger lock or inside a safe, making them inaccessible in an emergency!  If a homeowner hears a window shatter in the middle of the night, he can’t ask the burglar to wait while they unlock, reassemble and load their weapon!

 

This is one of those things that fall under personal responsibility.  Just as when you get behind the wheel of a car, owning and using a gun comes with great responsibility.  Parents wouldn’t hand their eight-year-old the keys to the family car, and they should never allow their children to access their guns.  I know of no state that allows children to be endangered, so as with the “more laws” idea, there seems to be sufficient legal coverage already, making so-called “safe storage” laws redundant.  Further, there are many options available to home/gun owners that will allow for quick access to their firearms while keeping them secure, such as a quick access safe that can be opened in total darkness in under a second by either tapping in a special code or placing one’s finger on a fingerprint reader.  With the falling price of electronics, the cost of such high-tech safes isn’t usually a barrier for most people anymore.

 

The fact is that the majority of responsible gun owners already do such things.  Statistics show that accidents involving guns and kids are few and far between, regardless of what the number of cautionary advertisements might make you think.  There has been some confusion on this point due to the definition of “children” used in some reports, sometimes deceptively.  For instance, when you say “children,” the mind’s eye usually pictures kids from infants to 12, 13 or 14 years old, yet some studies include adolescents on up to everyone under age 21!  In the former group, death by gunfire is extremely rare.  When you add teenagers and young adults, an age group more prone to risky behavior, being involved in gangs and drugs (both buying and selling), not to mention that this is also the time where suicide rates tend to spike, the number is greatly inflated.  Activists and political groups “spin” this to their advantage.  A good example: the Peace Alliance, who states that 12 children die each day from gun violence, which includes “children” up to 24 years of age!  So the overall truth is that, yes, parents need to do everything they can to keep their guns away from their kids, and all gun owners need to take reasonable precautions against theft, but new laws are unnecessary and the reality doesn’t merit the hype.

 

Continuing down the list, in the wake of the election of Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress, it wasn’t long before some groups began clamoring for the renewal of the “Assault Weapons ban” that was enacted during the Clinton administration and expired in 2004.  When I expressed my disgust at the idea, my wife of 23 years said, “Well, this may be one area where we part company.  I don’t see why anyone needs an assault weapon.”  It suddenly dawned on me that this was one more conversation we didn’t have!

 

So I expanded our dialogue by asking her if she knew what an assault weapon is.  Just like most people, she thought it was a machine gun, or select fire weapon like those in use by our soldiers in Iraq.  She was pretty surprised that the ban didn’t cover any of those!  In fact, the term “assault weapon” didn’t exist within the law until the ban legislation was being crafted.  The term is a variation of “assault rifle,” used by the military and has been attributed to gun control activist Josh Sugarman, who said, “The weapon’s menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to BE a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”  This is the political angle I mentioned earlier: tricks used to confuse rather than to shed light, hoping to gain public support and circumvent the losses handed to them in the courts.

 

Bringing some true light to the subject, I explained to my wife how my own one-and-only rifle, which I won at a chili cook-off and is a familiar sight around our home, was considered an “assault weapon” by some simply due to its cosmetic features.  It is a semi-automatic version of an AK-47, a favorite boogeyman of the gun ban crowd and a design familiar to anyone watching coverage of the Iraq war.  Yet it was actually “sporterized” during the Clinton years, complying with the law of the time.  It’s not even considered powerful enough to hunt deer with by my friends who hunt!

 

Similarly, all of the banned weapons were actually no more deadly, accurate or powerful than the legal versions.  Larger (harder to hide) and often more expensive than cheap handguns, they’re also rarely ever used to commit crimes.  In order to get the ban passed through Congress, the “sunset” provision was built in.  The Clinton administration also commissioned a study by the DOJ to document the effectiveness of the ban, so that when it came up for reauthorization, Congress would have some hard data for guidance.  The ban was allowed to sunset, due in no small part to the study’s summation that there was “no clear effect” on crime.

 

True machine guns have been illegal for the average person to own since the 1930s, so the whole issue was obviously a ploy by gun ban groups intent on getting one step closer to their goal.  It wasn’t about crime at all.

 

“Okay, Stu,” you might be saying at this point, “You’ve told us what doesn’t work against violent crime, but what does?”

 

My main answer, as I hinted at above, is to not fear guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.  Study after study confirms that where gun ownership is high, crime is low.  Where concealed carry is permitted, assault, rape and murder are also low!  The data was enough to convince the legislatures of 39 states to enact “shall issue” concealed carry and 48 states overall to have some form of legal CCW.  Gun ban groups try to scare people by warning them of the “hidden guns” on the people around them, but they neglect to mention the background checks and training that these people have had, and that they’re an overall benefit to society, providing a deterrent effect that makes everyone safer.  But it’s not for everyone.

 

One original idea that I came up with was born from another faux problem: the so-called “gun show loophole.”  Whether they’re well meaning or just posturing, politicians have made a lot of noise about criminals and even terrorists buying guns at gun shows even though there’s scant evidence that this happens.  Just attending a gun show once will put those fears to rest.  For one thing, all of the licensed dealers at the shows have to treat each transaction as if it was done right from their store, and that means a background check – no exceptions!  For this reason, criminals seldom frequent gun shows.

 

What’s really going on is that many of these politicians are trying to shut down private sales.  Imagine, for example, that you have a gun you’d like to sell.  You could take it to the show and sell it to a licensed dealer.  Before the deal is closed, though, another attendee steps up and offers you more for your gun than the dealer.  You’re as free to sell it to him/her in a private transaction at the show as you are to sell it out in the parking lot or in your own home.  Such meetings between buyers and sellers happen at many places besides gun shows, such as online forums, classified ads, shooting clubs and bulletin boards.  If reducing crime was truly their focus, it seems to me that legislators would cast a wider net!  With that idea in mind, my “big idea” is to open up the NICS system to private sellers.  Currently only FFLs (Federal Firearms Licensed dealers) can access the system and private citizens are barred due to privacy issues, not to mention that a ton of people accessing the system all at once would cause a collapse!  I suggest making it a one-time permit process, which would require the seller to log in their information as well, to safeguard against abuse.  This would let sellers know whether or not they’re selling to a prohibited person.  It would have one more added benefit: identifying illegal, unlicensed, high-volume dealers.  A person who sells a lot of weapons over the course of a year will stand out from someone who sells a gun here and there or even a whole collection.  I see it as a total win-win situation.

 

Speaking of NICS, a few years back, a relative of mine who is not only a wonderful woman, but one who had once dated a police officer, was comfortable around firearms and was even an excellent shot asked me a question.  As gun-savvy as she was, she was in favor of the old five-day waiting period, and her question was, “Why the hurry?  What possible reason does anyone have to not wait a few days for a gun?”  The logic behind the notion of a waiting period was that if, in a fit of anger, one headed off to the local gun shop intent on murder, there would be a “cooling off” period.  With no real data or experience to draw from, most people thought that it was an excellent idea.  So many did so that, in fact, it was the law until the computerized NICS system was unveiled.

 

Still, the words of Martin Luther King Jr. kept running through my mind: “A right delayed is a right denied.”  Knowing that many of the old prohibitions on guns were, at one time, meant to keep black men and women disarmed and defenseless, I decided to dig a bit deeper into the notion and find out the facts; I needed hard data.  Once again the Internet came to my rescue.

 

According to statistics from the ATF, the average age of a recovered “crime gun” is six years old.  This means that people who buy a gun and instantly use it in a crime are a rarity.  Even so, that didn’t strike me as a very satisfying answer to that question.  Even a seasoned shooter, like my relative, is tempted to say, “It might cause a little inconvenience, but if it saves one life…”  With no other supporting rationale, even I’d be tempted to agree!

 

So I began to consider the idea from the opposite end: could such a law actually put lives in danger?  Incredibly, the answer seems to be yes!  Soon after the federal waiting period was implemented, reports of women being killed during rancorous divorce proceedings began to arise.  In fear of their former spouse and unable to move for one reason or another, they attempted to purchase a firearm and were murdered during the waiting period.  What was even more alarming to me was the frequency with which this happened!  Most of the time these women had protection orders against their soon-to-be former spouse, but they were nothing more than a piece of paper designed to give a false sense of security.  I began to imagine other scenarios where one might be able to see trouble coming and be unable to avoid it, but such instances are less well documented than divorce proceedings.  In an effort to make things safer, the waiting period turned out to be one more in a long line of failed safeguards with unintended consequences.

 

Thankfully the waiting period was replaced by NICS, as I mentioned previously, which is a computerized database of convicted felons and other people who are prohibited by law from legally owning or possessing a firearm.  While it won’t stop a determined criminal from getting their hands on a weapon, it will shut them out from legal sources.  Even though some extremists on both sides weren’t happy with the idea, it has shown its efficacy over time.

 

It hasn’t been perfect.  The Virginia Tech shooting was a shocking wake-up call that revealed a big, man-made flaw in the system: a mental patient who should have failed the check was able to buy a gun because funding wasn’t included when the law was passed to include the records of dangerous mental patients.  The shortcoming has since been corrected, but the maddening thing was that it was predictable and unnecessary.  It was a sad side effect of people playing politics with a very serious issue.  To the surprise of everyone but its members, the NRA knew that Congress was going to try to correct the error, so they stepped-in, getting together with congressional leaders to craft some improvements to correct the mistake.

 

In the end, though, I finally had the answer my in-law asked me for: there seems to be no basis in fact that a waiting period saves lives and, in fact, the evidence shows it to be dangerous.  This aspect turned out to be satisfying to my in-law as well, since she’s a supporter of Planned Parenthood and a local women’s shelter.  Scratch one more item off of our list!

 

Keep in mind that this list barely dents the surface and that the items that are effective against crime are only single pieces of a very big puzzle.  What we as a people really need to do is to concentrate on the root causes of violent crime.  (Note that I don’t normally say, “gun crime,” since any violence is horrible, and if a person is killed by someone wielding a knife or crowbar, they’re just as dead.)  Many other countries have high gun ownership, yet they enjoy a much lower incidence of shooting crimes.  We need to look at what they’re doing right and what we may be doing wrong.  Yes, it’s a bit more nebulous, with many facets to explore and no quick fixes, but with a real discussion, absent the politricks, rhetoric and outside agendas, we can avoid the wild goose chases of the past and make our future a much brighter, safer place for all without depriving hunters and sportsmen or people concerned with self-protection of their firearms.

 

Discussions are two-way, so this means YOU!  I didn’t set out to write just another article; I’d like it to be a continuing series and a mission all in one.  So let me hear from you!  Send your ideas, thoughts, comments, criticisms and other remarks to: DJStuCrew@gmail.com.  I may not respond to every single one, but I promise to personally read them all and reflect your views and sentiments in upcoming installments.  Until then, have a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous 2009!

 

 

TIME FOR ROUND #2!

For the second time in recent weeks, I'm happily watching my favorite news infotainment program, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," when he insulted me.  Personally.  Now, the last time he just demonstrated a shocking ignorance of the Constitution and the meaning of the term, "Militia."  I often give people the benefit of the doubt on that one, as it's not something the average person thinks about, nor is it generally taught in schools.  I can even forgive him the gross error of not calling his good buddy, Jonathan Turley, a Constitutional scholar he often taps for his expertise on other topics.  (He's have been greatly surprised by what Mr. Turley would've had to say on the topic of the Second Amendment!)

But this time, Keith took off his objective newscaster's mask and revealed the partisan ugliness beneath.  My letter to him best explains it...
No, there was no reply, and I'm not expecting one.  And that's the sad part.  When I wrote him the first time, I actually thought he might reply.  I thought he had that kind of integrity -- a concern about what his viewers might think.  But the silence has been stunning.  And revealing.  It is a sad day when someone you respect drops down a couple of notches due to their own behavior.  It's almost the feeling of being dumped; you're left with all kinds of questions and no answers.

Yet I am unwilling to just shut up and go away.  Just as Keith takes on Bill-O for his insane prattle, I'm not letting up this time.  He's called me out on a very personal level; he's both insulted and accused me in a single sentence.  The gloves are off!  I'll see you in the media, Keith!  Be sure of it.

Here's a question or two for ya: how would you like it if someone presented themselves as an expert in your industry on TV and then told people not to hire you or your company?  Well, that's exactly what happened to me.

Over on MyFox.com, the following appeared on their Chicago outlet:
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=6836578&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=5.2.1

(Note: I have no idea how long this might remain up.)

In this show, self-appointed wedding "expert" Jenny Lefcourt gives an interview on saving money on a wedding reception.  Since she herself owns a photography company (Bella Pictures), she's emphatic on the importance of the wedding photography!  Well DUH!  She's not going to tell viewers how digital cameras cost less than half of what an average photo album costs, and how anyone with a computer and PhotoShop can create decent pictures.  She won't tell people how some couples have placed disposable cameras on their tables so that wedding guests can capture all of the action from their own viewpoint and they'll have literally hundreds of candid pictures of their wedding!  Oh, no!  And truth be told, the photos wouldn't be as good as a professional photographer's.  But here's another question for any married readers: how many times have you looked over your wedding album?  In the past 23 years since my wedding, I think I've brought the album out three or four times.  I remember once it was to show a couple I was consulting with how a professional album might look!  The same is true for our video.  We've watched it maybe twice.

So what sage advice does she give to save money?  "Dump the band or DJ," she says!  Get an iPod and put together your own fantastic mix!  Uh huh... and how do we determine "fantastic?"  No really -- I'd like to know!  I've been a DJ for 29 years now, and still don't have a formula that ALL crowds would consider "fantastic!"  Help me, oh great wedding expert!

Seriously, I was forced to address this head-on.  First I wrote Jenny at her weddingchannel.com e-mail address.  I also posted both a comment and blog on MyFox, Chicago.  (I'm not all that confident they'll leave THOSE up either, but they're there as I write this.)  Here is what I posted:

In response to the weddingchannel.com's Jenny Lefcourt, this so-called "expert" failed to mention the biggest money-wasters of every wedding!  How about chair covers, cheese or veggie platters, ice sculptures or personalized chocolate bars?  These are all things that nobody would notice if they weren't there.  But you sure would notice if there was NO FOOD!  And it's just as glaring if there's NO ENTERTAINMENT!

As a mobile DJ for the past 29 years, I've got to tell prospective brides that the DJ is THE most important part of your reception!  Quite often, there is no other coordinator between the caterer, photographer and wedding party.  I am responsible for all announcements and introductions, and making sure that everything goes off on time.  Think an iPod can do that?

Yes, that other stuff is nice.  It is just not VITAL.  If you're on a budget, it is a HUGE mistake to spend $3.50 per chair for a cover that won't even appear in most pictures (and times 200 people is $700 wasted dollars) yet skimp on the entire other HALF of the reception.  Yes, I'm biased, but I'm honest, and far more of an expert than Ms. Lefcourt

Let's think about these one-by-one.  If you were to arrive at a friend's wedding, would you be miffed if there wasn't a veggie tray at the door?  Would you even expect such a thing?  No, most people don't.  Yet the cheapest I've seen these offered for is $3.25 per person.  You'll therefore waste $650 for something nobody wants or expects.

How about that ice sculpture?  Looks nice, eh?  Yet there's nobody in the back of the kitchen with a chansaw sculpting you a masterpiece on your wedding day.  it's a MOLD.  In other words, a BIG ICE CUBE.  An ice cube they'll charge you $75.00 or more for!  And if they set it up an hour before dinner, it might be unrecognizable by the time dinner is served.  Don't waste your money on ice.

Those customized chocolate bars are great looking, aren't they?  Your pictures and the wedding date on the outside... and your guests can take them home as a keepsake!  Yea, right.  First, your female friends are all trying to stay thin anyway, so they'll either "accidentally" leave them behind, or curse you as they cram the chocolate in their faces at home.  Second, I've never seen these offered for under three bucks.  Yet you can buy Hershey's plain chocolate bars by the box for about 50 cents each.  You can find the self-adhesive candy bar wrappers online for pennies a piece.  If you're dead set on having these, then order both, make your own label on your inkjet printer and wrap 'em yourself.  You'll save over two bucks a bar.

And if those things aren't even there, you'll still be just as married the morning after your reception.  Your friends might be buzzing about how wonderful it was... but it won't be due to the veggie tray, ice sculpture, chair covers, flowers or take-home goodies.  It will be the EXPERIENCE.  And that takes a good band or DJ to provide.  Now, that's not to say that there aren't bad entertainers!  But even a mediocre band or DJ is better than none.  You can take steps to book a great one by talking to friends, relatives and co-workers who have had a wedding.  Word of mouth is the BEST gauge of a good performer.  You can also check with the ADJA (American Disc Jockey Association).  They can point you to a good entertainer in your area.  Other things to look for:

1. References.  Any good entertainer will provide them.  Actually CALL a few!
2. Experience.  How long have they personally been entertaining?
3. Make an appointment to MEET your DJ!  Some multi-operators have several.  If you don't get along well before the wedding, chances are good that you won't get along during the wedding!  Take your time here and hire someone you "click" with.
4. A money back guarantee.  The best entertainers will give you one, in writing!
5. Insured and licensed.  Some states and cities require REAL businesses to be licensed.  Even when they don't, any good entertainer will have at least a basic liability insurance policy.  Why is this important?  You'll find out fast if the band rolls an equipment rack into a door jamb and takes a chunk out of it!

If you are planning a wedding and would like some personalized help, you can e-mail me at: DJStuCrew@gmail.com, or visit my website at www.DJStu.com.  In the meantime, I wish you a very happy wedding day!.
**********************************************************

One last thing: during the interview, Ms. Lefcourt said that she'd gotten into the wedding consulting business after doing her own wedding.  So guess what?  She's not a REAL expert!  She's a former bride who thinks she knows it all after having done one successful event!  Now I know that some brides gather a whole lot of information when they're putting together their "big day," and that experience is the best teacher.  But c'mon now... an expert?  I'd want to see tens, or maybe hundreds of events under one's belt before they deserve the title of "expert."  Or maybe some kind of credentials, like a college degree in wedding planning.  But, see, there aren't any.  (At least none that I know of!)  Jenny simply doesn't deserve the title.  In fact, I'd put my expertise up against hers any day.

So beware of the false experts.  Beware of bad advice.  There were no weapons of mass destruction and there are NO accounts of a truly successful iPod-powered wedding reception!

In the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court clarification on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment and subsequent upholding of a lower court decision that declared Washington DC's total ban on the possession of handguns or any functional firearm in the home for self-defense unconstitutional, the reaction from the liberal corners of the media is predictable.  This is, after all, one of those issues that, for some unknown reason, has been politicized.  The right spews their venom toward anyone who brings up climate change, yet it is going to harm both Democrats and Republicans alike.  Hell, it may, in fact, be MORE harmful to Republicans since they're the party of wealth and therefore have more beach-front property!  And many left-wingers get up every morning, brush their teeth, get dressed, put on their shoes and hurry out the door each day with the goal of making illegal their right to keep and bear arms.  Although they don't see it that way; their view is that guns are somehow responsible for crimes and need to be banned!  Seldom do they get the faulty logic of this premise, even when you run silly, made-up terms by them like "senseless crowbar crime" or "tragic car crime" when the news reports the misuse of those objects.  Yet these are based on all the "senseless gun crime" we hear so much about, as if gun crimes are any worse, or somehow special, when compared to other crimes.

Usually above the fray over at MSNBC is Keith Olbermann, who presides over his daily "Countdown" program.  For my wife and I, it's daily appointment TV.  Sure Keith tends to lean to the left, sometimes a great deal, but even so, he has always tried to be fair and, in fact, has publicly apologized then he's caught his own errors.  He'll call a left-wing politician on the carpet just as readily as a right-wing one if and when they dearly deserve it.  In short, he's usually fair.

But yesterday (6/26/08) he blew it, and blew it in a very big way.  He succumbed to the partisanship that swirls around the issue of the Second Amendment by tossing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia under the bus for his part in upholding the Second Amendment as an individual right -- the CORRECT interpretation regardless of the partisanship of whoever makes it.  And Keith would know that if he'd simply taken a few moments to study the history behind the Second Amendment, why it was written the way it was and why it is still relevant today.

But before getting to that, I'd like to remind Keith that Scalia didn't make this call on his own!  And in truth, nor did his buddies on the Supreme Court bench who voted WITH him!  Lest we forget, they were hearing the case because a LOWER court had previously overturned the ban on Constitutional grounds, and the Mayor of DC simply couldn't take "no" for an answer!  There's also plenty of case law, including the recent Emerson decision, that has constantly reaffirmed the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment.  So Scalia, and the Supreme Court itself is far from alone!  As loathsome as he sometimes is, Scalia is right this time around.

Apparently Keith got hung-up on the first half of the Second Amendment, thinking that Scalia and Co. have tossed-out or ignored the "militia" clause.  Not only isn't this true, but even his oft appearing buddy, Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, disagrees with Keith on this!  See, Keith, the word "militia" as used in the Second Amendment means an armed citizenry.  The logic being that a standing army might not even be necessary if all of the people are themselves armed!  And when a standing army was installed anyway, it still didn't negate the natural right that we humans have to protect ourselves, both collectively if called to do so by our state authorities to individually, being legally able to fend off the armed rapist, mugger or carjacker.  There's no "fog" about the term "militia" except, maybe, in your understanding of it!  After all, isn't the idea of an amendment to say that the ARMY can be armed silly on it's face?  I mean really -- THE ARMY???

If I took none of this into account, I might even agree with Mr. Olbermann that the amendment might only apply to the various muskets, flintlocks and other period firearms, yet the fact that criminals use more modern weaponry only reinforces the reasoning why the law abiding need them as well!  During a notorious shoot-out between police in California and a pair of bank robbers armed with fully automatic weapons, the outgunned cops retreated to a local gun shop to buy some guns that would give them a more level playing field.  Regardless of the lives that move may have saved, they got in trouble for it anyway.  All I can say is thank our founders that there WAS a gun shop there!

One might recall how the famous "bobbies" of England took great pride in never carrying guns.  Then, after a highly-publicized shooting incident, all handguns were banned.  Since that ban, police killings, violent crime and shootings have increased to the point where you're statistically safer at night in New York's Central Park than you are in the daylight streets of London!  Bobbies are not only armed, but police there have twice traded-up, so that their firepower matches that of the criminals, who have no trouble getting guns despite the ban.

You see, Keith, we average, law-abiding citizens can't afford armed bodyguards like you celebrities can.  We must fend for ourselves.  The Second Amendment isn't about hunting or target practice.  It's about life and death.  The DC handgun ban arguably is responsible for the rampant violent crime in that city every bit as much as the gang and drug activity.  The red herring that DC officials spout about guns coming from neighboring states might hold water if those states had crime equal to or greater than that of DC, but that is hardly the case.  In fact, some of those states rank near the safest states in the nation!

Yes, crimes with guns are horrible and nobody -- not even the most rabid NRA members -- are in favor of such tragedy.  Nobody puts microphones into the faces of NASCAR drivers and demands them to account for all of the drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter that occurs each year, and nobody corners Tiger Woods to explain why golf clubs shouldn't be banned because they're an often used murder weapon.  Yet people like me, who have owned guns since we were pre-teens, and have never shot or injured anyone -- who go about our lives responsibly and hope like hell we'll never have to actually USE a gun against another human being, because that means that someone is trying to kill us -- WE are constantly called to account for the misdeeds of others.  And men in suits, Mr. Olberman -- our so-called "public servants" -- walked into this courtroom yesterday having done their level best to convince the court that the Second Amendment means something other than what is clearly written.  They tried to dismiss MY rights, as if they meant nothing, under the banner of making me safer and, had they succeeded, would've given criminals the upper hand.

And you would've seen it for what it was had you taken just a little time to research the issue.  This time around you got it wrong, and in a very BIG way!  If you're the dedicated, honest journalist I think you are, you'll once again run a clarification or even an apology on your show.  Or at least acknowledge that there's a whole lot more to this story than you originally thought and, perhaps, should've taken care not to let your bias against Justice Scalia blind you to the nuances of the gun ban, Second Amendment and the controversy surrounding them.  Considering the lack of even an acknowledgment to my last e-mail, I won't hold my breath.  I still love ya, big guy, and will remain a faithful viewer, but I will consider what you say in the context of your poor research and understanding of this monumental court decision.  Today, sir, it is YOU who is....

THE WORST PERSON..... IN THE WORLD!!!

Throughout my career, I've run into various motivational speakers and life coaches.  The first ones were via videotapes that were being marketed by a company where a friend of mine worked.  Most were schlock, but occasionally she'd bring one over and say, "You're gonna want to see this one!"  Her recommendations were for speakers that would now be well-known superstars on the seminar circuit, including Dr. Wayne Dwyer.  Later on, I began to attend DJ trade shows, and every once in a while there would be one form of motivational-type speaker on the roster.  I even got to work with one for a while!  I was the "lucky winner" of a packet of information and a set number of coaching sessions from one particular vendor whose name I'll respectfully withhold for the time being.  I'm sure he planned on picking-up another client, but I decided to drop out when, after the sessions I won had ended, I saw no net gain.  (And yes, I took chances and followed advice.)

In recent months there has been a new publication called the Disc Jockey News.  They know their market well; it's paid for by advertising and mailed to DJs for free.  Yet the content is, shall we say, nothing to write home about.  Yes, there are occasionally pieces written by real DJs, like Dude Walker and Jeff Richards, yet most are life coaches and motivational gurus.  In fact, two of them, Dr. John C. Maxwell and Harvey Mackay, were among the speakers whose tapes my friend distributed all those years ago!  And there's one thing I've noticed about these guys: they utter much verbiage without actually saying anything.  When they finally DO produce some golden nugget of useful information, they'll milk it for endless paragraphs!

First comes the build-up.  They'll frame a problem; "What do you do when....?"  Next, they'll find six different ways to state the problem and whet your appetite for their wisdom: "I'll give you the tools for when your phone goes cold!  I'll guide you through the steps you need to take to bring-in new business!  When customers are scarce, my program will...."  And on and on.  Next, they'll expound on how easy, quick and inexpensive it all is.  "You'll be talking to new clients within an hour of receiving my program!"  "It practically runs itself!"  "Pick only the hours YOU want to work!"  "For only a dollar a day...."  Yak, yak, yak, blah, blah, blah.  All sizzle, no steak.

Of course, this is understandable; they're out to make money!  Yet if what they have to say really was as effective as their claims, do you think they'd be pimping their materials to you?  My guess is that they'd be on the payroll of a Fortune 500 company, or they'd be writing books.  I also suspect that your competition who bought their stuff would be wiping the walls with your sorry ass!  If you're the leader, or at least one of the top companies in your area, then what does this mean?  Well, my guess is that either the program doesn't work, or your colleagues are smart enough to know crap when they see it.

With all of this forming in my mind, I got an e-mail from a life coach who has chosen the mobile DJ market to focus on.  He's quite persistent and I've basically read his "all sizzle" messages with some amusement when I have a few spare moments.  His latest, though, seemed to be a genuine call for some feedback.  He wrote:

"Dear Stu,

For Tuesday's webinar, I want to offer a group perspective and I need YOUR opinion...

Here's the question...
****************
Is YOUR DJ business UP or DOWN this year?
And WHY you think it is?
****************
Simply reply to this email with "survey"
in the subject."

I had been giving this topic more than just come casual thought, since business has indeed been bad and my wife and I have had to make some radical changes to how my business operates, how we live and handle our finances.  In a genuine effort to help, I offered the following:

Subject: SURVEY

He's done.

I don't normally gripe about Detroit politics.  I do miss my childhood home on Cheyenne street, and I do occasionally work downtown, but I live in the suburbs.  What happens in Detroit stays in Detroit as far as I'm concerned.  After the reign of Dennis Archer, who I thought was a really decent, smart man that I once met at a charity event, I thought that maybe Kilpatrick would be a younger version of the same.  When he was campaigning, he seemed very savvy, with a youthful vigor that I thought would be put to good use in the Mayor's office.  After his win, he went off of the local news' radar and mine as well.  That is, until a certain red Lincoln Navigator turned up...

That was the first inkling I had that Kwame might be more following in Coleman Young's footsteps rather than Dennis Archer's.  He somehow wrangled a big, gas guzzling, expensive Lincoln Navigator SUV for his wife to drive while sticking the Detroit police department to pick-up the tab.  When news of this hit, I wondered why he wasn't fired then!  He denied any knowledge of it.  He later appeared on TV admitting the whole thing and saying that he'd pay the city back.  I thought that maybe hit could even have been an honest mistake.  I thought that until another article appeared saying he never coughed-up the cash.

Then there was the wild party at the Manoogian mansion; first there were rumors, then there were news reports, then the official denial, then the inside exposure by a former bodyguard.  Kwame was busted for the second time.  He still continued to deny, but a certain inconvenient truth surfaced: the death of Tamara Greene.  She was one of the "exotic dancers" (the polite term for "strippers") that had been... entertaining?...at that party.  She turned up dead.  Shot.  And while it's not exactly DNA, she was killed by .40 caliber bullets fired from a Glock handgun, which just happens to be what most Detroit police officers AND Kilpatrick's bodyguards all carry.  They're not all that common among criminals.  Tamara had no apparent enemies.  Police have not exactly been all that focused on finding her killer or killers.  Their identity remains a mystery.

And what about that whistle blower?  Fired.  Unjustly, as the court ruled.  As a result, the city had to pay a settlement of 8.4 million dollars.  Not Kwame -- the City of Detroit.  You know, the city still reeling under the inept budget that Kilpatrick foisted on it that caused streetlights and electrical service to be out from time to time, not to mention asking residents to pay for garbage pick-up.  (And that was if -- IF -- they could manage to pick it up at all!)  Now, budget messes are a shared responsibility.  The Mayor only submits his budget.  The council has to approve it.  So we can't blame him for that malfunction.  We CAN, however, blame him for the 8.4 million bucks.  So far, no promises to pay it back.  If the past is any indicator, it's just as well.

During the whistle blower trial, the Mayor perjured himself.  In 2005, Kilpatrick was named one of America's worst mayors... and this was before the sex scandal!

Now, I don't care about people's private lives.  Their sex lives are nobody's business IMO, and any personal conflict they have at home due to their conduct is again THEIR business.  Bill Clinton's sexcapades didn't "break my leg nor pick my pocket," and neither did Kilpatrick's.  But he once again perjured himself.  During the whistle blower trial, he was asked if he had a "personal relationship" with Christine Beatty, his city attorney.  He denied it -- his own "I did not have sex with that woman" moment.  But he did, and it was revealed with the release of text messages made between Kilpatrick and Beatty.  On a city owned Blackberry.  City.  Owned.  You know -- an account for city business.  That retains records of all messages sent.

Is it possible that he's THAT stupid?  That BOTH OF THEM are?  Apparently so.

Besides the damning sex messages, which included some pretty detailed information (I'm NEVER staying at that motel in Madison Heights again EVER), Kilpatrick also admitted to the firing in the whistle blower case as well as nepotism and favoritism given to friends and family members who were also contractors bidding for city contracts.  When Kwame rides the gravy train, he takes his friends with him!  He's a very generous guy.  As long as he's not the one picking up the tab, that is.

Detroit picks it up.  They're quite generous, too, whether they know it or not.  For instance, Kwame LOVES to travel!  He's always jetting-off on vacation somewhere on the Detroit dime.  At one point, he was under scrutiny by WXYZ TV, who questioned the Mayor's trip to Hawaii.  He angrily canceled it.  I know he was angry, because when Ray Sayah asked him a question about it, Kilpatrick grabbed the mic and threw it down a hallway.  On camera.  Busted again!

He continually rejects calls to step down.  The city lost a major convention citing him as the reason.  Still no sale.

Yet none of the above is as big an indication that the man has balls the size of the Uniroyal tire on I-75 than his appeal to the public -- Kwame's "supporters" -- to DONATE to his legal fund!  But wait -- there's more!  He's not only begging for donations, but is now hosting a new TV show!!!  A new platform to dis his detractors and present his spin!

Sorry, Kwame, but I won't be watching.  You're history and you're too stupid to know it.  You've harmed the city you took an oath to serve all for your own entertainment and pleasure.  You once referred to yourself as "a son of Detroit."  In hindsight, that's almost prophetic, since we all owe our mothers a debt we can never hope to repay.  If you were a decent son, you'd step down and work the rest of your life to repay the 8.4 million bucks.  You would apologize not only to your wife, but to the citizens you claim to serve.  And you would FEEL as if you NEED to!  You would feel SHAME.  But you don't, and that, sir, is the saddest part of all.

Until next time...

In a recent story (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/12/hillary-becomes-a-gun-lov_n_96396), Hillary Clinton makes her bid to gain the vote of gun owners and sportsmen.  Suddenly, like John Kerry, she's a hunter!  And she drones on and on about sport shooting and hunting.  When "clarifying" his embarrassing remarks, Senator Obama also spoke of our hunting and sporting traditions.  Clearly, they JUST DON'T GET IT.

Another thing I don't get: why does the Huffington Post (and many other publications) limit MY comments to 250 words while columnists and their articles I'm trying to respond to have no such limitation?  For a writer, these restrictions are a bane!

So here is the response I wanted to post.  A more neutered version appears on the site.

Both Clinton and Obama don't get it: the Second Amendment isn't about duck hunting. It's about a basic human right; self-defense. Yes, shooting is a sport, one enjoyed by millions of Americans. Yes, hunting too is a sport, and in some locales is vital to one's existence. (Some places still don't have supermarkets!) But the Second Amendment was written for DEFENSE, of both one's person and, working together, for the state. We won our freedom from Britain because we had an armed populace -- a militia made up largely of volunteers who owned and used their own guns. This lesson seems to be lost on us, even while a similar situation is happening today: armed non-professional fighters often getting the better of a professional force. The location: Iraq.

On a personal level, Clinton and Obama need to pay attention to why people feel the need to own and carry guns and where our problems with shootings are actually coming from. Whenever someone takes up journalism, nobody demands answers from them for libel or slander committed by others, yet whenever someone says they own and / or carry a gun, they're always questioned about Columbine, Virginia Tech or some other misuse of guns. There is a huge disconnect here.

If you examine these tragedies, you'll quickly see that they aren't caused by NRA members. They're hardly ever committed by people with valid CCW licenses. In most cases, they're caused by mentally disturbed individuals. Other day to day shootings are often drug or gang related. Statistically, those who go to the trouble of getting the training and background check required for a CCW license have already lead an exemplary life and continue to do so.

Yet when such tragedies occur, the response is often to target the tool of the crime. Despite the fact that strict gun controls are in place (regardless of what you're told, guns are heavily regulated), politicians call for even more. Doing something over and over and expecting a different result is the classic definition of insanity!

The fact is that the Second Amendment is also about the ability of citizens to protect themselves. Any sane gun owner hopes that they'll never NEED their gun for protection, because that means that someone has tried to kill them. Most police go through their entire career having never fired their weapon in the line of duty, aside from practice, and this is also true of legal CCWs. Yet this doesn't mean that bad people don't exist and that they don't prey on others. The news confirms that bad things happen to good people every day. There is a valid role for guns in our society. And yes, they come with great responsibility.

Neither I nor the NRA have any tolerance for irresponsibility where guns are concerned. The NRA calls for harsher sentences when crimes are committed using firearms; something called "Project Exile." While very few gun control schemes do anything to curb or prevent crime, the NRA joined with lawmakers to improve the NICS system so that people with known mental health issues, such as the Virginia Tech shooter, would be denied a legal gun purchase. Working together, we can come up with some real solutions that won't infringe on the rights of those of us who respect and follow the law.

And this is what ALL of the candidates; Clinton, Obama AND McCain need to understand. Nobody "clings" to guns. If curbing a single form of recreation could save lives, many gun owners might agree to find another hobby. (My life hasn't been lessened by the lack of JARTS!) But that's not what we're talking about here. We're literally talking about a right to life and the ability to preserve one's own and defend those of others. More guns in the hands of the law abiding and less in the hands of criminals is a GOOD thing. Guns WILL be on campus, regardless of any laws or policies. You, nor the faculty, will have any choice about that. (Drugs are prohibited, too, but we can see how well that works!) What we CAN choose is whose hands guns will be entrusted to. I trust licensed, trained adult students and faculty. I also trust that there will be no shortage of mentally disturbed students in the near future. So with all due respect, Ms. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, I reject your calls for more gun control. Instead, I urge you to implement criminal control. Let citizens have the full measure of their guaranteed rights and make the lives of criminals more difficult in the process. Stop the lies: there is no "gun show loophole." There are no "assault weapons" for sale to average citizens. Limiting the capacity of a firearm to ten rounds or less has not saved a single life. You really need to GET this. Most Americans do.

Thank you for your attention.

These days it's few and far between that I'll become even slightly angry or upset over an e-mail.  In fact, I read the e-mail below and, at first, felt amusement.  But the more I thought about it, the more outraged I became.  I guess I should've expected it, since it was posted on a mostly conservative chat board, yet it still caught me by surprise.  The discussion had ventured into the topic of president Bush, and how low his approval ratings were.  Then D, one of the list members, wrote this:


Nothing inflammatory or insulting, but again, the more it percolated in my head, the more I could no longer ignore it.  So here is my response:

Even though I've had a concealed carry permit for about a decade now, and have had guns around since before my age ended in "teen," I still consider myself to be a newcomer to guns, gun politics and gun culture.  After all, most of us live our lives from day to day never thinking about them.  My childhood .22 revolver was fun, but it wasn't an everyday thing.  In fact, I often shot all of my ammo and the thing sat around empty, like a toy without batteries.  When I sold my collection of revolvers in the '70s, it was because shooting had become expensive and I needed the money.  I didn't own another gun until the mid-'90s when I purchased my first Glock, and I bought it specifically for self-defense and concealed carry.  This was no piece of sporting equipment!

Yet I do clearly recall several milestones along the way.  For instance, I recall the "Glock revolution."  I was gawking at all the guns at my favorite shop and noticed that they had a TON of cheap, used .38 revolvers.  When I asked why, the dealer told me about how the cops were all changing over to the new Glock 17, and the more powerful 9mm cartridge.  "It has a better one-shot man-stopping percentage than the .38," he said.  This thinking seemed to pervade the thinking of gun nuts everywhere.  (I say "gun nuts" in a GOOD way.)  The 9mm mystique seemed to invade all of the gun magazines, whose writers sang the praises of the mighty nine.

Yet I happened to know that the 9mm was nothing new.  In fact, German Lugers used 'em.  Being a fan of the TV show, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." acquainted me with the Walther P-38 pistol, also of German origin, and in use since the 1930s.  Why was everyone suddenly so excited about the 9mm round?  As I saw it, the real star of this particular show was the Glock pistol itself.  Lighter than a police special, it also held more than twice as many rounds!  The 9mm may indeed produce a slightly higher one-shot stop ratio, but my bet was that people were being stopped more efficiently because of a dozen shots.

Then came the famous incident in Florida, where two armed bad guys took on cops in a now legendary shoot-out and prevailed long enough to kill several police officers and wound many more before finally being killed.  Autopsies revealed that the men had been hit several times by the officer's 9mm rounds, yet in many instances didn't even know they were hit!  The rounds passed completely through their arm, shoulder or leg without even slowing them down!  The FBI grew concerned and the mystique of the "nine mil" was finally shattered.  It was no magic bullet.

Still, the thinking didn't go away entirely.  After an exhaustive 2.5 million-dollar government study, the FBI chose the Glock 22 and 23 pistols, chambered in .40 caliber for their agents in the field.  Even some border patrol agents gave up their tried-and-true 1911 pistols for the new Glock with the relatively new caliber designed by Smith & Wesson.  It was at about this time that I decided to re-enter the realm of being a gun owner, and I decided to let my taxpayer dollars work for me.  The Glock 23 was my first semi-auto pistol ever.  The .40 caliber round was heralded as the best pistol cartridge ever, and everyone from Taurus to Sig-Sauer made pistols in the new magic caliber.  Yet perhaps with the 9mm saga in mind, gun writers were a bit more cautious about tossing around terms like "perfect" and "magic bullet."  Yes, the round performed better than the nine, with a slightly higher one-shot stop ratio.  But it was a pistol cartridge, after all.  Everybody knows that, as champion handgunner, Todd Jarrett says, "You use your handgun to fight your way to your rifle."  Yes, the .40 was good.  Most rifle rounds, though, are better.

Yet the magic bullet thinking went beyond guns and their manufacturers!  The bullet makers got into the act as well.  The Florida incident showed that, while copper jacketed bullets were friendlier to gun barrels, it made them "slippery," and therefore easier to pass through the body of a target and not stop or even slow them down.  Then there's the added danger of hitting an innocent bystander who might be behind the target.  Police demanded a bullet that would stop when it hit the intended target and transfer ALL of its kinetic energy to the body.  The public, however, frowned upon the use of hollow-point bullets, which were depicted in movies and TV shows as more lethal than regular bullets.  It took a LONG time for law enforcement to convince the public -- or at least that portion of the public in control of the purse strings; city and state governments -- that hollow points weren't used to be more deadly.  They're used to transfer energy.  When they hit the target, they expand, much like a kernel of popcorn.  This causes a shock wave to ripple through the body, just as a rock hitting the surface of a lake causes a shock wave to expand outward from its point of entry.  Another added benefit is that it more often remains lodged in the body of the target, lessening the chances of a through-and-through round hitting a bystander.

Bullet manufacturers experimented with different bullet weights, hollow point configurations, powder charges and so on.  Today, there are literally dozens of choices available for each caliber.  An added benefit is that these technologies have been used across-the-board, making more humble calibers like the .38, .380 and even the humble .22 much better for self-defense and hunting!  Even so, there are no magic bullets.  More power, better properties and improved performance.  But it's science, not magic.

What set me to thinking along these lines was the commercial for "The Sarah Conner Chronicles."  In it, mother, son and cyborg are getting into a truck.  The son says, "I call shotgun!"  (Meaning the seat.)  The cyborg says, "I call nine millimeter!"  This, of course, reminding me that the general public still thinks of the 9mm as a magically lethal round.  This also got me thinking about shotguns and some of the new innovations that shell makers have come up with for personal defense and the military.  Using the latest, greatest technologies, they've made everything from a non-lethal (or, in PC parlance, "less-than-lethal," since it could still kill a person with a weak system) TASER round, pepper rounds and the more traditional bean bag rounds, right on up to military rounds that can pierce armor and then explode!  If you're a soldier with a shotgun, then you now also have a long-range grenade launcher in your hand!

MagicAL, but not magic.  High-tech, better, but not mystical.

What makes the bullet magic isn't the gun or the ammunition it fires.  It's the shooter.  A single, well-placed .22 is better than a dozen misses with .40 caliber Ranger SXT rounds (which used to be known as "Black Talons").  Or a hundred.  Or a thousand.  I might fight my way to my rifle, but if I can manage a well-placed hit with my humble 9mm, I may never have to pick it up.  I think it's great that "magic bullet" thinking has improved both firearms and ammunition, yet I'd like to see this same idea applied to training.  "Gun control" means "hitting your target," and before you can do that, you must correctly identify your target and be mindful of what lies beyond.  Even the best trained soldiers and law enforcement officers have made bad decisions because, under stress, with the bad guy shooting AT you (or even hitting you), clear thinking isn't normal for human beings.  Your senses and hand-eye coordination betray you as your body prepares for "fight or flight."  The only way to overcome this phenomenon is to practice.  Better training scenarios that go beyond standing on a firing line punching holes in paper will create more "magic bullets" than all the ammunition and firearms technology in the world!  So get off the couch and see what's going on at Thunder Ranch, Front Sight Academy or your local shooting club.  YOU are the magic!

On most days, the first thing I do upon regaining consciousness and the mandatory trip to the bathroom is to check my messages: first the phone, then my e-mail.  This is due to my business, which is Priority One.  Yet every once in a while, there's a distraction I simply cannot avoid.  One of them appeared today in the form of the following link:

http://www.goodbyeguns.org/link.html

This website is basically on online rant by Clark Garen, an attorney and radio talk show host on something called "Think Radio."  To some of my readers / buddies, this would be two strikes against the guy!  A Lawyer AND a member of the evil "liberal media!!!"  Buuuut.... since I know several very nice people who are lawyers and consider MYSELF a member of the aforementioned evil media, I decided to give Mr. Garen the benefit of the doubt and, instead, address the content of his website.  This is what I wrote:

As anyone who really knows me can attest, I don't fit the standard profile of liberal or conservative.  I lean libertarian politically, but if I had to put a label on myself, I'd call myself an EXTREME liberal.  I like as much freedom as possible.  I like the least amount of government interference in my life as possible, as long as health and safety aren't compromised.  And, of course, I'm a huge supporter of the Second Amendment.  So you might imagine my reaction when I stumbled across this site:

http://www.meltguns.com/

Entitled "Guns into Art," these guys melt down guns to make their art.  In the process, they insult, malign and dismiss each and every gun owner.  We're called killers, hatemongers and racists.  Bigotry and ignorance is alive and well.

Taking my usual diplomatic tac, I decided to drop the artist a line.  It reads:


There is no mind like a closed one, eh?  Bigots never discuss: they're right and you're wrong.  But, silly me, I keep trying.  I replied with the following:

I have an online friend who calls himself an "old-time liberal."  Usually he and I agree on a good many things, but he recently posted a few comments about people having "too much freedom."  In his opinion, chaos would ensue.  He writes: "I really do think mankind is to greedy and self-serving to handle total freedom."  It's things like this that makes my brain go into deep thought mode, distracting me from other things.  With hands on my keyboard, I worked through the issue.  Here is my reply:

Someone forwarded me a link to an opinion piece defending Mitt Romney and his defense of his religious faith.  See it at: http://www.dailypressandargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/OPINION03/712200319 (http://tinyurl.com/2klux4) for as long as it remains up.  The deluded seem to think that repeating a lie makes it so; "we're a Christian nation."  Um... sorry.  The founders were NOT the Pilgrims.  I couldn't help but post the following reply:

Personally, I didn't think that he [Mitt Romney] had to defend his religion, but apparently HE did, and so I gave him the courtesy of hearing him out. Here's what I took from it.

First of all, I guess that we atheists cannot be patriots according to him. He went on to promote religion in the public forum -- precisely what James Madison and Thomas Jefferson worked to prohibit. After all, the man is running for PRESIDENT, not FIRST CLERIC. Since there is no mention of Jesus in the Declaration of Independence or our Constitution, and only vague references to a creator (which was meant to make people of ALL faiths feel included in our experiment in democracy), Mitt's version of history is revisionist. Christian nation? Hardly! Most of our founders were deists, for one thing. Jefferson wrote extensively on the dangers of mixing religion with government, with the excesses of the Church of England still fresh in his mind. Today we have no better examples of theocracy than the Middle East. Is this our goal?

We've listened to Mitt. Let's at least take a moment to listen to the founders:

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries." - President James Madison (1803)

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail
themselves for their own purposes” - Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813

He further commented:

“The power of organized religion has been severely felt by mankind, and has filled the history of ten or twelve centuries with too many atrocities not to merit a proscription from meddling with government."

Government is by and for "The People," not God. After all, we are all atheists except for one god. Christians who worship Jehovah are atheists when it comes to Allah, or Zeus. Muslims are atheists when it comes to Buddha or Isis. It is not possible for government to come down on the side of one without shutting out all others. Believers are guaranteed by the First Amendment that government will not interfere with their religion OR their right to practice it, but the other edge of this sword is that religion and their practice may not interfere with the workings of government. If a candidate cannot accept this simple contract, then he or she is not fit for office.
_________________