The Acoustic Cafe: where tunes and tyranny intersect

 Annoyances, Consumption, Current Events, Leisure, Liberty, Popular Culture  2 Responses »
May 182012
 

Did you know we have an alternative music festival in northern Alabama?  The Acoustic Cafe started in 1996, and has recently moved to a site in rural Marion County.  It happens again next weekend—May 25 and 26.

I learned of The Acoustic Cafe from a friend of mine.  She mentioned it not to tell me about the music, but to entertain me with stories of her attendance experience.  You see, festival owner Steve Masterson rules The Acoustic Cafe with an iron fist.  The “three-day village of harmony, love, and tolerance” has a whole bunch of rules, and you better follow ‘em, buddy boy:

If you think this is a place where you can come and get wild, we do not want you here. If you had rather talk while sitting in front of the stage instead of listening to music, we do not want you here. If you can’t deal with your trash and recyclables in the proper manner, we do not want you here. If you are one of those people who think you are special and the rules do not apply to you – well, you guessed it – we do not want you here.

Is there a bit of sadistic pleasure in there?  Would you believe this guy actually polices the crowd and shushes people?

I thought surely my friend was overplaying it just a little bit for comedic effect.  Then, she shared with me email she received earlier this week, from Steve to his list.  (The email subject is Now that we got your money.)  Quoting:

Well now that we got your ticket money we don’t have to be near so nice to you. You new people need to know a few things, come prepared to take care of yourself. Try to bring as little trash as possible. For instance if you have bought a new air mattress take it out of the box at home instead of throwing the box away up here. It will make it easier on us. DO NOT BRING GLASS. Think how bad it would ruin your weekend if we took you [sic] cooler full of glass bottles. Do what you are told to do by our people when you arrive. Our goal is to get your vehicle parked and settled in.

I think the most telling bit is the directive about the air mattress box.  That serves no interest but feeding someone’s freak—as in control.

I have written before of homeowners’ associations, and specifically my belief that they tend to attract people who crave power but have been unable to achieve it in any other area of their lives.  It sounds as if dear Steve may have similar cravings (and attendant trouble satisfying them).  However, rather than worrying people incessantly about whether their window treatments are white or ivory, he charges them $50 to submit and be berated for the weekend (under the auspices of being a music lover).  Hey, give the guy credit for finding an original path through it all.

Tickets are $50 in advance, or $60 at the compound entrance gate.  If you’re into alternative music and recreational totalitarianism, it could be just what you should do with next weekend.

 Posted by at 8:35 am

To The One, we are all “Julia”

 Annoyances, Current Events, Language, Liberty, Politics  13 Responses »
May 042012
 

Have you met Julia yet?  She is our esteemed president’s newest campaign tool:  a sample American who thrives under policies supported by Barack Obama and is certainly doomed under the brutal neglect of anything else.  If you haven’t met her, please visit The One’s web site and do so.

Now of course, anyone with anything approaching a sensible view of government is going to find this creepy.  Here is what you want, ladies and gentlemen:  to be a womb-to-tomb ward of the state.  (Well, not womb, because in the perfect world of the left you can be killed practically for sport there, but that’s another post.)  I do wonder, though:  is it a bit too stark for even the base?  I mean, aren’t they unaccustomed to being told directly (by their heroes) that they want to make them permanently dependent on the endlessly benevolent federal government?  It seems to me that one of the main misdirections has always been dressing up these ultra-leftist policies with the individualist language of more conservative philosophies.  This doesn’t even try.

It’s also a bit jarring how sophomoric the whole thing is.  Doesn’t it look and feel like something that would get a B+ in a high school media class?  I really kind of expected to find frowny-faces or wolves or something when it talked about what mean old Mitt Romney would do.  I wonder how close they came to surviving the cut?

Despite a media machine that continues to be wildly and unashamedly supportive, Obama really doesn’t have much on which he can base a reelection campaign.  He can’t run on Obamacare, because it’s deeply unpopular (and seems likely to be eviscerated imminently).  He can’t run on delivering on his campaign promises, because he hasn’t (and in many cases has vigorously done the opposite).  He can’t run on the economy, because it still sucks (and “Bush did it” plays nowhere but beat poetry readings anymore).  So, so far, it’s let me protect you from that monster Romney, who would put all of you on top of the station wagon, given a chance.  (Well, except investment bankers, and probably that culty church he goes to.)

If “Julia” is as good as it gets six months from Election Day, it’s likely to become very entertaining.

 Posted by at 6:47 am

Best Buy supports Islamist terrorism

 Annoyances, Consumption, Current Events, Liberty, Politics, Religion  2 Responses »
Apr 222012
 

Apparently not content to navigate only an increasingly poor business model, Best Buy has decided to misguidedly and unapologetically support CAIR—the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR is innocuously named, but closely linked to Islamist terror organization Hamas.  If you ask about it on Best Buy’s Facebook page, here is the canned statement you get: Best [...]

 Posted by at 5:31 pm

Death march for Obamacare begins?

 Annoyances, Consumption, Liberty, Politics  No Responses »
Mar 262012
 

The Supreme Court began hearing our esteemed president’s greatest accomplishment this morning. I thought for a long time that the biggest mistake earnest advocates of socialized medicine made was that they assumed it was government’s business—indeed, responsibility—to do “the right thing.”  (Never mind those pesky questions about effectiveness.  Never mind wondering what in the world [...]

 Posted by at 9:30 pm
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