Rich's Views

Once upon a time, unions were needed in this country and served a useful and needed function. However, like fairy tales that you grow out of, unions are no longer needed in America.

I have only worked at one place that was unionized, and the union did absolutely nothing for me or anybody that I knew who worked there. My mother worked for a company at an airport that was unionized, when the contracts with that company and the airport were up for renewal the cost of keeping a unionized company was over twice what other competing companies were bidding. Needless to say, my mother lost her job and the union did nothing for her or the other hundreds of people who also lost their jobs.

Please don’t get me wrong, unions played a large part in the country becoming great, but, in recent history they are what are wrong with this country.

Several years ago in Indianapolis, IN a union for the mechanics of a large airline threatened to go on strike, demanding higher pay, better benefits, and more time off. As it was, the company was losing over $1,000,000.00 a day due to having planes that could not fly, route changes, and hanger fees, due to a mechanics “slow down” that was supposed to drive home their demands. The airline told the union that they were barely able to stay competitive and that in order to give the mechanics what the union was demanding that it would effectively run the company out of business. The union would not budge and voted to go on strike until their demands were met. Once the strike was official, the airline had no choice but to close the hub and layoff hundreds of workers. The union did support the mechanics by giving them each two weeks of pay that amounted to 50% of their normal pay.

Now America is in a recession that may deepen into a depression and this is due in no small amount to unions. Unions are so feared by companies that even the mention of them can close a store, manufacturing facilities. I worked for a company that services
the trucking industry. This company has annual revenue of over eight billion dollars, yes, billion, a year. The plant that I worked at was non-union and we were told on several occasions that if a union was invited into our location, the company would not hesitate to close the doors and move to another city or state. Why on earth would a company be so afraid of a union? While the location that I worked at was non-union, the company did have several dozen union shops that were doing the almost exactly the same things we did, those locations received on average 30% higher pay but was only producing 60% of our daily output. Oh, I can’t forget to mention that we had about 15-20% fewer employees at our location, if you take out the call center that only our location had, then the numbers get even more out of proportion.

Since the company that I worked for was directly related to the over all auto industry we were kept up to date with all the latest information on the big three auto makers in America. One item that was repeated over and over was how much money the unions were making and how much less expensive the average automobile would coast if there were no unions. How about $2000 - $3000.00 per automobile, sounds crazy right? Unfortunately it is fact. Now we have one of the biggest companies that ever existed in America about to go out of business or at the very least become a shadow of it’s former self, of course I’m talking about General Motors.

How many people have to lose their jobs before we as a country say enough is enough, and stop supporting unions? We no longer need unions as we once did. What we need now, is for unions to transform themselves into entities that not only look out for and support the employee, but also look out for the company. We cannot forget that unions are a business as well, but a business that cannot change with the times is doomed to fail. One of the definitions of insanity is: something utterly foolish or unreasonable. Isn’t it insanity that we allow a company to force another company to increase wages, benefits, which affect us, all, and if allowed to continue unchecked will destroy the other company?

You and I both pay the price for unions, and it is time that we stop paying a price that will eventually lead all of us to the door steps of insanity.

Rich the Insanity Guy

We all have a favorite band that some how symbolizes what you stand for, and for me that band is Journey.

I first heard Journey’s Any Way You Want It while living in Dale City, Virginia. I did not know anything about them nor did I really pay attention to the song, I was not big into music at the time. After moving from Virginia to Kentucky several months later, I was listening to a stereo blasting out Don’t Stop Believing and was instantly hooked. I started really paying attention to music in general and started dreaming of playing the drums.

Drum dreams aside, I felt a connection to the lyrics of the songs that had positive messages. My life at the time was that of a fourteen year old kid who was lost in a world of anger and hurt and I desperately wanted something, anything, to hang onto. Journey gave me hope that my life, if I could tolerate it, could have meaning and I just might be able to become a good person. I did odd jobs around the house and bought a cassette of the Escape album. I listened to it and found other songs that spoke to me in ways that I could not even fathom at the time. Mother, Father always seemed to talk about my life and how I wished my broken home would become one again. The title track is still to this day my own personal theme song.

In early February 1983 I heard the song Separate Ways and could not believe the drums, the keyboards, guitar riffs, and of course the vocals. I went right out and bought the Frontiers album and started listening to it non stop for weeks at a time. Next thing I know Journey is coming to my hometown and I can’t wait to go. I get the tickets and take the bus to Cincinnati for the April 13 show. This just so happened to by my very first concert and got to see my new musical heroes up on stage and living a dream. I did everything that I could to get closer to the stage but still was up in the stands and ducking from empty seat to the next. All I can say is that it was a magical experience, and one that for the most part was wasted on a kid who truly could not appreciate it as much as the man writing this now would.

Steve Perry then put out a solo album called Street Talk and I found that the mans voice touched something in my soul that allowed me to understand music and how it was much more than noise pulsating from speakers. The song Running Alone was written about me and for me, or so it seemed. I still to this day remember how that song felt to my heart and soul and wish that the young man I was then could meet the man that I am now, so that he could see what running alone can do to a person. Don’t get me wrong I’m not running anymore, but somewhere along the line I stopped waiting for a wing. (You will have to look at the lyrics to the song to understand that last line.) To this day Steve Perry is still my favorite singer and I hope and pray that he puts out some new music soon.

After the success of the solo album, Steve Perry went back to the studios with Journey to write and record the next Journey album Raised On Radio. A project that many fans (not me) feel is just another “solo” album by Perry only this time using the rest of the band as studio musicians. However this album came at an extremely low point in my life. I was living on my own while finishing up the last two years of High School. My father had just been put in jail (and rightly so) and my step-mother kicked me out of our house. Here again we have songs that are positive and up lifting with Be Good to Yourself and Positive Touch being the two that I listened to the most at that time. Since I was dirt poor and also did not have a car I was unable to attend one of the three concerts that Journey was giving in Atlanta that year. It was truly devastating to me since the young lady that I liked at the time also liked Journey, and I wanted to take her, oh well. The tour came to an end when Perry wanted to take a break after a very long emotional year for him. Little did I know anything about these events (no internet at the time) and that this would be the last tour with the “classical Journey lineup.” Had I known, I might have found a way to see them together one last time.

I never expected to hear Steve Perry again after an eight year hiatus, but in the summer of 1994 I heard You Better Wait off of the For the Love of Strange Medicine album. I of course went right out and bought it even though I had little money to my name and soon became lost in the lyrics and soulfulness of the album. I always felt that the song Anyway was an effort by Perry to make amends to his former band mates. I later found out that indeed it was. I again kick myself for not being able to get tickets to see Perry in Cincinnati; to date is the last tour that he has embarked on.

The next time I heard that soaring voice and the magical music that accompanied it was in 1996 on the Trial by Fire album. I went right out and bought it and was looking forward to seeing them in concert, but it was not to be. Steve Perry got hurt before the tour and the rest of the band did not wish to wait for him to have the necessary hip replacement surgery. On this album the song When You Love a Woman was nominated for a Grammy award, which they did not win. But for me the song stayed with me and when I got married it was the song that I played as I entered the wedding hall. There are many songs on this album that I have on my playlist. While many people feel that Perry’s voice changed too much to be a true “Journey sound”, I rather enjoyed the maturity of the vocals.

One day while shopping at a Media Play in Savannah I heard a song that was almost Journey, but the vocals seemed not as strong as they had in the past. When I asked the clerk what song was playing he said that it was Remember Me off of the Armageddon soundtrack, and that it was by Journey. I asked if he had any information on who is singing and he said Steve Augeri. I figured that he had somehow misheard the name Perry as Augeri and did not want to correct him, so I bought the album and once in the car, I looked at the liner notes and sure enough there was Augeri’s name instead of Perry’s. I listened to the song over and over and while it sounded like Journey, it sounded more like a Journey “Lite” version. I was willing to give this new version of Journey a chance to win me over. But in my heart Journey has never been the same since.

Once I got a decent computer and internet connection I started looking up Journey songs to download from Napster, I know, I’m a bad man. I soon came across songs from the up coming Journey album Arrival due to hit stores in early 2001, and of course I downloaded all that I could find. While the song Higher Place really kicked some major butt and harkened back to Escape era material, it never really captured an audience. Soon Journey was on the road to support the album and in May 2002 they appeared at Pepsi Jammin’ on Main in Cincinnati, where I got front row against the rail. The lady I was with at the time had hearing problems; actually she was almost totally deaf, and liked to be near the speakers to feel the bass of the drums. This was the first four concerts that I was able to see with Steve Augeri fronting the band. While he was no Steve Perry, he was the right person to continue the Journey. He had great stage presence and came across as a likeable person, who you wanted to get to know. While I don’t claim to know Steve Augeri, I did get to meet him along with the rest of the band and he was the humble down to earth guy that most people think he is.

In 2003 I met my wife at a book signing and soon the sparks flew, while on a trip to a renaissance festival I put Journey’s Greatest Hits Live CD into the CD player in the car and gave my wife her first taste of Journey. She instantly liked the songs and of course she wanted to hear more from them. I made her several mixed CDs of Journey and she listened to them all, while I love all of the songs she did not feel the same way, some were a hit and of course some were a miss. Journey is now in her CD rotation and she really loves the songs that give hope and keep you believing.
In late 2003 I proposed to my wife and started the wedding plans. Now, I know guys are not supposed to do any of the planning because our main job is to show up, but I could not just let a major event in my life happen without input from me. Of course Journey played a very large part of wedding; we printed our own programs and related how our wedding was not so much about tradition, but about our life long journey together. We had both of our rings inscribed with the word Faithfully to signify how we would always be faithful to each other. I hade the ancient Anglo-Saxon Futhorc rune rād which looks like a “R” tattooed on my upper right arm, the rune means Journey, two weeks before the wedding. Of course the running joke is that is how I tell my right from my left. As mentioned before I entered the wedding hall with the song When You Love a Woman playing and we ended the night with the Journey 2001 DVD playing Faithfully.
While my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Hawaii I found out that Journey was going on tour and would be in Kettering, OH. When we got home from our honeymoon I found us tickets and soon a second show was added and I got us tickets for that show too. The show on July 3rd was being promoted by a Dayton, OH radio station and they were offering backstage passes and some cool swag, try as I might I never won. I wanted to get to the show early and see if I could catch some of the members out and about the concert grounds. While I did not get to see a band member, I did run into one of the DJs from the radio station and my wife and I got a chance to talk to him. He wanted to know why we were there so early and I told him how Journey has been my favorite band for the past twenty plus years and also about our recent wedding and how Journey played a part in it. Then I got a very nice surprise, he gave me backstage passes to meet the band. It was and still is one of the coolest things to have happened to me. A few nights later Journey was there again playing to yet another sold out crowd and all of us there were treated to the great music that is Journey.

The next year Journey again played the Fraze Pavilion on September 8th and Regina and I were able to get third row tickets. We got there early and had a blast with other Journey fans and meeting a few that came all the way from Germany to catch the show and hopefully have a chance at meeting the band. I got to relate my story about meeting the band and they thought it was very cool to have happened on the same year as our marriage. This show was the 30th Anniversary shows and lasted about two and half to three hours. They played music from every album that they had released and even gave the fans a copy of their soon to be released Generations CD. One of the very cool things about this album is that every member of the band got to sing at least one track. While not on most peoples top ten Journey albums, I find the change of pace to have been refreshing. Unfortunately this was the last full tour with Steve Augeri.

In 2006 Journey again embarked upon a tour and this time there was something wrong with the vocals that were coming from the speakers. Many people believe that Journey resorted to canned vocals due to an acute throat infection that was plaguing Steve Augeri. Soon, it became apparent that Steve could no longer continue the Journey. Neal Schon had worked with a singer named Jeff Scott Soto on another project called Soul SirkUS and wanted him to take over for Steve to finish out the tour. The band all played down the health problem of Steve and stated that as soon as he was better he would be rejoining the band. In the end this did not happen, instead on December 19th Journey named Jeff Scott Soto as their new lead singer.

While I never got to see the 2006 tour in person I have watched some of the YouTube.com videos of the performances and was just blown away. A friend of mine did get a chance to see him and he was blown away by how the audience just feed off of Jeff’s energy and kept the show jumping. Jeff did not have the same “tonality” of voice that Perry and Augeri did, but he did have one hell of a stage presence. I started looking forward to hearing new music with Jeff as the front man, but that was soon dashed. On June 12th, 2007 Journey announced that they had dismissed Soto as their lead singer.

What happened next of the course of a few months in nothing short of mind blowing too many fans of the great American band Journey. Even before Jeff Scott Soto was dismissed from band, Journey was looking for his replacement. Soon a cover band singer named Jeremey Hunsicker was invited to audition in San Francisco for the soon to be vacant lead singer position. All of this was happening while Journey with Jeff Scott Soto was getting ready to perform for a private event in Virginia. Once the event was over and Soto was dismissed, writing sessions took place with what some thought would be a new lead singer, a new studio album and some reworked classic Journey material. While the writing sessions with Hunsicker would produce the single Never Walk Away, he actually was not the new lead singer of Journey. Instead, Neal Schon started the search for a new lead singer all over.

On or about June 28th, 2007 Neal Schon came across a video of Arnel Pineda a Filipino cover band singer on the video site, YouTube.com. So surprised by what he was hearing, Neal reported that he had to walk away from the computer and come back some time later to make sure what he was hearing, was the real deal. Soon Neal was able to contact Arnel and got him to come to America and audition for Journey. Once in the studio with the rest of the band Arnel quickly impressed the rest of the band that they offered him the lead singer position in Journey. Once Arnel was on board, the rest of the band and Arnel set about rerecording some of Journey’s classic material as well as several new tracks for what was to become the Revelation album. Revelation was released directly through Wal*Mart as a DVD with double CD package.

When Revelation was released I went straight out and bought it and stated listening to it ever before I left the parking lot, and what I heard was amazing. Here I was almost listening to Escape era music. Here is a sound that was different than anything that has been put out by the band in over twenty years and yet so familiar. Uplifting songs, songs that have heart and a soul, that are rocking and some that are soft ballads. At times I could almost close my eyes and hear Steve Perry, but there lacked just a little bit that Perry would have given the songs, emotion. Don’t get me wrong, Arnel did a fantastic job of lead vocals, but he was missing that extra little bit that can mean so much. There were several songs on this album that again spoke to me such as, After All These Years, Never Walk Away, Turn Down the World Tonight, Wildest Dream.

Journey embarked on a tour to promote Revelation in 2008 and is continuing it in 2009. Journey will be coming to a town near me soon and I hope to catch them sometime in 2009. Once the Revelation tour is over Journey plans to head back into the studio and lay down track for a yet unnamed project.

On to some personal observations and comparisons form me.

One day I came home from work and my wife was blasting the Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour DVD and when I walked in the door she exclaimed I finally know what you mean! My wife never really could tell the difference between Steve Perry and Steve Augeri’s voices, however that day she played the Journey 2001 DVD before the Live in Houston DVD and lo and behold she finally could tell the difference. Now lets be honest here, most people who are casual music listeners could not tell the difference between one singer and the next that have similar tonality. She was son excited by this discovery that she said, “Steve Perry’s voice was like another instrument on the album that added richness and depth, while Steve Augeri was just another singer who sounded similar.” Now, she was not trying to be mean as she loves Steve Augeri live with Journey she just finally noticed that little added extra that Steve Perry can bring to a song.

I have hoped for a long time that Steve Perry would rejoin the band but I do not see that ever happening. There are just way too many “things” stopping it from happening, but I hope, that does not mean that there will never be new music from this living legend of Rock.

I must admit that of three singers to come along after Steve Perry, Arnel sounds the closest to him. However, on my singer rating scale with Perry being a ten, I rate his replacements as well as his almost replacement in the following order from top to bottom along with the corresponding number rating:
Arnel Pineda 7.5
Jeff Scott Soto 7
Steve Augeri 6
Jeremy Hunsicker 4.5
Now, I know it is not fair to rate some people on videos from the internet as the quality differs quite a bit, but I have downloaded (legally) songs from each or own original recordings.

As far as showmanship goes again with Perry being a ten, I rate them in the following order:
Jeff Scott Soto 8.5
Arnel Pineda 7.5
Steve Augeri 7.5
Jeremy Hunsicker 6.5
While I have not seen (other than videos) Jeff, Arnel or Jeremy live in person, I do believe the videos that are out there give good representation of the person live stage presence.

I hope that the Journey continues and at some point there could be a reunion tour and bring back other former members of the band such as Steve Augeri, Greg Rolie, Steve Smith just to name a few. I can almost imagine how sweet the music would be with all of the former and current members up on stage for a couple of songs, wow!

I look forward my journey to continue with Journey!

I love my favorite TV Shows even though some are very predictable. Let’s take my favorite Comedy, The Big Bang Theory; it is doing what almost every sitcom TV Show has done for the past twenty plus years. Put a single attractive woman near a “quirky” single guy and let them come close to a relationship but not quite get there. In this case the show is in its second season and the guy knows that the woman is interested in him but because he is a wimp won’t ask her out a second time. A second time, you ask, well the first time did not go so well and they decided to just be friends. This has lead to a series of events that lets us the viewers know that they are great for each other, yet they cannot figure out how to let the other know that they care for each other as more than just friends.

So I have about ten hours worth of regular shows that I watch and for the most part I can predict what is going to happen in each on of them. Every now and then I do get a surprise, but not very often. The last show that gave me a twist was the now cancelled Life. The twist was that an integral but not regular character was alive instead of dead. Now, once it became obvious in the final episode that the character was alive; I was pleasantly surprised and was looking forward to more revelations and character development of the regular characters now that the “conspiracy” was revealed. Now I don’t get the chance.

Okay let me tell you a pet peeve of mine about TV scheduling. When you have put a lot of money into a show and give it a regular night and time slot leave it there for more than a week or two. Let us viewers have a chance to find it and make it a success. Don’t give it six different time slots with special nights and times that are not going to be the regular time slots. Leave well enough alone. After all how many seasons did it take for Seinfeld to finds its grove?

I do have a suggestion that I think the Networks, both paid and regular, should adopt. Four – thirteen week seasons, here is how this will work, lets take Tuesday nights at 9pm on CBS, currently NCIS is in that time slot. Produce thirteen episodes and then run them. Then when that is done you have another show that takes its place for the next thirteen weeks and so on. This means that instead of having to rely upon reruns and weeks with no new programming the viewer is always just a few weeks away from another show. This will keep costs down and keep revenue high as you are more likely to keep audiences watching your always fresh programming. It also means that if a series is not a success the network is not out a ton of extra money for a normal twenty two episode season. Imagine how much more you will enjoy watching fifty two weeks worth of new TV Shows.

And for those who want to know what I like to watch on a regular basis here is the list in no particular order:
The Big Bang Theory
How I Met Your Mother
Two and a Half Men
NCIS
The Mentalist
Life
Criminal Minds
Bones
Burn Notice
Flashpoint
Numbers
In Plain Sight

Other shows but not on a regular basis:
The Closer
The Unit
Cold Case
Battlestar Galactica
Castle
CSI Miami
CSI
House
Fringe
Eleventh Hour

The above list is the 2008-2009 schedule.

One more note that really should be it’s very own blog.

David Caruso and his total inability to act is a travesty that needs to end. Please for the love of all that makes TV worth watching, somebody please realize that this man needs to be taken aside and told three very important things:
1. SPEAK UP – nobody in their right mind would want to have a conversation with Horatio Caine without some sort of hearing aide.
2. STAND UP STRAIGHT – can we agree that only a person with a crippling degenerative disc disorder would walk around with his neck attached to his shoulder.
3. STUPID ONE LINERS – Okay this really is not his fault, I hope, but he has to say them, so I’m blaming him along with the writers, stop the stupid one liners that make you want to groan out loud and throw things at the TV.

The only reason I even watch the show is because I like Calleigh and Eric as characters.

I am not a tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination however there are days when upon seeing the news of what we the smartest species on the plant are doing that I wish humans would just vanish. Let’s leave the planet to the animals while it is still habitable.

I’m just over forty years old and I have seen some very terrible things and I’m constantly reminded that humans only think we are smart. We claim that we provide a vital link in the food chain. What chain are we leaving for future generations of humans if we are fishing so much that there are sections of the ocean that were once teeming with life and are now barren? How about how we are decimating species of whales, fish, and bird’s insects and on and on? We are not leaving a planet with sustainable life, we are destroying sustainable life.

We have proof every day of how bad we are making the planet but, do we stop buying water in plastic bottles? Nope, I’m drinking from one now. I try to recycle but I’m not the most prolific recycler heck I’m not even in the bottom five percent of recyclers. Let’s take a possible look at the future of my plastic bottle. I live in Southern Ohio and the Great Miami River is close by my house and the bottle “could” end up there. From there it is a short trip to the Ohio River, then the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and in a year or three it ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Once there it will merge with other trash that is currently the size of Texas. It will take thousands of years for the bottle to break down and all of the toxins to become non lethal.

I can go on and on about what we are not doing and how we hurt each other in wars ranging from the United States Civil War, WWI, WWII and through our current war and that is just a few from the past 125 years. Sure there is the occasional doing your neighbor a good deed and there are times when we can pull together for a national tragedy or to pull a young girl from a well in Texas. But over all we are just doing harm.

I’m not saying there is no good in us, but for the most part there is a "it is about me attitude." I have found the perfect definition for us humans:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parasite

And here is a final link to show you how smart and compassionate some animals are: http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/5/mother-dog-hit-by-car-son-saves-her-life-in-nyc-traffic-723374.html

Here is another: http://www.matthewgood.org/2009/02/homeless-dog-rescues-dog-hit-by-car/

I’m off of my high horse for now and going to toss my water bottle in my recycle bin and hope that I and you strive for a better tomorrow where we think of not only ourselves and fellow humans, but about the bird that is in your tree and of that cat who wishes to eat said bird.

Rich the Parasite