Don't Let Us Get Sick.

Somedays, you just take a big sloppy bag of shit right in the face just for lookin the wrong direction. As The Man IN Black said, I Guess Things Happen That Way.

Just kind of windin down the work day, feelin like I got somewhere for a change, lookin forward to getting home and doing a little taekwondo practice, so I go checkin out some music listings to see if there are any good bands coming round...

And this is what we get.


I mean, dammit. It's not as if the American health care system already doesn't suck so bad it's the AMC Pacer of the world - You'd never think there was so much of the Third World right here at home- but it is especially decrepit and punitive for those who've dedicated their lives to making the rest of ours a bit more bearable through music. In 2004, Alejandro Escovedo (uncle of Sheila E, so it's not as if he's part of a destitute family) developed Hep C and was only able to survive because his brothers and sister in other music groups performed a slew of benefits to help pay his bills.

Record companies don't provide health bennies to most of their 'stable'. Yes, they refer to the artists as if they were livestock. Do we really need more reasons to despise Music Industry Weasels?

It's become a standing joke, albeit a dark and disturbing one, among musicians that eventually they will need to have other musicians play a benefit to help them pay medical bills.

So anyway, one of the guys from Split Lip Rayfield - one of the best speed-bluegrass-punk artists with a single-string-gas-tank-bass ever to play Summerfest - has got himself some esophageal cancer. Guess they're not playing SFest this year.

Well, they've got a place for donations at Their web site, so go and give, or buy some music, or damn, just jump down the throat of some fuckhead legislator who's got HIS damn medical bills covered by us, the American People, tell them to fuckin cover us already. It's embarrassing.

Second time I've used that post title, from Warren Zevon.