Why and When I Registered as a Democrat

This is a comment I made to something that was posted by a Facebook friend:

For me, the turning point was Newt Gingrich’s reckless tenure as Speaker of the House, and Ken Starr transforming the Whitewater panel into Monicagate. Until then I was a registered voter with no party affiliation. Clinton gave the GOP Nafta and welfare reform, and they still kept attacking him. When they brought the Monica affair to light, I realized there had been a fundamental shift in the party.

Republicans were no longer interested in the two-party system. They would take everything they could get, offer nothing in return, and that was when I finally registered as a Democrat. Even after Clinton survived the beating of impeachment, he agreed to scuttling the Glass-Steagall Act, which was strongly favored by Republicans, and was the single biggest mistake of his administration. Clinton left office with a budget surplus, and of course Bush turned it into a huge tax windfall that mostly benefited the ultra-rich, putting the lie to the Republican assertion they are concerned about the federal deficit.

With all of that said, I voted for Masachusetts governor Charlie Baker. But he’s one of those “Massachusetts Republicans,” like former governors Mitt Romney and Bill Weld. To the rest of the GOP, they are RINO — Republicans in Name Only. Meaning they’re sane and reasonable (ignoring Weld’s recent turn as a Libertarian running mate). It was a shame to see how Romney had to fall in line with the hardcore Republican base in 2012 and denounce Obamacare, which was based largely upon his own Romneycare.

Hollywood Bowl Naked

Giles Martin has done an outstanding job with engineering the recent re-issues of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, and Sgt. Pepper. Capitol Records had technical problems when recording of the first half of the 1964 show at the Hollywood Bowl, which was unforgivable, considering the venue is within walking distance of the Capitol tower. They did a better job a year later. Here is the original, unedited audio of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl in ’65, so you can hear exactly what the source material was that Giles had to work with.

A Tale of Two CD’s

In 1987 it seemed like it had taken forever until the first “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” CD was released, only four years after the Compact Disc was introduced in America, and 20 years after the original album came out. The remixed stereo CD of Pepper is now out, and it definitely sounds remixed, not just remastered as with the 2009 sets, which also included the original mono mixes. I like most of the changes in the new Pepper, but some will take a little getting used to.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what was going on exactly 30 years ago, with a bit of Johnny Carson’s opening monologue from May 21, when the Alzheimer’s Disease affecting Ronald Reagan was already starting to show.