There are two important elections coming in 2018. One is, of course, our election in November. It will be quite the biggie. The other is the Russian presidential election, in March. Normally, we wouldn’t pay all that much attention to it, but events in the last year have boosted interest in Russian internal affairs to surprising new levels, for some strange reason. Right now, I’m guessing that London bookies have the Putin money line at about +24 million, which means that to win a dollar, you have to bet $24 mill. So yeah, you could go ahead and call Vlad a prohibitive favorite, and he appears likely to remain the frontrunner, especially since he has the power to jail, beat, poison and exile any opponent who gets higher than 2 percent in the latest poll.
But the election is not the main concern here. What I really want to know is—who’s in charge of the election hack? I mean, we are going to completely cyber-fuck the Russians and their election, aren’t we? Please? It’s not like we don’t have the geek power. We got plenty of nasty, dangerous geek power. Yes, the Russians are good, damn good at this stuff, these laptop-based “disturbances in The Force.” But it’s time for us to jam. Just as the American basketball team always steps up against the Russians in the Olympics, we need our Cyber Mayhem Team to show some badass binary motherboard penetration on these Slavic slimeballs. It’s not like we need motivation or justification. We have it. The green light is on. The fuckin’ Russians flat out cyber-mugged us. Are we gonna get off the deck, suck it up, and kick a little ass? Can we hack it, pun obvious?
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It was 50 years ago, August 7, 1967, that Beatle George and his entourage decided to visit the mecca of the counterculture at that time, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury.
He expected to be dazzled by the alternative psychedelic scene that he’d heard so much about. What he found was considerably less inspired, mostly a lot of kids who had come to SF with flowers in their hair and who were now hustling speed on the street. It was a sobering reality check that had George and company hustling back to the limo in no time flat.
Once again, I’m teaching a course in Beatle history at Truckee Meadows Community College, and it begins Sept. 13. All you need is love, man—and 59 bucks. Go to washoecommunityed.org, click classes, click upcoming classes, and it’s there under Music. Join us. It’ll be way fab.