We saw Barry McGuire at the Coffee Gallery!

Acoustic show with a guitar partner. He played "Eve of Destruction", too!

Oh Man, The Hat! We've been there, too. WELL worth the drive from the Westside!

Too bad they couldn't rename the Simi Valley Freeway for President Obama.

At present, it's forced to bear the name of Ronald Reagan.

Aw damn. So sorry to hear that.

She will indeed be missed.

Damn.

Mmm-hmm.

Mansplaining. I love it.

Or, even better, as I heard on Rachel Maddow's show last night, when an excerpt of Hillary's reading from her new book was played: "man-spreading" (when the guy on the subway sits with his knees WAY wide apart, visibly taking as much space as he can, for himself) !!!!!

I can still remember how I felt when I saw that original interview clip of her as the First Lady of

Arkansas. And she said she wasn't just another wife "standin' bah mah man like Tammy Wynette." Hit me like a thunderbolt! SHE thinks that, too? HOLY CRAP! I thought I was the only one who felt like that! I didn't measure my worth by being a supplement to my husband, or "arm candy" (yeah, sure - ME, Arm Candy? Why yes, as soon as Prince William throws Kate Middleton over, to come and carry ME away!!!), or appendage, or she-whose-place-is-walking-two-steps-behind-her-husband, or she-who-knows-her-place-is-in-either-the-kitchen-or-bedroom, or she-who-must-always-defer-to-the-Great-HIM. FUCK THAT! I didn't even take his name when we married, and he's so liberated that he actually suggested it (as he put it: "because I don't want to change my name so I don't see why you should have to change yours&quot .

That smarmy twangy Tammy Wynette song, as I've always understood it, exhorts women to stand by their man regardless of what kind of asshole or loser he is. Well, I don't think so! I don't think any woman HAS TO "stand by" her man if he's a shit, or a shit - to her. I always hated that song, not only for its message but just the music and melody and the accompaniment. I'm not a fan of country music, anyway. Don't know why, but when that soupy pedal steel guitar cranks up, it makes me want to run screaming into the night. I am lucky that I've got a good guy. He's NO asshole and NO loser. But dammit, he and I are EQUALS. And I'm not here merely to be some accessory or subservient partner. We're EQUALS. Always have been. And I sensed that from Hillary, too. Couldn't believe how someone that high-profile and back then very likely to become First Lady Of The United States would feel the same way I did. But that's who she was, and still is. That's why her presence on the national scene is SO DAMN VITAL, at least IMO.

Maybe I take it too far. But I have to admit that I find myself feeling personally insulted when I hear her being smacked around by some smart-ass - on OR off the air.

LOVE that "Redneckistan" term, phylny!

I may have to steal it!

Besides, it's a bit tidier than "Dumbfuckistan"!

MAN, this is GREAT!

Yeah! Screw that doctor with all the fancy-ass paper degrees. The mechanic down the street is just as good for removing this tumor I have... One good yank with the nice firm grip on his wrench and I'm all better!

THANK YOU for writing that up, posting it, and then sharing it here! It's terrific! Mind if I borrow it?

Bingo!

An excellent and MOST reasonable question.

Ah yes. There are always those for whom Let's-Dump-On-Hillary is the favorite indoor sport.

Won't be me. And if she's not allowed to blame him, then I will be very glad to step in and handle that job. Besides, I'm sorry to break it to you, but she happens to be right on this one. AND she HAS taken responsibility for whatever mistakes might have been made in her campaign - even though her campaign was NOT the mess that some wish to portray it as being. NO campaign is perfect, INCLUDING Bernie's. But hers was mighty enough, and effective enough, to have won the popular vote, free 'n' clear and unquestionably, AND by a substantial amount. There isn't a politician alive who wouldn't give anything for an almost three-million-vote majority over his or her opponent.

I've loved and admired Hillary Clinton since I first started hearing about her at the start of Campaign 1992. She had me at "well, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies..." And after that, when she declared she wasn't simply another wife "standin' by my man like Tammy Wynette", I almost flipped out. How on earth did she know and understand me so completely - while never having met me nor even being aware that I existed? I was astonished by how much I found myself relating to her, and realizing how much we had in common.

She was a new kind of woman, the same kind of woman I myself was trying to be, back then, as an accomplished professional in her own right, and then also as a working mother. That's exactly where I was, at that time, too. It was an electrifying and deeply validating realization for me. Whatever it was that I was trying to do, she was actually doing, in spades, with bells on, and with a cherry on top. And if I noticed people around me who were threatened by me and whatever small-time achievements I could claim to have made (and you better believe I DID notice!), then I can only imagine the exponentially and grotesquely larger situation that she faced from opponents who were jealous and resentful of her success. She was earthshakingly magnificent - then AND now. And she has more guts in one eyelash than trump and his entire weasely family and entourage could dream of acquiring.

She's still One Humdinger of an inspiration. To me, and to my daughter's generation, as many of them have told me.