Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The Call Of Ktulu

Another game changer track, a progressive 7 minute instrumental, with a title taken from the works of HP Lovecraft and his mythical monster.

And death was the unifying theme on “Ride The Lightning” except for “Escape”, a Thin Lizzy like cut which had defiant social lyrics like “Life is my own to live my own way”. The same message could be heard on songs like “Stand Up And Shout” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

“The Call Of Ktulu” has got a bit of everything, written mostly by Dave Mustaine in his Dux of the Year contribution however the publishing will show Hetfield, Ulrich, Burton, Mustaine.

And it’s got the embryonic riff of what will become “Hanger 18” in Megadeth many years later, based around a chromatic ascending riff similar to “Kashmir” from Led Zeppelin.

The songs structure is orchestral like and it’s full of ascending and descending scales, chromatic lines which give the song an air of menace and time changes.

The intro alone moves from a classical inspired Dm arpeggio riff to the Am Tritone arpeggio riff and back to the Dm “Hangar 18” riff.

And the “Ride The Lightning” album was the first time that Cliff was really writing with the band, and this partnership would come to fruition on the follow up album “Master Of Puppets” album.

Rumors existed that Hetfield didn’t write any lyrics because he never actually read any of Lovecraft’s works or that the song that appears on the album was a throwaway jam from the Mustaine era, with Mustaine actually playing, because the album was over budget and needed an extra track.

And the various companies printing the LPs kept spelling it wrong on various pressings. “The Cat Of Ktulu” and “The Call Of The Ktulu”.

Regardless, enjoy a brilliant track which was made even more menacing when Michael Kamen wanted to open the “S&M” show with it many years later, which gave the song a new lease of life and people once again became interested in Metallica’s back catalogue.

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My Stories

Fires

Since September, 2019, the land has been burning.

The photo below shows the fires burning along the East Coast at a macro level as of this morning, 5 January, 2020.

When you zoom in, you will see Wollongong, one of Australia’s steel city is still okay. That’s home for me.

The Red means it’s out of control, the blue means wait for advice, the yellow means watch and act and the white means it’s not applicable anymore.

At the places that have burned, I have holidayed there. Just recently, I spent New Years Eve 2018 in Bateman’s Bay. The area is still without power and people are in evacuation centers.

I have friends who lost property in Talbingo.

And if you read any publication from “The Murdoch Family” it’s like the fires have never happened. Rupert and his editors are no different than any extremist terrorist organisation. The news outlets Murdoch controls spread lies for their financial gain. While the whole world reported about the fires in Australia, Murdoch’s newspaper in Australia didn’t think it was a big problem. Check out this Guardian article.

And our Prime Minister has shown how incompetent and unfit he is to lead this country.

But hey, he’s supported by Murdoch’s stooges at the news outlets and he can do nothing wrong. If people yell at him for his lack of leadership, the Murdoch newspaper reports he was assaulted.

If people refuse to shake the PM’s hand, the Murdoch newspaper reported he was disrespected by feral people. Those same people voted in his government and now when they question him, they are not people in his eyes that deserve an answer.

And to sum up our PM’s incompetence;

He has no real heartfelt connection with the people and he doesn’t know how to connect and communicate with his people.

For the election campaign last year, he spoke to the Australian people about their budgets and what the opposition party would do to those budgets if they won, so they voted him in when all the Polls said he had no chance. When our wallets are affected, we take notice and speaking at a macro level he’s okay with that.

But when a volunteer tells you he hasn’t eaten all day, instead of sitting down and having a meal with him at a micro level and talking about nothing, he walks away, leaves the volunteer to get on with it.

I guess all of the people on the street are ferals, Mr Prime Minister.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The Pirate Vault #7

The little box of cassette tapes keeps bringing back some memories.

Guns N Roses mix and 7th Son of A 7th Son

The Gunners mix is a weird one, a combination of live tracks from B sides and “Use Your Illusion” tracks, along with “Patience” from the “Lies” EP.

I chucked in “Breaking The Law” from Judas Priest towards the end because the band I was in was covering it, and in the 90’s when we played the song, people thought it was our own song. Totally clueless to the songs origin or we played it that bad, they couldn’t recognize it.

And “So Tired” from Ozzy’s “Bark At The Moon” album is one of the best songs Ozzy has written with just one finger and a piano.

Side 2 has the excellent “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” album from the mighty Iron Maiden.

I remember sitting down and learning “Moonchild”, “Infinite Dreams”, “Can I Play With Madness”, “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son” and my favourite track, “The Evil That Men Do”.

Living on the razors edge alright.

Savatage Mix and Fates Warning Mix

My cousin “Mega” is four years older and at this point in time, he had more money at his disposal and was devouring new music like a sumo having breakfast.

And I had the Savatage albums with Criss Oliva up to “Gutter Ballet” on LP and “Streets: A Rock Opera” on CD, but hadn’t heard “Edge Of Thorns” and then I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after his death with the next album, but upon hearing that Alex Skolnick from Testament was involved, I was interested.

As for Fates Warning, I had the first three albums on LP and Mega was purchasing all the CD’s after that.

So on a visit to his place, I spent some time listening and cherry picking songs to fill up a side over a few albums. I guess Apple was onto something with their iTunes Store.

The Savatage tracks are made up of “Edge Of Thorns” and “Handful Of Rain” tracks, while the Fates Warning tracks are made up of “Perfect Symmetry” and “Parallels” songs.

Guitars From Hell Part I and II

I don’t know why I selected that title for this mix tape.

Side 1

“Take Me For A Little While”

It’s one of my favourite cuts from the “Coverdale/Page” album, because it could have been a massive radio hit if it was shorter, but these two legends just kept going and the song ended up almost 7 minutes long.

“Song For Love”

Nuno Bettencourt has some real good guitar moments in this song and it’s here because of it.

“You Don’t Remember , I’ll Never Forget” and “Queen In Love”

I was having a Yngwie Malmsteen moment and these two songs are accessible and Malmsteen plays for the song, with stellar riffing and picking the right moment to break loose.

“Dr Rockter”, “Love Machine” and “Sleepin In The Fire”

WASP aka Blackie Lawless just knew how to satisfy the core. These 3 songs I can put em on, and never once do I think to press skip.

“Breaking The Chains”

I had overdosed on the Dokken albums from “Tooth N Nail” so I went back to the debut.

“Hiroshima Mon Amour” and “Island In The Sun”

Did I mention I was having a Malmsteen moment?

These are tracks from the excellent and very underrated “Alcatrazz” band before Malmsteen went solo.

Notice the guitar heroes in the list on side 1. Jimmy Page, Nuno Bettencourt, Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch and Chris Holmes/Blackie Lawless (bassist who moved to guitar). Maybe the whiskey swilling Holmes didn’t get as much attention, but he could play and he could party. Sort of like the underrated Robin Crosby from Ratt.

Side 2

“You’re Invited But Your Friend Can’t Come” kicks it off, a cut written by Shaw and Blades for Vince Neil, but the guitar you hear is from Steve Stevens. And the solo break is worthy.

“Reason To Kill” has the excellent Al Pitrelli on guitar. It was released on “Blood And Bullets”, the excellent album from Dee Snider’s “Widowmaker” project.

“Outlaw” is from the pre Motley John Corabi fronted “The Scream” band.

“Devils Toy” is from the excellent “The Almighty” and it can be found on their “Soul Destruction” album.

“Stand Up And Fight” is from MARS, the supergroup project featuring Tony MacAlpine on guitars, Tommy Aldridge on drums, Rob Rock on vocals and Rudy Sarzo on bass.

“To Hell With The Devil” is one of my favourite cuts from the album of the same title and all those harmonies courtesy of Michael Sweet.

“Here I Go” is from “The Screaming Jets” a hard rock band from Australia. This song appears on their “Tear Of Thought” album. Guitarists, Grant Walmsley and Richard Lara really worked well together and nailed their parts, however credit needs to go to the main songsmith in bassist, Paul Woseen, who wrote the majority of songs for the band.

“Midnight/Tornado” is from the Skid Row debut. I always liked this song, but other songs got my attention early on, so I put it on a mix tape to overdose on it.

“Don’t Lie To Me” is another obscure Dokken cut that features some tasty work from George Lynch.

And to close, a Cinderella classic in “Don’t Know What You Got (Until It’s Gone)”.

And even on this list, you see a list of guitar heroes. Steve Stevens, Al Pitrelli, Bruce Bouillet, Ricky Warwick, Tony MacAlpine, Michael Sweet/Oz Fox, Grant Walmsley/Richard Lara, Dave Sabo/Scott Hill, George Lynch again and Tom Keifer/Jeff LeBar.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Bob Halligan Jnr wrote the song, and he was becoming a go to guy for melodic rock songs. He wrote “(Take These) Chains” from 1982’s “Screaming for Vengeance”.

He wrote the whole “Midnite Dynamite” album for Kix plus he co-wrote their biggest hit “Don’t Close Your Eyes” from the “Blow My Fuse” album.

“Rock You” is a hard rock song written by Bob Halligan, Jr., and the first track from Helix’s 1984 album “Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge”. It is best known for its call and response of “Gimme an R, O, C, K.”

Kiss (aka Paul Stanley) also used him a fair bit as well throughout the 80’s with the songs “Rise To It” and “Read My Body” included on “Hot In The Shade” released in 1989.

Plus he wrote songs for a band called “Icon” and for one of my favorite melodic rock bands “Bonfire”.

But regardless of the writer it sounds like a Judas Priest track.

The way Tipton and Downing interpret the basic chord progression and add their own embellishments to it via single notes and artificial harmonics is the reason why it works. And when Halford sings, his signature voice connects it all together.

If the man with the power cant keep it under control
Some heads are gonna roll

So relevant today as it was back in the 70’s and 80’s. All of our male leaders have dick ego “Lord Farquhar” syndrome.

But the biggest problem that we have allowed to happen is the destruction of our environment. Nature is a balanced ecosystem and when species and trees become extinct in the quest of profit over progress, well its only a matter of time before we start to see evidence.

And we have been seeing signs since the 90s.

The power mad freaks who are ruling the Earth
Will show how little they think you’re worth

And these power mad freaks are not just the leaders in charge, they are also the giants in control of the biggest global corporations we have ever scene. And let’s not kid ourselves here.

The owners of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix or ex-owners like Bill Gates from Microsoft or Apple execs have their influence all over the current world we live in, along with the sheiks and various oil barons and the bankers.

But let’s not forget the current crop of Presidents and Prime Ministers in charge of democratic countries.

In the US, the President tweets information which exposes the Ukraine informer who had enough evidence to get the president in trouble and then threatens a few country’s on Twitter.

In Australia, the East Coast of the country is burning and the Prime Minister is looking for some work life-balance as he holidays in Hawaii in secret and then holds a $6 million fireworks display in Sydney to please the rich. To make it worse, he watches cricket and tells people to get on with it like generations did in the past. But in the past, the fires burned for a week and in some cases up to two weeks. These fires have been burning since September.

Yep from September.

In the UK, well, there is nothing to be said there. The stories all over the net paint a picture of those leaders if you read critically and from different sources.

I guess it’s time for some heads to roll from the political side. We all have a voice, use it wisely when you get to vote.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Public Domain 2020

The post over at Duke University.

The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. And it does so by providing creators a limited monopoly to distribute their works with the aim to make money.

The limited time for works was 28 years and if the creator renewed they would get another 28 years and if they didn’t renew, then the works would end up in the Public Domain. All up 56 years was the term.

But not all works made money so 98% of them would end up in the Public Domain after 26 years.

What’s the point in renewing if it’s worth nothing?

Having copyright terms that last 70 years after the death of the creator does not promote creativity.

It promotes money for lawyers because of the heirs who sue or it make money for the corporations who control the rights.

It also promotes laziness from the creator who has no incentive to create anymore works. Certain artists tell us that they have no incentive to create new works and are quite happy to live off their past works which had public acceptance.

Works from 1924 will enter the US public domain and most of these works are already in the public domain in other parts of the world, which means anyone can use these works as raw material for their own creations, without fear of a lawsuit.

Prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1963 would have entered the public domain if Copyright was never extended to last for the life of the creator plus 70 years.

Works from 1963 like the songs from The Beatles’ albums “Please, Please Me” and “With The Beatles” or songs from The Beach Boys’ album “Surfin’ U.S.A” album’s would be in the Public Domain.

Imagine that.

All those works available to build new works, in the same way way The Beatles and The Beach Boys built their works on the blues music already in the Public Domain at that point in time.

But when we create works, we do not do it because of Copyright law. We do it because we need to create and we love to create.

Imagine if those terms existed past 1978. Works from 1991 which failed to get renewed would be in the Public Domain.

Imagine that.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories

Decade Of Teachings

DONT SELL YOUR RIGHTS

The recording business thrived on getting artists to sells their rights to the labels in a shot at fame. And the label would keep the bulk of the sales/payments. So when sales started to decline and streaming started to rise, the artists who did not sell their rights or got their rights back, started to grin.

PAYMENTS

You will get paid as long as people keep listening. Or do what Dave Coverdale does with his anniversary editions.

MARKETING

It’s all about word of mouth. What the press promotes, does not crossover to public acceptance anymore.

TOURING

Artists who can play get an audience on the road once they have some streaming numbers on cities. So they build online and capitalize on the road.

ONCE

One offs are one offs. They never happen again to the same scale like Radiohead’s pay what you want model or Kickstarter fan funding to the tune of a millions or PSY’s “Gangnam Style” viral video or Guitar Hero consoles.

STREAMING

Promoters book you based on your streaming numbers. And in most cases, artists break on streaming services before radio and music news websites jump on the bandwagon.

SUPERSTARS

Everyone can play the modern game and if you look at peoples EOY lists for favorite releases, there is a lot of variance.

A lot of variation and each fan has an act which they see as superstars.

So the days of an artist crossing over into the conversation on all levels is done. Satisfy your core, who will sustain you.

RELATIONSHIPS

It’s between the artist and the fan, not the label or the promoter. If the artist doesn’t have that fan relationship, the labels and the promoter make nothing.

PLAYLISTS

Don’t waste time or money trying to get onto a playlist with the hope that you will be discovered. It doesn’t work and to make it work, costs time and money, which nobody wants to pay to fix because streaming services haven’t made any profits yet. And the record labels are just takers.

REPETITION

It hardly exists. Skimming and skipping tracks is the current emperor. But when we do get hooked then we listen forever.

NEW MUSIC

Create because you want to create. Don’t be like the artists who say “it’s not worth it, to write and release new music”.

Don’t put money first.

SAFETY NET

There isn’t one in music. Just because you spend time creating, it doesn’t mean you will be taken off financially.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Don’t waste too much time each day on promoting yourself there. Keep writing and releasing. 10 percent of your followers/fans on these accounts make up your fan base. The rest are not interested.

And use social media to your advantage.

There is no need to do a press tour and interviews with various websites. All you are doing is driving traffic to them who then use it to sell ads.

Drive traffic to you.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Experiences

When Zoltan Bathory was putting together a band in 2004, he had a vision to bring metal back to the masses. Like em or not, Five Finger Death Punch have been going full steam ahead since then.

And if you want to use the U.S RIAA certification as a metric of success the FFDP tick all the boxes.

Their debut album,‘The Way of the Fist’ released in 2007, is certified Gold in the U.S which means it has moved 500,000 units.

2009’s “War Is The Answer” is Platinum, having moved over a million units. Their cover of the song “Bad Company” is also Platinum. I guess you can’t keep a good song down.  

2011’s “American Capitalist” is also Platinum. 2013’s two album release, “The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell” also have certifications. “Volume 1” is Platinum and” Volume 2” is Gold.

“Got Your Six” released in 2015 is Gold. The most recent album “And Justice For None”, released in 2018, is not far away from a Gold certification and neither is their 2017 best of release “A Decade Of Destruction”.

From the streaming side.

The song “Bad Company” has 144,342,692 streams on Spotify. “Wrong Side Of Heaven” has 166,262,954 streams. And other songs are also in the 100 million range like “Jekyll And Hyde” which has close to 142 million streams.  

On YouTube, the numbers are the same. The film clip from “Wrong Side Of Heaven” has 272 million views. “Wash It All Away” has 162 million views. “Bad Company” is at 109 million views. “Jekyll And Hyde” vide has 86 million views.

The house that Death Punch built is strong.

And FFDP is not the first band the guys were in. All of the guys had skin in the game. In some cases decades of skin.

So what does this tell us?

Inspiration doesn’t take place in a vacuum. All day long we are experiencing and quality doesn’t come with no prior experience. 

Our whole life is a database of information. Be ready to index it and then reference it. Use this database of life to create something better. Learn from the database of life and keep on creating.    

FFDP have found their signature voice and they are servicing their fan base. It is the fans that matter. They are the ones that give the band the chance to create and release albums. Not the record labels or the money that the labels throw at the band. The fans are king in the relationship. Without them, FFDP has nothing and neither does the record label.

Experiences are everything in music. It is the difference between making a connection with a fan or not making a connection.

FFDP have paid their dues and they have mined their lives for content.

And they didn’t quit.

And see you next year.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, Unsung Heroes

My Listening for 2019 on Spotify

Spotify always has there lists of what we listened to in 2019.

Even though the list is a 100 songs long, there are bands/artists who have multiple songs on this playlist, so here it is;

Spotify 2019 Wrapped Playlist

My 2019 releases posts;

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Hours Spent Listening

Free Spirits Rising

From Australia, with a song a month releases and some cool lyrics.

Freedom comes when you have nothing left to lose

From “Revolution In Black”.

We are Here to throw back the stones

From “We Are Here”.

Evergrey

“The Atlantic” dropped this year and it got a lot of love.

Turbonegro

“John Carpenter Powder Ballad” was introduced to me via Henrik and his 2018 Spotify list and the song remained with me this year.

Dream Theater

Their new album dropped this year, so it got some love at the start.

Soilwork

Their new album dropped this year, and it got a lot of love.

Reach

Introduced to me via another blog and the band remained with me for 2019.

Tool

As a fan, I enjoyed listening to their first album in 13 years.

Days Of Jupiter

I couldn’t get enough of their 2018 album “Panoptical”.

The Butterfly Effect

From Australia, “Final Conversation” from 2007 still gets spins and they dropped a new track this year, their first in over 12 years.

Megadeth

What can I say, Mustaine is always around my life.

Rival Sons

They caught me by surprise and delivered a stellar rock album.

Cog

One of my favorite Aussie acts who also dropped a few new tracks this year after a long hiatus.

Matt Nathanson

An acoustic take on one of my favorite Def Leppard tracks.

Corroded

Their groove metal vibe gets me going and their new album got a lot of love this year.

Killswitch Engage

Their new album dropped and it also got some attention.

Volbeat

Their new album dropped and it also got some attention x2

Royal Bliss

Their new album dropped and it also got some attention x3

Papa Roach

Their new album dropped and a few songs got some attention.

Roxus

“Rock N Roll Nights” is from the early 90s. A great piece of melodic rock.

Tesla

How can you not like “Shock”?

Pink Floyd

It’s “Comfortably Numb” and that guitar solo.

Godsmack

A few songs from the “When Legends Rise” album still get some time.

Roulette

A new album dropped this year and a few songs got some love.

Art Of Anarchy

Scott Stapp’s pained vocals on “Changed Man” still give me goosebumps.

Rag N Bone Man

The song “Human” is a modern masterpiece with crossover appeal across all genres.

Gathering Of Kings

The whose who of Euro Melodic Rock.

Whitesnake

Their new album dropped along with deluxe editions of “Slide It In” and “Slip Of The Tongue”.

The End Machine

Dokken without Don Dokken.

Kingdom Come

“Stargazer” from “In Your Face” still gets me.

Alter Bridge

“Wouldn’t You Rather” was one of their first singles dropped in the promo run and it got a lot of attention.

DeVicious

The Night Flight Orchestra

“Satellite” dropped this year and I liked it and I played it.

Black Label Society

I still crank “Angel Of Mercy” for that guitar solo.

Porcupine Tree

“Lazarus” is a melancholic track from the mid 2000’s

Paola Nutini

“Iron Sky” is a great groovy track with lyrics which resonate.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

“Mettavolution” got a lot of attention.

Skid Row

“Forever” was a song I came across when I downloaded a bunch of demos from the net and then a version was included in the best of release.

Shinedown

“How Did You Love” is still a favorite.

Thirty Seconds To Mars

“Monolith” is an instrumental and a favorite.

The Brink

“Break These Chains” got my attention.

Dio

“The Last In Line” is a special Dio song as it has all the epicness jammed in, under 5 minutes and it doesn’t sound cluttered.

Richie Sambora

“Seven Years Gone” is one of Richie’s best songs and way better than anything Bon Jovi releases since the “Have A Nice Day” album.

Scott Stapp

“Purpose For Pain” was the lead single and it got some spins because of its Euro Metal influences.

Horizon Ignited

“Home” is the track which got a lot of spins.

HYVMINE

“Retaliation” is an interesting cut, with references to Avenged Sevenfold and AOR Rock.

And that’s 2019 all done.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Life, Life, Life

Y&T should have been bigger, but I’m afraid that with time no one will know who they are or were.

Dave Meniketti is one of those guitar heroes who had pipes to sing and play awesome guitar, bassist Phil Kennemore is the underrated lyricist in the band, while Joey Alves, along with Kennemore and Leonard Haze held down the foundations.

And Meniketti, brought his late sixties hard rock roots into the mix merging Hendrix, Purple, Cream, Sabbath and Clapton with the new California sounds of San Francisco and LA.

For Y&T to even get to this stage, it meant they had to survive a label deal which went bad, a manager who ripped them off with royalties, their “Struck Down” album was dead before it even came out, A&R reps telling them to change their music style and other recording industry people telling them to break up.

Y&T (before “Black Tiger”) recorded two demo tapes, a new wave tape and a hard rock tape. Gene Simmons came across both of these tapes and he really liked the new wave songs. He even told the band to pursue that new wave sound and if the band wanted his help, Simmons would need to have artistic control. But Y&T decided to pursue the hard rock sound and A&M Records showed interest here.

“Life, Life, Life” is from the excellent “In Rock We Trust” album released in 1984.

It starts off with a triplet 8th der der der, der der der, derrr de. And it repeats, before it morphs into a sweet tasty lead before it morphs into the verse riff.

It’s a bloody scene
Hear the population scream
As the missile rushes in
Can’t you feel the flames of hell?

What’s changed in the last 35 years?

Missiles are still rushing in and for people living in these war zones, it is hell. And for all of our technological advancements to integrate and socialise, we are even more divided.

There is a status gap, a digital divide gap, a racial divide still exists, a religious divide, a pay divide and eventually when people rise up to demonstrate, they either get ignored, imprisoned or killed depending on the country and the type of government they are demonstrating against.

And that “is it too late” section, puts Def Leppard’s vocal harmonies to shame.

We let the insane play their fools game

We don’t just let the insane, play, we vote them in and give them the keys.

It’s time to make a stand for
Life, Life, Life
It’s time to break down the chain of command

We are the only ones who can make change happen, but we choose to opt out so we don’t upset other people.

It’s time to break down the chain of command and stop the war machines, which also includes the corporations trying to hijack democracy.  

And we need to do it, to preserve life.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, Stupidity

Just A Number

Our digital world is at a dangerous level, as people use our data to make billions in ad revenue and other people are trying to gain access to our lives so they could do up fake accounts and use our information/details for fraud.

And governments put the onus on us to protect ourselves, so we get virus and protection software in the same way we get locks on our windows and an alarm system in the house.

And if you think by using a hacked version of virus software keeps you safe, then you are delusional. The police are not even equipped to deal with cyber fraud and the banks don’t even care.

But how can we protect ourselves, when every organisation we deal with, wants our personal information, otherwise we cannot participate with them. And then how do these organisations store our personal information.

Is it under lock and key, on encrypted drives?

Who has access to it and if they destroy it, how do they destroy it?

Because if we need to go to all these lengths to protect our personal information, why shouldn’t the organizations we deal with do the same.

If you’ve been to a Dr’s surgery, you will notice that there is so much personal information in a box near the receptionists desk waiting to be shredded.

Now I am sure that this information gets destroyed/shredded, but it was there, and all it needs is someone to take that box and suddenly, they have names, addresses and dates of birth of real people. In the hands of criminals, this information is gold.

The governments now also want this data as part of policy research, so what we have happening in Australia, are Doctor surgeries passing on private health information to the government for a fee.

Talk about going back to the well over and over again. Doctors bulk bill the government for each patient via Medicare plus we need to pay a gap payment to the Doctors because they over estimate their worth and now the Doctor surgeries make extra money from the government by sharing our personal health issues with the government.

Dollars for data. To doctors we are just walking fees, as treatment takes a backseat to making money.

I guess the people whose data is exposed don’t benefit in any way. Just the organizations who hold the data.

I guess we are all just a number, like the Bob Seger song.

To ma bell I’m just another phone
I’m just another statistic on a sheet
To teachers I’m just another child
To IRS I’m just another file

To change the above;

To Facebook, I’m just another user, a data mine for profits on a sheet, to doctors I’m just another fee, as treatment takes a backseat to making money.

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