Lazaro Vega

I just returned from the GMT converter to see Jazz From Blue Lake would be heard from 11:30 a.m. most weekdays in Tokoyo. Tonight is one of the occassional nights we'll begin at 10 p.m. -- 10 a.m. in Tokoyo. Thanks for trying us out. Hope you come back. Please tell any friends in Japan who you think might enjoy us. If you have a minute to post any of the jazz stations in Japan, especially Tokoyo, that would be much appreciated. I've been talking to a concert producer in Toronto who wants to see about broadcasting recordings in Japan. Lazaro

Tonight, Monday, the web stream begins at 10 p.m. and we'll be listening to the music of Duke Jordan.

Please join us this evening for a celebration of baritone saxophonist Harry Carney -- the web stream commences at 11:30 p.m. (gmt plus 5) and jazz is heard until 11 a.m. Saturday morning.

Man, Fred Anderson! You bet Sal. Wish I was in his place more often. This came in from Margaret Davis. Readers in Europe take note: Fred Anderson's trio + special guest Ernest Khabeer Dawkins will also play at Espace 1789 in Saint Ouen, France on a double bill with Anthony Braxton on April 8th as part of the huge, spectacular Banlieues Bleues Festival running from March 11th to April 25th in various towns in France. (I'm happy to say the great Henry Grimes will play in the festival at the same venue as featured artist with Marc Ribot's Spiritual Unity Quartet playing all Albert Ayler music on April 12th.) If I may meander from the topic at hand for a minute, as I'm sure you know, the artistic scope of this festival is awesome: Charles Gayle, Yusef Lateef, Joe McPhee, David Murray, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, McCoy Tyner... hundreds and hundreds more, as can be seen on www.banlieuesbleues.org/english/english.htm (click on "all the concerts").

Dear Chicago and lovers of Chicago music, As most of you already know, Fred Anderson is going to have to relocate the Velvet Lounge very soon. For a lot of us, the Velvet Lounge has been a home base, a Mecca of Music. For many years, Baba Fred has not only been a great musical inspiration, but he has provided a space for so many musicians to perform and to continue the development of creative music. He has been tireless in his efforts. This is our moment to step up and come together as a community to help him out. There is already a new development around the corner on Cermak that is designated for the new Velvet Lounge's location, but it's going to take an enormous amount of work and money for this transition. In order for Fred to move into the new space, he is going to have to build up the place from scratch--and it's an overwhelming task! In fact, the costs for this transformation are near $100,000. The visual image, for those of you not living in Chicago, is that 2128 1/2 S. Indiana is a lone box on a flattened landscape. The large abandoned buildings surrounding the Velvet have already been torn down and the wrecking vehicles are parked on the side of the Velvet's walls. Even Fitzies BBQ is gone! We have two dates planned for fundraising concerts at the moment. Sunday, May 22nd Afternoon (exact time TBA) at the HotHouse--Marguerite has offered her space for this event Friday, May 27th at the Velvet (9:30pm until-) Later this week, a formal press release will be disseminated and by next week, the Velvet Lounge website: www.velvetlounge.net, should be accessible for internet contributions and also publicize the fundraising activities. Here are ways you can help: 1. Chicago Musicians: All musicians interested in performing please email me. If we end up with more musicians than can fit on these dates, we'll make another date somewhere else. 2. Musicians at Large: If you have ideas to share, or would like to do a fundraising concert in your area, please let us know. 3. Writers/Promoters/DJs: Anyone who has the ability to publicize this story and get the word out, it would be really appreciated. A formal press release will be published on chi-improv by the end of the week. 4. Fundraisers/Grantwriters: If you have any great ideas about how to raise this money ASAP, please email me and we can plan a meeting. 5. Music Lovers/Organizers: If you want to make a contribution, or want to help organize activities, please email me. Peace and Blessings, Nicole Mitchell dreamtme3@aol.com www.nicolemitchell.com

Paul Motian is our featured artist tonight, and the web cast might begin at 10 rather than 11:30 because of the kindness of independant record labels.

He claims it was years ago from a "tape trader." Who knows. Charlie works at Stereo Jacks where all kinds of jazz heads go to get a fix.

I just e-mailed Charlie Kohlhase alerting him to this thread. We'll see if there's anything he might be able to do in terms of finding the source here....

Happy belated birthday to Fred Anderson featured tonight on Blue Lake, with the web stream on early, at 10 p.m. due to the kindness of independant record label owners! (p.s. heard through the grapevine that the new "book" on local FM radio audience has 4,000 people tuning in to Jazz From Blue Lake every night, and our daytime classical music is earning a 2.5 share of this growing market. A 2.5 adds up to around 28,000 people a week just to hear our daytime classical programming...Of course since we didn't pay for this info, I can't use it so please don't tell anyone. )

$500 plus for the Basie set? Think I'll wait for the single CD reissues....

Thanks for the mention, Ghost. Yes, we're on late,or very early if you live in the UK. Here's hoping some of the West Coast members will pick up on Blue Lake as we're in prime time out there. Our Saturday morning program is well heard, 7 to 10 a.m. est (that's GMT plus 5 I think). http://bluelake.ncats.net/ (p.s. we're the WBLV in RJ's post. RJ both WGVU and WBLV /WBLU stream on the web, too).

"The Turbinator"

Ah ha, very good. Hey man, Olive Oil took a spill off a hotel cart and broke, according to a missive from Ms. Davis, so Grimes is having to play out the tour on a borrowed instrument (until they can get Olive Oil to an instrument hospital).

Our new schedule is in place: the web stream begins weeknights at 11:30 p.m. so I can play the begeebers out of a featured artist (Nat Cole tonight, Harry James on Friday) to the FM audience from 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. and not break any laws. The good thing is we broadcast jazz overnight on Friday right into late Saturday morning and you might join us Saturday morning from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. est. (mostly new records). Otherwise, web-wise, from 11:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. Monday through Friday. The schedule is now at the site listed above. www.bluelake.org Thanks for listening!

Completely snubbed Chicago.

John, Grimes and Allen went to the Velvet Sunday night to help Fred celebrate his birthday.

Yes, that's more like it. Excellent. Did you slide on down to the Velvet Sunday night? Grimes seals his triumphant comeback March 14, 2005 The Chicago Sun-Times BY JOHN LITWEILER The return of Henry Grimes is certain to be among the best jazz stories of the decade. In the late 1950s and '60s, Grimes was one of jazz's boldest bassists, a favorite of experimental leaders from Sonny Rollins to Lennie Tristano to Cecil Taylor, before he abruptly vanished from music in 1968. Rediscovered three years ago in Los Angeles, where he was living in a SRO hotel, and given a new bass, he began practicing again, and soon was playing concerts, festivals and European tours. Grimes is touring the United States these days with alto saxman Marshall Allen, and on Friday at HotHouse they were joined by two superb players, Fred Anderson and Avreeayl Ra, in free improvisations. Judging from the huge Friday audience, Grimes' style of music, which was once dangerously radical, has become widely accepted. On Friday, Grimes soloed with all his old authority, then drove the others with rare feeling; his affinity for Anderson, a sensitive tenor saxophonist, was especially rewarding. Allen invented dramatic commentary, accompanied by Ra, who supplied ingenious sound colors and textures. The merry Allen dominated much of the music. Everything he played seemed to end in exclamation points; his sounds were lustrous and his control of extreme ranges was breathtaking. Again and again he broke into Grimes' and Anderson's flowing lines with breathless atonal hollers and wild leaps. Like Ra, Allen is a veteran of Sun Ra's Arkestra, and he even sang two songs about his journeys to faraway planets. Even more than Grimes, Anderson created a lyric continuity. Each of his lines was so organically conceived that he seemed to be playing one long, unbroken melody. The variety of his ideas made an excellent contrast to the recurring darkness of Grimes' playing and Allen's discontinuity. Throughout both sets, Grimes' bass was at the forefront. He's a rare virtuoso without ostentation, an ideal ensemble player of counter-melodies and aggressive rhythms, with a big, true sound. The night was a triumphant return for Grimes and a promise of brilliant music to come. John Litweiler is a Chicago-based free-lancer and author of The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958 (Da Capo Books).

QUOTE (Lazaro Vega @ Mar 14 2005, 03:56 PM) Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming. How arrogant is it to quote yourself? Impossible brought this up, though, upon further reflection it reminded me of how different people make glisses or glissandos with a saxophone. Roscoe Mitchell playing a slow piece on alto saxophone at the Kerrytown Concert House. He starts his reed to vibrate and, with a far from standard embouchure, begins to control the harmonic -- the kind of thing guitar players get by touching the strings lightly – as it comes off the mouthpiece. It’s slippery work. He shapes the gliss, or series of different pitches, with loudness and duration. By the time they enter the horn most of them are gone, mist. One minute the effect is like painting where he's filling colors in outlines, the next it is like he's hanging shapes of shaved ice on a mobile in a dark room with one clear light coming from the side, the top, the bottom, revealing all these variations in silver and black as they turn in their own space. His vocabulary of glisses is elaborate. When Marshall Allen furiously strums the lower keys of the saxophone, the effect is like putting the serrations on the edges of a lightening bolt.

"Fixing" this will take more political muscle than all the steroid abusers in all the 'roid joints you'd walk into in a lifetime. That's why we don't call politicians "Buster." Their name is "Muster." "Why it is hard to share the wealth" http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7107

Clem -- I must interject! The majority of my news comes from www.thenation.com or its paper incarnation. Read a book? I barely have time to skim a mag these days, though Dan Morgenstern, Kart and the Blue Note biography are sitting about and I grab at their words like candy in so many finger bowls. Good for the digestion (of music on the radio).

Quote: "...any hint of traditional song forms." Except the Space Chants go back to work songs and field hollars....of course that's not too traditional....

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/reviews...mx-critics_heds From the Chicago Tribune Top-notch quartet adds punch to Grimes show By Howard Reich Tribune arts critic March 14 2005, 12:30 AM CST Like many formidable jazz musicians, bassist Henry Grimes dropped out of music before making a triumphal return. But because his self-imposed exile lasted several decades—after a creative peak in the 1960s—his comeback has generated considerable attention and hyperbole from admirers. Over the weekend, Chicago listeners had a rare chance to judge for themselves the value of Grimes' art, apart from the narrative of his sometimes turbulent life. If the man's playing Friday night at HotHouse proved stylistically adventurous and technically strong, it was the work of the quartet that he convened for the occasion that made the most vivid impression. Even if Grimes had been sharing the stage only with multi-instrumentalist Marshall Allen, the proceedings would have been fascinating to hear. Allen, a veteran of many incarnations of Sun Ra's fabled Arkestra, may be the perfect foil for Grimes, whose tonally resplendent bass-playing warmly counterbalanced Allen's shrieks and cries on alto saxophone, clarinet and Electronic Wind Instrument. The duo currently is touring the country, two battle-scarred veterans of an age-old avant-garde who still have a great deal to teach younger musicians and contemporary audiences. But for the HotHouse engagement, Grimes and Allen were joined by two indispensable Chicago innovators: tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Avreeayl Ra. These players cohered brilliantly, giving the impression that they had been performing together for ages. In a way, of course, they have, since each of these musicians draws upon essentially the same musical vocabulary, a post-bebop language that's utterly liberated from the constraints of strict chord changes, rigid time signatures and any hint of traditional song forms. Instead, these players are masters at spontaneously building epic improvisations upon a hint of a motif, a burst of instrumental color, a jagged turn of phrase. Proficient in the latest improvisational techniques but steeped in the lessons of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman and the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Grimes' Chicago quartet produced sweeping waves of churning, blues-drenched sound. At the eye of the hurricane was Grimes' bass, which unleashed perpetual-motion lines that were too fast, fleet and harmonically free-ranging to be easily notated. Grimes emerged a poet of his instrument, albeit one who thrives well outside the jazz mainstream. Tenor saxophonist Anderson unreeled the majestic lines one has come to expect from him, but he ratcheted down the fiery intensity of his solos to match Grimes' smoldering burn. And Ra shaped the music-making swirling around him with remarkable precision and poise, as if anticipating gestures that no one realistically could have expected. It was as if a potentially great quartet was born at this moment—it deserves to be heard again, and again. hreich@tribune.com

Nice photo Chuck! Those were hand made deli samMICHes (a Michigan sandwich) I picked up for the band along with a bunch of other goodies. Did the same for Kalaparush, even remembering he likes "coca cola," so we were straight. Indeed, some high level improvised performances out of these guys. Marshal still plays the alto sax as if it were a guitar -- with his right hand index finger up and down the keys, strumming. Good to read the Chicago accounts. How were the crowds? The WNUR broadcast started an hour late, but I still caught some of it on-line. Interesting to hear Henry say, in response to how is the scene different today than in the 1960's?, that there's more money to be made in it now. He then asked the room if they thought that was right, but no one responded.

Randy, Yes, we'll put it on during "Out on Blue Lake" one of these weeks. I'm sorry but without express written consent of the artists I can't be giving away these recordings. If you feel like writing Margaret Davis at the above e-mail and asking permission, have her get in touch with me giving me the "O.K." I'd be happy to make you a copy. How were the Chicago shows at Hot House? anyone? LV

FROM HUNTER S THOMPSON; Fear & Loathing in 2004 Oct 19, 2004 Dr. Hunter S. Thompson Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it. That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al Gore is not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish anything that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by accident that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.) controls all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful thugs who would far rather die than lose the election in November. The Republican establishment is haunted by painful memories of what happened to Old Man Bush in 1992. He peaked too early, and he had no response to "It's the economy, stupid." Which has always been the case. Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous "trickle-down" theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote. Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch. Houston is also the unnatural home of two out of the last three presidents of the United States of America, for good or ill. The other one was a handsome, sex-crazed boy from next-door Arkansas, which has no laws against oral sex or any other deviant practice not specifically forbidden in the New Testament, including anal incest and public cunnilingus with farm animals. Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson was running about ten points behind, with only nine days to go. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news day and accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children. His campaign manager was shocked. "We can't say that, Lyndon," he supposedly said. "You know it's not true." "Of course it's not true!" Johnson barked at him. "But let's make the bastard deny it!" Johnson -- a Democrat, like Bill Clinton -- won that election by fewer than a hundred votes, and after that he was home free. He went on to rule Texas and the U.S. Senate for twenty years and to be the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States. Until now. The genetically vicious nature of presidential campaigns in America is too obvious to argue with, but some people call it fun, and I am one of them. Election Day -- especially a presidential election -- is always a wild and terrifying time for politics junkies, and I am one of those, too. We look forward to major election days like sex addicts look forward to orgies. We are slaves to it. Which is not a bad thing, all in all, for the winners. They are not the ones who bitch and whine about slavery when the votes are finally counted and the losers are forced to get down on their knees. No. The slaves who emerge victorious from these drastic public decisions go crazy with joy and plunge each other into deep tubs of chilled Cristal champagne with naked strangers who want to be close to a winner. That is how it works in the victory business. You see it every time. The Weak will suck up to the Strong, for fear of losing their jobs and their money and all the fickle power they wielded only twenty-four hours ago. It is like suddenly losing your wife and your home in a vagrant poker game, then having to go on the road with whoremongers and beg for your dinner in public. Nobody wants to hire a loser. Right? They stink of doom and defeat. "What is that horrible smell in the office, Tex? It's making me sick." "That is the smell of a Loser, Senator. He came in to apply for a job, but we tossed him out immediately. Sgt. Sloat took him down to the parking lot and taught him a lesson he will never forget." "Good work, Tex. And how are you coming with my new Enemies List? I want them all locked up. They are scum." "We will punish them brutally. They are terrorist sympathizers, and most of them voted against you anyway. I hate those bastards." "Thank you, Sloat. You are a faithful servant. Come over here and kneel down. I want to reward you." That is the nature of high-risk politics. Veni Vidi Vici, especially among Republicans. It's like the ancient Bedouin saying: As the camel falls to its knees, more knives are drawn. Indeed. the numbers are weird today, and so is this dangerous election. The time has come to rumble, to inject a bit of fun into politics. That's exactly what the debates did. John Kerry looked like a winner, and it energized his troops. Voting for Kerry is beginning to look like very serious fun for everybody except poor George, who now suddenly looks like a loser. That is fatal in a presidential election. I look at elections with the cool and dispassionate gaze of a professional gambler, especially when I'm betting real money on the outcome. Contrary to most conventional wisdom, I see Kerry with five points as a recommended risk. Kerry will win this election, if it happens, by a bigger margin than Bush finally gouged out of Florida in 2000. That was about forty-six percent, plus five points for owning the U.S. Supreme Court -- which seemed to equal fifty-one percent. Nobody really believed that, but George W. Bush moved into the White House anyway. It was the most brutal seizure of power since Hitler burned the German Reichstag in 1933 and declared himself the new Boss of Germany. Karl Rove is no stranger to Nazi strategy, if only because it worked, for a while, and it was sure as hell fun for Hitler. But not for long. He ran out of oil, the whole world hated him, and he liked to gobble pure crystal biphetamine and stay awake for eight or nine days in a row with his maps & his bombers & his dope-addled general staff. They all loved the whiff. It is the perfect drug for War -- as long as you are winning -- and Hitler thought he was King of the Hill forever. He had created a new master race, and every one of them worshipped him. The new Hitler youth loved to march and sing songs in unison and dance naked at night for the generals. They were fanatics. That was sixty-six years ago, far back in ancient history, and things are not much different today. We still love War. George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it. War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . . Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war. --RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983) Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him? If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd. Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him. You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for laughs. Even the Fun-hog vote has started to swing for John Kerry, and that is a hard bloc to move. Only a fool would try to run for president without the enthusiastic support of the Fun-hog vote. It is huge, and always available, but they will never be lured into a voting booth unless voting carries a promise of Fun. At least thirty-three percent of all eligible voters in this country are confessed Fun-hogs, who will cave into any temptation they stumble on. They have always hated George Bush, but until now they had never made the connection between hating George Bush and voting for John Kerry. The Fun-hogs are starving for anything they can laugh with, instead of at. But George Bush is not funny. Nobody except fellow members of the Petroleum Club in Houston will laugh at his silly barnyard jokes unless it's for money. When young Bush was at Yale in the Sixties, he told the same joke over and over again for two years, according to some of his classmates. One of them still remembers it: There was a young man named Green Who invented a jack-off machine On the twenty-third stroke The damn thing broke And churned his nuts into cream. "It was horrible to hear him tell it," said the classmate, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. He lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on his back put there by young George. "He burned this into my flesh with a red-hot poker," he said solemnly, "and I have hated him ever since. That jackass was born cruel. He burned me in the back while I was blindfolded. This scar will be with me forever." There is nothing new or secret about that story. It ran on the front page of the Yale Daily News and caused a nasty scandal for a few weeks, but nobody was ever expelled for it. George did his first cover-up job. And he liked it. I watch three or four frantic network-news bulletins about Iraq every day, and it is all just fraudulent Pentagon propaganda, the absolute opposite of what it says: u.s. transfers sovereignty to iraqi interim "government." Hot damn! Iraq is finally Free, and just in time for the election! It is a deliberate cowardly lie. We are no more giving power back to the Iraqi people than we are about to stop killing them. Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid, greed-crazed Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of their lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the United States in November. The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime Change. Some people say that George Bush should be run down and sacrificed to the Rat gods. But not me. No. I say it would be a lot easier to just vote the bastard out of office on November 2nd. BULLETIN KERRY WINS GONZO ENDORSMENT; DR. THOMPSON JOINS DEMOCRAT IN CALLING BUSH "THE SYPHILLIS PRESIDENT" "Four more years of George Bush will be like four more years of syphilis," the famed author said yesterday at a hastily called press conference near his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. "Only a fool or a sucker would vote for a dangerous loser like Bush," Dr. Thompson warned. "He hates everything we stand for, and he knows we will vote against him in November." Thompson, long known for the eerie accuracy of his political instincts, went on to denounce Ralph Nader as "a worthless Judas Goat with no moral compass." "I endorsed John Kerry a long time ago," he said, "and I will do everything in my power, short of roaming the streets with a meat hammer, to help him be the next President of the United States." Which is true. I said all those things, and I will say them again. Of course I will vote for John Kerry. I have known him for thirty years as a good man with a brave heart -- which is more than even the president's friends will tell you about George W. Bush, who is also an old acquaintance from the white-knuckle days of yesteryear. He is hated all over the world, including large parts of Texas, and he is taking us all down with him. Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead. There is nothing funny about helping George Bush win Florida again. Nader is a fool, and so is anybody who votes for him in November -- with the obvious exception of professional Republicans who have paid big money to turn poor Ralph into a world-famous Judas Goat. Nader has become so desperate and crazed that he's stooped to paying homeless people to gather signatures to get him on the ballot. In Pennsylvania, the petitions he submitted contained tens of thousands of phony signatures, including Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse and John Kerry. A judge dumped Ralph from the ballot there, saying the forms were "rife with forgeries" and calling it "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court." But they will keep his name on the ballot in the long-suffering Hurricane State, which is ruled by the President's younger brother, Jeb, who also wants to be the next President of the United States. In 2000, when they sent Jim Baker down to Florida, I knew it was all over. The fix was in. In that election, 97,488 people voted for Nader in Florida, and Gore lost the state by 537 votes. You don't have to be from Texas to understand the moral of that story. It's like being out-coached in the Super Bowl. There are no rules in the passing lane. Only losers play fair, and all winners have blood on their hands. Back in June, when John Kerry was beginning to feel like a winner, I had a quick little rendezvous with him on a rain-soaked runway in Aspen, Colorado, where he was scheduled to meet with a harem of wealthy campaign contributors. As we rode to the event, I told him that Bush's vicious goons in the White House are perfectly capable of assassinating Nader and blaming it on him. His staff laughed, but the Secret Service men didn't. Kerry quickly suggested that I might make a good running mate, and we reminisced about trying to end the Vietnam War in 1972. That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the president's lawn. We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were stupid warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon -- which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river. That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.