Although it seems like a very long time ago indeed. This I suppose is brought on by having our last two shows harassed by the local police departments. The Friday night show was canceled entirely, and at the last minute, because someone figured out that the club did not have enough square feet of parking to support the potential occupancy of their outdoor beer garden. Ok got it, so the club looses, the band looses, the patrons loose, the town looses revenue. Now I completely understand the reasoning behind this. That brings us to Saturday night. DLP was performing at Stewart's place in Snohomish. They were told on three separate occasions to turn it down or the police were going to close the bar(by what right?). Ok maybe the first time they were a bit loud. The second time was sketchy, but by the third time the canned music from the wedding reception a half block away was much louder. Of course these are the same Barney Fife's that sprayed a crowd of people at Kla Ha Ya days with pepper spray. There only reason for this was that one officer was accidentally struck while trying to break up a cat fight(being hit by a 5'!" 100lbs girl). One club DLP works with recently received a ticket for over serving, the person that was allegedly over served was walking home from the club when stopped by the police for the standard harassment. When asked to blow the person blew a 0.09, 0.01 above the legal limit for driving a car. Is this over served??
I remember a day when you could actually ride your motorcycle around legally without a helmet, now in some places helmets are mandatory for bicycles. I remember when you could drive down the road and drink a beer. This was okay as long as you were not drunk. How about smoking, remember when you could smoke a cigarette in a bar. Now we have so many restrictions and regulations on our behavior. In reality the only purpose for these is to establish greater government controls over our private lives. What is the difference between compulsory insurance and racketeering ie protection money? As far as I can tell the only thing is that when you pay the gangsters for protection at least you get protection. In this state if you have a major insurance claim, odds are that you will have to sue your own insurance company for payment, and this takes years. As best I can tell about what the police call protection is that they will send someone out to wipe your blood up off of the street, and then go and look for who did it, maybe. Think about it, after all of these ridiculous regulations, are you any happier, do you feel safer. I BET YOU DO NOT. Maybe it is time to start thinking about less regulations and greater freedom and happiness. All the major crimes have always been illegal, lets stop making criminals out of normal citizens.
