The Best Lead Guitarists in the World

This is a list of the greatest Rock and Blues Guitarists in the world whether living or dead. I created this list in defense of a list put out by Rolling Stone magazine a couple of years ago. Their list of the top 100 guitar players ever was rather absurd. They missed a ton of fantastic guitarists and had some names in their top 100 that must of been relatives of the editors or something.

Some of the names in my list may be obscure to you but believe me when I say that they all played or still play either solo or with great bands.

Check out my list and see if you agree with me. Afterwards, click on the link coming up to check out the best Blues Music site in Southern California.

1 Stevie Ray Vaughan 2 Walter Trout 3 Jimi Hendrix 4 Eric Clapton 5 Joe Bonamassa 6 Alvin Lee 7 Les Paul 8 Frank Marino 9 Frank Zappa 10 Robben Ford 11 Duane Allman 12 Warren Haynes 13 Jeff Beck 14 Johnny Winter 15 Dickey Betts 16 Craig Erickson 17 Steve Vai 18 Albert Cummings 19 Anthony Gomes 20 Geddy Lee 21 Rob Tognoni 22 Mike Bloomfield 23 Carlos Santana 24 Joe Satriani 25 Freddy King 26 Eddie Van Halen 27 Mark Knopfler 28 Jimmy Page 29 Chris Duarte 30 Robin Trower 31 Ritchie Blackmore 32 Randy Rhoads 33 Trey Anastasio 34 Derek Trucks 35 Sammy Hagar 36 Steve Cropper 37 Aynsley Lister 38 Peter Green 39 Brian May 40 Pete Townshend 41 Javier Vargas 42 Dave Hole 43 Kenny Wayne Shepard 44 Eric Johnson 45 Angus Young 46 Julian Sas 47 Gary Moore 48 Joe Perry 49 John McLaughlin 50 Jimmy Thackery

51 Coco Montoya 52 Jerry Garcia 53 Jeff "Skunk" Baxter 54 Henrik Freischlader 55 Dick Dale 56 Lou Reed 57 Roy Buchanan 58 B.B. King 59 Dave Mason 60 Buddy Guy 61 Dave Meniketti 62 Ted Nugent 63 Doyle Bramhall II 64 Mick Ronson 65 Hubert Sumlin 66 Vernon Reid 67 Stephen Stills 68 Joey Delgado 69 Tinsley Ellis 70 Tony Iommi 71 Lightnin' Hopkins 72 Susan Tedeschi 73 Pat Travers 74 Dave Edmunds 75 Colin James 76 Jonny Lang 77 Corey Stevens 78 Robbie Robertson 79 Albert Collins 80 Coen Wolters 81 Eric Sardinas 82 David Gilmour 83 Sammy Hagar 84 Eddie Cochran 85 Ry Cooder 86 Ines Siban 87 Popa Chubby 88 Dave Davies 89 Johnny Ramone 90 Glen Buxton of Alice Cooper 91 Robby Krieger 92 Bo Diddley 93 Robert Johnson 94 Kirk Hammett of Metallica 95 Matt Thorpe 96 George Harrison 97 Keith Richards 98 Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer 99 Guitar Shorty 100 Neil Young

Shopping Cart Shitheads

How many times have you drove into the parking lot of the neighborhood market and go to park in that open parking spot only to be thwarted by a shopping cart that some lazy, selfish, asshole left in the parking spot? The answer is way too fucking often.

I can understand Grandma's or invalid's that can't push an empty shopping cart very far without causing some sort of permanent damage to the parts of their body that isn't riddled with disease yet but that is usually not the case. Nope. It's usually some 2 legged, healthy (except for being a fat fuck) dickhead that just doesn't feel like walking the extra 25 feet to place the cart in the cart holding area. Hey folks, thats why they have those cart holding areas. To put your fucking cart into when your done buying up all the twinkies and pop tarts in the store.

If I must look at a positive side to this excessive laziness, I can say that I am thankful that the selfish prick that left their cart in the parking stall at least didn't just let it go rolling down a slight downgrade only to have it end up denting someones car.

When I go to the market, I now make it my business to observe people in the parking lot with their carts. Just about the only time I see those carts end up in the holding area is when Mom tells Junior to take it over their. If Mom was by herself, the cart would stay as close to her vehicle as possible to still allow her to exit her parking space without hitting it.

This clogging of the parking lots with carts is epidemic. I'll bet that the ratio of people who actually return their cart is probably one in 30 or higher. There are very well designated and conveniently placed shopping cart holding areas in every store parking lot in Southern California. These holding areas are usually surrounded by metal rails and have those little metal thresholds to keep the carts from rolling out by themselves. You really can't miss them allthough some are easier to get to then others.

So the next time you go to the market to do your shopping, try returning your cart to the store or the cart holding area instead of just leaving it for some other schmuck to come along and then have to stop, put his or her car in park, get out and move the damn cart and then get back in the vehicle to finish parking. It really is frustrating.

I know that I may be reaching for the impossible here but here is one more suggestion. When you go to the store and park your car, how about just looking around the parking lot and grabbing one of the loose carts that are laying around the lot. You were going to grab a cart when you got inside the store anyway, right? This will help to clean up the parking lots and get you a shopping cart that has already been tested and used. No squeaky wheels.

It's all part of human kindness folks. Just think about your fellow man once in a while and it won't seem like such a chore to walk that cart over to the proper place.

And remember this, shopping carts are owned by the stores. They are not meant to be taken home or used as race carts by high school kids (although that was fun). Of course the only exceptions are the homeless. Everyone knows you can't have a bag lady without a shopping cart. Right? Right.

Great Clips SUCKS!

I am not talking about the service or the haircuts you get at Great Clips that suck. I am talking about their Corporate greed and lies when it comes to their employees and management personnel.

You may think that I'm just another disgruntled ex-employee but HA! I have never worked for Great Clips and I don't do hair. BUT, my ex-wife has worked for them for over 10 years. She has managed shops, opened shops and gone into shops to clean up and streamline the operation. And she gets treated like shit by Great Clips.

Their corporate website is so full of shit it is almost funny. It describes how all stylists will attend a special 3 day training session, presumably at their corporate offices in Minnesota. What a joke. Their is no training unless of course you would like to pay your way to Minnesota, get yourself a hotel, pay for your own meals and then get yourself back home. All at your own expense. So the offer of trailing is nothing but a lie.

A large portion on their website is dedicated to Franchising which is their bread and butter. Like I said previously, I have been through a lot of Great Clips franchises and have not seen any of those Great Clips stores stay open for more then a couple of years maximum. It's not that the Franchisees can't make money at the stores because I know they can, especially with a good manager, but then Corporate comes in and charges the poor Franchisee an arm and a leg for supplies (which you must purchase from them). I understand that the Corporation is in business to make money but if I can see that the Franchises are never successful long term, then why can't they? The answer to that is that they do see it, they just don't care. You see, they make their biggest chunk of money at the onset of the Franchise. It's like buying that new car and once the ink is dry on the contract, you are fucked. Just try to get them to pay attention to you now. They chewed you up and spit you out. Great Clips for Hair is the Used Car lot of the Hair Cutting Franchise world.

The Hardest thing about being Unemployed

Anyone who has worked as a rank and file Union member working in this strange business we call the “Exposition Industry” has had to make it through some pretty tough times. Just a few short years ago, there was not even close to the amount of Convention Centers that are in existence today. And the Convention Centers that have been around for a while were not nearly as large as they are today. The Convention industry back then was a seasonal, part time industry at best. Convention Centers usually had 1 or 2 small halls with some adjoining meeting rooms. A large show was a half million pounds.

So what did the workers do when the Convention Industry was slow? Where did they go? Some went to move household furniture. That is where a lot of the early Convention Contractors went to get their freight labor. Some workers went back to sign painting or carpentry work. That is where a lot of the Convention Decorators came from back then. But a lot of the out-of-work Convention workers that didn't have those job opportunities available to them so off they went to the good old "Unemployment Hall".

If you can remember far enough back to recall those early days when the Unemployment Hall was as dreaded a place to visit as the DMV or the Dentist Office. But there was no way around it. To file for unemployment you had to visit one of those miserable places and sit there the better part of the day. It was humiliating to say the least. It seemed that no one in the place spoke English, including the “employment counselors” as they were called back then. You started at the information window, window #1. Then you moved on to window #2 then to window #3 and so on. In between all of these windows you would sit with a bunch of people that looked like they just came to America yesterday. And some probably did.

When all of your interviews and form filings were completed you finally got to go home and wait for that check to arrive. It always seemed like it took forever. Of course, along with your check was a small form that you had to answer concerning your on-going unemployment. They wanted to know if you were going to school or if you were going to be working next week. They also asked if you were too sick to work. And of course, if you did work that week. they wanted to know how much you earned and the number of hours you worked. Every now and then they would even schedule you to a face-to-face interview. You would have to go back into that dreaded office so that they could ask you the same questions that the forms have been asking you all along, but this time they could watch you facial expressions to see if you were lying.

Well folks, don't despair. This is the modern era of Conventions and Convention Centers. They are bigger and better then ever. The job is not so seasonal anymore although it still seems to slow down around Christmas time for obvious reasons. Convention Centers are growing and adding broadband availability at an incredibly fast rate. Yes. High tech is here. So I'll bet that the procedures for filing for unemployment must be easier and faster than ever before. Wrong! While the world progresses, EDD is taking giant leaps backwards. Read on.

First of all, the Unemployment Office is no longer called the “Unemployment Office”. It is now called the “Employment Development Department” or EDD. There are no more offices. No offices? Then how do we file? Where do we go? Here is where the new technology comes into play. If you have an Internet connection available to you (and of course everyone does, right?) then you may file on-line. If not. then you may call their 1-800 number. This is where the ease-of-use part stops. The E.D.D. 800 number is a plain and simple joke. You can wait for up to 30 minutes and still be cut off or you can listen patiently to the information that you have heard over and over again just to have them tell you that the “maximum number of callers has been reached. Please call back at another time”. It is one of the most frustrating things I have ever had to endure.

I thought that maybe the clog in the system was due to an influx of unemployed people due to the 9-11 tragedy. But it is now several years after 9-11 and the situation has not gotten any better. I suppose that the people at EDD just figure that since we are unemployed anyway then we obviously have a lot of time on your hands and can sit and wait on the phone for as long as they want to make us wait or have us just keep re-dialing all day long. How is someone supposed to be out looking for work when they must spend so much time dialing phones just to get through to EDD just for even some basic information?

I find it hard to believe that there is no solution to this problem. Personally I would rather be stuck on hold for long periods of time then to just be cut off and told to call back later. That has got to be the rudest thing I have ever heard. Could you imagine a company answering the phone like that? They would be put out of business in a month.

Why here is a novel idea, Hey EDD, how about putting in a few voice mail boxes? Oh I see. You are right. If you put in voice mail boxes then there would be no excuses for your over paid, under educated, red-tape creating employees to shirk their responsibilities. If EDD were to implement voice mail or (heavens forbid) actually hire some more operators, then the EDD employees wouldn't be able to sit around on their fat asses and play on the internet all day while drawing a paycheck.

I may sound a little bitter or angry right now but I have seriously attempted no less then 30 times to get through to EDD since last Wed. That is absolutely absurd. No company could ever run that way and our tax dollars are paying for this service. I feel so ripped off.

I am extremely thankful that the Convention industry is growing and getting stronger so that being laid off due to lack-of-work is happening less frequently. Maybe someday it will even be a thing of the past. But in the mean time, keep dialing those phones folks. Maybe you will get lucky. Hell if you were lucky, you wouldn't be unemployed now would you?

Verizon Website is the worst ..............

I have Verizon home phone and DSL service. Along with the service comes an interactive website that I am supposed to use to "manage" my accounts and services. What a joke!

The Verizon website has to be one of the worst websites ever designed. I don't know what organization or who the people are that created and maintain that website but they ought to find another line of work. Preferably not in the website creating business.

Here is an example of how fucked up this website is. After logging into the site and finally finding a link that says, "Make One Time Payment", I got this message....

Our records indicate that your account is currently billed to your Verizon local telephone bill. Please review your Verizon telephone bill and remit payment to Verizon directly at http://verizon.com/billview. To speak directly with a Verizon customer service representative, please refer to the How To Reach Us information on the reverse side of your Verizon telephone bill.

I then clicked on the link shown above and what did I get? Another login page. It seems the website forgot my login information somewhere between that error message page above and the link page in that message. I have now attempted to login to this page 3 times but to no avail. I know my login name and password but it won't allow me to enter the page to pay my bill. This website is incredible.

You would think that at the very least, Verizon would attempt to make it easy to pay your damn bill. You can't even pay your bill from the Verizon login page. What a way to do business.

The worst thing about this is that I have complained to Verizon about their site and have even received a sympathetic ear from their tech support employees concerning it. But they still will not fix it. Some high ranking moron sitting in some office is either ignorant to the problems with their website or just doesn't give a shit. Either one is a damn shame.

I have now signed up to have my phone bill automatically debited from my checking account each month but you can bet your sweet ass that I'll be checking on them constantly. Any company that can operate such a buggy and poorly created website and think it's OK is probably making mistakes elsewhere in their organization. Such as hiring bad website technicians.

*UPDATE*
On Wed. October 31, 2007 (Halloween) I got home from work and checked my email. Now first let me tell you that I have been enrolled in Verizon's Direct Debit plan for a couple of years now. But I received an email today that said that my Verizon account was seriously past due and about to be cut off. It actually was in my Spam folder so I thought it was just another fishing scam. I clicked on the link and what do you think happened? Hell yes. Verizon wouldn't take my User Name and/or Password. This Verizon website is unbelievable. After going through the bullshit of submitting a new password about 3 times before it finally took, I then checked out my bill.

Every month I get an email stating that my Verizon Bill was ready to view online. I then would view the bill if I wanted to (it should be exactly the same amount each month). Then on the specified date, the amount of the bill would automatically be debited from my checking account.

Not this time. For some unexplained reason, Verizon just decided that I was NOT enrolled anymore and that my bill was way past due.

What is wrong with these assholes? Can anyone tell me?

Here is an update and not a good one. I came home from work today and checked my email. A notice from Verizon came in stating that my Verizon Bill was ready to be viewed on-line. So I clicked on the link. Much to my amazement it actually worked this time but that was the only thing that did work.

It showed that I had a past due amount due as well as the current months bill. I clicked on the Pay Bill button and it shows the amount to pay as the current amount due only. So I changed the amount to the full amount due which was a past due amount plus the current month. It then warned me against changing the default amount in the box which was the current months bill only. What a bunch of clowns. They are actually discouraging me from paying the full amount due. I am sure that most people just say screw it and pay the amount shown but I wanted to pay the amount in full and it warned me against doing so. What a way to do business. Of course it took 3 tries to actually get the website to accept my payment.

Then I wanted to check out my current listing of services that I am paying for and clicked on the "My Services" link. Here is the error message I got;

We are temporarily unable to retrieve current phone information for this BTN. Please try again later.

Is that typical or what?

*ANOTHER UPDATE*

Today is Dec. 26, 2007. I just received an email from Verizon stating that my on-line bill was ready to view and pay. I clicked on the link and it took me to my bill. Now that is a minor miracle in itself because normally Verizon's website does not work this easy. Of course the website may be working OK but Verizon accounting department has a few bugs in it. Read on....

My bill showed that I have a credit of $94.46. Evidentially my girlfriend and I both paid the phone bill last month. Thats what good communication will do for you. Then I looked down a little farther on the bill and found a current LATE CHARGE of $3.03.

Now think about this for a minute folks. If I have a credit being carried over from last month AND I receive a "Paperless" bill on-line that I was just notified of today, how in the fuck can I owe a late charge.

These Verizon ripoff mother fuckers are really starting to get on my nerves. Of course I shot off an email to the Customer Service department but I will bet a months salary that I will have to make several phone calls as well as get angry to finally get this little $3.00 charge taken off of my bill.

Oh, the horror.........

UPDATE*: After many try's today to get on the Verizon website, I logged in with my name and password. Fine. No problem. I was trying to get the FTP settings for my web space but they wouldn't give them to me. They want the "primary account holder" to ask for them. So I attempt to log off with my name and log-on with my fiance's name who happens to be the primary account holder. Not a chance. It just keeps logging me back in. Most websites have a small link that says: if you are not ________ please click here. But not Verizon. I deleted all of my cookies and it still automatically logs me in. I can't log in my fiance. What a shitty website this is.

UPDATE* I now have FIOS which is fiber optics for my Internet. It is still through Verizon. I started getting advertisements along with my emailed bills. They were advertising a new free service call "Call Assistant". It said that I could view my voice mail callers on my PC as well as get pop ups when someone calls. I thought this might be cool especially for free. I clicked on the info graphic that says to "click here to get more info" and it takes me to a blank page with the same graphic advertisement on the page. This is what Verizon calls more info? But it doesn't surprise me.

I finally got it ordered over the phone and was told that I would get an email telling me how to activate the service. I got the email. Whoopee! It gives me an activation link so I click on it. It goes to a page where it asks me to login to my Verizon account. What do you suppose happened then? Right. It would not take my login name or password. AGAIN!

UPDATE*
So Verizon came out with their newest gimmick. It's called "Call Assistant". What it is is a way to monitor your home voice mail and incoming phone calls on your computer. Pretty cool huh? SUCKER! Did you really think that it was going to work? it's by Verizon, right?









Notice the error message inside the gray box. It says " Error: Click for details" So when you click on the call to get more info, this is the error message you get.

Thanks for staying consistant there, Verizon.

What are they thinking?

I just recently finished a road trip from my home in Southern California to Las Vegas Nevada. I was astounded at the number of rude, moronic, selfish, and downright stupid drivers there are on the road these days.

I am no speed demon but I do like to get somewhere as quickly and legally and safely as possible. Maybe I just come from the old school that taught me that if you are driving slower then the cars in the lane on your right, get over. I was also taught that you should move over to allow faster drivers to pass. But then again I was also taught to make a right turn at a red light if it is safe and to use my turn signals. All of these things seem to be absent from drivers education classes over the past 30 years.

I cannot even count the number of times I came upon vehicles driving in the fast lane of the freeway that were literally driving the speed limit or slower. And they would not get over to allow you to proceed. Are these same people that selfish and rude all the time or only when they get that big hunk of metal wrapped around them? I tend to think that they are just plain rude and selfish all the time even when they are dealing with their families, friends and work mates. There is always that theory that suggests that these rude drivers only stand about 5 foot nothing and are constantly being kicked around by their wives, husbands, bosses, kids, etc. etc. But once they get in that big ol' SUV they become 7 foot tall and rule the world.

It's times like these that I wish I was a cop and was allowed to pull these jerks over and ticket them for being rude.

I have a habit of trying to get a look at the drivers face as I pass them by but more often then not the windows are so tinted that you can't see in or ....... (here it comes) .... they are on the damn phone. I have literally watched some guy going 75 MPH down the freeway and all of a sudden he gets on his cell phone and like magic, the car slows down to 55 or 60. Obviously these people have a hard time multi-tasking or even doing just 2 things simultaneously. But these types of people are the reason that cities, counties and states are making cell phone use while driving illegal. If you want to bitch about not be able to talk on your cell phone while driving, you only have yourselves to blame.

And one more thing to bitch about concerning this subject. I can only hope that the sum-bitch that won't pull over for an ambulance, paramedic or any other type of emergency vehicle, somehow gets affected by this rude behavior someday. Just think if that ambulance carried you or a close family member and people didn't want to get out of the way for fear that they may lose 5 seconds off of their drive time or even worse, they could possibly allow someone else to move in front of them. Gasp!

Come on folks. This is where common sense should kick in. When you see the emergency lights or hear a siren, look around you and then get the fuck out of the way. Plain and simple. God I wish I was Cop sometimes.

So lets think about the other drivers on the road. Be courteous and smart. Let someone by you if you are traveling slower and by all means, get over if you are traveling slower in your lane then the lane on the right is traveling.

If you are driving in the carpool lane and you are moving slower then the cars next to you, GET THE FUCK OUT! That isn't so hard is it? Move the fuck over so others can go by. You still get to crawl at your snails pace and other vehicles can speed on down the road and not bother you. It's a win - win situation.

Of course there are a bunch of excellent reasons why you should not be rude and selfish on the freeways of America but the main reason is that the next driver you piss off may have a gun.