“Hells Bells/Carol of the Bells” (AC/DC) Jazz Cover by Robyn Adele Anderson

Just a little break.

You First, Assholes

 

“People are so sick of being preached at about politics from rock bands”

“Stick to what you’re good at. You’re not a political analyst. You’re probably not really well read on the issues that Americans really care about” pic.twitter.com/vnGna7jkzo

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 2, 2024

Maybe Fox News pretend analysts need to shut up--at least long enough to hear what others are saying.

Actually, successful rock bands are political analysts or at least, seize the zeitgeist and appeal to people because they enunciate feelings other people can vibe with.  Are people really sick of being preached at about politics from rock bands--or is it that something they say resonates and that's why they have a following? I mean, songs like "For What It's Worth", or "Ohio" or "Southern Man" or "Leaving on a Jet Plane" or "Eve of Destruction"--the "freedom rock " Woodstock era stuff I heard as my early lullabies, weren't any more neutral than the "Ballad of the Green Berets" was. 

Now, whether I listened to the Dead Kennedys or INXS or The Clash, I heard politics, even as a kid. I don't understand people who ever listened to the lyrics of Rage Against the Machine and never understood what the machine was. Was it a soda machine? Were they just mad they couldn't get their Barq's root beer jones on?  Of course, they were political. 

Look, one of my ear-influences is Billy Bragg. Punk as fuck. Not punk as fuck--slipping in your old age and deciding Trump is punk. Trump is The Man that fighting the power has been about since, whatever. 

And Green Day's "American Idiot" was explicitly a political album. Just like Neil Young's "Living with War."  Bob Dylan--political. Bruce Springsteen--political. Patti Smith, Bikini Kill, Hole, Pussy Riot. 

Fox News talking heads are not political analysts.  They are propagandists. Who knows what ass they pull what they say from? They aren't musical, they aren't artful, they aren't well-informed, and they say whatever the network wants. Conservatism isn't edgy when they go against the mainstream--mostly they are just counterfactual and fronting for some paymaster--the dead opposite of the punk ethos.

Or to put it in rank Gen X terms--they are sell outs. They want you to dismiss what you are hearing because "you can't handle the reality of it". But you totally could get "woke" if you listened to the lyrics around you.  Fox News "analysts" are fake and don't represent anything going on in the real world. If they want someone to stop talking about politics--instead of shutting up artists who care about the world, they could shut the hell up because they just care about payday. 

Maybe the Boomers who listen to Fox should go ahead and re-listen to that "freedom rock" I teethed on as a kid. It was politics. And a lot of it was dead-on. 

Smash Mouth - Walkin' On The Sun

If you want to know where the Generation X anthems went, why we weren't political enough and didn't do movements, the reality was they all got commercialized and co-opted and we were trying to make money to just not be fucking tragic. And a lot of us took shit tons of drugs and booze along the way. Not for creativity. But to be a little less real. To not feel the reality of what we were about right now. Some of our mamas felt the shelter of mama's little helper, We blasted Yagers and downed fifths like they were pints. We rolled tight jays in borrowed station wagons. 

But the future loomed:

It ain't no joke when a mama's handkerchief is soaked

With her tears because her baby's life has been revoked

The bond is broke up, so choke up and focus on the close up

Mr. Wizard can't perform no god-like hocus-pocus

So don't sit back, kick back and watch the world get bushwhacked

News at ten, your neighborhood is under attack

Put away the crack before the crack puts you away

You need to be there when your baby's old enough to relate

Bitch, DARE had nothing on that. We all needed to see what was coming--the storm despite the apathy. 

Don't delay, act now. (I always repurpose "Walkin' on the Sun" to do with climate change in my head. It makes sense that way, you know. RIP, Steve Harwell. We probably didn't have a whole lot of political overlap but shared a generation.) 

We also lost Gary Wright (I had "Dream Weaver" on a K-Tel compilation to play on my little turntable as a wee kid).  

Fly me high through the starry skies

Maybe to an astral plane

Cross the highways of fantasy

Help me to forget today's pain

And Jimmy Buffet and I don't know. (Yes "Come Monday" speaks more to me, by goodness. It's a fin romantic ballad). There's an uncool era of drinking shit well drinks and listening to popular music that spoke to not fucking around that personifies just wanting to, yearning to, love and live. Because otherwise, we were in the shit. 

I don't know how these guys hang together in my mind, other than all recently passing, except they also do. A couple songs loved and lived deeper and more meaningful to my generation and our consciousness. Part of an ethos of wearing our skin and drinking it in over again. 

Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown (Official Audio)

A real bard goes forth. The man did some classic lays, genuine remembrances passing into folklore. His songs have been covered and admired by the absolute greats he has shared this timeline with. He did really good.  Just beautiful poetic work. 

Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun

The amazing quality of Fleetwood Mac to have two great female songwriters has had my admirations since, I dunno--kindergarten? Whenever songs from Rumors hit the car radio where I first listened to music? But let me just talk about Christine McVie's voice for a minute: the positive vibes of her lyrics, the golden warmth of her no-doubt grown lady alto. 

I'm not comparing my love for Stevie Nicks with Christine McVie--my god, "Rhiannon" was the first song that took my little ass out and made me want to understand how to vocalize, how to lay down personal things in verse. But looking back on songs like "Everywhere" and "Little Lies", I'm hearing a such perspective. 

Of course, "Don't Stop" became a 90's anthem for the Clinton era. But the depth and the emotion she could manage, as if it was easy. 

I loved her voice, and her lyrics. I want her voice to woo me until the sun comes up and say that she loves me. Because I loved hearing her. 

Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly Live 1964

If he wasn't always considered the King of Rock and Roll, then Little Richard was clearly the Architect of Rock and Roll; the protean spirit of the sound that influenced generations. Vibrant and virtuoso, spiritual and sexual, he did and was an awful lot. He made history, and will be remembered well, and lives on.

Ain't No Sunshine

The man could repeat "I know" over and over in way that seemed to convey paragraphs. The lyricist of some of my favorites. "Just the Two of Us" popped on the radio in the limo when I got married and became "our song" almost 18 years ago. I know I just wrote about not being an obits blog, but Bill Withers is an exception.

D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better (Official Video)

I am feeling positive for some reason.

Pet Shop Boys ft. Lady GaGa & Brandon Flowers - 2009 BRIT Awards Perfomance

Badder Than Tay

Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift 😍😛😤 pic.twitter.com/AkSyQBUIME

— Nutella (@xnulz) November 10, 2017

This is not about putting down Taylor Swift, because I appreciate her talent and "Bad Blood" is one of my favorite videos and tearing down a woman to uplift other women is actually sort of shitty, but somebody went too far and asked "Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift." And the Twitter response was actually...

Really freaking inspirational. Because there have been some absolutely amazing badass women in the world who should be recognized as heroes of their own life story. The resulting Tweets were stories of great-grandmoms and grandmoms and moms and historical warrior Yas Queens! and survivors and makers and doers. There were athletes and soldiers and bandits. There were educators and activists. There were journalists and programmers and astronauts. There were women of color and women who were marginalized.

And we need these stories to get made into books and movies and get this part of history reclaimed. I would spend that talking picture money I'm not investing in the local mining concern and watch all the movies about these people, right here.

UPDATE: And Taylor Swift was also a silence breaker. And she was right to be angry--if someone is going to manhandle Taylor Swift, what would that same person do to some low-paid or unpaid intern(s?) in the radio industry? She had the means and put them to good use.

Tom Petty RIP

So, in the course of events the other day, Twitter informed me that Tom Petty was found unconscious after a heart attack at the age of 66, which is a thing people in their sixties often do survive, and then, news came about that he was taken off life support, and then, he was dead, but then again, we got told he wasn't dead yet, and then, no, he was. Which was a kick in the gut, because Tom Petty is right up there with Warren Zevon and a damn few others in my musical pantheon. (Bowie. Leonard Cohen. Protective light and health vibes around Pete Townsend, Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, etc.)

The thing with Tom Petty is that he didn't write any bad songs, but some just stood out as being especially good. "American Girl" is like that. "Raised on promises" suggests the "American Dream". She couldn't help thinking that there was a little more life, somewhere else. She was ambitious because of her upbringing. Some people see this as a song about suicide--not me. "And if she had to die, trying, she had one little promise she was going to keep" tells me this girl wasn't fixing to die, but to do something she promised to do. She had a "desperate moment there", but she got the hell over it.

Tom Petty painted pictures, and familiar scenes, with his songs. I guess that might be why some of his late '80's and early '90's work like "Last Dance with Mary Jane" (hello, necro!) and "Yer So Bad" made such odd great videos.

I don't know--he wasn't just a great songwriter and performer, but he passed that craft down and went out never having done any music that sounded like bullshit.




He had a perspective about music and the rest of it.

His voice was unique and I will both appreciate the way it stays with me, and miss how it won't say anything anymore, except in retrospect.

I Will Miss Chris Cornell

2016: George Michael and The Suckularity

If there was ever a year that culturally just bukkake'd every eye until there wasn't a dry eye in the house, it was 2016. The death of David Bowie I sort of could handle--he was older, you understand. Alan Rickman, too. Glen Frey, life happens. The death of Prince--after the death of Vanity (Denise Katrina Matthews)--was closer to my musical time. But it adds up:

Phife Dawg, Merle Haggard, Sharon Jones, Leonard Cohen. Gene Wilder, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke. Pat Harrington. Abe Vigoda. Maurice White. Harper Lee. George Kennedy. Nancy Reagan. Antonin Scalia. Phyllis Schafley. George Martin. Keith Emerson. Frank Sinatra Jr. Natalie Cole (died Dec. 31 2015, but I'm including her in 2016 because reasons). Controversial Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (who could have been admirably played in a movie by Chris Farley, if he didn't leave us several years ago). Garry Shandling. Tom Whedon (father of Joss Whedon and one-time show-runner for the children's program "The Electric Company", which had Rita Moreno and Morgan Freeman in its cast and was my favorite educational program as a little kiddie).

Merle Haggard. Doris Roberts (of Remington Steele and Everyone Loves Raymond).  Joanie Laurer, the wrestler also known as Chyna. Michelle McNamara, crime writer and wife of Patton Oswald. Morley Safer. John Berrie of the Beastie Boys. Bert Kwouk known as "Cato" in the Pink Panther movies. Muhammed Ali--the greatest of all time. Fidel Castro. Gordie Howe. Arnold Palmer. Anton Yelchin. Elie Wiesel. Michael Cimino. Garry Marshall. Miss Cleo. John Saunders. Kenny Baker. Gwen Ifill. John McLaughlin. Steven Hill. Alexis Arquette. Kevin Meaney. Janet Reno. Robert Vaughn. Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The announcement that George Michael died on Christmas was exceptionally cruel--typical for this year. Known for a song actually called "Last Christmas" among so many other great tunes, George Michael was a gifted vocalist, song writer, and extremely generous and giving performer.

I loved George Michael as an early gay icon--I never really understood how anyone had ambiguity about it, before he came out at the end of the 90's--to me it was just a thing I knew. But what was unambiguous was that he had an amazing talent. His lyrics and his ability to deliver them were just impeccable. His song, written while so young, "Careless Whisper", stands up against anything in the American songbook.

This one hurt me a little. But I understood this weird thing for a while--

It makes me a bit morbid to think that this experience of people I remember, not completely antique old B/W movie and tv stars, but people I actually watched, dying, will likely accelerate as I get older.

The increase of venues for popularity outside of politics and cinema and all, the "fifteen minutes of fame" Andy Warhol noted, meant ever so many more people would become famous or semi famous enough to be recalled. And as we all get older, so do our contemporaries. So it happened that in 2016, so many people we knew or at least, knew of, came to pass, and it sucked or at least, sucked so much worse than prior years. But if my calculations are right (I didn't actually do any real math here) this trend will continue. The older you get, the better you will know those people who die, and the closer their ages will be to your own.

So expect no comfort from 2017. But I listen to George Michael and know while he lived he made some progress happen. We aren't promised forever--let's just know from so many examples how to make our time count.

*Picture stolen from here.

View from the RNC Convention 2

This is how you enter to introduce your smokin' hot wife to the tune of "We Are the Champions" by Queen at the RNC convention where you are named the Presidential nominee when your resume already has things in it like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" kind of rich, "WWE Hall of Famer",  and former steak and vodka entrepreneur. In other words, he is living a d-bag spank fantasy.

Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy--could he lose in a landslide (please?) so we can escape this reality?

Open your eyes, look past his disguise and see--

He's just a rich punk, he has no empathy.

Meh. You get the idea.

Been Spending Most Our Lives in A GOP Grifters' Paradise

I'm trying to get how a rap radio ad became a thing for the Carson campaign. Part of me wants to believe Austerity Mascot, sorry, Aspiring Mogul, just decided to write a song for Dr. Carson because he likes what the guy has to say as a rare bear among conservatives.
Why can't "Carson" rhyme with "awesome" in a world where struggle rhymes with trouble? Never mind. We'll fill in the lacunae with jazz flute and some Carson riffing. It'll sound like music.

But there's just this part of me feeling like some strategist was wondering what the kids these days liked and someone else said "the rap music" and that that's how we got here.

I'm just saying motivational speaking isn't necessarily enhanced when someone drops a beat behind it.

But after all, the Carson Campaign is so miles more professional than what the Founding Fathers had, and they managed, right?  Which is how we even ended up on the moon.  Because we don't need aliens if we have God. And I don't know how all of that is motivational speech, but maybe they could add a little more cowbell?

Kids love cowbell. It's a fever.

Happy Labor Day!

Be prepared for sparse posting, as I will be treating myself to a two-week vacation from my paying gig, and might not have much time to post here. I've really only gone more than two weeks without posting when I went to Italy in 2008--otherwise, this little old blog has been chugging for almost eight years now. And I thought I didn't have any attention-span. One of my early posts refers to the oddness I experience when I try to not be at work--my head stays there for awhile. Beer helps. I'll try to sort out some kind of summer reading.

Speaking of vacations--Americans don't really take vacation time, even when they have plenty of it to take. We don't even get as many days per years as many Europeans do, and are still loath to enjoy them. We even feel guilty taking sick leave--which more of us need and which would probably be really healthy for us to have and take. President Obama took a step towards giving more people access to paid sick days recently.

But I understand the mentality behind not wanting to take the paid time--you don't want to have worked so hard to become "indispensable", to then give people a reason to see you as at least "temporarily dispensable", or they might get to looking at your absence as a habit they could grow fond of. Also, if you are working on a certain project, you kind of like to see it out all the way, without leaving it in anyone else's mitts. And finally, some of us just really like being at work. It's a social network, it's a habit, and the work itself might really be interesting.

But mostly it's about trying to be an Iron-man/woman and seem like an indefatigable team-player. Come high water, migraines, or the 24-hour plague.

I'm going to take my Labor Day post to remind people that lots of labor fights went on to get you any time to take at all--and they are meant for your self-care. But I definitely think more needs to be done to ensure that people have access to paid time when really needed for care of oneself, loved ones,  or just really important errands. After all, the people who are least likely to have paid time, handle your food, your children's daycare, eldercare, and work with the public. Maybe it really is best these workers can keep at home when they have a case of awful with a chance of spreading it. Besides which, working through sickness or just overwork fatigue is a rotten thing. Time away is good and refreshing.

So let's celebrate Labor Day, by celebrating the times we just aren't at it.

Janelle Monae--Hell You Talmbout

So long as there is someone who knows your name, they say in folklore circles, you still have a vital afterlife. These are the names of people deprived of their natural lives. They deserve to live on our lips and in our thoughts.

Berlin 1989--Freedom Concert

I thought a musical interlude might be rather nice. Please enjoy.

MIke Huckabee Has A Problem With Modern Love

So, one of the fun things Mike Huckabee has stated regarding traditional marriage is that it is so emotional and that we are too romantic about it.  He thinks we're too hung up on modern love.  Things were simpler when spouses were obtained the traditional way, in exchange for livestock, and then they simply clung together from necessity and to avoid being stoned to death as adulterers. We could learn so much from the past.

Minimum Wage: The Huey Lewis Rebuttal

I've started blog posts a handful of times this week regarding things Republicans are saying about the minimum wage versus things that are, well, so. I keep jettisoning those posts because it's intricate, and repeats things I've said in my "Know Your Class War" posts anyway.  So when FL Gov. Rick Scott indicates that wages are set by the private sector (which as a businessman, he knows nothing about, hmm?), or WI Gov. Scott Walker indicates he doesn't know what the minimum wage is for (and how low should it be set, dear--room and board? There's a name for that set-up) they get my hollow, jaded laughter. Sure, NJ Gov. Christie is tired of hearing about the minimum wage; he knows what the Republican governors whose races he's supporting have said on the record about it--and it's kind of not-so-good.

But even in campaigns for other state positions, GOP candidates have said some interesting things--like minimum wage jobs aren't "real jobs".  If you get out of your comfy bed, put on some dress-code duds--especially if it's a uniform, and punch a time clock to do something you're scheduled to do, that sounds like a real job to me. The idea that the realness of a job is based on what it pays and not on the employee being a real person with expenses and basic needs, is a big part of the problem. Sure, maybe parents might prefer their kids get better jobs than minimum wage ones, but if minimum wage jobs are what they can get, maybe they'd like it to be enough to actually live on--to say nothing of what minimum wage earners' kids might feel about their household security.

Sure, people take jobs that offer lower wages than they can live on--half a loaf is better than none, right? They are basically taking what they are given because they are working for a living.