Wise men say only fools rush in

Perfect songs:

Weapon of Choice

People bring guns to Obama speeches. Liberals couldn't even bring t-shirts or bumper stickers to a Bush speech. And if we actually said anything, we were taken to jail. If we might say anything we were put in "free speech zones" AKA chain linked fences.

While it's tempting to escalate our discussion this is my Weapon of Choice.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

I'm glad it's your birthday

When we lose someone, when someone we love dies, it's as if we lose our voice. We can scream and cry, yet no one outside can hear, and life goes on. The earth still turns, people go to work, school, to play, yet our lives are suddenly on hold, and we can't get anyone else to really notice.

I was emotionally absent a great deal of the time when my younger siblings were growing up. Part of it was the age difference (8, 10, 12 years younger than me), but part of it was that I was a weird kid, stuck in my own neurosis world.

I remember each birth, and many wonderful flashes of their childhoods, yet not as many as I would like to remember now. My loss, to be sure.

All of us had various nicknames, from each other, from other relatives. But I remember giving Kristin the one that seemed to stick. Her name was Kristin Carol, after our dad's sister, and from somewhere I started calling her Kristin Carrot. She seemed to like that, she had carrot decorative stuff all around her 'little house'.

We were going through some of Mom's & Kristin's stuff recently, and some of her carrot belongings were found. How awful to lose people we love, how sweet to remember the good stuff.

Kristin Carol Anderson would have been 50 today. The world is a lesser place without her.

Sailor added this

Take your place on the great mandala

To piggyback on Dave's post below, PP&M and the folk music scene was interesting. It's really difficult to explain to those who didn't live through it.

Radio at the time was wide open, with virtually no limitations other than program directors, so you'd hear the latest Beatles single followed by PP&M followed by, well, whatever the hell the DJ wanted to play.

And for a guy like me who sucked up all music like it was mothers' milk, folk music offered interesting contradictions. It opened me up to new guitar techniques (Travis picking, anyone?) while presenting music that wasn't electric, that didn't depend on the right combination of guitar and amp to create the tone.

But, while I was reading about this Dylan guy who was writing all these radical songs, the radio wasn't playing them. And since I had no $$, I couldn't exactly go down to Gillette's Music and plop down $1.99 for his latest album.

Thus for me and for many, PP&M were the first recorded examples of Mr. Zimmerman's music we heard. Like this one:

But they also did this song, which rocked pretty hard:

So thanks guys, for everything you did. And thank you Mary, for singing your heart out for a better America.

Oh babe, I hate to go

(graphic compiled by Dancin' Dave)

By POLLY ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer Polly Anderson, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK – Mary Travers, one part of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, which used beautiful, tranquil harmonies to convey the angst and turmoil of the Vietnam anti-war movement, racial discrimination and more, died after a yearslong battle with leukemia. She was 72.
The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, said Travers died Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.
Though their music sounded serene, Peter, Paul and Mary represented the frustration and upheaval of the 1960s, as a generation of liberal activists used their music not only to protest political policies, but also to spark social change. And even as the issues changed, and the fiery protests abated, the group remained immersed in musical activism.
Bandmate Peter Yarrow said that in her final months, Travers handled her declining health with bravery and generosity, showing her love to friends and family "with great dignity and without restraint."
"It was, as Mary always was, honest and completely authentic," he said. "That's the way she sang, too — honestly and with complete authenticity."
Noel "Paul" Stookey, the trio's other member, praised Travers for her inspiring activism, "especially in her defense of the defenseless."
"I am deadened and heartsick beyond words to consider a life without Mary Travers and honored beyond my wildest dreams to have shared her spirit and her career," he said.
Mary Allin Travers was born on Nov. 9, 1936, in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of journalists who moved the family to Manhattan's bohemian Greenwich Village. She quickly became enamored with folk performers like the Weavers and was soon performing with Pete Seeger, a founding member of the Weavers who lived in the same building as the Travers family.
With a group called the Song Swappers, Travers backed Seeger on one album and two shows at Carnegie Hall. She also appeared (as one of a group of folk singers) in a short-lived 1958 Broadway show called "The Next President," starring comedian Mort Sahl.
It wasn't until she met up with Yarrow and Stookey that Travers would taste success on her own. Yarrow was managed by Albert B. Grossman, who later worked in the same capacity for Bob Dylan.
Their beatnik look — a tall blonde flanked by a pair of goateed guitarists — was a part of their initial appeal. As The New York Times critic Robert Shelton put it not long afterward, "Sex appeal as a keystone for a folk-song group was the idea of the group's manager ... who searched for months for `the girl' until he decided on Miss Travers."
The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage and off. Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included "Lemon Tree," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon)."
They were early champions of Dylan and performed his "Blowin' in the Wind" at the March on Washington in August 1963.
And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War, managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music that resonated in the American mainstream.
Travers was remembered Thursday at the well-known folk venue Club Passim in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. Many of the singers who played there in the '60s were influenced by Peter, Paul and Mary, said Dan Hogan, the club's executive director.
"Mary Travers, especially, had a commitment to social causes and to social justice, and I think that encouraged most of the folk singers at our club to feel that this is really something worth committing to and making a career out of folk music," Hogan said.





Addendum by The Sailor:

At their (Glenn) Beck and call

Wow, some folks really want their country back:

Army reservist beaten in front of child

A man beat an Army reservist in front of a Morrow Cracker Barrel, yelling racial slurs at her as he kicked her in the head, Morrow police said. The assault happened in front of the woman’s 7-year old daughter, who stood there, crying, witnesses told police.

Hill said she told West she was an Army service member and she did not want any trouble.

West threw her to the ground and hit her in the head with his fists and feet, police said. During the exchange, witnesses said West could be heard screaming racial slurs towards the victim.

According to Hill's report, and confirmed by many witnesses, West screamed out racial slurs before punching her in the face. "He said, 'You're an fucking black nigger bitch,' is what he said," said Hill

Gosh, can't we all just get along? Nope. I can't. As long as racists exist in our our country I can't get along with them.

While it's progress that the police showed up and arrested him, I'm wondering why no one in the Cracker Barrel tried to intervene? Oops, my bad, Cracker Barrel pretty much describes why no one stepped up.

Update: As a commenter pointed out the Cracker Barrel manager said he did intervene. After witnesses saw her being punched, thrown down, and kicked in the head. Southern chivalry indeed.





Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Tell Me Something Good

Shut up and don't interrupt me

I'm sure we have heard all the Kanye West/Taylor Swift news, so I won't bother to go into it any further.

It seems interesting to me this trend as of late (well, it's been going on a long time, but just seems worse) of people feeling that their own opinion trumps any kind of civility, manners, consideration and calm, adult discourse. We've seen it in the town hall meetings and we've seen it in our own congress. After the Kanye West interruption the other night, a funny video popped up that, to me, puts the Joe Wilson interruption in the rude light it should:



Of course the Rightwing has made a hero out of Wilson's outburst, but it makes me think back to something I read years ago that put our culture of rude "me first, in-your-face" lack of consideration, shout-down, interrupting "conversation" into a different light than what I had always taken for granted as "civil". I read something Ben Franklin wrote called "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" wherein he pointed out how our culture is viewed by other cultures, in that particular case the Indians who the white man considered "savages". In one part of it he points out the difference in our way of public discourse:

"Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. ... He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished and sits down, they leave him 5 or 6 minutes to recollect, that, if he has omitted anything he intended to say, or has anything to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where scarce a day passes without some confusion, that makes the speaker hoarse in calling to order; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it."

It's little wonder that the Indians saw us, despite our superior technology, as the rude savages.

And never... NEVER... would an Indian at one of their councils stand up and shout "You lie!"

Jim Carroll

Poet, author, and musician Jim Carroll passed away Friday at age 60. According to his ex-wife Rosemary, the cause of death was a heart attack.

Jim Carroll was born and raised in Manhattan. He was a talented basketball player in his youth, which won him a scholarship to Trinity, an exclusive private school on the Upper West Side. While playing for Trinity, he was named to a number of NYC-area prep all-star teams. He also displayed a talent for writing at a young age; while in high school he wrote poetry that attracted the attention of the likes of William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, and began keeping a diary that would later win him fame. While still in his teens, though, Carroll had already developed a heroin habit, which he supported by prostituting himself. By the end of his teens Carroll had a collection of his poetry, Organic Trains, in print, excerpts of his diary had appeared in Paris Review, and was hanging out with Allan Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, and Patti Smith.

Carroll left New York in 1973 for the West Coast, in part to rid himself of his heroin habit. During the mid-70's, he wrote poetry and song lyrics, toying with the idea of starting a rock band. Little came of that idea until 1978, when Carroll accompanied Patti Smith as she toured California. In San Diego, her opening act cancelled, so Smith invited Carroll up on stage to rap with her, introducing him as "the guy who taught me how to write poetry". Inspired by the experience, Carroll returned to San Francisco, hooked up with a group called Amsterdam, renamed them the Jim Carroll Band, and moved them to New York. Also in 1978, Carroll's high school writings were published as The Basketball Diaries. A riveting account of basketball, poetry readings, sex, and heroin addiction, the book received instant critical acclaim.

Carroll's recording debut, Catholic Boy, released in 1980, became an instant classic of punk and New Wave. Anchored by the radio hit "People Who Died", Carroll's lyrics painted a stark picture of the gritty netherworld of New York City, a landscape dominated by sex, drugs, and sordid dealings. "People Who Died" was a fine example of Carroll's vision; the song is a rapid-fire list of all his friends who died young. Catholic Boy was a surprise success, which Carroll followed up with two further discs, Dry Dreams and I Write Your Name. These records failed to sell well, though, and by the mid-80's Carroll had ceased recording and went into semi-retirement.

Carroll spent the rest of his career maintaining a low profile, writing poetry and mentoring young artists who he had inspired. His influence has been acknowledged by a wide range of artists, including author Danny Sugarman, filmmaker Harmony Korine, and singer Eddie Vedder. Carroll would return to prominence for a time in 1997 when The Basketball Diaries was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. He recorded one more album, Pools Of Mercury, in 1998, and made several spoken-word recordings in the early 2000's.

One of my favorites from my college-radio days, Jim Carroll shone a light on the dark side of the American experience, and gave inspiration to a generation of artists making their own excursions on the edge of our culture.



(Crossposted at Pole Hill Sanitarium.)

Once a story's told, it can't help but grow old

So Rep. Joe Wilson (R-Non Compos Mentis) had a little fit the other night. He, well, hell, everyone knows what he did.>

So now forget it.

That's right, forget it. Don't give the prick one more minute of fame. Red State & WorldNutDaily are giving his ego all the strokes it needs.

No publicity, no censure, just a sad fall back into deserved obscurity.

Bastard.

Update: In light of Dave's post below, my advice is for the mainstream traditional media, not us dirty f*ckin' hippie bloggers. Feel free to trash this moron at will.

In fact, I award him the rare Golden Douche award for Right-wing craptasticness:

Artwork by the lovely and talented Darkblack, in case anyone forgot!

And now, something to wash your mind clean. There are a few perfect pieces of music, this is one of them. Lovely lyrics, amazingly crafted melody, several performances to choose from, but this is my favorite: