Donald Trump, idiot extraordinaire, said this past week that running against Elizabeth Warren in 2020 would be a "...dream come true."
Of all the complete and utter bullshit you'll hear coming out of Donald Trump's mouth, this is perhaps the most blatant lie he'll ever tell. It's nothing more than false bravado.
There is no Democrat in American more beloved by Democrats than Elizabeth Warren. Bernie supporters, Hillary supporters, no matter. We fucking love her. Even worse? Most Independents like what she has to say and have no qualms with her. And while she might not be republican voters' candidate of choice, they really don't hate her quite like they hated Hillary Clinton.
Trust me, when the powers that be in the republican party go to bed at night, they hit their knees and thank their God that Elizabeth Warren has no desire to be our next President.
This week's featured artist--Bill Withers--gets extra coolness points for, on the cover of his first album, using a picture of himself standing outside the aircraft factory where he worked on an assembly line, holding his lunch pail. In fact, Withers so mistrusted the fickleness of the music industry that he kept his job at the aircraft factory even after having a #3 single on the Billboard charts...though further success would eventually lead him to devoting himself to the music business full time.
Bill Withers is living proof that sometimes quality is a lot more important than quantity. Over the course of his fifteen year career, Withers had one #1 single (this week's tune), two #2's ("Use Me" and "Just the Two of Us"), one # 3 ("Ain't No Sunshine"), and one #30 ("Lovely Day"). No other single he released reached the top forty--most didn't even chart. He released eight albums, but only one reached the top ten, and he had just two more in the top forty. And yet in 2015, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (most deservedly)--and that is a testament to just how great/powerful those hits were (especially his big four singles). In something of an oddity, in 1985 Withers decided that he'd had enough of the bullshit in the music industry, and after just fifteen years, he called it a career. He hasn't toured or performed since (and claims he doesn't miss either), and outside of writing a few songs for various artists and a 2009 documentary about his life, has pretty much been living the good life since.
Released in 1972 on his only top ten album, Still Bill, "Lean on Me" is one part gospel, one part soul, and one part pop, all coming together to create a classic single. I was actually introduced to the song by my late Uncle Bob, who when asked what he was listening to back in the summer of '72 (when I would have been a most impressionable thirteen), went into a sermon about the greatness of "Lean on Me" by one Bill Withers. Now my Uncle Bob could paint a turd gold and make you truly believe he was giving you a gold ingot, but he wasn't exaggerating when it came to this one. A nice and simple piano, some organ, some otherworldly backing vocals, and the piece de resistance, the magical vocals of Bill Withers (which if I believed in God, I would believe that Withers' vocals are exactly how God sounds when he sings). "Lean on Me" is Withers' lone #1 single (most assuredly with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also ranked at #208 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." In the end, it's pop music at its most inspirational, and heaven knows we can all use a helping hand from time to time.
Fun Fact: Club Nouveau did a cover version of it in 1987 that also went to #1. It is most noticeable for being the worst cover version ever recorded, even worse than Madonna's cover of "American Pie," which truly speaks volumes to just how horrid Club Nouveau's version was. And now I'll get off my soapbox...
Rap Sheet: "You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand/We all need somebody to lean on..."
There seems to be some debate among Democrats as to whether or not we should reach out to Trump voters and try to feel their pain or let them chug along as clueless as ever and bail their asses out when the shit hits the fan.
Maybe this poll will end what, to me, has always seemed a ridiculous proposition: 97% of Trump voters do not regret their vote for him, and in fact, their words for him are to stray strong or stay the course. This after an utterly disastrous first 100 days (give or take) when he has broken virtually every promise he made to these imbeciles, and very well may have members in his administration, up to and including himself, who committed treason.
Reach out to what? What exactly does anyone promoting this tactic think can be said to these people to make them change their minds?
Frankly, I've always thought Trump's win was a fluke and would be curious as to how many people who didn't vote (for whatever reason) were now regretting that they didn't, but will be certain to turn out after four years of bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit.
As far as I'm concerned, let Trump's supporters (really only about 25% of the voting public) wallow in their own shit. They are not, and never will be, what made America great or represent what's best for the future of our country.
Enact legislation when we're back in power to help them after Trump and his republican cronies have destroyed their lives and economic well being once again? By all means. But sit around a campfire and try to get them to join us in singing "Kumbaya?"
Another working day for the Trump administration...
I hesitate to put too much stock into it this early, but you know it's bad when revelations about Russian interference in our last election have people talking about not just impeachment, but treason.
And as the story unfolds, it will be vital that we remind the 75% of Americans who aren't fucking nuts that republicans consistently either turned a blind eye or flat out supported an administration that colluded with a foreign government to dupe the American people.
If anything good can come out of a Trump Presidency, it's that average Americans might finally wake up and realize that Ronald Reagan's conclusion that government was not the solution, but the problem, is one big lie. The biggest problem in America has been, and continues to be, the primacy given to the vested interests of Corporate America at the expense of the rest of us.
And God knows Trump and the republican party are going to do their best to make even the densest of folks understand. Already the GOP is pushing a bill to limit Americans ability to file class-action lawsuits (virtually the only way ordinary people can combat corporate abuse--it's simply too expensive to take them on individually) against large corporations. And the Trump administration is already gutting regulations protecting us from Wall Street's incompetence and Corporate America's indifference on our having clean water to drink. These are little more than sops to the wealthy interests and a spit in the face to those of us who actually carry this country on our collective backs.
And one can be sure there's more to come.
Surprisingly, Democrats seem to be waking up to this fact, even if they are still half asleep. One of their tactics for attacking Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, is to laser in on his support for Corporate America to let everyday folks know that the problem is not the government, but the all powerful entities that have bought so much of it.
It's high past time that Democrats not named Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders (and some few others) were helping to "...put the jam jar on the lower shelf where the little man can reach it."
Right about the time I was discovering there was just a little more to rock and roll than top 40 radio and beginning to dig a little bit into its history, my father introduced me to one Chuck Berry. My father had no qualms with Elvis Presley, but, to him, Chuck Berry was the shit--he was an exciting guitar player, he bopped along to his duck walk, and he projected that rock and roll aura that had set up its permanent residence in Coolsville.
Chuck Berry died today at the age of 90, and I'm not sure how many people realize what a rock and roll icon he was. He was listed as the fifth greatest rock artist of all-time by Rolling Stone, he was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the rock and roll highway is literally littered with Chuck Berry singles, and it's impossible to overstate the precedent he set for every guitar hero to come, from Eric Clapton to Jack White, and from Jimi Hendrix to Eddie Van Halen.
And not only that, he's the only rock and roll artist to have his music sent out upon a space ship (Voyager) in the hope that alien civilizations, should they exist, be also able to marvel at the wonder that was Chuck Berry.
And for the record, yes, yes he could play a guitar just like a ringing a bell....
Today we're going to feature the best 1970's band not to actually record in the 1970's....
Another in a long line of artists that I was introduced to by my daughter (she sent me a copy of their album White Blood Cellsand after hearing "Fell in Love with a Girl" I fell in love with The White Stripes), The White Stripes are arguably the best band rock and roll has seen in the last twenty years. From their beginning in my adoptive home of Detroit, Michigan in 1997, Jack White and Meg White (they claimed to be siblings but were actually married from 1996-2000) literally set the pop music world on its ear. Though they only released six albums, two of them ended up on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time." They were critical and fan favorites, sold several million records, won six Grammy Awards, and were widely regarded as an exceptional live band. The weight of fame eventually became too much for the very introverted Meg White, and they went their separate ways in 2011--but they had a hell of a ride for fourteen years.
Fun Fact: The White Stripes got their name not only from Meg White's last name (Jack Gills took his wife's name when they got married), but also from the fact that Meg really liked peppermint candies. Fascinating, my God...
Released on what is widely considered their best album, Elephant(and I wouldn't disagree) in 2003, "Ball and Biscuit" is most amazing to me for being the type of song I usually hate: it's long, it has a lot of guitar solos, it's bluesy, and it's about drugs. And yet I adore it--and such is the magic of The White Stripes. Clocking in at a little over seven minutes, "Ball and Biscuit" is an amalgamation of Jack White's otherworldly guitar playing (needless to say, he's one of my all time favorite guitarists), Meg White's understated but evocative drumming, and Jack White's matter of fact yet yearning, cocksure yet vulnerable, vocals. It's the love song of a drug addled man, sung to an unimpressed drug addled woman, and in the hands of The White Stripes, it's a reminder of just how soul ravaging the blues can be.
Lyric Sheet: "It's quite possible that I'm your third man, girl/But it's a fact that I'm the seventh son..."
Can we please once and for all end the charade that not all republicans are racists?
In the wake of Iowa Rep. Steve King's tweet in support of comments by Geerts Wilder, a white nationalist from Denmark, which he followed up by saying that white babies are more important to the future of the United States than any other baby of color, the response from republican leaders--or just republicans in general--has been about as loud as a scream in outer space. The only republican to comment has been Paul Ryan, who gave merely the party line trope that he hoped Rep. King had misspoke knowing full well that King had already stood behind his remarks.
Rep. King continued to ride the crazy train later by claiming that African-Americans and Latinos would be at each other's throats before white folks in America would become a minority.
After a few more years of Donald Trump, my guess is the throats African-Americans and Latinos are going at won't be each others', but more likely the throats of white nationalists like Steve King and his republican enablers.
Those of a certain age (polite way of saying "old") will remember Kellyanne Conway from the Clinton administration and her being a republican surrogate on anything related to the Lewinsky scandal. She was a lying sack of shit who'd cut her own mother's heart out with a spoon if republicans paid her enough then, and she's a lying sack of shit who'd cut her own mother's heart out with a spoon if republicans paid her enough now.
There is one difference now, though--Conway is fucking nuts in addition to being a lying sack of shit...
There certainly may be a way to turn a microwave oven into a camera but one supposes that had President Obama--a President who was exceedingly competent, both mentally and as Commander-in-Chief--wanted to wiretap Donald Trump he wouldn't have turned to The Lone Gunmen .
I'm pretty sure the CIA has just a few more resources than your average TV show.
The only thing I remember about Singles, the movie from which this week's tune was introduced, is that at some point in the movie one of the main characters says "God bless you" to a woman he's pursuing after she sneezes and she falls in love with him straight thereafter. Thanks to that scene, I spent years saying "God bless you" to any pretty woman within fifty feet of me...and nary a one of them ever fell head over heels for me....
Anyhoo...
Paul Westerberg is another in a long line of FNJ heroes whom the whole world should know about but very few folks actually do. Westerberg started his career as the lead singer/songwriter for alternative rock pioneers (and emaycee fave) and Minnesota natives The Replacements (more on them later this year), who despite drawing much acclaim from critics and a devoted if small following, never had much in the way of commercial success. After 12 years and 7 albums the band members went their separate ways; Westerberg became a solo artist and other than the (small) bit of fame he received for this week's tune, pretty much continued riding the lack of commercial success train with the six LPs he released. Still, he's been making music, recording and touring since 1979 and my guess is there's many a garage band in this world who'd trade places with Westerberg in a heartbeat.
Released in 1992 on, appropriately enough, the Singles: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, "Dyslexic Heart" showcases Westerberg's two best attributes: Writing catchy as all hell pop songs that don't sound like pop songs, and singing catchy as all hell pop songs without sounding like a catchy as all hell pop singer. And unlike many alternative bands, Westerberg has never been overly introspective: "Dyslexic Heart," like many of his tunes, wears its heart on its sleeve as Westerberg weaves his tale of a man trying to read not only his desired woman's intentions, but his own heart's intentions as well. There's plenty to like from the lightly strummed acoustic guitar beginning to the driving electric guitar to the rat-a-tat drumming to the liberally spread around "na na nas" (which are always great for singing along) and finally to the start/stop cadence that Westerberg utilizes to great effect. In the end, you have a pop gem from a movie that will live on long after the film has been forgotten (well, at least to music dorks like me...).
Liner notes: "Do I date you? Do I hate you?/Do I got a dyslexic heart?"
"I would not believe anything that came out of his mouth. I'm not asking him for anything. All I'm asking him is: Get ready for impeachment. Because we're going there. I'm going there."
More Democrats like her, please.
Turns out, Russia didn't want Donald Trump elected President to be their stooge--they actually wanted him to be President so they could make fun of him and diminish America in the eyes of the rest of the world.
And you know what's even funnier? Republicans are holding rallies to fucking thank Russia for making Donald Trump and America a laughingstock.
Alas, devoting a paragraph to the life and accomplishments of Kanye West would be like devoting a paragraph to the solar system--way too much there to encapsulate with a handful of sentences. Suffice it to say, West started out as a hip-hop producer extraordinaire before becoming a rapper in his own right (believe it or not, West had all kinds of trouble finding a label to finance his first album--since he came from a comfortable middle class upbringing, many felt his image wouldn't play in the world of hip-hop), releasing eight albums (of which the first six debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart), having umpteen top 20 singles, won 21 Grammy Awards, and performing otherworldly concert tours. I originally thought of claiming that West was the Bob Dylan of hip-hop until I realized that Dylan didn't even come close to accomplishing--at least commercially--what West has accomplished in the last 20 years. He is probably the music artist of the 21st century--at least thus far.
All of West's accomplishments have not come without controversy. West is a horrid loser at awards shows, tends to let his mouth move without checking with his brain first (welcome to the club!), and runs the gamut politically from compassionate activist to just another rich asshole. His marriage to Kim Kardashian, a woman who has no discernible talents and basically became famous because her family is rich, is something of a head scratcher, too, but like the song says, the things we do for love....
It's not often that a forty-five year old man will be sitting in his living room flipping channels late in the evening and a when a video for a previously unknown hip hop artist appears on his TV (and a song about spirituality to boot), sits up and says, "Man, I've got to hear that one again..." but that's exactly what happened with me the first time I heard "Jesus Walks." Fortunately, the Beautiful Girl was already a fan and burned me a copy of his debut CD, The College Dropout, which I would listen to for the next couple of months. The song would go to to reach #11 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, win a Grammy Award for best rap song, and appear at #273 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All-Time. "Jesus Walks" is one part military cadence, one part gospel song, and one part angry young black man ranting about the fucked up world he sees. In the end it's an acknowledgement of both his real and perceived faith, which, while not my cup of tea, one certainly has to respect for bringing a heretofore untouched subject matter to the world and music of hip hop. It's a tour de force in the pantheons of pop music: unforgettable, passionate, and startling.
Rap Sheet: "Yo, we at war/We at war with terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves/Jesus walks..."
Rich pampered airhead Betsy DeVos joked at last week's CPAC (Cretinous Pinheads and Chickenshits) Convention that she's the first person to ever tell Bernie Sanders to his face that "there is no such thing as a free lunch."
Leaving aside the fact that it really takes a special kind of asshole to make a joke about hungry kids, DeVos should be the last person to tell Bernie Sanders, a man who got to where he was through intelligence and hard work and not because his Daddy and his spouse were rich, anything that questions his worldview.
Of course, considering all the money her family spent to make her the most unqualified Cabinet member in the history of the United States of America, she probably wouldn't know much about a compassionate worldview.
Because she just uses dollar bills to pull herself up by her bootstraps.
In light of reports by the Washington Post that Jeff Sessions did meet with Russian leaders and flat out lied (and there's fucking video--could it possibly get any sweeter!) about it during his Senate confirmation hearings and thus perjured himself, let me just say that every chickenshit asshole (and Sessions would be one of them) who voted to impeach Bill Clinton for perjuring himself concerning an extramarital affair, everyone who called for him to resign, and everyone who contacted their congressman to call for their representative to vote to impeach Clinton should be standing up right now and asking the same for Jeff Sessions.
Since this would include virtually the entire republican party and we know they're a bunch of hypocritical fucking little crybabies, I won't be holding my breath.
And that sound you hear is the sound of millions of Democratic bubbles bursting...
Keeping in mind that I'm the guy who predicted Sarah Palin would be the republican Presidential nominee in 2012, and that Hillary Clinton was going to win in a rout, it's hard to see how Donald Trump's speech to Congress last night isn't anything but bad news for Democrats. Coming on the heels of the uninspired choice of Tom Perez to head the DNC (yes, he's better than Wasserman- Schulz, but he's not the candidate who is going to fire up the young folks that we're going to so desperately need in 2018 and 2020), Trump seems to have figured out what Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Charles Grassley, and numerous other republicans have known for some time: you can say the craziest shit imaginable as long as while you're doing it you don't come across as an insane, hateful asshole. Now it remains to be seen if Trump is capable of doing it consistently, but I'll be mighty surprised if his approval ratings don't improve and Democrats do their usual backpedaling and sell us out as they've done so many times before.
Trump's selling the same bullshit ideas as he had the day before, but as long as he looks rational doing it, the media and most Americans are going to shrug their shoulders and move on.
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
