Not as Stormy as you'd think

The sky is falling...

There's been a lot of angst this week in Democratic circles because Donald Trump's approval ratings have climbed to a robust (sarcasm alert!) 42% this week despite the rather unflattering 60 Minutes interview with Trump's alleged (sarcasm alert II!) mistress, porn star Stormy Daniels.

Democrats would do well to remember that Bill Clinton's approval ratings took very minor hits in the aftermath of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.  While I wouldn't want to conflate the two--Clinton's indiscretion didn't involve personal threats, possible campaign finance illegalities, or the religious right's repugnant picking and choosing of who gets their forgiveness--Americans as a whole tend to see such situations, regardless of the open book nature of a President's time in office, as a private family matter.  Yes, I know Trump is a shit heel, but even shit heel's have wives who are being publicly embarrassed and young son's who have to go to school five days a week knowing their classmates have heard that Daddy got spanked on the ass with a magazine by a porn star.  For the most part we Americans are an empathetic lot, and I'd be willing to bet that some of the improvement in Trump's approval ratings can be attributed to such.

It would also do us well to realize that, considering the relatively decent shape of the economy, Trump's approvals should probably easily be 10-15 points higher.  I've seen some teeth gnashing this week because Trump is only four points behind President Obama's worst number of 46%--without the context of Obama's coming in the midst of a 10% unemployment rate and a stock market that had sunk to under 10,000.  Heaven forbid the economy should collapse, but if it were to, it's hard to see Trumps approvals getting out of the thirties.

So take a chill pill--Americans still think Trump regally sucks and we still have every reason to be cautiously optimistic heading into this November.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Governor Albatross

Thanks but no thanks--eight years of republican boobs is enough

Michigan's next election for governor is just a little more than seven months away and current Lt. Governor Brian Calley has just released his first ad featuring our current Governor, Rick Snyder...who, despite claims of a Michigan "comeback," will most be remembered for poisoning Flint's children, feeding maggot infested food to our inmates, and allowing Detroit Public Schools to deteriorate so badly that fungus in the school's bathrooms flourishes better than Detroit's students.

Right wing nutjob and our current Attorney General, Bill Schuette, was quick to denounce the ads, but one seriously has to wonder why--Snyder's approval rating is underwater and in the age of Donald Trump, one can't imagine the republican base being interested in pantywaists like Calley and Snyder.

Still, good times for Democrats--the Snyder administration's incompetence isn't quite up to the Trump administration's standards, but it should be enough to at least give us a chance in an off year election this November.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Idiot wind

Why?  Why?

Rick Santorum made news of a sort this week when he proclaimed that the Parkland students should be studying CPR rather than fighting for stronger gun control laws in the U.S.  While it showed all the class and empathy that one should expect from those on the religious right (which is to say, absolutely none of either), it begs the question...Why does anyone give a fuck what Rick Santorum thinks about fucking anything?

Near as I can tell he had two terms as a Senator from Pennsylvania during which time he accomplished nothing, and ran twice for President, getting his ass handed to him in 2012 by Mitt Romney, one of the worst Presidential candidates in recent memory, and bowing out rather quickly in 2016 after getting stomped by the orange shit gibbon, Donald Trump.  He's written no world changing books and has no interesting ideas about life in America other than those that are adapted pretty much from Catholic bullshit, which most Americans have no desire to adhere to (thankfully).  Frankly, there are plenty of former Senators and losing Presidential candidates who are a) a lot smarter, and b) considerably more relevant to America, circa 2018.

My guess is it's affirmative action for the religious right--who in their right mind would hire such idiots without it?

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CLXIX--Leo Sayer: Long Tall Glasses

This week we're returning to the 70's for the sixth week in the last seven--a little pop ditty that was among the first 45 RPM records that I ever bought...

Like many artists featured here on Friday Night Jukebox, Leo Sayer had a nice run for several years--from the mid 70's to the early 80's he had two #1 singles, two other top ten singles, and two top twenty albums (and he had even more success in his native U.K.).  He also won a Grammy Award for best Rhythm and Blues Song for a song that was neither rhythm nor blues ("You Make Me Feel Like Dancing"), appeared on the Muppet Show, and once performed a song on British TV dressed as Pierrot (why, yes, I did have to look that up).  Over the course of his forty-five year career, Sayer has released twenty-three albums, the last in 2015.  Sayer eventually settled in Australia, where he still tours regularly.

Released in 1975 from his 1974 album Just a Boy, "Long Tall Glasses" would become the first top ten hit for Sayer in the U.S., reaching #9 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  

Fun Fact:  Sayer had a #2 single with "The Show Must Go On" in the U.K....which was also the last top ten single for fellow FNJ alum Three Dog Night, reaching #4 here in the States in 1974.

"Long Tall Glasses" is not your conventional top 40 hit--it tells the tale of a tired and hungry hobo who comes across an establishment offering food and drink for everyone.  When he gets inside he discovers there's good food everywhere...but in order to partake, he has to "...dance like Fred Astaire."  Our hero is uncertain at first, but then decides to give it a whirl and finds that hell, yes, he can dance.  Needless to say, this one is all about the fun--Sayer throws in a lot of little goodies like accentuating the "aire" part of Astaire, and describing glasses of wine as being full "up to yar."  There's also a lot of emaycee fave banjo playing throughout, plus some spirited vocals and guitar from Sayer who alternates between playfulness and sheer joyfulness.  It won't make anybody forget "Blowin' in the Wind," but it will make you bop around the kitchen while you're cooking up the burritos for the night's dinner...

Lyric Sheet:  "I can dance/I really hit the floor/Ah, it feels good/Look at me dancing..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CLXVIII--Elvin Bishop: Fooled Around and Fell in Love

My first recollection of this week's tune is riding the bus when I was a junior in high school and a girl (one of the cool kids who had a reputation for being meaner than hell--the kind of person a shy kid like me stayed away from) getting on the bus as it was playing, and having no inhibitions about singing her heart out as it blared from WLS 89 out of Chicago.  It made me wonder if just maybe it was a little more than just another ballad on the top 40.  A few years later in college I would see her at a coffee house, just her and an acoustic guitar on the stage, and I was still in awe at how much she loved music and how well she sang, still no inhibitions about sharing her soul with the rest of us....

Elvin Bishop went to the University of Chicago where he majored in physics--but unlike many of his fellow physics majors, after graduation he decided he wanted to be a star rather than study them.  In 1963 he hooked up with Paul Butterfield and appeared as lead guitarist on several of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's albums until the late 60's.  From there he went solo, and over the course of the next fifty years or so released 20 albums (the latest in 2017), six live albums, and toured the world over.  In 2015 Bishop was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the year after was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in his own right.

Originally released in 1975 on his album Struttin' My Stuff, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" was released as a single the following year and would reach #3 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  It would be the only hit of Bishop's career (as we've learned time and again here on FNJ, one is more than enough to build a career on)--though he didn't sing the tune himself.  Bishop felt his voice wasn't right for the song and asked one of his backup vocalists, Mickey Thomas, to sing it.  Thomas parlayed the success into a gig with Jefferson Starship--which was probably a good financial move on his part, but definitely cost him coolness points....

For the second straight week we have a song which isn't a typical emaycee  fave--I'm one of about three white American men in his fifties who doesn't think the blues are the be all end all of music--and "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" most definitely has a bluesy feel to it.  It tells the tale of a man who spent many a year playing the field (by his estimation a million girls, though emaycee thinks that may be a bit of an exaggeration) until, whoops, he fell right in love with one of them.  Thomas's vocals do an excellent job of capturing the soul of a man who's surprised to find he's fallen in love, Bishop has a killer guitar solo about halfway through (I'm not familiar with much of Bishop's work, but it shows a neophyte fan why he's in the Blues Hall of Fame), and the song closes with a catchy back and forth on the words "fooled around" which keeps it spinning round and round in your head for weeks on end (not necessarily a bad thing).  All in all, it's a nice blues ballad that serves as a reminder (for me) that not everything in high school was a living hell....

Lyric Sheet:  "Free, on my own, that's the way I used to be/But since I met you baby, love's got a hold on me..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Putin's puppets

That's a good boy, Donnie!

This:  U.K. public health officials warned, in light of Russia's attempted poisonings of former spy Sergie Skripal and his daughter Yulia, that hundreds of civilians may have come into contact with the poison.  So, not only is Russia murdering its political enemies on a foreign soil, it's willing to let civilians be collateral damage.  And what is tough guy Comrade Trump's response?   A couple of weak-kneed sanctions, most of which involve low level actors from Robert Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia.  And the reaction of republicans in Congress?  A big fat zilch.

Vladimir Putin's Russia is at war with the West and Donald Trump and his republican cohorts are showing all the backbone of wet spaghetti.

Wonder what all their wealthy benefactors are going to do after glorified Mafia don Putin is done bitch slapping Trump and comes after their money?

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CLXVII--Al Stewart: Year of the Cat

I often note in my weekly posts here on FNJ, with some sense of amazement, how many artists I've featured have turned a hit or two into a career in the music business.  I'm not really sure why I'm amazed--it's not like only having a couple of hit records instantly makes you into a prime candidate for being an Assistant Manager at Foot Locker after the glow is gone.  Still, it's special that there are folks who love music enough to keep making it even without the fame and fortune (though I'm sure the fortune from having a hit single can certainly prolong a career).

And such is the case with this week's featured artist, Al Stewart, who began his career in 1966 in London, released several albums with little fanfare before having back to back top ten LPs in the late 70's, and then faded into relative obscurity, though he still has a small but devoted following.  Still, it was enough to let Stewart play music for over 52 years now--he's released sixteen albums, three live albums, and still tours extensively these many years down the road.  Stewart is well known for writing songs with an historical bent to them, as well as being a songwriter's songwriter--lots of imagery and fancy words.  He's said that he tries to make his songs into aural cinema--a movie song, more or less--and at least as it pertains to this week's tune, I can certainly see it that way.

Fun Fact:  In 1969, Stewart released an album called Love Chronicles, which included an 18 minute song of the same name chronicling (so to speak) the sexual adventures of his youth and it was the first mainstream song to contain the word "fucking,"  Alrighty, then...

Released in 1976 on his aptly titled Year of the Cat LP, "Year of the Cat" would go on to reach #8 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1977, and become Stewart's signature song.  Surprisingly, it is not his biggest single--"Time Passages" released the next year would go on to reach #7 (also with a bullet....).  The LP would be the biggest seller of Stewart's career, reaching #5 on the Billboard 200.  For those interested in such things, the cat is one of the twelve signs of the Vietnamese zodiac, and, luck of all luck, Stewart actually recorded it in the year of the cat....

"Year of the Cat" is a somewhat different song for an emaycee fave--clocking in at a little over 6 and a half minutes, four minutes of the song is instrumental.  And while the chorus is catchy as all hell, it's basically just one line ("...in the year of the cat..." or a slight variation thereof) repeated just five times throughout the song.  Still, it's a great story--man traveling through a foreign city encounters a mysterious woman at a bazaar and after spending the day and night with her realizes he's missed his bus, lost his ticket, and is going to stay with her...though he probably shouldn't.  Stewart manages to throw in references to Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre ("Casablanca"), opens it with a killer piano intro (being a guitar aficionado, I sometimes forget how great piano is in pop songs), has a long instrumental break that goes from acoustic guitar solo to electric guitar solo to sax solo seamlessly, and overall has written one of the truly great story songs in the history of pop music.  Stewart noted after he recorded it that if the song wasn't a hit record he wasn't ever going to have a hit record--fortunately for the rest of us it was, and the rest is rock and roll history.

Lyric Sheet:  "On a morning from a Bogart movie/In a country where they turn back time/You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre/Contemplating a crime..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

King Donald of Duck

Never underestimate the sheer vapidity of Donald Trump:

Comrade Trump commented this week, after noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping had made himself President of China for life, that maybe we here in America should give that a try.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that one of the main reasons for the American Revolution?  That we didn't want our lives to be dictated by a king?  And the U.S. Constitution?  That whole checks and balances thingie?

Comrade Trump would do well to remember King Louis the XVI, who lost his head, so to speak, at the height of the French Revolution....

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

We're coming to take them away...

The Cuckoo's Nest

This week on "The Jim Bakker Show," Bakker's wife Lori proclaimed that Liberals want to have all Christians declared mentally ill and locked up in "mental illness centers."

Damn--they're on to us....

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CLXVI--The Del-Vikings: Come Go with Me

"Dom-dom dom-dom dom-de-doo-be"...proof positive that the best lyrics don't have to be "How many roads must a man walk down?" or "In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream..." to make a classic pop song.

The Del-Vikings (sometimes the Dell Vikings or the Dell-Vikings) were formed in Pittsburgh, PA in 1955 by several servicemen stationed at a nearby Air Force Base.  Known as a doo-wop group, they had three top 15 singles by 1957...and haven't come close since.  Still, the band is performing to this day, though through the years they have split, reunited, had several different incarnations (thus the differing spellings on the band name), and had something near to 52,000 different members (only a slight exaggeration).  Near as I can tell, all of the original band members have departed this vale, but their legacy as one of the few racially integrated bands in the 1950's to achieve chart success is a fine feather in their caps...as is the wonderful single featured this week on FNJ.

Released in 1956, "Come Go with Me" would go on to reach #4 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the biggest selling single of the Del-Vikings' career, eventually going gold.  The song would also be listed at #449 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"--a fine tidbit for their musical resume.

Fun Fact:  The first time Paul McCartney saw John Lennon, Lennon's band the Quarrymen was playing "Come Go with Me"--and Lennon couldn't remember the words so he made them up as the song went along.  Tsk, tsk, John!

As I noted in the intro, there are pop songs that try to make a big statement, and there are pop songs that are just a hell of a lot of fun...and "Come Go with Me" sits squarely in the latter.  Opening with the wonderful scatting and closing their intro with the always welcome "whoa whoa whoa," the song is little more than a boy telling a girl that he loves her and just wants a chance to win her heart.  The harmonies are as good as any you'll ever hear, and there is an absolutely killer saxophone (replete with hand claps, as well) solo about two thirds of the way in...before closing with some more unparalleled harmonies.  This one is all about the fun--I can tell you that no matter how bad of a day I'm having, if I hear this song it is immediately lightened, and it'll be ear candy for the next several days. Just a great single from the early days of rock and roll....

Lyric Sheet:  "Dom-dom dom-dom dom-de-doo-be dom dom dom dom dom dom-de-doo-be dom dom dom dom dom dom-de-doo-be dom, whoa, whoa, whoa..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

If ever there was a WTF? moment, this is it

This is how fucked we are:  it was reported this week that in 2017, Amazon made $5.6 billion dollars in profit and paid zero in federal taxes and it barely elicited a yawn.

For fuck's sake, I made less than $40,000 and I paid federal taxes last year and yet Amazon couldn't pay one goddamned dime on $5.6 billion?  What's the matter with this picture?

This state of affairs benefits no one other than the powers that be at Amazon--it's not like they lowered prices for their customers in light of this windfall, or gave big raises to the thousands of their warehouse workers that are paid shit wages.

We really need a wake up call--or one day we're going to wake up and realize that all that is left in America is a handful of rich folks and the rest of us poor folks.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

There will be blood

Out, damned spot! out, I say!...or not

On yesterday's The View, Meghan McCain said it wasn't fair that the NRA was being vilified in the wake of another mass shooting (Parkland, Florida), and that not one of the countless mass shootings in America over the decades had been committed by a member of the NRA.

This is akin to Germans complaining about being vilified after their Jewish neighbors were rounded up by the SS because they just watched and did nothing rather than having actually loaded their Jewish neighbors on the trains.

The NRA has again and again fought against common sense gun regulations supported by a vast majority of Americans, has bought and paid for too many republican politicians to count to guarantee their agenda, and has steadily made it clear that gun manufacturers are more important than the lives of children.

If you're a member of the NRA, you have the blood of American children on your hands.  Period.

And you fucking deserve to be vilified.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee