In continuing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez week here at emaycee Presents: A Liberal in the Motor City, Princess Ivanka went on Fox News to kiss wealthy asses while proclaiming that most Americans do not like the idea of Ocasio Cortez's guaranteed minimum wage. Take that, Marie Antoinette!
Note to Princess Ivanka: "most" Americans are not rich assholes whose sole qualm with a guaranteed minimum wage is that they might not be able to afford that fifth yacht. I can flat fucking guarantee you that a supermajority of Americans are most interested in getting paid a decent wage.
Word of warning, Princess--a day of reckoning is coming and you can either fix income inequality now or we will fix it for you later.
With 182 republicans voting yesterday to let Donald Trump proceed with his fake national emergency in order to get the wall built that doesn't need to be built, republicans have now completed a trifecta of dismissing their party's values as long as such is beneficial to Donald Trump.
After enabling a serial philanderer and sexual harasser, republicans can give up their claim to being the party of God. By downplaying the impact of Russia's involvement in the Presidential election of 2016, they've given up the mantle of patriotism. And any republican who screams about the U.S. Constitution should be give a swift boot to the head after voting to relinquish Congress' power of the purse in pursuit of giving Donald Trump an imaginary victory in a war he has already lost.
So when any republican brings up God, patriotism, or the U.S. Constitution as being values they promote, feel free to laugh in their faces. They've sold their souls for a few years in power, but the devil will be calling soon for his just compensation.
I think the reason republicans attack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so relentlessly is jealousy. Face it, the republican base finally got its dream candidate in Donald Trump and he's turned out to be an embarrassing and incompetent imbecile, and in turn spawned Ocasio-Cortez who very well might one day be the Democratic dream candidate...and after less than two months in office she's already proven herself to be savvier, smarter, and more skilled in politics than Trump will ever be in ten lifetimes.
That Ocasio-Cortez said this week that had it not been for Trump she'd probably be teaching high school only makes the irony that much sweeter.
They've never met a rich person whose ass they couldn't kiss
After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced that she would be paying her staff a living wage of at least $52,000 per year, the dunces at Fox and Friends went into moron mode and called her wage proposal "communism."
What the fuck?
Leaving aside the lunacy of paying employees more money as being a tenet of communism (communism generally enriches only those at the top...sort of like capitalism), what is it with republicans being against working folks making more money?
One has to wonder if fear that their staffers, realizing they're getting paid peanuts to provide support to idiots spouting idiocy, won't get some ideas about getting paid more themselves.
A couple of years back I was flipping channels one night and happened to land upon The Tavis Smiley Showjust as the evening's musical guest was taking the stage. It wasn't an artist I was familiar with, but after about a minute of listening I was racing to my desk and writing down lyrics as he sang so I could look it up online later. Turned out to be Taj Mahal (and what a hell of a moniker that is) who I was familiar with by name (and exactly one song) and he was singing a tune that was originally released when I was in high school. Once again, the wonder that is music....
Taj Mahal was born in Harlem, New York in 1942 as Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. and spent his formative years in the thriving metropolis that is Springfield, Massachusetts. While attending the University of Massachusetts he had a dream about India, Gandhi, and social tolerance and began calling himself Taj Mahal. Though he had at one time considered becoming a farmer, in 1964 he moved to California and began a music career in earnest, originally teaming with fellow blues musician Ry Cooder in a band called the Rising Sons which lead to his first recording contract. Over the course of fifty-nine years, Mahal has released 29 studio albums, eleven live albums, been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, and has won three of them. Mahal also wrote the music for the soundtrack to the Oscar nominated film Sounder(and had a role in the movie), has appeared in eleven other movies, as well as five TV shows. And on a side note, Mahal does a fine version of Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues" on Folkways: A Vision Shared--which also happens to be one of the best cover version compilations (featuring songs by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie) albums I've ever heard.
"Queen Bee" was not released as a single so once again this week we have no shout out for Billboard magazine. It was originally released in 1977 on Mahal's album Evolution (The Most Recent), and would make an appearance twenty years later on 1997's Senor Blues.
Cool Quote: "I just play to the goddess of music--and I know she's dancing."--Taj Mahal on playing music outdoors (his personal preference).
"Queen Bee" is something of an oddity for me, as I'm one of about three white men in the Baby Boomer generation who does not think the Blues are the be all/end all of music, and wasn't surprised the sun didn't rise and set on the late Stevie Ray Vaughn's ass. Nonetheless, as I noted above, when I watched Mahal perform this tune on Tavis Smiley's show I was about a minute in when I knew I needed pencil and paper so I could find it on the web. "Queen Bee" is a love song from the soul, and Mahal sings it from his with all the joy and passion that a good woman can arouse. Mahal's guitar playing is otherworldly--he's known for using world music, especially from Africa and the Caribbean in his music so that might explain why the sound emanating from his guitar is quite unlike anything I've heard before plucked from the magical six strings. Add in a harmonica solo (Mahal plays several different instruments) and some nice drumming (replete with clashing cymbals), and you have a song that makes you glad that Mahal chose music over farming as a career (though farming is a fine profession...).
Lyric Sheet: "A strutter, she can shake it some, oh dancing having fun/She love me to my soul, oh she love me to my soul..."
One of the many things that I love about pop music is how it continues to surprise and amaze me again and again, even as I turn into an old man who wonders if said surprises can continue. Such was the case with the Violent Femmes--a couple of years back I scored a copy of their greatest hits for a dollar at the thrift shop figuring it would be worth it to have the two songs of theirs I did know and like. When I popped it in the car CD player on a whim, little did I know that it would be all I played as I drove to and from work and across southeast Michigan for the next three months.
Violent Femmes formed around 1980 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when Gordon Gano joined Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo, who'd been a rhythm duo for a couple of years prior. They were discovered by the late James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders playing on a street corner outside of a Milwaukee venue the Pretenders would be playing later that night. They were invited to do a short acoustic set before the show and the rest is history. Shortly thereafter they released their debut album, and would follow it up with eight more albums across the years. While the band has had a couple of hiatuses (1987, 2009-2013), Gano and Ritchie with a revolving cast of drummers have been together as a band for thirty-nine years now. They've sold over nine million records, which is pretty impressive considering their highest charting album hit #84, and they've never had a single crack the Billboard Hot 100. They released their last studio album in 2016 and continue to tour somewhat regularly.
"Gone Daddy Gone" was released in 1983 on their oh-so-cleverly titled debut album, Violent Femmes. As noted above, the single never charted, and neither did the album, which leads to this week's...
Fun Fact: Violent Femmes debut album is the only album in the history of the Billboard charts to go both gold and platinum without ever reaching the charts. It would eventually reach the charts after going platinum, peaking at a distant #171 (one hopes with a bullet!). To date, it has sold over 1.8 million copies.
Pretty much all you need to know about "Gone Daddy Gone" is that a xylophone is featured prominently in the song and somehow the Violent Femmes managed to make it sound incredibly cool--which I'm pretty certain isn't easily done within the constraints of a post punk tune. Cano has almost a deadpan vocal style and is helped immensely by a catchy chorus that is repeated often (emaycee fave alert!). The song makes note of a lost love, but whether it's creepy or nostalgic I'll leave up to the reader. Lastly, the song features one of the best instrumental breaks I've come across in a pop tune--it alternates between a solo of the aforementioned xylophone, a drum break reminiscent of a sixties surf tune, and some nice jangly guitar. It's a bit of an odd song, but in a nod to the Violent Femmes, they made it all work and gave us a tune for the ages.
Lyric Sheet: "Beautiful girl, lovely dress/Where she is now I can only guess..."
Despite the fact that Donald Trump is historically unpopular for a President, that he's massively underwater with Independent voters, and that more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that the Trump economy is working well for the wealthy and not so well for the other 90% of us, we are going to be inundated with voices telling us that to win the Presidency in 2020 Democrats need to run a campaign that is centrist in nature.
Never mind that a solid majority of Americans now support healthcare for all. Never mind that 70% of Americans support raising taxes on the wealthy. Or that two/thirds of Americans still support a woman's right to choose. Or that support for labor unions hasn't been higher in a generation.
You know who spouts this nonsense? Weak-kneed republican pundits who lack the courage to call out Trump but fear that now is truly the time for Democrats to push the envelope because Donald Trump is so historically weak and imperiled.
The only way Democrats lose the White House in 2020 is if they run as republican lite.
In lieu of Donald Trumps decision to declare a national emergency to get his unneeded (except by the chickenshits who make up the republican base) border wall, some are questioning whether republicans will support Donald Trump or support the U.S. Constitution.
Seriously?
Republicans do not give a shit about the Constitution, or America, and they certainly don't give a shit about Americans. The only thing that matters to republicans is staying in power so they can keep professing their fealty to the wealthy, to Wall Street, and to Corporate America.
Support Trump? Hell, they'll kiss his fat orange ass as he farts and proudly post the video on YouTube as long as they can hold onto enough power to keep the wealthy elite happy.
In light of Donald Trump's declaring a national emergency to get his worthless wall built with our tax dollars (and not Mexico's, I might add), I think every single Democratic candidate for President should begin announcing and listing on their web sites every issue for which they plan to declare a national emergency after assuming the Presidency in January of 2021.
Green New Deal? Check.
Gun control? Check.
Increase in the minimum wage? Check.
Between catastrophic climate change, the untold deaths from gun violence, and the alarmingly high poverty rate in America, a much better case could be made for a national emergency on these issues than the fact that our neighbors from countries south of our border are crossing said border in search of a better life.
We have to make republicans pay for their stupidity.
If it looks like bullshit and smells like bullshit...
There is very little on this earth right now more tiresome than listening to republicans lecture Democrats on the racism of Ralph Northan (blackface), the perversity of Justin Fairfax (now has two accusers of sexual assault), and the antisemitism of Ilhan Omar (had the audacity to question U.S. policy on Israel).
Fucking spare me--republicans are a political party that prides itself on hating anyone that's not white and Christian, and they've bent over backwards to excuse the pervert in chief, Donald Trump, who is lapping the field when it comes to sexual deviants in the White House. This is not to excuse the Democrats' behavior (pathetic, except for Omar, who again merely didn't kowtow to Israel)--but republicans really need to take a good look in the mirror before they let their tongues wag.
So please do us all a favor and sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. Your fifteen minutes are circling down the toilet as the Democratic train keeps rolling right over your worthless asses.
This week's tune is another in a much shorter list than I had originally hoped those many moons ago when I began Friday Night Jukebox--album tracks that all too often get overlooked when the Greatest Hits packages are released...but are just as worthy of a shout out as the big time Billboard chart hits.
While Randy Newman might not quite be a household name, a lot more people are familiar with his music than they realize. Newman has made quite the career since the 1980's as a film composer, and his credits include some blockbusters: all three Toy Story movies, the first and third Cars movies, and both Monsters (Inc. and University) movies, as well as some non-kids fare like The Natural, Seabiscuit, and Meet the Parents. But Newman cut his chops as a pop songwriter (though his biggest hits were more novelty songs--"Short People" and "I Love L.A.") and had a critically acclaimed if not hugely commercially successful run through the seventies. Throughout his career (not counting soundtracks) Newman has released 11 albums, won seven Grammy Awards, three Emmy Awards, and two Academy Awards (both for best song, though he's been nominated twenty times, mostly for film scores). Newman has also been inducted into the Songwriting Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And in a personal aside, Norah Jones' cover of Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" would easily make my top five cover versions of all-time. My reflections aside, though, Newman has had a hell of a career.
Fun Fact: Newman's "Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America" (Newman's songwriting is nothing if not quirky) contains the lines "America, America/Step out into the light/You're the best dream man has ever dreamed"...which observant readers (both of you) will note emaycee has borrowed a time or two (or three) in various incarnations for regular blog posts over the years...
"Jolly Coppers on Parade" was released in 1977 on Newman's Little CriminalsLP. While "Jolly Coppers on Parade" was not released as a single (though it should have been), Little Criminals was the highest charting album of Newman's career, reaching #9 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard 200. And in another personal aside that's worth about two cents (if that), Little Criminals would easily be one of my ten favorite albums from the 70's--it's a stellar piece of work.
"Jolly Coppers on Parade" tells the tale of a young boy watching police officers march down the street as part of a parade--and while it's from a different time in America's history (when the media wasn't quite as quick to show black Americans being gunned down in the street or twelve-year-olds carrying fishing rods shot forty-two times by their local police force), Newman does an exceptional job of capturing the boy's fascination as the men in blue strut down the street. No one is ever going to confuse Randy Newman's vocals with Rod Stewart, but he does a nice job of capturing the boy's
exhilaration. There's some nice guitar from Waddy Wachtel (one of the great names in rock and roll history) and a smooth rhythm section, but the it's Newman's piano which gives the song a majesty and infuses it with a young boy's joy at watching the scene unfold before him. As I noted in the intro, it won't make Newman's greatest hits LP, but it's a great album track from a great album.
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, Mama/That's the life for me/When I'm grown/That's what I want to be..."
How many Americans, do you suppose, after watching Donald Trump deliver his State of the Union address and then Stacey Abrams deliver the Democratic response, wished that Stacey Abrams were President and not Donald Trump?
My guess would be more than enough to put the first African-American woman into the Presidency of the United States.
Whenever I find myself getting too down about Donald Trump's Presidency, I think back to the last time republicans managed to elect an incompetent celebrity--specifically, Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. While it's true that Schwarzenegger won two terms (heaven forbid it taking America that long to wake up to Trump's ineptitude), his tenure was so disastrous that Californians elected a Democratic governor and gave him a supermajority in the state legislature upon his leaving...and have elected a Democratic governor three consecutive terms now with what continues to be a supermajority in the legislature. And the state has prospered like few others.
In the end, I believe what happened in California is that the bulk of its citizenry awoke to the fact that government serves a greater good and is best run by people who both care about the state and its citizens--virtues that would describe zero republicans.
Here's hoping the bulk of Americans wakes up to this fact by 2020 and sends Trump and his minions in Congress packing.
One of the pitfalls, for my wife and youngest son, of me writing a weekly post about a particular song is that I listen to said song several times before writing the post and usually have the song running through my head most of that week--and I'm one of those people who if he's got a song in his head, he's gonna be singing it. Only this week, it's an instrumental...so I've spent the last few days just humming the hell out of it...
Pat Metheny grew up in Lee's Summit, Missouri in a musical family. He saw the Beatles on TV in 1964 and shortly thereafter bought his first guitar. He discovered Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery over the next couple of years and began to devote himself full time to playing the guitar, specializing in Jazz. He first appeared on a record (Jaco Pastorius) in 1974 at the ripe age of 20, and released his first album in 1976. Since then, he's released 46 (you read that right, 46) more LPs, had three of them go gold, had a number of #1 albums on the Jazz charts, and won 20 Grammys. Metheny is the only artist in the history of the Grammys to win in ten different categories. He's also appeared on numerous recordings by other Jazz artists as well as quite a few pop ones (James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, to name a few). Metheny has toured the world over, has many guitarist of the year nods from numerous guitar magazines, and been elected into the Missouri Music Hall of Fame.
Fun Fact: Metheny plays a custom made Pikasso 1-which is a forty-two string guitar. It was made by master Canadian luthier (fancy term for guitar maker) Linda Manzer...and how many of you were expecting the Canadian master to be a man?
In something of an oddity in what used to be a pop-centric music culture, "Last Train Home" was released as a single in 1987 (with a video, which is what led me to the song on another in a long line of late night VH-1 viewings). Unfortunately it never cracked the Billboard Hot 100. The album it was released on, Still Life (Talking), was the first of Metheny's career to go gold.
In an effort to keep my coolness quotient well below freezing, I'll have to admit that I've never been much of a Jazz fan--for whatever reason it's just never captured my fancy. But as in every other genre of music, whether a fan or not, every now and again one finds a diamond in the rough--and "Last Train Home" is just such a gem. It's a bit hard to write about an instrumental--obviously I can note Metheny's guitar playing, and there's Lyle Mays piano, or the wordless backing vocals. In the end, though, what really makes the song great is the fact that it sounds like the last train home. And it's not just the chugging sound Paul Wertico elicits from his drums and cymbals--there's a resignation to it, to a time when not everyone owned a car and would take a train home at the end of the day and stare blankly into the scenery as it passed with one's briefcase an arm's length away. Or at least as I imagine it might--I've never ridden a train in my life, other than the kiddie one at the zoo. Anyhoo, it's a lovely piece of music that I'll be hum, hum, humming for the next few days.
Lyric Sheet: Not happening...unless you count the "yea-ahs" in the thirty seconds or so of wordless backing vocals.
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.
