Seems Donald Trump had a rally here in Michigan this week (Grand Rapids) and got the Hitler youth to scream "AOC sucks!"
It really says something about how far under republicans skins Ocasio-Cortez has gotten when they're maligning her at a Skinheads 'r' Us rally and she's been a Congresswoman for all of three months.
Twenty bucks says 95% of them couldn't even tell you what the acronym "AOC" stands for.
Back in the day when I thought Bruce Springsteen walked on water, anyone that had anything remotely to do with him was worth a listen...and Miami Steve Van Zandt was a lot more than that. He was a long time friend of Springsteen's, played guitar for the E Street Band, and had helped produce a Springsteen effort or two. Turns out, he was pretty damn good in his own right--and not just musically.
Steve Van Zandt has had one of the most interesting and diversified careers we've had here on FNJ and he doesn't seem to be slowing down one bit. He started out, as so many musicians do, with different bands of his own when he was a teen, joined up with Bruce Springsteen on a couple of his early bands, before helping to co-found Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (cool band name, and not a bad little band, to boot). He joined up again with Springsteen about the time Born to Run was released (Van Zandt has been credited by Springsteen with helping to create the signature guitar line of "Born to Run" and with producing the horns on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"). In 1982 he formed his own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul (you gotta admit the dude has a knack for cool band names), had a small degree of success, and would part from The E Street Band right after Born in the USA was released. In 1999 Van Zandt would rejoin the E Street Band (and has toured with Springsteen pretty regularly since), and he also began his role as Silvio Dante on a little show called The Sopranos. In 2002 he began his nationally syndicated (and highly acclaimed) radio show Little Steven's Underground Garage--which he parlayed into a gig as program director for two more radio shows on Sirius. Van Zandt has released ten solo albums, produced albums for artists from Meatloaf to Darlene Love, became a noted political activist (especially for his work in bringing attention to apartheid in South Africa), and was eventually inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The E Street Band in 2014. Quite the resume, I'd say--and I kept quite a bit out just to keep this from becoming a novel....
Fun Fact: Van Zandt got his nickname, Miami Steve, because after finishing a tour with a band called the Dovells in Miami, he returned to New Jersey and would only wear Hawaiian shirts because he--much like emaycee--hated winter.
"Forever" was released in 1982 on the album Men Without Women(for those familiar with Hemingway, the title is a nod to a collection of his short stories entitled, surprisingly enough, Men Without Women). It would reach #63 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, though it would fare better in Norway and Sweden making the top 25. So many cool kids in Scandinavia!
"Forever" would be a fine exemplar of the Jersey Sound--lush, full of horns and plenty of instrumentation, with a slight nod to Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound, and a wee bit of Springsteen, too. It's your basic love song--nothing much of life matters if she isn't there to share it with you. Van Zandt delivers an animated vocal performance--his vocals are somewhat reminiscent of Blood on the Tracks Dylan (though it would be hard to imagine Dylan singing such a pop song). In the end, there's a sweetness to the single--Van Zandt infuses the music with a 1960's girl group charm but gives the lyrics enough of an edge to not make it sappy. It's another of those singles that still sounds as good today as it did thirty some odd years ago and that I've spent the better part of the last week happily singing as I bounced around the house. A real delight.
Lyric Sheet: "If I give you my heart would you love me forever? Would you pick up the pieces if I stumble and fall?"
Compare and contrast...Gandhi, Shit for Brains Trump
It may well be that the Mueller Report was unable to prove that Donald Trump colluded with Russia and/or obstructed justice. But until the full report is released, I ain't believing shit.
William Barr is not an Attorney General in the conventional sense--like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway, as he made clear in his confirmation hearings, he is nothing more than a paid political spokesman for Donald Trump.
And since the Trump administration has made lying one of its central tenets, why on earth would anyone believe anything one of its members says concerning Trump's culpability?
I can handle the truth, but there's no way in hell I'm taking Trump's word for it.
This week's tune, once again, came courtesy of a shout out from my darling daughter. I also thought that this week's tune would be the youngest on the FNJ cavalcade of hits, but alas, Father John Misty's "Holy Shit" is a couple years younger. Fascinating facts!
Jake Bugg was born Jake Edwin Charles Kennedy in 1994...which would make him all of twenty-five years old. At first I thought that I wasn't accomplishing much of note at the age of twenty-five, but then I remembered that I was helping to raise two kids at that age and that helping children develop into functioning adults was a tad more important than making a pop record. Anyhoo...Bugg began recording at the age of 17, released his first LP at 18 (which hit #1 in his native U.K.), and has followed it up with three more albums as well as three EPs. While Bugg hasn't had much commercial success here in the states (two albums hit the top 100 and two singles hit the top 40), he has had quite a bit of success in the U.K. with four top ten albums and 10 of his singles hitting the top 100 on their singles chart. Bugg has been nominated twice for Brit Awards (U.K. equivalent of our Grammys), and at the end of last year signed with a new label in an attempt to relaunch his career. Best of luck!
"Messed Up Kids" was released on Bugg's second album Shangri Lain 2013, and was also released on an EP entitled, appropriately enough, Messed Up Kids in 2014. The song was not released as a single here in the U.S. of A., but reached #71 on the U.K. charts. The album was his best selling in America (#46--with a bullet!--on the Billboard 200), and hit #3 in the U.K.
Co-written with fellow FNJ alum Brendan Benson (for his work with the Raconteurs on "Steady as She Goes"), "Messed Up Kids" is a statement song depicting the rather rough waters faced by youth in the increasingly economically fractured U.K. (Political Statement: and where we're headed if things don't change here). Bugg and Benson do a nice job lyrically of not just pointing out society's ills, but also painting a picture that shows them as well. Bugg's vocals are solid--he changes ranges from the stanzas to the chorus and it gives the song a stronger voice. Extra props for the guitars--emaycee loves him some jangly guitars and Bugg jang, jang, jangles away on his. In the end, the song reminds me a lot of the Undertones "Teenage Kicks" (also featured here on Friday Night Jukebox) and that might be all I need to say--it's one hell of a song to be compared to. Here's hoping forty years down the road folks are still singing the praises of "Messed Up Kids" a la "Teenage Kicks."
Lyric Sheet: "And everywhere I see a sea of empty pockets/Beautiful girls with eyes so dark within their sockets/So far away/It's a washed out Saturday...
Iowa's resident moron, Steve King, sent out the above tweet this week, in which he implies that should there be another civil war (side note: colossally bad idea) the sheer firepower of those of the conservative bent would absolutely slaughter us goofy liberals.
Leaving aside the utter stupidity of the idea that if said conservatives started shooting at us we'd stand there like sheep at the slaughter, if memory serves the last time we fought a civil war against a bunch of racist losers, while it took a few years, eventually we opened a serious can of whoop ass on the racist losers.
Love for your fellow man will beat hatred for your fellow man every time.
While I am as yet undecided as to my choice to carry the Democratic mantle in the Presidential election of 2020 (I'd like to see how the candidates perform over the next year or so as well as how events play out), I will say that Elizabeth Warren is forging a daring progressive economic agenda that the other candidates are going to have a hard time beating. Warren is outlining a vision for child care, a wealth tax, more corporate accountability, and is actually addressing the root causes of income inequality--with real proposals and plans to accomplish each. And who among us in the middle class, the working poor, and the poverty stricken couldn't use a little good news and a boost in our economic fortunes?
Time will tell, of course, but if nothing else Sen. Warren's economic agenda should be a measuring stick for all Democratic candidates: Go bold or go home.
One of the perks of reading liberal blogs is that, surprisingly enough, liberals often have a certain fondness for rock and roll music and aren't afraid to spice up their blogs with top ten Labor Day songs, or top songs about going to school, or best songs about summer, or even just a song that ties in neatly to the post at hand. I've found quite a few songs and artists from such lists...much like this week's tune, found thanks to Dennis Hartley, who usually writes the Saturday night movie reviews for Digby's Hullabaloo, but on occasion likes to amaze with his rock and roll remembrances.
Joshua Fred James hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and due to a rather short bio in Wikipedia, this week's career recap will be mercifully short. James has his own label in the great state of Utah (great only because my oldest son and his wife live there), and hasn't come any closer to having an album or single on the charts or a Grammy Award than I have, and I'm not a recording artist (though I'm sure my legion of fans is breathlessly awaiting my first release...or not). Over the course of his relatively short career (2003-Present), James has released 6 LPs, 5 EPs, and one single only release. He's gotten some nice write-ups from Variety and NPR, and his album The Sun Is Always Brighter reached #1 on the iTunes Folk Album list in 2007. James has also been the opening act for John Mayer, David Gray, Ani DiFranco, and Third Eye Blind. And while he's not had much in the way of commercial success, he's had enough to make a living at playing music...and that's gotta be a hell of a lot better than selling groceries.
"Crash This Train" was released in 2008 on an EP cleverly titled Crash This Train/The Garden. Near as I can tell, it's a digital only release, and isn't even listed on his discography on his own web site. Needless to say, no bullets on Billboard this week....
"Crash This Train" carries on the proud tradition (at least to old fart folkies like me) of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and even Bob Dylan (though he stopped giving a shit long ago) of folk protest anthems. James sings of the unjust Iraq war, of Presidents sending children off to die, and of a world that should be a lot more fair for regular folks, and he's asking God to put an end to all of the injustice. There's a nice juxtaposition between an acoustic guitar and a plaintive piano, an ending with a crescendo (emaycee fave alert), but in the end it's James' vocals which carry the tune and take it to another level. James' mournful rasp is offset by a weary hopefulness as he sings his prayer--and the imagery of ending the world's ills via a crashing train is one of those magic touches that make a great song. All in all, "Crash This Train" is another in a long line of folk gems that add to its storied history.
Lyric Sheet: "'Cause if it dies in cold, when the clouds start to roll/Is it then that your soul starts to bleed?"
In an interview with the feeble conservative site Breitbart this week, Donald Trump threatened to sic the military, the police, and bikers (seriously?) on his opponents should he not get his way.
Let me repeat that: the President of the United States threatened physical violence against his political opponents this week.
Leaving aside the colossal impotence of our national media (how is this not the most reported story of the week and not being met with complete outrage?), I have four words for Donald Trump:
At least the Democratic Party still believes in "we the people"
Despite all the drivel about a bipartisan (a whopping 12 of 53 republican Senators, and 13 of 195 republican congresspersons joined the Democrats) rejection of Trump's bullshit emergency declaration, does anybody really believe if the Democrats had not driven this resolution it would have come about?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Democratic Party is the only barrier between us and a dictatorship--republicans stopped believing in democracy long ago.
How long before the blindness results in vengeance?
After another week in which our government decided that the killings of two innocent, unarmed black men were justified (in Tulsa, OK and Sacramento, CA), one has to wonder just exactly when police will be confronted with questions concerning why they shot a man with his hands in the air, why they shot a man in the back, why they shot a man several more times after he was already knocked to the ground by his bullet wounds, how a phone gets confused for a gun, why they turned off their street cams, and why they failed to announce themselves.
While one tries to appreciate the often difficult decisions police officers are forced to make in a split second with their lives (and their families' well being) on the line, too many of these decisions are turning out to be outrageously bad and carried out with an overkill of force. And to not have the prosecutors acting as a check on said behavior makes it seem all the more ruthless.
One has to wonder how much longer public trust in our local police forces will last if marked change is not forthcoming...and right soon.
Keep in mind that the budget for 2020 that the Trump administration handed to Congress this week is not just Donald Trump's budget, but is for all intents and purposes the budget of the republican party. Its cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Cancer Research, Public Schools, and the Great Lakes (among numerous others) are not bugs of republican policy, they are the features. From Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, from Susan Collins to Rand Paul, this is another in a long list of initiatives to turn American from a Democracy to a Plutocracy in their never ending quest to show their fealty to America's wealthy elite.
Though Nancy Pelosi (and a host of other Democrats) have already said "Hell no!", it's important that from now until the 2020 elections are over that we tie every republican candidate, despite their disavowals, to the dystopian vision of America that their party harbors.
It's either that or watch as they turn income inequality in America to levels seen only in third world countries.
I noted last week that I caught Taj Mahal performing "Queen Bee" on The Tavis Smiley Show and about a minute into his performance went looking for a pen and a piece of paper...which I was glad to have because after Mahal finished performing, I flipped to the next channel just as Father John Misty was beginning his performance of this week's tune on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Two great tunes new to me in the space of ten minutes--again, surprise and wonder, wonder and surprise...
Father John Misty (and what a great moniker that one is) was born Joshua Tillman in Rockville, Maryland and grew up in a very religious family. After attending college for a year, he headed to the music mecca of Seattle in 2002 and began his career in earnest. He originally performed under his given name, was in the bands Fleet Foxes and Saxon Shore, before finally settling in as Father John Misty in 2012. He has released eight albums as Josh Tillman, four as Father John Misty, one with Fleet Foxes, and two with Saxon Shore. He's had three top twenty albums as Father John Misty, with one of them reaching the top ten. Tillman has also been nominated for four Grammys and won once.
"Holy Shit" (and what a great single title that one is) was not released as a single so yet again we have no shout outs for the Billboard Hot 100 this week. It was on the 2015 LP I Love You, Honeybearwhich reached number 17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard 200 chart. Interestingly (or not) for this day and age, 30% of its sales have come in the form of the good old-fashioned LP.
"Holy Shit" was written on the day Tillman married his wife (they're still together so I'm assuming the somber tone of the song wasn't a warning shot that the marriage was doomed from the start), and it lists a litany of life's ills and emotions, as well as cultural phenomena, on its way to its chorus which basically questions what's going on in the protagonists soul as he ponders his mortality...in all honesty, I really don't know what the song is about. But I like its anthemic nature, the way the piano and the acoustic guitar play off each other, and I like Tillman's pained yet hopeful vocals (wedding day doubts/joy?)--especially the elongated "Oh" that ends the chorus and I always imagine is probably the moment in concert when everybody in the arena is "Ohhhing" along. I also like the way Tillman plays on the words holy shit in terms of the songs religious overtones and imagery, juxtaposing it with the surprise one usually has when those two words are uttered. In the end, what I like most about it is that numerous listens after the first time I heard it on Colbert, I still think, "Holy shit, this is a great song..."
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, and no one ever really knows you, and life is brief/So I've heard, but what's that gotta do with this black hole in me..."
Though he's tried to walk it back since (and good luck with that), Donald Trump's response that he believed Kim Jong Un when he said he didn't know what happened to Otto Warmbier (American intelligence agencies have concluded that he was basically tortured to death by North Korean authorities--for stealing a poster) shows just how craven and amoral he truly is. For as bad of a President as George W. Bush was, does anyone believe for a minute he would have sided with a man who runs his nation like a concentration camp?
And for his claims to have been misrepresented, they're just so much bullshit. He's so obsessed with impressing the Nobel committee that he wouldn't say shit if Kim gave him a mouthful because Kim might shut down the talks in a pique of anger...oops, too late. News flash: the Nobel committee doesn't give Peace Prizes to people who claim Nazis are good people, blow up the Iran deal, destroy decades old unions with Europe, and fellate murderous tyrants like Vladimir Putin.
Can you imagine the pain he caused the Warmbier family siding with the man who had their son beaten to death? I went to the Merriam Webster web site to look for synonyms for inhuman and was unable to find anything that matched the depths to which Trump has abased us all.
Anyone still thinking that Donald Trump has the interests of ordinary Americans at heart can quickly disregard those thoughts.
They're not pretending--republicans really are idiots
You know, in order to save themselves a lot of time the national media could just summarize the yearly CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) by saying that it's people who don't have the good sense God gave a goat spouting nonsense that would make Lenny from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men sound as eloquent as Shakespeare.
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.
