Donald Trump today may have, however inadvertently, delivered the first truthful statement he's uttered in months when he said, "This is going to be the greatest election disaster in history."
This morning Donald Trump floated the idea of delaying this year's elections until it was "safe." By which he means, he has a better chance to win (exceedingly unlikely, but Pinocchio eventually became a real boy so you never know...).
Unfortunately for Trump, only Congress can change the date of our elections (set forth in 1845), so this is just another moment of political cowardice from another republican coward.
Take your beating like a man, pantywaist--you've earned it.
Let's hope plenty of republicans visit this November
There's an ad running here in Michigan for next weeks republican primary (I won't bother naming the candidate because idiot, and it's also a race we're not going to win), and in the commercial the republican castigates her fellow GOP candidate by saying he doesn't support the "Trump agenda."
Really wondering how well thought out this ad was, because from where I sit the Trump agenda is 150,000 Americans dead because of Trump's colossal mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, celebrating racist traitors from the Confederacy, unprecedented corruption, and kissing the ass of the President of our country's greatest threat, Russia. And those are just the tip of the iceberg.
For fuck's sake, how stupid do you have to be to see any merit whatsoever in what Trump has done over the past three and a half years?
For numerous reasons, in the spring of my junior year of college I was sick to death of my life and one day decided to blow off all of my classes and hit the backroads of Kokomo, Indiana. A few minutes into my drive this week's tune came on the radio and after singing it to my heart's content, I hit upon the idea that what I most needed was to, as the song said, go "...where the sun keeps shining through the pouring rain." And right then and there I decided to head back to California and return to the best home I'd ever had. About the time I hit the mighty metropolis of Burlington an hour or so later, it dawned on me that I had less than ten bucks in my pocket and the car I was driving was owned by my parents, and not me. I headed back home none the worse for wear, but to this very day every time I hear "Everybody's Talkin'" I can still feel the liberation of "skipping over the ocean, like a stone."
Harry Nilsson (professionally just Nilsson) began his career in 1958, and most certainly did not take a career path followed by many musicians. He spent the first few years learning instruments and honing his songwriting, having some success writing songs for others (Little Richard and the Monkees to name a couple), all the while keeping his job as an overnight programmer at a bank. He signed his first deal in 1966 and asked for an office so he could continue his songwriting. He released his first album the next year and got a huge assist from John Lennon and Paul McCartney when at a 1968 press conference both proclaimed Nilsson to be their favorite American music artist (Nilsson would go on to be a drinking buddy for Lennon, often for the worst). Nilsson was not much on touring (which he later admitted was a mistake), and by 1980 his career was pretty much done (though he would continue recording). For his career, Nilsson released 16 studio albums (one of which reached #3), and 50 singles (with one #1 and two other top ten hits), as well as winning a pair of Grammy Awards. Sadly, Nilsson suffered a heart attack in 1994 and passed away at the too young of an age of 52. Still, he's considered one of the forefathers of the Los Angeles singer/songwriter movement, and was listed at #62 on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest songwriters of all-time.
(Not so) Fun Fact: Nilsson had a flat in London at which Mama Cass Elliot (heart failure, aged 32) and Keith Moon (accidental overdose, also aged 32) both died. Distraught over their deaths, Nilsson sold the flat to Pete Townshend and never returned to London.
"Everybody's Talkin'" was released onAerial Ballet in 1968, but did not become a hit until it was featured in the movie Midnight Cowboyin 1969. It would reach #6 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.
Written by Fred Neil (who after deciding the music business wasn't for him, took the proceeds from his big hit and followed his own musical advice moving to Florida and spending the rest of his life advocating for dolphins), "Everybody's Talkin'" has become an American standard, covered by numerous artists. Nilsson nails the vocals--his plaintive wail captures the protagonists hopes and dreams, while the guitar (ukulele?) and strings softly slide the music forward. I've often thought the song captured Americans' grit perfectly with its cocky optimism...and have to admit that this is one of those songs that always makes my day better and that I never get tired of listening to. A veritable classic.
Lyric Sheet: "I'm going where the sun keeps shining/Through the pouring rain/Going where the weather suits my clothes..."
Steven Mnuchin and other Trump economic advisers...
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said today that, "It just wouldn't be fair to use taxpayer dollars to pay people more to sit home than they would working and get a job."
You know what else isn't fair? The fact that Mnuchin's boss so magnificently fucked up America's coronavirus response that over fifty million people are out of work, many of them having lost jobs that will never be coming back.
Hell, if he wants to talk economic fairness, I have a host of unfair realities:
How about republicans refusing to raise the minimum wage for 11 years despite the fact that the cost of living isn't getting any lower?
Or what about wage stagnation, which has been engineered by Corporate America so that most Americans were lucky to see a 1 or 2% raise in their wages over the past three and a half years despite Trump's "boom" bullshit economic voodoo?
Or how about that Trump tax cut which gave millions to billionaires and pennies to the average American?
Or what about those folks who lost their jobs the last time republicans fucked up the economy, the Great Recession, and had to take jobs that paid significantly less than the job they lost, and have never recovered that lost income (on a personal note, I figure I'm down about eighty grand at this point)?
The pennies they've thrown at us these past few months don't even put a dent in the money lost by American workers because of policies that are written by and for the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. As far as I'm concerned, Mnuchin can go fuck himself.
In the end, this also shows how clueless the Trump administration is about the pandemic we've now been facing for five months--the unemployment supplement was to keep people home so we could slow the virus and keep the economy churning. Sending people back to work when COVID-19 is still raging out of control will do nothing to stop it, and therefore send our economy even further into the abyss that Mnuchin and Trump have created.
Mitch McConnell and his fellow republican Senators
Republican Senators are up in arms over the cost of another coronavirus stimulus package, worrying that the U.S. deficit is getting out of control.
Funny, I don't remember republican Senators worrying too terribly much about Trump's tax cuts, which did nothing for average Americans but did manage to add trillions(FYI, that link is to Forbes, hardly a liberal rag) to the deficit they're so worried about.
Had republicans not completely botched the coronavirus we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But once again, they do show their true colors--socialism for the rich, good; socialism for the poor...deficits!
Here's hoping Democrats in Congress tell them to blow it out their rich asses.
The New York Times reported this week that in the immediate aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration did not rally around Americans or complete a comprehensive plan to attack it or even consult with medical experts. Nope, Donald Trump and his toadies got together and tried to find someone else to blame for the outbreak.
For all our past history and for all the history that is to come, there will never be a greater act of political cowardice by a Presidential administration.
After watching chickenshit Donald Trump tell Fox News that he'd have to wait and see how the election turns out before he decides if he'll concede, it was fantastic to watch both Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden immediately pour cold water on that bullshit. Pelosi said Democrats were more than happy to fumigate the White House if necessary (bonus points for hilarity), while Biden took the high road and said the federal government was more than capable of removing trespassers.
Either way, I'm certainly getting the feeling that Democrats have flat had enough of Donald Trump and his massive shit show.
As I've gotten older, I've had a certain fascination with artists who have kept recording late into their careers and have still been able to keep an edge and release relevant material--Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and to a certain extent, John Mellencamp all come to mind. This could be compared to artists who all but stopped releasing material--The Who, The Stones--or who released music that just wasn't that good (Dylan). I like to think that this week's artist may have been one of the first to mature musically as he aged, though I'd never say he was as successful as Reed. Springsteen, or Young. And this week's tune certainly is a fine example of that maturing....
Unfortunately for me, I knew very little about Rick Nelson before I began my half-assed research this week, but after reading his Wikipedia entry I discovered he had a hell of a career (and one of the more interesting bios I've read). Nelson got his start thanks to his parents, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, who were known for their musical talent before Ozzie hit upon the idea of a TV show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, featuring his family...which would run from 1952-1966 (it was said that America watched "Ricky" Nelson grown up before their eyes). In the late fifties, Rick Nelson began a music career, starting as a teen idol, that would last until his death. Nelson also appeared in numerous movies and television shows. For his musical career, he released thirty-six albums, one of which hit #1 and two others which broke the top ten. He also released 91 singles, 52 of which charted, with two #1's (between 1957 and 1962 only Elvis had more singles chart than Nelson). Nelson was in the second class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, won a Grammy, was listed at #91 on Rolling Stone's Top 100 Artists of All-Time, is considered one of the forefathers of music videos (thanks to his dad), one of the forefathers of country rock, and ranks behind only Carl Perkins as a rockabilly artist. Sadly, Nelson's career was cut short when he died in a helicopter crash in 1985 at the age of 45. His twin sons Gunnar and Matthew had a string of hits in the 1990's with their band entitled, appropriately enough, Nelson.
Fun Fact: Rick Nelson had the first #1 hit on Billboard's newly instituted Hot 100 singles chart with his hit "Poor Little Fool" in 1958. And it's probably the kind of fact that only an old fart one time record store manager would appreciate....
"Garden Party" was released as a single in 1972 and was later added to his album titled, surprisingly enough, Garden Party.It would go on to reach #6 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the last hit single of his career.
"Garden Party" was written in response to a bad experience Nelson had while performing at an oldies show at Madison Square Garden, Nelson was no longer a teen idol and he and his band, The Stone Canyon Band, showed up with longer hair and bell bottom jeans and played some honky tonk songs in addition to his earlier hits...and the crowd booed. Now there is some dispute as to whether the audience was booing Nelson or a group of police mistreating some protesters, but Nelson wrote his version of the events down and went on to have a hit single with it. First of all, Nelson's lyrics are an absolute wonder--the song could have been bitter or angry, but Nelson goes about telling his story with a fine eye for detail (and a hell of a gift for name dropping without naming names) and with an understated bravado that touches upon both his resignation and his love for music. There's a world weariness to his vocals, but you can still feel his joy from performing and the steeliness in his resolve to navigate his career the way he wants. It's one of the first country rock songs (you can't tell me the early Eagles didn't learn a trick of two from this one) and may be the nicest "fuck you" song in rock and roll history. A stellar song from an underappreciated (at least by me) artist.
Lyric Sheet: "If you gotta play at garden parties/I wish you a lotta luck/But if memories were all I sang/I'd rather drive a truck..."
I never thought I'd live long enough to see anyone say stupider shit than came out of the mouth of Sarah Huckabee Sanders (it got so bad that she eventually stopped having press conferences because of how often she got called out for her bullshit), but current White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has actually done it. Her response this week when noting that Donald Trump wanted kids back in school this fall five days a week with no exceptions, "The science should not stand in the way of this..." is beyond ignorance and bordering on maliciousness.
Science is everything in this pandemic, and even more so when it comes to protecting our children. That someone could toss a line so devoid of any common sense, and do so as a member of the Trump Administration, is beyond frightening. Sixty-two percent of Americans are not in favor of Trump's plan to send our children back to school this fall, and I'm sure the number would be even higher had they known it's merely a stunt to help get Trump re-elected. Our children are not props.
Fortunately for McEnany, Fox News seems to relish hiring idiots. After she's out of a job next January, I'm sure they'll be happy to hire her to whine about Joe Biden as he goes about cleaning up the shit show her boss will leave for the rest of us.
Remember when you were in grade school and some kid was standing before the class giving an oral book report, but it was brutally obvious he'd never read the book?
That's what it's like watching Trump explain his second term agenda in the video below--only you don't feel sorry for him because he's not eleven years old (well at least physically...).
In addition to refusing to pass another stimulus bill in the face of the coronavirus pandemic unless there is a provision shielding Corporate America from liability from customers and employees who get sick after Corporate America fails to adequately protect them, Mitch McConnell is now also demanding that all schools reopen this fall, regardless of if it's safe or not, to pass said financial relief bill.
Hopefully, Democrats can read polls and seeing that Joe Biden is currently crushing Donald Trump and republicans stand to lose the Senate as well as more seats in the House, tell Sen. McConnell to blow it out his ass.
I'm more than happy to run ads this fall explaining to the American people that Democrats had a bill ready to help stabilize their financial uncertainties, but republicans refused to pass it, preferring instead to put Corporate America's needs before theirs, as well as ensuring that our children succumb to a debilitating disease.
In fact, I'd really love our chances come November 3rd--especially with republicans trying to tell American voters that thanks to a tanked economy and dead children they're better equipped to run the country than their Democratic counterparts.
There's a political ad running here in Michigan for our primary elections next month in which Paul Mitchell, the retiring U.S. representative from Michigan's tenth district, gives his endorsement to Shane Hernandez, who he hopes will become his successor (note that this is a solid red district and republicans could nominate an oak tree and it would probably win). What I find odd about the commercial is that Mitchell keeps proclaiming that Hernandez is the only true conservative in the race...and I wonder if he realizes that, thanks to Donald Trump, most Americans now equate the term "conservative" with the word "nutjob."
Of course, Mitchell also says in the ad that Hernandez will save us from horrible liberal policies...apparently unaware of the fact that no liberal President (or governor or senator or...) has stood by and done nothing while 140,000 (and counting) Americans died from a pandemic.
It must be a a never ending quest for republicans to see just how clueless they can be.
Conservatives were in an uproar today because Sebastian Bach, one time lead singer of the eighties hard rock band Skid Row tweeted that, "If you support Donald Trump, you stand against rock and roll and every musician in America who has been put out of work because a reality television show host doesn't believe in science."
Leaving aside the fact that if you'd asked me before today what the odds would be that the band Skid Row would ever get mentioned in my blog I would have said a million to one, I know that every time I think Fat, Lazy Pervert the first thought that comes to mind is "Rock and roll!"
For fuck's sake, there is no hope for these people at all.
Over the past several months, I've read again and again--and they are all most certainly correct--that the coronavirus doesn't care if you're a Democrat or republican, love Donald Trump or hate him, live in a red state or a blue state, or have a Facebook page or not. It's just looking for a host so it can wreak whatever havoc the virus can upon some poor soul's body.
There is one trait, though, that in my completely amateur scientific research I have discovered that COVID-19 absolutely adores: stupid. Think it's all a hoax? Gotcha! Don't wear a mask because "freedom"? Gotcha! Go to a COVID party? Gotcha! Pissed off because you can't get your soda refilled at Taco Bell? Gotcha! Celebrating your niece's graduation with fifty friends and family because we've got to live life? Gotcha!
I've read that Charles Darwin didn't mean for people to extrapolate survival of the fittest to humans, but I have to wonder if he were alive today if he wouldn't wonder if maybe it was a fait accompli.
There are probably seven or eight songs by the Monkees that I could have chosen for this week, but as I am wont to do, the one I chose is probably the most tops of the pops tune they ever had (though some might argue differently...)--which is really saying something for a band that had numerous top forty hits.
The Monkees formed in 1966 as a fictional band for a television show, and with a little prodding on their part and a dollop of the almighty dollar, they eventually became a real band (kind of like the story of Pinocchio...). They were often vilified at first in the music press as nothing more than a prefab band, but as time wore on they have garnered more and more critical praise, and even have a number of folks who believe they belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Due to creative differences (which seemed to be a problem for the length of their career) they split in 1971. In 1986, thanks to MTV and Nickelodeon airing reruns of their TV show, they had a massive career revival, which resulted in most of their albums charting again and a new greatest hits package reaching #21 on the Billboard 200. They would go on to have numerous reunion tours through the years, and are still on the oldies circuit as of this year. For their career, the Monkees released 13 studio albums (the first four all reached #1), eight live albums, and thirty-one compilations. They also had 19 single released, with three hitting #1, a #2. and two #3's. Sadly, original members Davy Jones (heart attack in 2012) and Peter Tork (cancer, 2019) are no longer with us, but Michael Nesmith and Mickey Dolenz soldier on. For all the critical grief the Monkees took early in their career, many consider their television show to be ahead of its time, they are considered forerunners of the music video format (check out the video for this week's tune below), their film Head is considered a cult classic, and they count the Beatles as well as a number of punk bands among their fans.
Fun Fact: Bob Rafaelson, one of the creators of the Monkees, used money made from the television show to help finance Easy Rider and later to finance and direct Five Easy Pieces, which in turned helped usher in the New Hollywood movement as well as make Jack Nicholson a star. So in a roundabout way...
"Daydream Believer" was released in 1967 on the Monkees' album The Birds, The Bees, & The Monkees. It would eventually reach #1 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the last #1 hit the Monkees had.
Written by John Stewart (who would have a few hits on his own over the course of a very long career), "Daydream Believer" is a slice of life song, a man going about his day and telling his lady love that as long as they've got each other they've got all they need. After a quiet piano opening, Davy Jones (who hated the song and thought it had zero chance to be a hit) sings it like a dandy pop song should be sung, and the rest of the band makes the the chorus sugary sweet. No one is going to confuse "Daydream Believer" with "Like a Rolling Stone," but in the annals of pop music, I'd be hard pressed to name a better pop ditty. Catchy, sweet, winsome--a daydream believer and a homecoming queen...hell, yeah.
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings/Of the bluebird as she sings/The six o'clock alarm would never ring..."
Atlanta Dream co-owner and current U.S. Senator from Georgia Kelly Loeffler this week sent a letter to the WNBA League Office demanding that players not wear messages supporting Black Lives Matter on their warm-up jerseys as sports needs less politics and it "sends a message of exclusion."
Exclusion of who--racists? Shouldn't that be a net (pun intended) positive?
Get used to this--republicans fear that this fall could not be a blue wave but a blue tsunami and they are going to do everything they can to rile up the racist white folks to get out to vote to save their Senate majority.
It's not too much politics in sports that Loeffler is whining about--she just wants it to be white supremacist politics in sports.
Your typical republican--fat, lazy, slimy, and corrupt
Tucker Carlson this week questioned how Sen. Tammy Duckworth--who lost both of her legs defending our country--could lead this nation because she "hates" America. Duckworth hates America, one supposes, because she's not a racist chickenshit like Tucker Carlson.
For those not familiar, Carlson's claim to fame is that he hosts a talk show on Fox News, in which he has made so many foul and racist claims that he has lost nearly every advertiser his show has ever had. He is able to keep his job, because a) Fox News, and b) he's fabulously wealthy, not for anything he's ever done, but because of his parents (remind you of anyone else?). The man literally has no talent whatsoever and is perhaps a notch above Donald Trump on the intelligence scale, meaning he's slightly brighter than a low grade moron.
Frankly, my patience with these people, after Max Cleland, after John Kerry, and now after Tammy Duckworth, has been exhausted. People who gave of themselves so much more than most Americans, yet have their patriotism questioned by men who cowered behind their desks while Cleland, Kerry, and Duckworth gave America their hearts and souls.
Tucker Carlson is a racist piece of shit who would make a maggot puke. He needs to be made the laughingstock he truly is.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, bought and paid for
The woman who bought her Cabinet position by making donations to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, earlier this week said that she is rejecting school reopening plans which do not send our children back to school full-time in the classroom. This is somewhat rich, because DeVos has absolutely zero power to do this--as we are not one of those smart countries which has a national education program and instead leaves everything to local officials, each and every school district can tell DeVos to blow it our her ass.
Unfortunately, what DeVos can do is control the funding, and she is threatening to withhold money from schools which don't bend to her wants. While most folks agree that it is in our children's best interests to get them back to school, I think it's important to note that most of us think this should be done safely with plans in place for the coronavirus, but DeVos wants this done simply because her boss, Putin puppet Donald Trump, thinks it will help the economy and therefore his chances for re-election.
Understand that Betsy DeVos doesn't give a good goddamn about education or people's children unless they are rich or religious, and that your child's long term health or even death is a small price for her to pay as long as she and her family can keep getting richer and can keep shoving her religious beliefs down your throat.
You know, I couldn't even come up with a comment for this one
Earlier this week, Kanye West announced he was running for President in 2020, though most (and probably rightfully so) believe it's little more than a publicity stunt (anyone remember Senator Kid Rock? me either) as West has a new album due shortly.
Just in case, though, I'd like to remind anyone contemplating voting for West that electing an idiot celebrity in 2016 didn't turn out so well (coronavirus, Russian stooge, children in cages, racism, economy in ruins, to name but a few) and electing another one won't work out any better in 2020, so it's best to cast your vote for Joe Biden.
For those of you who don't have the time to pay attention, the Dow Jones Industrial was up over 450 points today. Not being a millionaire or billionaire (who own 90% of the stocks in our markets) or a day trader, I have no idea if this increase is merited. It very well may be.
But I do know this--it is high past time for Americans to realize that the stock market is in no way reflective of how good--or bad--the economy is doing, and in turn, how well we average Americans, who have little more than our 401ks in the market (and can't be touched without significant tax penalties until we're 59), are taking care of ourselves and our families financially. Today's stock market increases are not indicative of the current state of our economy or its future. To wit:
First off, the market is being propped up right now by the Fed because of the coronavirus--they are buying up bonds to help keep it afloat. It's keeping the markets from collapsing, but strong economies don't need propping up.
Despite Putin puppet Donald Trump's claims, the jobs market is a mess. The jobs being created are not new jobs--they are people going back to work because we have reopened the economy in many places. Unfortunately, as the Fed has noted, millions more of these lost jobs are not coming back. Worse, as states are being forced to close down establishments because they rashly reopened too quickly, those jobless numbers are only going to go up.
An unemployment rate over 11% is the worst in America since the Great Depression. Good economies do not have record unemployment.
While many are crowing over strong retail sales...they had no place to go but up. People have been stuck at home for months and had budgetary reserves that could be spent. That extra money is going to revert to normal in a couple of months as people spend it--meaning retail sales will also come back down to earth.
Speaking of, republicans and the Chamber of Commerce are convinced we're not going back to work because of the $600 stipend to unemployment benefits (my guess is both are more concerned about Corporate America being able to keep its slave labor--who the fuck can survive on minimum wage?) and will let it end on July 30th. As thirty million Americans watch their family's income shrink by two-thirds (after taxes unemployment benefits are $250-$300 a week at best), what kind of an idiot do you have to be to believe retail sales aren't going to shrink as well?
Finally, the coronavirus is showing absolutely no sign of abating, and with Donald Trump telling Americans they need to learn to live with it, it will not in the near future either. No coronavirus turnaround, no economic turnaround. Millions of people (especially older folks who have a guaranteed income with Social Security) are still staying home, and as people who are still working realize this past month's job numbers are as good as they're likely to get for a while, they're going to spend less, too, because they're going to be worried about how much longer they'll have their jobs.
Wall Street can blow out the cake's candles all they want, but wishing won't make the economy magically get any better.
So the stock market's numbers will continue to go up...but remember that it's really just Vegas for rich people with rigged slot machines, and in no way reflects our current economy.
My introduction to this week's tune, oddly enough, came when Queen had success with the David Bowie penned "Under Pressure." I was about six months into my career with Camelot Music when the song was released, and a co-worker noted upon it reaching hit status that Bowie had bailed out another band whose career was headed into oblivion (might have been a slight exaggeration for Queen). I nodded like I understood what he meant (actually had no clue) and went home that night and found some old rock and roll books and was able to deduce that he was speaking of this week's tune....
Mott the Hoople (named for a character in a novel of the same name who earned his living as a circus freak) formed in 1969 in England and had a couple of incarnations before settling in as a band. They had some moderate success with their first four albums, but were ready to disband when David Bowie, a fan of the group, heard and offered them his song "Suffragette City." The band said no thanks (who the fuck turns down a song from David Bowie?), so Bowie offered them this week's tune in 1972 and the rest, as they say, is history. The single gave them enough credibility that they were able to continue as a band until 1980. They've had four reunions since then, and as of this year are officially a group once again. For their career, Mott the Hoople released 7 studio albums (and two more as just Mott), nine live albums, and 12 compilations. They also released 15 singles, seven of which charted in the U.K., and three of which charted here in the states. Sadly, two of the band's original members have gone to The Great Rock Concert in the Sky, but as noted above, Mott the Hoople continues to trudge along the oldies circuit.
"All the Young Dudes" was released as a single in 1972 from their album entitled, appropriately enough, All the Young Dudes. The song would go on to become the biggest hit of their career, reaching #3 in their native U.K. and #37 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also #253 on Rolling Stone's original list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time.
Fun Fact: The song is often considered a glam rock anthem and/or a gay anthem, but Bowie staunchly insisted it was neither. He said it was about the end of life as we know it on earth and the young men having to deliver that news to the rest us.
While Bowie may not have considered the song to be an anthem, that is certainly what it became. I've seen (on film) Bowie perform it live (remarkably similar to Mott the Hoople's version), and I can guarantee you it's one of those songs that not one person in the audience isn't singing and swaying along. Vocally, Ian Hunter delivers the performance of a lifetime, replete with an urgency reflected again and again in the impromptu shouts of the chorus that gives the song a life of its own. All the more is that Bowie wrote what may be the best lyrics of his career (I'm sure many would disagree) and Hunter and the band do not waste a one of them--from the poignant guitar that opens to the rousing backing vocals through the chorus there is never a doubt in this one that you are listening to one of the truly great songs in the annals of rock and roll.
Lyric Sheet: "Television man is crazy/Saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks/Oh, man, I need TV when I got T-Rex..."
Instead of doing the obvious--corralling the pandemic, stimulating the economy, and providing real police reform, for instance--the Trump campaign has decided that their next brilliant move is to make the Supreme Court an issue for the 2020 Presidential election. Seems that Putin puppet Donald Trump is so, so unhappy that with a little help from Chief Justice John Roberts the Supreme Court in the last couple of weeks have affirmed LGBTQ rights, didn't outlaw abortion in Louisiana, and have sided with those poor souls trying to make a better life for themselves by immigrating to America.
All of which are overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
While Roberts may proclaim that he decided as he did based on the constitution or to respect precedent, I'd be willing to bet that at least part of his decision making process was influenced by politics. Trump and republicans are already underwater with women, young people, and people of color, and though Roberts might not be able to save Trump, he might save the republican Senate majority by making them marginally more appealing to moderate voters than say, oh, the Nazi Party.
But here's hoping Trump and his minions keep putting on a blindfold and throwing darts at a dartboard the size of a Franklin Roosevelt dime as they try to come up with winning issues to help re-elect Donnie Boy. All the more chance we'll end up with New Deal sized programs to fix the mess Joe Biden will inherit next January.
Isn't this rich? After running roughshod over the Senate since he took over as Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell is now advising Democrats that should they win control of the Senate not to get rid of the filibuster. Something about staying in the middle of the road...a lane McConnell has studiously avoided his entire political career.
I don't want to get ahead of myself because there's still four months until election day and the Senate races could tilt back toward republicans, but here's hoping that if we do win the first task Chuck Schumer undertakes is to tell Mitch McConnell to go fuck himself.
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.
