Frog talk

 Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Another example of Democratic heroism

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, is about to cross 20 hours of continuously holding the Senate floor and speaking to "ring the alarm bells" about authoritarianism.

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— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur.bsky.social) October 22, 2025 at 2:17 PM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

Stupidity at untold heights

Kristi Noem confronts enemy combatants in the Portland war zone today.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 7:22 PM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

The real Portland

War-ravaged Portland

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— Will Bunch (@willbunch.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 10:44 AM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

Trump's fake Portland

Trump says he’s authorized Hegseth to use “Full Force” against Antifa in “War ravaged” Portland

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 27, 2025 at 10:33 AM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

Who are the fucking snowflakes now?

You have a First Amendment right to say to the president “F*ck you,” either directly or in your MAGA giggly little-boy code.

You have the right to do it on Christmas. In front of the nation.

The rest of us have the First Amendment right to call you a low-life for it.

Grow up. https://t.co/M5QbaJ3diq

— Terry Moran 🇺🇸 (@TerryMoran) December 26, 2021

Republican = Racist

Peace,

emaycee

 

Another day, another lying sack of shit republican

No one believes this https://t.co/FFAFcURKeX

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) December 26, 2021

Republican = Racist

Peace,

emaycee

 

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXXXV--The Kingsmen: Louie Louie

Outside of "Rock Around the Clock" and "Johnny B. Goode," I would be hard pressed to name a tune that had a greater influence on the history of rock and roll than this week's featured song.  Hell, the Wikipedia entry for the song is longer than their write-up for the band...and I'm relatively sure that's an FNJ first.

The Kingsmen formed in 1959 (the year I was born--coincidence?  I think not...) in Portland, Oregon and made their mark as a garage band in the Pacific Northwest.  In 1962 the band heard a version of a song by Richard Berry called "Louie Louie" by Rockin' Robin Roberts while in a club and noticed the crowd's reaction was to dance their asses off.  They learned the tune and later recorded it in the studio in April of 1963 (the band split the $50 fee--nice investment there, fellas!), and the rest, as they say, is history.  Lead singer Jack Ely left the band before they even released their first album (his only vocal and instrumentation with the group was "Louie Louie"), but the Kingsmen have been together now (in about a billion different incarnations) for sixty years now.  They have released twelve albums (the last in 1994), five of which hit the Billboard 200, 19 singles, 7 of which hit the Billboard Hot 100, and have released a whopping 20 compilations, which doesn't even include various artist collections.  Amazing what a seminal single can do for your career options....

"Louie Louie" was released as a single in 1963, and the band would capitalize on its success by adding it to their debut album, The Kingsmen in Person, that same year.  The single would go on to reach #2 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and would go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame's Hall of Fame Singles, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and be a song of the century/all-time on numerous poll lists including NPR, Rolling Stone, and NME.

Fun Fact:  While the exact number is unknown, it is estimated that there are over 1500 cover versions of "Louie Louie."  Now that's influence.

Yeah, I'm going to write a paean to "Louie Louie"--much better writers than I have devoted entire books to it, let alone a paragraph.  So much of the song's early appeal was the rumors that the song was obscene (many radio stations refused to play the song, it was banned in Indiana by its governor, and the FBI spent 31 months investigating it for obscenity only to conclude its lyrics were unintelligible), and Jack Ely's vocals sound slurred (in truth, Ely was a) wearing braces, and b) while recording was placed in the middle of his band mates and had to stand on his tiptoes and scream into the mike to be heard above the instruments).  In reality, discovered many years later than it should have been, the song is quite tame--a sailor is telling a bartender that he's more than ready to get back to sea so he can get home to his lady love.  It's doubtful in the internet age that a song today could ever have the mystique that "Louie Louie" did (we could google it and have the lyrics in a matter of seconds), but a testament to its utter greatness is that even though we now know the truth, the song remains an anthem in a league of its very own.

Fun Fact #2:  The song does have an obscenity in it--if you listen carefully around the 0:55 mark, the drummer screams "Fuck!" because he dropped a drumstick as they were recording.

Lyric Sheet:  "A fine little girl, she waits for me/Me catch a ship across the sea/Me sail that ship all alone/Me never thinks how I'll make it home..."  (Come on, admit it:  you had absolutely no idea that was the lyrics to the first verse...)

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXI--The Decemberists: June Hymn

This week's tune is part of what I had in mind when I started Friday Night Jukebox--a chance to feature songs that weren't hit singles, or may have been overlooked on albums both best selling and those that reached a smaller audience.  And let's face it:  as most albums only have a couple of hit singles (if that), we music fans spend an awful lot of time listening to and enjoying songs that no one (be it the artist or the record company or the producer, et al) thought had much of a chance at commercial success.

While The Decemberists (another in a long line of artists introduced to me by my daughter, via their song "July, July!") have been around for just north of sixteen years they are still comparatively new to many of the previous bands featured here.  Named for an 1825 civilian insurrection in Russia, the Decemberists formed in 2000 and have been going strong since.  They've released seven studio albums, 9 EPs, had a #1 album, earned a Grammy nomination, and have quite the reputation as live peformers, most notably for their stage show encores which act out historical events (usually with local roots) or the songs themselves, all with audience participation.  They also get bonus points for being early supporters of one Barack Obama, who we miss as President more and more with each passing day.

Fun Fact:  In 2004. the Decemberists released an EP called The Tain, which was an eighteen minute song divided into five parts which was loosely influenced by an Irish epic, Tain Bo Cualinge.  Near as I can tell the Irish prose work had something to do with the stealing of cows, which may help to explain why there isn't much of an audience for epic mythology anymore.  While definitely worth a listen, it's also not a song you want to listen to when you're in your happy place....

Released on their The King Is Dead (the title is said to be an homage to The Smiths' The Queen is Dead) LP in 2011, "June Hymn" is about the beauty of Mother Nature on an early summer day in the small town town of Springville Hill.  It's a portrait of the little things--ivy growing, thrushes and wrens singing, the surprise and wonder of seeing a cardinal--all with an underlying question of whether the hymn is for the day or for a special someone (or both) who may (or may not) be in an emotionally stable place.  It's as peaceful of a song as I can ever remember hearing--the lyrics are really stunning for a pop song in the way it captures the natural surroundings and beauty of individual moments, especially in reminding you of summer day in June.  The music is, like the song, simple: a guitar, a harmonica (emaycee fave!), and a lightly strummed cello (I think).  In the end it's a paean to the beauty of a simple world that isn't always so simple...and it gets extra props for being the only song I know of that uses the word "panoply"...

Lyric Sheet:  "And you were waking/And day was breaking/A panoply of song/And summer comes to Springville Hill..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

If the shoe was on the other foot

I'll be the first to admit that the bozos who have taken over a Federal Wildlife Preserve building in Oregon aren't exactly Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale--hell, they're not even Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  Nonetheless, the facts are that the men they have stormed the building in support of have been convicted of arson, done to hide illegal hunting evidence, that the men occupying the building have taken it by force and are carrying dangerous weapons, and that they have threatened to kill anyone who should try to stop them.

Do you think for one moment the kid glove response toward this militia by the government, law enforcement, and republican Presidential candidates would have been the same had the Black Lives Matter movement used the same tactics in response to the Michael Brown murder, the Eric Garner murder, the Tamir Rice murder, or the Freddie Gray murder?

What the response does, though, is thoroughly validate the Black Lives Matter movement--their beliefs that their lives don't matter to far too many Americans are very real indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Primordial sludge

With Ben Carson declaring this week that no amount of deaths from guns would be worth regulating the right to bear arms (read that again and try to imagine the gall it takes for Dr. Carson to call himself pro-life), and a group of gun advocates (who bastardized the word "patriots" by calling themselves such) protesting President Obama's trip to Roseburg, Oregon to console the victims' families, it's hard not to wish that such heartless assholes would crawl back in the dark hole they came from and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

For fuck's sake, these people think a gun is more precious than a human being.

Peace,
emaycee

King Jeremy the wicked

Another mass shooting, this time at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, leaving ten dead.  Ten more families whose lives have been irreparably shattered.  Another heartfelt address from President Obama on the shootings, and another well-reasoned plea for sanity in our gun laws.  More breaking news reports, more press conferences, more candlelight vigils, and more prayers.

And the same sinking feeling that once again--at least on a national level--that absolutely nothing will be done to reduce the chances of another mass shooting.

If Congress couldn't find the moral courage to strengthen our gun laws after 20 six and seven-year-olds were shot to death at Sandy Hook elementary school, it's hard to see how today's events will transcend previous attempts and suddenly give them the intestinal fortitude to pass stronger gun control laws.  Or provoke us to vote out of office those beholden to the NRA and its minions.

But still we can hope that finally this will be the mass shooting to force us to end all mass shootings.

Peace,
emaycee