And one to piss off your racist acquaintances

Regular readers (both of you) will have noticed that this blog is, and always will be, ad free--because it's not about money, it's about people (well that and the fact that no money making enterprise cares about it either).  But every now and again a business will do something surprising and worth noting...like this ad from Ancestry.com showing just how far we have come in our diverseness in the 241 years we've been fighting for the American dream:

O beautiful for spacious skies, indeed.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July...

With a little help from one of America's greatest poets, Langston Hughes, one of America's greatest actresses, Alfre Woodard, and the fighting the good fight folks at MoveOn, a beautiful reminder that the Resistance has been going on for quite some time (the poem is here for those of you like me who can comprehend it better by reading it rather than listening to it):

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXI--The Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop

"Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

And with those four words a legendary rock and roll band was born

It's hard to overestimate the legacy of the Ramones--despite their lack of commercial success (their highest charting album hit #49, their highest charting single hit #66--both, one presumes, with a bullet!) their influence on the punk movement and later the alternative scene (much like their non-selling kin The Velvet Underground) was astounding.  Formed in Queens, New York in 1974, the Ramones would spend the next 22 years making fourteen albums and touring over two hundred days a year.  They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, were listed as #26 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," and in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Grammy's.  Sadly, much of this glory was missed by the original band members, as three of the four (Joey in 2001, Dee Dee in 2002, and Johnny in 2004) had passed away less than eight years after their dissolution, and the last original Ramone (Tommy) died in 2014.

Fun Fact:  There have been 48 (yes, 48) full-length tribute albums devoted to the Ramones.  Not bad for four middle class kids from Queens....

Released on their oh so cleverly named debut album (which was certified gold--500,000 copies sold--thirty eight years later in 2014), The Ramones, in 1976. "Blitzkrieg Bop" was the world's vinyl introduction to the Ramones.  I'm not sure there's ever been another band whose first song on their first album transformed a generation of musicians the way "Blitzkrieg Bop" did--when you listen to the guitars it's not hard to guess where the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and Green Day (among a multitude of others) borrowed their guitar sounds from.  In keeping with the Ramones disdain for long songs (their songs are generally three minutes or less in length), "Blitzkrieg Bop" is two minutes and nineteen seconds of pure adrenaline with Joey's shout singing vocals, Johnny's blistering guitar, and Tommy's no holds barred drumming.  Even at the age of fifty-eight, it's hard when listening to it to not jump around the house with arms and legs thrashing.  It's power pop at its finest...and as it often went in the Ramones' career, the song never even made the damn charts.

And it's a reminder that all too often, greatness is only seen in retrospect (Hello, Hillary Clinton!).

Liner Notes:  What else?  "Hey! Ho! Let's go! Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXX--The Raconteurs: Steady, As She Goes

While there have been quite a few songs since the turn of the century that I've quite enjoyed, I'd be hard pressed to remember one that I enjoyed more than I've enjoyed this week's tune.

And to those who say it sounds like a White Stripes tune (not surprisingly, as Jack White sings lead vocals and plays lead guitar), I counter with...ain't nothin' wrong with that.

The seeds of the Raconteurs were formed in Nashville in 2005 when old friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote "Steady, As She Goes."  Later that year they were joined by Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of Detroit band The Greenhornes (not familiar) in the Motor City and between their full-time gigs managed to record an album's worth of tunes.  They followed with a tour (including being an opening act for Nobel Prize laureate, Bob Dylan), and another album in 2008.  They have reunited here and there since, and in 2014 got together and started on another album but it remains uncompleted and it's uncertain whether they will return as a foursome.  Nonetheless, all four continue to make and play music successfully for a living and one supposes it's hard to complain much about that.

Released on their Broken Boy Soldiers LP in 2006, "Steady, As She Goes" would go on to be a minor hit here in the states (#54--with a bullet!--on The Billboard Hot 100), but do considerably better in Canada (#3) and the UK (#4), probably because they're so much cooler than we are.  Both the album and the single would earn the Raconteurs Grammy nominations, and the song ended up on numerous year end best of compilations for 2006.

Starting with an ominous drum count, "Steady, As She Goes" moves into a funky ass bass line which sounds very much borrowed from Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" (what the hell--if you're going to borrow, might as well be from a good one), before running headlong into some bitchin' guitar work from Jack White, a staccato scratch of the strings that plays well with the bass.  The chorus moves into power chord heaven with some great backing vocals from Brendan Benson (I don't know a lot of Benson's solo work, but from what I've heard, despite the comparisons to the White Stripes, Benson's influence can definitely be heard in the chorus--for those not in the know, Benson's "What" is well worth a listen).  You may notice I've stayed away from the song's lyrics--that's partly intentional as the song seems to me to be the chiding of an acquaintance who may have married more for stability than love and I'm pretty sure there have been people married for worse reasons, but what the hell do I know.  Anyway, it all adds up to a power pop dream of a song, with guitar, bass, and drums becoming so much more than the sum of their parts, and a catchy as all hell chorus that'll (thankfully) stay with you for days.

Lyric Sheet:  "But no matter what you do, you'll always feel as though you tripped and fell/So steady as she goes...."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The revolution will be live

And perhaps sooner than they think...

The anger is palpable.

And one has to wonder how much more of it working class folks will take before the shit hits the fan.  To wit (and this is just the tip of the iceberg):

• The Trumpcare bill was released today, and here's a surprise:  Turns out that virtually all of us are going to pay more for healthcare (yes, even us lucky folks who have employer provided healthcare), have much higher deductibles, and it will result in millions of Americans either losing or being priced out of their healthcare...all so we can give tax breaks to the super rich.
• The Trump family is basically using the Presidency to immensely enrich itself further, and is showing no signs that it's willing to so much as lift a finger to help all those poor saps who voted for the rich white guy in hopes that he'd keep their families from starving.  Turns out there's a lot more than just one sucker born every minute.
• In a speech in Iowa this week, Trump said he doesn't want poor people making economic decisions.  Of fucking course he doesn't--if they learned how much the fat orange bastard was fucking them, they'd put his balls in a vise and keep turning the handle until his testes were as flat as their paychecks.
• And how about filling the swamp with rich people who gave millions to his campaign who are using their positions not to help the American people, but to make themselves and their families even wealthier.  Betsy DeVos?  Solely in it to make more money for her family.  Rex Tillerson?  Ditto.  Scott Pruitt?  Ditto--well that and blowing the fossil fuel industry which he seems to enjoy tremendously.  And what's even more pathetic?  For all the talk about running the country like a business, can you imagine a corporation in America who would put so many completely unqualified people in positions of authority?  I mean seriously--it would be like Bank of America taking someone who's a regional head of HR and making that person their CFO.  Even Corporate America isn't that fucking stupid.

I've felt for a long time that eventually income inequality and the continued lowering of the standard of living for the poor, the working class, and the middle class would result in some serious ugliness toward the wealthy, but I never thought I'd live long enough to see it.

Not so sure anymore that I won't be here to enjoy it.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The demoralization of the story

Cloudy with a chance of meatheads...

Though some nice obituaries (one here, another here, and also here) have been written trying to mitigate the disaster that was Jon Ossoff's loss to Karen Handel in GA-06, it's really hard to see much good coming out of it.  Whether you're a glass half-full (Ossoff outperformed the last Dem in this race by 19+ points) or half-empty (underperformed Hillary Clinton by 3+ points) person a loss is a loss is a loss.  Even worse, this was probably the best chance we had of all the special elections thus far and the race really wasn't even that close.

And that's not even noting that Donald Trump has historical disapproval ratings, which didn't seem to hurt Handel one bit.

It all comes down to God, gays, and guns and republicans are just better at rallying their troops around those talking points.  Realistically, I see very little chance that Dems will take back the House in 2018--with the exception of 2012, we've lost the close races in virtually every competitive race since 2010 and it's not usually even as close as the closing polls show (we might also want to work on the accuracy of our polling).

I see very little chance that Trumpcare won't pass now (and Lord I hope I'm wrong).  We really needed this one to put a little fear in vulnerable republicans and that isn't happening after another stinging defeat for the Democrats.  They're going to push hard to enact the rest of their agenda (more for rich people, more for rich people, and more for rich people) so that short attention span voters will have forgotten how much republicans have fucked them over by the 2018 mid-terms.

Still, as I noted after the election of Donald Trump, we have to keep fighting.  Eventually the worm will turn, and when it does, let's hope Democrats have finally learned to go for the jugular.

'Cause God knows republicans sure have.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Tales from the soulless

We're living in soulless times...

Just when you thought you couldn't feel any more disgust for republicans, along comes Paul Ryan to tell us that we should forgive Donald Trump for his obstruction of justice and sheer incompetence because he's new at this whole being the President gig, and doesn't understand the protocol.

Imagine for just one second that Nancy Pelosi had tried to pass off this bullshit in the first five months that Barack Obama was President.  Can you imagine the republican backlash?  Or that the press would have given her a free pass for pronouncing such idiocy?

It's truly hard to overstate the complete and total contempt for Americans, and by extension, for America itself, that Paul Ryan has in his heart.  As long as his wealthy benefactors are taken care of, the man just doesn't care about us or our country.

Here's hoping that we all live long enough to see him reap the just rewards of his Faustian bargain.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee