News that half of republicans would support Donald Trump postponing the Presidential election in 2020 is somewhat alarming until you realize that republicans make up approximately 40% of our electorate and half of that would be the 20% in favor of dictatorship--if someone told you that a poll showed that one in five Americans was batshit insane, you'd probably shrug your shoulders and say "Eh, close enough."
Still...what does it say when you know that America's truly great leaders--Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, Obama--and their supporters, no matter how rabid, would never have even pondered such an undemocratic action, such an affront to the promise that is America?
You really have to wonder just how bad the coming shitstorm is going to be.
Your average Trump supporter after the shit hits...
While most of my brain thinks the American military will be prescient enough to cut Donald Trump down at the knees with his threat to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea, there's also a part that thinks America has finally jumped the shark and is now living in Nutsville and they just might be crazy enough to let the orange clown do it. Still, after I read his comments yesterday the first two thoughts I had were...a) do we have enough food in the house to survive for a few days if it does happen (yes), and b) if the dumb bastard decides to do it while I'm at work, how the hell will I get home in all the chaos (no fucking clue).
Really, what does it say that after 58 years on this planet I'm contemplating scenarios that I've never considered before , under any President, even the doddering old fool Reagan and the imbecilic George W. Bush?
To quote a phrase, "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."
I'm not generally a fan of live versions of songs--they sound great when you're actually at the show, but on vinyl or disc they often sound tinny or just a bit flat compared to the original. Not so with this week's tune on Friday Night Jukebox--it's one of the few instances were a live version takes on a whole new life and becomes better than the original.
Cheap Trick was formed in the thriving metropolis of Rockford, Illinois in 1973, and their "cheap trick" was to be a band formed of two cool cats (lead vocalist Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson) and two dorks (lead guitarist and chief songwriter Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos). Something for everyone! They released their first album in 1977, and their second later that same year, and in an oddity of sorts, while the band met with little success here in the States, they exploded in Japan (to a point where their success in the Land of the Rising Sun was compared to Beatlemania). They recorded a live album in Nippon for release only in Japan, but sales of the import here in the States were so strong their label released a domestic version--and the rest is history. It would go on to be Cheap Trick's best selling album, and forty-four years after their inception, Cheap Trick has released 18 albums (two of which are on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"), had a #1 single ("The Flame"), performed over 5000 concerts (you read that right: 5000), been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the list of artists influenced and naming Cheap Trick as among their favorite bands is literally too long to list (check the Wikipedia link above). They're still going strong, too--I saw them a couple years back on Live from Daryl's House (Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates food and music show) and they absolutely killed for a group of old farts older than this old fart.
For a pop music aficionado such as myself, I could easily write a dissertation on the brilliance of "I Want You to Want Me." Originally released in 1977 as a single from their In ColorLP, the song failed to chart. Released again in 1979 on their Cheap Trick at BudokanLP, the live recording become Cheap Trick's best selling single, rising to #7 (you bet your ass with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and taking Cheap Trick from up and comer to massive commercial success. Until I did my half-assed research for this week's tune, it'd been years since I heard the studio version of "I Want You to Want Me" and was surprised to find it sounding much better than I remembered. Still, the focus of this week's FNJ isthe live version from Budokan, and what a joy it is. Opening with Zander enunciating the song for his non-English speaking fans, the song breaks into a short drum solo from Bun E. Carlos before Rick Nielsen's screeching guitar conjures images of pop heaven. And from there...it never quits. It's just pop music nirvana after pop music nirvana--from Zander's heartfelt vocals, the sweetness of "shine my old brown shoes" lyric, the rat-a-tat-tat of the "didn't I"'s, and the non-stop driving of Carlos' drumming and Nielsen's guitar playing. It's power pop at it's finest--and another in a long line of songs from the 70's that those of us who love the music that came out of the 1970's point to and say,"See--now that's what I'm talking about!"
Fun Fact: When Nielsen wrote "I Want You to Want Me" he actually set out to do an over the top pop song with a heavy metal sound as a kind of joke--and the simplest thing he could think of was wanting something. He's probably spent a good deal of time over the years wishing he could find that particular magic again...
Lyric Sheet: "I'll shine up the old brown shoes/Put on a brand new shirt/I'll get home early from work/If you say that you love me...."
While at Politicon (a non-partisan political forum) this past weekend conservative nitwit Ann Coulter was asked for her thoughts on the legalization of marijuana and Coulter responded that marijuana was making people "retarded."
If that's actually the case, one supposes that Coulter herself must be smoking kilos of it.
One of the great lessons learned from the 2000's was that Corporate America and Wall Street weren't quite the well-oiled machines far too many Americans had thought they were--and one of the great lessons we can learn from electing the orange clown is for all those clown lovers on the right who have been screaming for years that we should run government like a business: we are right now and it isn't pretty (here in Michigan we have been running the experiment for almost seven years now and what we have are thousands of poisoned children in Flint, a middling economy, crony capitalism,and a new corruption scandal every other day). Businesses are run by bullying tyrants who don't have to answer to voters and don't have their every move scrutinized by the press and the American people--and it's easy to see why the orange clown is pissed off on a regular basis.
When we don't like what he's doing, we can tell him to fuck off--and he can't fire all of us. Plutocracy ain't all it's cracked up to be.
When I was in college I was a business major for one semester (Zzzzz--enough of that!), and among the first words a professor I had spoke to us was that business was in business to make money, Government is in place to take care of the needs to its people--and ne'er the twain shall meet.
Electing a businessman to run America was never going to turn out well--electing a failed one (numerous times) was always going to make it that much worse.
One hopes enough eyes will be opened and we don't make this mistake again (see also, Mark Cuban).
Catherine Templeton, a candidate to be the next governor of South Carolina this week announced in her first campaign stop that she was "proud of the Confederacy." Which got me to thinking...what do you suppose she's proud of?
That they fought for the right to own other human beings and keep them in slavery?
Or that they fought for the right to tear children out of their mother's arms to sell to other slave owners?
Or the fight for the right of slave owners to rape any female slave they owned?
Or maybe she's proud of the Confederacy's leaders--all of whom were just as traitorous to their country as Benedict Arnold?
I'll give you two to one odds and bet you that she's proud to be a Christian, too.
While I understand that this week's tune may not be everyone's cup of tea, for me, it's one of the many reasons that my love and fascination with pop music has never died. It's an out of left field masterpiece, and nearly twenty-five years from the first time I heard it, it still amazes me with its compassion and surprises me with its musical nuances.
Like the sexual proclivities of many a young American teenage boy, the Crash Test Dummies met with much more success in their native Canada than they ever did here in the states. Starting out in Winnipeg, Manitoba as a bar band circa 1988, within three years they released their debut album which went gold in Canada and won them a Juno for group of the year. While the only constant in the band has been lead guitarist and vocalist Brad Roberts (though several other band members stuck around for the first 15-20 years), the band has been recording studio albums off and on since its inception, now numbering nine. They went on to receive ten more Juno nominations, and were also nominated for three Grammys. Interestingly (or not). though the bulk of the band no longer records together, they keep in touch, and most of them are busy raising families and working regular jobs (even Brad Roberts taught school for a while in the 2000's). I guess it ain't all party, party, party if you're a rock and roll star....
Released in 1993 on their God Shuffled His FeetLP (which is probably in the running for one of the ten best album titles ever), "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" would reach #4 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 in Germany and Australia (surprisingly, the song only reached #14 in the band's homeland). The song is comprised of three vignettes (a boy whose hair turned bright white after a severe auto accident, a girl with birth marks all over her body, a boy whose church's members throw themselves about on the floor) about kids, who through either accident, birth, or fate are outcasts of a sort who find themselves trying to explain the unexplainable. The song is sung by Roberts in a bass baritone (thank God Wikipedia knew what his vocals were called because the best I would have come up with was...bizarre? different? ominous?) that really sets it apart from just about any other vocals you've ever heard, and the music is, well, understated but like a clock reflecting the time, it underscores the sorrow at the heart of the song. In the end, I'd be hard pressed to name a song that was more compassionate, both for those with an unplanned lot in life and those of us who watch them with a quiet awe as they push ever forward.
Fun Fact: Roberts hummed the chorus (and didn't write any lyrics) because he thought it sounded more resigned than if he had sung it. Proof that sometimes, despite what Mr. Edison said, genius is 99% inspiration...
Lyric Sheet: "But both girl and boy were glad/'Cause one kid had it worse than that..."
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.
