Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Ramblin' Jack Elliott: Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues


this is the circus of Dr. Lao
we show you things
that you don't know
we tell you of places
you'll never go
we've searched the world
both high and low
to capture the beasts
for this marvelous show
from mountains where maddened winds did blow
to islands where zephyrs breathed sweet and low
oh we've spared no pains
and we've spared no dough
and we've dug at the secrets
of long ago
and we've risen to heaven
and plunged below
for we wanted to make it
one hell of a show
and the things you'll see
in your brains will glow
long past the time
when the winter snow
has frozen the summer's furbelow
for this is the circus of Dr. Lao
and youth may come
and age may go
but no more circuses
like this show!
--Charles G. Finney
The Circus of Dr. Lao

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Annie Oakley, P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb

Go Placidly Amid The Noise And Haste

mountain stream

rain
bird songsocean beach

river over rocks
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be
in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly. Listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter. There will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble.
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is. Many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. Whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

--Max Ehrmann
Desiderata

Sellout Agitation Waltz

Richard & Mimi Farina: Sellout Agitation Waltz


society is never geared
to people who grow a beard
or little girls with holes in their ears
they're liable to hunt you down
and dress you in a wedding gown
and offer substantial careers

I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore

Bruce Springsteen: I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore
Liam Clancy: I'm a Freeborn Man of the Traveling People

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen : Home in my Hand


If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent they conquered.
--Thomas Jefferson

Jimmy Martin And The Death Of

Jimmy Martin : Truck Driver's Queen

Jimmy Martin: Ocean of Diamonds

Jimmy Martin: Lost Highway

Tom Russell: The Death of Jimmy Martin


there's a hound dog running all alone through the piney woods
his howling tears the soul out of me
there's a jaybird calling out a funeral dirge
in ancient harmony
Barb'ry Allen rolled over in a grave all morning
with roses growing out of her head
hey God's gonna burn down Nashville boys
'cause Jimmy Martin's dead
the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

you got twenty-twenty vision but you're walking 'round blind
you Grand Ole Opry fools
with your hypocritic judgments and your self-righteous snobbery
your goddamned false-hearted rules
you scorned Hank Williams
you shunned Jimmy Martin
boys who sang with tongues on fire
so God's gonna burn down your Grand Ole Opry
hear the screams of the hypocrites and liars
they feel safer now that Jimmy has expired

run Pete run, your master's calling you
he's waiting on up ahead
don't look back, Nashville's burning down
Jimmy Martin's dead
the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

don't call me no country singer
those are poison words to me
'cause i ain't heard a good country song
since 1973
the King of Bluegrass has died for your sins
the Whore of Babylon is sleeping in your bed
so God's gonna burn down Nashville boys
'cause Jimmy Martin's dead
the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

run Pete run, your master's calling you
he's waiting on up ahead
don't look back, Nashville's burning down
Jimmy Martin's dead
the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

there's a hound dog running all alone through the piney woods
the howling tears the soul out of me...

--Tom Russell
The Death of Jimmy Martin

But Won't Stop Neither

Grateful Dead: Dark Star 1/26/69

Grateful Dead: Dark Star 10/31/71

Grateful Dead: Dark Star 10/26/89


...he's finished with that.
it's like an old clock
that won't tell time
but won't stop neither,
with the hands
bent out of shape
and the face
bare of numbers
and the alarm bell
rusted silent,
an old worthless clock
that just keeps ticking
and cuckooing
without meaning nothing.
--ken kesey
-------------------------
more for good measure.....

Carpetbaggers

Jenny Lewis/Johnathan Rice

Carpetbaggers (acoustic)

Steve Paul's Puppet Music Hall, N.Y.C.

Call From Jail

Doc Watson: In The Jailhouse Now

Marty Robbins: I'm Just Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail



Barats
and
Bereta:


Call from Jail

Geaux Tigers

Michael Doucet & Beausoleil: The Flame Will Never Die
Queen Ida & The Bon Temps Zydeco Band: C'est La Vie

Clifton Chenier: Tighten Up Zydeco


Football is only a game.
Spiritual things are eternal.
Nevertheless, Beat Arkansas.
--sign on Baton Rouge church


Motivation is simple.
You eliminate those
who are not motivated.
--Lou Holtz


Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.
--Don Shula

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badass honey badger video
honey badger info
geaux tigers

Happy Thanksgiving*

Franco Morone: Turkey in the Straw


In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

whiskey before breakfast



I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.
--Jon Stewart

**

* Here in Britain, of course, it's Thank Fuck We Got Those Weird Jesus Bastards On The Boat Day
--Warren Ellis

** one for Coach

Forever Young

Bob Dylan: Forever Young Thanksgiving Day 1976 San Francisco

may you grow up
to be righteous
may you grow up
to be true
may you always
know the truth
and see the light
surrounding you
may you always
be courageous
stand upright
and be strong
may you stay
forever young
forever young
forever young
may you stay
forever young

Storms Of Life

Randy Travis: Storms of Life

there's a dirty piece
of cardboard
that reads Montgomery Ward
taped across the window
of my old Ford
a six-pack on the front seat
and a box of chicken wings
i'm dialing 'cross the radio
for a song that i can sing
i'd better change
my wandering ways
i know i've seen my better days
always getting high
when i get low
well i left my soul out in the rain
what a price i've had to pay
the storms of life are washing me away

Say It, Don't Spray It

He spoke of very simple things---
that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form.
Set aside, came a voice from the multitude, even if it be the Law of the Flock?
The only true law is that which leads to freedom, Jonathan said.
There is no other.
--Richard Bach
from Jonathan Livingston Seagull
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She Turned Me Into A Newt

I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers
I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time
I get what
I want, half the time I don't...Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same...so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself...
--George Carlin

They Look Like You And Me

John Gorka: Thirsty Boots
so tell me of the ones you saw
as far as you could see
across the plain from field to town
a-marching to be free
and of the rusted prison gates
that tumbled by degree
like laughing children one by one
they look like you and me
so take off your thirsty boots
and stay with me awhile
your feet are hot and weary
from the dusty miles
and maybe i can make you laugh
and maybe i can try
just looking for the morning
and the evening in your eyes
--eric andersen

Beatlemania

Beatles: Rubber Soul 1965

Beatles: Revolver 1966

Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967

Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour 1967

Beatles: White Album 1968

Beatles: Abbey Road 1969

Beatles: Let It Be 1970


There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love.
When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.
We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
--John Lennon

Abraham, Martin & John

Dion: Abraham, Martin & John

Let the word go forth
from this time and place,
to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
--John F. Kennedy
3/29/17--11/22/63

That's What This Storm Is All About

Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam

Nina Simone: Ain't Got No/I Got Life


Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There is no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That is the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm is all about.
--Haruki Murakami

Long Time Gone

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Long Time Gone

Winterland,
San Francisco, CA.
11/4/73

(Cool Down Your Temper) Mr. Cop

Gregory Isaacs: Mr. Cop

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.
I operated on three continents.
--Smedley D. Butler

Shaddup You Face

Joe Dolce

Shaddup You Face

----------------------------

Never in the field
of human conflict
was so much owed
by so many to so few.
--Winston Churchill

-----------------------------

Police And Thieves

Junior Murvin: Police and Thieves
Augustus Pablo & the Upsetters: Babylon Police Thief Dub
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years.
It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
--David Rockefeller

A Land Called Way Out There

Tom Russell: A Land Called Way Out There

come look outside
my window, mama
something wicked
this way comes
the carnival
is breaking ground
with its roustabouts and bums
and the hoochie-koochie
dancing girls
with sawdust in their hair
and the band played
John Phillip Sousa
in a land called “way out there”
--tom russell

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Shiva and Isis Temples, Grand Canyon National Park

Done With Bonaparte

Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris: Done with Bonaparte Verona 3/6/06



we've played in Hell
since Moscow burned
these cossacks tear us
piece by piece
our dead are strewn
a hundred leagues
though death would be
a sweet release
and our Grande Armee
is dressed in rags
a frozen starving
beggar band
like rats we steal
each other's scraps
fall to fighting
hand to hand
save my soul from evil
and heal this soldier's heart
i'll trust in thee to keep me
Lord, i'm done
with Bonaparte

what dreams he made
for us to dream
Spanish skies
Egyptian sands
the world was ours
we marched upon our
little Corporal's command
i lost an eye at Austerlitz
the sabre slash
yet gives me pain
my one true love
awaits me still
the flower of the Aquitaine
save my soul from evil
and heal this soldier's heart
i'll trust in thee to keep me
Lord, i'm done with Bonaparte

i pray for her
who prays for me
a safe return
to my belle France
we prayed these wars
would end all wars
in war we know
is no romance
i pray our child
will never see
a little Corporal again
point toward a foreign shore and captivate the hearts of men
save my soul from evil and heal this soldier's heart
i'll trust in thee to keep me, Lord, i'm done with Bonaparte

--Mark Knopfler
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John le Carre on Iran

Scheherazade

Rimsky-Korsakov : Scheherazade (1)

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (2)

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (3)

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (4)


There are indeed many wonders,
and with regard
to the stories
people tell
one another,
it may be that such tales go
beyond the true account and,
embellished with
iridescent lies,
beguile them.
--Pindar



The Arabian Nights (Burton translation)
The Thousand and One Nights (Lane translation)