Folk Queue

And There You Have It

2012-01-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

Leonard Cohen
Austin City Limits
1988

First We Take Manhattan
Tower of Song
Everybody Knows
Ain't No Cure For Love
The Partisan
Joan of Arc
Jazz Police
If It Be Your Will
Take This Waltz

It’s a pity if someone has to console himself for the wreck of his days with the notion that somehow his voice, his work embodies the deepest, most obscure, freshest, rawest oyster of reality in the unfathomable refrigerator of the heart’s ocean, but I am such a one, and there you have it.
--Leonard Cohen

The Fat Angel

2012-01-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

Donovan: The Fat Angel

As I descended
into impassable rivers
I no longer felt guided
by the ferrymen.
--Arthur Rimbaud

three views from Hubble Telescope of Carina Nebula

I Feel Your Bain

2012-01-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

Bob Marley: Babylon System

Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Paulie could do anything. Like run up bills on the joint's credit. And why not? Nobody will pay for it anyway. Take deliveries at the front door and sell it out the back at a discount. Take a $200 case of booze and sell it for $100. It doesn't matter. It's all profit. Then finally, when there's nothing left......when you can't borrow another buck from the bank... ...you bust the joint out. You light a match.
--from Goodfellas
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Peter Tosh: Downpressor Man

I’m for capitalism, I’m for free enterprise, I’m for entrepreneurs. There’s a big difference between people who go out and create a company — even if they fail — if they try to go in the right direction, if they share in the hardships, if they’re out there with the workers doing it together. That’s one thing. But if someone who is very wealthy comes in and takes over your company and takes out all the cash and leaves behind the unemployment? I think that’s not a model we want to advocate, and I don’t think any conservative wants to get caught defending that kind of model.
--Newt Gingrich
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the Slickers: Johnny Too Bad

South Carolina Speaks

2012-01-22T08:44:00.000-08:00

Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some....people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over HERE in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.

Thank you very much, South Carolina.

Ray Stevens: I'm My Own Grandpa

One Happy Dog

2012-01-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

Joy delights in Joy.

--William Shakespeare

hotrod

Barbara Allens

2012-01-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dolly Parton/Altan: Barbara Allen

Emmylou Harris: Barbara Allen

Bob Dylan: Barbara Allen

Jean Ritchie: Barbara Allen

they buried her in the old churchyard
they buried him in the choir
and from his grave grew a red red rose
from her grave a green briar
they grew and grew to the steeple top
till they could grow no higher
and there they twined in a true love's knot
red rose around green briar

Last Stand At Fukushima

2012-01-21T12:22:00.001-08:00

radiation forecast from day 308 (nine days ago)
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I was surprised my quilt and pillow were cold,
I see that now the window's bright again.
Deep in the night, I know the snow is thick,
I sometimes hear the sound as bamboo snaps.
--Bai Juyi
Night Snow

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Joan Baez: What Have They Done to the Rain

Legal-easy

2012-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Knuckles:
Me Knuckles, me on the books now!
Huh-huh-huh-huh.
While you on vacation, my boss, Barack Obama, sign bill, make good holiday cheer for Knuckles!
What better time to sign bill than when whole nation is drunk!
Huh-huh-huh-huh.
Before, super-secret prison things I do were only legal in presidents' mind.
Now, they legal on paper, too!
Finally, indefi, indefin--prison forever--is US law, no need for stupid judges or constitutional stuff.
Me used to worry boss Obama would close Gitmo like he promise, but--no worry!
Gitmo open and franchised . . . to Bagram and secret places around globe.
Because military tribunials are much better than sissy civilian courts.
Me not know what that chart just said. You try trick me!
And if you read law just right, it work on US citizens, too!
But don't worry, because Barack Obama said not to worry!

Announcer:
Goodness gracious, indefinite, preemptive or endless detention surely doesn't apply to US citizens unless current or future president says so. Don't you worry a bit.

Knuckles:
Me Knuckles, me legi, legitu-- legal!

Classic Railroad Songs

2012-01-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

72 minutes of railroad songs from Smithsonian Folkways

excerpt from Rail Dynamics
New Lost City Ramblers - Train 45
Furry Lewis - Kassie Jones
Pete Seeger - Jay Gould's Daughter
Walt Robertson - Railroad Bill
Leadbelly - Linin' Track
Elizabeth Cotten - Freight Train
Cisco Houston - Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill
L. M. Hilton - Zack, the Mormon Engineer
Virginia Mountain Boys - Lost Train Blues
Annie Watson - The F. F. V.
New Lost City Ramblers - He's Coming to Us Dead
Doc Watson - The Train that Carried My Girl from Town
Leadbelly - Rock Island Line
Sonny Terry/Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston - Lonesome Train
Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston - John Henry
Rosalie Sorrels - The Wreck of the Number 9
Brownie Mcghee - Freight Train Blues
Mike Seeger - The New Market Wreck
Haywire Mac - Jerry, Go Oil that Car
Rosalie Sorrels - Way Out in Idaho
Henry Grady Terrell - Old John Henry Died on the Mountain
John D. Mounce - Casey Jones
Pop Stoneman - Wreck of the Old 97
Leadbelly - Midnight Special
Doc Watson - Wabash Cannonball
Vernon Sutphin - Lost Train Blues
Iron Mountain String Band - New River Train
excerpt from Three Little Engines & 33 Cars

White Rabbit

2012-01-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

The White Rabbit
put on his spectacles.
"Where shall I begin,
please your Majesty?"
he asked.
"Begin at the beginning,"
the King said gravely,
"and go on till
you come to the end:
then stop."
--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Gillian Welch/David Rawlings
White Rabbit
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
San Francisco, CA.
2011

Twa Corbies

2012-01-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

Hamish Imlach: Twa Corbies

Steeleye Span: Twa Corbies

Cannach: Twa Corbies

Damh the Bard: Twa Corbies

As I was walking all alone,
I heard two ravens cry and moan;
One said to the other did say o,
"Where shall we go and dine today o?"

"Up behind that old high dyke,
I know there lies a murdered knight;
And no one knows that he lies there o,
But his hawk, and his hound, and his lady fair o."

"His hound is to the hunting gone,
His hawk to bring the wild-fowl home,
His lady loves another Knight o,
So we may make our meal tonight o."

"You will sit on his white thigh,
And I'll peck out his bonny blue eye;
And with a lock of his golden hair o
We'll fix our nest when it grows bare o."

"Many a one for him does moan,
But no one knows where he is gone;
O'r his bones, where they are bare o,
The wind will blow for evermore o."

Breaking Glass

2012-01-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Nick Lowe: (I Love the) Sound of Breaking Glass

The reason 2012 feels so empty now is that voters on both sides of the aisle are not just tired of this state of affairs, they are disgusted by it. They want a chance to choose their own leaders and they want full control over policy, not just a partial say. There are a few challenges to this state of affairs within the electoral process – as much as I disagree with (Ron) Paul about many things, I do think his campaign is a real outlet for these complaints – but everyone knows that in the end, once the primaries are finished, we’re going to be left with one 1%-approved stooge taking on another.
Most likely, it’ll be Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, meaning the voters’ choices in the midst of a massive global economic crisis brought on in large part by corruption in the financial services industry will be a private equity parasite who has been a lifelong champion of the Gordon Gekko Greed-is-Good ethos (Romney), versus a paper progressive who in 2008 took, by himself, more money from Wall Street than any two previous presidential candidates, and in the four years since has showered Wall Street with bailouts while failing to push even one successful corruption prosecution (Obama).
There are obvious, even significant differences between Obama and someone like Mitt Romney, particularly on social issues, but no matter how Obama markets himself this time around, a choice between these two will not in any way represent a choice between “change” and the status quo. This is a choice between two different versions of the status quo, and everyone knows it.
--Matt Taibbi
from The Meaningless Sideshow Begins

Song For A Winter's Night

2012-01-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

Sarah McLachlan: Song for a Winter's Night

the lamp is burning low upon my table top
the snow is softly falling
the air is still in the silence of my room
i hear your voice softly calling
if i could only have you near
to breathe a sigh or two
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
on this winter night with you

the smoke is rising in the shadows overhead
my glass is almost empty
i read again between the lines upon each page
the words of love you sent me
if i could know within my heart that you were lonely too
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
on this winter night with you

the fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim
the shades of night are lifting
the morning light steals across my windowpane
where webs of snow are drifting
if i could only have you near to breathe a sigh or two
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
and to be once again with you
on this winter night with you

--gordon lightfoot

Crosby, Nash & Young

2012-01-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

David Crosby, Graham Nash & Neil Young
Prisoner Awareness Benefit
Winterland, San Francisco, CA.
3/26/72

Wooden Ships
I Used To Be A King
Lee Shore
Harvest
Only Love Can Break Your Heart*
Almost Cut My Hair
Page 43
And So It Goes
Immigration Man
Heart Of Gold
The Needle And The Damage Done
Teach Your Children
Military Madness

*followed by Southbound Train (omitted)

Flying Burrito Brothers

2012-01-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Flying Burrito Brothers
Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA.
1969

Close Up The Honky Tonks
Dark End Of The Street
If You Can't Undo The Wrong, Undo The Right
She Once Lived Here
Sweet Mental Revenge
We've Got To Get Ourselves Together
Lucille
Sin City
You Win Again
Hot Burrito #1
Hot Burrito #2
You're Still On My Mind
Train Song
Long Black Limousine
Dream Baby
Do Right Woman
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Six Days On The Road ( Altamont)
Wild Horses (Rolling Stones)

I Would Bring These People Home

2012-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

Henry Rollins envisions his first day as President.

The Broker's Lament

2012-01-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

The path

of least resistance

leads to

crooked rivers

and crooked men.

--Henry David Thoreau

Bucking Horse Moon

2012-01-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

Paul Zarzyski/Wiley & the Wild West: Bucking Horse Moon

Tom Russell: Bucking Horse Moon

Down a one lane road there's a dusty fairground
Where I learned the bronc trade and I fell in love
With a blue eyed twister and her smoky whisper
She said "They call me the Cimarron Dove"

We'd spool our bedrolls on down together
My calloused hands combed through her hair
She'd stare at a star through an old mesquite tree
"See that moon shadow, there's a bucking horse there"

Sweet bird of youth, no easy keeper
Flown with the seasons all too soon
Beneath Montana's blue roan skies
Nevada starlight and a bucking horse moon

Our love reeled out like a Western movie
Down hard worn highways through the rodeo towns
Wrapped in her wings for the midnight flight
That bucking horse moon kept shining down

Bucking horse moon on the hood of the truck
She'd smile and say "That means good luck
Bucking horse shadow through the purple sage
We'll ride forever our love won't age"

But heart and bone are made for breaking
The Cimarron Dove's flown with the wind
Then a bronc in Prescott rolled on my back
I'll never ride rough stock again

Sweet bird of youth, no easy keeper
Flown with the seasons all too soon
Beneath Montana's blue roan skies
Nevada starlight and a bucking horse moon

I lost my youth on the dusty fairgrounds
I'm an old bronc fighter long past high noon
But on a haunted night wind I can hear her whispering
As I search the heavens for the bucking horse moon
The Cimarron Dove and the bucking horse moon

Sweet bird of youth, no easy keeper
Flown with the seasons all too soon
Beneath Montana's blue roan skies
Nevada starlight and the bucking horse moon
Wyoming sundown and a bucking horse moon

--Tom Russell/Paul Zarzyski

Me Love You Long Time

2012-01-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

a sliver from Full Metal Jacket

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.
--Charles Bukowski

The Banker

2012-01-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

The Banker
performed by Matt Daviot
written by Craig-James Moncur

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

Hello, my name is Montague William 3rd
And what I will tell you may well sound absurd
But the less who believe it the better for me
For you see I'm in banking and big industry

For many a year we have controlled your lives
While you all just struggle and suffer in strife
We created the things that you don't really need
Your sports cars and fashions and plasma TV's

I remember it clearly how all this begun
Family secrets from Father to Son
Inherited knowledge that gives me the edge
While you peasants, people lie sleeping at night in your beds

We control the money that controls your lives
Whilst you worship false idols and wouldn't think twice
Of selling your souls for a place in the sun
These things that won't matter when your time is done

But as long as they're there to control the masses
I just sit back and consider my assets
Safe in the knowledge that I have it all
While you common people are losing your jobs

You see I just hold you in utter contempt
But the smile on my face well it makes me exempt
For I have the weapon of global TV
Which gives us connection and invites empathy

You would really believe that we look out for you
While we bankers and brokers are only a few
But if you saw that then you'd take back the power
Hence daily terrors to make you all cower

The panics the crashes the wars and the illness
That keep you from finding your spiritual wholeness
We rig the game and we buy out both sides
To keep you enslaved in your pitiful lives

So go out and work as your body clock fades
And when it's all over a few years from the grave
You'll look back on all this and just then you'll see
That your life was nothing, a mere fantasy

There are very few things that we don't now control
To have lawyers and police force was always a goal
Doing our bidding as you march on the street
But they never realise they're only just sheep

For real power resides in the hands of a few
You voted for parties what more could you do
But what you don't know is they're one and the same
Old Gordon has passed good old David the reigns

And you'll follow the leader who was put there by you
But your blood it runs red while our blood runs blue
But you simply don't see its all part of the game
Another distraction like money and fame

Get ready for wars in the name of the free
Vaccinations for illness that will never be
The assault on your children's impressionable minds
And a micro-chipped world, you'll put up no fight

Information suppression will keep you in toe
Depopulation of peasants was always our goal
But eugenics was not what we hoped it would be
Oh yes it was us that funded Nazis!

But as long as we own all the media too
What's really happening does not concern you
So just go on watching your plasma TV
And the world will be run by the ones you can't see

She Smiled All In Her Countenance

2012-01-09T08:31:00.000-08:00

Jean Ritchie: Jackaroe

Bob Dylan: Jackaroe
Joan Baez: Jackaroe

there was a wealthy merchant
in London he did dwell
he had a lovely daughter
the truth to you I'll tell
oh, the truth to you I'll tell

she had sweethearts a-plenty
and men of high degree
there was none but Jack the sailor
her true love e'er could be

now Jack he's gone a-sailing
with trouble on his mind
to leave his native country
and his darling girl behind

she went into a tailor's shop
and dressed in men's array
and stepped on board a vessel
to convey herself away

before you step on board, sir
your name I'd like to know
she smiled all on her countenance
they call me Jackaroe

your waist is light and slender
your fingers are neat and small
your cheeks too red and rosy
to face the cannonball

I know my waist is slender
my fingers are neat and small
but it would not make me tremble
to see ten thousand fall

the war soon being over
they hunted all around
and among the dead and dying
her darling boy she found

she picked him up all in her arms
and carried him to the town
and sent for a physician
who quickly healed his wounds

this couple they got married
so well did they agree
this couple they got married
so why not you and me?

Grateful Dead: Jackaroe 10/3/80

Debt Limit

2012-01-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

I don't know how you feel, but I'm pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else. The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate.
--George Carlin

Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.
--Aldous Huxley

In my first meeting with Vladimir Putin in the spring of 2001, he complained that Russia was burdened by Soviet-era debt. At that point, oil ws selling for $26 per barrel. By the time I saw Putin at the APEC summit in Sydney in September 2007 oil had reached $71--on its way to $137 in the summer of 2008. He leaned back in his chair and asked how were Russia's mortgage-backed securities doing.
--George W. Bush

It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity.
--Frank Zappa

The Last Great American

2012-01-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

Doug Lang: John Cash's Lantern

There's a lot of things
blamed on me
that never happened.
But then, there's
a lot of things
that I did that
I never got caught at.
--Johnny Cash

Goodbye To Old Missoula

2012-01-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

The John Cowan Band
Goodbye to Old Missoula

clouds that hang on the mountain
they make me lonesome inside
and these four walls that surround me
they leave me no place to hide
the show in this town is over
or maybe it never began
so it's goodbye to old Missoula
I've done all I can
--Jesse Winchester

Equus Caballos

2012-01-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

Joel Nelson
Elko, Nevada
2007

I have run on middle fingernail through Eolithic morning,
I have thundered down the coach road with the Revolution’s warning.
I have carried countless errant knights who never found the grail.
I have strained before the caissons I have moved the nation’s mail.

I’ve made knights of lowly tribesmen and kings from ranks of peons
I have given pride and arrogance to riding men for eons.
I have grazed among the lodges and the tepees and the yurts.
I have felt the sting of driving whips, lashes, spurs and quirts.

I am roguish – I am flighty – I am inbred – I am lowly.
I’m a nightmare – I am wild – I am the horse.
I am gallant and exalted – I am stately – I am noble.
I’m impressive – I am grand – I am the horse.

I have suffered gross indignities from users and from winners,
I have felt the hand of kindness from the losers and the sinners.
I have given for the cruel hand and given for the kind.
Heaved a sigh at Appomattox when surrender had been signed.

I can be as tough as hardened steel – as fragile as a flower.
I know not my endurance and I know not my own power.
I have died with heart exploded ’neath the cheering in the stands -
Calmly stood beneath the hanging noose of vigilante bands.

I have traveled under conqueror and underneath the beaten.
I have never chosen sides – I am the horse.
The world is but a player’s stage – my roles have numbered many.
Under blue or under gray – I am the horse.

So I’ll run on middle fingernail until the curtain closes,
And I will win your triple crowns and I will wear your roses.
Toward you who took my freedom I’ve no malice or remorse.
I’ll endure – This Is My Year – I am the Horse!

Baby Boom Che

2012-01-05T18:47:00.000-08:00

John Trudell
Baby Boom Che

I Must Make My Witness

2012-01-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy! It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone!' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone! I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

[calmly strolling toward the audience] So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
[ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth. [laughing to himself] But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF...
[collapses in a prophetic swoon as the audience erupts in thunderous applause]

--from Network

That's Our Problem

2012-01-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves and the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
--Howard Zinn

The Endless Plain Of Fortune

2012-01-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

John Cale
w/Bochumer Symphoniker
The Endless Plain of Fortune
Essen, Germany
6/10/11
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Taylor said
Old Taylor meant to cry -- oh my
Field Marshall meant
Field Marshall went away again
watch out below; the tides
lean heavily like wine
we are all innocent in spite of you and me
then Martha went
yes Martha went away again
down in Transvaal
where crocodiles and men fight on
they would have played all night
even with loaded dice
it's gold that eats the heart away
and leaves the bones -- to dry
Segovia watched
gendarmerie and all that's all
the radio man
Amanda did you choose your tune
she walked away in time
she walked a crooked line
so gracefully she turned her head
and smiled -- away

Concerto de Aranjuez

2011-12-31T08:58:00.000-08:00

Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering it will be happier...
--Alfred Lord Tennyson

Comanche

2011-12-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

Johnny Horton: Comanche

I got confused today.
I went to an art museum
and was looking at a painting
that I thought was strange.
The painting was of a bunch
of Native American peoples
all naked and screwing,
and above them was a large fish,
and above the fish
was a large golden halo.
I could not for the life of me
decipher the meaning until
I read the caption
at the bottom in small print,
Custer’s last words:
“Holy mackerel,
look at all those fucking Indians!”

----------------------------------------------------------
Please, Mr. Custer

She's Running Around With The Ragtop Down

2011-12-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll
Make Me Down A Pallet On Your Floor
Elvis Presley Blues

Look At Miss Ohio
Red Clay Halo
My First Lover
One Little Song

Time (the Revelator)
By The Mark

The Way It Will Be
Caleb Meyer
I'll Fly Away
The Weight*
*w/ Old Crow Medicine Show
---------------------------------------

Gillian Welch/David Rawlings

London, England
2/8/04

And A Twelvepack To Go

2011-12-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

Merle Haggard: If We Make It Through December

C.W. McCall: Convoy

Patty Loveless: There Stands the Glass

Conway Twitty/Loretta Lynn: You're the Reason Our Kids are Ugly

Hank Williams: Long Gone Lonesome Blues

Becky Hobbs: Jones on the Jukebox

George Jones: The King is Gone

Patsy Cline: Walking After Midnight

Elvis Costello: A Good Year for the Roses

Jimmy Dean: Big Bad John

Johnny Cash: I Still Miss Someone

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink,
I feel shame! Then I look into the glass and think
about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work, and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.
--Jack Handey

All The Years Combine

2011-12-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

Grateful Dead: Oakland, CA. 12/31/82

1)
Cold Rain and Snow
C.C. Rider #
Cumberland Blues
Far From Me
Cassidy
Ramble On Rose
Looks LIke Rain
Day Job

2)
New Year's Countdown
Sugar Magnolia
Sugaree
Women Are Smarter
Ship Of Fools
Playing In The Band
Drums
Not Fade Away *
Deal*
Sunshine Daydream

3)
Lovelight
Tell Mama
Baby What You Want #
Hard To Handle
Midnight Hour

E)
Brokedown Palace

# w/ Matt Kelly
* w/ John Cippolina
Set 3 w/ Etta James
and Tower of Power Horns

it all rolls into one
and nothing comes for free
there's nothing you can hold
for very long
and when you hear that song
come crying like the wind
it seems like all this life
was just a dream

Tom Russell @ KPFT

2011-12-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

Tom Russell @ KPFT (1)

Tom Russell @ KPFT (2)

Tom Russell @ KPFT (3)

Tom Russell @ KPFT (4)

Tom Russell @ KPFT (5)

KPFT's Larry Winters hosts Tom Russell with Thad Beckman
Houston, TX.
12/3/11

1) conversation
2) And God Created Bordertowns into Goodnight Juarez
3) Don't Think Twice into Mesabi
4) Heart Within A Heart
5) Where Love Abides

Rubber Boots

2011-12-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

Kilt
Rubber Boots

Hard Work If You Can Get It

2011-12-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

Woody Guthrie: Talking Hard Work

it was Philly and the bartender said
what and I said, gimme a draft, Jim,
got to get the nerves straight, I'm
going to look for a job. you, he said,
a job?
yeah, Jim, I saw something in the paper,
no experience necessary.
and he said, hell, you don't want a job,
and I said, hell no, but I need money,
and I finished the beer
and got on the bus and I watched the numbers
and soon the numbers got closer
and then I was right there
and I pulled the cord and the bus stopped and
I got off.
it was a large building made of tin
the sliding door was stuck in the dirt
I pulled it back and went in
and there wasn't any floor, just more ground,
lumpy, wet, and it stank
and there were sounds like things being sawed in half
and things drilled and it was dark
and men walked on girders overhead
and men pushed trucks across the ground
and men sat at machines doing things
and there were shots of lightning and thunder
and suddenly a bucket full of flame came swinging at
my head, it roared and boiled with flame
it hung from a loose chain and it came right at me
and somebody hollered, HEY LOOK OUT!
and I just ducked under the bucket
feeling the heat go over me,
and somebody asked,
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
and I said, WHERE IS YOUR NEAREST CRAPPER?
and I was told
and I went inside
then came out and saw silhouettes of men
moving through flame and sound and
I walked to the door, got outside, and
took the bus back to the bar and sat down
and ordered another draft, and Jim asked,
what happened? I said, they didn't want me, Jim.
then this whore came in and sat down and everybody
looked at her, she looked fine, and I remember it
was the first time in my life I almost wished I had a
vagina and clit instead of what I had, but in 2 or 3 days
I got over that and I was reading the
want ads again.
--Charles Bukowski

Christmas Card

2011-12-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

Luciano Pavarotti: Cantique de Noël
Bruce Springsteen: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I have

drunk

and seen

the spider.

--Wm. Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale

Baby It's Cold Outside

2011-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

Abbi Crutchfield
Baby It's Cold Outside

Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Jordan: Baby It's Cold Outside

In a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
--Plutarch

Grizzly Bear

2011-12-20T08:39:00.001-08:00

Youngbloods: Grizzly Bear

When you are a
Bear of Very Little Brain,
and you Think of Things,
you find sometimes that
a Thing which seemed
very Thingish inside you
is quite different when
it gets out into the open
and has other people
looking at it.
--A.A. Milne
Winnie-the-Pooh

Urge For Going

2011-12-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

Mary Black: Urge for Going

i awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
it hovered in a frozen sky then it gobbled summer down
when the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row
i get the urge for going but i never seem to go
i get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown
summertime is falling down and winter is closing in
--joni mitchell
urge for going

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

2011-12-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

Eric Idle: Fuck Christmas
Fear: Let's Have a War

Sooner or later in every talk, David Brower describes the creation of the world. He invites his listeners to consider the six days of Genesis as a figure of speech for what has in fact been four billion years. On this scale, a day equals something like six hundred and sixty-six million years, and thus "all day Monday and until Tuesday noon, creation was busy getting the earth going."
Life began Tuesday noon, and "the beautiful organic wholeness of it" developed over the next four days.
"At 4pm Saturday, the big reptiles came on. Five hours later, when the redwoods appeared, there were no more big reptiles. At three minutes before midnight, man appeared. At one-fourth of a second before midnight, Christ arrived. At one-fortieth of a second before midnight, the Industrial Revolution began. We are surrounded with people who think that what we have been doing for that one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely. They are considered normal, but they are stark, raving mad."
--John McPhee
(from Encounters With The Archdruid)

Three Hours With The Late Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centered a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.

The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag.

Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.

I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true.... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque.

My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either.

I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.

If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

Jesus is Santa Claus for Adults.

Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen.

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that "if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me."

Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettle on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need to move the very stars to pity.

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days.
"My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States."
"Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States."
"Nobody does. That's how it survives."

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high.

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough--and even miraculous enough if you insist--I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?
Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others--while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity--so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.

You might think that, by now, people would have become accustomed to the idea of natural catastrophes. We live on a planet that is still cooling and which has fissures and faults in its crust; this much is accepted even by those who think that the globe is only six thousand years old, as well as by those who believe that the earth was "designed" to be this way. Even in such a case, it is to be expected that earthquakes will occur and that, if they occur under the seabed, tidal waves will occur also. Yet two sorts of error are still absolutely commonplace. The first of these is the idiotic belief that seismic events are somehow "timed" to express the will of God. Thus, reasoning back from the effect, people will seriously attempt to guess what sin or which profanity led to the verdict of the tectonic plates. The second error, common even among humanists, is to borrow the same fallacy for satirical purposes and to employ it to disprove a benign deity.

The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.

--Christopher Hitchens
4/13/49--12/15/11

Joan Baez In Concert 1965

2011-12-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

rambler gambler
there but for fortune
copper kettle
mary hamilton

don't think twice
troubled and don't know why
we shall overcome

with god on our side
plaisir d'amore

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace.
I was trying to disturb the war.
--Joan Baez

Rum Pa Pum Pum

2011-12-13T14:37:00.000-08:00

Jimi Hendrix: Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne 1969

I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas.
It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous and demoralizing subject.
Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.
--George Bernard Shaw

Film The Police

2011-12-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

B. Dolan
with Toki Wright, Jasiri X,
Buddy Peace & Sage Francis

Film The Police
-----------------------------------------

There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but
the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.
--Hunter S. Thompson
Kingdom of Fear
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
imaginary explosions

Fairytale Of New York

2011-12-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Pogues/Kirsty McColl: Fairytale of New York

it was Christmas Eve babe
in the drunk tank
an old man said to me
"won't see another one"
and then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
and dreamed about you

got on the lucky one
came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
this year's for me and you
so happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
when all our dreams come true

they've got cars big as bars
they've got rivers of gold
but the wind goes right through you
it's no place for the old
when you first took my hand
on a cold Christmas Eve
you promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

you were handsome
you were pretty
queen of New York City
when the band finished playing
they howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging
all the drunks they were singing
we kissed on a corner
then danced through the night

the boys in the NYPD choir
were singing Galway Bay
and the bells were ringing out
for Christmas Day

you're a bum
you're a punk
you're an old slut on junk
lying there almost dead
on a drip in that bed
you scumbag you maggot
you cheap lousy faggot
happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

the boys in the NYPD choir
were singing Galway Bay
and the bells were ringing out
for Christmas Day

I could have been someone
well so could anyone
you took my dreams from me
when I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

the boys in the NYPD choir
were singing Galway Bay
and the bells were ringing out
for Christmas Day

Christy Moore: Fairytale of New York

Gentle On My Mind

2011-12-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

John Hartford: Gentle on My Mind

it's knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk that makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch and it's knowing i'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds or the ink stains that have dried upon some line that keeps you in the backroads by the rivers of my memory that keeps you ever gentle on my mind

it's not clinging to the rocks and ivy planted on their columns now that bind me or something that somebody said because they thought we fit together walking it's just knowing that the world will not be cursing or forgiving when i walk along some railroad track and find that you're moving on the backroads by the rivers of my memory and for hours you're just gentle on my mind

though the wheat fields and the clothes lines and the junkyards and the highways come between us and some other woman crying to her mother 'cause she turned and i was gone i still might run in silence tears of joy might stain my face and the summer sun might burn me 'til i'm blind but not to where i cannot see you walking on the backroads by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

i dip my cup of soup back from the gurgling crackling cauldron in some trainyard my beard a roughening coal pile and a dirty hat pulled low across my face through cupped hands around a tin can i pretend to hold you to my breast and find that you're waving from the backroads by the rivers of my memory ever smiling ever gentle on my mind

--john hartford

Democracy

2011-12-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

it's coming through a hole in the air
from those nights in Tiananmen Square
it's coming from the feel
that it ain't exactly real
or it's real but it ain't exactly there
from the wars against disorder
from the sirens night and day
from the fires of the homeless
from the ashes of the gay:
democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

it's coming through a crack in the wall
on a visionary flood of alcohol
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which i don't pretend to understand at all
it's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

it's coming from the sorrow on the street
the holy places where the races meet
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat
from the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of god in the desert here
and desert far away:
democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

it's coming to America first
the cradle of the best and of the worst
it's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst
it's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

sail on, sail on
o mighty ship of state
to the shores of need
past the reefs of greed
through the squalls of hate
sail on, sail on

i'm sentimental, if you know what i mean:
i love the country but i can't stand the scene
and i'm neither left or right
i'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen
but i'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
i'm junk but i'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

--Leonard Cohen

It's No Secret

2011-12-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

There's always an
Arquillian battle cruiser,
or a Corellian death ray,
or an intergalactic plague
about to wipe out
all life on this
miserable little planet.
The only way these people
can get on with their
happy lives is that they
Do. Not. Know about it.
--Agent K
Men in Black

Greensleeves

2011-12-09T12:11:00.000-08:00

The Brothers Four: Greensleeves
Al DiMiola: Greensleeves
Loreena McKennitt: Lady Greensleeves
Baltimore Consort: Greensleeves

alas, my love, you do me wrong
to cast me off discourteously
for i have loved you well and long
delighting in your company
Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight
Greensleeves was my heart of gold
and who but my Lady Greensleeves

The Cool, Cool River

2011-12-09T08:25:00.000-08:00

Paul Simon: The Cool, Cool River

moves like a fist
through the traffic
anger and no one can heal it
shoves a little bump
into the momentum
it's just a little lump
but you feel it
in the creases
and the shadows
with a rattling deep emotion
the cool, cool river
sweeps the wild, wide ocean

yes boss
the government handshake
yes boss
the crusher of language
yes boss
mr. stillwater
the face at the edge
of the banquet
the cool river
the cool, the cool river

i believe in the future
i may live in my car
my radio tuned to
the voice of a star
song dogs barking
at the break of dawn
lightning pushes the edge
of a thunderstorm
and these old hopes and fears
still at my side

anger and no one can heal it
slides through
the metal detector
lives like a mole in a motel
a slide in a slide projector
the cool, cool river
sweeps the wild, wide ocean
the rage of love turns inward
to prayers of devotion
and these prayers are
the constant road
across the wilderness
these prayers are
these prayers are
the memory of god
the memory of god

and i believe in the future
we shall suffer no more
maybe not in my lifetime
but in yours i feel sure
song dogs barking
at the break of dawn
lightning pushes the edges
of a thunderstorm
and these streets
quiet as a sleeping army
send their battered dreams
to heaven to heaven
for the mother's restless son
who is a witness to
who is a warrior
who denies his urge
to break and run
who says: hard times?
i'm used to them
the speeding planet burns
i'm used to that
my life's so common
it disappears
and sometimes even music
cannot substitute for tears

--paul simon
the cool, cool river

"El Guate" (The Foreigner)

2011-12-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

Grupo Cimarrón
"El Guate" (The Foreigner)

Jolly Banker

2011-12-08T07:59:00.001-08:00

Woody Guthrie: Jolly Banker
Wilco: Jolly Banker

my name is Tom Cranker
and i'm a jolly banker
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i safeguard the farmers
and widows and orphans
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

when dust storms are sailing
and crops they are failing
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i check up your shortage
and bring down your mortgage
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

when money you're needing
and mouths you are feeding
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i'll plaster your home
with a furniture loan
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

if you show me you need it
i'll let you have credit
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
just bring me back two
for the one i lend you
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

when your car you're losing
and sadly your cruising
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i'll come and forclose
get your car and your clothes
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

when the bugs get your cotton
the times they are rotten
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i'll come down and help you
i'll rape you and scalp you
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

when the landlords abuse you
or sadly misuse you
i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i
i'll send down the police chief
to keep you from mischief
singing i'm a jolly banker
jolly banker am i

--Woody Guthrie

recent testimony by Jon Corzine before Congress

New Hard Times

2011-12-07T08:43:00.000-08:00

Linda Ronstadt & the Stone Poneys
New Hard Times
The Bitter End, NYC
1968

ask any mirror
is there no escape
he will show you lines that time
has etched into your face
and all around the edges
life is turning gray
and you can no longer
turn your head the other way
and the new hard times are here

Marat/Sade

2011-12-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

Judy Collins: Marat/Sade

four years after
the revolution
and the old king's execution
four years after remember how
those courtiers took their final bow
string up every aristocrat
out with the priests
and let then live
on their fat

four years after
we started fighting
Marat keeps up
with his writing
four years after
the Bastille fell
he still recalls
the old battle yell
down with all of
the ruling class
throw all the generals
out on their ass

why do they have
the gold
why do they have
the power
why why why why
why do they have
the friends at the top
why do they have
the jobs at the top
we've got nothing
always had nothing
nothing but holes
and millions of them
living in holes
dying in holes
holes in our bellies and
holes in our clothes

Marat we're poor
and the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us
wait any more
we want our rights
and we don't care how
we want a revolution
now

four years he fought
and he fought unafraid
sniffing down traitors
by traitors betrayed
Marat in the courtroom
Marat underground
sometimes the otter
and sometimes the hound
fighting all the gentry
and fighting every priest
the businessman
the bourgeois
the military beast
Marat always ready
to stifle every scheme
Of the sons of the
asslicking dying regime
we've got new generals
our leaders are new
they sit and they argue
and all that they do
is sell their own colleagues
and ride upon their backs
or jail them or break them
or give them all the ax
screaming in language
that no one understands
of the rights that we grab
with our own bleeding hands
when we wiped out the bosses
and stormed through the wall
of the prison you told us
would outlast us all

Marat we're poor
and the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us
wait any more
we want our rights
and we don't care how
we want a revolution
now

poor old Marat
they hunt you down
the bloodhounds are sniffing
all over the town
just yesterday
your printing press
was smashed
now their asking
your home address
poor old Marat
in you we trust
you work till your eyes
turn as red a rust
but while you write
they're on your track
the boots mount
the staircase
the doors thrown back
poor old Marat
in you we trust
you work till your eyes
turn as red a rust
poor old Marat
we trust in you

Marat we're poor
and the poor stay poor
Marat don't make us
wait any more
we want our rights
and we don't care how
we want a revolution
now

Time (The Revelator)

2011-12-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

darling remember when you come to me
that i’m the pretender
i’m not what i’m supposed to be
but who could know if i’m a traitor?
time's the revelator

they caught the katy and left me a mule to ride
the fortune lady came along and she walked beside
but every word seemed to date her
time's the revelator

up in the morning up and on the line
i drive in to Corning and all the spindles whine
and every day is getting straighter
time's the revelator

leaving the valley is fucking out of sight
i’ll go back to Cali where i can sleep out every night
and watch the waves and move the fader
queen of fakes and imitators
time's the revelator

--Gillian Welch

Donovan @ The Beeb (1972)

2011-12-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

jennifer juniper
there is a mountain
princess anne
well-known hasbeen
happiness runs
colours
cosmic wheels
you are the one
when you're little
mellow yellow

Take Your Place On The Great Mandala

2011-12-03T08:15:00.001-08:00

Richie Havens /Peter Yarrow : The Great Mandala

take your place
on The Great Mandala
as it moves through
your brief moment of time
win or lose now
you must choose now
and if you lose
you're only losing your life

I'm Not There

2011-12-02T10:06:00.000-08:00

HEY BOB DYLAN

Sonic Youth: I'm Not There
Invisible Republic: I'm Not There
Zimmermanism: I'm Not There

On the slow train time does not interfere & at the Arabian crossing waits White Heap, the man from the newspaper & behind him the hundred Inevitables made of solid rock & stone -- the Cream Judge & the Clown -- the doll house where Savage Rose & Fixable live simply in their wild animal luxury . . . . Autumn, with two zeros above her nose arguing over the sun being dark or Bach is as famous as its commotion & that she herself -- not Orpheus -- is the logical poet "I am the logical poet" she screams "Spring? Spring is only the beginning!" she attempts to make Cream Judge jealous by telling him of down-to-earth people & while the universe is erupting, she points to the slow train & prays for rain and for time to interfere -- she is not extremely fat but rather progressively unhappy . . . . the hundred Inevitables hide their predictions & go to bars & drink & get drunk in their very special conscious way & when tom dooley, the kind of person you think you've seen before, comes strolling in with White Heap, the hundred Inevitables all say "who's that man who looks so white?" & the bartender, a good boy & one who keeps the buffalo in his mind, says, "I don't know, but I'm sure I've seen the other fellow someplace" & when Paul Sargent, a plainclothes man from 4th street, comes in at three in the morning & busts everybody for being incredible, nobody really gets angry -- just a little illiterate most people get & Rome, one of the hundred Inevitables whispers "I told you so" to Madam John . . . Savage Rose & Fixable are bravely blowing kisses to the Jade Hexagram Carnaby Street & to all the mysterious juveniles & the Cream Judge is writing a book on the true meaning of a pear -- last year. he wrote one on famous dogs of the civil war & now he has false teeth & no children . . . . when the Cream met Savage Rose & Fixable, he was introduced to them by none other than Lifelessness -- Lifelessness is the Great Enemy & always wears a hip guard -- he is very hipguard . . . . Lifelessness said when introducing everybody "go save the world" & "involvement! that's the issue" & things like that & Savage Rose winked at Fixable & the Cream went off with his arm in a sling singing "summertime & the livin is easy" . . . . the Clown appears -- puts a gag over Autumn's mouth and says "there are two kinds of people -- simple people & normal people" this usually gets a big laugh from the sandpit & White Heap sneezes -- passes out & rips open Autumn's gag & says "What do you mean you're Autumn and without you there'd be no spring! you fool! without spring, there'd be no you! what do you think of that???." then Savage Rose & Fixable come by & kick him in the brains & color him pink for being a phony philosopher -- then the Clown comes by and screams "You phony philosopher!" & jumps on his head -- Paul Sargent comes by again in an umpire's suit & some college kid who's read all about Nietzsche comes by & says "Neitzsche never wore an umpire's suit" & Paul says "You wanna buy some cloths, kid?" & then Rome & John come out of the bar & they're going up to Harlem . . . . we are singing today of the WIPE-OUT GANG -- the WIPE-OUT GANG buys, owns & operates the Insanity Factory -- if you do not know where the Insanity Factory is located, you should hereby take two steps to the right, paint your teeth & go to sleep . . . . the songs on this specific record are not so much songs but rather exercises in tonal breath control. . . . the subject matter -- though meaningless as it is -- has something to do with the beautiful strangers . . . . the beautiful strangers, Vivaldi's green jacket & the holy slow train

you are right john cohen -- quazimodo was right -- mozart was right. . . . I cannot say the word eye any more . . . . when I speak this word eye, it is as if I am speaking of somebody's eye that I faintly remember . . . . there is no eye -- there is only a series of mouths -- long live the mouths -- your rooftop -- if you don't already know -- has been demolished . . . . eye is plasma & you are right about that too -- you are lucky -- you don't have to think about such things as eye & rooftops & quazimodo.

--Bob Dylan
liner notes for Highway 61 Revisited

meeting with Allen Ginsberg from I'm Not There

Rock Salt And Nails

2011-12-02T08:38:00.001-08:00

Joe Ely: Rock Salt and Nails 6/17/10
Joan Baez: Rock Salt and Nails

Buddy & Judy Miller: Rock Salt and Nails
Rosalie Sorrels: Rock Salt and Nails

John Martyn: Rock Salt and Nails

if the ladies were blackbirds
and the ladies were thrushes
i'd lie there for hours
in the chilly cold marshes
if the ladies were squirrels
with high bushy tails
i'd fill up my shotgun
with rock salt and nails
--u. utah phillips

Fruits Of My Labor

2011-12-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

Lucinda Williams
Fruits of My Labor
4/3/03

baby, see how i've been living
velvet curtains on the windows to
keep the bright and unforgiving
light from shining through

The Watchman's Gone

2011-12-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

Gordon Lightfoot: The Watchman's Gone

if you find me feeding daisies
please turn my face up to the sky
and leave me be
watching the moon roll by
whatever i was
you know it was all because
i've been on the town
washing the bullshit down

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

2011-11-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

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

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

Annie Oakley, P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb

Go Placidly Amid The Noise And Haste

2011-11-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-29T07:49:00.000-08:00

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

Blue Train

2011-11-28T22:24:00.000-08:00

Trio : Blue Train

watching the long faces
riding this rundown track
and the lost places
from a dream that
never brings them back
and the sad truth is
nothing but a cold hard fact
i'm riding the blue train
over the miles yet to cover
a ghost in a hurry to fade
i'm taking it one way to nowhere
afraid you might be there
to find me inside this blue train

counting the burned bridges
trailing this rusted wreck
as our back pages
scatter in the dust we left
like a pearl necklace
falling from around my neck
i'm riding the blue train
over the miles yet to cover
a ghost in a hurry to fade
i'm taking it one way to nowhere
afraid you might be there
to find me inside this blue train

away down the low road
a ticket to an empty room
a rendezvous unknown
i'm riding the blue train
over the miles yet to cover
a ghost in a hurry to fade
i'm taking it one way to nowhere
afraid you might be there
to find me inside this blue train

--jennifer kimball/tom kimmel

Jimmy Martin And The Death Of

2011-11-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Martin : Truck Driver's Queen

Jimmy Martin: Ocean of Diamonds

Jimmy Martin: Sunny Side of the Mountain

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

2011-11-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

Jenny Lewis/Johnathan Rice

Carpetbaggers (acoustic)

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

Call From Jail

2011-11-26T08:13:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

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

------------------------------
badass honey badger video
honey badger info
geaux tigers

Happy Thanksgiving*

2011-11-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still searching for that perfect holiday stocking stuffer?
Here are some helpful product reviews ....

She Turned Me Into A Newt

2011-11-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-21T22:02:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Long Time Gone

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

(Cool Down Your Temper) Mr. Cop

2011-11-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-19T10:37:00.001-08:00

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

---------------------------------------
Shiva and Isis Temples, Grand Canyon National Park

Done With Bonaparte

2011-11-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

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)

Start Spreading The News

2011-11-18T12:26:00.001-08:00

I Envy The Wind

2011-11-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

i envy the wind
that whispers in your ear
that howls through the winter
that freezes your fingers
that moves through your hair
and cracks your lips
and chills you to the bone
i envy the wind

i envy the rain
that falls on your face
that wets your eyelashes
and dampens your skin
and touches your tongue
and soaks through your shirt
and drips down your back
i envy the rain

i envy the sun
that brightens your summer
that warms your body
and holds you in her heat
and makes your days longer
and makes you hot
and makes you sweat
i envy the sun

i envy the wind
i envy the rain
i envy the sun
i envy the wind

--lucinda williams

Lila Downs: Yo Envidio el Viento

paintings by Rob Gonsalves

O'Leary's Cow

2011-11-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

Johnny Horton: O'Leary's Cow

One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven---or even proven at all---to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn't there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car's ignition, then obviously there is an enemy. If a public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfirings---then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself.
--Philip K. Dick

Empire State Of Mind

2011-11-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

Alicia Keys: Empire State of Mind

A long time ago in
a galaxy far, far away...
It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth. The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space...
--title crawl from The Empire Strikes Back

The Rising Of the Moon

2011-11-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

Keith Olbermann: special comment 11/15/11

The Dubliners: The Rising of the Moon

all the gang of

those who rule us

hope our quarrels

never stop

helping them to

split and fool us

so they can

remain on top

--bertolt brecht
(solidarity song)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
--Fredric Bastiat

Il Calamaro Governa Il Mondo

2011-11-15T10:25:00.001-08:00

But there’s a reason.
There’s a reason.
There’s a reason for this,
there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed.
It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it,
be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want:
They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That's against their interests.
That's right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money.
They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! Its a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.
By the way, its the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people---white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you...they don’t give a fuck about you...they don’t give a FUCK about you.
They don’t care about you at all...at all...AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth:
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
--George Carlin

Do You Hear The People Sing?

2011-11-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

do you hear the people sing,
singing a song of angry men?
it is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again!
when the beating
of your heart
echoes the beating
of the drums
there is a life about to start
when tomorrow comes!

will you join in our crusade?
who will be strong
and stand with me?
somewhere beyond
the barricade
is there a world
you long to see?
then join in the fight
that will give you
the right to be free!

do you hear the people sing,
singing a song of angry men?
it is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again!
when the beating of your heart
echoes the beating
of the drums
there is a life about to start
when tomorrow comes!

will you give all you can give
so that our banner may advance?
some will fall and some will live
will you stand up
and take your chance?
the blood of the martyrs
will water the meadows of France!

do you hear the people sing,
singing a song of angry men?
it is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again!
when the beating of your heart
echoes the beating of the drums
there is a life about to start
when tomorrow comes!

--Les Miserables
Do You Hear the People Sing?

Shadows

2011-11-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

Alison Krauss

with Tony Rice and friends

Shadows

Powderfinger

2011-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Railroad Earth
Powderfinger
St. Louis, Mo.
9/20/08

King Of California

2011-11-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

Dave Alvin
and the Guilty Women

King of California

Philadelphia, Pa.
7/10/09

-----------------------------------------------------
Poncho is the King of Catnip
-----------------------------------------------------

he came to the door one night
wet thin beaten and terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,
"not much chance...give him these pills...his backbone
is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he’ll never walk,
look at these x-rays, he’s been shot, look here,
the pellets are still there...also, he once had a tail,
somebody cut it off..."
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer,
one of the hottest in decades,
I put him on the bathroom floor, gave him water and pills,
he wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t touch the water,
I dipped my finger into it and wet his mouth
and I talked to him, I didn’t go anywhere,
I put in a lot of bathroom time
and talked to him and gently touched him and
he looked back at me with those pale blue crossed eyes
and as the days went by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn’t work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city,
I related to that cat---I’d had it bad,
not that bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
“you can make it,” I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk,
the rear legs just didn’t want to do it
and he fell again, rested, then got up.
you know the rest: now he’s better than ever,
cross-eyed, almost toothless, but the grace is back,
and that look in his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,
"look, look at this!”
but they don’t understand, they say something like,
"you say you’ve been influenced by Celine?"
“no,” I hold the cat up, "by what happens,
by things like this, by this, by this!”
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed, he knows…
it’s then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are
photographed together.
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.
--Charles Bukowski
(The History of One Tough Motherfucker)

Salt Of The Earth

2011-11-13T09:06:00.000-08:00

let's drink
to the hard working people
let's drink
to the lowly of birth
raise your glass
to the good and the evil
let's drink
to the salt of the earth
say a prayer for
the common foot soldier
spare a thought
for his back-breaking work
say a prayer for
his wife and his children
who burn the fires
and who still till the earth
and when i search
a faceless crowd
a swirling mass of gray
and black and white
they don't look real to me
in fact they look so strange

raise your glass
to the hard working people
let's drink
to the uncounted heads
let's think
of the wavering millions
who need leaders
but get gamblers instead
spare a thought
for the stay-at-home voter
his empty eyes gaze
at strange beauty shows
and a parade of
the gray-suited grafters
a choice of cancer or polio
and when i look
in the faceless crowd
a swirling mass of gray
and black and white
they don't look real to me
don't they look so strange

let's drink
to the hard working people
let's think
of the lowly of birth
spare a thought
for the rag taggy people
let's drink
to the salt of the earth

let's drink to the hard working people
let's drink to the salt of the earth
let's drink to the two thousand million
let's think of the humble of birth

--jagger/richards
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan Baez
Foley Square, NYC (Occupy Wall Street)
11/11/11