Saturday Night, September 12, 2009, 10:15pm

You know I'm going insane
And I'm laughing at the frozen rain
And I'm so alone
Honey, when they gonna send me home...

World Gone Wrong

I was going to use the famous image of Peter Finch as Howard Beale, in Network. You know. "I'm as mad as hell... "

But mad doesn't seem to cover it. Oh, I am mad. Don't get me wrong. I think a lot of folks in America are mad as hell, and all for radically different reasons. They're mad because they have to pay taxes. They're mad because they have to pay health insurance. They're mad because they've lost their job. They're mad because the government won't listen to them. Some of them are mad enough to wear teabags. They're mad because the voices they listen to tell them to be mad. They're mad because they're afraid their president is a socialist, a communist, a Stalinist or a Nazi. They're afraid the country is going to hell. But most of all, they're mad because their president is black. Oh, God, I said it. They don't even see President Obama as biracial. No. That's too nuanced for the vox populi. He's black.

Just like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles, Obama is black. A schvartzer! How they hell is he going to clean up the country and make us safe, when he scares the hell out of us? (Well, not "us," but "them"). He's the worst kind of black man, too. He's educated and uppity. You can't trust a damned thing he says. He lies. Hell, ask the good representative from South Carolina, who saw fit to heckle the president during a joint house of congress Presidential address. Some think he did the right thing. Others find what Joe Wilson did to be a despicable, disgraceful act. The media and Representative Wilson himself claim he apologized. President Obama accepted the apology graciously... because that's the kind of man he is. The alleged apology was for the outburst, but not the content. The fact stands that what Representative accused the president of is inaccurate. The proposed health bill explicitly and in capitol letters states that illegal aliens will not be covered. But evidently, that's not good enough. The fact that the Bush regime lied about WMD's, the reason for going to war, Valerie Plame, threat levels, Gitmo, torture, domestic surveillance and so on and so on fell on deaf ears... or worse, uncaring ears. Why? Because the former president--that Cowboy from Fair-to-Midland, was born in New Haven Connecticut. He is as much of a Southern Gentleman as Teddy Kennedy was, for chrissake. But he is white. He told white lies. Barack Obama tells black lies. He has lied about his birth certificate-- and who can dispute that? He's black! He had to have been born in Kenya or Swaziland or whatever.




Lenny Bruce said that President Lyndon Johnson did not speak publicly for the first six months in office. Why? Because he couldn't pronounce the word "negro." He'd stumble and stammer over it, "ne... ne...neg...nig...niggero... niggero. Aw, shit I caint say it."

LBJ may have been a dyed-in-the-wool true Texan, but he also worked tirelessly on the voter's rights act and on his vision of the Great Society. He inherited a heavy mantle cast by John Fitzgerald Kennedy and in the end, fell under the weight. He also inherited racial unrest and an unwinnable war. President Obama, also inherited an unwinnable war, two of them, in fact. He won the election by a big majority and yet, when the dust settled in November and America woke up after the heady, turbulent and combative election on Wednesday, November 5th, the party was truly over. What began with hope and "Yes, We Can,' in shouts and prayers became, "Are you shitting me? We elected that uppity black guy? That nig... ?"

Who he is and how he's seen

It was said on the night of the election, during the celebration in Grant Park in Chicago, and during the inauguration that racism in this country had closed a chapter. It would soon be a thing of the past. And there is a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny. Just the opposite happened. Obama was hung in effigy. People railed and cried out like never before. Scared and sanctimonious white folk. Anne and Rush, Sean and Billo--and let's not forget the most vile of them all, Michael Savage--We can't trust that mixed blood commie socialist. Most of 'em don't even know what a socialist is or stands for. They just know it's a bad thing. He's not a soccer mom like Mrs. Palin--and like Keith Olbermann, I refuse to call her Governor or former Governor or anything more dignified than Todd's wife. But somehow her lame-brained opinion matters. When she said that President Obama was proposing Death Squads in his health plan, she was laughed at... and then she was taken seriously.


This is why I am afraid as well as mad. On Monday, I turn 60. I have seen a lot of stuff in my brief time on the planet, from fallout shelters to coonskin caps, to separate water bubblers for whites and colored in Georgia to the racial tension in Boston during forced school integration and bussing. From I Like Ike to not having Nixon to kick around anymore, from those three assassinations to two impeachments, wars and invasions, Y2K and 9-11. Hell, I even saw the Red Sox win the World Series... twice!

But I never thought I'd see this.

I am afraid for the present and the future of this country. I don't like where we are going. There was a time when there were no red states and blue states. I remember during the fever of conspiracy theories after John Kennedy's assassination, a writer named Carl Oglesby wrote a book called the Yankee and Cowboy War that floated, as the subtitle implied, connecting conspiracies from "Dallas to Watergate." I don't know if Carl wrote anything about 9-11, but conspiracies aside, it is the divisiveness that scares me-- the polarization perpetrated by fear and lies. At times, I feel my head is going to explode. Am I alone in this? Does anyone else feel this precarious sense of collective mental imbalance?



I hate to pinpoint one source of the madness. And, truly, I don't believe an alleged media outlet has the power to instill such fear, hatred and intolerance, but tell that to Orson Welles after his broadcast of War of the Worlds. Look at the intimidating level of power Rush Limbaugh has. Or Adam's Apple bobbing Anne Coulter or multiracial lunatic, Michelle Malkin, or certifiable nutjob Micheal Savage. Collectively, these radio "personalities" have whipped the unwashed masses into a frenzy of hate, anger and mistrust like never before. Howard Beale was fictional... but not by much.

And they don't even have to tell the truth. Why should they? Joe Wilson called out "You Lie" to the president about something that is 100% true. Minority Tan-Man, John Boehner continually straight-face lies about the facts and no one calls him on it. No one. Chuck Grassley told his constituents that President Obama's health care plan was going to kill grandma. But maybe the best, most obvious example I can site is what Sean Hannity said on the air after President Obama's address.


President Obama said in his speech, "Insurance executives don't do this because they are bad people. They do it because it's profitable." That became, when quoted by Sean Hannity, "When he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people, it took me back, because it was so harsh and I think unfair, but it‘s part of their polling."

People (and I won't categorize them) donated a quarter of a million dollars to Jim Wilson today. They rallied behind him. There is a fever spreading in this country. It may not be fatal, but it is pervasive and clearly it fogs what little minds are left... or should I say "right." They are waging the insurance company's war. They stand up against... everything that the president is for. The do more than fear him. They revile him, because the radio voices tell them to. He is evil. He is big government. But most of all, he is black.

Did you ever see the movie, Scanners? You know, the one where people's heads are exploding from others throwing bad mojo their way? Just don't be surprised if your friends and neighbors' skulls arbitrarily smash into smithereens seemingly for no reason. We've already played out the road company version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Pod People have taken over. What is going on is more than scary, it's insane. Kevin McCarthy has run down the streets warning those who were past the point of listening. They're here! I guess the key is to shut off the TV and radio, don't read the paper or news magazines and wait it out. I think I rambled a bit here and may not have hit all the targets I wanted. Suffice to say, I am not happy about the situation in this country and I am not all that confident about the future. I also don't know what to do. Really. I will, as I often do, end with Dylan. I've had this one in my head of late, which, I suppose is better than whistling Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction. It's from one of Bob's most underrated records...



World Gone Wrong

1. Strange things have happened, like never before.
My baby told me I would have to go.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

2. Feel bad this morning, ain't got no home.
No use in worrying, 'cause the world gone wrong,
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

3. I told you, baby, right to your head,
If I didn't leave you I would have to kill you dead.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

4. I tried to be loving and treat you kind,
But it seems like you never right, you got no loyal mind.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

5. If you have a woman and she don't treat you kind,
Praise the Good Lord to get her out of your mind.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

6. Said, when you been good now, can't do no more,
Just tell her kindly, "there is the front door."
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

7. Pack up my suitcase, give me my hat,
No use to ask me, baby, 'cause I'll never be back.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong.

Copyright ©1993 Special Rider Music

All the Sadder...

After Willy DeVille passed on, I listened to some of the more recent stuff I had never heard before. Following his pompadour Brill Building stylings, Willy went on a musical journey that took him through Native American music, New Orleans and the blues. Recent is a relative term. His last studio album, Pistola, came out last year. I have yet to hear any of it. I did, however, hear a cut from the live in Berlin CD, that was released in 2002, on Youtube. It also was released as a DVD so the quality was pretty good. I listened to Storybook Love and was pretty much blown away. I just got the CD (actually, a 2 CD set). It is revelatory. Willy's voice is ravaged, by time, cigarettes and the effects of drug addiction, but his range is something short of miraculous. His version of Ben E. King's classic Spanish Harlem is astonishing. On the blues, he sounds like an old black resident of the delta that no longer exists. On some of the early rock remakes, he sounds angelic and tender. And on Storybook Love, he is so vulnerable and convincing. What is more amazing about this CD is the recording itself. I don't know that much about recording techniques, but I know what's good. And this is beyond that. The piano, in particular, has such a vibrant presence it sounds like you are leaning on it, listening in. For the few that think of Willy DeVille as a novelty retro act at the onset of punk would be astounded by this. For me, I feel his loss all the more and appreciate what a giant talent he was. For anyone who likes music, regardless of genre, I cannot recommend this one highly enough. Requiescat in pace, Willy.

JUKEBOX JURY-8.27.09

Today's Top 10

Political Science-Randy Newman
Town Without Pity-Gene Pitney
Nervous Breakdown-Eddie Cochran
Sympathy for the Devil-the Rolling Stones
Dignity-Bob Dylan
Highway 61-Bob Dylan
Born in Chicago-Paul Butterfield Blues Band
I Can Never Go Home Anymore-the Shangri-La's
Dirty Water-the Standells
Eugene-Greg Brown

Decency, Dignity and the Religious Wrong

This is an open question to Ann Coulter. Paraphrasing Joseph Welch, Have you no sense of decency?

What is that thing around your neck? What does it stand for? Dictionary.com defines Christian as someone "decent; respectable." Ted Kennedy hadn't been dead for 12 hours when Ann railed on about Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick on the Lars Larsen show. She went on to talk about how much damage Ted had caused the country. She nor any of her followers should use "religious" as a prefix to right. They are neither. They are despicable. There will be time enough to badmouth Senator Kennedy, but, my God, let his mortal body cool first.

Perhaps Sarah Palin's Death Panels are a good idea after all. Let Coultergeist go before them first. She needs to be put out of my misery.

Oh, and who airbrushed your Adam's apple out of the picture?

And, speaking of Lars Larsen (what kind of a name is that? Have you no imagination? Did your parents name you that? Are you a Scandinavian inbred mistake? Oh, I could go on). I call him a clown visually, but that is being kind. He is as evil as the rest of the right wing-nut talk-show hosts, who host nothing but hate. After Coultergeist signed off, Lars took calls from his rabid audience. One of them called to label Ted Kennedy a murderer. Lars warned the caller off that by talking out of both sides of his mouth. In essence, he agreed. He asked his listeners to think of the Kopechne family. What was it... 47 years in the senate, and all they can come up with is bile about Mary Jo Kopechne? No one will argue the point that that was a dark moment in Teddy's life and he did not man up. By the same token, he just died. You are dancing on a grave that has yet to be dug! The next caller demanded the impeachment of President Obama and Vice-President Biden... oh, and while I'm on a roll, throw in the Speaker of the House.

Where do you go from here? To paraphrase another great American, put some bleachers out in the sun and have it all out on Highway 61...



This one's for Ann...

Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin' at his last meal
Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin' in a blade of grass
Young man lookin' in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin' through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year's Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin' high, searchin' low
Searchin' everywhere I know
Askin' the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin' out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin' to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary-lou
She said "I don't want nobody see me talkin' to you"
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would've got deeper, but there wasn't any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn't any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors
Lookin' into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he'd give me information if his name wasn't used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin' cross the silver sand
Steps goin' down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I'm on the rollin' river in a jerkin' boat
Tryin' to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin' for the doctor's cure
Lookin' at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
for dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
Combin' his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I'm at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take
To find dignity


Oh, and David-- thank you for getting this far. But don't bother. There is no other side to this. It's not about right or left anymore. It's about decent and indecent. Nero is rosining up his bow. It's getting uglier out there...

TOXIC RADIO

Okay. I'm ignoring all the NO TRESPASSING signs and going in. I know better. I should know better. I know I should just leave it alone. Even festering, puss-filled venereal sores heal. For that matter, I should know better than to hit the button on the radio and tune in. But here's how it is: the music on the FM is either classic rock or indecipherable, undistinguishable, semi-emo crap. I may be an old fart but I do remember when hook-laden rock was king and a song could grab you on the first listen. Ain't that way no more. I had Dylan's latest in the car as well as the new Wilco CD. But I turned on the AM radio. I could listen to Air America, but you know what? Liberal talk radio is fairly boring. So there's God radio or Latin accordion music. I tuned to 860. At the time of the day I turned it on, Michael Savage was on. There's another station that carries Rush. Now, you know, Rush is actually fairly entertaining. He's an overweight, prescription-pill addled loudmouth, but he's a bit hard to take seriously. Savage, on the other hand, scares the living breathing out of me. Could his name be more appropriate? He is a very angry man. Look at that picture. He looks learned and contemplative. The countenance of a nice Jewish boy named Michel Weiner. Uh-unh. This savage is filled with hate. He calls himself conservative, but that word has lost all meaning. There's nothing conservative about him./ He's radical, borderline psychotic. A killer with a microphone and transmission tower instead of a gun and bullets.

Today's tirade was composed pretty much of him peddling his new book, Banned in Britain. Buy a copy and buy one for your friends. Not a suggestion, but an implored directive, as in, buy it or I'll have my rottweiler rip your lungs out. Only he has a metrosexual poodly thing.



Now I remember when he got put on the list. He was contrite, crying crocodile tears and bemoaning the fact that he was being forbidden from the land of bad teeth and worse cuisine. And besides, who the hell wants to go? Well, he has changed his discordant tune. Imagine, he spits out, of all the horrors, a right-wing, conservative talk show host being banned from the UK. It's like the Third Reich is on his sorry ass. Really. He's playing the Nazi card, which has become quite fashionable of late. But it got worse. Where, he asked, is the right wing? Why aren't they standing up for him? Where is the decency? And, for that matter, where are the Jews? There hasn't been a rabbi or a Jewish organization to support me? This coming from a man who was born of Russian Jewish blood and has disavowed/denied his roots. This country, he rants, is a Christian country. How dare the British Empire ban him from their country? They have injured his reputation and emotions. So he says. He is scarred and damaged. Then he went on to rail on about the white man. Why do you think there is extreme fighting? The white man is mad! Grrrr. There's going to be a revolution. The white man will arise. All that was missing was a goose-step and brown-shirt. I would like to say he's pathetic. But the angry bile he spews is like a horrifically bloody accident. I can't help but slow down and take a gander. I can't turn away. I am repulsed and fascinated. Savage/Weiner is privileged to live in this country. Anywhere else and he would have been ripped to shreds by the proletariat and ruling class alike long ago. He is a disease that passes on his lethal illness daily. He hosts an infectious disease, not a talk show.

Really.

What exactly is a talk-show host? What do they host? There are no guests. Doc Savage is, as some raise, is nothing more than the name of a bronze comic book hero. This clown has a doctorate in nutritional ethnomedicine. What? He majored in matzo balls? Fried chicken? Tacos? He's as much of a doctor as, say, Laura Ingram, who, by the way, has the eighth among most-listened-to radio programs in the country. Savage is number three. Number three! And who is number one? Comedian Rush Limbaugh. Now, how many Americans are in on the jokes, and how many buy into this stuff? I love the fact that he broadcasts from one of the most liberal cities in the country. Mayor Newsome should have him pulled out of the broadcast booth, strapped into a cab to SFO and shipped non-stop direct to Gitmo. He is worse than any terrorist already there. He has more power, that is for sure. Savage is an unabashed racist and hate generator. He is a moron baiter. And yes, I will listen again.

There. I feel better now.

Another Passing, almost passed by

William Paul Borsey Jr., aka Willy DeVille passed away almost two weeks ago. I saw an all too brief obit in Rolling Stone. He was 58 and died from pancreatic cancer. His passing should not go by unnoticed. I was a fan of his first album and really like his last. There's a lot in between...

Since learning of his passing, I have done a bit of reading about Willy and a lot of listening to his music. He was an awesome talent-- committed, tormented and creative as all hell. He was a junkie for about twenty years. I don't know whether or not the HepC was a direct or indirect result. Doctors discovered the pancreatic cancer while treating him for the hepatitis. There is a thorough bio on him on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_DeVille).

Willy and his band, Mink Deville, was the house band at CBGB as punk was coming into its own. But Willy was no punk. He passed himself off, with almost frightening conviction, as a Puerto Rican style greaser, like a nastier lead in West Side Story. In the beginning, he had a pompadour and pencil thin moustache. His voice sounded like Ronnie Spector's brother–Southside Johnny with with an almost frightening conviction. There is an infusion of Brill Building melodrama blended with Lou Reed uptown storytelling. (Listen to "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl" from Cabretta). His collaborations with artists, writers and producers reads like a seminal history of rock 'n roll, from Doc Pomus to Jack Nietzsche, Dr. John to Mark Knopfler. In the course of his career he went through a bunch of changes, but throughout, he stayed true to himself and his talent, both as a singer and songwriter. He could be tough macho, Crow Jane roots or tender as, well... listen to the theme from Princess Bride. That tender.

Willy DeVille/Mandy PatinkinSEPARATED AT BIRTH?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DboM8xYouqc