I Yam What I Yam (Apologies to Popeye)

Believe it or not, I'm not a Democrat.

If you've been reading this blog occasionally, hopping in to grab a live show or two, you've seen my political rantings and ravings. Maybe read one or two. And thank you for taking the time if you did.

But you may have left with the mistaken impression that I'm a Big-Capital-Freaking-D "Democrat." Which I ain't.

In my deep, raging heart, I am an anarchist. Of the worst kind. I despise all rules, all order, all structure that seeks to contain and restrain the human heart, mind and imagination - whatever you like to call that motivating energy that makes us human.

Please note that I choose not to mention soul or spirit here because I do not enjoy the religious connotations each word is subject to. As an atheist, I do not believe in any kind of everlasting immortal non-corporeal element to the human condition. We are born - we die - and in-between we tend to suffer a lot. That's it, folks. Nothing more. And that's precisely why we have to do all we can while we are alive to make this beautiful but nasty world a better place to live in, for us and for all who come after us. Anything else is pure dirt mean selfishness.

Given the above, I am still placing myself squarely in support of a Democratic Presidential candidate this year. And only one. Barack Obama can help us change the world. And it needs changing. He can't do it alone and his supporters know this. Regardless of how right-wing pundits and other Democratic candidates disparage him and us, we understand that his "inspiring words" really are just words - until we make them more, until we use them to change the world. I for one am looking forward to that. There's a whole lot that needs a-changin'.

Do As I Say...Or Else

Many stories in the last few weeks have shown how bitterly divided Senator Clinton's own campaign staff is, how willing to resort to in-fighting, back-stabbing and just plain nastiness they are. As example, just this morning The Washington Post ran a story about attempts by Clinton campaign staffers to steal the credit for recent Clinton wins from Mark Penn or at best downplay his role in such.

Since the Senator has prided herself as being an able manager during the campaign, stressing these managerial qualities as necessary for the Presidency (that for some obscure reasons her opponent lacks, reasons not specified by Senator Clinton), it is very telling that she cannot control or manage her own campaign or campaign staff with anything near the effectiveness of her opponent.

One thing we can easily derive from this is that, to Senator Clinton, this type of staff behavior is obviously either perfectly acceptable (perhaps this is the Washington norm she is used to) or completely beyond the scope of her professed managerial skills to cope with. Either conclusion is disturbing.

Even worse, actually frightening, is the idea that many of these campaign staffers would probably end up in the White House, on her Presidential staff, if she were to somehow magically win both the nomination and the election. Internal rancor and in-fighting would reign in a new Clinton White House from Day One if this happens.

The big question, with the easy answer: DO WE WANT THIS?

PS I have to send you away for a moment, for an excellent examination of the failed logic behind Senator Clinton's "But I can win the Big States!" mantra.

What Goes Around

The Long Ryders - Live at Liberty Lunch, Austin, TX (4/3/86) Part 1
The Long Ryders - Live at Liberty Lunch, Austin, TX (4/3/86) Part 2

Contagion strikes The New Disease this week. I'm a walking vector, an agent of infection, a secret carrier sickening all I meet. And on top of that, I've got the flu!

You all seemed to enjoy the last Long Ryders show and this one is great too. Big difference a couple of years of recording and touring makes in their sound, I think. This show again came from the taper directly and I think it's pretty excellent. No energy to say more, I'm afraid.

Enjoy and buy shit!

If Men Were Angels

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

- James Madison, The Federalist #51

X - Live at the Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA (10/26/82) Part 1
X - Live at the Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA (10/26/82) Part 2
X - Live at the Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA (10/26/82) Part 3
X - Live at the Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA (10/26/82) Part 4

I had free tickets to see X in 1982 but I didn't go. That's all. Still too sad to write more.

Buy shit.

Re-Runs Already

Green On Red - Live at Glastonbury, UK (6/22/85)

What a funny little picture of Green On Red, eh? Awwww. They look so cute! How do they hold those big guitars in their little itty-bitty hands? I dunno, I just dunno.

You lucky childrens, to quote our beloved President (who evidently watches too much South Park), you all get a treat today for being so good in class this week. Two posts in one day! And neither one of them about boring old Barack Obama, who you should really vote for if you care about the future of this country and want to save the world and feel good about yourself and be able to dance on Ellen because he has promised that every American will have "The Chance to Dance!" if he is elected President. So vote, ya knuckleheads! See, nothing political in this post.

"I'm Coming Out, I'm Coming Down."

The Feelies - Live at Various Venues, (May-June, 1989) Part 1
The Feelies - Live at Various Venues, (May-June, 1989) Part 2

The subject header for this post is possibly my favorite Feelies' lyric, from "The Last Roundup" on The Good Earth. Why? I dunno. Just is. Makes me grin ear-to-ear every time I hear it. I'm sure we've all got little things like this that we love about our favorite bands, after the big things, after the albums, the live shows, the naked band pictures, the whatever.

Sorry to be repeating bands already, but I got in a bind this week and didn't have time to upload any of the new rips I did. Falling back on one I've had in reserve for a while. Same story about the Green On Red I'm going to put up right after this. (Though, sequentially, on the blog, you will see the Green On Red first. Ack! Is your mind blown?!)

This one is for Bob, who used to be a Feelie ("Wouldn't you like to be a Feelie, too?") and has made nice words about previous posts. Thanks, Bob!

The Guitars That Changed the World

The Dream Syndicate - Live at Soap Creek Saloon, Austin, TX (2/3/83) Part 1
The Dream Syndicate - Live at Soap Creek Saloon, Austin, TX (2/3/83) Part 2

Best band name theft ever? Best first album ever? Best chance to save the world with electric guitars since the MC5? Maybe. Doesn't matter, though, because they were what they were - The Dream Syndicate. That's enough because they did enough and we should all praise them for it. It's a better world because of them. (Imagine an alternate universe without The Dream Syndicate, with music ruled by big-haired synth-pushing drum-machining vest-wearing whiners - the mind shudders! This is the cosmic horror at the heart of Lovecraft, kids!)

A word about this show: I got this directly from the original taper of the show a few years ago. I think I was the first person besides himself to ever hear this particular artifact. And I don't think I've traded it much if at all, not that I was hoarding it, but that its arrival coincided with a dramatic downturn in my trading activities. I have one more Dream Syndicate show from him, from The Medicine Show tour, that I'll get up soon. If you think this one sounds good, wait until you hear the next one. This is why I love audience recordings, right here.

And if you crave more, then you must go to the Archives, where you will find - current count! - 109 more live Dream Syndicate shows! I have about 3-4 that are not up there, including this one, and as soon as I have time and can figure out their arcane labeling system, I'll put this and the others up there in lossless and lossy formats.

Do I even have to say it? Okay: SHIT!

I Am a Scientist

Okay, I'm not a scientist. But Vic Chesnutt once called my wife a "Library Scientist," which is what we really should call librarians. And then he laid his hands on her 9-month pregnant belly and blessed our unborn son. It was a good night.

Anyway, what the hell is this about? Science! I subscribe to several techy and science magazines and spend too much time on science websites and blogs because I'm a frustrated Man of Science. Today Scientific American has an incredible slide show you all should check out: Fade to Black: The Night Sky of the Future. I've posted here what the night sky will look like when we are way too much closer to the Andromeda Galaxy than we are now. This takes me back to childhood daydreaming over the gorgeous planetscapes of Chesley Bonestell, the father of modern space art. Ches did it way better than, well, everyone, but the spirit is there and I appreciate it. Here's Ches' most famous painting, for your eyeballing pleasure.


Anyway, I'm sitting in our cozy little 1920s bungalow, having a beer, a nice Schlafly ESB (my second if you must know), and pondering the sky of our planet billions of years in the future. Got some music on, too, checking out the sound quality on a future post, loving this very early Green On Red show (you will too!) and I'm thinking - "Why the hell does life have to be any harder than this for anyone on the planet? Don't we have the resources to make sure that every man, woman and child on the planet could be doing exactly what they want to be doing right now, rather than scrabbling for food, fighting for their lives, running from people that want to hurt and kill them, etc etc etc."

It's not just a couple of beers talking. Think about the resources available to the industrialized nations of Earth - natural and man-made - and think about what they are used for, what they are wasted upon, and how the lives of billions of people could be improved if we started to shift those resources away from their current uses. We'd have a new world, kids, a better world, in our lifetimes. This is where we could go, this is the possible future, but we have to change the now to do it.

One For the Dreamers

Danny & Dusty - Live Somewhere in Hollywood, CA (1986) Part 1
Danny & Dusty - Live Somewhere in Hollywood, CA (1986) Part 2

Yeah, I had a Danny & Dusty ready for you all about a week or so ago, but didn't give it to you, for reasons already stated. I felt bad, because this is a long winter and whether you're sitting in your dark northern hovel or chalet, drinking cheap brandy or fine champagne, you deserve some good music.

So, I dug down deep into the archives and pulled out the other D&D show I have. This is what one calls a "rough"-sounding show. Great performance, but not a Grade-A sound artifact. Still, it is fun, it is Danny & Dusty, it still is winter, it's still worth hoisting a beer over at least.

Remember - new album out now! Shit!