Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

In my day, never was longer.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The revolution will be supervised.

This really is a full service blog.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

T R E 4 5 O N

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Let Me Tell You ‘Bout Your Blood, Bamboo Kid

Let Me Tell You ‘Bout Your Blood, Bamboo Kid

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If I had been more on my game for Independence Day, I might have suggested Joe Strummer’s 1989 album Earthquake Weather. It was supposedly the product of a renewed sense of confidence in his powers which may indeed be true, but according to his biography by Chris Salewicz (a real ox-stunner at 600+ pages!) he was a habitual weed-smoker. While I am totally down to Legalize It, we can also be (ahem) clear-eyed about what it can do to one’s sense of motivation. Rock legends can work to whatever schedule pleases them, anyhow.

I would have recommended it because it is a very American-feeling album, in the same sense that Big Audio Dynamite feels European. It’s made with an all-American cast of musicians, apart from Joe, some of whom you might recognize from the film Repo Man. Strummer writes about American politics and cars and highways and diners and dive bars and jazz. The traditional stuff non-Americans gawk at. For someone with such a reputation of being a punk rock teller of hard truths, Strummer’s lyrics are quite dazzlingly poetic. They are beat-like, too, and don’t always make a lot of linear sense. Fine by me! They fit the music like a glove.

The music is Clash-level quality. It’s even got a reggae cover. Strummer’s later solo albums had great moments, but I don’t think he ever sustained as high a quality of songwriting subsequently. Every time I would teach a Jimmy Buffet song  to some grey-faced office worker, florescent-light-sick and lusting after some color, chaos, and sunshine, I would think of how Strummer’s Island Hopping captured everything Buffet had ever done more vividly and tunefully and in under three minutes. And the pity of the fact that, too late to cash in on Combat Rock and too early for Grunge which it resembles more than a little, this splendid album got overlooked.

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33Comments

  1. 1.

    A Ghost To Most

    OT, more dispatches from earth2:

    Sharing a clip of Giuliani admitting he may have been at the notorious Trump Tower meeting — or knew about it — with the lawyer stating, “I was probably there that day — I don’t remember it. Did somebody say something to me? I don’t know. You know what a campaign is like? It’s helter-skelter,” the entire AM Joy panel started laughing.

    Sorry to intrude.

  2. 2.

    @BottyGuy

    I’m a big fan of the three Mescaleros LPs, Global-a-go-go is probably the best. The words were a cutting a ever and you could dance to the. Listen to Bhindee Bhagee for a bit of multiculturalism we could use right now.

  4. 4.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    This was posted already below, but I wanted to showcase this bit, from the WaPo’s https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/small-student-led-rallies-show-support-for-gun-rights/2018/07/07/1969fb5e-8211-11e8-b9a5-7e1c013f8c33_story.html?utm_term=.6eba58aa113f

    In Palm Beach, Fla., about 100 people were expected to rally at a park; 13 came, including organizer Ashley Johnson, three speakers and the parents of two of the speakers.

    The event was meant to be a counterpoint to the March for Our Lives rallies that attracted thousands across the country after the February shooting, including at events in Florida.

    “The goal is to be just as successful as March for Our Lives,” Johnson said. “We want to outdo them.”

    Johnson said she was disappointed in the turnout.

    “I don’t know why more people didn’t show up. I think a lot of conservatives are just afraid to show up for public events,” she said through tears.

    ??? Yeah, I’m sure that’s that the reason. Not.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @A Ghost To Most: interesting. Stuff like that always makes me wonder what Meuller knows, and what people (Rudi in this case) fear Meuller knows, and how many people (Rudi in this case) now wish they had adopted the Beast’s strategy of never emailing.
    ETA: There was a rumor going around a while back that trump sent Ivanka out to meet the Russians as they arrived, or were leaving. It kind of faded, but I can easily imagine it. “Go be pretty for the people, Baby, show them what Daddy made.”

  8. 8.

    Kathleen

    Can I put in a plug here for the Democratic candidate for Congress in First District? His name is Aftab Pureval, and he was elected to Clerk of Courts in Hamilton County (first Democrat to hold that position in 100 years). He’s also been tagged on the DCCC’s Red to Blue list, the only congressional candidate in Ohio. According to the newspaper India West:

    Pureval, 35-year-old son of an India-born father and Tibet-born mother, made a name for himself in 2016 when he pulled off a surprising upset in Hamilton County, winning the county’s clerk of courts seat.

    Here is a link to the India West article:
    http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/ohio-congressional-candidate-aftab-pureval-named-to-dccc-s-red/article_15bd075c-427a-11e8-8a06-0f241f8474f9.html

    Here is link to Cincinnati.com article with another overview of his background and experience:
    https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/01/31/who-aftab-pureval-5-things-know-rep-steve-chabots-new-challenger-ohio/1083223001/

    Thank you for your consideration.

  9. 9.

    MagdaInBlack

    With regard to weed and music, I believe Gregg Allman wrote “Whipping Post” while quite high. Wrote it on an ironing board cover (so legend has it) because it came to him so fast.

  11. 11.

    JWL

    Very nice song, never heard it before. Reminds me of something Jerry Garcia would have enjoyed playing, and that’s meant as high praise.

  12. 12.

    A Ghost To Most

    @oatler.:
    Thanks for this. Apologies for being thick earlier.

    I suggest to her that the book struggles to offer a satisfactory definition of fascism. “Defining fascism is difficult,” she responds. “First of all, I don’t think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system.”

    This. They are running the playbook.

  13. 13.

    Teddys Person

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Well, it is easier to be a keyboard commando eating cheetos and floating around in an online RWNJ bubble in mom’s basement than to face potential pushback in the real world for their unpopular positions.

  14. 14.

    Teddys Person

    @MagdaInBlack: Kind of begs the questions as to why an ironing board cover was the most accessible surface to write on. A wall yes, but an ironing board cover?

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    GG decided to go after Malcolm Nance. It’s just as pathetic as one would expect from him. Maybe Tucker will provide a more sympathetic audience.

  16. 16.

    A Ghost To Most

    @MagdaInBlack:
    Weed music? “Willin'” by Little Feat. “Panama Red” by NRPS.
    “Copperhead Road” by Steve Earle. “Don’t Bogart That Joint” by Fraternity Of Man.

  17. 17.

    raven

    @A Ghost To Most: You missed the greatest of all!!
    Jaime Brockett – Legend of the USS Titanic

    and don’ forget

    Spanky and Our Gang

    Up in the morning, just about 4,
    I put on my shoes and I’m out the door.
    Life is such a terrible bore….I’m a garbageman.

    Ridin on the garbage truck with my friend, Lou,
    He says “Say, baby, you lookin kinda blue!”
    “yeah, man, don’t this job ever get to you?
    I mean all this garbage!”

    (Oh no baby!)

    He said “Hold on Jim, I got just the thing you need!
    Here, baby, take a puff of this funny lookin’ little weed.
    Go on, man, smoke it, the first one’s free!”

    Oh well thank you!

    Well the sun was risin, shinin in the sky
    Garbage truck was drawin flies
    I didn’t care, I was ridin high
    I was out of it, stoned, swino, wasted

    Well, everything’s cool now, nothing’s wrong.
    Garbage stinks, but I float along
    Singin this happy, happy song –
    Pot’s too good to be just for the young!

  25. 25.

    A Ghost To Most

    @raven: Thanks for the Titanic link. That was great!

    Also, “Long Haired Country Boy” by (fuck him) Charlie Daniels.

  27. 27.

    Gemina13

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    Maybe more of them have a conscience than she does, and dislike heartily the idea of opposing kids who just went through the ordeal of being shot at, having their friends killed or injured, and listening to adults tell them they’re fools and traitors for wanting to stop it.

    Or I could be giving them more credit than they’re due.

    Either way, it’s not like I give a fuck what they think, so long as we can beat them at the polls.

  28. 28.

    Gemina13

    @A Ghost To Most: And “Copperhead Road” carries that extra sting of “fuck the man” menace in its final stanza. More than just weed, it’s about being an outcast in a society that chooses to chew people like the narrator (a Vietnam vet) up and spit them out.

  29. 29.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    I love both those songs & still have the Spanky album it is on. I have digitied it & carry it on my iPod.

    Used to stay up late in the summer to hear “Beaker Street” from KAAY, Little Rock. Clyde Clifford used to play it occasionally I gotta download that sometime

  30. 30.

    Another Scott

    @Kathleen: Thanks for the pointer.

    Ohio (and the country) needs more, sensible legislators in Washington.

    Donated.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    phein58

    @E: He was in “Mystery Train,” a Jim Jarmusch film.

    “It ain’t Coca-Cola, it’s rice.”

    Best Vietnam war song.

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