Etta James

Music. The incredible Crispin Sartwell and I had a brief discussion of Etta James over at his blog “Why the Selection of Newt Gingrich for Pope is part of my master plan to save the universe?” Crispin’s Blog is highly recommended if you’re looking for a IFC sort of always on, sort of off philosopher with a rock and roll bent. (Except for the damn card tricks, which can rapidly devolve to the level of cat pictures.)  Basically, we agree that Etta James was incredible as a performer although, as with many blues and rock and country and grunting Tibetan throat singers her earlier, simpler stuff was better. Some of her producers were like second rate Chet Atkins adding strings and horns to something that just needed more bass, stronger rhythm and more reverb! There are exceptions to this general rule – musicians mature and get better and more interesting and versatile. Marianne Faithful falls into this category, I think as do The Allman Brothers, Emmy Lou Harris and Steve Earle. But as her range decreased and her weight ballooned and plummeted– cocaine, heroin, abuse, and gastric by-pass add up to a helluva drug combination – she remained a great performer but a different one.

Etta James is definitely in the Edith Piaf-Billie Holliday-Tammy Wynette tradition of female singers on the edge –victimized and exploited but never a victim.  I refuse to see her death as tragic. Pretty sure she ran out of steam – pneumonia, diabetes, dementia, high blood pressure, kidney failure and dialysis –and is no longer in pain. The behavior of her family in fighting over who was going to control her estate testifies to something about human nature…as a general rule, people suck. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch by Mike Farrell
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Earlier this week, on some medium somewhere, I read that a local entrepreneur was holding open auditions for proposed Christian videos, TV shows and Movies. My initial reaction was, By Bless Tiffany’s left tit, what a joke. However, turns out it’s real, and I’m going to cover this as an unpaid staffer for the Crossroads of Opportunity’s Alternative Newspaper, the Mojave Free Press. This will be my first foray into true Gonzo journalism, so we’ll see how this plays out. I’ve seen some “Christian” stuff, and what they lack in aesthetic quality, they make up in perky white-anglo evangelical zeal and nonsense. So, I’m curious as to what is going on here – Why Barstow? A lot of things are filmed around here; for example, Clint Eastwood used the cave systems in the local mountains to film “Letters from Iwo Jima” and I think there are some local shots at various points in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But, the average Barstonian is neither Biff nor Muffy  and doesn’t conform to the traditional California image. It’s a small, poor, grungy blue collar town that depends on a couple of military bases, a lot of fast food restaurants and hotels, and the Burlington Northern to continue existing. So, this is either some local who spent too long in the sun or it’s a scam. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch by Mike Farrell
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I used to read the Times of London primarily for the book reviews and Jeremy Clarkson’s columns until Murdoch decided to overcharge for the privilege. I do still pull up The Guardian for a variety of reasons. One is that Ana Marie Cox, the equally lovely, younger,equally red-haired version of Dulcinea Dowd who would have been a lot of fun listening to chat with Molly Ivins about Michelle Bachman, has returned to professional blogging and is now doing it for The Guardian. Very cool. The other is that they frequently have columns like this one — the author’s defense of his belief, nay conviction, that the Prime Minister of Great Britian is a slithering reptile.

I do not know why we can’t routinely get it this right… Here are some of the great lines from the piece that should be printed out and posted on every thinking person’s desk when looking for inspiration on how to effectively eviscerate the trolls toiling the bells of American economic justice and freedom.

… writes vividly and from the heart and, if his byline photo is anything to go by, appears to be a perfectly reasonable man (specifically, Ross Kemp). He deserves the benefit of the doubt. But I fear in his rush to reprimand the “Modern Left”, he has overlooked one key fact: David Cameron is a lizard. Yes, David Cameron is a lizard. A lizard that devours live foals in its lair. And as far as Archer is concerned, it’s perfectly fine for this limbless, non-human, Cameron-reptile-beast-thing to squirm across the stone floor of its den merrily excreting the bones of its victims, yet I’m “depraved” simply for writing about it. This is the tragedy of the Modern Right. They’re idiots. Well, let me spell it out: You cannot dehumanise a lizard. Not without humanising it first, by giving it a little top hat, say, or a monocle. Maybe put some lipstick on it. And a wig. Teach it to walk sexy. That’s the way. (Mike’s comment — Like a pitbull, or a momma Grizzly!)

Seriously, we need to spend time practicing to be this good. There is an art, a craft, a honed skill to political commentary and invective, and these awful people deserve the best of that art.

Tags: black helicopter watch by Mike Farrell
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I’m not sure that any of them are left except in the careerist types who went to work for Republican causes like some folks went to work for General Motors, but the rational Republican who rode the Tea Party/Bush/Cheney clown car as a career choice has got to be having second thoughts. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch by Mike Farrell
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A few months back I read about a truly mind-blowing scandal involving the Bureau of Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco. Apparently the organization had been supplying guns to Mexican drug cartels which – unsurprisingly- had since been used to kill people.

Now in many parts of the world you would assume that corrupt members of the ATF were boosting their income by moonlighting as arms dealers. In Mexico the police, government and gangs are closely interlinked, and nobody is shocked.  In the 1990s some Russian soldiers sold weapons to the Chechen militants they were fighting. Why? Everybody knew: to supplement their miserable earnings.

But America is more complex than that. [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch, politics & government, terror & war, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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10. When Sarah Palin said U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords should be “targeted,” she meant targeted with a surveyor’s scope

9. Sarah Palin used the term “blood libel” in a completely non-Jewish Christian context, referring to people who claim that wine in church isn’t really the blood of Christ

8. When Byron Williams, who got into a gunfight with police trying to attack members of the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, said he had been influenced by Glenn Beck, he really meant the singer Beck (“Odelay”)

7. When Sarah Palin complained that the shooting in Arizona had been unfairly politicized, then suggested that the gunman was perhaps a “left-leaning criminal,” she meant one of his legs was shorter than the other

6. When the mother of Gregory Lee Giusti, who was convicted of threatening former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blamed Fox News, she actually meant the news that Redd Foxx had died

4. Tea Partier Sharron Angle’s suggestion of “Second Amendment solutions” for an out-of-control Congress was a misquote; she actually referenced the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments

3. Sarah Palin’s use of the phrase “don’t retreat, reload” was a reference to wash loads

2. When a relative of Charles Wilson, who was convicted of threatening Sen. Patty Murray, said he was “under the spell that Glenn Beck cast,” he really meant he’d been drinking Beck’s beer.

1. Whenever Sarah Palin uses the term ‘Democrats,’ she of course means ‘shitheads who should be taken out’
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: black helicopter watch, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, damned lies, politics & government by Bob Sullivan
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Recently I have had nothing but grave news. Two weeks ago I was describing to friends how it was our hour of need as the Norskies defended the peak of the gold medal mountain in the new Cold War, in Vancouver. Then it was just last week that my clarion call was sounded regarding the now 7-year-war against wild animals (10/03/2003 — Never Forget). These two very serious issues were weighing on me heavily. And then I heard that the Earth’s day is now shorter.

The earthquake in Chile changed the axis and sped up the Earth?! What? I’m sorry, come again? Why hasn’t there been much gnashing of teeth and such? The fifth most feasible way to destroy the Earth is to overspin it until it tears itself apart! [Read more →]

Tags: black helicopter watch, environment & nature by Jeffrey Maryak
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Recently, President Obama signed an Executive Order immunizing the five-person Interpol office in New York City from a handful of federal laws.

Gadzooks!

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Tags: black helicopter watch, diatribes by Neil Verma
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In my inaugural post here at WFTC, I openly begged for a “God Helmet” this Christmas. Today, I present some gift ideas for your holiday shopping list.

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Tags: black helicopter watch, ends & odd by Michael Cade
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Get your gears off my love handles you damned dirty machines!

Tags: black helicopter watch by Shawn Macomber
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