Showing posts with label gospel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gospel. Show all posts
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Conservatives Mistakenly Call This Liberal Brainwashing
Well you better listen my sister's and brothers, 'cause if you do you can hearThere are voices still calling across the years.And they're all crying across the ocean,And they're cryin' across the land,And they will till we all come to understand.None of us are free.None of us are free.None of us are free, if one of us are chained.None of us are free.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
If I Was Religious (You Guys Would REALLY Dislike Me)
I'd be all "Jesus this" or "The Buddha said that":
It'd be brutal,...
Friday, November 1, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Making A Fight For Survival (More Than A Show Again)
Yes, of course - for me - that was it. That made it all better:
The jingle they play over The Ricky Gervais Show's closing credits is one of the most whimsical little things I've heard in a long time. Not quite magical, but definitely great - especially for kids.
I still wonder why parents let their kids listen to adult music, or garbage. Actually, no I don't. I flashed on Frank Zappa just now - a pretty successful parent by any standard - he told 'em:
So intellectually lazy, they can't search out more compelling art than "Sugar Walls" themselves, the hysterical mob (Frank referred to them as a possible "cult") always blames, and then tries to control, artistic output simply for the sin of making it.
But truth tellers still tell it, and it ain't always nothing nice.
Oh, we do nice. I woke up to Gospel this morning, sitting bolt upright, with a pain in my chest (the ulcer) but a three-day depression lifted.
It was sweet.
The chest pains became stomach cramps after I whirled out of bed - snatching the sheets with me for the laundry - before hitting three days of dishes so I have nothing but a few errands, and then music, for the rest of the day.
I'm talking sharp, organized, knowing exactly what I have to do - even what order to do it in - after depression's forced march through God's blessed "Valley of Death" again.
Dragging my ass through a world that barely registered as a distraction. "Babylon" meaning more like "babble on". I looked for distractions, which is how I found the Ricky Gervais song.
Since I expect intelligence to be insulted, that soundtrack became one tiny dark vacation.
And now - in technicolor - it's all coming back.
And so am I - in *ahem* mind and body - it's a good feeling.
Nothing about Jesus' (or Himmler's) beloved "spirit" about it:
I'm their primitive man, alright - the both of 'em - but in The Age Of Wonder:
And heading straight back to the future,...
Thursday, April 14, 2011
"Race Music" Appreciation,...Done In Reverse
I love all that drama hanging on, and swooping around, that simple-assed beat - it's hardly a "song" at all. More like a slice of life, or a feeble construction that, somehow, attains power. And the way two separate vocals start at once, each one distinct yet complimentary, setting up a pattern for the others which overlap throughout. Wicked smart. Simply amazing. A "masterpiece" of deception.
War had this way of making the simple sound so complex, and vice versa, while also giving you the impression they came up with the shit while smoking on somebody's back porch. What are they laughing at? And whose idea was it to tell the story of the Cisco Kid and Poncho Villa in the first place? Doesn't the detail that they'd "eat the salted peanuts out the can" come across as bizarrely you-are-there authentic? (And can you imagine an artist, today, going that far off the boy/girl/sex plantation - this was the '70s! - to land a hit?) Genius don't follow no rules but to get there.
There had to be time when white folks heard what black people were doing and they were sure we were crazy. The don't-make-no-sense orchestration, the wailing, the sheer out-there construction, with a hint of slave songs, gospel, and doo-wop, all plopped on cheap plastic with the drunken Jackson Pollock-like abandon of a late night jazz session. Who cared what white folk thought? O.K., it's insane - insanely good, insanely original, and insanely effective. There was just nothing else like it. So it had to be made. We were finally free. And this was our music.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Why So-Called "Smart" Whites Are Still Getting Annoyed With All Us So-Called "Stupid" Blacks
While Jon Stewart was winning kudos from all the so-called "smart" white people for this display, many black people were looking on in horror, feeling like the butt of the joke - again - and wondering, what's wrong with the so-called "smart" white people, that they can't ever defend themselves without, somehow, bringing blacks into it? Maybe, just maybe, it's because they're reactionary suckers who allow (as one famous so-called "smart guy" admitted:) "the bogus charges of racism, etc." to "get my dander up"?
Here's my advice to such folks:
Since, like religion, race is an imaginary construct, just shut up about it and stop feeding the beast.
There: "dander" problem solved.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
I Guess Gay Ain't The New Black After All
"THE attitude of white, liberal Hollywood toward African- American churches has long been one of almost participatory respect. Whether it’s Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard, or the Blind Boys of Alabama on the iPod, or a serious — reverential — mention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference over dinner, the understanding is clear: the black church is a foundational institution in the history of the civil rights struggle, and its music (although it makes reference to Jesus Christ as a personal savior) is smoking hot.It was only recently that the A-list discovered that this love is unrequited. Last month, Proposition 8 passed, making gay marriage illegal in California, and the demographic that lent insult to injury was the state’s African-American voters.
They came to the polls in record numbers to support Barack Obama, and they brought with them a fiercely held and enduring antipathy toward homosexuality: 7 in 10 blacks voted in support of traditional marriage. Whether that was the game-changer or not is a question for near-constant debate. Many gay activists have begun quietly to suggest that had Hillary Clinton been the Democratic nominee, Prop 8 would not have passed.
Of the values progressives hold dear, none can be as central or as cherished as the promotion of diversity. It is a word that has become almost a term of art."
-- Caitlin Flanagan and Benjamin Schwarz, showing how dark things can get when so-called "artists" get drunk with power and decide to mix all the colors together, in The New York Times.
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