“Well the first thing I’m gonna say is mandate, my ass!”
Dropping some Gil Scott-Heron tunes:
“Winter in America”:
He had our number back in the 1970s and 1980s, and he’s still relevant today.
About The Author
Don Durito
Left of center and lover of photography, music, pop culture, and life. Favorite quote - "There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility" (Lisbeth Salander, from Stieg Larsson's original Millennium Trilogy).
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Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
“Nostalgia…that’s what we want…the good ol’ days”
I’ve read the Salander books. They are very good.
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They are personal favorites of mine. The author of the original trilogy had an ideological development not that much different from my own, and I like that he had expertise in right-wing nationalist movements and apparently some expertise as a journalist in sex trafficking (and as a result a deep interest in how various forms of violence are often baked into societies). I’ll give the new author credit for at least trying to keep much of the spirit of the original characters.
I bought the new one, but can’t yet bring myself to read it.
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It’s paced a bit different, but I think you’ll find the new author does try to do justice to the characters, and captures some of the current social struggles facing us. Worth a chance. Can’t promise you won’t regret it, but it’s worth a read. 🙂
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In 1985, a San Francisco radio station changed its format from a punk rock playlist to something much more conventional. There had been a big fight by the listeners to save the punk format.
For the three days in between the format changes, the station played ambient Eno music 24/7. It became a place for those of us who fanatically supported the DJ’s and playlist choices to grieve. It felt as if there was a big hole in the radio community, and the sad, curious, brilliant music of Eno commemorated the loss.
As the Republican Party prepares to attempt to purge all memory of our President and systematically tries to tear out and cover up all of the policies passed by him and his Congress, I think of that time.
I found music stations and artists even more attuned to my tastes after 1985.
There will be victories in the political warfare to come; new strategies and methods will be invented. We will talk to more voters and persuade enough of them that racism, sexism, xenophobia, fear, hatred and abandonment are not the paths our country should take. Great days are ahead of us, in between and after the many horrible days to come.
That’s a beautiful song. Was present for the demise of some of my favorite stations during the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps one of the more painful was the demise of MARS-FM in Los Angeles (which updated and refined the KROQ format back when that station was really cutting edge), which was turned into an adult contemporary station. Regrettably, its DJs didn’t get the chance to do something like this, but oh, to think of what they might have cooked up had they had the chance. For a brief period, it was nice to hear a lot of my favorite electronic music (mostly industrial at that juncture in my life), as well as early 1980s techno and such. Got my first exposure to Aphex Twin thanks to the station.
This track by Brian Eno is delicious. I love that he is still active and still making music that matters. I could go on a three day binge on his music and feel comforted, I think. There’s a model in his music and art worth emulating: experiment, be aware of the world around us and learn from it, and learn from each other.
We need to mourn and heal. That is appropriate. I have no idea whether this blog will survive in its present form in the wake of what has happened, but if it does I hope it is because enough of us were willing to realize that whatever our differences, we have so much in common. To the extent I can, I would love to remind anyone who will listen that we as a community, we as a nation, and we as a species have so much more in common than we might realize, and that we need each other. In doing so, we might have a better go at riding out this storm together, and a better go at building a future worth living in. Some say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one – a wiser fellow than me once said.
One of my very favorite live performances:
I groove on his backup singer. She is fun to watch!
More vintage David Byrne back from his Talking Heads days:
That song dropped as I was finishing high school.
Peculiar, worthwhile, cheery video.
We’re close in age.
Peculiar was something Talking Heads were especially good at. And yes, this was one of their cheery videos and a song that always held a special appeal for me – especially the older I get, and after coming apparently quite close to losing someone I love tremendously in an accident early this year. I’m a class of 1984 grad from high school. Eventually figured out how to get through college, and have been trying to figure out how to get through life since.
This seems appropriate for how I’m feeling these days. And with its sharing I’m bowing out of Booman’s for a while; just can’t take any more of the kind of discourse that’s rampant around here lately.
Yes, it’s pretty terrible.
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Respect your need to do so. I hope you will at least drop by the cafes boran2 and I have running. Think of them as shelter from the storm.
Normally I keep the overtly political off my cafes, because we really do need some mellow in our lives, but I did want to share a link a friend shared from Sojourners: 10 Commitments of Resistance in the Trump Era. I’m an atheist, but once marched with plenty of Christians, Jews, and Muslims as part of an anti-Apartheid organization many years ago. Even considering how diverse we are as a society and a species, we often can find common ground if we are willing to look. There’s a life lesson there, I suppose. Those who are much younger than I, take note. Some of your elders have lost sight of that lesson. Don’t make our mistake, please.