Countdown To Christmas Eve

H is for:  Harry Belafonte, Calypso (RCA Victor, 1956) 

Bring a little island music home for Christmas with the "King Of Calypso". A classic album and a classic cover.  If you look closely it appears Harry Belafonte has 7 fingers on his left hand <--.  

Unfortunately, Harry became quite crazy. He was once known as a great humanitarian back in the day, but now-a-days he's sooo opinionated about everything that he doesn't really make any sense. As most people know, he's a huge opponent of Bush's foreign policy, prompting the rest of us to say "come on in Harry, the water's fine." But then he called Bush a terrorist, more of a terrorist than the 9-11 attackers. Then he called Colin Powell and Condi Rice slaves who have been let inside the master's house. Yikes. Um, I do not agree.

So what's the most logical thing to do?  Call up your boy Danny Glover and go kick it with one of the absolute worst humans in the world, Venezuelan Presidente Hugo Chavez.  Here's a guy who has personally caused food shortages, riots, protests ending in many deaths, and hording of scarce necessary items among Venezuelans.  He uses his country's oil to control anything in the world that doesn't suit his needs while claiming to be a man of the people.  Does anybody really want to defend Venezuela's government as being less corrupt than ours? Despite the fact that Harry and Danny told Hugo how great he is, I'm with the Venezuelans on this one:  he sucks.      

Like I said, Harry has done some great humanitarian things in his day, but I think this is a prime example of why musicians, actors, etc., need to stick to their crafts and keep their mouths shut.  Yeah, our government does some deplorable things sometimes, but I think speaking through your music instead of through headline-grabbing interviews is always a good idea.  If you see some injustice occurring in the world then hey, you're an empowered individual so go physically do something about it.  (Say what you want about Bono, but that guy gets more done before noon than most of us do in our whole lives).  Otherwise, you'll wind up denouncing one "terrorist" in support of another with a whole bunch of talk and nothing else.  Somehow Belafonte lost that humanitarian touch and starting spewing rhetoric. Talking smack about W. and then rubbing shoulders with Hugo Chavez is one of the most insane hypocritical contradictions I have ever come across.  Just my two cents. 

As far as I know, Belafonte still lives in New York City, proving that even though the big bad U.S. is led by a terrorist, he still calls it home.  So get this album for any out-of-their-mind left-wing extremist hypocritical own country bashing jackasses that you know.  Sounds like a perfect Christmas gift for them.    

Hold Your Head Up

As November 4th draws near in this election year, I hereby do solemnly swear that at no point will this blog discuss anything political or even remotely concerning the presidential race.

After this.

I will offer no opinions about anything related to the fiasco, but I will only say that I feel as though there are a large number of Americans who are becoming more and more disenfranchised with the whole bit. (I don't align myself with any political party and I'm not going to try to sway you with anything I'm about to say so you can let your guard down). Now more than ever I feel like I notice how both political parties manipulate and use the public for their own gain and treat industrial quantities of people with little concern save getting a vote. Frankly, it's quite depressing for those of us who are left out of the process and find ourselves far from smitten with either solution on the ticket. If you have fallen in love with one of these dudes on the ballot then it is obvious to you at this point that I am a moron and you are probably much smarter than me. I'm not being a smart ass, I mean that.

Where am I going with this? Not real clear to me either, but I read something by Kurt Vonnegut that made me feel real good. Now you've got to be careful with ol' Kurt. Sometimes his opinions were a little of the Socialist variety. I love America and I love our Constitution. Greatest thing ever written. You should read it. In my opinion, the only thing that is wrong with our government is that we step further and further away from this beautiful document every year, no matter who is in office. That being said, I'm not down with the whole Socialism thing. But read this (I swear it's actually relevant to this blog) and tell me the man wasn't brilliant:

"No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our
government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable
institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful. If I should ever
die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in
Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn't be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us
out. That war made billionaires out of millionaires. Today's war is making
trillionaires out of billionaires. Now that's what I call progress.

And how come the people in countries we invade
can't fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with

tanks and helicopter gunships?

Back to music. It makes practically everybody
fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although
I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and
all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world
when they were still in slavery is a gift so great that it is now almost the
only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific
remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All
pop music today--jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones,
rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on--is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best
rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland
playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz
historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era
of slavery in this country--an atrocity from which we can never fully
recover--the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than
the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray say he thinks this was because slaves had
a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could
shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the blues. He says something
else which sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out
of a house, but he can drive it into the corners of any room where it's being
played. So please remember that."

--Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A
Country

So that is it. No more political speak to be spoken on this site, so if you feel the need to say your peace please do so by commenting on this post. If you feel down or left out by what is going on in the events leading up to this election just remember that (a) it could be much, much worse, (b) we are still living in the greatest country on the planet even if some of our leaders want to strip us of that title, and (c) there is always music.

And by God please go vote for somebody, but know what you are going to check for every single thing on the ballot. If you don't understand one of the Proposed Constitutional Amendments or don't know who to vote for in the Clarke County Board of Education District 8 or Public Service Commissioner races or something, then leave them blank or you can get a sample Clarke County ballot and do the proper research. Okay, I'm done. I hope everybody has a good weekend.