"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.
