I’m listening to old 70s Soul Cinema trailer clips, and they are cracking me up. The best? This little tag line from Fred Williamson’s BLACK CAESAR… “This Caesar comes to bury you!”— How Frigging cool is that!I have to pick up that movie on DVD and watch it now.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Christ our savior
was born on Christmas day.
To save us all from Satan’s power
when we were gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

The odd thing I find about Christmas, and this supposedly benevolent time of year, one of them, is it is typically the time America ramps up her military strikes against non-christian countries.

“Celebrating Ramadan with your families are you? Well let me drop off my present from Uncle Sam….
this megaton bomb bitches!! Merry Christmas MFers!!!”

I sadistically jest, but the truth is that sadistic without any jesting involved.

From God, our heavenly father,
A blessed angel came.
And unto certain shepherds,
Brought tidings of the same.
How that in Bethlehem was born,
The son of God by name.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

I want to highly recommend a book I had mentioned picking up previously, DIGGING:THE AFRO-AMERICAN SOUL OF AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC by Amiri Baraka.

A compilation of essays covering several decades of this uniquely American art form of Jazz/Blues as only an insider can, it is not only a seminal dissection of the times and the players in the music scene, it is as brilliant a dissection of America the American id and American fallacies as I’ve ever read.

It is an essential book, and is easily my recommended read of 2009.

It is a book on the masters of the medium, Trane, Coleman, Miles, the list goes on, told by someone who knew and played and laughed with them.

It is a book told with an authority, validity by one of not just the world’s preeminent poets but one of the world’s preeminent music lovers, and you’re NEVER going to get that again, EVER. By anyone.

Because those pioneers are all shuffled off this mortal coil, and what is left is the vultures to retrofit their memories and their music. The vultures who would paint Black Gods white.

We are now deep in the age of Sony and Time Warner and American Idol and corporate bs as the end all and be all of music.

Deep in the age of the tail wagging the people.

So the discussion DIGGING engages in, of the music as the gestalt, and the natural by product of the fears, the hopes, the politics, the loves, the controversies, and most of all as a chronicler from an abused mass of Americans not allowed to be Americans, this understanding of music as a call and a component in change, you are NEVER going to see presented from this capitalist controlled society again.

Music to them. the suits, is either a way to sell you something or to divert you from something, but never a way to engage you in something constructive or progressive or enlightening.

So DIGGING, written by this eight decade old LIVER and SURVIVOR and SHAPER of the most turbulent of American Years, I see as absolutely a historic document from day one, and an essential component to understanding what music was, and what it can be again.

You’re looking for a gift to give that music lover in your life? This is the book you give them. His list of recommended CDs alone is worth the price of the book!! I’ve tried some of his recommendations and they are dead on. Highest Recommendation.

“Jazz is the music of Americans who were not allowed to be American.”

To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

I’ve followed the recent rash of removals of Black Mayors, from offices throughout the country, for the most trumped up nonsense with some interest. It is very Jim Crow like, and in the age of Black Newspapers and Black Radio Stations and even Black owned theaters… we would have called this convenient confluence of events what is it… a witch hunt, and a power grab, and a turning back the clock.

We would have called it clearly… injustice, and undemocratic, this usurping of the duly elected representatives of the people, by legal maneuverings of a very few people.

But we no longer live in an age of Black owned anything. Brown vs. Board of Education led the way to that.

Brown vs. BOE while a good case in the micro-level, on the macro-level can clearly be seen for what it is, a defeat cloaked as a victory. Zora Neale Hurston said this decades ago, and she was derided for it by everyone, Blacks as well as Whites.

She ended up dying a broken woman. But she was right, and no one has ever been more right.

“Our victories give them weapons they did not have before”

Separate but Equal, there is nothing wrong with that concept. The problem was the practice. America was never Separate AND Equal. It was alway seperate AND UNEQUAL. Inferior service, inferior representation, inferior choices.

And BROWN vs BOARD rather than treat the root cause of the problem, unequal and unjust allocation of dollars and resources, instead became a model for even more unequal allocation/distribution of resources.

That leads to our present atmosphere of disenfranchised people, devoid of real recourse or representation. With representatives picked off one by one, with not even a real Black owned paper or radio station left .

And you may be saying, I’m not Black why should I care?

You should care because

“what you do to the least, you do to to me”

or

“They came first for the Jews, but I wasn’t a Jew so I said nothing”

or

Because ultimately the crimes they, the robber barons of this… trifling age, get away with in Haiti or Iraq or Palestine or Philadelphia today, they are ultimately perfecting to try on you tomorrow.

Because while I’m fond of terms like Black and White, the truth is that this is a class struggle, between those who want to be, once again, their fathers’ sons and be the masters of men. And they will not let color deter them from your fall. They want the mass of men as slaves or serfs, and each peoples’ fall, from Liberia to Haiti to Iraq to Palestine brings them a step closer… to preparing your fall.

They are greasing America to fail, the agents of Oligarchy, they hope to put to bed, at last, even the lie of liberty.

So that the people, frustrated with services closing, taxes rising, food and water unsafe, quality health unaffordable, cost of living escalating, fear and crime their only constant food, and hunger and pestilence and perversion and death in the air, and America made into Gomorrah… so the people, frustrated, will be ready at last for their nation’s march to terror and totalitarianism.

Will be ready, at last, for America’s fall.

Mistakenly blaming their liberty for their pains, when it was not liberty that failed them, but they that failed their liberty by not killing the leaders that led them to such mire and such madness.

So remember this… rambling of mine from the edge… the next time you hear of a suspicious removal of an elected representative, or of an odd arrest, or a case tried in the press/tv, as many increasingly are.

Because with every broadcast, you are being manipulated closer to that day of your own dark Reich.

Ohhhh,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

“One of the radio reporters for KABC in LA I guess, Pasadena area, he actually had a letter that had been received from DC from some organization to one one of the border patrol station chiefs, and it clearly said they needed pickers in the Imperial valley and to essentially ease off on enforcement for a few days. He showed me the letter, it was pretty amazing stuff. I just think… people [should] understand there’s a business model, I think it’s a brutal business model… I personally don’t… I’m not real fond of it, I think it’s… it’s kind of a creation of a slave state that… that functions on a lot of human suffering”— from Frontera2. What is Frontera2. Well today it’s a 43+ minute musical track that mixes the horrors of our daily world, with voices that… bear witness to those horrors. Available on Archive.org, it’s… it is… worth your time. From World, to country, to folk, to mariachi the music is as diverse as the places where blood flows. ‘In the morning he rode the horse through the border crossing at Douglas Arizona. The guard nodded at him and he nodded back. “You look like maybe you stayed a little longer than you intended” The Guard said. The boy sat holding the reins loosely, he looked up at the broad street lying before him and at the barren hills about. He looked at the guard. “How do you like this country?” he said. “I like it fine” the Guard answered. The boy nodded. “I do too” he said. then he touched the wild looking horse with his heels and rode off up the street… into America.’— from Frontera2

UPDATE: Unfortunately looks like the item has disappeared from Archive.org (do a search for more on my opinion of Archive.org and disappearing files). But leave me a private comment with an email address and I’ll direct you where you can listen to the whole 43 minutes. It’s worth your time.

They are killing people with robots, and no one has a problem with this. They… our military. They… our government. I’ve long thought saturation bombing was a… crushing evil. But at the very least you knew there was still some human hand, some awareness, some accountability, some weight held if only by one pilot’s soul, regarding the snuffing out of unseen hundreds and thousands. But now, technology, we have not even that. Drone planes. We kill people with drone planes. Not even a human eye, to capture the horror of their end. We kill them like cockroaches. Our enemies. Because— technology— we can. I wrote a while ago, about machine men with machine minds killing in… these machine times. It’s wrong. Bombing people. Always has been, always will be. From Germany’s carpet bombing of England, to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor to our ultimate bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to all the fucking bombings since. Bombing has been called the terrorism of the rich. Rich nations. Rich interests. I agree. And I know the excuses. Dropping bombs saves lives that would have been lost in an ugly ground war. That is some bullshit. If our governments were really that concerned about saving lives, how about trying to solve your border disputes without starting wars that young men have to fight for you. So don’t give me it saves lives. The fuckers who send young men to die are not concerned with their fucking lives. No it’s about conquest, by barbarians. It’s about old men playing games of life and death, with the newest and shiniest toys they can find. It’s about control. And the only thing of more importance than the death of our enemies’ young men in times of overpopulation, is the control and death of large numbers of our own. War is that ultimate ground, where tyrants perpetuate themselves. And bombing… their flavor of choice. It is the act of cowards, to drop fire from the sky, and burn to death flora and fauna, men, women, and children, people.. to burn to death people you do not know, nor now never can. To end good lives and bad, righteous and wrong, from afar, without ever looking at those lives. It’s wrong. And these drone planes make it easier to be wrong. Makes it a video game, makes it… unreal. Just targets in a distant land. There’s always the hope that with a pilot, the mission can be scrapped based on changing situations in the field. Just more discussion involved with briefing men for a bombing mission, more people in the loop, more chance that the need of the mission may be weighed… well. But in our new automatic, pushbutton, drone plane America, there’s less level of oversight between thought and bloody action. Technology, drone planes, makes killing something it should never, ever be. It makes it… routine. It makes it easy. It makes it… forgettable. Forgettable. But nothing is forgotten. Not the blood rich men spill with impunity. Not the lies and crimes the press (owned by the same conglomerates that are getting rich selling bombs to the military)… conceal. Not even the people who devoid of graves do die. All must be answered for. I’m not a religious man, but I believe that. Every hair you have harmed in darkness, in your final hour will challenge you in the light. I do believe that. That there will come, to every Rome and every good Roman… their Fall. [p.s. As an aside: Ray Bradbury decades ago in fiction, wrote of a future America where the streets were policed with zero tolerance, by forbidding and merciless drone helioplanes. It's nice to know Big Brother is committed to making fictions fact. It has been announced that various US cities are seeking to deploy these Israeli made Drone planes to police their suspect areas. Isn't it enough we have Israeli cameras blanketing every inner city. I get it Israel, you want to help America setup her own Palestine. Thanks but no thanks. You see, the atrocities we don't speak out against in distant lands or to under-represented people today, becomes our cross to bear tomorrow.]

A brief post. I’m in a repair shop and watching the media feeding frenzy on Michael Jackson, in between digital drop-outs of the picture of course (this forced march to a digital spectrum, is yet another glaring robbery of the American people. With free Airwaves, Analog Airwaves GIVEN to big business and governmental interests. The FCC, joing the FDA, the FBI and every other governmental acronym in selling out America.); and I’m struck once again by the hypocrisy and mendacity of the Master Media. A media that for decades has hounded and derided Michael Jackson, and not too long ago was dusting off a prison cell for him, and yet here they are, all those well paid talking heads, crying their crocodile tears, over the stopping of a man’s heart, that their medium had no little hand in trying to break. They didn’t literally drive him into a wall like the reporters did to Princess Di, but their harassment was no less designed to destroy. You know that old joke about lawyers, I think it applies even more to Newspeople, to talking heads. What do you call a 1000 Newspeople at the bottom of the sea? A good start. I grew up on the music of the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson. Don’t effing tell me about Michael Jackson, you don’t have the goddamn right. Michael Jackson was, to even say a great talent is to practice immense understatement, he was a wunderkind, a boy genius, A Mozart of his age. And as such a talented boy, he was beloved. But as a burgeoning talented man, he met up with a medium, the unchecked press, that is adept at eating its young. And on top of that, as a man of color, in the heart of the nation that has always held itself the last, best hope for slavery, he came up against the destroying wall reserved for men of color. A wall that increasingly in this new 21st century has only 3 doors for men of color, the criminal system (as guard dog or guarded), the coffin, or the coffers of big business (as smiling fool or sexless token). Throughout his brief life they tried to break Michael Jackson for all three doors, most notably the last, and most damagingly the last. We can see the impact the last had on his mind, and his flesh. A sensitive young man, perhaps no person of color best physically represented the pressures of being squeezed to fit such alien doors. And now the media machine, and the pieces of offal that gleefully helped make of Michael Jackson’s life a joke, and a cautionary tale, have the temerity to have all their talking heads speak sweetly of that life? Spin their derision into accolades, now that he is beyond the hearing? People wonder why I will never take sides against a Michael Vick, or and OJ Simpson, or a Marion Jones, or a Wesley Snipes, America has too much of its own sins not yet atoned for, to try and judge another man’s sins. Particularly a person of color. America lacks the moral high-ground to do that. The media lacks the moral high-ground to do that. I wish you… all media pundits, all talking heads, all pullers of strings; I wish you plague and death. Plague and death.

“The only reason people are so upset when you die is because they haven’t finished using you yet.”
Jimi Hendrix

(Thanks to Taalam Acey for that quote- from his great CD… Blues Resurgence)

I was thinking about the winter Holidays recently. Ramadan, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, I’m in favor of all of them… to a point. Really. Any reason in this bloody world someone wants to celebrate as opposed to blowing something up, I’m all for it. Of the ones listed above the two relatively fabricated ones are Christmas and Kwanzaa. Fabricated in the sense their observance, is relatively new and relatively arbitrary. Kwanzaa is a neat celebration. However, much of its concept and purpose hinges around the idea of a growing season. So in a tropical climate its December time frame may be valid, however transported to the cold and wintry countries of the West… it doesn’t make much sense. It would be more timely placed during the Spring, around Easter actually. So while a fan of Dr. Maulana Karenga’ s 40+ year old celebration, I think it is hurt by its rather forced placement in opposition to the religious holidays of the season. Again I would advocate a spring Kwanzaa, but in its defense there is no reason families couldn’t do its seven day process, in conjunction with their religious holiday. Okay onto Christmas. Christmas as we know it, is very much a 20th century fabrication (yes Rome—blah, blah, blah— but as we know it, it is very much a 20th century construct), that has incredibly little to do with religious timelines and dogma, and everything to do with creating a shopping frenzy for merchants. What the eff does a fat white man in a red suit, climbing down chimneys have to do with a Jew crucified 2000 years ago? Answer? Not a whole lot. [Brief aside. The fantastic picture above is from this site BAD SANTA . It's great, take a look. Okay back to the article...] The concept of Saint Nick is Germanic-pagan window dressing (And I have no problem with pagans) than anything having to do with Christianity. Same thing with the holiday of Easter, in the west… rather than Easter being about the resurrection, it becomes about painting eggs, and fat bunnies. This significant day, due to a culture of delusion and commerce becomes an excuse to sell chocolate bunnies, becomes devoid of its meaning. I find the West (particularly America, who was at the heart of this commercialization of supposedly holy days) spends an inordinate amount of time raising their kids on utter bullshit. Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. And these kids are the same people who grow up… then go out ministering to the rest of the world on what is real and what is not. Delusions passed on like eye color, or prejudice. I have no problem with make believe, with fairy tales, but I don’t think it should be used in place of the facts, or fed to children as facts. You want to read your kids THE WHOS DOWN IN WHOSVILLE, or THE THREE BEARS that’s fantastic.That’s great, that’s good parenting. But telling your kid to put their tooth under their pillow, so some tooth fairy could turn it into money, or some fat dude is coming down their chimney to bring them presents… I have no frigging idea what that is about. You want to tell your kid, an angel looks over him, and you believe that, then that is great. But when you tell your kid, that a fat man is going to bring him presents, and you know perfectly well that’s bs… I don’t understand the purpose of that lie. Do you? Or is it just something you don’t question… an encoded lie, passed down like child abuse. Your parents did it to you, you do it to your kids, etc. Why isn’t it enough for the presents to come from the parents, for Christmas to be about Christ and a time of giving. I don’t understand the American preoccupation, with deluding their young. Fantasy is great, as a huge fan of fiction in all genres, I can say that. But don’t lie to your kids and call it a holiday. This is why Americans have a bad reputation throughout the world. Because we are raised on believing fairytales, from the cradle to the grave, and the rest of the world sees clearly through our delusions. Biggest delusion? “America is the greatest democratic nation in the world” That’s because we’ve spent over 6 decades toppling nations that even look like they might remotely have a stable and potentially competing government. America has spent 60+ years keeping poor nations poor. And setting up bloody dictators. America maintains her crumbling fairytale of being a Democratic country (and I say this in the wake of a historic election) by butchering other nations. That is not even open to debate. That is an absolute fact, that anyone who takes the time to look… can see. That is a fact, just as much as the presents under your Christmas tree comes from your loved ones. But America is a society that raises delusional children who grow up to be delusional adults, who just transition from one set of unquestioned fairytales… to another. So I’m not saying don’t celebrate Christmas, but I’m saying know what you are celebrating. Don’t say you’re a Christian and you’re celebrating Christmas if you have no clue what either of those terms mean. By all means celebrate the Mass of Christ if that’s what you believe, but don’t dilute and lose what you are celebrating. Don’t mistake the trappings of the holiday, for the heart of it. “For I have that within which passeth show these but the trappings and the suits of woe” — From some hack called Shakespeare, and an okay play, called… Hamlet Okay. So that’s me pimp slapping Christmas. Again I have no problem with any celebration of good, just the abuse of it. And of course Ramadan, Hanukkah, several Vodun or Voodoo religious observances around the winter months, are the real deal, and I won’t mouth off against any of them for fear of being turned into a giant chicken. (But seriously, here’s a great page on Vodun. I’ve spent most of my life sampling different religions, and have to admit to being relatively uninformed about VODUN. But I’m definitely interested in learning more.) And if you guys think I’m hard on Christmas, check out this site LAST TRUMPET MINISTRIES. You’ll think twice before saying Merry Christmas. Seriously, having read his site, I think I wasn’t hard enough on Christmas. . Oh, and definitely check out this siteCHRIST, THE ETHIOPIAN. Wow, great stuff. So now that we’re clear on my stance regarding being an equal opportunity celebrator, as long as you’re cooking something good, and no bsing children is involved, I’ll celebrate them all. So with that said next installment we go over gifts to give that loved one in your life, regardless what holiday they observe. See you soon!

There are so many atrocities and tragedies going on every single day, that I do not want to dwell on only the ones the press will regurgitate for the next couple of days ad nauseam, to no useful end, except to justify their existence and prep you for the next atrocity of the moment.

I want to talk to you about a nation that breeds atrocities.

A coworker (a good guy, a republican, but a good guy . I respect him, and I can’t say that about a lot of people) said that all empires fall, and America has begun her deep slide from grace. I have no love for the American empire, the dream of America yes. But the tortured, stinking reality it is… that petty men work so hard to make it be… no, I have no love for that disease of empire. Never have, never will.

But this “fall” as my coworker calls it, is no fall. It is a push. It is, mark my words, a push. A push toward totalitarianism by sabotaging democracy. A sabotage of a system that can work if allowed to; but totalitarianism works better for some, for a few.

A few need breathing room.

A return to the good old days. And if atrocity, after atrocity is what it takes for you to give up liberty, to get their definition of security. Then let the blood flow.

My God if you look at the last seven years, from bombings, to sniper attacks, to chemical warfare, to school shootings, to Katrina and institutionalized neglect that is the definition of malicious and criminal, to police torture, to American run concentration camps; America reads very much, like a madman’s wet dream.

And throughout all this… big business, the press, and the administration have made a loving cabal, and played a game of… diversion, shock, diversion… with no end to this endless war… in sight.

They have played: “mock the monk”, while your children came home mutilated, big business grew bigger breaking the back of unions and bankrupting the country through offshoring, and your rights became something vaguely remembered, in a once upon a time dream.

I do not believe in coincidence. Coincidence did not forge this nation, design and planning did. And design and planning is breaking this nations back.

Do I blame the administration for madman or madmen taking up guns and for two hours killing and maiming with an abandon that could only be called… impossible?

Yes I blame this administration. In seven years it has brought nothing but horror to those abroad, and nothing but horror to those here, in the eye of the storm. Maybe horror breeds horror. Maybe all those arms and legs and heads blown off in Palestine, or Iraq, or Haiti, or pick your American target of the week… maybe all that blood must be answered for in kind.

Maybe Shakespeare was right, that all those legs, and arms, and heads blown off will come together at the latter-day and cryout… “WE DIED! WE DIED IN SUCH A PLACE!”

We died in such a place.

Maybe the mad dogs we set loose on others, have to come home. Sniffing, and growling, and mad and rabid from the things they’ve seen.

Chickens coming home to roost.

Maybe there is no “shock and awe” for them, without “shock and awe” for us.

Chickens coming home to roost.

We’re raising a generation that thinks movies about torturing women, and mutilating people, and defiling others is really entertainment. And no I’m not talking censorship here, I’m talking values. And that America has no values, beyond Hate.

Ask Bernard McGuirk, Sid Rosenberg, Don Imus,… idiots put in positions to spread their idiocy and bigotry, and put in those positions by companies like NBC and Fox. You can ask any of them about hate, and a culture of hate. You can ask men like Bush, and the backers of such a man.

“Bodies rotting field and stream, because the living ones are rotten”…Lion in Winter

Hate.

Hate.

We train children to drop fire from the sky, indiscriminately on “terrorist nations” and somehow wipe from their heads the idea that their actions might be the most terrorist of them all.

When we teach a whole generation to defile themselves for the god called TV or MONEY, or murder for patriotism, we teach them not only to devalue the enemy… but to devalue themselves.

And such… loathing, can not… be well contained.

“We die unconsciously, because possessed of a non-human symbol” -Skipp Specter

MY heart goes out to those maimed by madmen. Crippled and scarred for life, futures and families shattered.

My heart goes out to those murdered by madmen. Lives ended, dreams unfulfilled, bloodlines broken. To the families who must find sense and sanity, in something so senseless and insane.

My heart goes out to all the victims, of those “people” who would… conserve hate.

Be those victims, stateside or abroad. Until we learn to preserve other lives, we have no hope in these mad times… of preserving our own.

“Machine Men, with Machine Minds, Killing in these Machine Times” paraphrase of Chaplin