Emmet Till: Death Do Us Part

My last post was greeted with some praise and approbation for its purported positive nature and tone.  That surprised me some, as I had seen it as pretty neutral but, hey, I'll take approval anytime.  Maybe, though, it was just because it wasn't "negative" or "depressing" or snarky, as so many of my things are seen to be.  Seems to me that it's actually been a while since I've put one of those out there:  Well, as they used to say in the intro to the old TV Western "Tonto and Companion" (revisionism hard at work, there)  "Return with us now, to those thrilling days of yesteryear...."

I've had this thing percolating for a couple of weeks, the show ready to go for a while, so maybe that's part of it, but I'm just, frankly, sick to death of the topic, which is, basically, shame.  I'm ashamed that I'm sitting here at my computer, writing some stupid and ineffectual white liberal words at a safe distance, rather than standing in NYC or Ferguson, MO, or any of dozens of places, shoulder-to-shoulder, showing solidarity with the black community (which is to say, really, just the human community), showing my outrage and sympathy at the racism that still pervades and permeates and poisons this otherwise pretty good country in which I live.  I'm ashamed of being an American (this sort of racism is pretty much foreign to the rest of the developed world), ashamed of being white, ashamed of being human, for Chrissakes. Why is it that, through sheer accident of birth, I can feel (mostly) safe, secure, protected by those who are supposed to provide such protection, while other people, different from me only by virtue of their pigmentation, must fear those whose job is, nominally, to protect and serve?  Why must some of my fellow countrymen consider every minute detail of their behavior or presentation every time they come into contact with a white person, especially a cop?  How can this be true still, in 2014, if Darwin was right?  Can't really see much racial-tolerance-evolution in my lifetime, can you?  Have you heard that more money has been raised for the defense of the white cop who shot unarmed, hands-in-the-air Michael Brown six times, than for Brown's funeral and family?  Really, what can anyone even say about this whole situation?

Gary Larson (of the late, lamented comic "The Far Side")  had a typically brilliant cartoon years ago, called something like "What dogs hear,"  which showed a person talking lovingly to a dog, whose name was Ginger, saying the usual stuff we all say to our dogs, talking to them like they are people and understand our every word:  What the dog heard was "Blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah...."  That's what this feels like to me.  It's the same old shit, over and over and over again (Dave Clark Five).  So I guess all I wanna say, inarticulately and inelegantly and assuredly ineffectually, is "What is wrong with us?"  Read about Emmett Till, read (again and again) Toni Morrison's masterpiece Song Of Solomon, which gives an amazing  perspective on the issue of what blacks, from way before and, sickeningly, way after Emmett Till, in a purportedly post-racist America, must face, and how young black men, in particular, must learn to cope with a world which privileged whites--which is to say, for the most part, whites--never know.  And, really, just listen to Mavis Staples and The Staple Singers' entire body of work, which addresses that life and that perspective in a singular and beautiful and incredibly inspiring, loving, understanding way.  While The Staples alone are enough, here are the songs I'm playing this week:

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)                            Marvin Gaye
Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)           The Temptations
Get Up, Stand Up                                                                    Bob Marley & The Wailers
Here I Stand Before Me                                                          Crash Test Dummies
I Ain't Gonna Stand For It                                                       Stevie Wonder
I Can't Stand It                                                                         Maria Muldaur
I Can't Stand Up Alone                                                            Jesse Winchester
I Stand Accused                                                                       King Curtis
Running To Stand Still                                                            U2
Stand                                                                                        The Bees
Living For The City                                                                 Stevie Wonder
The Ghetto                                                                               Donny Hathaway
Why Can't We Be Friends                                                        War
I'll Take You There                                                                   The Staple Singers
Stand                                                                                         R.E.M.
Stand                                                                                         Sly & The Family Stone
Stand Amazed                                                                           John Martyn
Stand And Be Counted                                                             Crosby, Stills, Nash&Young
Stand And Fight                                                                        James Taylor
Stand Back                                                                                The Allman Brothers Band
Stand By Me                                                                              John Lennon
Stand Up                                                                                    Bim Skala Bim
Stand Up                                                                                    Bobby Womack
Stand Up (And Be Strong)                                                        Keb' Mo'
Train In Vain (Stand By Me)                                                     The Clash
Standing In My Shoes                                                                Leo Kottke
United We Stand                                                                        Brotherhood Of Man
We Stand Together                                                                     Harper
Slippin' Into Darkness                                                                War
The World Is A Ghetto                                                               War
Touch A Hand (Make A Friend)                                                 The Staple Singers

Hope to see you Tuesday, noon till two, on Wool FM, 91.5, or wool.fm on the webs.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts...?"  I don't think any of us really does.

One (More)'s Too Many, And A Hundred's (Maybe) Not Enough

That awkward titular phrase (he said "tit")  has been bastardized from a famous (at least for me) quote from Ray Milland's character in The Lost Weekend.  Milland plays an alcoholic in the film, and he was referring to a drink when he uttered the line.  I'm thinking about birthdays.

I've got one coming soon, you see--actually on the day of my show this week, for the first time, so I'm definitely gonna make it there on Tuesday, goddammit.  And I'm writing about it for the same reason I laugh first, loudest and longest at anything I say that I think may be somewhat amusing: if I don't do it, maybe nobody else will, to paraphrase Dr. John.  And while I may marvel at the fact that I'm sixty one (looks less scary to write it out rather than using numerals), and bemoan the fact that that's my real age, I sure hope there'll be plenty more birthdays comin'.

As any of you who've known me for a while, or have read several of these posts, knows, I've been cursed with a heightened sense of the passage of time throughout my life.  From about the time I really understood that the rest of you are gonna die (still don't believe that'll happen to me), I've been freaked by the fleeting nature of life.  Curiously, though, as I've aged I've become less so:  I miss the slowed pace and seemingly endless days of childhood, true, but now, somewhere on the downslope of where my abilities really start to diminish: strength, stamina, mental acuity, ability to control drooling and other bodily fluid losses, before I start to lose my hair (What?  No, I think you're mistaken about that....),  I seem to be becoming more sanguine about the passage of time, about inevitability.  I've been blessed all my life by family, friends, loved ones, general life circumstances, am maybe even more so now, if that's possible, and so I'm just kinda rolling with it.  With the help of Depends (a trademarked product of Kimberly- Clark), even the actual golden part of the so-called Golden Years can be something to look forward to--or at least not something to be dreaded, as it used to be.

So here's to us all: I hope we can all enjoy the ride!

This week's playlist:

Caravan                                                                            Van Morrison
Birthday                                                                            Fabs
Birthday Boy                                                                    Ween
The Birthday Present II                                                    Loudon Wainwright
Birth Of The Blues                                                           Ray Charles
Listen To The Lion                                                          Van Morrison
Sweet And Shiny Eyes                                                     Bonnie Raitt
Have A Good Time                                                          Paul Simon
Born In Captivity                                                             Alpha Band
Born Alone                                                                       Wilco
Born At The Right Time                                                  Paul Simon
Born Secular                                                                    Jenny Lewis/Watson Twins
I Was Born                                                                       Natalie Merchant
Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise                    The Avett Brothers
All The Years                                                                   Beach House
On Saturday Afternoons In 1963                                     Rickie Lee Jones
Can't Outrun The Years                                                    Danny O'Keefe
Golden Years                                                                    David Bowie
As The Years Go Passing By                                           David Bromberg Band
Woman Of 1000 Years                                                     Fleetwood Mac
Worrisome Years                                                              Greg Brown
How Many More Years                                                    Howlin' Wolf
Come Up The Years                                                         Jefferson Airplane
Can't Turn Back The Years                                              John Martyn
For A Thousand Years                                                     Marc Johnson
Here We Are In The Years                                               Neil Young
Still Crazy After All These Years                                    Paul Simon
Reelin' In The Years                                                         Steely Dan
Losing All The Years                                                       Seatrain
Wasted Years                                                                    Van Morrison

Some of these songs obviously aren't, strictly speaking, about birthdays, or years, or that sort of thing.  Listen To The Lion, for example, has no apparent connection, except for the fact that I'm a Leo, and it's by Van, and The Avett Bros. thing gives a glimpse into my worldview/thought process; also, I don't hope, or expect, to live for a thousand years, but the Fleetwood Mac song (from the Danny Kirwan-led incarnation of that band) is simply gorgeous.  Anyway, c'mon along on Tuesday from noon till two on 91.5 FM, or wool.fm.  We're all in this together, after all.