Thursday music for your listening pleasure

Buddy Guy with David Myers (on bass) from the movie Chicago Blues (1970) --which I can not seem to locate, after much effort. Great 70s Chicago visuals!

Buddy Guy - First Time I Met The Blues



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I know I've shared this one before. Time for a reprise!

Cream - Born Under A Bad Sign



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Grateful Dead - Cassidy (Unplugged- Live) - 09/24/94 - Berkeley Benefit



One YouTube comment says this was actually a "Phil Lesh and friends" performance that included Bob, Jerry and Vince Welnick.

Wave that flag

US Blues - Grateful Dead (studio version)



Summertime
done come and gone
My oh my...

That's right, the women are smarter

Man Smart, Woman Smarter - Grateful Dead (Live 1985)



Music starts at about 1:25.

US Blues, update

What does one make of people who are poor and aging, yet apparently don't believe they will ever need health care that is currently priced way beyond their means? Is this garden-variety old-age denial or Tea Party-Republicanism run amok? Why would people be against their own interests? Is a party principle really more important than your life, or the lives of your loved ones?

As I see it, this is the crucial difference in the political debate right now. We are now arguing over our own lives, not some hypothetical situation that may or may not arise. And yet, here in the conservative south, poor people who consistently vote Republican continue making all manner of theoretical right-wing noise instead of fully comprehending that the wolf is at the door.

Example: I used to get out there and protest other people being unemployed, and now I am the one who is unemployed.

And maybe tomorrow, you will be.

This isn't academic. Not for me. It was, once, and now it is an immediate reality. What to do with people who refuse to see it that way? Who smugly believe they will stay employed, and receive the Social Security that they don't want other undeserving people to receive?

For instance, two people who made money off the GOVERNMENT, now say nobody else should: Michele Bachmann, ex-IRS stooge fattened off of farm subsidies (i.e. welfare) and our congressman, Trey Gowdy, who made his living as a prosecutor (with starring roles on FORENSIC FILES and DATELINE, for catching bad guys). How can Trey have a career in government while railing against the government that has fed and clothed him very well? Why does Michele want to cut off welfare for actual poor people, but she is allowed to rake in $251,973 of OUR hard-earned money? (screams)

I think this is called, talking out of both sides of your mouth. As Rand Paul treated patients funded through Medicaid, and made MONEY off of Medicaid, but now wants to limit/abolish it for others. (He's made his money, so now he's through with it. Nice work if you can get it!)

And Michele Bachmann wins the Iowa straw poll. (screams again for emphasis)

I'd love to hear some opinions about this rather twisted southern phenomenon, if you got any. For one thing, I'd like to know, is this sorry situation a purely southern one? Do any poor people besides southern whites consistently vote against themselves?

It's enough to make you tear your hair out.

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Great introductory animation on this one! Enjoy!

US Blues - Grateful Dead



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And just listen to this! I have no idea where or when it was recorded, but I would say from the looks of their hair (touch of gray, ha) that it was late 80s/early 90s.

Star Spangled Banner - Grateful Dead



Jokey comments about how they couldn't let Phil sing for this one, LOL.

Monday Music: Brokedown Palace

Not the best version; looks odd but historically fascinating. Weird pseudo-psychedelic visuals. European or Australian TV? (Does not look familiar as a USA-based show.) Personnel, older (and generally disheveled) musical arrangement, as well as Bobby's hair suggest this was the very early 70s.

"Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul."

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Brokedown Palace - Grateful Dead

Monday music: Let the Good Times Roll

Judging from appearances, I'd say this is from the late 80s, but no way to be certain. (I invite all deadhead-readers to jump in with chronological estimates.) Bobby is wearing some extremely dorky short-shorts. The late Brent Mydland is on keyboards, which means this performance was recorded before July 1990.

I don't know where this concert venue is, but the crowd is ENORMOUS!

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Grateful Dead - Let the Good Times Roll

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile

The graphic at left, in whatever form, is called a STEALIE. It was designed by none other than Stanley Owsley himself. [EDIT, in comments, Doc Anchovy has helpfully pointed out that I reversed the famous acid-chemist's name, which is Owsley Stanley. His acid was named simply "Owsley"--so I tend to forget that was not his surname. --Daisy]

The word "stealie" comes from the line "steal your face right off your head"--a trick only Deadheads know how to do. :)

The line is at 1:10 and 5:30 in the following song, if you don't want to listen to the whole thing.

Recorded in 1972 in Denmark. Once again, Bobby looks about 14. Phil, about 16. (Jerry was born looking 40... sigh.)

He's Gone - Grateful Dead



I hope the last thing I ever hear on this planet is the reedy, tweedly-tweedly introductory-riff of this song. I have probably heard it 50,000 times, and yet, the riff embeds itself DEEP into my cerebral cortex and makes me SMILE SMILE SMILE just like a Stealie. :D

I have always loved the fact that the song makes no rational sense. Life isn't always sensible, you know!

The second line is the name of my archives (sidebar at right) also. I thought naming it simply "archives" was boring.

For you old Ms. message-board denizens, my name on Ms. was...

China Cat Sunflower - Grateful Dead



It is considered musical blasphemy that the previous clip does not automatically segue into I Know You Rider--they were always performed together and therefore known as "China/Rider" by fans. (YouTube is too TIME-LIMITED to contain the magical force that was the Grateful Dead!)

Someone helpfully continued the second half (the full China/Rider, containing finale, here):

I Know you Rider - Grateful Dead



Listen to the signature loop-de-loop riff that signals the song's end, no matter how long they jam. It's at about 4 minutes. Rumbly, doodle-doodle bass by Phil, with the transcendent riff sliding right over it. It's traced on my cerebellum forever!

And yeah, you're right, we do miss you, Grandpa Jerry. At least we can still listen.

Enjoy!

Rightwing Deadheads pt 2--update

Thanks to my fancy-shmancy new IP address blocker (see bottom of page, right)--whenever my rightwing Deadhead troll (who likes to call Barack Obama a prick) shows up, he automatically gets redirected to here:

Barack Obama for President!

Is that funny or what?!?

And along these lines, I've noticed that whenever you look up old Grateful Dead stuff on YouTube, you get this very timely and necessary political announcement:




UP YOUR ASSES, RIGHTWING DEADHEADS!!!! :)

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Listening to: Grateful Dead - Row Jimmy
via FoxyTunes

Odds and Sods: Stella Blue edition

Left: borrowed from the BBC.

Lina at Uncool brings us the very first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy which really does rock, friends and neighbors. Don't miss it. Although from what I hear, Lina's already getting hits through the roof. And that's GREAT!

Go have a look, and open your eyes.

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Plains Feminist has a great guest post by activist Ricky Baldwin, titled The Election and Progressive Politics, which started some rather interesting and politically-intricate conversations between me and Mr Daisy. Excerpt:

So I'm saying I'd vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination? Of course – if it seemed close in Illinois, [Ricky's home - PF] I'd vote for Donald Duck if he ran as a viable candidate. I worked on Hillary Clinton’s first campaign in New York because she was running against a rightwing nut. But I think you can tell by now I hope she doesn't get it. (I voted for Obama in the primary, just to minimize Hillary's delegates relative to Obama. My man Kucinich was out by then.) The policies of the last eight years at least must be repudiated, but a vote for Clinton doesn't really accomplish that all that well. Oh, I've heard all the arguments, most of which aren't serious. She's a woman – yes, and so was Thatcher. She's earned it (!) – and what have the American people earned? (Obama, by the way, has a much better record of working for the good and welfare.) Oh, yes, and speaking of arguments for Hillary that make no sense, there's one that needs special attention. I'll quote a friend of mine who's in charge of the excellent news service justforeignpolicy.org. After Hillary repeated Bush’s transparent lie that Saddam Hussein kicked out the weapons inspectors (the US withdrew them, preparing to bomb), my friend quipped: "Hillary, ready to lie from Day 1." Indeed.

Sure, she's familiar with all the (evil) people. She's comfy sending planes to bomb women, children and sick people for elite purposes. And she'd have no problem selling out health care or whatever interest of the poor/working class comes before her, if it helped her stay in office or in some other way. I'm sure her reputation as a ruthless negotiator is well deserved, and her corporate clients were happy with her, but is that a pattern we want her to continue in the White House? The world needs something very different, and it's up to US citizens – who are the only ones who get to vote, unfortunately – to get the most we can out of our government.

What we need, of course, is an immediate withdrawal of all US troops and reparations to Iraq and Afghanstan, unconditional release of all POWs and reparations to their families, closure and evacuation of Guantanamo Bay as well as the School of the Americas and all US military bases around the world. We need to stop backing Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and other repressive states and instead start standing up for what we say we support – democracy – even if the results are not what we'd like. We need someone who will fight for single-payer healthcare, a living wage, free abortion on demand and gay marriage (if we can't get the state out of the marriage business altogether). We need the right of civilian review for every person who alleges mistreatment by any law enforcement rep. We need to put an end to corporate welfare and reverse the policy that corporations are people with Constitutional rights (it would probably take an amendment). And so many other things that we will not get. But we have an obligation, on behalf of all the less powerful people of the world, to get what we can. Our comfort levels as voters, our disgust, our desires to touch symbolic base and feel good about ourselves, are nothing beside the deep suffering that so many billions on the planet endure largely at the hands of a world order dominated by our government.

The good news is, the Dems have a decent chance of winning, and both at least promise to get out of Iraq – eventually – tho I'm sure they'll maintain that gargantuan military base there and the 'quagmire' will continue. I doubt either one would hack away at welfare much more – Bill did enuf – or follow Bush-Cheney on international agreements like the Kyoto Accords, etc. We might even get a decent land-mine treaty! But will we get another Kosovo in Sudan? Maybe Iraq has lefta bad enuf taste to prevent it, if we fight. And hopefully we can get someone decent on the Supreme Court in the next four years. (Four is about all we can hope for; we have to make hay while the sun shines, like the Republicans do and the Dems usually don't.)

At this point, I'm pretty nervous that all of this Democratic infighting, coupled with shameful media fawning over John McCain, will cost us the election outright.

There are many such changes that we need, and campaigns for any of them would be well worth our time. But elections will not get them for us – and this one may yet prove that to some of us. The work we need to be about is much less glamorous. It involves knocking on doors, talking on the phone when you'd rather be chillin, talking to people sometimes awkwardly outside activist circles, sitting in long meetings, speaking up "even when your voice shakes," tolerating quirky people with strange ideas, and sometimes a lot of study (newspapers, voting records, etc.). It involves some flexibility, too, especially when two or more good causes compete or conflict, and yet some focus to remember our basic purposes and the people who need change the most. Whatever we do, however we disagree, I hope we always keep them in mind.

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And did I mention media fawning over McCain? I thought the media was supposed to be liberal? What exactly is GOING ON with the brazen McCain/media love affair?

Neal Gabler astutely takes on the subject in the New York Times. Gabler says "What is less obvious, however, is exactly why the press swoons for him." I've been confused by it for quite some time now:

Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.

Of course this is not how the press typically talks about Mr. McCain. The conventional analysis of his press popularity begins with his military service. If campaigns are primarily about narratives, he has a good and distinguished one, and it would take a very curmudgeonly press corps to dismiss it, even though that is exactly what a good portion of it did to Senator John Kerry’s service record in 2004. Reporters also often cite Mr. McCain’s bonhomie as the reason for their affection. As Ryan Lizza described it last month in The New Yorker, a typical campaign day has Mr. McCain rumbling from one stop to another on his bus, the Straight Talk Express, sitting in the rear on a horseshoe-shaped leather couch surrounded by reporters and talking “until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”

The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, citing the conviviality during the 2000 campaign, wrote that “a trip on his bus is, well, a trip.” And as the party master, Mr. McCain is no longer the reporters’ subject. He is their pal.

While other candidates have tried to schmooze reporters this way without success, what has made Mr. McCain’s fraternization so effective is that it comes with candor — or at least the illusion of it. Over the years, reporter after reporter has remarked upon his seemingly unguarded frankness. In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “While McCain continues examining his flaws, the reporters on the bus are getting a bit edgy. Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?”

Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself!

Indeed. I agree with Gabler that the media-crush has plenty to do with McCain's self-deprecating sense of humor, notably shared by his main cheerleader, my own Senator Lindsey Graham. Gabler continues:

This sort of disdain might be called a liberal view, if not politically then culturally. The notion that our system (in fact, life itself) is faintly imbecilic is a staple of “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “Real Time With Bill Maher” and other liberal exemplars, though they, of course, implicate the press in the idiocy. Mr. McCain’s sense of irony makes him their spiritual kin — a cosmological liberal — which may be why conservatives distrust him and liberals like Jon Stewart seem to revere him. They are reacting to something deeper than politics. They are reacting to his vision of how the world operates and to his attitude about it, something it is easy to suspect he acquired while a prisoner of war.

Though Mr. McCain can be the most self-deprecating of candidates (yet another reason the news media love him), his vision of the process also betrays an obvious superiority — one the mainstream political news media, a group of liberal cosmologists, have long shared. If in the past he flattered the press by posing as its friend, he is now flattering it by posing as its conspirator, a secret sharer of its cynicism. He is the guy who “gets it.” He sees what the press sees. Michael Scherer, a blogger for Time, called him the “coolest kid in school.”

The candidates who are dead serious about politics, even wonkish, get abused by the press for it. Mr. McCain the ironist gets heaps of affection.

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Feeling bloody resentful that I couldn't go to the Women, Action and Media conference this past weekend, like the 'big bloggers'--but I suppose them's the breaks. I comfort myself knowing several of the "right" people (people like us! haha!) were in attendance.

Please check out Brownfemipower's speech, given at WAM, which sums up certain concepts I have NOT seen mainstream feminism address in a good long while. Are we "citizens" first, or women first? To me, that's not a hard question, but I think it may well have shocked a few of her listeners. Go BFP! (Any other WAM commenters and contributors? Leave a link if possible.)

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PS: Bob Weir is getting out the vote wherever he goes, and so should YOU!
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Listening to: Grateful Dead - Stella Blue
via FoxyTunes

Sold Out Already!

Left: Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, photo by Herb Greene.


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I got home from work late this evening, and found hits on my blog for "Deadheads for Obama"... and I thought, oh how cool. That would be me!

Wait, all these hits?

Curious, I went over to trusty Dead.net and yeah! All right! (Sometimes, you are just so damned proud to be one.)

Here is the press release in its entirety. I guess they sold out in like five minutes or something?

I'll be listening; yall have a good time and be excellent to each other.


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DEADHEADS FOR OBAMA AT THE WARFIELD JUST ANNOUNCED!

DEADHEADS FOR OBAMA

featuring
BOB WEIR, MICKEY HART, PHIL LESH & FRIENDS

The Warfield Theatre
San Francisco, CA
Monday, February 4, Doors 6:00 PM/ Show 7:30PM
Tickets are $35.00 general admission (main floor) and $35.00 (balcony) plus applicable service charges...all ages
Two-ticket limit per person.
Tickets will be available through Ticketmaster.com ONLY.
Will Call only event.
::Map The Theater



Grateful Dead Members to Reunite for Barack Obama

(San Francisco) Members of the Grateful Dead will host a get out the vote concert in support of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday, February 4th at The Warfield Theatre in San Francisco.

Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir, joined by Jackie Greene, John Molo, and Steve Molitz, will play the show together in support of Barack Obama.

The video website Iclips will be producing a live simulcast streamed via the Internet on www.iclips.net at approximately 7:30pm PST.

This will mark the first time that the members of the legendary band have performed together since 2004. They have agreed to reunite for this one-time-only event in order to lend support to Senator Obama leading into the crucial “Super-Tuesday” series of primaries held on Tuesday, February 5th.

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Listening to: Grateful Dead - China Cat Sunflower
via FoxyTunes

Feast of St Stephen

This one goes out to everyone who ever wondered who Good King Wenceslas was (St Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, 907-935 AD), or what the "Feast of Stephen" in the song referred to. The Feast of St Stephen is today, December 26 (also Chairman Mao's birthday, for interested parties), which is how Good King Wenceslas got to be a Christmas Carol. In Canada and other countries, today is known as Boxing Day, a day to give alms to the poor, as Good King Wenceslas does in the song. (In my saltier moments, I have wondered if the US doesn't celebrate Boxing Day because nobody believes in giving to the poor.)

And what kind of Deadhead would I be, if I didn't post ST STEPHEN? The best short (operative word, SHORT) musical version I found was recorded in 1969, and both Bob and Jerry look like teenagers (except Jerry looks like an exceptionally hairy teenager). It was recorded for Playboy After Dark, which isn't optimal, but whatcha gonna do?

St Stephen was martyred in the New Testament. Because he is what is often called a "Biblical saint" (meaning his sainthood was "grandfathered in" and he didn't need to undergo the usual canonization process) I thought it would be safe to wish another Christian a happy St Stephen's Day today. Ha! Dream on, Daisy! John Knox spins in his grave! The Christian-in-question bit my head off in the usual Calvinist style. Honestly, I'd like to know what they put in the water over there at Bob Jones University, which seems to make the people 1) stupid and 2) terribly unhappy.

This conversation broke out into a rather heated theological discussion that seemed to leave everyone around us alternately freaked-out and awestruck, but I'll be DAMNED if I will allow some FUNDIE KNOW-IT-ALL who is studying to be another CLUELESS PREACHER (as if we don't have enough preachers around here as it is) tell me all kindsa bullshit about "epistemology"--a word they have apparently just learned over at BJU, since I've heard it from two of them now.

The discussion ended up with young Preacher-Man self-righteously informing me I was not WORTHY (shades of Wayne's World!) to hear the Gospel. I guess he doesn't think I've heard it already, or not the CORRECT one, in any event. He said he'd visit here to argue with me further, and I wouldn't underestimate him. ZEAL is the brother's middle name. He is right, everyone else (except for John Calvin and Bob Jones, one assumes) is wrong, and that's that.

And then, I remembered the day itself; I thought of St Stephen:

Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept [it].

When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with [their] teeth.

But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord

And cast [him] out of the city, and stoned [him]: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon [God], and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

--Acts 7: 52-60 (KJV)

Who is now doing the stoning? It's interesting to read this, in our modern times. Who are the people doing the judging? Who are the people deciding that other people are not good enough, or (ahem) WORTHY enough?

The Calvinist fundamentalists would have stoned St Stephen, as surely as they now have no need for his feast day.

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

Saint Stephen will remain
All he's lost he shall regain
Seashore washed by the suds and the foam
Been here so long he's got to calling it home

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Grateful Dead - St Stephen

[via FoxyTunes / Grateful Dead]

One More Saturday Night

Bob Weir looks like he's about 14 here. Yow!

Enjoy it, people! Party on! :)


PS: Did you remember to turn your clock back?

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Grateful Dead - One More Saturday Night 4/17/72

[via FoxyTunes / Grateful Dead]