if you don’t like this one, you are an absolute scrooge…
this is from bob’s album-for-charity ‘christmas in the heart’…
here are two of the nearly 500 comments on youtube about the video:
The more uncooler Bob gets, the cooler he becomes!
This is so weird and wonderfull! Dylans nightmare polka christmas..
thanks to my daughter rebecca for sharing this with me.
eat your heart out, perry como…
well, sarah and i spent last weekend down at grandma and grandpa’s.
and i got to hear my niece hayley playing flute.
i was actually quite impressed.
sadly, though, my sister – hayley’s mother – has yet, for some unknown reason, failed to turn hayley on to someone who no doubt would quickly become her musical idol were she to invest a few minutes taking in the brilliance of the following youtube clips.
so, hayley, i have the supreme honor of presenting to you mr. ian anderson and his multitudinous and voluminous talents.
the first video is a fairly recent clip. it shows ian the elder statesman playing a couple of tunes with an orchestra at a Christmas gathering three years ago.
the second is ian in his prime – the showman and the entertainer as much as the breathy flautist. here he is doing the ian-flute-solo thing before 40- or 50- or 60- or 70,000 tull fans at tampa stadium. tull was huge in the mid-70s, selling out five consecutive 20,000-in-attendance-each-show nights at the la forum and three at madison square garden on one tour. hayley, make sure you watch the whole thing – i expect a note-for-note and growl-for-growl rendition the next time i’m in perry…
and, finally, a clip from the 1978 madison square garden dvd i mentioned a few posts back. this is ‘the middle part’ of ‘thick as a brick’ – and you should log onto amazon immediately after watching these clips to order a copy of both the taab CD and the msg dvd.
(using kelly’s credit card, of course…)
oh, and tell your momma two things: one, i haven’t bought the msg dvd yet; and, two, my birthday is in six weeks.
one more thing: click here for ian’s discussion of the flutes he uses.
enjoy.
review of october 7th ian anderson / tull lite show in chicago here…
a thought or six about the recent elections. this week was…
(a) a strong victory for republicans…
…or maybe against democrats;
…or perhaps against whomever is in charge;
…or possibly against politics as usual;
…or for talk radio;
…or for vocal bloggers like this one and this one;
…or maybe for the i-got-mine-you-get-yours way of selfish living;
…or against health-care reform;
…or against any belief that independents really are;
…or perhaps for politicians in politics who can convince people that they are fimrly against politics as usual even though they’ve been the usual politicians for years before this political election;
(b) proof that if you scream loud enough;
…and are bitter enough;
…and find ‘facts’ that aren’t necessarily true, but just true enough;
…and appeal to white voters enough;
…and twist reality enough;
…and avoid the real root causes of problems enough;
…and scream against top-down socialism, and say nothing of bottom up socialism (ie, the obviously increasing wage gap of the past decade), enough;
…you can win elections.
(c) evidence that those in power become complacent, and need to wake up to the power held by the slew of vitiriolic, name-calling, know-it-all talk radio brats, especially when coupled with the army of similarly narrow-minded screamers in the blogosphere;
(d) educational, at least to the extent that a just-elected President should try to focus on one or two important issues, and not try to be everything to everyone;
(e) a reminder that people have extremely limited memories, and can be convinced – or convince themselves – of even the most naive beliefs, such as the belief that someone holding the steering wheel for a few months is responsible for a world-wide calamity that happened long before his watch;
(f) a notice to the democrats: you better not sit comfortably on last year’s victories.
small mind, big head
i went ahead and bought glenn beck’s book, “arguing with idiots: how to stop small minds and big government”. so far, i have listened to a half-hour or so of it. quite entertaining, as i expected, since he’s an entertainer, regardless of the prophet-like status that others give him and all the other endlessly opinionating hosts on talk radio and tv.
now, i must say that he makes some good points – he just doesn’t make them very well, at least according to my endlessly opinionating blog on wordpress.com.
capitalism was the subject of the initial section that i read listened to. of course, he never defines what his idea of ‘capitalism’ is. and though he never says so outright, by ‘capitalism’ he no doubt means ‘unregulated capitalism’, ie, that any government involvement should be frowned upon.
and, of course, that the rich should be allowed to continue increasing the gap between themselves and the poor – as they have the last decade.
and that tax cuts should continue since they obviously make the economy stronger, as bush’s tax cuts did the past decade, as proven by the fact that, at the end of his administration…
… the world economy went into the toilet.
wait … beck doesn’t mention that…
anyway, according to glenn, any government involvement in business is bad, and it has always been bad. while he may dance around it a little, what he really is saying is that the only government involvement that he deems required/ allowed/ legislated is that of which he approves.
now, here’s something that sounds like an arrogant, grossly-overstated, hyperbolic, completely-biased – ie, something that sean hannity might say, were he on the real right side of the argument – comment: every paragraph – if not every sentence – has an immediate, logical, rational argument that invalidates it. seriously. i was listening to the book on my ipod, piling some dead limbs in the area next to the field by my house – talking out loud as i usually do – and EVERY argument he raises falls into one of several categories:
a) a mistruth, shaded with humor;
b) a contradiction, shaded with humor;
c) a false – or overly narrow – conclusion from the evidence presented, shaded with humor;
d) a conclusion which has implications he avoids admitting (like, for example, christians don’t recognize they do with their belief in an eternal, burning hell holding billions of people), shaded with humor;
e) the presentation of an a priori idea he wants to get across with punctuated examples as justification (which any student of logic knows can never prove a point).
oh yeah, and shaded with humor.
‘c’mon, mike – you can’t be serious.’
i am completely serious. i even wrestled with doing a line-by-line critique here.
but here’s the thing: my criticism is not so much a jab at glenn as it is a jab at glenn’s listeners and, unfortunately, believers in the snake oil he sells. and, more importantly, it’s a criticism of anyone who argues his position has all the answers.
the answer, as always, lies in the middle of the extremes.
in one section, he argues that amtrak and the postal service are perfect examples of why government should never be involved in setting profits or prices. of course, he never mentions the public service commissions that need to be in place to ensure that localities have regulated power and water.
his argument is that it’s greed, not capitalism, that is the culprit. he cites enron as a perfect poster-boy for unfettered greed and how it gives capitalism a bad name.
yes, enron.
ENRON?!?!?
while enron is certainly a picture of greed’s evils, it is also most certainly an argument for how government regulation should play a part in setting limits and implementing auditing processes where needed. of course, when you have no regulation, and something like enron happens, on top of worldcom, on top of andersen, you wind up with reactionary policies like sarbanes-oxley… and, oddly enough, the blame for that over-regulation lays squarely at the feet of the no-regulation crowd, because when you don’t have ANY regulation, you generally wind up with TOO MUCH regulation when all is said and done.
like the basis for real estate’s worth (location, location, location) beck’s argument during the first hour or so i’ve listened to is that (a) government is bad; (b) government is bad; and, (c) government is bad. if not that, it’s ‘let the private sector be – it can take care of what it needs to because it “answers to shareholders”‘. if only. unless by shareholders he means huge investment firms and poorly regulated banks. it has been a LONG time since public companies answered to ANYONE like an individual shareholder.
he offers lots of contradictions. if they truly go unnoticed by the beck-worshippers, it makes me think even less of their logical faculties. (and i already score them pretty darn low.) for instance, in one breath he argues that people are good and they come together in times of emergencies, ie, we don’t need government stepping in like fema did in the wake of katrina. why? because people who were in prison, and dead, and buying porn took money from fema.
in other words, his argument is:
(a) people are good, and will come to another’s aid; and,
(b) people are bad, and will take everything they can get.
i’d put money on the latter. fema money, anyway…
(now, the proper conclusion beck should make is that we truly don’t need the response fema delivered, not that we don’t need fema…)
he makes one argument that’s interesting, how a minimum-wage worker in the fifties, holding one summer job, could buy one or two of the latest-and-greatest consumer appliances of his day, but the same worker in the 21st century could buy a computer, a dvd player, an ipod, a microwave, etc etc etc. – basically an endless list of toys. his argument, of course, is that capitalism, left to run its own course, will make products better, cheaper and faster (as my daddy used to say in relation to the work he did).
now, capitalism is responsible for some of these technical achievements. as someone who has been in the field of technology for thirty years, and watched closely how things have changed in that period, it’s been remarkable what’s been accomplished.
but ‘unfettered capitalism’ isn’t the only conclusion to be drawn. further, this isn’t – directly – the only point he wants his statement to make. as much as it pains us to admit it, the ability to produce most of those high-tech goods in a better, and cheaper, and faster way is really the success of the…
…japanese.
and if you think japan is a bastion of ‘unfettered capitalism’, you are ridiculously naive. japan has, in effect, a ruling class of people that owns the bulk of the japanese people as serfs in their kingdom. it’s a place, truly, where the rich get richer.
gasp! what does that sound like, glenn? america? the circles you run it? the ones who really prosper in america these days?
say it ain’t so.
but his point is also an indirect jab at people who want to raise the minimum wage. “hey – they can buy all they want! they don’t need more money…”
never mind the racist implications there.
and, in implying that it’s wrong and ineffectual to give everyone $50,000, he avoids putting real names and faces on the statement. why not say, “my friend, john – who has profited immensely from tax cuts aimed at the wealthy, and who got his cut off the top before he and those like him plunged the world into financial chaos, and who, because he’s white, can still get credit to fund further endeavors, and who owns a fantastic mansion because he was able to get a nice mortgage – john just doesn’t feel he should have to give part of all that excess to people struggling to get by.”
of course, what’s worse is that, underneath it all, he’s really saying that it’s ineffectual because those at the bottom end, even if they are given $50,000, will blow it and mismanage it and, because of their inherent lack of motiviation and inability to be successful, fritter it away until they are back where they started.
all of the ‘government is bad – capitalism can do things by itself’ folks who may appear to be making a straightforward, understandable argument are really being quite selective in the ‘truth’ they want you to believe. what they conventiently ignore is that the people driving capitalism were likely educated in GOVERNMENT schools, drive to work on GOVERNMENT-built roads, drive with GOVERNMENT-issued drivers licenses, feel safe because of GOVERNMENT-employed policemen, share 3-martini lunches and non-lethal food because of GOVERNMENT regulations issued and enforced by the fda, are able to sue everyone and their brother because of GOVERNMENT-run courts and justices, are able to do business because of GOVERNMENT-provided exchanges…
… need i go on?
so there. that’s beck’s book.
at least the first part of the first chapter. i’ll likely continue reading it.
for entertainment purposes.
but nothing else.
here’s my first attempt at rap (and last,too, i think…). i wrote this in the late 80s. i volunteered to be united way captain for the company i was working at – basically hand out forms, nag people to give, say ‘thank you’ to those that do, and give a face saying ‘you greedy sob’ to those that don’t. anyway, we had a speaker from one of the local charities come talk to a large group of people in our auditorium, and this was played over the sound system as the first part of the ’show’. i instructed everyone how to say ‘huh!’ at my direction at the appropriate times. they did well.
(for those too young to remember, see this link for the bakker reference and this one – the note for 1987 – for oral roberts…)
the united way rap
the united way rap
i got a big paycheck
but i’m a nervous wreck
cause i don’t know how to spend it
i got a helpin’ hand
don’t ya understand
but i’m not sure how to lend it
i need simplicity
in my charity
the givin’ must be easy, ok?
so listen’ up ya hear
cuz the answer is clear
i give it the united waynow the folks from united
would be just delighted
if you’d help them out in doin’ good
you don’t have to be vocal
they keep the money local
helpin’ out in the neighborhood
they help unwed mothers
give kids big brothers
show lotsa folksa brighter day
give big give small
it don’t hurt at all
donatin’ the united waynow don’t be rude or crude
or have a bad attitude
when you’re asked to help someone else
your luck may go bad
you lose all that you had
and you cannot even help yourself
collection men will be sent
and say, ‘your check has been spent!’
‘fore you ever even get to payday
so think about it with us
and be generous
cause we’re workin’ the united waywe won’t twist your arm
or cause you any harm
if you say ‘no’ to our solicitation
but now ponder still
if we don’t help, who will
aid these folks in their desparation?
we want her to say ‘yes!’
and him ‘i guess…’
and buckwheat to say ‘otay!
God has blessed us good
and we all should
be givin’ the united way!’now there’s lotsa fancy men who givin’ the time
will take you for your very last nickel and dime
they say ‘you’ll feel good buyin’ a rolls for me’
(play Pass The Loot with jimmy and tammy b)
but the folks today from the united way
are simply nicely askin’ for a bit of your pay
fillin’ out the little form is all ya havta do
you’ll be helpin’ lotsa people, get a tax deduction tooso just a little share
you tell us what is far
this ain’t no guilt abduction
you just sign up you see
we take it painlessly
through a payroll … deduction
i ain’t tryin’ ta preach
but there’s a goal to reach
fifteen million bucks is what we seek
and oral’s here to report
that if we’re too far short
we’ll all be called to heaven next week
copyright 1988 ruckersongs. all rights reserved. void where prohibited. do not take while driving or operating heavy machinery.
another oldie but i-think-it’s-goodie… this song is actually about death and dying. i wrote it while a student at georgia tech – probably in 1982 or 1983. this recording is from 1986 or 1987. my wife calls this ‘jonathan livingstone seagull’ because she said the keyboard part in the middle sounded like flying.
made me think of a lost co-worker today.
sunrise / a morning in flight
sunrise / a morning in flight
sunrise a sign of ending
but just as well a sign of new
over horizons its rays bending
back the blackened blue
and with the long night’s hold now ceasing
i’m free to leave my earthly home
and i can see new life beginning
this bird has flownso let the morning break – let the dawn awake
let the day begin
my world is at peace – a picture of hope
a morning in flight
and watch me rising high – because i know the sky
must be my chosen goal
i soar with great peace and glide with great might
i’m reading to take a morning in flightsunrise a sign of waking
but just as well a sign to sleep
the dawn and dusk as one forsaking
all who journey deep
i first took wing some years ago
and now i find my strength in air
for justice comes – i learn, i grow
in the day ever fairso let the morning break…
sunrise a time for living
but just as well a time to die
a tender tear is shed in giving
but do not cry
for there are joyous lines dividing
life from death and here from there
i’ll heed the call for all abiding
souls to take the airso let the morning break…
a morning in flight
a morning in flight
copyright 1982-3 (?) ruckersongs. all rights reserved. void where prohibited. do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
it’s funny how pondering things that likely happen in the brain around addiction opens a new awareness about who we are (i am). one of the things we never, ever think about is that everything we ‘think’ is, at its most basic level, a physical process in our brains. we tend to think ‘thought’ is some kind of ethereal, spirit-or-demon-inspired action – as if we ‘hear’ voices, and somehow that’s enough to get ‘thoughts on paper’ as it were.
obviously, it’s nothing of the sort.
addiction involves a rewiring of the brain through repeated actions to the point that it’s second nature.
addiction is almost like … addition (no ‘c’).
think about it (pun intended): how much trouble do we have with 2+2? we see it; we automatically ‘know’ it’s four. did the ‘holy spirit’ or ’satan’ whisper in our ears and give us that ‘knowledge’? (will ‘every’ word in this ‘post’ be in ‘quotes’?…)
no – it’s something we’ve used thousands of times in our lives.
it’s like a dirt path that initially is made through grass and gets more and more defined and widened – and used – as time goes by.
now think (pun intended) about algebra.
in 8th or 9th grade (or 10th, if the dirt path remained grass too long) we did algebra homework, we worked algebra problems on the whitechalkboard, we tried as best we could to ‘pull it all from memory’ at test time.
but suppose i handed you an algebra test today.
how would you do?
that algebra wiring began … and the path started being made through the grass … as you learned the subject. but then you stopped going that way, and walked elsewhere.
‘and the weeds grew up…’, as it’s said. and your algebra faculties faded. but they didn’t completely go away – you can start working algebra problems today, and slowly some of it ‘will come back’ to you. probably not all of it – i’d wager we’d still fail the test – but we wouldn’t be completely ‘elpness without our spec-a-tacles.
here’s another twist: some people seem to have an easier time with algebra. perhaps even an easier time with learning in general. and some people work and work and work at it and are able to get past their inability to effectively grasp the concepts, to the point where they ace the test – while those who didn’t work much still get by with C’s and D’s.
and some even work little but still get a’s.
(me.)
obviously, all of this is somehow in the physical brain.
so tie that to addiction.
substance abuse is a re-wiring in the ‘pleasure center’ of the brain – brain scans quite clearly and demonstrably show this. over time, and over extended use, that ‘path’ gets worn through the ‘grass’ (pun intended), and becomes a common route used by the brain owner.
also, some brains do their re-wiring quite easily and quickly. i’ve always thought that people in aa and na circles are smarter than your average bear. it’s most obviously revealed in how, perhaps only initially, addicts are able to do the manipulation and substance procurement games we had to do to keep using. so perhaps the brain’s ability to re-wire itself isn’t confined to one area, but happens everywhere physically: academics, work…
…alcohol and drug use.
and those brains that don’t re-wire that quickly? maybe, like the kid studying, studying, studying – ie, drinking, drinking, drinking – the path is sufficiently worn so that, well, the addict learns to ‘pass the test’.
that test, of course, becomes the entrance exam on the application to join a 12-step program du jour.
the ability to quickly re-wire itself may be what some understand as a ‘genetic predisposition’ to addiction.
so a situation arises – balancing a checkbook, figuring out if everyone can fit in a car, a simple task at work – and the brain reacts by heading down the path it’s been so many times before.
it knows ‘2+2=4′ almost by instinct.
so a situation arises – stress, isolation, depression – and the brain reacts by heading down the path it’s been down so many times before.
it knows ‘i need (insert one) a drink/a drug/sex’ almost by instinct.
and it knows it too late to adequately use the ‘good judgment’ part of the brain to arrest the thought.
compounding the problem is that the main re-wiring for substance use is in what is called the ‘animal’ part of the brain. this part handles ’survival instincts’ – reproduction, obtaining food and water, rearing offspring – ie, a few things that ensure the propagation of the species – ie, drives that need to happen without a directly wired ability to resist or suppress them. (ht to dr. bedi at trc)
yikes. alcohol and drugs, then, become as needed as food and water. and, unfortunately, there’s no direct link from the human/ rational/ analytical part of the brain to try to resist or repress them.
see the problem? those ‘instincts’ come up, and there’s little on the willpower or thought side set up in the brain to thwart the urge to drink or drug.
and imagine sexual addiction – sex is already an instinct and an urge. and when that path gets further worn…
double yikes.
and here’s another interesting piece of the puzzle: in aa, you always hear it said that “if you stop drinking for awhile, you will pick up right where you left off if you start drinking again. it’s almost like you never stopped at all.”
kind of like algebra coming back to you from 8th grade…
further, one of the reasons that 90-day treatment programs – aside from the financial benefit to treatment centers – is seen more and more as the minimum required duration for success is likely because it gives time for the brain to grow back a little grass on the well-trod paths. curiously, aa and na have always told newcomers to go to ‘ninety meetings in ninety days.’
perhaps they knew from experience what was effective even without knowing what happens physically in the brain.
quite interesting.
you know, it even makes sense.
if you ‘think’ about it, that is…
(of course, if algebra tends to re-wire the pleasure center in your brain, you have bigger problems than alcohol and drugs…)
a couple more from the old (mid-late 80s) days…
crossroads is one of my favorites – i like the lyrics, i like the guitar part, it’s fun to play. it was one of those come-all-at-once songs – i seem to remember writing it in the back bedroom of our house in scottsdale, lyric/guitar/melody pretty much arriving from the muses in one package. it’s obviously not from my brain, since IT DOESN’T EVEN RHYME… (gasp!)
if any song is my ’signature’ song – and, just so we’re clear, none of them really are – it would be christmas candles. this is a song that has that ’something special’ thing about it. the only song i ever had published, it always resonates with people. this recording is pretty good, though i think it’s a more powerful song with just guitar and vocal.
crossroads
christmas candles
crossroads
what’s right and what is wrong?
i’ve asked it oh so many times
i never reach decisions
that are quite what they should be
there’s always one true answer
if you listen
ask for help when you’re standing
at the crossroadsi put my faith in knowledge
that i’ve gathered through the years
facts number in the millions
but they just get in the way
my pride and my knees
are still too tender
bow your head when you’re standing
at the crossroadsi hold out to the end
i try to make it on my own
but the darkness gets so deep
that i can’t even see my hands
and they’ll never
point the right direction
reach them out when you’re standing
at the crossroads
at the crossroads
at the crossroads
at the crossroads
christmas candles
the din of the day
had now faded away
the stores closed their doors for the night
the window sill candles
were fading each taking
a bit of the last evening light
one Passerby waited
and looked at the trees
that my young master had grown
from all of the ones
that He could buy
it was me that He picked for His ownHe dressed me in garland
of finest gold
and silver tinsel strands
and candles to shine
through the dark winter’s night
He set into each of my hands
and He placed at the highest
point of my life
an angel to watch over me
and i glowed in its warmth
knowing i had become
my Lord’s own Christmas treei would shine in the evening
when people would pass
by the window where i was displayed
i would draw wide the curtain
glowing proudly and certain
that none was as richly arrayed
and with Christmas approaching
my place seemed secure
my Lord laid His gifts at my feet
no two were the same
each one had my name
my candles shone bright in the streetand brightly adorned
i stood through the days
til the end of the season drew near
but my strength seemed to dim
like my thoughts of Him
and i lost my Christmas cheer
and the lights and the bows
pulled my branches low
at my feet lay the limbs i had lost
my candles’ flames faded fast
as my heart
turned cold as december’s frostthe chapel bells rang
morning dawned
sunrise pushed back the night*
my Lord came to see
His sad Christmas tree
gone were the flames of candlelight*
and i hung my head shamed
awaiting blame
for what i had or had not done
He just smiled as the candles
that i had let die
were again lit by Him one by one* lyrics are always changing…
copyright 1986-7 (?) ruckersongs. all rights reserved. void where prohibited. do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
i’ve been watching this all weekend on a tape i recorded from a pbs special the other night. the clips in the special were from the other side of the mirror – about dylan at newport in 1965.
this version of ‘it’s all over now baby blue’ is just mesmerizing. dylan had just received boos as he ‘went electric’, as the legends describe it. he gave a searing version of ‘like a rolling stone’, then walked offstage with the makeshift band he had put together. peter yarrow of peter, paul and mary told the crowd that dylan would come back for one more song – ‘he’s getting an acoustic guitar’ is the way he described it.
dylan came back, and in this song said, ‘i’m moving on – you can keep pretending you’re making a difference. follow me if you really want to turn the world upside down. otherwise, adios.’
enjoy.
