Sunday at the Red Zeppelin

A feast for the ears and eyes again this Sunday night as I spin some stuff from the mucho fabuloso NEW BOB DYLAN ALBUM and some things old, new, borrowed and blue. The Glorious People's Cinema Project will be screening the very funky 1964 western  "The Professionals" with Lee Marvin, Woody Strode, Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster. Music from 5 Pacific/8 Eastern. Movie starts at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern.

Join us in Second Life for the dancing and plotting of revolution aboard the Marxist-Lennonist Party's airborne HQ or click on the radio for the music and watch the movie right here.

"This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender"

Happy 90th birthday Pete Seeger - our Spiritual Leader of the Moment.

Seeger has long been one of my heroes and he was the first Spiritual Leader of the Moment back when I had my first webpage on Geocites over a dozen years ago.

This 1967 performance was Seeger's first appearance on television in years following his blacklisting in the 50's -- and they still censored him, chopping out his mid-set rendition of "Waistdeep in the Big Muddy" and sparking a controversy. He was invited back to perform the song, which did finally air, but the show was cancelled soon afterward, despite high ratings, and replaced with HeeHaw.






I've had the privilege of seeing Pete Seeger perform twice and as I've often said, I'm glad he's on our side. Give him five minutes in front of a crowd and he can make them do just about anything he wants. Thankfully, he has always used this power for good. While Woody Guthrie was a rambling, gambling, hard-travelling, hard-drinking guy who collected a handful of wives in his time and whose guitar "killed fascists", his travelling partner, Pete Seeger was a teetotalling, pacifist who married a Japanese girl during World War Two and did time briefly for refusing to name names to Joe McCarthy. The insigna on his banjo said "this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
As I reckon these things, he's probably one of the greatest living Americans. Happy Birthday Pete!






More interviews here, and knowing all his history, if this latest work of his doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then the problem is with you, not Seeger. For more music, tune into Radio Woodshed, where I'll be playing Pete Seeger stuff all day long.

we're doomed

A tip of the hat to my old TESL foxhole buddy Ms. Mays - You're loud, crude and obnoxious and I love you a ton. We miss you over here.

Weekend ukulele blogging

ukes at the movies!

Take that RossK!

In other surprising news, water found to be 'wet'

If it's a day that ends with a "Y" Michelle Malkin must be outraged about something.

Right-wing nutjob Michelle Malkin is upset that Antonia Zerbisais made a joke about someone, maybe even Dick Cheney, shooting her.

Not that she needs me to defend her, in fact it's like a Boy Scout troop acting as bodyguards to the SAS, but the Divine Ms. Z has apparently fallen afoul of the conservative outrage machine as the poster girl for the unhinged has released her flying monkeys. (read the hilarious comments)
Apparently, IOKIYAR rules are still in effect. It's okay for Canada's Lowest Common Dominatrix and the rest of the right wing shriekosphere on both sides of the border to joke about or actually call for the death of various journalist, politicians and massive numbers of brown or brownish people and their sympathizers, but if a Canadian journalist Twitters a bit of wordplay on Marxists and marksmen and suggests a rabid Pomeranian of the Right be sent hunting with Dick Cheney, well that's a hate crime and she's worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.
And naturally, the first response of the champion of rugged individualism and freedom when someone makes a mean joke about her is to run crying to the principal. Typical. I'm surprised we haven't yet been informed of what kind of countertops grace the Zerbisais' household.

Doubtless the wingnuts will shriek and jump up and down and hold their breath until they get what they want, and in the end La Zerb will probably have to make a pro forma apology of some sort. She should not, and her employer should not bend to the histrionics of the wingnut outrage machine. The Right should grow a skin and learn to take a fraction of what they dish out.

Stephen Taylor's original post linked above has it about right - it was a dumb thing to say, but it was said in an off-the-cuff forum (Twitter) not in her newspaper column, it was obviously a joke and not some sinister call for Malkin to be assasinated, and last time I checked people in both Canada and the United States had a right to free speech.

If the right feel that Zerbisais should apologize or be fired for a lame Twitter joke about wishing Dick Cheney would shoot Michelle Malkin, consistency demands that they first insist that Ann Coulter be punished in some fashion for wishing in syndicated print (and repeating it endlessly on television) that Tim McVeigh had blown up the New York Times building.

Otherwise, they should STFU

"cough, cough, oink" or "GOP voted for aporkalypse"

While everyone is running around with their hair on fire over the coming swine flu apocalypse aka Teh Aporkalypse, I think it is worth point out that the Republicans, in addition to delaying the appointment of the Secretary of Health and Human Services because she isn't an anti-abortion nut who thinks that life begins when daddy has dirty thoughts or mommy puts on a low cut dress or short skirt, voted to strip funding for anti-pandemic measures from the stimulus bill. Like volcano monitoring, they thought it was some silly egghead thing that only helped a bunch of nerds in white lab coats buy new slide rules or something.
They should all be locked in a flu ward in Mexico City for the next week or two.

Sunday songs and cinema

Sunday night is Radio Woodshed night - thought tonight's show may be a bit late starting as there is a Netroots Nation event beforehand with much discussing to be done about this year's convention of progressive bloggers and netizens both in Second Life and in Pittsburgh, Pa. in August.  However, the massive staff of Radio Woodshed is undaunted and will be bringing you two hours of the finest in jazz, funk, roots, bluegrass, rock, country, cajun, zydeco, irish folk, psychelia, swing and Carpenters covers starting at 5 PDT/8 EDT.

The Marxist-Lennonist  (Groucho and John Factions United) Party's Glorious People's Cinema Project explores the opiate of the masses with second installment of our Burt Lancaster film series  - Elmer Gantry - with Burt as a ne'er do well con man who becomes an evangelist (see if you can spot the difference)

Some come join us for dancing, discussion and a damn good time aboard the Red Zeppelin in Second Life, or if  your first life is so wonderful you don't need cartoon friends from around the world, you could just click the radio to your right and watch the movie here.