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Villainy

Local Natives – Villainy

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and after that it’s officially the Christmas season, with all the familiar music, tv specials, and movies. I have long thought that the holiday movie villain that most resembles the Orange in Chief is not Scrooge, nor the Grinch (though I’ll take those happy endings any day) but Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life.

A real estate tycoon with bad hair who spends all his time trying to squash the little guy, demeaning people left and right, making snide racist comments, over charging and short changing people, and at the end, he tries to have his opponent jailed, while he pockets the $8000 that doesn’t belong to him. When it comes on tv this year, check it out and let me know if you agree.

Fake Empire

The National – Fake Empire

When my son was learning how to ride a bicycle he had trouble remembering to use the foot brakes so he’d put his feet down trying to stop himself, Fred Flintstone style. I’d be running down the street after him yelling, “Use the brakes! Feet on the pedals! Hit the brakes!!!”

That’s what it feels like, millions of us running down the street, yelling, trying to get someone else to slam on the brakes. Each day watching as some new horror pops up and thinking, god how do we stop this? We make phone calls and write, maybe go to protests, but is it doing anything? When there’s video of white supremacists having a meeting in DC complete with Nazi script and salute, hailing the president-elect, is there really not something more that can be done?

A friend on Facebook said he thought there would be a civil war if O45 isn’t inaugurated and I said yes, civil war if he isn’t, WWIII if he is. There’s the people trying to get the vote audited, especially in states where there are discrepancies, possible vote tampering, Russian hackers, more votes counted than ballots cast, etc. Would the Trump voters ever accept any outcome that isn’t having their conman sworn in? It’s already been proven that they don’t believe facts so no amount of proof would make any difference.

I know if Hillary had won she would have faced as much opposition from Congress as Obama did, maybe even more. That’s one of the reasons why I voted for Bernie in the primary. As things evolved, I don’t think Bernie would have won either and I was fine with voting for Hillary two weeks ago but I didn’t really think she would have been able to do more than hold the line. I know the way things usually play out is that the midterm elections go to the party that lost the presidency and she would likely have been a one term president. But the damage done from just two weeks of having Trump as the president-elect, not even in power yet, is horrifying and irreversible. What’s the best we can hope for now? Impeachment? Mike Pence?!?! Just as scary in a different way. I’d say it couldn’t get worse but if 2016 has taught me anything, it’s that it will get worse.

Fuckers

Savages – Fuckers

After today’s onslaught of bad news, I needed a little pep talk from Jehnny Beth.

After Thanksgiving I think I have to start hitting the gym. I’m going to need more stamina for this fight. It’s still two months before Trumpenführer takes control and at the pace things are happening, you’d think he’d already been in office for months.

Don’t let the fuckers get you down.

I Found That Essence Rare

Gang of Four – I Found That Essence Rare

I was looking for a video and stumbled onto a channel with several old concert clips from New York City in 1980 including this one and a bunch more by Gang of Four. I’ll tell you what, if we’re in for dark political times, I really hope we get the kind of post-punk music scene that late 70s/early 80s Britain inspired.

Belong

R.E.M. – Belong

The 25th anniversary edition of Out of Time came out today.

SIGH.

This is hard. Sometimes I envy people who do not have emotional attachments to music this way. Other times I think I would have died a long time ago if I hadn’t had these songs to sustain me.

SIGH.

Do you know what it feels like to have a friendship that is unlike any you’d had before, that is more intense than any of the crushes or hook-ups of your life to that point, but to be in a precarious position, completely paralyzed with fear of fucking it up and losing everything? Desperate to take it to what seems like the inevitable next step but to feel like it’s too big a risk to act? So you leave words hanging in the air that surely can’t be misconstrued and try to leave the door wide open for something, anything, and yet, things remain … unchanged.

Now, have Out of Time be the album that is the soundtrack for that time. Brutal. It’s just one song of heartache after another.The only song on the album that didn’t make me weak was “Shiny Happy People” and that wasn’t exactly a comfort. But it wasn’t like I could just not listen to the album. I had to listen to it. It was like an addiction, so dangerous for my well being but I couldn’t do without it. Every song was perfectly describing some piece of my life at that moment and I craved it.

As I mentioned the other day, I hated Green when it came out. Eventually I came around but the way that album had exposed the band to the greater public, and consequently put me in a position of having to share them with people I felt didn’t understand or deserve them, was like a punch in the gut. Out of Time took that feeling to a much higher level. Here was an album that felt like a chronicle of my innermost self, playing to millions of people. Millions of people who couldn’t possibly understand the significance of it and how deeply it affected me, were mindlessly, cheerfully, singing along, in public! “Losing My Religion” was word-for-word my life in the summer of 1991 and this was R.E.M. and this was Michael Stipe singing those words and YOU DO NOT SING ALONG IN PUBLIC. No. And it was a huge hit. I can’t tell you how many times I had to just walk out of some place because it came on the radio and I could not take it. But “Country Feedback” was the killer. Absolutely destroyed me. It’s twenty five years later and I still can’t listen to it without getting choked up.

So much of this album for me is rooted in that time and place but somewhere along the way the song that transcended all of that is “Belong.” After a while it spoke to me in a new way and told me, it’s ok, you belong here. You belong with us but there is also more out there for you and don’t be afraid. In that way it even inspired my funeral playlist.

Since getting married and having kids, I feel like now I’m the woman telling her child, “Belong.” Watching and worrying, as parents do, but knowing that she also needs to find her way and feel a part of something bigger. With the world collapsing around our ears, I feel like this is more important than ever.

Life During Wartime

 

Talking Heads – Life During Wartime

This ain’t no fooling around. Another day, another hoooollly fuck. How is this real life?

I really can’t imagine what life will be like in two months. Two months. That’s all we have left. I am not one for dystopian novels but I’m beginning to think perhaps I should’ve read a few as a survival guide.

Burn the Witch

Radiohead – Burn the Witch

I had a bit of a “low flying panic attack” today when I was getting a little too freaked out about what the fuck we are supposed to do to stop Orange45 and his cronies. I feel like the man with the clipboard in this video and the mayor-type person is Paul Ryan showing me around the new unified Republican government and no one else seems to be alarmed. Here they come painting red crosses on doors and everyone is just waving. So friendly! Swords and creepy masks, that’s totally normal.

Of course, nearly everyone I know is alarmed, and I’m only saying nearly everyone because I didn’t get into a conversation with the cashier at Target tonight. But still I worry. People got used to his vile statements throughout the campaign and they stopped being shocking to millions of people because he was always saying something even more despicable than he had before.

Don’t let them normalize this! Continue to be outraged and complain loudly to the people who represent you in Congress. He will never be normal. He will never be normal!!