Punk Rock Your My Big Crybaby

Got this one from my brudder The Warden's site. You should check it out.

I didn't know of this Allen Ginsberg poem , and I am pretty good on most of the big names from The Beat Generation. Punk Rock You Big Crybaby is pretty cool. I had the pleasure of seeing Ginsberg read back in the early 80's (and had a really cool autographed sign from the event that has since disappeared from the Nomad Archives).

Ginsberg certainly had his punk creds. The dude was punk before rock n roll even shot out of Chuck Berry's loins. College irritant, Jail time, constant irritant to more than one President, recording with The Clash.

”Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!”

If Howl is not the greatest poem of the 20th century, it's certainly on the short list. The trial that resulted due to Obscenity Charges, incurred because of the poem's religious and sexual nature, made Ginsberg possibly the first counter-culture star.

If you click HERE, you will be sent to a site that has The Life & Times Of Allen Ginsberg.

Destroy Babylon !!!!!!!

Through the generosity of an old buddy, I will be attending the Grateful Dead's latest incarnation (Furthur) this Wednesday at good old Radio City Music Hall. I have been so far out of the loop lately that I was not even aware of this show.

So, I gotta break out the combat boots, torn jeans and Black Flag T shirt. In other words, my usual clothes. I haven't worn tie dye to a Dead show since the early 80's. The only time's I wear my tie dye is to hardcore shows.

Why?

Because I'm a contrarian.

And besides, Black Flag were freakin' Deadheads anyway.

The missus is encouraging me to get out of the house and go to the show. Says it'll be good for me to have some effed up fun. What a gal.
Of course, my patience for "happy people" will be extremely limited; and these types of shows tend to bring in STUPID FUCKING HIPPIES.

Long time readers of this here blog are aware of my openness towards intoxicants and Dead toonage. However, I have never been a fan of the Utopian bullshit of Deadheads, whether it's temporarily supplied by a hit of acid or by their trust funds.

Still, a night out is a night out. And I can certainly use one!



Toonage:
Bad Brains - Destroy Babylon (live San Francisco1983)
The Birthday Party - Loose (Stooges cover)
Rancid - Roots Radicals (acoustics)
Willie Nelson - Whiskey River

Affimative Action? Or Reverse Discrimination?

As I toil in the hardest job I have ever had... which is ACTUALLY FINDING ONE, I have noticed a couple of things. The first is that as you email your resume to the gaping maw that is the unknown hiring director; you might as well not even bother. I have doubts that any of the hundreds of resumes even get looked at.

The most troubling one of all is that anytime you fill out an online application, there are two mandatory questions. One is to state your race/ethnic background. The second is to state your sex. True, you do have the option of checking the "i refuse to answer this question" box, but no doubt anyone foolish enough to select that choice is immediately eliminated from the employment competition.

I have no idea how recent these questions have become mandatory. It's (yeah right!) illegal to discriminate in hiring practices in the USA; but why ask the questions? Wouldn't total anonymity be a better guarantee? With answers to these questions, wouldn't companies be establishing quotas? Total reverse discrimination.

Leave it to Canada to get things right; again. Our neighbors to the north ban those types of questions.

I am going to start marking the "eskimo" box.

Stiff Little Fingers

Holy crap! I just found footage of the Stiff Little Fingers 1982 show in NYC that I was at.
Here
and
here
and
here!
The young and athletic Nazz was pogoing his lil old heart out right by Jake Burns for this show. My memories of the show are vivid... my buddies picked me up from the gas station job that I had that summer and we drove the hour trip to New York City's Peppermint Lounge. Fortified by Ballantine's 40 ounce torpedo's, I reeked of petroleum fumes and we got there just in time for the start of the show. The band was just killer... Ali McMordie on bass was amazing. I remember that we sorta really "picked" on one older guy with our enthusiasm. That "older guy" was probably 25!
I've seen em since, but nothing beat that first time!
SLF are on the "desert island" band list for me. Their first two albums "Inflammable Material" and "Nobody's Heroes" are punk classics. The stupidity of war and tribalism was their forte; with such songs as "Straw Dogs", "Suspect Device", "Wasted Life" and "Tin Soldiers", SLF took The Clash's "heart on their sleeve" politics and stayed on the rock n roll path, rather than the multi-cultural route The Clash took after their first two albums. In 2004, SLF released a tribute song to Joe Strummer, aptly title "Strummerville". Sure, SLF played some Reggae and Ska (covering the Specials' "Doesn't Make It Alright" and Bob Marley's "Johnny Was"). However, they "rocked" them, rather than the "rolling" The Clash preferred.

"Johnny Was" is Stiff Little Fingers' tour de force... with the senseless murder of Marley's Jamaican character transferred to "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. SLF, as an Irish band, certainly experienced the senseless violence that they sang about. "Johnny Was" is a song close to me, as I think of my fallen friends whenever I hear it.

In a top floor flat in the
middle of the night
There's a man with rifle and
Johnny in his sight,
I said oh no, we can't let
that kind of thing happen
here no more
Oh no
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny...

A single shot rings out in a
Belfast night and I said oh
Johnny was a good man

The balance of Stiff Little Fingers' oeuvre is well worth checking out. The live "Hanx", "Go For It", "Now Then" (all early 80's product with their original line-up all have great moments. They reformed in the 90's and came out with some albums worth checking out as well (the best of which are "Hope Street" and "Get A Life".
They still tour, and have several dates in the UK coming up in March. Hopefully, they'll get back over to The States soon too!

Been A long Time Since I ...

... Rock And Roll

Perfect songs #3 - Collect the set!


No apologies to the Velvet Underground. THIS is the greatest song ever to be called ROCK AND ROLL