An Die Musik

It's Schubert's birthday.

He wrote some stirring symphonies and sublime chamber works.

But it's those songs that really get ya. Sincere and direct but artfully-crafted and never sacherine.



He was very good at what he did.

Sins of My Old Age

This Looks Like a Clean, Well-Lighted Place

What Year Were the Olympics Again?

Snow In L5P

I need to speak clearer or move the mic back.

Snow!

It snowed today in Atlanta.



A good day to try out my new camera:

More photos over at Myspace.

A Shock of White

My long, grey eyebrow has returned after a previous plucking. I may let it cloud my vision henceforth.

I'm looking more like Susan Sontag every year.

But nowhere near enough.

Organized Non-Violence

Audio recorded Jan. 15, 2006. Pictures taken this past weekend.

Yes, There is Such A Place

Wouldn't You Like To Have a Fix Too?

Everybody knows that the original formula for Coca Cola had actual cocaine, but did you know the original formula for Dr. Pepper called for morphine? And it was endorsed by Pope Leo XIII?



Leo XIII says: "At last! An opiate for the masses."

Okay, I made it up.

Ooph. Who keeps publishing these things?

Will There Be Blood?

Bush's last State of the Union Speech is coming up.

Hey local Atlanta satirists, let's put on a show!

A People's History of the Village People

By Howard Zinn

In 1977, one year after the 200^th anniversary of America’s incomplete and hypocritical revolution to bring only a modicum of civil liberties to white male property owners, a French immigrant named Jacques Morali sought to manufacture a popular music act that could entertain a nation still reeling from its disastrous and illegal war with Vietnam.

Named for New York’s Bohemian Greenwich Village, the Village People used propulsive, non-agrarian rhythms and urban, post-industrial lyrics to gain a mass following. But it was the vocational make-up of its members that proved most memorable. The group showed a soft-rock-softened nation that the working classes would not be silenced.

Led by a policeman—perhaps the most recognizable of all civil servants—the group’s supporting members were a grand coalition of proletarian archetypes:

• The Construction Worker—likely a skilled tradesman and union member constantly fighting profit-mad capitalists for decent wages and basic workplace safety.
• The Cowboy—a migrant farm worker.
• The Soldier/Sailor—no doubt enlisted or drafted into service to fight the unjust wars of the privileged elite.
• The Leatherman/Biker—a latter-day Thoreau marching to the beat of a different drum machine and conscientiously using all parts of the cow.

And

• The Indigenous Person.

The group’s songs were accessible, used the language of the vernacular and were easy to skate to. “YMCA,” their biggest hit, is a celebration of collectivism at the local level. “Can’t Stop The Music” is a call to resistance. And “Macho Man” exhorts men to “live a life of freedom” and to “go man go” thus defining masculinity in terms of liberation.

Today, the Village People’s prominence has waned and its membership has changed since its founding over three decades ago. But it continues to give voice and hope to the exploited—and sexually fluid--masses at state fairs and local PBS affiliate pledge drives.