He'll be there when the sun goes down

Where you at

Honey Bee

You can call it what you want

I call it messin with the kid

Lord don't move the mountain

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Zat you Santa Claus

Oh holy night

Silent Night

Leap of faith

I believe

Lily in the valley

Amen, amen amen

Girl talk

When they ask about you

But I guess

you just don't want to know

and I'm over it now

I'm just another soldier

in the army of love

All around the world for the funk

Old Devil Moon

Still Ray

Blind man

Fake

And so it begins

No stopping us

Do what you feel

The girl can't help it

Running back to you

fast as I can

Tis your kind of music

Southern man

And to the dust we shall return

It's a weapon

Chain reaction

... but first ugu

I grow weary of the hyperventilating emanating from the likes of Morning Joe and crew ruminating about the polls showing the administration is out of sync with recent demands that somebody or the other do something or other about stuff that we don't truly understand but it makes us really really nervous.

Leadership us into safety!

Are the people in these polls the same people who were dead set against taking action in Syria just two years ago?

Are the people in these polls the same people who made The Donald the front runner in the republican primary?

Listen, this ain't fucking American Idol or Dancing with the Assholes, I don't care what you learned in 8th grade civics class, you don't get a vote on this.

You want to feel safe at your NFL games?  Fine!  Here is a short list of things that will actually make the society safer.

1. Initiate a draft so everybody's kids get a chance to show how rough and tough we are as a nation and not just the expendable ones we don't really care about.

2. Implement a war tax so that we deal with the costs of war on the front end instead of adding it to the deficit that you claim to abhor.

3. Implement a war surtax so that we pay for the 50 plus years of VA services that will be needed to fix the broken kids that survive your armed assault.

4. Follow the constitution and fix the NRA by making background checks for gun purchases automatic, comprehensive and fully required for everyone, including terrorists, instead of surveilling  places of worship for "those people".

5.  Impose energy efficiency standards that place the true cost of energy on users instead of the subsidized cost now prevalent, including the costs of maintaining our interests in a place nobody would give a shit about if it weren't for the oil.

6. Educate your people instead filing their minds with drivel so that they are not so easily manipulated into thinking that anybody really gives a shit about what they think.

Until then, maybe we need to change the name of the show to Morning Decaf and cordially invite everyone on it to STFU.

I got it bad

and that ain't good

All God's chillun got rhythm

Can they learn to understand

the world of love that I'm dreamin

I am not a sissy

I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

It's all up to you

Timeline to Syria

Now's the time

Treat me like a man don't hurt me

Because I don't work for you

Door to your heart

I didn't know I was lost

Let Bojaws handle it

Things can only get better

Things Can Only Get Better - Average White Band... by Nugg07_musicman

Do it

till we get it right

It's not over

Time will tell

Just a dream

Wives and lovers

Clinton vs Bush

That's what we are offered and asked to choose

Although it seems like it would be a hoot and a half to have a republican run on the Democratic ticket along side a democrat running on the Republican ticket I guess we are just not sophisticated enough to have that much fun.

The thing that that is most galling about this system is seeing the highest office in the land passed back and forth between families like a gag fruitcake during the holidays.  I used to know that this was a bad thing. I thought democracy was supposed to facilitate a meritocracy. 

But as I get older I no longer know things that I thought I once knew for certain.

I thought it was no longer possible for large numbers of people to be convinced to follow a madmen

I thought that third world tyrants are always worse than the alternative.

I thought having only two dominant political parties limit the number of contenders for public office was a barrier to democracy.

In the end, we have an ignorance based democracy and I guess something has to protect us from ourselves.

After the dance

Where are we going

It's revolution up in this bitch

Gimme a pillow case, I'm joining the Klan

Hold on

Baby I'm scared of you

Written all over your face

In a related matter, here is the recipe for chicken salad for anyone that might need it

Welcome to the jungle

Here we are now

Entertain us

Come as you are

Here they come

Song of the wind

Peace go with you brother

Now more than ever

Tain't what you do

OK everybody

let's all please try to keep up

Pimp Preacher

Yours mine and ours

Undercover brother

I think we are going to have to go rescue this negro

I feel good

I can make you feel good

I just wanna practice what I preach

Heaven help us all

A man of constant sorrow

It's time

Sometimes your horns are showing

If I didn't care

would all this be true

Rage is the currency of the powerless

I ain't blind and I don't like what I think I see

Autumn leaves

This little light of mine

Peace be still

When in Rome

Only light can overcome the dark

...He lives inside of me
and I say its taken him so long cause we've got so far to come
heaven is ten zillion light years away
that's what my God tells me

Over the darkness I have no power

Dr. Carson please report to the dance floor

Stat

You're looking at me

We've got to live together

Thank you for the party

There it is

Rut Roh

The monster subdued

We're still swingin

He ain't heavy

Dear Lover

I hope this letter finds you

and that it comes in time to...

Paging Dr. Ben Carson

Be anything

Born under a bad sign

The things that I used to do

Just dropped in

I hear music

No Ma'am

Trying to make his way home

Wake the fuck up cause it's been too long

What good do your words do if they can't understand you

Analog girl in a digital world

Maybe I shouldn't worry

But I've been through this before
and I'd like to get things straight
before I'm knocking on your door

You sure love to ball

Just to keep you satisfied

Do you hear the bells

Bing, bop, bong, bop

Hello

It's got to be for real

Run Joe

Neither can be bought nor sold

Life is worth much more than gold

What a fool believes

No wise man has the power to reason away

Train ride to Hollywood

Be for real

That is your problem

Each one standing alone

The great city
cold cruel stone
ten million people and

Emerald City Underground

You know, the little people

Diamond in the back

Everybody's talkin

at me

Joe Cool

Ring them bells

We do this

This is what we do

No flex zone

I wonder if Dodge Motor Company actually listened to the lyrics of this song before they appropriated it for their brand.

Maybe they did and knew exactly what they were doing.

It's all over now

Askim

Get it right

Millions

It's alive

I think I shall call you 

Abby Normal

Oh, by the way

Oh, by the way

Move in me

Woo Hah!!

Free De'Andre Johnson

We have been here before

I look at this video and I see racism.

It looks like the so called "victim" simply lost a fight and now she wants to fall back into damsel in distress mode.

She is clearly the aggressor both physically and, from the looks of her rapid lip movement, also verbally.  She appears to be thoroughly intoxicated and unable to put any force behind her punches.  Her knee clearly went to his groin.  The video clearly shows that she was the aggressor.

So why is the black man the only one charged? 

To be clear, I am not saying that De'Andre made the right move here.  No one has the right to hit women.  But, at the same time and with the same legal repercussions, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO HIT MEN.

Come on bruh, did you really have to turn her lights out.  I know intoxicated people can be quite annoying but really did it take all that?  Given a chance to relive this episode I'll bet you would make different choices. Unfortunately, you won't get that chance and this is no longer about just the two of you and your social skills in bars and nightclubs. 

We cannot have a society where white women get to cry "the black man did it" and even with video evidence to the contrary the black man goes to jail.  Just exactly how does the victim end up being charged and not the one who created the problem.


Now it looks like the power structure is piling on.  It appears that this young man was simply expendable and he will have to pay the price for previous alleged bad actors that were somewhat more valuable.

All these pundits trying to free us from the tyranny of the confederate flag need to expand their perspective to focus on some racism that might actually impact the freedom of black people today.

Put your hands where my eyes can see

I don't know about you

I don't want to see no motherfucker like this

Before we spend some more money on rehersal

We will see

It certainly was an eventful week.

Personally, I thought the Reverend Doctor President Barack Obama was a bit pitchy, in his rendition of Amazing Grace at his trial sermon.

But church folk are having none of it.  You cannot say one single solitary word of derision about the President's foray into the pastoral arts without a rapid and aggressive defense from the faithful.  If Barack Obama wasn't the black people's president before, he certainly without a doubt is the black people's president after his Friday eulogy of Clementa Pinkney.

There is a long standing tradition within the black church of tolerating less than prodigious musical performance as long as you are raising up your voice to glorify the Lord.  In his efforts to make a joyful noise it seems the president is to be the beneficiary of this forbearance.  President Obama seems to have been conferred with all the spiritual deference that might be accorded to Sister Odell.

Let me suggest that in the future we simply let the musicians throw in an assist.  Church organists are notorious for being world class in their oeuvre and with a 20 second advance hint about what is to come they can set your key and head nod the choir into harmonized and orchestrated back up vocals that you can ride like a magic carpet.

Being both president and pastor in chief is quite a bit of responsibility for one man.  Carrying around all the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a people can be quite a heavy burden.

We will see indeed!

Somebody's gotta win

somebody's gotta lose

Roll call

It's only a problem if you have a constituency of racists

Same old song

Happy father's day

I love to live the life that I sing about in my song

Earned it

Ready or not

What would you do

My first love

You don't have to cry

Dear Lord

You mean I'm gonna stay this color

What does it say about race if a befreckled white woman can just get herself some braids, check a couple of boxes on some applications, declare that she is black and have everyone accept it as fact for decades.  Granted, this occurred in Spokane Washington where they may not have enough "real black people" to do a proper side by side comparison. But still, the point remains race is totally and completely irrelevant to anything that has value.

So let's all say this aloud in unison so that all the so called experts and pundits as well as the uniformed have the proper reference point to initiate this dialogue.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE!

So then, if there are no races why do we all get so worked up over that which does not exist?  Are we all so weak and easily manipulated that that we will chase this bullshit around the planet for millennia.  In a word, yes!


To paraphrase two acknowledged experts on the subject, its all pink on the inside.

The only race on this earth is the human race, with the possible exception being the rat race which then refers us back to the whole racial identification thing.  Now racISM is a real mother for ya.  But isn't that really the point, to keep us all focused on the shiny object while our souls are slowly and deliberately extracted from us.

Race is nothing more than a social construct created for the sole purpose of keeping you ignorant sombitches arguing over stupid bullshit such as this while the high and the mighty steal the hopes and dreams of your children and grandchildren.

Now I have no idea whether this Rachel Dolezal woman is a net positive or negative in her community, but listening to the news coverage of this issue is not going to help me figure it out because it all seems to be focused on that which does not matter.  Now that we have that out there can we please focus our attention on the constructive.

There are people who appear to be black, there are people who appear to be white, there are people who appear to be yellow, and there are people who appear to be brown.  But in the infinite scheme of things there isn't a nickels worth of difference between these people.  There is only a meaningless and ever so slight external difference.  Ultimately, there are only two groups of humans on this planet, people  and stupid people.

Which group are you in?

You're asking the wrong question

Does it really matter whether Rachel Dolezal is really black?

What has she accomplished is the better question. 

So let's weigh her bale and then decide

You're my latest, greatest inspiration

Stays on my mind

The love we had

The hills have eyes

Earned it

Call me

I think her phone is broken

I wish

There she goes

Let me in

Ain't no doubt about it

Your love

Stand

In the end you'll still be you

For the things you know are right

Azul serape

Flat taxes, asses and heads

The only people in favor of flat taxes are billionaires, lackeys and idiots.

Which one are you?

Everybody is a star

It used to be that only the Paris Hilton types could command undeserved fame.

But with the advent of social media, everybody gets their 15 minutes whether they deserve it or not.  But what differentiates one star from another.

When everybody is a star we simply call it daylight.  And we know what happens to stars in the light of day.

In order to shine we have to find a little corner of darkness and illuminate it.

Live for now

Preachin the blues BB King joins the heavenly choir

BB King was a blues man of the first order. 

He had a mean falsetto and could shout the blues with the best of them.  He rarely played chords but his vibrato laced guitar licks have yet to be duplicated by anyone that I know of. 

In another life he would have been a baptist preacher, he certainly had all the tools. The world has plenty of baptist preachers, but only one BB King.  Rest in peace Mr. King after a job well done.

...and now you wanna give'em back

RIP BB King
September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015

Ellie's love theme

No thing on me

I can see clearly now

A lovely day indeed

 Its mother's day and everything seems to be quite lovely.

No one is talking about how to improve mothers or motherhood. Everyone seems to be simply reveling in the joy of the day.  As it should be, it seems to be a full on celebration of the institution of motherhood and nothing else.  Let's see if we can hold this spirit for another month.

Happy mother's day to all the mothers of the world.

Let's go back so we can look forward

Its not you its me

But you didn't help

Oh freedom

When you're moving in the positive

You've got to make sure its the brightest star

Don't talk to me about what makes my family happy

You could have avoided this mess

I'm satisfied

You really got a hold on me

Tell it like it is

Did someone say buttwhuppin

Since you brought it up, let's talk about it.

The streets will steal your child if you are not vigilant, and sometimes even if you are. This is how you keep your child alive in the hood. But you cannot wait until his age is in double digits before you begin.  This was a well worn path for this mother.  She has been doing this for this child for a long time and to be quite frank, her assault on her child is probably illegal.

If it weren't for the riots, some child welfare agency would be "looking into the situation". And were it not for the fact that his compatriots had just looted and burned down the local CVS pharmacy, you would have a bunch of well intentioned but completely ignorant child advocates talking in hushed tones about the long term effects of corporal punishment.  What the child advocates fail to do is balance that risk against the long term effects of being dead.  If not today, then the Popo will see him tomorrow, Freddie Grey style.

Let's be clear, you do not need active riots in the streets to lose your child to those streets.  Kids are won and lost every day of the week.  So the next time some well meaning do gooders start talking about damaging the child's self esteem, we need to pull this video clip out and shove it up their self assured asses and run it on infinite loop.

That is not to say that there are no limits, I don't know what Adrian Peterson was thinking, but sometimes a little well placed physical and psychological terror is how you take your child back from the streets.  It remains unclear whether or not this mother will ultimately prevail in saving her child from the Sirens song of the street, but I am certain that a little time out will not get the job done.

This young man had absolutely no fear of the heavily armed and probably quite pissed off Baltimore police officers who are notorious for putting the smack down on knuckleheads who cross their paths.  But the child has nothing but retreat from his Mama.  You can even see it in his face when he contemplates some sort of retaliation against his mother.  And shortly after that you can see in his face when he realizes that retaliation is not the move.  Sister girl did not come here to lose and homeboy knows it.  Right now he has only been a little embarrassed in front of his friends.  Imagine the ridicule he will face if his Mama has to execute a full mat take down on his ass.

So what have we learned?

Child advocates should perhaps be a bit more circumspect in their assessments before they dispense their "wisdom", particularly in places where the rules don't apply in the same way it applies in your burg.  In the untamed wilderness of the hood you do whatever you have to do to save your children and sometimes that means a good wallop up side the head.

I beg your pardon

Smiling faces

show no traces of the evil that lurks within

What about your friends

Two

On and on

Because its flat on one side

I cried for you

Now its your turn to cry

Whatcha see is whatcha get

The Clan

Map to the treasure

Armed and extremely dangerous

Its impossible

You might win some

but you just lost one

Forgive them Father

for they know not

Nobody but you

You're the man

Bustin Loose

April's Kiss

Have you ever seen the rain

Who'll stop the rain

After the dance

One life to live

Dream

Try it babe

Running back to you

You may be right

But its still rock and roll to me

Oh lady be good

I will tell her

Welcome sweet springtime we greet thee in song

Night and day

Ernie's song

Nusia's poem

Nomad

Can't get right

Wrap your troubles in dreams

You never tell me anything

George we hardly knew ye

1529 Gunn Street

Messin with the kid

Aww look at what you did

Call them by their names

In the here and the now

God blessed our love

Same shit, different day

It seems to hang on

Found a cure

Mumbles

RIP

Mitch better have my bunny

Clark Terry

I became aware of the death of Clark Terry in a way that is becoming all too familiar; all of a sudden I was hearing an awful lot of his music in places and times when you don't normally hear his music.  No one was announcing, they were just letting the music play, as it should be.  This afforded me the opportunity to enjoy Clark Terry in the present for a few more precious hours before I was forced to acknowledge his passing.

I keep reading his biographies listing all the great musicians he shared the bandstand with during his long illustrious career.  It really should be the other way around, listing all the musicians who shared the bandstand with Clark Terry.  Because he really was an unparalleled musician, second to none.

He was as gregarious and comedic and talented onstage as Dizzy, but suffered the curse of being chronologically subsequent to the creation of the new music and didn't share in the glory of the birthing of jazz as we know it.  Although he was able to create a new branch of scat that, as yet, I have not heard anyone else successfully duplicate, that being Mumbles.  Maybe we will let Mr. Mumbles have a go at it tomorrow.

Everything that can be said, probably has already been said much better elsewhere.  So I will just let the man and his music speak for itself.  Thank you Mr. Terry for bringing so much joy into my life with your music and your wit.

RIP

Make it last

Straight from the heart

Smile

Dishere

Together

Wilpan's Walk

Lemme show you a few thangs

The lamp is low

To be free to be who we are

If I believe

Melody for C

I'm coming back

That was then, this is now

Rumors

Softly as in a morning sunrise

Too high

Runnin

It would ludicrous

to think that we are new to this

we do this

this is what we do

Recorda Me

There's a lot of us been pushed around

How much does it cost

Don't follow the crowd

Close your eyes

I believe in you

Send it

We're getting careless with our love

That is all

But if not

The promise

Why

I wanna be free

One day child I won't have to listen to your lies

What they do

Put your hands together

Back in the day the Ojays came to town with a brand new freshman group called the Commodores.  As fate would have it, I happened to get in for free (with two tickets in my pocket, but that's another story).

Anyhoo, this was in the seventies when the Ojays were at the top of their game and they were some real bad dudes.  What I remember most about this show was how deep they rolled.

During the seventies I pretty much saw live shows for anybody who was fit to see.  We had a decent venue and we were on the circuit.  The really big time shows might be on a Thursday night but who cared.  Now most of the shows had the same basic set up, a top notch rhythm section, maybe some horns and if you were lucky some scantily clad dancing girls.  Seen one, seen 'em all.  But not Walter, William and Eddie, they came at you from a different direction.

We had seen pretty much everything out there but we had never seen no shit like this before.  The Ojays came through with a full orchestra with white dudes wearing tuxedos playing violins and shit, sitting in little orchestra boxes, with a real conductor directing the music instead of the guitar player just signaling the downbeat and letting it roll.  I suppose this was the rolling version of MFSB.  Now remember this was the seventies and music was still about the most segregated thing in society at this point.  Most of the music we listened to didn't get played on the so called "white stations".

And not to put too fine a point on it, but before the Ojays came on stage their orchestra played a fifteen minute medley of all the hits.  As if to say, we don't want you sombitches to get the idea that we are up here for decoration, they came to play and brought the funk with them violins. They could have stopped right there before the Ojays even came on and nobody would have complained. 

But with the vocal harmonies of the Ojays floating on top of that luxurious bed of orchestrated funk they totally blew our fuckin minds and I ain't been right ever since.