All hail the late Sly Stone (aka Sylvester Stewart), whose racially integrated, mixed-gender, brass-drums-and-guitar band was one of the greatest things to happen in pop music ever, certainly between the mid ’60s to early ’70s (the band enjoyed a seven- or eight-year peak) but throughout the span of the 20th Century.
I’m feeling it all over right now…”Dance to the Music” (’68), “Everyday People” (’68), “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (’69), “Wanna Take You Higher” (’69) “Family Affair” (’71), “Stand”, “If You Want Me to Stay” (‘3), “There’s a Riot Goin’ On (’71).
Alas, sometime in the mid ’70s it all started to drift away. “Sly never grew out of drugs,” his ex-wife Kathy Silva was quoted as saying. “He lost his backbone and destroyed his future.” It was reported five years ago that Stone was living out of a van.
I’ve been mulling over the ongoing anti-ICE, immigrant-rights street protests in Los Angeles (now in their fourth day) and last night’s San Francisco solidarity demonstration, and I’m starting to suspect that anti-ICE sentiments are just the nominal motivators.
The underlying emotional fuel, I believe, is coming from pools of serious rage that many (not just progressive lefties but sensible liberals and perhaps even a smattering of centrists) are feeling about Trump’s bully-boy authoritarian regime. Trump’s troops are about manufactured televized theatre…basically about conveying brutality…a message being sent not just to malcontent scruffs but everyone.
Do I personally believe it’s a bad thing to round up alleged illegals and send them down to Guantanamo or otherwise deport their asses? Not entirely. Do I suspect that a sizable percentage of the targets are bad guys? I wouldn’t know but some of them probably qualify. (It would surely be naive to assume they’re all pure as the driven snow.) Is Trump exploiting this unrest for his own ends? Obviously. Was it really necessary to send in the National Guard? Of course not. These disturbances should be handled by California authorities, not the feds.
Do I admire Governor Gavin Newsom for standing up to Trump and ICE chief Tom Homan, and daring them to arrest him? Yeah, kinda. Given that Trump is Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, it’s better overall for people to shout and shriek and stomp around than to sit indoors and cower and play video games. At the end of the day activism (even the car-burning kind) is better than passivity.
Newsom: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy. I don’t give a damn.”
Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out.
I’m sorry but for the last few months I’ve been under a distinct impression that everyone hates the obnoxiously aggressive Blake Lively for trying to destroy the life and career of poor Justin Baldoni.
So what’sgoingonhere? “Accusations of sexual harassment” are “legally protected”? But trying to destroy a man’s career with questionable claims and agitated #MeToo hyperbole is cool?
Will someone please explain this dismissal to me in “regular guy standing on a sidewalk and eating a hot dog” terminology? Like I’m a six year old? KingHenry II to Thomas Becket: “I’m an idiot then! Talk to me like I’m an idiot!”
Being a mostly rational adult, I understand and accept the rationale behind Lorelei Lee-styled money–whoring. Way of the world since time began, the nice things in life, girls just wanna, etc.
But in my heart of hearts and as unrealistic as that Picnic finale may be (i.e., Kim Novak deciding to take a flying leap with penniless William Holden), I want to believe in the unreliable, idealistic, non-transactional coupling of hearts and dreams. Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews at the finale of TheBestYearsofOurLives…that kind of thing.
Money-whoring is to be expected, yes, but it’s bad for the soul.
