Sobbing Mindless Twit Of The Year Nominee
'COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF' SUTHERLAND: BUSH WILL DESTROY OUR LIVES
Choking back tears, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF star Donald Sutherland warned this week: President Bush "will destroy our lives!"
Oh stop, Donald! You have Big Bubba choking back on a big ol' tear. Of course Big Bubba's big ol' tear is generated by genuine pity that someone has to stumble through life with your invincible ignorance.
Choking back tears, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF star Donald Sutherland warned this week: President Bush "will destroy our lives!"
Oh stop, Donald! You have Big Bubba choking back on a big ol' tear. Of course Big Bubba's big ol' tear is generated by genuine pity that someone has to stumble through life with your invincible ignorance.
posted by BigBubba at 7:57 AM
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31 Comments:
samwich, if St. Hillary is the next president I will be the veep.
I highly doubt Hillary will make it to the big race, unless I "misunderestimate" her legion of fans. I think the 2008 race will be a relative warm-fuzzy fest. Neither party will want to field someone too divisive, and I suspect the GOP will be especially dissatisfied. Why? Because Bush will depart rather ignominiously and anticlimactically, just like Reagan. And just like Reagan, we will be amused at attempts to hagiography him retrospectively into a god. Unlike Reagan, though, under whom the Berlin Wall did in fact (coincidentally?) fall, Bush will not have a "definitive" product to show for his 8 years.
Unless of course, you call chaos a deinitive product.
norm,
Caught the Dylan hagiography on PBS over the weekend. It actually increased my respect for him personally, telling all the old-guard commies to pound sand and switching over to the new left. Folk to Rock in the face of booing thousands.
Have you caught Steisands latest contribution to the music scene? Seems she wants to become the new "Dylan" of the Social Security set. Sing her only "socially relevant" songs, or she will no longer love you.
Welcome to the "new left era". Where all competent leaders must be "laid low" in favor of affirmative action for incompetents and victim worshippers.
-FJ
ps - I also watched the "West Wing" for the very first time in my life. I get it now, it's not what the president stands for or what he does, it's all about creating the proper "spin".
-FJ
Higher Ground, by Barbara Streisand
Walk me over
this horizon
let the sun's light
warm my face
once again the times are changin
once again i lost my way
well the words of ancient poets
fall like dust upon my shoes
greed has robbed me of my vision
turned my heart from higher truths
so take my hand
and lift me higher
be my love and my desire
hold me safe
and honor bound
take my heart to
higher ground
I have walked
too long in darkness
I have walked
too long alone
blindly clutching
fists of diamonds
that i found were only stones
i would trade the world of ages
for a warmer hand to hold
the path of light is narrow
but it leads to streets of gold
so take my hand
and lift me higher
be my love and my desire
hold me safe
and honor bound
take my heart to
higher ground
in this world
we move through shadows
never sure
of what we see
while the truth that lies between us
come and share the truth with me
so take my hand
and lift me higher
be my love and my desire
hold me safe
and honor bound
take my heart to
higher
higher ground
hmmmmm hmm hmmmm hmmmm
---
Nope, not quite Dylan...LOL!
-FJ
All Along the Watchtower - Dylan
There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion here
I can't get no relief
Businessmen they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them know along the line
What any of this is worth
No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who think that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And that is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
Because the hour is getting late
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While horsemen came and went
Barefoot servants too
All I got is a red guitar
Three chords
And the truth
All I got is a red guitar
The rest is up to you
There's no reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are some among us here
Say that life is just a joke
You and I, we've been through that
And that is not our fate (at least today)
So let us not talk falsely now
Because the hour is getting late
Late...
---
-FJ
Sure, the Dylan piece was a hagiography--but an honest one and fascinating nevertheless. At least you see why I say conservatives can appreciate the guy, not just for his artistry. He refused to dance at anyone's request, but particularly at the Left's and the media's, who wanted him in their game and almost pathologically misconstrued his material. Interestingly, his own "Chronicles" mentions his fondness for Goldwater and the enobling qualities of private property.
Dylan pulls together a hell of a lot of poetic traditions. He always sought truth, sometimes in vain. His sound can be an acquired tatse, but he's worth the time.
Do you really buy the notion that there are melodies which support the State and those which seek to supplant it?
"Seems she wants to become the new "Dylan" of the Social Security set. Sing her only "socially relevant" songs, or she will no longer love you."
I would rather endure an off key geriatic barbershop quartet, full of flatulence, then listen to Babbles.
Norm, I am concerned about your refusal to embrace the reality of President Reagan's legacy. Here in the Great State of Texas it has been Big Bubba's humble experience that reality grapplers are either holding cardboard signs on the street corner or are institutionalized.
I grow weary of posting the non partisan references that show that President Reagan is consistantly rated at the very top of American Presidents in polls of the American people. I am not sure where President George W. Bush will stand in such future polls. I am absolutely certain that he will be placed above the former First Prevaricator William Jefferson Clinton.
St. Hillary will certainly make a run for nomination. No le hace since she will never, ever be elected.
Norm, get a grip on reality. Rejoice in reality. Reality is your friend, Norm.
"Do you really buy the notion that there are melodies which support the State and those which seek to supplant it?"
Yes I do. Evidence... go to Bubba's Barbara Streisand Thread and look at my last posting there... a song by babs... "Sing me a Song of Social Significance"
All lefty Eros vs Thanatos nonsense. Love is the solution. Death is NOT an option. 100% upsidasium kool-aid.
-FJ
ps - normy, who's the "thief" in Dylan's "Watchtower"? What's he poeticizing about? How about in "Eve of Destruction?" "Like a Rolling Stone?" Do any consistent "themes" run in his music/ poetry? What are they?
-FJ
BB,
I appreciate your taste in music and can state with absolute confidence that if given a free ticket to one of her $100+ and increasing rare concerts, I would accept the ticket, yet remain a no-show. I would only accept the ticket so as to prevent subjecting some poor innocent soul to an envious corruptive influence.
-FJ
And Ralph Nader, bless his heart, did the same thing in 2000 and 2004 for Bush! ;-)
-FJ
Actually Big Bubba, I am neither a Reagan hater nor a Bush hater. I appreciate their good qualities just fine. The polls seem to favor modern presidents so I wouldn't put too much stock in those.
Melodies--not lyrics, fj.
Dylan did not write "Eve of Destruction."
Themes? The usual province of poets: love, sin, redemption, etc. Told in a language steeped in "old, weird America," with nods to the Bible, Leadbelly, the Sacred Harp, and Dylan Thomas among many, many others.
"Themes? The usual province of poets: love, sin, redemption, etc. Told in a language steeped in "old, weird America," with nods to the Bible, Leadbelly, the Sacred Harp, and Dylan Thomas among many, many others."
Dylan Anthology
Selections...
Ballad of Hollis Brown
Ballad of a Thin Man
Big Yellow Taxi
Blowing in the Wind
Chimes of Freedom
Gotta Serve Somebody
Idiot Wind
Like a Rolling Stone
Masters of War
Man of Peace
New Pony
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Political World
The Times they are a Changing
...I'd agree norm but say "redemption" was his principle theme. Of the need to "redeem" America, for all it's sins... or burn it down, whichever was easier.
-FJ
Norm, would you be surprised if I told you that you were wrong?
Norm said, "The polls seem to favor modern presidents"
I could come up with other polls than the prestigious one below that would refute your statement, but I tire and retire now.
The question has persisted since 1948, when Arthur Schlesinger Sr. conducted the first poll to rate presidential performances. In subsequent polls, historians, political scientists and law professors have been casting their votes to recognize what they consider to be the best and worst examples of American political leadership.
Last October, with the 2000 presidential election looming large on the horizon, The Wall Street Journal mailed ballots to 132 prominent professors of history, law and political science, asking them to rate the presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton.
Does America have sins, FJ? What is your problem with Civil Rights? Should those pesky Negros, after being kidnapped, ripped from their families, worked, whipped and beaten, simply have ignored the lynch mobs, picked up their Greeks where they left off and got on with it? Sure, I mean, they had the schools and the teachers to do it, didn't they? And isn't it sad when people can't just give war a chance?
Dylan didn't write "Big Yellow Taxi."
norm,
I have absolutley NO problem with Civil Rights. What I have a problem with is cultivating a cycle of government dependency for those who struggled hard to eventually gain their civil rights and then undermining the very institutions, mostly PRIVATE that were usurped by the state, essential for civilized society to exist.
And so, Gay rights are NOT civil rights. They are "un-civil" rights. Women's rights are not civil rights. They are "un-civil" rights. Practicing mono-cultural multi-culturalism is not simply enjoying "civil rights". It's practicing "un-civil" rights.
For there are, believe this or not, certain pre-requisites that require fullfillment in order for "civilized" society or "civilization" to be "created" and then continue to perpetuate itself.
And the left has decided to violate these pre-requisites in order to achieve a "socially just" society. In other words, they have elected to remove the foundations upon which civilization depends. The relationship between the sexes for the purposes of creating "nuclear" families and raising children is THE cornerstone. For civilization is NOT possible WITHOUT sacrifice.
Increasing divorce rates, illegitimacy rates, abortion rates, incarceration rates, etc. are all INDICATORS of this erosion which EXPLODED after the 1960's.
And "Big Yellow Taxi" is posted as being a Dylan tune. Take it up with the website author, who attributes it and over 400 other songs/poems to Dylan. Perhaps he'll hire you as his fact checker.
-FJ
and finally...YES America HAS SINNED! I HAVE SINNED! I AM BUT A POOR SINNER!
But I ask heaven for forgiveness norm, NOT YOU.
Why don't I ask YOU for forgiveness norm? Because as Fred Nietzsche once said..."Only those that HAVE power are CAPABLE of foregiveness". The weak are only capable of "resentment".
-FJ
well, almost finally...
As for war and my LOVE for it, perhaps normy can name a time and place where there was NO war, no fighting, no crime, no struggles for power, no feeding on other creatures, no death.
But if he can't, perhaps THEN he could learn to forgive others, see that they too are "victims" of nature and the universe, and come to the realization that a world without ALL these evils may be able to exist in his head, but it will NEVER exist on this planet.
And I refuse to live in complete "denial" of the need to ever fight a war, offensive OR defensive, every "now and again".
-FJ
Now, now, fj. And I agree with you on civil rights--you'd agree then that there isn't really a partisan component to civil rights "properly defined." I'm just saying that's the historical context for those tunes. That's the "social justice" component, but I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it. Suffice to say I don't think Dylan means to be either "left" or "anarchic."
Nor am I anti-war. Except when there are other options that don't involve capitulation. Hey, kinda like--well, let's not get into it.
Poetry's made of words, fj. Words well-chosen for their sonorous quality as well as their meaning. Sometimes you remind me of the guy who always asks "What was the movie about?" Well it's ABOUT this, but it doesn't do justice to the art of that film.
Ahhh, but normy, you are much too well versed in deconstruction not to be aware of hermeneutical writing. Dylan was more of a "Straussian" than you'd care to admit Leo Strauss Persecution and the Art of Writing This is how learned people say things, without actually saying them.
Why do you think he was always so "evasive" as his press conferences as to the "meaning" of his songs. Did you watch the PBS hagiography or not? He couldn't answer a reporters question truthfully. For if he had, he probably would have been arrested and deported.
And who were his supporters and admirers? Who did he "hang" with?
Oh, I know what the film was about. I read the subtextuals.
-FJ
There's no reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are some among us here
Say that life is just a joke
You and I, we've been through that
And that is not our fate (at least today)
So let us not talk falsely now
Because the hour is getting late
-FJ
Perhaps normy would care to interpret Dylan's Idiot Wind for us???? Don't forget to tell us how sonorous word selection and meaning make this a great poem.
-FJ
Fair enough: a couple points. "Idiot Wind" is a great song, and sometimes the delivery of vocal music is what makes it great poetry. Opera wouldn't exist if this were not true.
"Idiot Wind" is not too hard to explicate. He is railing at those who would want to put him in a box or on a pedestal, including those close to him. Basically a stream of vitriol for those lovers of "positive liberty." A rant against the absurdity of rapid media culture. Lot a people talking, no one saying anything significant.
The reason he didn't answer the questions was that they were dumb and sometimes insolent questions. There were plenty of proud leftist anarchist folk singers to pick from. Dylan was not one of those. What would they have arrested him on: Assault with a loaded metaphor? You think he advocated revolution? He knew that if you go carryin pictures of Chairman Mao you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.
People were mystified by a "folk" musician who did not write folk songs they could easily digest; or a "pop" musician who went beyond "moon/june."
Here's my interpretation...
Twelve stanzas just like a "horoscope"
1) His ruse with the reporters is to attribute his success to the goddess Fortune (luck)
2) They all have different ideas as to what it is he's trying to say, his message, and he resents their asking...if you can't figure it out, you're an idiot.
3) All those that have to ask, even friends, are idiots.
4) Some friends warn him of the danger he's placing himself in, but he's aware of the danger and is a willing martyr for the cause
5) He intends on "killing" the horse he rode in on (the system)
6) The system is idiotic and about to die
7) the "justice" stanza - He intends to turn society upside down
8) He laughs at the learned establishment for not being able to see the "pie" he has baked
9) the "tyranny" stanza - He derides the national system in America as idiotic
10) the "point" stanza - He can no longer read the great books and feel sypathetic towards them, but he envies their greatness
11) He has overthrown "death"/ Thanatos but still has a few regrets.
12) He admits to being something of an idiot himself as well.
-FJ
norm,
I don't think he was entirely unaware of the fortunes of his predecessors like Emma Goldman. But after a while, he figured out that they couldn't "pin" anything on him so long as he could hind behind the doble entendre.
-FJ
He woke up on the roadside, not daydreaming about the way things used to be, not about the way things should/could be, but the "way things sometimes are."
Even his closest friends are making like the disciples and asking him "where it's at." He's nobody's messiah and he thought you knew that.
He's got would-be acolytes going through his trash, climbing his roof, and looking in his windows. He's scared for his kids. But he can't shoot them, according to the town constable, and he's also told if these nutjobs fall from his roof it's his dime for the damages. So much for peace and quiet.
The 60s are dead in the ditch and he may be the only one who sees it and says "Good." But Nixon's freeways don't have anything to offer either. So what's a guy to do but become born again?
At the end, in case we feel we've been condescended to, he makes sure we realize he doesn't hold himself above anybody. "We are idiots, babe." He has found the wisdom to know he knows nothing. Hmm, has a ring to it, doesn't it?
Perhaps some reader should bring a hammer and sound the two interpretations to see if one rings a little "purer" than the other.
-FJ
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