I Was Referring To Street Smarts
Statement By John KerryThe right-wing nut-jobs that took my comments out of context are doing everything in their power to prevent us the technological ability to raise Steve Irwin from the dead. The powerful forces opposed to embyonic stem-cell research have their goons all over me. I'm not backing down.
When I said you'll get "stuck in Iraq" without being smart, I really meant that if you don't have the requisite street smarts for combat, that you'll take a shank in the
solar plexus with little or no warning. The mean streets of Boston taught me that, as I was for a short time, the principal O.G. in my little-mentioned Norteno gang affiliation. I was jumped in by being beaten with quiche pies. So don't lecture me about semantics, cause I'm gonna flash all over the Bush Administration. Time to turn them out.
I refuse to let some intermittently-corpulent radio blabber recontextualize remarks that were obviously aimed at the Speaker of the House's cover-up of FoleyGate. Any idiot can see that, but then again, Limbaugh dropped out of college. I expect my comments to be interpreted as military-hating elitism from the mind of some
Ruth's Criss sychophant. And sure, I expect the enlisted personnel to gobble this red-herring up like some kind of Carloina-rigged, treble-hooked rowe-bait in a trailer-park spring creek. At least it'll make them take a break from duct-taping ground-wires to our islamic brethren's reproductive goods.
If anybody should apologize, it ought to be Bush for giving AIDS to Freddy Mercury.
Democrats Now Asking Jeeves For Core Beliefs
Washington--As the 2006 midterm stakes continue to heat up, senior Democrats have admitted that many of their core platform planks may come from the Internet.
"We cannot simply employ the antiquated techniques of our predecessors without at least being willing to forge new ideas," said DNC Chairman, Howard Dean. "Though I have to admit the idea to potentially no longer rely on human ideas came from a phone call I received from former Vice President Al Gore."
The idea is a simple one at its roots. Democrats hoping to strike a public balancing act between sedition and faux patriotism are simply utilizing two of the biggest search engines,
Google, and/or
Jeeves, the fictitious online butler that promises answers to all conundrums clearly expressed in the search field.
"The idea is, is that these search engines can dredge the creativity of some of the greatest unknown agitators the world may never know," said Dean. "And we need that kind of creativity
en masse. The Internet may be the very thing that ultimately brings this country down. I am hopeful."
Senator Nacy Pelosi is rumored to have already asked about "what ballot box stereotypes make black people go nuts on election eve," while Dick Durbin is said to have amassed an impressive list of Third Reich/Gulag metaphors with which to staple to the US military in the event that Mr. Bush's poll numbers start to climb.
"The best part is that all of this come with little or no overhead cost to the DNC," said Dean.
Album Review: Jonny Lang's Damascus Road
Anyone arguing this album doesn't fit within the realm of blues is just plainly missing the point of blues. Plenty of blues songs reflect transition, and plenty of blues records have some kind of spiritual underpinning to them, although most of them seem to land squarely in the camp that leaves God "over there," as it were.
Really, if one really wants to trace a logical growth arc, both musically and spiritually for Jonny Lang, than this album is the most logical one he could have done. And anyone feigning complete and utter surprise at his overt conversion should just knock it off right now, because the predications have been there from the start. Jonny Lang’s previous offerings had plenty of spiritual currency to them, and reflected not only a desire for more against the backdrop of human doubt (“Leaving to stay,”) internally, but a relationship predicated on the concept of a sovereign God (“The Goodbye Letter.”).
That said, I do not consider this a “blues” album directly, but that delineation began with
Long Time Coming, not this one.
Let me say at the outset, that I love this album, especially from the standpoint of where Jonny has taken his ever-versatile vocal gifts. Lang manages to navigate between the grit and the whisper, and shows perhaps the greatest penchant for emotion since he started playing
Irish Angel during his shows.
The album is definitely an autobiographical one—one that carries Lang’s personal journey. While not passive in anyway lyrically, the album in no way indicts secular the listener into defensive mode, but rather conveys a sense of “would you perhaps try to see what I’m seeing?”
Highlights for me personally: “The other side of the fence,” a very riffy song, even if one feels slightly cheated that Jonny doesn’t peel forth as much on his telecaster. “Don’t stop for Anything,” is a vamp, a bluesy/funky glottal fry that, besides putting the hair up on my arm, made me realize the Prodigal Son could get 21st century treatment without seeming pedestrian and cloying. And yes, his guitar shows up, too.
I’ll avoid dragging this out with snippets of the whole thing, but I will predict that those inclined to believe Jonny Lang has entered some Dylan-esque “phase” by tinkering with Christianity will not have their predictions borne out. “That Great Day,” is not only blatantly traditional in its gospel construction, but carries certain revelatory clues about baptism and consecration that transcend the “I need a good phrase that rhymes here” lines that were never broached when Pete Seeger sang “Mary Don’t You Weep.”
And maybe that will be perhaps the issue that re-defines his fan base. One cannot listen to any Jonny Lang song and come to the conclusion that conviction and belief are not present at every nuance—that is perhaps part of what made him who he is at a young an age that he is.
And such is the case here. Not all of his fans will like Jonny’s neo-Apostolic emergence, but they will
not need another album to arrive at
this albums ultimate premise: “I’m Jonny Lang. I’ve been changed, and I mean it.”
