Knecht Ruprecht

wrob's music videos

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A new holiday hero for a new millenium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sddoc8LpPOY

The Holiday Blahs

wrob's music videos

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HO HO...hoh forget it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEF77y5iMsA

Crapitalism

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Universal basic income. Any questions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-nXmPUcKsE

"Kindly Inquisitors"

(The New Attacks on Free Thought)

-by jonathan rauch

1993, revised 2013

Rauch is a formidable thinker and deft writer. In this book, he argues against free speech restrictions in the name of humanitarian tolerance. The book is a deep defense of the principles of liberal science, and fundamental to that is the necessity for completely free critical speech. Even if it's unkind or unfair, the moment you start to restrict critical speech (no matter how noble your intent) is the moment the dream of a free society dies, and fundamentalist totalitarianism rears its ugly head.

Yes, he's strongly targeting the excesses of the "woke" movement.

The most surprising thing about the book is his revelation in the last chapter that he's jewish and gay. One might think that would incline him toward restrictions on hate speech...but one would be wrong.

Are you going to agree with everything he writes? Perhaps, perhaps not...but if you disagree, you'd better bring deeply-considered counter-arguments. This book is everything a book should be.

Bloodflood

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Anyone get the king reference?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H7mLxN7FQw

"Star Trek: Picard", season 3

Is "ballyhooed" an accurate word for this final season, which sees the reunion of (almost) the entire TNG cast (no wheaton, no crosby)? Well, yes...and it's good. Much better than the first two seasons. It even finally scored an episode worthy of inclusion in my "best of Trek" marathons - the one featuring ro (michelle forbes).

The two holdovers from the previous season (besides jean-luc) are raffi and 7 of 9, both of whom have lovely moments, especially jeri. The possible spin-off starring these two and q, that's teased in the final episode, is one i'd be happy to watch.

Is it all as good as the hype? Well, almost. The cast all have fine moments...with yet ANOTHER sci fi resurrection for data. The females get to pilot the ship without crashing, and do more in a fight than smash crockery.

My biggest complaint is the unrelenting visual darkness. I felt like i had to squint all season. Yes, i get that you want to send the message that this is a more dystopic TREK. Fine. You're probably throwing too much of gene's vision out the window, but...okay. Yet the literal darkness is so omnipresent, one begins to wonder whether it's like the Minnesota accents in FARGO - so pervasive that you're not sure whether the underlying script would be as strong without the affectation.

And of course, PIC does nothing to move the TREK vision forward.

But it's fine.

The Ovary Song

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Just good common sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Y08_UT5t4

Boob

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Well, they can't ALL be A-list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPSljg1HUA0

A Song

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Awwww.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANnN1wzHJc8

Millionaire Rock

wrob's music videos

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Some songs, you'll never forget the first time you perform. It was so clumsy, because for some perverse reason i wrote a song which is too hard for me to actually play...but a gushing audience member hoped i would NEVER learn how to play it well. I understood what they meant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgsmW795yU

"POVERTY, BY AMERICA"

-by MATTHEW DESMOND

2023

A brilliantly incisive summation of the whys and hows of american poverty, with a laughably simple plan for ending it, that avoids the revolutionary chaos that most disaffected, desperate people imagine the only way. Desmond puts a number on the amount needed, and it turns out to be less than 1% of the USA GDP...an amount that could mostly be scratched up through the wealthy actually paying their taxes. He deconstructs how the american economy is built to reward the rich and punish the poor. Desmond has made poverty his lifelong study, living or standing shoulder to shoulder with those whose lives are most searingly devastated. He avoids emotional pleading, and speaks with the voice of a finger-wagging economist (though he's a sociologist by training).

Dead People Fear Us

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A death metal song for ukulele and kazoo. Never tell me it can't be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNqZwG1fHD4

Forgiven

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Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkrYaRIV5UY

Taters

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I still get requests for this one, and consider resurrecting it. It's a crowd-killer. But the problem is, the trump reference is (hopefully) becoming dated, and i can't think of a good dictator replacement verse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZlRCG99Ftc

"ain't i a woman"

(black women and feminism)

-by bell hooks

1981

A stunningly insightful analysis of the place of black wimyn in America, covering all the changes in attitude and treatment over the past few centuries. Bell reserves her deepest analysis for how the civil rights movement of the 60s and the feminist movement of the 70s were both doomed to failure, for the same reason - erasing black wimyn from consideration. Furthermore, both movements were designed to fight discrimination, yet accept oppression as a whole.

The civil rights movement was content to embrace sexism, as long as the black man was elevated. The feminist movement was content to embrace racism. And both movements accepted classist patriarchy, as long as their core constituents were given more access to its fruits. Social movements throwing other disempowered groups under the bus, is sadly nothing new.

The book also made me see one of my own blind spots (for someone who has spent a lifetime trying to strip away the lies of sexism and racism, this was a tough pill to swallow). One of my favorite john lennon songs has always been "Woman is the [racist epithet] of the World". In applying the lens bell offers, i realized the song has an enormous cognitive disconnect, for it only makes sense if you equate "woman" with non-black wimyn. If you include black wimyn, the sentiment includes the thought "black wimyn are the [racist epithet] of the world", a thought that is logically incoherent. That's my own example, but bell offers many others which show how black wimyn, living at the intersection of racism and sexism, are culturally erased in ways that are so ingrained into our language and assumptions, you might miss them entirely even when you ARE looking. Bell acknowledges how these insidious erasures can arise unconsciously, even in movements with otherwise noble intent.

A towering book.

Stuff

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The great american sickness...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv1OXrMZtho

Don't Hug Me!

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Ain't that a kick in the crotch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XyFsT41ZMA

Something Ain't Right

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How did this not make the cut? It almost makes ME cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_tbi1-nQPk

Loneliest Fool

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In-concert, the first song that moves away from comedy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3giMqNaUIk

The Fart Song

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Manz at Bazaar Cafe called this my best ever...there's no one i ever wanted to please more, but that wasn't enough to rescue it from the C train.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNpWP2XxwPA

Ugly American

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As 4th of July as fireworks and commie-bashing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOYVNvkvWoo

Death Shall Reign

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Oscar plizga, a brilliant songwriter and performer, praised this one lonnnng after hearing it. That alone was almost enough for me to resurrect it to performance-status.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGf1DuX7rg

Fight

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A protest anthem! Long live the movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3LK76WG-GM

Olive Bread

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Fun to play with people's ears with homophones and such...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI7izpsRDM4

"Last Ape Standing"

(The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived)

-by chip walter

2013

Science journalist walter synthesizes our knowledge of all humyn species (27 and counting), and asks "Why, when there are multiple species of big cat, elephant, monkey, and innumerable others, is there only ONE humyn species left alive?" (although considering that there were denisovans as recently as 10,000 years ago, it's possible that there are yet pockets of non-sapiens out there in some isolated corner of the world). He takes a look at what made us successful - an adaptability that exponentially dwarfs any other creature, and attempts to explain how that came to be (lonnnnng extended childhoods), what are its strengths...and weaknesses (schizophrenia, autism, depression). He speculates on our evolutionary future, and the possibility that that which made us so successful may easily kill us as well. As shatner said, this is a book to make you jump up and say "YES".

Lighthouse

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As a child, i read a comic book and saw the lyrics for "Lili Marlene". Not knowing the tune, i created one in my head...and was astounded years later when i discovered that the actual tune resembled mine not one bit. This is the tune i created...decades later, i wrote my own lyrics for it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCmEt-N-Kvs

Big Bag of Lonely Hormones

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Classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-eQDfAbKKw

The Sidewinders

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How, how, how, did this NOT make the greatest concert ever??

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyoXJXaD1Tg

Jeff Bezos is Lost in Space

wrob's music videos

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCxdyS9tkY

Wisdom-wesistant World

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How did this absolute delight get briskly tossed into the waste bin of my repertoire?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPB6uHveqG4

Kick the Balls

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I originally wrote this for an episode of "Barney & Friends". The producers rejected it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqxu_F6rr8A

End of the Earth

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Ah, nobody writes nice simple love songs anymore...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60mynWpg47M

"Women After All"

(SEX, EVOLUTION, AND THE END OF MALE SUPREMACY)

-by melvin konner, M.D.

2015

Wimyn have bigger brains. Not in absolute size, but relative to body size (which is the key measure biologists use to assess intelligence).

Wimyn are better drivers.

Wimyn have a more efficient, humane management style. The floodgates keeping wimyn from the highest levels of business and government are opening much quicker than expected, because boards are realizing wimyn are better administrators. It's easy to predict that within a century at most, wimyn will be running the world.

And not one second too soon.

In the big picture, the differences between men and wimyn are tiny.

But what a difference. Men lead with aggression and impulsiveness.

Konner uses biology, sociology, and psychology to speculate on a future where men will no longer exist, either through evolution (it's happened with certain species of lizard), or engineering. Within a few decades, two wimyn will be able to have a baby with no male contribution. Within a century or two, we will have such incomprehensible control of our genetic fate that we will face the question of whether males have a place at all. And the laughably obvious conclusion will be no. Males are useful for a species whose survival is reliant on physical control of a hostile environment.

Such conditions have nothing to do with where we're headed.

Will wimyn evolve (or have engineered) a penis-sized clitoris like the hyena, for sexual pleasure (and perhaps procreation)? That's my question, not konner's.

Watch this video, and try to doubt that wimyn will soon take over the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDWq1TIkaOQ

Okay, that's still me, not konner. And i'm being a bit intentionally obtuse, in employing such patriarchal/hierarchical "world-dominating" language. Silliness aside, the larger point is worth making.

Wimyn are the first gender biologically, and given the emaciated status of the Y chromosome, the superior gender.

The truth has always been before us, waiting for 10,000 years of brutal hyper-patriarchy to dissipate.

San Francisco Day

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This one feels so perfect...but teeters on the edge of being for SF audiences only. I want to hope that it will transcend provinciality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0XaIcW8TyI

Goin' Down Slow

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This one feels pretty secure on that A list...to feel an audience respond verbally just a few bars into the song, is an amazing feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ-5FAKvTV4

99%

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I once introduced this song as "99", and was silently revealed as an out-of-touch white guy, for not knowing the title referred to another pop song. It all happened through body language, and i knew just enough to subsequently piece together what happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVq911cOI90

Bee-Bop-A-La-Dee-Doo

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I love this'n!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd80sRLzVCs

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 1

(Why is this the real deal, where "Picard" and "Discovery" fail? It took three tries to get out of abrams' shadow? Regress klingons to "evil subhumyns", DSC? Violence porn of seven committing murder, PIC?? But mostly because SNW is more story/character-based. How it looks is not more important than what it IS.)

FOUR-STAR EPISODES: 0

AVERAGE EPISODE RATING: 2.9

-Strange New Worlds ***

After seeing a vision of his future mutilation/incapacitation (as portrayed in TOS), captain christopher pike reluctantly returns to service to save his first officer from captivity, after a botched first contact. He must convince a warring world accidentally given Federation technology, to not destroy themselves. We meet young spock, chapel, m'benga, and uhura, plus a descendant of khan, an aenar engineer, samuel kirk, and sparky helmsperson ortegas. Powerful and poignant, with great chemistry. Pike accepts a five-year voyage of exploration.

-Children of the Comet ***

Cadet uhura is thrust to the fore as Enterprise discovers an artificial comet on course to destroy a populated world. Enterprise is imperiled by an alien ship who revere the comet as a god. Nyota discovers the comet's autopilot tech is based on a musical language.

-Ghost of Illyria ***

Researching a planet once populated by a genetically-engineered race, the ship fights an infection that renders people mindless slaves to light, while pike and spock are trapped on the surface in an ion storm. They discover the illyrians may have mutated into a benevolent plasma-based lifeform. To save the crew with the antibodies in her blood, number one reveals that she herself is illyrian, outlawed by the Federation.

-Memento Mori ***

After finding survivors of an alien attack, security chief la'an noonien-singh identifies the attackers as gorn, whose ships reappear and attack. La'an was the sole survivor of a gorn attack as a child, and has never shaken survivor's guilt. A crippled Enterprise flies into the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, where all four ships become sensor-blind.

-Spock Amok ***

On shore leave with his fiance t'pring, spock switches bodies with her in a mindmeld ritual gone wrong. His presence is suddenly required in delicate diplomatic negotiations. It's freaky friday...but it works.

-Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach ***

Pike is reunited with an old flame (which reignites) on a non-Federation planet. He discovers a child-sacrifice element of their culture, and his prime directive beliefs are sorely tested.

-The Serene Squall ***

Transporting a Starfleet counselor, Enterprise plunges deep into pirate territory in response to a distress call. After Enterprise is boarded and commandeered, the counselor is revealed as the pirate captain (who rather easily manipulated spock's emotions). She demands a prisoner exchange, to release her lover from vulcan captivity. T'pring, a security planet administrator, agrees...but spock and chapel pretend to have an affair, requiring spock to break off his engagement. It sounds corny, but it works, thanks to an understated guest performance by jesse james keitel (BIG SKY, QUEER AS FOLK).

-The Elysian Kingdom **

M'benga's daughter has a fatal disease, and is illegally kept in a sickbay transporter buffer while he searches for a cure. He materializes her occasionally, to read her favorite fairy tale. A non-corporeal nebula alien takes over the consciousnesses of the crew, casting them as characters in the fairy tale. M'benga sees through the ruse, and finally contacts the alien with the help of engineer hemmer (bruce horak - TRANSPLANT, IN THE DARK), whose telepathic abilities make him immune. The alien just wants to protect the child, whom it thinks is being abused. This one might have been three-star if the fairy tale sequences were more cinematic and less stagey...or maybe the real flaw is psychological. To accept that m'benga would so quickly give away his daughter to an almost completely unknown alien, is an enormous premise to swallow.

-All Those Who Wander ***

Enterprise responds to a distress call from USS Peregrine, which has crashed on an ice planet. An away team discovers the only survivors are two refugees, one of whom dies as four gorn hatchlings burst from his body. The team fights the terrifying hatchlings, who are also killing each other for alpha status. The best episode of the season, in part due to the sacrificial death of hemmer, who becomes infected.

-A Quality of Mercy ***

Pike meets a child whose life he will one day save in the disaster that will leave him mutilated and paralyzed. He decides to change those events, and is visited by a future version of himself, who shows him the catastrophes that will be unleashed by his actions, as he will still be in command of Enterprise during the events of TOS' "Balance of Terror". Those events play out, but war with the romulans is not averted, due to the differing command styles of kirk and pike. Kirk (paul wesley - THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, WOLF LAKE) appears, giving aid as captain of the Farragut. In this vision of the future, spock also dies. Back in the present, Starfleet arrests number one for concealing her illyrian identity.

Bom-Chicka-Bow-Wow

wrob's music videos

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This one is a firework...it's amazing and humbling to experience it igniting a crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4mKb31JaY

Where Am I?

wrob's music videos

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Are you there?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZg5JSRfEeU

Suburban Blues

wrob's music videos

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I lifted the title from an ani difranco song, "To the Teeth". It was such a good phrase, it deserved its own song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irC5Zrlp77o

Dream Womyn

wrob's music videos

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Our holes become our wounds...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRx1vBLOolg 

Just Smile

wrob's music videos

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Like a baby bear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD2IuVz-4GQ

You-oo-oo

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My semi-hidden sweet side...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZcy2le1sWw

"You Are Your Best Thing"

(Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience)

-edited by tarana burke & brene' brown

2021

If you're not reading books that are hard to read, you're not reading the right books.

And by hard, i mean kind that hits your stomach and makes you want to run away, because you know it's literally unhealthy to absorb too much of what you're reading, if your heart is open.

This book's subtitle eliminates any need to explain what it's about, except to say that the authors are all of color.

Instead, i'll share my personal resonances. One point the book makes is that the only way for a white person to truly understand black trauma, is by offering love and friendship to a person of color. I have two such recent experiences...and the fact that both of them blew up in my face is perhaps evidence that black trauma is not to be taken lightly. One was a friendship i'd cultivated for five years, a man a bit older than me, and sometimes more conservative and angry. I always knew his friendship was no bargain, but felt he was worth it. We shared artistic tastes, and i held the hope that our familiar friendship would eventually lead to him to share his deepest self. It never came to that, for i recently said something in complete innocence and goodwill, that triggered a huge anger response. Without letting us talk about it, he ended our friendship. I think his rage was significantly about some ancient trauma that my comment made him relive.

And then a more recent acquaintance, a womyn for whom i'd had a breathtaking attraction response. We texted for a few weeks...she said she'd like to get together, but it didn't happen. I kept offering her my new mantra - no secrets, no expectations. I hate texting - it's the enemy of real communication. And i soon realized there was a huge imbalance - i was emotionally open, and she was closed off. I suggested we back off from each other, but she encouraged me to keep writing. I finally wrote something about my attraction response that hit her so wrongly she wrote hurtful words, and walked away. My triggering words weren't anything i hadn't already expressed, but i used language that was more vivid - the word "cock" in particular. Still, her reaction seemed to come out of nowhere.

But it was through reading this book, that i was soon at peace with what happened. This book teaches that the only way to earn someone's trust is to be radically vulnerable...which was exactly what i'd been doing. And i was ultimately grateful she'd felt safe enough to hurt me, as that's a crucial step in healing. Many people who have been traumatized never even feel safe enough to hurt someone.

Feeling safe enough to NOT hurt someone is, of course, the goal.

Would she say that race trauma had anything to do with her reaction? I don't know.

And another resonance, that illuminates how permanently crippling trauma can be. I have a brother who was mugged violently by black men, and it might be fair to say it has forever poisoned his feelings toward people of color. He says and does things that feel more racist than anyone in our family since my grandfather. One specific? He followed the 49ers devotedly his whole life...until colin kaepernick. Just like that, he adopted a new team.

It's all just heartbreaking. And his mugging was NOTHING compared to the thousands of tiny and huge violences people of color absorb every day.

So these things take time. And yes, fellow foolish white people, if black trauma burns you...do your best to swallow it and try again.

Driftwood

wrob's music videos

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So tired...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbWZGbxTxPI

Quiet Time

wrob's music videos

A list - greatest concert ever

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Me and my monkey...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQBt8Tuj-XI

foole on the (hippie) hill

How is the greatest concert in the world progressing? Great, but the process of song selection gets ever-more-brutal. With over 300 songs, and practice time for only 30, plus 30 specialty songs...it's C-list oblivion for most. So many i thought i'd play forever, which haven't survived.

So here's where we stand - give me feedback! What's worthy, what's not...for the first time, i'll include YouTube links, so you can "experience" the concert. On any continent.

A-LIST (greatest concert ever)

Apocalypse Rock (video pending)

Killer Moon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5hNvtp2WuE

Jeff Bezos is Lost in Space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCxdyS9tkY

Goin' Down Slow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ-5FAKvTV4

If You See Kay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ispsZSQlww

Loneliest Fool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3giMqNaUIk

Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnyaazYvTL0

Gilmore Green (video pending)

Poop Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxKqem_sB7g

Ain't Got the Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGyO7B6k4i8

Don't Ask Y! (video pending)

Sexy Knees (video pending)

The Beating Goes On

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gu0HqZ_ysU

Phony (video pending)

Warm Rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2I5wgztRrQ

Bom-Chicka-Bow-Wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4mKb31JaY

Midnight Remedy (video pending)

Sex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNIXUvDwuOY

Suburban Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irC5Zrlp77o

Dream No More (video pending)

No Money No Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He-_S8-pRx8

Whitey Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcepptfEXHU

Eight Billion (video pending)

Black Bart the PO8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcvwrEqCQYY

Pequeno Cimarron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1wXxmjI5zk

Sam Hall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPhhe1hefps

Bomb Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hshjXAZtGhE

Kill the Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eZOkt6ZqSI

San Francisco Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0XaIcW8TyI

Treesexual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4vAsq0emug

Hug Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1YP11SHfHg

B-LIST (specialty songs)

MMMphony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBB4KbyxOX0

Not-dyin' Sci-fyin' Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WddrA1A9Z90

Ugly Song (video pending)

Fun to Squeeze (video pending)

Marry Me, Baby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPk2XMb3cF4

Hot Mama (video pending)

You'd Look So Good With a Baby (video pending)

Happy Holy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmxfVQ9NrJ8

FM Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjcSl_3zZZE

Don't Let the Door Hit You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCLXYk3btRM

Zeus-Fuckin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isu-0Mg5Nqc

Sexy Fuckers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtZtrjoG3RI

Millionaire Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgsmW795yU

Goin' Ape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbDfOk4YM74

Kick the Balls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqxu_F6rr8A

(HALLOWEEN SET)

Hearse Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he8-rB35Qj8

Demons (video pending)

Creature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYaY-BrX2a0

(DECEMBER SET)

Jesus vs. Santa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WX2yPwpH20

Don't Do Me Like December

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h1tM9eodEs

The First Festivus Miracle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTYttwI4zIY

Monkey Butt Dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O1Fr85JUhU

Pupus-aria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8rk2uW-bXU

Happy Geezer Day (video pending)

Butterfly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GA-sBpHke8

End of the Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qSpq8SC0tA

Ugly American

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOYVNvkvWoo

1491

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r1X7yYj2yk

Never Take an Old Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyldAIJTar4

"change of scenery"

I just read an NBC promotional pamphlet for Star Trek, for the 1966 season. It provides a show overview, plus character descriptions and cast biographies. Here's the description that jumps out:

YEOMAN SMITH, who has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain on her first mission in deep space, is easily the most popular member of Kirk's staff. A capable secretary and efficient dispenser of instant coffee, she also provides a welcome change of scenery for eyes that have spent long hours scanning the vast reaches of space.

Popular with whom, exactly? And why?

Just startling, the crass normalization of profoundly overt sexism...so effortlessly condescending, in a manner so pervasive that hardly any viewers (male, anyway) would have noticed.

And mind you, don't blame Star Trek - this was NBC, hawking its own show. But the book where i found this, "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" by solow and justman, revealed that the working conditions behind the scenes were appallingly sexist. Even predatory - prepare to be demeaned and pawed. That mindset was absorbed into the writing, with the passivity/sexualization of females, who were portrayed as ineffectual slaves to emotion, their worth defined by looks. Were there any female characters who broke that mold? In the original series...no. And the one episode that attempted to condemn sexism ("Turnabout Intruder") was still so groaning with tropes that one cringes.

Sigh. Deepest apologies, andrea dromm.

(a follow-up to https://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/07/progress-trek.html)

Broken Toy

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn1tZA984F0

People Poop

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I love the research on this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgl53TV2It4

End of the Day

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This one persists in B land. I hope my faith in it will be rewarded. It just feels like it should be a classic, for those tender moments of old friends or family coming together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qSpq8SC0tA

Creature

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This one has clung to the B list, as a Halloween special. I hope it endures...perhaps not flashy, but one of the truest things i've ever written.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYaY-BrX2a0

Upper Happy Valley Road

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A real place in the East Bay, where i deliver unconscionably-overpriced furniture to the ethically-impaired elite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlRwIjZ68-g

The Horny Man

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Imagine the studio version, with an angelic choir...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R87yG0NAFSI

Happy Lesbians

wrob's music videos

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Some things are just obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Vc39vFGz4

Perception

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I like this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3-PTD8kCdw

Welcome to Vesuvius

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Party classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wASqYR8m3to

Ruins

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This is that rare song i've written, for which i don't really believe the message...all that regret and looking-back, isn't how i see life. But i felt inspiration, and didn't censor it. Maybe i was just trying to get laid? After playing this live a few times, some urged me to keep it on my A list...but it hurts too much to play it, so i retired it quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuYIN2G0op0

Music

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This one doesn't have enough juice to play for a short set, but its bouncy, affirming, anthemic quality has kept it on the A list, and it's often the first song i play at farmer's markets-type events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnyaazYvTL0

Cry

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Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE_eUTDMAOs

Hat Red

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Holy handy gratitude to monica...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFfu0UFxva0

Somebody Bit My Ass!

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Let me see your teeth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnOWE5Ehf6o

heather & alana

WIMYN 32

They were best friends from high school entering college together, and i was a college senior. Alana was a theater tech, waiflike and a bit punk-goth. Heather was an actress, taller with straight dark hair, and cute freckles. She was into EST. They were funny and fun and gravitated to me, so we buddied around. They were both attracted, but i didn't make any moves. Alana suggested that as a joke, she and i and another girl be together in bed as heather walked in on us. We set it up; when heather opened the door, she registered a look of horror, and fled. I chased after her, but had to go back for my clothes. Alana told me where heather might run, but that she would stay in her room in case heather returned. I found heather and picked her up, after much pleading. We sat in the car for an hour or two, and she told me of how in high school she had walked in on her boyfriend and two girls having sex. She cried, i held her…and it was quite an acting exercise! All a little joke concocted by the two of them. When i drove heather back to the dorm, they let me in on it. Cruel? I didn't mind. Anyway, they told me they both wanted me, and had agreed that whichever one i chose, they would accept without complaint. Over their protests, i picked neither. I'm not trying to lionize myself; i mean, not risking a wedge between two dear friends felt like the absolute right thing to do...but if i had been aching for one (or both) of them i might have acted differently. If they hadn’t been friends, i might have gone for heather. Over the lonely years, i have unsurprisingly had intense fantasies about what might have happened if i'd declared i wanted the three of us to be together, or nothing at all. Decades later, i feel poignant regret at opportunity lost. After all these years of breaking down the emotional walls of my youth, a truth emerges. Alana could have been one of the deepest and most profound loves of my life, if i had known how to allow myself to be vulnerable and fearless...

How Do You Not Hate the Rich?

wrob's music videos

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Purebread yodeling goats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY5vf7BP60E

Another Blues Song (So Blue)

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Hippity hoppity hoo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gr5DYrdM-w

Suicide-by-Side

wrob's music videos

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Dick trickle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyObEx3WweE

Possum

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Any possum lovers out there? Cat crap fetishists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZFSiwNOs-M

Greased Palms

wrob's music videos

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je5OzUJZKdY

"The Right to Sex"

(Feminism in the Twenty-First Century)

-by amia srinivasan

2021

Reading this book is like having a conversation with your five best friends.

That is, if your five best friends are all smarter than you.

But the title stinks! The subtitle should be the title, and the title should disappear. Perhaps i'm just not bright enough to grasp its significance, but it feels entirely misleading.

The book itself is one of the most exhilarating reads i've had in a long time. Amia gives startling clarity to the challenges and contradictions that feminism faces. When she doesn't have the answer, you at least come away knowing the correct questions.

On issues of intersectionality, she removes the emotional from the essential.

On the question of revolution vs. reform, she offers hard, uncomfortable truth.

If you cherish your foibles and hypocrisies, stay away.

Brilliant.

not-ends 46

If you want to go anywhere, you have to start nowhere.

If your relationship can't survive NOT becoming lovers, it will never survive becoming lovers.

The trouble with being two steps ahead, is that you seem one step behind.

Separation of church and state was a brilliant place to start. But this country will never live up to its promise until we have separation of business and state.

Why is son of a bitch a pejorative, but not "daughter of a stud"?

The closer you get to sanity, the lonelier you become.

A sugar-bringing bunny, and tooth-taking fairy. Am i the only one paying attention?

In this world, the only thing you can't buy is a conscience.

The majority of christians take creationism literally, and "turn the other cheek" metaphorically. If those were reversed, christianity might be the only good religion.

Brilliance doesn't look like brilliance, it looks like screwing up.

The world was just notified that America has become the first country to put locks on their port-a-potties. When asked for comment, the world sighed, "Of COURSE they did."

America is the greatest country in the history of the world...which ain't saying much. America is also the worst country in the history of the world...which is saying quite a lot.

Integrity

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Saddest kazoo solo ever?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfbqEW2xOMY

Dream at the End of the World

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Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7AwXHDUDp4

No Money No Love

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Yup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He-_S8-pRx8

16 books aware

(updated)

When i left the home of my youth, a single shelf for my books would have extended seventy feet. The author who made me a reader was edgar rice burroughs - my first taste made it imperative i read everything he wrote. Twain, shaw, seuss, vonnegut, dawkins, zinn, and coates have triggered the same desire. Here are the books that every human ought read. The final version of this list will likely have entries on desensitization, humyn nature (which may take decades more research), touch deprivation (a primer for which is chapters 4-8 of morris' "Intimate Behavior"), perhaps something on mythology/archetypes, plus others i can't even begin to imagine. These books will put you back on the path of humynity.

Pardon the occasional american flavor of this list...but since culture is the only export in which America leads the world (by far), it's justified.

---------------
THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, by larry gonick
Precisely as it claims. Gonick is a Harvard cartoonist who injects huge helpings of humor and science into his books (which should be required school reading). He's only trying to save the world.
THE NAKED APE/THE HUMAN ZOO, by desmond morris
Blind spots? Almost certainly. But the hardest thing for any thinker to do is step outside oneself. No books ever achieved that so brilliantly, in terms of our species, as these two.
THE SECOND SEX, by simone de beauvoir
As lucretia mott said, "The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of woman, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source". Jean-paul and albert may have had richer imaginations, but neither wrote anything so towering.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X, as told to alex haley
The understanding of racism starts here.

WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER, by ta-nehisi coates

The understanding of institutional racism's pervasiveness starts here.
AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, by neil postman
A meditation on how the television revolution has degraded the nature of social discourse. It's not sitcoms that are sucking our brains out, it's the news and commercials and Sesame Street (no...yes!) and televangelists and...Jeopardy. When everything becomes entertainment, we abrogate our capacity for subtlety or complexity.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2018/08/amusing-ourselves-to-death.html
THE MORAL ARC, by michael shermer
(How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
Isn't it lovely how a good subtitle obviates the need to summarize? This book compares fascinatingly with pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature", which makes the same conclusion but offers a more hobbesian explanation.
https://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-moral-arc.html
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, by howard zinn
The history of a superpower, told not from the standpoint of rich white men, but that of wimyn/natives/poor white men/blacks/chicanos. Zinn challenges you to wonder what might happen if the U.S.A. became the world's first humanitarian superpower.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-peoples-history-of-united-states.html
ANIMAL RIGHTS, HUMAN RIGHTS, by david nibert
If a child could have only two books, take this and the previous entry. This one tackles how our species has gone so incomprehensibly astray since the advent of agriculture, which led to the birth of private property and death of empathy. See http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2013/10/animal-rights-human-rights.html and the follow-up (http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2016/06/animal-oppression-human-violence.html), which fleshes out the apocalyptic nature of corporate capitalism.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, by naomi klein

(Capitalism vs the Climate)

Speaking of the apocalyptic nature of corporate capitalism...

https://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2023/02/this-changes-everything.html
THE WATCHMAN'S RATTLE, by rebecca d. costa
An investigation into why all "civilizations" collapse, and where we are on that path. Costa deconstructs the five supermemes killing this world. She shows how we're the first civilization capable of avoiding that fate.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-watchmans-rattle.html
gOD IS NOT GREAT: HOW RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING, by christopher hitchens
This book makes me cry...that i didn't write it first.
THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN, by marilyn french
A deconstruction of the establishment's reaction to second-wave feminism. Less sweeping than simone, more precise.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-war-against-women.html
EATING ANIMALS, by jonathan saffran foer
One of the more compelling arguments against eating other animals, written by a meat-eater facing parenthood. There's little on health risks or historical perspective, but the cruelty that makes the Holocaust look like Club Med, plus the ecological apocalypse of factory farms, are well-covered.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/08/eating-animals.html
HARMFUL TO MINORS: THE PERILS OF PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM SEX, by judith levine
Stunningly brilliant, and nearly-suppressed.
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/09/harmful-to-minors.html
AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO: THE ABSURDITY OF CONSENSUAL CRIMES IN OUR FREE COUNTRY, by peter mcwilliams
A towering achievement, and perhaps the most laterally-researched book you'll find.
-----------
Also considered: WALDEN, STIFFED, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME, BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED, THE MISMEASURE OF WOMAN, THE LORAX

Bomb Song

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Tom lehrer, this one's for you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hshjXAZtGhE

"THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING"

(CAPITALISM vs THE CLIMATE)

-by naomi klein

2014

The hardest book you'll ever read?

For most of the first half, it was a struggle. I felt viscerally sickened.

The second half isn't so grim. It's even occasionally uplifting, with tales of how the best part of the humyn spirit struggles on, even against incomprehensible odds.

The book details how in the 90s, when world governments finally agreed that climate change was a dire threat, business and government paid some self-serving lip service (especially the villainous branson), then...did absolutely nothing. In fact, they decided to make matters worse. As one example, big fuel doubled down on dirtier extraction processes, with fracking and coal and offshore drilling, all of which indicated that they expect no regulatory interference for the next fifty years (by which time, the oceans will likely be long dead). BP disaster? Phoooey. Here's bigger, DEEPER rigs!

The book articulates how obama might have been the last humyn being who could have saved the world, as he had public opinion on his side and the banks and auto industry in his debt with government bail-outs. But instead of heroism, he climbed into big fuel pockets and cowered.

Learn how environmental groups came into real power for the first time...then climbed into the pockets of big fuel and hid. As the most horrific example, big fuel gave The Nature Conservancy a huge chunk of land in order to protect an endangered bird. The Nature Conservancy...drilled their OWN oil well. The bird? Gone.

The second half of the book details grass roots reactions, with unprecedented protests worldwide. Blockadia is born. One of our few hopes lies in the unexpected rights of first nations, as many old treaties actually cede them more authority over uncontested land than you'd imagine.

But the odds are beyond grim, as the world prepares to burn.

Hearse Song

wrob's music videos

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A Halloween staple. Should it be a year-round A-list treat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he8-rB35Qj8

True Cock

(parody of "True Love", 1988 #13 hit by glenn frey and jack tempchin)

First you find a groove, that's how you start a song

Make it smooth and slinky, you'll never ever go wrong

Before you know it you'll be knockin' on heaven's door, yes you will

You're lookin' at her, she's not lookin' at you

Feels like nothin', nothin' you can do

to be her true cock, comin' for no other

True cock, makin' her a mother

She needs a true cock, ain't no doubt about it

True cock, she just can't live without it

In the game of love, there are things she needs to hear

You don't have to mean them, just have no fear

Coz' it ain't no fun going home alone, no one to bone

With her under you, everything is right

With her on top, a magnificent sight

She needs a true cock, comin' for no other

A true cock, makin' her a mother

A true cock, powered by a true heart

True cock, you're never gonna be apart

True cock makes her day a little brighter

True cock makes every burden lighter

Give her true cock and be a better man

When you're balls deep you don't need to understand

When balls are blue, it's not a good sight

Here are some words that can change your life

Tell her you feel things you've never felt before, even though you have

Lift her heart up, make her feel strong

and give her lovin' lastin' all night long

Give her true cock, feel her heartrate rise

Splashdown comin', right between her thighs

True cock, there's nothing you're forgettin'

True cock, smell those panties wettin'

Make a baby, maybe twins

When she's ovulating everybody wins

She's your buttercup, fill her up, woo-hoo yeah

A true cock, powered by a true heart

True cock, never gonna be apart

Talkin' about true cock

Don't Let the Door Hit You

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This one has audiences eating out of your hand even before the first strum...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCLXYk3btRM

Back To Lonely

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If someone else had written this, i might call it the most honest song ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH_1oa2OATE

mumia

I met mumia abu-jamal in a dream

I said i was speechless with humility

He asked whether every black person affected me so

Then he asked why not

Skullduggery!

wrob's music videos

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How did this NOT make the cut?? Honey?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J36CpKYupyo