We the People Resist

I wanna thank President Agent Orange for perpetuating all the evil that you’ve been perpetuating throughout the United States. I wanna thank President Agent Orange for your unsuccessful attempt at the Muslim ban. Now we come together! We the people!  Busta Rhymes

We the People by A Tribe Called Quest

[Verse 1: Q-Tip]
We don't believe you 'cause we the people
Are still here in the rear, ayo, we don't need you
You in the killing-off-good-young-nigga mood
When we get hungry we eat the same fucking food
The ramen noodle
Your simple voodoo is so maniacal, we're liable to pull a juju
The irony is that this bad bitch in my lap
She don't love me, she make money, she don't study that
She gon' give it to me, ain't gon' tell me run it back
She gon' take the brain to wetter plains, she spit on that
The doors have signs with, don't try to rhyme with
VH1 has a show that you can waste your time with
Guilty pleasures take the edge off reality
And for a salary I'd probably do that shit sporadically
The OG Gucci boots are smitten with iguanas
The IRS piranha see a nigga gettin' commas
Niggas in the hood living in a fishbowl
Gentrify here, now it's not a shit hole
Trendsetter, I know, my shit's cold
Ain't settling because I ain't so bold but ay

[Hook: Q-Tip]
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go

[Bridge: Phife Dawg & Q-Tip]
The fog and the smog of news media that logs
False narratives of Gods that came up against the odds
We're not just nigga rappers with the bars
It's kismet that we're cosmic with the stars

[Verse 2: Phife Dawg]
You bastards overlooking street art
Better yet, street smarts but you keep us off the charts
So motherfuck your numbers and your statisticians
Fuck y'all know about true competition?
That's like a AL pitcher on deck talking about he hittin'
The only one who's hitting are the ones that's currently spittin'
We got your missy smitten rubbing on her little kitten
Dreaming of a world that's equal for women with no division
Boy, I tell you that's vision
Like Tony Romo when he hitting Witten
The Tribe be the best in they division
Shaheed Muhammad cut it with precision
Who can come back years later, still hit the shot?
Still them tryna move we off the fucking block
Babylon, bloodclaat
Two pon yuh headtop

[Hook: Q-Tip]
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go

Music in Memorium, 2016

Musicians:

Al Caiola

Alirio Diaz

Bap Kennedy

Bernie Worrell

Billy Faier

Billy Paul

Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Vee

Buckwheat Zydeco

Curly Putnam (songwriter)

Dave Swarbrick

Don Friedman

Dr. Ralph Stanley

Elliot Schwartz

Elliot Wolff

Fred Hellerman

Fred Stobaugh (songwriter)

Gato Barbieri

Gib Guilbeau (Flying Burrito Brothers)

Glenn Frey

Glenn Yarbrough

Greg Lake

Guy Clark

Holly Dunn

Jean Shepard

John D. Loudermilk

Kacey Jones

Kay Starr

Kitty Kallen

Leon Russell

Leonard Cohen

Lonnie Mack

Mack Rice

Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire)

Mentor Williams (songwriter)

Merle Haggard

Mic Gillette

Milt Okun

Mose Allison

Oscar Brand

Otis Clay

Paul Kantner

Penny Lang

Peter Zorn

Phil Chess (Chess Records)

Red Simpson

Richard Fagan

Rob Wasserman

Rod Templeton (songwriter)

Ruby Wilson

Scotty Moore

Sharon Jones

Signe Toly Anderson

Sir George Martin

Sir Jimmy Young

Sir Neville Marriner

Sonny Sanders (songwriter)

Stan Harper (harp-er)

Toots Thielemans

Lastly, I'll recognize David Bowie and Prince and George Michael for their contribution to pop music.

writers:

Alvin Toffler

Amy van Singel

Anthony Cronin

Bill Berkson

C. D. Wright

Carolyn See

Dario Fo

David Budbill

David Meltzer

Don Welch

Edward Albee

Eliot Tiber

Francisco X. Alarcón

Georgie Sicking (cowboy poet)

Huston Smith

James Alan McPherson

Jim Harrison

John Montague

Joyce Carol Thomas

Lucia Perillo

Maria Costa

Michael Herr

Michael S. Harper

Nahed Hattar (killed by a fanatic)

Pat Conroy

Richard Adams

Sir Geoffrey Hill

Sir Peter Shaffer

Stephen Levine

Sylvan Barnet

Thomas Steinbeck

W. P. Kinsella

others:

Alan Rickman

Arnold Palmer

Bob Elliot

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

Carrie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds

Daniel Berrigan

Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14)

Elie Wiesel

Garry Shandling

Gene Wilder

Glen Dawson, 103 (mountaineer)

Gwen Ifill

Henry Heimlich

Hugh O’Brian

Janet Reno

Jerome Bruner

Jim Ray Hart

Jo Cox

Joe Browder

John Glenn

Ken Howard

Michael Cimino

Monte Irvin

Morley Safer

Muhammad Ali

Patty Duke

Ralph Branca

Robert Vaughn

Shimon Peres

Tom Hayden

Umberto Veronesi

Van Williams

Vera Rubin

William Schallert

$ Talks

The Power of the Almighty Dollar

It run/ruins our lives (more on that another time), and right now it's being used as a political tool, an instrument for change. The Democrats have virtually no power in Congress, maybe the dollar does. So, there are boycotts instated and immediately effective (see Nordstrom's). Behavior changed. The White House trembles, Don, Melania, Ivanka, their empires of gold teetering. Here's my take.

Say you are opposed to Trump as a person, businessman and president and the reactionary Republican agenda he's shoving through. Who to boycott?

WARNING: These lists are incomplete and possibly inaccurate and constantly changing, so send me comments to make them better.

His financiers:

Trump auto-financed, sometimes paying his own businesses (335m)

Rep. Party and MAGA committee (543m)

Super PACs (79m) -- Future45, Rebuilding America Now, Great America PAC, Make America Number 1, Reform America Now, Save America From Its Government and many others. Who are these people? If you find out, let me know.

The companies that supported his campaign:

LLBean

Hobby Lobby

Yuengling Beer

NASCAR

New Balance

PayPal

Home Depot

MillerCoors

Jenny Craig

UFC

The companies that are working with him now (on his business advisory council):

Tesla

Blackstone

General Motors

JPMorgan

Walmart

Uber (retracted)

PepsiCo

EY

IBM

BlackRock

General Electric

Patomak Global Partners

Global Infrastructure Partners

Cleveland Clinic

Boston Consulting Group

Boeing

Hoover Institute

IHS Markit

The companies that sell/sold Trump family products:

6pm.com

Belk.com

Macy's (partially retracted)

Bed Bath & Beyond

Bloomingdale's

Sears (retracted)

Walmart

Saks Off Fifth

Wayfair (retracted)

Bellacor (retracted)

Winners

Kmart (retracted)

Amazon

Lord & Taylor

Burlington Coat Factory

Dillard's

DSW

HSN (retracted)

Hudson's Bay

Marshalls (retracted)

Neiman Marcus (retracted)

Nordstrom (retracted)

Overstock.com

TJ Maxx (retracted)

Zappos

Shoes.com (retracted)

Belk (retracted)

Jet (retracted)

ShoeStyle (retracted)

Gilt (retracted)

Century21

Ross

Bon-Ton

Steinmart

Filene's Basement

The celebrities who support Trump:

Kanye West (retracted)

Jon Voight

Scott Adams (retracted)

Piers Morgan

Norman Podhoretz

David Duke

Roger Ailes

Sheldon Adelson

Steve Forbes

Bill Koch

Jack Welch (retracted)

Rupert Murdoch

Peter Thiel

Alex Jones

Jerry Falwell Jr.

Gennifer Flowers

Chuck Norris

Scott Baio

James Caan

Kelsey Grammer

Randy Quaid

Fred Williamson

George Brett

Johnny Damon

Curt Schilling

Dennis Rodman

Mike Tyson

Tom Brady

Tim Tebow

Jack Nicklaus

Paris Hilton

Pat Boone

Loretta Lynn

P Diddy

Clint Eastwood

Kirstie Alley (retracted)

Kid Rock

Pete Rose

Matthew McConaughey

Jeff Bridges (dude?)

What are the Mexicans doing? Many are boycotting all American products, especially those symbolic of the U.S. like Coke, Starbucks, Walmart, McDonald's, KFC, Costco. They are preferring local Mexican products. They have been terribly mistreated and are very upset and offended. The peso talks too.

What do I think? Boycotting companies like Starbucks that has never supported Trump is wrong ... but I'd do it anyway. I feel like buying from Nordstrom's the day after they announced they were pulling the Ivanka line (as soon as they sold remaining stock) is splitting hairs. This is not the time for splitting hairs; it is time for hitting the President by hitting the American economy as hard as possible. Buy local, buy from family owned businesses, buy from Trump opponents, and most of all stop buying. Whatever you need, apart from basic necessities, you can do without, at least for now. After the Impeachment we can all go on a shopping spree (or not). I feel radicalized by the current situation, and I'll return to normalcy when my country does.

Where to find out more: #GrabYourWallet #AdiosProductosGringos

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Well, the boss sure is on his high horse again.

Jeff: Yeah, that was pretty extreme.

Mutt: Extreme boycotting.

Jeff: The only antidote is extreme humor.

Mutt: Well, The earthquake in Washington obviously was the government’s fault.

Jeff: Be kind to your dentist. She has fillings, too.

Mutt: What happened when the cow tried to jump over a barbed wire fence?

Jeff: I should know this.

Mutt: Udder destruction.

Jeff: Cannibals like to meat people.

Mutt: Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

Jeff: What happened to the lawyer who was thrown out of a saloon? He was disbarred.

Mutt: Did you hear about the cannibal who was late for dinner?

Jeff: Can't say that I did.

Mutt: He got the cold shoulder.

Jeff: You know, Mutt, those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

Mutt: This girl at the bank said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.

Jeff: What were you doing in a bank?

Mutt: It's air-conditioned.

Jeff: I was in a greasy spoon, somebody says: "Waiter! This coffee tastes like mud." He answers, "Yes sir, it's fresh ground."

Mutt: Ha! A dentist married a manicurist, but they fought tooth and nail.

Jeff: Yeah, when they bought a water bed, the couple started to drift apart.

Mutt: My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned because I couldn't concentrate.

Jeff: I used to work for a blanket factory, but the company folded.

Mutt: What kind of coat can be put on only when wet?

Jeff: A coat of paint. You liked nursery school, didn't you?

Mutt: And I had a photographic memory that was never developed.

Jeff: What musical is about a train conductor?

Mutt: "My Fare, Lady."

Jeff: Packing up and relocating to a new home can be a moving experience.

Mutt: A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, "No change yet."

Jeff: Change is good.

Mutt: Oh brother, right now regime change is good.

Jeff: Here's to hope.

Ugly Times

Donald Trump, President of the United States. I can write it, but I still can't believe it. Representing the worst in us, the most vulgar, petty, mean and violent. So how's he doing so far? Did he rise to the occasion and surprise us by being presidential? Quite the contrary. He's building ruin, destruction, mayhem.

Foreign policy: it seems to be all about alienation, identifying the enemy. Let's make a list (he did, and by he I might mean President Bannon, the Nazi). Offend and insult first our NAFTA, North American partners/friends, Canada and Mexico. Threaten war against Mexico and at the very least a huge wall, thus damaging U.S. relations with all Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Offend TPP partners: Brunei, Canada again, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico again, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. Then insult Australia again. Threaten war against China. Threaten war against North Korea. Prepare a war against Iran. Or maybe Yemen (opps). First Muslim ban on: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya. But in the process frighten and alienate all Muslim-majority countries like: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Niger, Tunisia, Djibouti, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Comoros, Gambia, Guinea and Guinea Bissau, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mayotte, Oman, Qatar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and the Palestinian Territories. Does the President even know where these countries are? Does he have friends from these countries? Does he know any Muslims? Does he know that there are 2,595,000 American Muslims? Not to mention other non-Muslim majority countries with large Muslim populations (over 1 million): Benin, Burma/Myanmar, Cameroon, Canada again, China again, Congo, Eritrea, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Israel (surprised?), Italy, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia (oops, 9,400,000 Muslims), Spain, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom (3,577,000 Muslims). Notice the European countries in this list? Oh yeah, he insulted and threatened the European Union too: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (Melania's hood), Spain, Sweden and still the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Are there other countries to cross off his hit list? Oh, I forgot that he plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 194 countries have signed the treaty, 128 have ratified it (or more now), including the U.S. on September 3, 2016. I'll spare you a complete list, but the countries who did not sign this life-or-death agreement are: Nicaragua, Syrian Arab Republic, Uzbekistan, North Korea. Basically Trump has destroyed American relations with every other country on earth, in only two weeks!

Oh boy, that's horrible. It's the old match metaphor: years of hard work to build a house, just one match to burn it down. Is Trump doing better at home, where he says he is concentrating his goodwill at the expense of the rest of humanity? (Does he have any humanity? Does he know what being a refugee means? Can he feel the suffering of others?)

Some critics have called the barrage of Executive Orders, meant in part to confound the opposition (it's working), un-American. Un-American would mean in contrast with our values, history and laws. Evidently the Trumpists and the Hillary-supporters (the majority) do not share values. The ACLU and the KKK do not share values.  Then let's talk about history. Andrew Jackson, the corrupt, vindictive racist is not a president to admire. Okay, let's talk about recent history. "The United States is in a disastrous state and corruption and degradation has been rampant for decades. Carnage." Um, I don't think I want to talk about recent history because Trump seems to have been living in an alternate reality. Nightmareland. Not-Great America waiting to be saved.

So let's talk about the law, something we can all agree on. The Constitution. The first amendment: freedom of religion (severely threatened for non-Christians and non-believers), freedom of speech (they're checking people's Facebook posts in airports), freedom of the press (DT: journalists who are not government mouthpieces should be terminated), freedom of assembly (tear gas and arrest for protestors, see Dakota), freedom to petition (totally ignored millions of signatures). Every Italian knows that a clique that runs the show through repression of the people's will is called "Fascism." Look it up.

Things look worse every day. Sad.

Happy trials, Martin


Mutt: Looks like bad jokes are needed more than every.
Jeff: Here we go.
Mutt: What's a witch's favorite school subject?
Jeff: Spelling.
Mutt: What kind of lights did Noah have on the ark?
Jeff: Floodlights.
Mutt: What do you call an Italian with a rubber toe?
Jeff: You got me, what?
Mutt: Roberto.
Jeff: P.U. I had a dream last night that I was a muffler.
Mutt: Really?
Jeff: I woke up exhausted.
Mutt: Did you hear about the optometrist who fell into a lens grinder and made a spectacle of himself?
Jeff: Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.
Mutt: They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type O.
Jeff: I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
Mutt: I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.
Jeff: I changed my iPhone's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.
Mutt: I don't know what that means.
Jeff: Never mind. What you seize is what you get.
Mutt: Can I tell an English teacher joke?
Jeff: No.
Mutt: Please.
Jeff: No.
Mutt: Okay, past, present and future walked into a bar.
Jeff: I said no.
Mutt: Wait for it. The situation was ... tense.
Jeff: No.
Mutt: Sorry. Forgive me.
Jeff: Good night.

Quote of Every Day

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.  Martin Niemoller

New National Anthem Update

Several weeks ago I proposed an alternate anthem for the next four years: "I Won't Back Down," by Tom Petty. Good choice. But yesterday I heard a song so beautiful and so moving that I must revise my recommendation. The clipped off ending makes it ring in your head. Go women, you got this.

Notes from Trumplandia

After the trip back home from hell -- stuck 2 days in SFO and another two in Istanbul snowstorms, for a total of about 90 hours door-to-door -- I got a case of the flu from hell, so far 8 days of coughing my lungs inside out for a total of 666,000 painful hacks, with 5 days of hallucinatory fever like I can't remember since I had typhoid over 40 years ago, and all the while following the exponential disgustingfulness of our elected leaders -- I feel compelled to leave my sickbed and turn in this report to my foreign readers (all 6 or 8 of you) on what I experienced firsthand in the New USA during my recent visit from a politicalogical-sociological standpoint.

How's that for a first sentence? Can you tell that I haven't slept more than an hour a night for the last week?

Okay then, down to work: My first idea was to write an insightful essay about Trump the Trickster. Based on my background in folklore studies, I thought I could show how he's actually the expression of an ancient archetype, the creator-destroyer of worlds, blahblahblah ... and maybe I will someday.

Then my delirium gave me an even better idea: Race War. Why and how one is being subtly set up and launched. Remembering the late 60's (as I do), I see similar signs of race war on somebody's agenda, somebody's way to gain or distract or just have fun breaking heads, but, yeah, another time.

Then one word in the Russian dossier summary struck me -- Pervert. I know DT the Perv ain't news: the predatory behavior, the porn films, the penis brags, pussy-grabbing, if she weren't my daughter, mistresses, prostitutes, assault and abuse, and more we'll find out later. One thing about perverts is that they love company, they form clubs, so who does DT surround himself with: Julian Assange, Mike Tyson, Bill O'Reilly, Arnold Swartzeneger, Roger Ailes, Steve Bannon, Jeffery Epstein, Andrew Puzder, Corey Lewandowski, and Vladi Putin. Not a full or confirmed list but you get the idea. And it is all horrible, a rape culture so vulgar and filthy that in the end it's hard to look at. Or joke about.

So what happened on the ground regarding the Prez Elect (or PEE) for me to report about? Not much. People aren't talking. Like the eerie winter of 2001, following 9/11, there's a tense fake calm that equals fear. The country-town-neighborhood-friends-families are divided. The issue was avoided in holiday gatherings. One liberal friend told me she "felt like vomiting" every time she thought about that monster. But she said it in a whisper, as if 1984 were still in effect. It is a uniquely distressing moment for half the country, or three quarters I should say, and that includes most of California.

Republicans and Democrats, like Dodgers and Giants, play by the same rules. Everyone wants the transitions to go smoothly. Yet that ends now. No more rules, no smooth transitions in mutual respect, no more morality.

Come Friday, the trickster, race war-monger, pervert, un-named one has the nuke buttons and can't wait to destroy something, or everything.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt and Jeff are both sick too.