Monday, August 25, 2014

English Beat Live in Philly!





(This was in 2010 when I played guitar for The English Beat. I played with them for 6 months)
During the start of our tour, we were invited to Philadelphia for the 10! Show. Before a live studio audience we performed 3 tunes.


Here is one.











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Doug Stanhope: At This Point in History, The Laughter Is More IMportant Than Most Things

I'm not trying to be famous or rich. I play music. That should be enough of a clue. I play for the enjoyment.  So when people try to nit pick my opinion on social medias, as if I am not contributing to the common corporation wealth, I have to remind them what I do. I play guitar and write songs. That's it. That should be the expectation. It doesn't take that much money to write songs. Selling them, that's a whole different story. Which is why my whole music catalogue from the last 4 years is up on Soundcloud available for free. Free. (Not my band. The Musashi Trio. That involves two other people. That is actually on itunes. I'm sure you've heard it. You probably downloaded it twice already.)
 But my own music is available for free on the many Soundcloud pages I have made. It's free to make a soundcloud music page. Ya only get 2 hrs though. If you pay you get more. I don't pay cuz I don't make that kind of money right now. So I have, like 4 or 5 different soundcloud pages. All ya need is a new email for each soundcloud.  Most of my tunes are based on lookin out for the little guy. The underdog. And in the story of America, we know that the "minorities" are the underdogs in this country...so I have a lot of song material rooting for the underdogs. It takes hours out of my day to do this songwriting thing. Then I gotta play them over and over until the words are memorized. Kinda like a mid semester quiz. I have arranged my life so that I have the time to do this. I appreciate the time I have to do this. Wait...hold on while I fish another cigarette butt out of the tray...seems I got ahead of my own smoking habit this evening/morning. It's strange that when I get caught up in a social media thread and I start talking about the other side, I seem to smoke a few more cigarettes. Because the other side doesn't like the story of the underdog in this country. The other side is what makes life such a struggle for the underdog in this country. So I like to include them from time to time...because everyone should be included...



In a country of corporate indigenous people killing venture capitalists, where suburbs get filled with tiny little boxes on the hillside, housing these corporate pawns. In a country where we STILL call them Indians, as ( Louis CK has pointed out) and they are not from india, directly. I mean they may have DNA traced back across the Berring straight into Asia, but even that seems to be too much to think about for people with 4 WHOLE years of college crammed into their cel phone receptors, or whatever ya call their brains these days. In a country where black people are still getting treated like waste on the street, because we the people can't fathom the history of this country and can't possibly imagine why 500 years of hating and enslaving Black people (OR ANY PEOPLE) just doesn't simply go away with a signature. In a country where cursive signatures on contracts somehow seems to magically convince us that SURE you folks can live on this land now. As if by magic, the land belongs to you now. In a country full of rich waddling fat folks who watch porn while texting in the drive thru, inside of their luxury sedans, while waiting on oxy scripts to arrive at their private pharmacy because they ate waaaay past the PSI reading of their own knees. In a country that teaches children to grow and be successful so that you, too, may one day have a coke and hooker party in a private jet, because THAT's where the wifey won't find you. In a country that baptizes babies and sends them to war to fight for the corporate indigenous people killers who want you to kill more indigenous people IN THEIR OWN LAND because GOD says it's the right way to make money. In a country where women go to court for getting raped. In a country that wants you to say this is MY country, be proud of what we've done now go make that money for corporate america. In a country where sorority chicks are reared to be attracted to your money and together you and her get married and then later you can grease a lobbyist with the lube ya shoulda used on her in that video you posted on youporn. In a country that watches Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown dying over and over on the news, Buuuuuuut...lets some white lady outta jail  after repeated counts of espionage on a plane. Why? Because the jail is just too darn crowded with black folks already. That's why. Did I mention Ebola? In this country? Best to be not African. Americans survive though, according to the American who was just saved. It was on the TV...right after the Ferguson story. Great production, that particular newscast. Paints a good picture don't it?  In a country with a media that glorifies it's own white people's meth addiction by making Walter White the poster father figure for drug lords, while simultaneously waging war against them damn Mexicans across the border. In a country that erases pictures of"dictators" off of other peoples money, so that we the people may spread the wealth of our own money with the pics of our ex slave owners on it.

In this country. My country. Our country. This giant tree full of cunts, I guess. Here, in America, where hypocrisy falls like a gentle mid summer rain. Where hope and compassion are constantly being washed over by the gentrification of poor Americans by yuppie pawns, who still claim that they are just ordinary people trying to get by. Yeah we understand that part. Your intention was to be ordinary. It's the part when you take a check by the corporate world that causes the effect of gentrification that YOU don't seem to understand. Maybe they don't mention that part in the college courses you still owe money on. But I will. And every time I do, I have to hear the feed back from not only the rich, but some of the middle class folks who wanna be corporate rich, too. And how it's ME that doesn't include rich people in the fairness of it all. And that I should just buy in and join them and try to understand that there is no other way to be a person.
That's about the time I flip on Pandora and click on the Doug Stanhope page. Or youtube.  Because Doug Stanhope is at least being humorous about all this. He actually takes the time out of his day to make all this horror and tragedy funny, somehow. At leat to me it is. Unlike some of you yuppies(NOT ALL OF YOU), who just wanna look for the next thing to complain about while you push buttons on your phones in the fast lane with your baby in the backseat unaware of the danger you are causing. Doug Stanhope along with Louis Ck, Joe Rogan, Dave Chapelle, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, George Carlin, Tom Segura and many other great comedians would instinctively rip me a part just for mentioning their names in a stupid blog post. But YOU'RE gonna laugh, see? And that's what's important. The laughter. At this point in history, the laughter is more important than most things.

sincerely
your friendly cyberhood
Uncle Samurai