John McCain gets himself a younger woman for his 72nd birthday!

Sarah Palin, the Harriet Miers of vice-presidential candidates, said today that she was the next step in Hillary’s 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. If she means taking all the shards of glass and then using them to bleed the women’s movement back 50 years, then yes, she is!

I’m (duh of the century) not a woman, but if I was I’d be offended that in weird-grandpalike oversimplification, John McCain thinks that if you throw any ol’ pair of tits at Hillary supporters, they’ll cast their principles to the wind and vote Republican.

John McCain chose a symbol, Barack Obama chose a leader.

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Convention Blogging Installment 1

And what a crazy day and a half it’s been.

First off, my friend Andrea was already my hero but her giving me her convention pass so I could see Michelle Obama’s speech in person = best favor ever, even though Andrea goes above and beyond the call of duty for me and/or my band repeatedly and deserves to be called out for it. So Andrea, you’re too nice to have a Google Alert for your own name, but if you weren’t, you’d see this.

I have been camped out at the Starz Green Room where there are lots of great panels, films and such put on by the Seachange Ideas Forum. If you’re here at the DNC you should all come check it out, especially a panel on Social Networks that’s happening on Wednesday that features Will.I.Am and someone with many more less successful political songs than “Yes We Can” (me)!

We are playing the Drinking Liberally party at the Skylark Lounge on Wednesday night which will rule. Come to that.

I am working for lots of people here (I work in this field too, not just sing about it) and it’s 1:10 am and I’m taking this little break from work to say hi from the convention. As usual, fuck proofreading.

Update I: Drew Westen gave a presentation at Starz and convinced me, depressingly, that there’s no fucking way the Dems are building a strong enough narrative to beat Walnuts McGrandpa. Oh well.

I don’t think Biden does anything for this consituency

From DemocraticStuff.com:

(h/t Scott from My Favorite Citizen)

Good week for the Dems!

It’s been smooth sailing over here ever since John McCain forgot how many houses he has. We did a song a couple weeks ago about how nonsensical the notion that he’s the regular guy that Americans can relate to, despite his many estates, wife’s net worth of $100 million, etc. called “One of the Regulars.” The occasion makes it worth popping back up here – enjoy!

(player appears on mouseover, or just click it.)
One of the Regulars

More on McCain’s not being able to count his houses

This does not make him out of touch with ordinary Americans, many of whom can’t count how many homes they have because they are trying to figure out if they have zero or one.

Too Hardcore for HuffPo!

Every now and then we do a song that I just don’t bother putting on The Huffington Post because it’s clearly stylistically too removed from anything their readership listens to. This week’s song is one of those.

In our 47 weeks we have flitted around from style to style quite a bit, and for me, these have been among the most fun. I’ve always been a huge fan of older hardcore bands like Born Against, Gorilla Biscuits and Articles of Faith, and was never in a band that even dabbled in it.

This week’s song, Rope, is my favorite that we’ve done in this vein. Just for this week I’ve updated the player to include some of our other songs that toe the line into the Sunday CBGB matinees of my youth.

The song is a reaction to Toby Keith’s “Beer For My Horses”, a song which has been correctly called out for being nostalgic for the days when folks in the south practiced justice by hanging people from trees. In a total head-up-ass demonstration of epic proportions, Toby seems completely unaware that this practice was usually carried out against black people who hadn’t committed any transgression at all.

I tap my foot to wal-mart country music, and am often impressed by the craft that the lyricists put into it. That said, the nostalgia for the confederate flag, the days of street justice, and yes, the lynching has got to stop. Half the people who buy this offensive garbage will go on and on about how offensive rap lyrics are while blasting this ode to the days when black folks swung from trees from their pickup trucks.

And oh – the Toby Keith thing was brought to my attention because fellow Huffposter Max Blumenthal led the fight on this and was called a “moron” by Keith, and a lot of people that that it was me because Max Blumenthal and I have practically the same name.

So, with that, enjoy “Rope”.

(put mouse over, player appears)
Rope

I can see by the looks of the figures on hand
that business is quite good indeed
They’re dancing and clapping their hands
to the worst moments of history
Disguised as nostalgia for what?
An era of shame and disgust
The fiddles will fecklessly play
but they can’t disinfect it

‘Cause heritage and history are picture perfect enemies
A throwback to justice’s travesty, lusting and longing for tragedy
Coded deep in perfect pitch, syncopated in clever quips
Tightly tuned cascading on each sour note
When you sing, when you sing about rope

There’s a bank hidden deep in this ditch
that preserves all these demons of old
And etches them stitch after stitch
in circles of platinum and gold
The protest persistent against
the rhymes of the city next door
Reminiscing on days old
of vengeance and violence

Before my time and theirs as well
Way down south just north of hell
Stars and steel guitars glamorize this sick past of ours
Turn the clocks to long before the little minds in big box stores
Boots gently tapping hanging on each ugly note
When you sing, when you sing about rope

The Magnificent Seven

Oh what a lovely gift this is, that John McCain doesn’t remember how many houses he owns (the correct answer is basically seven.)

So, Obama Campaign: Nice ad — but who the fuck is scoring these things? This ad should’ve had campy, funny score. Not “someone just died” pianos. Or juxtaposition of the two – black and white photos of forclosures for 3 seconds with gloomy piano, cut to McCain’s houses with euro-techno behind it.

“Mixing pop and politics, they ask me what the use is”

“I offer my embarrassment and my usual excuses.”

Billy Bragg does it best. Performance of “Waiting For The Great Leap Forward”, 1991.

SteveAudio accidentally explains the point of blogs.

Blogger/acoustician SteveAudio didn’t mean to do it, but his new post just explained the whole point of citizen journalism. From his new post:

Some interesting stuff in the news about McStraightTalkExpress and the Saddleback Church love fest. But that’s not important right now.

Why was a mega-church, that has its own street and practically its own ZIP code, charging people to attend the Obama-McCain event? It wasn’t a fund raiser, and it was a chance to watch historical Democracy in action, yet this rich church charged people.

The Glibertarian OC Register had this to say:

“Church officials said they decided to charge admission for people who wanted a chance to see the Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls because of the expenses to stage the event and provide television feeds to a host of networks.”

This is utter crap. I have done audio tech work at Saddleback Church as I mention a few posts ago, and I’ve seen their operation.

They have audio & video facilities that would embarrass the L.A. NBC, CNN & CBS affiliates, including high-tech and expensive fiber audio & video links between various parts of the campus, ProTools rigs for recording every utterance that comes out of Warren’s mouth, state-of-the-art wireless microphones, a recording studio, complete audio & video post-production, all with the finest equipment available.

So Rick Warren’s megachurch makes a statement that gets past 1000 journos, but not a sound technician, who fortunately for everyone involved has the means to blow the lid off this lie, because he’s a blogger too.

See?

Song #46: Vultures and Hawks

Balancing the ticket is a fine idea. Picking a veep with more international chops than Obama? Sure. Picking a woman since they are half our population and Obama very much is not one? Absolutely! Balancing out the best judgment of Obama’s career (the “let’s not go to war in Iraq” one) with someone who was profoundly wrong on Iraq? Let’s do it! Oh wait…

It’s time for some positive reinforcement in Washington, and right now it appears there isn’t any.

Evan Bayh, the co-chair of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq who not just voted in favor of going to war, but was instrumental in corralling other Democrats and getting other options off the table, is rumored high on the short list. Wes Clark, who had it right from the get-go on Iraq, has been told by the Obama campaign that his services aren’t needed at the convention, let alone at the bottom of the ticket.

On the Facebook group opposing Bayh for VP, people sometimes show up to tell us that what we’re doing is ridiculous. My favorite quote is “Let’s have Hannah Montana for VP. She opposed the war, she must be qualified!” I got a good laugh out of it, but I still don’t get how it’s somehow an absurd, fringe notion that in order to qualify for the 2nd highest office in the land, one should have been right on the most important issue of his/her political career. It certainly makes more sense than the notion that to have been profoundly wrong on national security makes one strong on national security.

But anyways – less talk, more rock. Here is song #46, “Vultures and Hawks”, about how as long as folks in Washington have spoils to reap from their own bad decisions, they aren’t going to stop making them.

Vultures and Hawks

I’m open to suggestions, we’ll I’d like to think I am
Frankly for the life of me I just can’t understand
Why they’re out in Indiana, looking near and far
To hire a mechanic among the folks who wrecked the car

Where’s the reward for the foresight, clear + steady hands
Aggression is at a discount and good sense is in demand

Wrong, oh wrong, it rhymes with strong, and that’s all right for just a song
After that it makes no sense to me
They’ll talk and talk and talk and talk
Making vultures out of the hawks, stuff their stomachs silly with debris
Flying in formation towards defeat

So forget about that mess in which we’re currently embroiled
No matter if we win our lose, to the vultures go the spoils
If these old delusions never have a consequence
They’ll always play in favor of a good careerist sense

Some recompense is in order to those who got it right
And bothered to do all the research and figure out despite
All attempts at obfuscation what we really could expect
And chose not to hedge their bets in blood, yeah we owe them some respect

Wrong, oh wrong, it rhymes with strong, and that’s all right for just a song
After that it makes no sense to me
They’ll talk and talk and talk and talk
Making vultures out of the hawks, stuff their stomachs silly with debris
Flying in formation towards defeat