Bernard “Pretty” Purdie calls himself “the world’s most recorded drummer.” He can be heard on albums by Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Steely Dan. That’s barely scratching the surface.
In 1974, Purdie cut a soundtrack album for a porno flick called “Lialeh.” That album has just been digitally reissued by Light in the Attic Records. And a stank funky track called “Hap’nin’ ” is available as a FREE MP3.
Click here to stream “Hap’nin’ ” on my Vox blog. To download it, click the title below.
Sixto Diaz Rodriguez has been rescued from American obscurity by the crate-digging culture. (I love when that happens.)
Born in Detroit to Mexican immigrant parents, Rodriguez – whose stage name is simply “Rodriguez” – was a folk-rock singer and songwriter who got a major-label deal during the twilight of the Golden Age of Hippies.
In 1970, Rodriguez put out an album called “Cold Fact,” co-produced by legendary Detroit session man Dennis Coffey. The following year, Rodriguez released “Coming from Reality.”
These records didn’t sell.
By the mid-’70s, Rodriguez had dropped out of the music business. But in a quirk of fate, his two LPs started getting radio play in South Africa, Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand.
Rodriguez’s music got so popular, he toured Australia in 1979 and 1981.
It wasn’t until 1998 that Rodriguez discovered how huge he was in South Africa. He has been touring overseas ever since.
Meanwhile, in 2002, an Irish DJ named David Holmes stumbled upon the “Cold Fact” LP in a New York record store. Holmes put the track “Sugar Man” on a CD compilation, thus introducing Rodriguez to U.K. listeners.
Now, “Cold Fact” has been reissued by Light in the Attic Records, a Seattle-based boutique label. And “Sugar Man” is available as a FREE MP3.
Click here to hear “Sugar Man” on my Vox blog. (It’s flashbacky.) To download it, click the song title below.
Have you heard about the new Obama ad... the supposed first strike in a “get tough” counteroffensive against John McCain’s steady stream of attacks?
The new ad (embedded below) tries to paint McCain as “out of touch” because he doesn’t send emails... or even know how to use a computer keyboard.
At first I thought this was a weak line of attack. It even plays into the whole “elitism” thing. Like teasing somebody for not having a plasma-screen TV or knowing how to program his cell phone.
Also, the ad can be seen as a swipe at McCain’s age (“Aww, look at Grandpa. He can’t work the remote!”), but not in any effectively damaging way.
Then I saw all the “outraged” reactions at pro-McCain blogs:
“... it turns out McCain can’t type because of the damage inflicted upon him while he was a POW.”
“John McCain, because of the torture he endured as a prisoner of war, cannot use a computer keyboard. John McCain can’t even comb his own hair.”
“McCain can’t type on keyboards. He can’t tie his shoes. He can’t comb his hair. And he can’t throw a ball. This is all thanks to those ... [who] held him captive in North Vietnam.”
Those offended souls make it sound like Obama fucked up big-time. Either Obama was ignorant about the extent of McCain’s infirmity... or he poked fun at the cripple on purpose.
“If Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin or John McCain had made such a cruel mistake, the TV news coverage would be relentless and condemning,” blogged SusanUnPC at No Quarter.
But what if it’s not a mistake? What if it is a clever jiu jitsu move?
Who benefits from an extended Web-wide discussion of John McCain’s physical incapacities – McCain or Obama? I mean, what else can’t John McCain do? Can he not use a cell phone? Can he not feed himself with a knife and fork?
Karl Rove used to say: “You don’t attack an opponent’s weakness. You attack his strength. That’s how you win.” And McCain’s strength has always been his POW status... his tragic, heroic personal story. How could one possibly turn that strength against the man?
Well, one could lie and say that McCain collaborated with his Communist captors and sold his country out... as the Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain are doing.
Or one could gin up a whispering campaign about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other lingering psychological effects of 5½ years of torture. But there’s no evidence that McCain is mentally ill.
Or one can stick with the facts as they are known: John McCain is physically disabled. He cannot comb his own hair.
And to have McCain’s own supporters reminding everybody about this... well, that’s the best part. That’s Karl Rove good. That’s Lee-Atwater- with-a-black-rapist-on-parole good.
The GOP obviously wants voters to reward John McCain for his noble suffering in Hanoi... but the GOP doesn’t want to stress McCain’s disabilities. Because that doesn’t fit our mythic ideal of Commander- in-Chief. (It still might trump “Negro,” however.)
On a subliminal level, do the American people want a president who can’t tie his own shoelaces?
Boy, I hope this controversy stays cooking until Monday. I would love to see the cable-news talk shows dwelling on McCain’s infirmities.
The Republican spin machine might’ve turned Obama’s rock-star charisma and Ivy-League smarts into negatives. Let’s see if they can hit this knuckleball.
UBM is all about fair play. So let me show y’all a positive Sarah Palin YouTube video.
It’s a revamp of that old Hall & Oates hit, “Sara Smile.” The performer is Lloyd Marcus, a black Republican activist who grew up “in a Baltimore ghetto,” the son of a storefront preacher.
Lloyd Marcus sings songs with a patriotic theme. In 2004 he wrote a tribute song to Ronald Reagan.
Marcus says his bend toward conservatism began in childhood, when he lived in a Baltimore high-rise project.
“Most of [our neighbors] were on various types of governmental assistance. Many were drug addicts, alcoholics and criminals,” Marcus told a reporter in 2006. “They destroyed the apartment building.
“It taught me a lot about liberalism. If you don’t work for something, you don’t care about it. People blame the white man. It wasn’t the white man in the halls raping people.”
As a young man, Marcus abused drugs and alcohol himself. He credits his Christian faith – and the love of his second wife, a white woman – with leading him to sobriety. The couple now lives in Florida.
So... ladies and gentleman, here is Lloyd Marcus giving love to Sarah Palin:
Y’all know I’m into South African music, right? Let me share something interesting with you.
There’s a fantastic singer named Themba “Shaluza Max” Mntambo. What caught me about his music – apart from Max’s muscular tenor and some thumping grooves – was the sound of a concertina.
In my mind, the accordion-like concertina is a dainty little European instrument. What’s it doing in a Zulu chant-song?
To hear what I mean, click here and listen to Shaluza Max’s “Amancamnce.”
Embedded below is a Shaluza Max video with an even funkier concertina hook. The song is called “Mangase.” (“Amancamnce” and “Mangase” are downloadable from iTunes.)
Here’s the deal: Englishmen developed the concertina during the mid-1800s. They are said to have introduced it to South Africa in the 1920s.
The instrument was then picked up by Afrikaners, who made it a cornerstone of their folk music.
But it was also picked up by Zulus, who likewise absorbed it into their traditional music.
Doesn’t that say something beautiful about the meaning of music... and how culture is transmitted? Like with the banjo in America. Or the tuba in Mexico.
Supposedly, there are now concertina festivals in South Africa where Boer and Zulu musicians come together and rock their “Anglo” concertinas!
(By the way, we might refer to a concertina as a squeezebox... but South Africans call it a squashbox.)
I didn’t get into the standup comedy of Mitch Hedberg until after he died in 2005. Once I did, I bemoaned the fact that he left us with only two CDs.
Mitch had a uniquely bent sense of humor. Very verbal, very silly... and profanely adorable.
I’m overjoyed to see that Comedy Central this week put out a new Mitch Hedberg CD – “Do You Believe in Gosh?” – with material recorded two months before he passed. (It’s downloadable from eMusic, Amazon and iTunes.)
This album isn’t nearly as good as “Mitch All Together,” which is a masterpiece. But I’ll stream some of it for you anyway.
Ever heard of Garaj Mahal? I hadn’t. I’m not into the jam- band scene.
Luckily for me, a 10-minute funk track called “Hotel” is available as a FREE MP3. Click here to hear it on my Vox blog. You can tell right away, these guys ain’t bullshittin’.
To download “Hotel,” click the song title below.
Two live tracks are also free to download at Garaj Mahal’s MySpace page(if you have a MySpace account). To hear one of them – “The Paladin” – click here.
Since the Republicans are so sensitive about words all of a sudden, I might as well point this out: Fox News just put up a graphic mocking the blindness of New York Gov. David Paterson.
Brit Hume teased an upcoming segment on Paterson’s criticism of the McCain-Palin ticket. (According to the Associated Press, Paterson mentioned “overtones of potential racial coding” in GOP campaign rhetoric.)
Before Fox News cut to a commercial, the image on screen was David Paterson and Sarah Palin and these words: “Color Bind.” A play on the word colorblind.
Gov. Paterson, of course, is legally blind.
How’s that for tacky? I hope the governor demands an apology.
There was a 2006 book called “Lipstick on a Pig.” It’s about public relations and crisis management.
And it was written by Torie Clarke, a former press spokeswoman for... John McCain.
This has nothing to do with Barack messing up. But since the only thing I’m seeing on cable news is “lipstick on a pig” reaction, just figured I’d add this little tidbit.
Today is shaping up to be Barack Obama’s worst day on the campaign trail since Jeremiah Wright blew up.
All because he made a wisecrack yesterday about “lipstick on a pig.” Thus draping a “kick me” sign across his own back and handing John McCain a pair of steel- toed shoes.
The result is a McCain attack ad embedded below.
We’ll never know whether Obama intended his “lipstick” remark as a crass insult against Sarah Palin... or a pseudo-clever double entendre... or whether it was purely innocent. (Here is a clip of the full quote in context. Andrew Sullivan says purely innocent.)
But I find it hard to believe that no one on Obama’s team – which has run the most competent Democratic campaign for president in my adult lifetime – bothered to say, “You should forget that ‘lipstick’ line. Somebody might think you’re talking about Palin.”
I say once more: Obama needs to tighten his game up... and get the other guys out of his skull. He has to be perfect to win, and the “lipstick” line was the opposite of perfect.
UPDATE (09/10/08): YouTube just pulled the McCain attack ad... because CBS complained about a copyright violation. Team McCain used an unauthorized clip of Katie Couric talking about sexism.
McCain is sure to upload a revised version, and I will embed that one. In the meantime, the original ad (Katie Couric and all) is here on the official McCain website.
We middle-aged folks get a good feeling to see old-school rappers still bustin’ it. Like KRS-One. He has put out a dozen albums since 2001... whether anybody wanted him to or not.
Today’s FREE MP3 is from KRS-One’s 2004 album “Keep Right.” Click here to hear “You Gon Go?” on my Vox blog.
One track, “Emancipated Minor,” is available now as a FREE MP3. Click here to hear it on my Vox blog. It has a funky, four-on-the-floor snap to it... sounds almost Prince-like.
To download “Emancipated Minor,” you’ve got two options. You can follow this link to Download.com... or follow this link to Amazon.com.
Having a healthy respect for U.S. copyright laws, I don’t often link to “unauthorized” music downloads.
But I must make an exception in the case of Petra Haden’s remake of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
What’s so special about it? Well... as I mentioned here in February, Ms. Haden does it a cappella. She reproduces every element of the original arrangement with her voice.
Such elaborate, multitracked vocal recordings are a Petra Haden speciality. She covered an entire Who album in this manner.
To hear Petra’s version of “Thriller” on my Vox blog, click here. To download the MP3, hit this link. As far as I know, this track has never been officially released.
Here’s the video for a track called “Convict Colony” from Saul Williams’s “Niggy Tardust” album, which was produced by Trent Reznor (and which I blogged about last December).
From the moment Sarah Palin was chosen as John McCain’s running mate, her biggest booster on television has been MSNBC commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.
To understand why, never mind that Palin supported Buchanan in one of his own previous runs for the presidency.
Go straight back to Pugnacious Pat’s address to the Republican National Convention 16 years ago. Buchanan famously talked about a “cultural war” taking place in America. He also called it a “religious war.”
Buchanan articulated the same us-vs.-them politics we heard from Sarah Palin’s lips last night. In the “struggle for the soul of America,” Buchanan proclaimed, Democrat Bill Clinton is “on the other side, and George Bush is on our side.”
McCain – that across-the-aisle-reaching “maverick” – has now structured his offense around the old right-wing Republican playbook.
I’m streaming a 4-minute excerpt of Buchanan’s 1992 “culture war” speech on my Vox blog. Click here to hear it.
To get the entire speech, follow this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.
Yeah yeah... I know the children are “off limits.” Lemme just say this:
White kids can make something look “cute” which, if done by a non-white kid, would be condemned as “gross” or “tacky” or “triflant.”
Watch the clip below. Instant viral-video stardom for Sarah Palin’s youngest daughter! (Which likely will redound to John McCain’s benefit.)
Oh, and another fucking thing about white people: When a black guy gets one, all of a sudden they make a Harvard Law degree something to sneer at? That’s a disqualifier for leadership? Now it’s all about public schools and the PTA?
CNulan tried to tell my dumb ass that the Palin pick was a straight-up GOP “identity politics” move. He saw it right away. It took me until last night.
That’s when I saw a Republican delegate (older white female) tell NBC’s Ann Curry just why she liked Sarah Palin so much: “She’s an American woman. ... I think she's had all the experiences that we’ve had. And she knows what it’s like to live in America.”
I swear... to even keep up with all the race/class/gender shit going on this election season, you have to be world-class good at three- dimensional chess.
What an incredible night of political drama! I love a good story, and what’s happening to Sarah Palin is an amazing story.
Literally one week ago – last Wednesday – Mrs. Palin flew to Arizona and met with John McCain’s top advisers. For a job interview. The next day, McCain offered her the gig.
And tonight she stood before a revved-up Republican National Convention. She gave a speech watched by millions, perhaps tens of millions... a performance no doubt scrutinized by the whole of America’s governing class.
(The only campaign speech this year where the stakes were higher was Barack Obama’s race speech in March.)
Sarah Palin nailed it. “A star was born tonight,” said Chris Wallace of Fox News. “She’s a natural,” declared Fred Barnes.
“She is a torpedo aimed directly at the ship of Barack and Michelle Obama, that’s what she is,” said MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
And according to a jubilant Pat Buchanan: “The Republicans have their own Obama!” Which means, ummm... you know... a celebrity.
Ain’t it funny how the game can change? I thought youthful, rock-star candidates running on their personal narratives were supposed to be ridiculed!
Nothing I saw tonight helps me get my head around the notion of Sarah Palin as a possible POTUS. But she didn’t vomit onstage or bust out crying in relief after the speech was over.
Indeed, to borrow another metaphor from St. Patrick of Buchananomics, “She pitched a shutout in the first game of the World Series!”
I was gonna refer to Gov. Palin as the “Belle of the Ball” tonight, but funk dat. This woman is loaded for moose! (Peep the caribou in that photo above. Sarah Palin killed that thing. Real photo, not a fake.)
But here’s the rub-a-dub: Now that Sarah Palin is a bona fide celebrity, the national media – from the New York Times to the National Enquirer, from talk radio to political blogs to opinion journals... heck, even fashion magazines – they are all gonna want some. Their appetite will be enormous.
Because the American public, for the foreseeable future, will want to read everything it can grab about this intriguing new character... and to hear any tidbit of information, whether substantive or salacious.
The media monster cannot be tamed or managed. Not by John McCain or anybody else. And that’s the risk he took.
McCain’s political future might very well be in the hands of a reporter who’s now in a rented car, MapQuesting his or her way toward Wasilla, Alaska.
UPDATE (09/04/08): So what’s being said about Sarah Palin on talk radio? I’m streaming 4½ minutes of yesterday’s “John and Ken Show” on my Vox blog.
John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou are the afternoon drive team at KFI, a big talk station in Los Angeles. They are hugely successful. They’re credited with leading the recall campaign that took down Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
John and Ken aren’t partisan Republicans or doctrinaire right-wingers, but they are rabble-rousing populists. And as of yesterday, they weren’t buying the GOP hype about Palin.
Remember when the National Enquirer busted John Edwards on his affair with Rielle Hunter?
Way back in October 2007, Ann Coulter was happy to mention (on Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show) that the Enquirer was reporting about the Democratic candidate’s extramarital sex life.
But will right-wingers be eager to talk about today’s Enquirer “scoop”?
“John McCain’s campaign threatened legal action against the National Enquirer today for running a story about McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, allegedly having an affair with her husband’s business partner.
“ ‘The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Gov. Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie,’ said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt.”
In the past couple of hours, news of the Enquirer’s allegation has been spread online by the Washington Post and CNN.
But I don’t see the allegation itself mentioned on the Enquirer’s website. And I can’t run out to the supermarket right now, so I don’t know what the details are supposed to be. Still... it’s about the distraction.
UPDATE (09/04/08): A press release from the National Enquirer, posted by Matt Drudge:
“The National Enquirer’s coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin’s extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair....
“Following our John Edwards’ exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign’s vetting process. Despite the McCain camp’s attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum.”
Former McCain adviser Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan were caught today sharing their true feelings about Sarah Palin into hot mics.
Their frank, off-camera chatter wasn’t broadcast on MSNBC... but it’s now up on YouTube. And political bloggers such as Ben Smith and Mark Halperin are all over it. Listen for yourself.
Two weeks ago, I blogged about a scanlous new song called “Kill Bill O’Reilly” (by some publicity-hungry Boston rappers called East Coast Avengers).
Well, the “Clean Radio” edit is available as a FREE MP3.
I point you to it for entertainment purposes only... not because I endorse its message. Because O’Reilly is cool by me. He’s an amusing loudmouth and a gifted broadcaster.
Sean Hannity is the one who should be slow-tortured. He is a straight- out character assassin, and he uses Nazi propaganda techniques.
Now guess what? Barack Obama is gonna be on “The O’Reilly Factor” tomorrow night!
O’Reilly was tickled pink when he announced it last night. He has been begging Obama for months to come on his show and validate him as a serious interviewer.
Obama, in a slick judo move, will use Fox News to upstage John McCain on the night of McCain’s big speech at the Republican National Convention. Brilliant!
Anyway, click here to hear the “clean” version of “Kill Bill O’Reilly.” To download it, click the track title below.
John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate proves one thing for sure: He’s a maverick, an out-of-the-box thinker, a bold leader determined to shake up Washington.
Say goodbye to business-as-usual once President McCain takes charge!
I have secret information about McCain’s wish list for the Cabinet. Not surprisingly, Gov. Palin isn’t the only “outsider” with whom McCain plans to surround himself. Here are several others. And they, like Sarah Palin, all have impressive credentials:
Secretary of Defense: DONALD J. GOLDHORN Currently: Adjutant General, Guam National Guard
Maj. Gen. Don Goldhorn has led the Guam National Guard – a force of 1,100 soldiers and airmen – since 2005. In that role, he’s the key advisor to the governor of Guam on all matters military.
As a U.S. territory in Asia, Guam conveys upon Goldhorn vast expertise in international affairs.
Like McCain, he is a Vietnam veteran. And among Goldhorn’s recent decorations are a South Dakota National Guard Desert Storm Ribbon and a South Dakota National Guard Distinguished Unit Ribbon.
Most importantly to McCain, Gen. Goldhorn has never worked at the Pentagon. So he is the living embodiment of “change.”
Secretary of State: ANN WAGNER Currently: U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg
The Hon. Ann Wagner has been Ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg for three years. But she’s not a Foreign Service establishment hack.
In fact, she had no prior diplomatic experience. But she was co-chair of the Republican National Committee for four years, and has traveled to 48 of America’s 50 states.
Known as a “high-octane multi-tasker,” Wagner had been active in numerous charities, including Campfire USA, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Catholic Charities of St. Louis, and she raised three children.
Her devotion to public service includes nine years as a local committeewoman in Lafayette Township, Missouri.
Attorney General: BARRY WOOD Currently: Administrative District Judge, 5th Judicial District, Idaho
Barry Wood has had a distinguished career in the Idaho court system. He has adjudicated complex water-rights cases, and he presided over a high-profile murder trial in 2005.
Judge Wood was honored by his peers with the 2006 Kramer Award for Excellence.
A McCain insider told me: “Nobody in Washington has ever heard of Barry Wood. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
Secretary of the Treasury: DEBRA ALLEN Currently: Bank teller
With nine years of experience in the banking industry, Debra Allen was named the 2005 Teller of the Year by Southern Missouri Bank. She was honored for her “excellent balancing skills and for her outstanding customer service.”
“She’ll be a breath of fresh air in Washington,” said a McCain staffer. “She’s real. And she’s a maverick.”
I’m no expert on politics, but I consume lots and lots of media. So I have an instinct about how this amazing tale of Sarah “Cinderella” Palin will continue to unfold.
For the next two or three weeks, the mainstream media will be all up in the Alaska governor’s business. Which means every day there’ll be a new surprise, a new twist, a funky new detail, and these will ricochet around the blogosphere with a noise that drowns out all other campaign news.
Team McCain will have to invest enormous amounts of energy into defending Mrs. Palin, explaining its choice of Mrs. Palin, preparing Mrs. Palin for high-profile media interviews, marshalling the support of the Republican establishment...
Which means all that political energy won’t be spent defining the Democrats, attacking Barack Obama, pushing the McCain “message,” and otherwise doing what the GOP wants to be doing in the homestretch of a neck-and-neck race.
I won’t predict what’s gonna happen. But... two or three weeks, y’all. In two or three weeks, something is gonna happen.
Will Cinderella’s chariot revert to a pumpkin? Will Sarah Palin be back in Wasilla? (Or “Wa-silly,” as Obama mispronounced it on Anderson Cooper’s show tonight.) Will John McCain have to find himself a new running mate?
In his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, presidential nominee Barry Goldwater delivered one of the great rhetorical couplets in American political history:
“[E]xtremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
But the conservative icon had more on his mind that night than the Communist menace.
Goldwater, throughout his campaign, made an issue of “crime in the streets.” He was, in fact, the first presidential candidate ever to politicize urban crime.
(By 1968 – after the Watts Riots of ’65, the Newark and Detroit riots of ’67, and widespread rioting after the murder of Martin Luther King – Richard Nixon won the Republican nomination with a tough “law and order” approach, belittling those “bleeding-heart” liberals who said poverty was the problem.)
I’m streaming a 3-minute excerpt from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 speech to the RNC. Click here to listen.
You can stream or download the entire speech by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.
Yay, New Orleans! Looks like Gustav took it easy on y’all. Let us celebrate with a FREE MP3.
Swamp-funk practitioner Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne was born in Shreveport. He’s now based in Austin, Texas. And for the album “Do Your Thing” – released in 2007, but recorded pre-Katrina – Papa Mali hooked up with some illustrious New Orleaneans: Kirk Joseph, Henry Butler and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux.
Click here to hear “Honeybee” on my Vox blog. It showcases the masterful Mr. Butler on piano.
Blogger Larry Johnson – former CIA officer, former State Department counterterrorism expert – used to be taken seriously by the world.
But this year, for reasons unknown, Johnson decided to become a full-time character assassin, devoting his No Quarter blog to the slurring, smearing, sliming, mocking and libeling of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Now Larry Johnson has the nerve to howl in protest against the “smear” of Sarah Palin by leftist bloggers who question whether she really gave birth to her Down syndrome baby.
Andrew Sullivan, who blogs for the Atlantic Monthly, jumped on the baby-mama rumor yesterday... and he’s barebacking the hell out of it.
Larry Johnson responded this morning with a blog post titled “Fuck You Andrew Sullivan,” in which he threatens violence:
“You piece of human scum. Pick the time and date. I will kick your ass. You are despicable. There is one indisputable fact–Sarah Palin gave life to a baby boy who has Down’s Syndrome. And you dare to suggest that this was an illegitimate birth by her daughter. You have no sense of decency or honor. You deserve to be beaten in every manner conceivable. You and your cohorts spread this vicious lie. You are a spineless coward. ... I will fight you with one arm tied behind my back and destroy you. ...”
(This motherfucker used to work for the State Department?)
Obviously, Larry Johnson is the one with no sense of decency or honor. Larry Johnson spread vicious lies about Barack Obama having gay sex with a crackhead. Larry Johnson is the spineless coward who smeared Michelle Obama with the “whitey tape” rumor.
No one has done more to poison our political culture this season than Larry Johnson. He troubled the waters into which Sarah Palin and her family have now been thrown, without benefit of life jackets.
So, Mr. Johnson, for all this and more, I crown thee... King of All Assholes!
Bernard “Pretty” Purdie calls himself “the world’s most recorded drummer.” He can be heard on albums by Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Steely Dan. That’s barely scratching the surface.
“Hap’nin’ ” (MP3) 
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at 
Album available at 
