The Republic of T.

OK. I love old R&B music just as much as president Obama does. I sing along with Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Dionne Warwick all the time — at home, in the car, etc. I get it. I do.

But will somebody on Obama’s campaign staff please tell him to stop singing in public? Mrs. Obama, can you speak to your husband about this? [Via TMP.] (more…)

I’m probably going to blog over the holiday, because I’m going to be writing over the holiday, because I have to write, just like I have to breathe.

Until then, make happy, make it peaceful, and keep it safe. I leave you with my favorite song at this time of year.

I havne’t been able to get this song out of my head all day. Not that that’s a bad thing, at all.

One of my favorite voices has been stilled.

R.I.P., Phoebe Snow.

I heard about this, but only watched it just now. Here’s Sharon Angle, belting out Lee Greenwood’s "God Bless the USA."

I didn’t make it all the way through. I didn’t need to. I’m familiar with the song, and I’m familiar with why Angle wanted to sing it and why nobody apparently tried to convince her that it was not a good idea.

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When it comes to the holiday season, I’m neither a Scrooge nor a fanatic. I enjoy the season for a multitude of reasons. And no, I don’t agree with most people about the “reason for the season,” and that’s O.K. History doesn’t agree with them either, but that’s O.K. too. Human beings have have celebrations and ceremonies around this time of year practically since the beginnings of civilization. It’s meanings are old enough and broad enough for all of us to lay some claim to it.

Besides, “Peace on Earth” and “Goodwill toward men” sound like  good ideas to me, after having my head in national these last couple of years. It’s enough to make anyone say “Bah! Humbug!” But recently I heard a familiar holiday song on the radio, and it kinda brought me back to myself.

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There are, I think, certain events that make it clear that the period you refer to as your “youth” has irretrievably faded into the past. One is when the musical acts you listened to almost obsessively have greatest hits collections, anthologies and (yes) even boxed sets in their catalogs. Another is when you favorite acts become fodder for summertime reality/nostalgia television shows. (Also, clubs dedicate whole nights to the music that comprised the soundtrack of your formative years, now reduced to a “theme.”)

I think another such moment is when the technology you used to listen to all that music goes the way of the Betamax — as Sony has announced will happen to its Walkman.

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I sometimes save things in Google reader that have interesting titles and that I want to read later. “The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl,” written by a wrestler who fell in  love with the music of Tori Amos, is one that I actually did read later. I think it’s because of the the “WTF” factor — my reaction to a wrestler/Tori Amos fan made me realize I was totally stereotyping, something I detest and don’t want to do.

Sure enough, reading proved my stereotyping all wrong. I haven’t listened to much Tori Amos, but I completely understood how deeply Mick Foley was affected by Amos’ song, “Winter.”

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I know I say this every time a favorite celebrity passes away, but this is one of those times when I mean it when I say a little bit of light went out of the world when Lena Horne left it last night.

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.

Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.

Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.”

Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.

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This was my first experience of Ricky Martin. I didn’t know his name. I’d never seen him before. But by the time he was done, I — like a lot of people — wanted to know “Who is that guy?!”

“Do you really want it?” he sang. And by the time he was done…I did. I really did.

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I now extend my request for Levi Johnston to these guys.

The Christian side hug, for the unaware, is the Christian version of the standard “full frontal hug,” which is a sinful abonimation and should be avoided until marriage (I am not actually making this up). The side-hug is preferable because it avoids crotch-touching, which Jesus hated. Apparently the standard hug is now mostly for Jews, Muslims, Socialists and probably Unitarians.

Also, did I hear that right? Do they say “You ain’t no Rabbi, you ain’t no Priest, so rise up off me like the [something] with no yeast”? And does that mean that if you were a Rabbi or Priest you could, uh, not rise up off me? I’m uncomfortable and confused.

I also remain unclear on why “Democratic shift in Congress!” is thrown in and why there’s a shout-out to buying babies, but I haven’t read my True Images Bible for Girls in a while so maybe I’m just forgetting that part of the New Testament.

And this guy.

Yet another right wing rapper has shown up on the scene at the tea parties. His name is Hi Caliber and he sucks as bad as all the previous ones.

“Patriotic people throw your hands in the air, and wave them around like you just don’t care.”

Seriously, is that the best he can do? I imagine it is.

Just stop. Please.

Unfortunately, ain’t no rap like right-wing rap ’cause right-wing rap don’t stop.

I’m gonna give ‘em this much. I think the free market will take of this trend. Soon, I hope.

(Full disclosure: The group that organized the protest is one I work with on my job.)

This is something I wish I’d been a part of, and I hope they call me if they need an extra baritone next time. (It’s rare that my vocal training and my politics intersect.) Plus, the guy who got “punk’d” was none other than Bill McInturff, the guy who gave us Harry and Louise. (Not to mention killing health care reform and giving us another decade of pre-existing conditions, recissions, etc.)

Republican pollster Bill McInturff was the keynote speaker on the final day of the America’s Health Insurance Plans’s state issues conference on Friday morning.

But his speech on how the health care reform debate was playing among the public was interrupted before it even began. A group of protesters began aggressively cheering McInturff for the work he has done for AHIP (he’s a hired pollster for the private insurance lobby and, most infamously, was the force behind the ‘Harry and Louise’ ads in 1994)

McInturff, initially thinking that the cheering was legitimate, thanked the “AHIP officials” in the back of the room for giving him mental encouragement for his speech. He was not being paid for his appearance, he noted.

And then, the protesters — dressed in business attire to fit into the crowd — began singing. A relatively lengthy and harmonious rendition of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie ensued, only with the chorus focused on government-run insurance. “The option, the option, we must have, the option… ” went the rendition, in reference to the public plan.

The lyrics are available after the jump, if you want to sing along.

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There are no second acts in American lives.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It struck me as simultaneously ironic and poetic when, a few weeks ago, two of music biggest icons — each of whom in their own way represented the intoxicating excess that goes with a certain level of celebrity — went through transitions that were as similar as they were different. And within days of each other.

One, at least, no longer has to please his public — or seek its forgiveness. The other now faces the task of disproving the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote above.

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Clearly something is amiss. Let the record show that, as we say in the south, “he ain’t right.” Kelly Clarkson wonders what happened to him as a child. Obama called him a “jackass.”

Well, he did behave like one.

Seriously, though. I wonder if Kanye West really does have a problem, because I can very much identify with the trouble his mouth has gotten him into, again.

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I don’t know about you but “sorry” doesn’t begin to cut it

Chris Brown has publicly apologised for attacking his ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

In a two-minute video on his website, the R&B star said “I thought it was time that you heard directly from me that I am sorry”.

He says he is seeking help and wants to live his life as a role model, saying: “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again”.

Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assault after he was arrested the night before the Grammy awards in February.

Not when we’re talking about this.

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There’s one Michael Jackson video I forgot to add to the previous post. I thought of it because I found myself humming it yesteday.

I guess the lyrics spoke to me.

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We all have a few of them. Those "where-were-you-when" moments that simultaneously help define generations and span generational differences. Our parents and grandparents may recall where they were when FDR died or when they heard that Kennedy — John or Bobby — was assassinated. Or when they got news of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Or Elvis’ death.

I remember hearing about John Lennon’s murder, though I don’t remember exactly where I was or what I was doing. I remember where I was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. (At home, watching it on television, saying to myself "That wasn’t supposed to happen," when it broke apart.) I remember where I was when the Berlin Wall started to come down. (Again, watching it on television.) I remember where I was when I heard that Princess Diana had died. (At a party of gay men — my fraternity brothers — when someone came downstairs after watching a news report, and announced it to everyone.)

And, I’ll remember where I was when I heard that Michael Jackson had died.

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I’m a woman.

I can make love to a crocodile…

~ Koko Taylor, “I’m a Woman”

That’s my favorite line from my favorite Koko Taylor song — “I’m a Woman,” which sounds like an answer to the Muddy Waters/Bo Diddley number “I’m a Man.” I started listening to the blues while I was growing up. It started with a fascination with Billie Holiday, which led me to listen to Bessie Smith, and Ma Rainey.

But I didn’t find those in my dad’s collection. That took a trip to the library. It wasn’t until I went to college and starting deejaying at the campus student-run radio station that I discovered Koko Taylor, who passed away yesterday at the age of 80.

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OK. Rob Thomas was never all that hard to like. (At least not as far as I’m concerned. He’s easy on the eyes, and many of his songs work quite well for my voice, on the occasional karaoke night).

But then he goes and writes stuff like this, and makes it even easier to like him.

I am a person who believes that people are born gay. I don’t think you have any control over what moves you or to whom you’re attracted. That’s why it’s called an attraction and not a choice.

I believe that America is a great nation of even greater people. I also believe that anyone who says that this is a “Christian nation” has RHS, or revisionist history syndrome, and doesn’t realize that most of our founding fathers were either atheist or at least could see, even in the 1700s, that all through Europe at the time, religion was the cause of so much persecution that they needed to put into their brand new constitution a SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE so that the ideals of a group of people could never be forced onto the whole. (I also find it funny when people point out to me that it says “one nation under god” in our pledge of allegiance, not realizing that this was an addition made in 1954 during the communism scare of the McCarthy era. It’s not surprising, however, knowing that these same people would punch me in the mouth if I called Jesus a Jew.)

I believe the fact that an atheist, who doesn’t believe in God at all, is allowed to enter into the holy land of marriage while a gay Christian is not, shows that this law is arbitrary. Are we to believe that anyone who doesn’t live their life according to the King James Bible isn’t protected by the same laws that protect those who do? Using the same argument that I’ve seen on the 700 Club, that would mean that Jewish, Hindu, or Muslim weddings are also null and void.

I believe that to deny this right to the gay population is to say to them, “this god is not your god and he doesn’t love you.” There isn’t one person who is against gay marriage that can give me a reason why it shouldn’t be legal without bringing God or their religion into it. Still, I’m amazed at the audacity of a small, misdirected group of the ultra-conservative Christian right wing, to spend millions of dollars, in a recession, on advertisements to stop two men or women who love each other from being able to be married, but when you present any opposition to them, they accuse you of attacking their religion. Isn’t it funny that the people who are the quickest to take someone’s basic rights to happiness are always the loudest to scream when someone attacks their right to do so?

But this isn’t a paper about religion. How could it be? Since we clearly have a separation of church and state, how could a conversation about laws have anything to do with religion at all? I’m writing about basic civil rights. We’ve been here before, fighting for the rights of African Americans or women to vote, or the rights of Jewish Americans to worship as they see fit. And, just as whites fought for African Americans or Christians for Jewish Americans, straight people must stand up and be a voice for gay people.

Talented, good looking, and a straight-guy-who-gets-it?

I long ago gave up getting serious crushes on straight guys. But guys like this one have my respect and admiration.

Nancy Griffith has long been a favorite artist of mine, ever since my college days of deejaying at WUOG, the student run radio station where I first played “Love at the Five and Dime”…and loved it.
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