Dolly Parton!

 The first time I saw Dolly Parton I was a small child of maybe 8 or 9. She was in a commercial with her mentor, Porter Wagoner, for a detergent of some sort. Ya know the times, the mid 60's, when if you bought detergent or gas, you got free glasses or in this case you got dish towels. Why do I remember this particular television ad? Well duh, I was just discovering my heterosexuality and Dolly was unforgettable. Up there with Elizabeth Montgomery, Barbara Eden, Diane Carroll and Grace Slick, Dolly got something moving.

I am not going to pretend Dolly's music was my cup of tea, nor am I going to pretend I knew everything about her, but she never left my mind. And she never left America's mind. She never faded away. I mean female icons like Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Helen Reddy all dominated the charts in the 70's but inevitably faded away. But Dolly never did. She made music, movies, TV appearances (never forget her telling Johnny Carson she was on the Tonight Show as often as he was), and philanthropy. She never ever lost the limelight. The only comparable female icon I can think of is Cher who also has never left the spotlight. But Dolly didn't piss people off like Cher may have with her political statements. Dolly was nice and had the impact of a velvet hammer. Cher belted you over the head with a ball bat. But Dolly was smart, a marketing genius, or perhaps she was just what she projected, a freakin saint. Dolly was a blonde, had a huge chest and freely admitted to fixing body parts that had begun to age but she was no dummy. She was smart as a whip and she knew it. She could carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey and you would still walk away going wow what a nice person. Genius.

Dolly passed away today at the age of 80 from a recently discovered cancer (fuck cancer). The world is shocked. Even right wingers are 75% onboard mourning her passing, proof of the velvet hammer. This passing is a big one. I was shocked. I knew that she'd had some health problems and had cancelled a Vegas residency, but her videos of her announcing that kind of stuff made one convinced she would survive anything. But like all of us, she did not.

Christ, Dolly funded the Covid vaccine, she funded libraries and free books for kids, she supported Black Lives Matter (you think our little white asses are the only lives that matter she said), she supported victims of Tennessee fires who had lost everything, she supported schools that were underfunded and mostly black, she told Missouri to fuck off when they defunded her books in school libraries project and funded it herself and she refused to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom when Trump was in office.

When Dolly was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she initially refused because she didn't feel worthy cuz she wasn't a rocker. But she eventually accepted the honor and did a rock record with duets with Sting, Ann Wilson, Steve Perry, Rob Halford, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks etc... A lot of it was pretty good. Admittedly I listened to the album for the Joan Jetts, the Sheryl Crows, the Paul McCartneys and the Lynryd Skynyrds. But she was great also.

Dolly was a plus for the human race unlike a certain other 80-year-old. I will miss her light in this dark ass world.

Democratic Socialism!

 Democratic Socialism!! It scares the shit out of old white men, currently in power, because it threatens their very relevance. The GOP pisses their pants at its mention. The Democrats, instead of embracing the concept and accepting the new guard, start blathering about leaving the party because it means they are finished. You're old boomers. Your time is over. Accept it. I am to the point where anybody over 70 will never get my vote again. Go away. And truth be told, I'm dangerously closer to 70 than 60 and realize my generation of boomers have become their parents. We used to protest, smoke weed, stand up to the man, march for civil rights, end wars and drive crooked presidents out of office. Now? We want to run over protesters legally, oppose legalizing weed, are the man, suppress civil rights to keep white men in power, supports wars and shrug when a crooked president does something crooked. We are pathetic. We are the Progressive insurance commercial. We've become our parents and not in a good way.

Now some of us had cool parents. Greatest Generation people who may not have understood the hippies and the antiwar movement but accepted it without hollering about it too much. Archie Bunker was real then and unfortunately is even more real today. Archie was a clown to be laughed at. The ignorance was funny. Mike Stivic was also a clown in his own way. A condescending lib. They were all to be made fun of. Haha.

But alas, though the ignorance of the masses remains, the ignorance of the politicians is dangerous. The United States Senate was once considered the "world's greatest deliberative body" full of intellects and the smart people. The House has always been a carnival side show, full of some of the dumbest people on Earth, but the Senate? Even the red states sent smart people, though they be Republicans, and with few exceptions, you could be proud of your Senators. Well then came 1980, and the whole thing changed. A wave of morons swept into office on the coattails of the guy who started this all, Saint Ronald Reagan the First. Christ, Chuck Grassley was elected in 1980, and the old bastard is still there because Iowa refuses to vote anybody out of office. And its only gotten worse/

Dopes permeate the Senate. Evil permeates the Senate. When you have the likes of Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn, Eric Schmitt, Mike Lee, Tim Scott, Katie Britt, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Pete Ricketts, Cindy Loomis, and whatever that twosome from Idaho is, the body is the same as the House. Hissing possums.

Oh the Democrats don't get off here. When you have the likes of Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Angus King, and even Bernie Sanders all OVER 80 still hanging on, no wonder younger people like Mamdani and Abdul El Sayed win primaries. Democratic socialism! Shhhhh but go real dumb like Trump, over 80, and say "communism" just lke the GOP has done since 1946. When you got nothing, go straight for the C word. And the GOP got nuthin.

What is Democratic Socialism? It's Finland, or Denmark, or Holland, or Norway or Sweden. Hardly bastions of commies, these countries provide its citizens with basic needs. Health care, income, holidays, a balanced work/life. low crime rates and democracy. Even for the hypocrites who constantly rant about nonwhites yet accept all the benefits of democratic socialism. The white supremacists are all over these countries, but they seldom elect them, unlike here where we elect the old bitter white supremacists to office and then shrug when they act like the racist bigots they are.

It's time for the old white men to get the fuck out of the way. As much as they kick and scream, or threaten to bolt the Democratic Party, they must be ignored. Leave! Go ahead and leave! OR....get onboard and work together to eliminate the threat of another 2 years of Trump ass kissers kissing his ass.

If that happens, because of Democratic infighting over a word, or more likely their refusal to cede power, we are doomed. 

This is the year my friends. We either cut this regime's nuts off, or we let their cowardice win again.

Democratic Socialism? It's simply a word.

No use throwing away 250 years of democracy out the window over a fucking word.

Magic of Motown!

 Who doesn't love the Motown hits? Oh, I'm sure there's some cranks out there who do not but they are wrong. Period.

The Magic of Motown traveling show came thru Omaha last night and though it wasn't exactly a packed house, it was a show full of energy both from the singers AND the crowd. The rotating cast included four male singers handling the Four Tops, Smokey, Sam and Dave, and the Temptations while the three female singers knocked it out of the park with Martha and the Vandellas, The Supremes, a killer version of R E S P E C T and another killer version of Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You performed by a young lady stating how she hoped she did justice to the song, much to screams of "You got this Girl" and other encouraging shout outs. She, of course, like she does every night, killed. It was phenomenal.

The show is a sort of Vegas type tribute show and there is nothing wrong with that because it's all about the music. People of a certain age made up the vast majority of the crowd. Black folk, white folk all singing along and the black folk proving that they got the moves and the white folk do not but nonetheless, they have fun. Watching old white people dance never fails to amuse me and it didn't disappoint yet again.

So much talent on that stage and it's a shame that I don't know any of their names because the Orpheum Theater in Omaha has one of the worst sound systems in existence. If you didn't know the lyrics to the classics, you were left out. The introduction of the cast of singers was garbled and indecipherable. Oh well, all I can say is that one guy doing Smokey and MJ was fantastic. That one woman doing Aretha was kick ass and that other woman doing Whitney was marvelous. Sorry I don't know your names.

Notes:

They used local musicians in this show. Sax players and guitarist were local. Keyboard player and drummer are with the show. All of it was smooth as hell.

Late Arrivals--I mean Ive been there getting there late. But 99% of the time I am in my seat on time. This crowd walked in 15 minutes late, a half hour late and it's a pain in the ass distraction. In this case CPT doesn't mean what it usually does. This time it stood for Creamy People Time or Cracker People Time. Be on time people.

The sound system---It sucks. Sometimes a show will bring in their own sound systems and sometimes they just use whatever atrocity passes for a house sound system. This show relied on the in-house sound people. I'm not blaming them; they only have to work with what they got, but cmon man. FIX IT!

The Magic of Motown-- worth it? Absolutely. The music is timeless. The performers are great. There's a joy in the air listening to these classic hits. What more can you ask for?

If it comes back, I'll Be There and there Aint No Mountain High Enough to stop me.