Ramblin' with Roger

Musician/actor Steve Earle is 70

I Feel Alright

Someone must have given me a Steve Earle album or two back in the 1990s, probably I Feel Alright. His breakthrough album, Guitar Town, came out in 1986, going to #1 on the Billboard Country charts. I hadn’t thought of him so much as a country artist as a folk/Americana (whatever that means) musician.

He has long been an anti-war activist, opposing the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. He’s also been involved in other progressive/socialist causes. On one of his live albums, he mentioned that he sang at an early Farm Aid concert, admitting that it benefited him more than the farmers because “they didn’t know who the hell I was

His biography on Wikipedia is extensive. It mentioned his younger sister, Stacie Earle, and his late son, Justin Townes Earle (d. 2020), both of whom he has sung with. He’s been married seven times, including to one woman twice.

Writer

“Earle wrote and produced an off-Broadway play about the death of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.“

He’s a bit of an iconoclast: In describing the writing of The Book I Swore I’d Never Write, he noted: “I’m writing a memoir,” he said in a to-be-published article. “I made a deal for two books, a memoir, and a novel. They made me an offer I couldn’t understand [laughs].”

He continued, “It’s not an autobiography, it’s a literary memoir, a little more abstract. It’s not like, ‘I was born a poor black child…’ and it doesn’t try and encompass every minute of my life. I think it’s about something besides me. It’s really about heroes and mentors, good and bad, so obviously the first part is about [renowned songwriter and Earle’s mentor] Townes [Van Zandt], before I started making records. The record-making aspect is in other books about me, I understand, but I’ve never read any of them.

Songs

Roughly leading to my favorite song

Goodbye’s All We’ve Got Left

The Galway Girl

John Walker’s Blues, the song about the captured American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, created controversy. Earle responded by appearing on various news and editorial programs and defending the song and his views on patriotism and terrorism.

Christmas In Washington

The Revolution Starts Now

Way Down The Hole. Earle’s version of Tom Waits‘ song was the “theme song for the fifth season of the HBO series The Wire, in which Earle appeared as a recovering drug addict and drug counselor named Walon (Earle’s character appears in the first, fourth, and fifth seasons).” Earle is a recovering heroin addict.

CCKMP – “Cocaine can’t kill my pain.”

Hard-Core Troubador

Day’s Aren’t Long Enough with Alison Moorer, his then-wife

The Devil’s Right Hand

Copperhead Road

Feel Alright

Ellis Unit One – Music From And Inspired By The Motion Picture Dead Man Walking. Earle is an anti-death penalty advocate.

Guitar Town

You’re Still Standing There with Lucinda Williams

Valentine’s Day. My favorite February 14 lyrics

Steve Earle turns 70 today.

January rambling: Lebensraum

Monroe Doctrine

We’ll get to Lebensraum in a bit.

Global temperatures in 2024 shattered records, soaring past 1.5°C as extreme weather devastated millions. 26 Climate-Fueled Extreme Weather Events Killed at Least 3,700 People.

Big Agriculture Is Leading Us Into the Bird Flu Abyss: The federal government’s deference to agriculture industry interests has put the US at risk of a public health crisis.

How The Polio Vaccine Destroyed Trust In Healthcare (a bit of a misleading title, but not entirely wrong)

Bernie Sanders’ Prescription to ‘Make America Healthy Again’: “Our real problem is not so much a healthcare crisis as it is a political and economic one.”

A Disastrous Development in Our Response to Disasters

Veterans rights and discrimination: a guide

New VIP+ Special Report: Generative AI: Deepfakes & Digital Replicas

Aaron Brown, CNN Anchor During the Sept. 11 Attacks, Dies at 76

Ask Arthur 2024: Racism and change; Miscellany

The art of monotasking: “Being busy” doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing what matters. Focusing your attention on only one task at a time is the secret to performing tasks correctly.

The Best Reviewed Broadway Shows of 2024

A book on Albany’s railroad history? Yes, please…

Embiggen – defined earlier than the Simpsons

“Explain a Movie Plot Badly” — A Fun Party Game

What era?

A real meditation on American greatness

When people would talk about MAGA, liberals wanted to know which era was the “great” one they wanted to go back to. Many thought they were talking about the 1950s before integration. Or the 1920s before the Great Depression and FDR regulations. Maybe they meant the 1880s and 90s during the Gilded Age.

I would have picked any of those. But I did not have on my bingo card the 1820s. We’re going back to the Monroe Doctrine era. The Daily Signal, a right-wing online publication, favorably suggested the same. The piece by Jarrett Stepman ends: “If Trump does revive some form of the Monroe Doctrine, it could represent a much-needed return to tradition and to a stronger foundation for U.S. security in an increasingly dangerous world.”

Suddenly, the January 7 press conference made sense. djt said he’d be renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

“The once and future president also doubled down on his aims to acquire Greenland, retake control of the Panama Canal, and put pressure on Canada to change its trade relations with the United States” which he voiced before Christmas.

Here’s former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien on Fox News:

It’s strategically very important to the Arctic which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because as the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal.

Or MAYBE we’re going to become 1930s Germany. Lebensraum is “the policy of Nazi Germany that involved expanding German territories to the east to provide land and material resources for the German people while driving out Jewish and Slavic people.”

The Corporate Giants Bankrolling the Inauguration: PAY to play.

The President Can Self-Pardon, but It Would Be an Impeachable Offense (CATO Institute, Dec 2020)

MUSIC

Bemba Colorá-Sheila E. ft. Gloria Estefan on Jimmy Kimmel; I see Rebecca Jade!

Coronation Procession by Ruth Gipps

You Get What You Give – New Radicals

Love In Action – Utopia

Rocket 88 – Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats

Coverville 1516 and 1517: The 2024 Coverville Countdown

Down By The Riverside – Elvis Presley · Carl Perkins · Jerry Lee Lewis · Johnny Cash. I bought this CD after I saw the Million Dollar Quartet musical

The theme from the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show – Midtown

Tomorrow – Julie Benko and Cantor Azi Schwartz

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 21: The final notes – all of the US pop #1s

Peter Yarrow Dies at 86. Leaving On A Jet Plane – Peter, Paul, and Mary

Sam Moore, who died at age 89, was more than a Soul Man – he was one of the 20th century’s great live performers. When Something Is Wrong With My Baby – Sam And Dave.

The CROWN Act

Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair

From the Crown Act website: “The CROWN Act was created in 2019 by Dove and the CROWN Coalition, in partnership with then State Senator Holly J. Mitchell of California, to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public schools.”

Four years ago, John Oliver “discussed the discrimination faced by black people because of their hair.” He noted correctly, “White people really don’t need to have an opinion.”

While things have gotten better in recent years, “the 2023 CROWN Workplace Research Study notes, “race-based hair discrimination remains a systemic problem in the workplace – from hiring practices to daily workplace interactions – disproportionately impacting Black women’s employment opportunities and professional advancement.” And it applies to black men as well.

From the NAACP Legal Defense Fund page: “The impact of hair discrimination cannot be overstated. Schools and workplaces across the country often have dress codes and grooming policies in place prohibiting natural hairstyles, like afros, braids, Bantu knots, and locs. These policies that criminalize natural hair have been used to justify the removal of Black children from classrooms and adults from their employment…

“The CROWN Act would change that. The legislation demands protection against race-based hair discrimination in the workplace and in K-12 public and charter schools based on hair texture and protective styles. As of 2024, the CROWN Act has been enacted in 24 states.” CROWN stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.

The NIH also has a useful 2023 article about Hair Discrimination, Health, and Well-Being.

Give me a head with hair

I thought about this because the John Oliver piece reminded me of my sisters growing up and remembering the straightening comb our grandma Williams would apply to their hair. She heated the comb over the coal stove and applied it to their hair. I gathered that it hurt a lot because the comb got close to the scalp. And the process smelled; I still have an olfactory recollection of burning hair, which was awful.

When our daughter was a kid, neither her mother nor I were particularly adept at styling her hair. Let me be honest: we sucked at it. While we tried to comb it out, it was not sufficient. One of our daughter’s preschool teachers, a black woman, took it upon herself to work on our daughter’s hair, much to our mortification and appreciation in equal measure.

As a result, our daughter has learned a lot, and her hairstyle will change weekly, sometimes even daily. I’m awed by her adeptness at changing her style.

On New Year’s Day, she wore extensive braids, which she spent several hours assembling. We went out to a party at the house of a relative of my wife’s and had a reasonably good time. But she told us afterward that two folks at the party touched her hair unbidden. People, Keep Your Hands Off the Hair! It is, among many other things, an “othering” action that is unsettling.

It’s for her sake, as well as others, that I hope she does not have to deal with the hair discrimination that too many people have to address.

Grocery shopping using the bus

portable shopping cart

Some time ago, I wrote about the intracity bus culture. People who ride the bus understand the limitations of doing chores while riding the bus. A case in point is grocery shopping using the bus.

In November, I was on the 910 Western Avenue bus heading downtown. A woman with one of those foldable shopping carts was already aboard. She was getting off the bus at State and Pearl, my stop. The cart was full of food, and she had two canvas bags overflowing with groceries.

She was trying to get from the 910 to the 22 bus to Troy. The 910 bus driver successfully beeped to get the attention of the 22 bus driver. The woman struggled to get her cart and two bags off the bus. Running to catch the Troy bus, she abandoned her cart and ran down the hill to get on to the next bus, dropping from her bags these four big stalks of some greenery I’d never seen before.

So I pushed her cart to the 22 bus, snatching up the mysterious greenery. She had put her two bags just inside the 22 bus entrance, but there was no way to put the cart up there. I suggested that she put the bags on a bus seat. She moved one bag further inside, which provided enough room to get the cart onto the landing; it was a bit heavy.

Been there

I related to her. I’ve carried a cart full of food onto the bus, with one additional bag. It’s a pain in the neck. You’re trying not to be in other people’s way, allowing them to pass while at the same time making sure you keep all your food secure. It got me wondering where she was coming from. Why did she have to buy all that food in Albany? Does she live in a food desert?

Bus-riding people are generally pretty understanding. Since this incident, I’ve seen people offer bus fare when others didn’t have any. It’s a community born of common stress.

A sliver of hope

Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony in E minor

Some days, I must hold on to a sliver of hope to get by. Oddly, some of it comes from seeing rainbows in my house. I’ve mentioned how wonderful they are and have even shown a picture. But the effect depends on the direction and intensity of the sun’s peeping through.

Sometimes, a sliver is just enough. The color is often muted, as in the second picture. But it’s still there, and I need to hold on and see it.

Right before Christmas, I was listening to Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony in E minor, “From the New World. ” As indicated here, I love this piece, but I can’t always identify it. However, it always brings me joy, not just because of the music but also the backstory.

From here: “At the time, the work represented a departure from traditional American concert music. American classical music (then, and still today) largely adhered to the traditions of European composers. But in his ninth symphony, Dvorak incorporated themes from African American spirituals and roots music.”

The Wikipedia piece on the Czech composer: “From 1892 to 1895, Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City… Emanuel Rubin describes the Conservatory and Dvořák’s time there. [Jeanette] Thurber, a wealthy and philanthropic woman, made it open to women and black students as well as white men, which was unusual for the times… Dvořák’s main goal in America was to discover ‘American Music’ and engage in it, much as he had used Czech folk idioms within his music.”

What is American music?

“Shortly after his arrival in America in 1892, Dvořák wrote a series of newspaper articles reflecting on the state of American music… He felt that through the music of Native Americans and African-Americans, Americans would find their own national style of music. Here Dvořák met Harry Burleigh, who later became one of the earliest African-American composers. Burleigh introduced Dvořák to traditional African-American spirituals.

“In the winter and spring of 1893, Dvořák was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to write Symphony No. 9, From the New World, which was premiered under the baton of Anton Seidl to tumultuous applause. Clapham writes that ‘without question, this was one of the greatest triumphs, and very possibly the greatest triumph of all that Dvořák experienced’ in his life, and when the Symphony was published, it was ‘seized on by conductors and orchestras’ all over the world.” It took this guy from out of the country to point out the untapped strength of underrepresented elements of classical music. Here’s a recording.

I note this story from the Census Bureau: “Net International Migration Drives Highest U.S. Population Growth in Decades. “As the nation’s population surpasses 340 million, this is the fastest annual population growth the nation has seen since 2001 — a notable increase from the record low growth rate of 0.2% in 2021. The growth was primarily driven by rising net international migration.”

So, I am pained by this CBS News story about promises of mass deportations. “He’s pledged to deport millions of immigrants — including some who are living in the United States legally. In Springfield, Ohio, the city whose Haitian immigrant community became the epicenter of hateful rhetoric and misinformation during the campaign, many fear what this could mean for them.”

My sliver of hope is that mass deportation does not occur, not just because of humanity, but because it will make America poorer again.