Roger O Green

David Byrne of Talking Heads is 70

This ain’t no party

For me, the great thing about David Byrne is that he keeps growing and changing. This comes across in this 2022 online interview in Parents magazine. It’s entitled David Byrne is Gloriously Odd: How Family Formed Talking Heads’ Lead Man.

He tells the story of Everybody’s Coming to My House, a song on his 2018 album American Utopia. Byrne wrote as though those folks in his place were a bit of a bother. Yet when he got some Detroit teens to perform it, they had a very different read, the joy of everyone hanging out.

I’ve long stated that one of my two favorite concerts ever was Talking Heads performing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on August 5, 1983. Later shows in that tour, three nights at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in December 1983, were turned into Stop Making Sense, the highly regarded 1984 American concert film directed by Jonathan Demme.

I had been a fan of Talking Heads before that. And when the band broke up, I enjoyed many of Byrne’s solo albums as well. But seeing American Utopia, the filmed version of the Broadway production, was a revelation. As he noted in the Parents piece, the plan was to make the difficult look easy.

Watch David Byrne Answers the Web’s Most Searched Questions for WIRED. Also, in the recent CBS Saturday Morning interview, he acknowledges that he cannot write songs at present. But he can draw.

Songs

Check out the All Music discography of his solo work and Talking Heads, who are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, class of 2002.

Also, in 2018, David Byrne teamed up with Choir! Choir! Choir! to cover David Bowie’s Heroes.

This list is vaguely in order towards my favorite, but only the top song is secure.

You and Eye – solo
Marching Through The Wilderness – solo. In a review of Rei Momo by William Ruhlmann: “On his first full-fledged solo album, Byrne indulges his fascination with Latin and South American musical styles, employing a variety of native musicians but mixing up the sounds to suit his own distinctly non-purist vision.”
And She Was – Talking Heads

Dirty Old Town – solo
Making Flippy Floppy – Talking Heads, just fun to say
Crosseyed And Painless – Talking Heads Back In The Box – solo

America Is Waiting – Byrne and Brian Eno
Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) -Talking Heads
Loco de Amor – solo
Psycho Killer – Talking Heads, probably the first song of theirs I heard

More songs

Take Me To The River – Talking Heads; if I were to do karaoke, it would sound more like David Byrne than Al Green
Slippery People – Talking People; on the Stop Making Sense tour, one of the background singers is Lynn Mabry, who I’ve met. She, among other things, sings backup for Sheila E., as does the niece Rebecca Jade
I Zimbra – Talking Heads, the first song of theirs I loved

Burning Down The House – Talking Heads. Did anyone watching the video believe “I AM AN OR-DIN-AR-Y GUY?”
Life During Wartime – Talking Heads. “This ain’t no party…”
Independence Day – solo
Road To Nowhere – Talking Heads

Lilies Of The Valley – solo
Help Me, Somebody – Bryne and Eno
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) – this song is tied to a specific time (the 1990s), and place (on the way to Cooperstown), and people
Once in a Lifetime – an obvious choice, I know; how it was made (you can ignore the two-minute ad at the end)

Performative Christianity and privilege

tone-deaf and arrogant and rude

Performative Christianity is an interesting term. The Weekly Sift guy mused about the Supreme Court case about “a football coach who led players in prayer on the 50-yard-line after games. His claim is that his prayers are private religious acts protected by the First Amendment’s free-exercise clause.”

WS links to an article by Mark Wingfield in Baptist News Global. Wingfield compares that situation to “Christians singing worship songs on a commercial airline flight.

“The common thread is performative Christianity that operates out of a place of assumed privilege. That is a privilege so taken for granted that the average American Christian has no clue they are swimming in it…

“What Christians may see as a God-ordained witnessing opportunity, the poor seatmate may see as religious assault… What if the roles were reversed and you, dear Christian, were seated next to an evangelizing Muslim or Hindu or Mormon or atheist? Would you afford them the same assumed privilege you claim for yourself? I don’t think so.

“Modern Christians must understand that we live in an increasingly pluralistic society and that assuming Christian privilege actually does more harm than good. If you want to be a good witness for Jesus, this is not the way to do it. It is tone-deaf and arrogant and rude — pretty much the opposite of every virtue of love described in 1 Corinthians 13.”

Save their souls

I was someone who grew up being taught that I was responsible for the souls of all I came across. Don’t I have to proselytize, I mean share, the Good News of Jesus Christ to these “non-believers”? I don’t want them to face eternal damnation! Never mind that these folks were indeed believers, just of Something Else. So I know those people. To some degree, I once WAS those people.

Wingfield feels, and I agree, that the coach “effectively coerced impressionable young athletes to join his midfield spectacle — a clear violation of the First Amendment.” Moreover, in demanding “a public display allegedly to give glory to God… [he was] giving glory to his own ego, not to God.”

Weekly Sift ponders: “I will be more interested in the Court’s reasoning [about the football coach] than in the decision itself. Whatever standard the justices use to find in the coach’s favor, does it apply to non-Christians, or is this yet another special right that Christians have and no one else does?”

Alito and 17th-century jurist

“The US already has the highest maternal death rate of any developed country.”

Who was Matthew Hale, the 17th-century jurist that Samuel Alito invokes in his draft overturning Roe? A good question. Alito prides himself as an originalist.

“In his leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leans heavily on the scholarship of… English judge Sir Matthew Hale to underpin his argument that prohibiting abortion has a long ‘unbroken tradition’ in the law.

“Many legal scholars disputed Alito’s… reliance on Hale because of what the jurist’s writings reveal about his attitudes toward women. Hale is notorious in the law for laying the legal foundation for clearing husbands from criminal liability for raping their wives, and for sentencing two women accused of witchcraft to death, a case that served as a model for the infamous Salem witch trials 30 years later.

As ProPublica noted: “Hale’s influence in the United States has been on the wane since the 1970s, with one state after another abandoning his legal principles on rape. But Alito’s opinion resurrects Hale, a judge who was considered misogynistic even by his era’s notably low standards.”

Boston Globe: “Many historians disagree with Alito’s argument. In an amicus brief submitted in the Mississippi abortion-rights case before the justices, the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians counter that up until the Civil War, most states barred abortion only in the later stages of pregnancy and that abortions before fetal ‘quickening’ were legal..”. Quickening, “in English common law, occurs when a mother can detect fetal movement, typically between four and six months of pregnancy.”

Thus it is a self-selected, self-affirming argument.

Women’s health

The Daily Skimm laid out in scary detail the potential ramifications of the ruling.

“The US already has the highest maternal death rate of any developed country. Overturning Roe could make that worse. Nearly half of OB-GYNs in the US may soon be working in the 26 states expected to ban abortion. But if they’re not trained, or if they’re out of practice, or if they’re afraid to use abortion medicine or procedures (think: because they could be sued, or even charged with homicide), curable situations could turn life-threatening or deadly. Think, in the case of:

“Miscarriages: About 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage and women’s bodies don’t always pass fetal tissue completely on their own. At that point, most American women are offered a pill or surgical procedure — essentially, an abortion. In places where abortion is heavily restricted or not performed, those options may not be available for weeks (if at all), resulting in serious health risks and trauma.”

Ignorant lawmakers

“Ectopic pregnancies: These pregnancies are not viable since they occur outside the uterus and can be fatal for the mother. At the moment, no US state has banned or criminalized the procedures and drugs that treat ectopic pregnancies. But some state legislators (see: Missouri) have pushed for that, while others (see: Ohio) have invented fantasy procedures not known to science as a workaround.

“Multiple pregnancies: The more fetuses a woman carries, the higher the risk for everyone involved. This can commonly happen during IVF. So doctors may recommend procedures that remove some fetuses (think: ones that are unviable or have severe health issues) so others — and the mother — can survive. Those reductions are already illegal under Texas’s recent abortion ban, and more states may follow.

“Domestic violence: The leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women in the US is homicide, according to one study. We’ll say it again: homicide. And data suggests her partner is often responsible. For years, research has shown that partner violence gets worse during pregnancy. And for women in abusive relationships, being denied abortion may make it harder to leave — despite the very real dangers.”

The narrative that all of these “unborn children” will be saved to brighten someone else’s life is not supported by biology, sociology, or history. See also, from the Weekly Sift: What Alito wrote and Who’s to blame for overturning Roe? Plus Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

May rambling: Don’t Mourn for Me, Organize!

Neal Adams, George Perez, Nate Hopper

**Virginia bluebells – photo (c) 2022 by Wayne Harvey, used by permission**

What One Million COVID Dead Mean for the U.S.’s Future

Mother Earth: “Don’t Mourn for Me, Organize!” and Earth Now Has a 50% Chance of Hitting 1.5°C of Warming by 2026

Environmental Racism: and the Philippine Elections: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Fact-checking “2000 Mules”, the movie alleging ballot fraud “uses a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election nearly 18 months after it ended.”

John Green: My Religion and My Banned Books

The Real ID Deadline Is May 2023

Mexico to reroute trade railway connection from Texas to New Mexico due to Greg Abbott’s $4 billion stunt

Florida Taxpayers Sue Gov. Ron DeSantis For Eliminating Disney’s Special District. Also, Disney Copyrights Targeted in Bill Proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley. The librarian in me likes it. The fact that it’s meant to target the “woke” corporation, not so much.

Jon Stewart Warns “Authoritarianism” Is the Greatest Threat to Comedy as He Receives Mark Twain Humor Prize

Concerns over ‘soft’ youth (1942)

The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap

How to build your poetry collection

The 23-game run of 23-year-old Mattea Roach on JEOPARDY!

Air Bud: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Now I Know: Why the Michelin Man is White (and Maybe an Alcoholic) and Polly’s Neighbor Want a Walnut? and The Mystery of the Missing Internet, Rural Wales Edition, and The Moon Over the Rhine River

Voting

On May 17, many entities in New York State are having their annual budget vote and school board election. Here’s the info for the Albany City School District.

Additionally, the Albany Public Library Albany Public Library budget is on the ballot. “The total tax levy includes a 2.5% increase, which is under the NYS tax cap. The proposed increase would mean that the owner of a $150,000 home would pay approximately $5.98 more in library taxes next year. And there are 10 candidates for the four open trustee seats.

Note that the polling places may be different than the primary/general election sites. Check here. This is the first election for which a certain teenager I live with is eligible to vote.

Passing on

Nate Hopper was a member of our church choir. He was talented, friendly, funny, and generous of spirit in the too-brief time I knew him. The College of Saint Rose wrote on their Facebook page that the college senior had “been a member of the Saint Rose family since 2017. He once served as an RA, was beloved within our music community, and was the president of the Golden Notes, Saint Rose’s only co-ed a cappella group. “

Memorial for Alan Hahn, my old college buddy

Neal Adams, Comic Book Artist Who Revitalized Batman and Fought for Creators’ Rights, Dies at 80. Mark Evanier shares a few stories but especially here.

George Perez, Legendary Wonder Woman, Teen Titans Comic Book Artist, Dies at 67. He did a couple of pieces for FantaCo, my old stomping grounds, including the cover for our Avengers Chronicles.

Naomi Judd, of Grammy-Winning Duo The Judds, Dies at 76. Her daughters, Wynonna and Ashley, announced her death due to “mental illness”. Why can’t we say suicide?

David Birney, Actor on ‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ and ‘St. Elsewhere,’ Dies at 83. Bridget Loves Bernie (1972-73, CBS), which I watched, was the highest-rated network show, #5, that was canceled after a single season.

Joanna Barnes, Actress in ‘The Parent Trap’ and ‘Auntie Mame,’ Dies at 87. She appears in both versions of The Parent Trap, which I saw during the pandemic.

A new database highlights African American burial grounds across NY state

MUSIC

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Elliot Del Borgo

When The Battle Is Over (LIVE) – The Sully Band Featuring Rebecca Jade

The Highwayman, written by Alfred Noyes, sung by Loreena McKennit

When I Rose This Morning – The Mississippi Mass Choir

The Lark Ascending, music by Ralph Vaughn Williams, a poem by George Meredith

All By Myself – Eric Carmen

Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien – Franz von Suppé

Show Biz Kids – Rickie Lee Jones

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Frank Sinatra’s ‘Watertown,’ a concept album set in Upstate NY, gets new life

1972: fighting against the war

a near-sighting

The diary discusses fighting against the war. April 22: the Okie, Uthaclena, Fred, Alice, and Fran drive down to NYC. The Okie was a peace/antiwar demonstration virgin. She was annoyed by the various organizations selling or giving away their newspapers. Uthaclena, conversely, enjoyed getting the unsolicited literature.

We started marching and chanting. The crowd yelled to the onlookers to join us. Though some people waved and gave the peace sign, it was understandable that no one wanted to join us in that cold and wet weather. Of course, a lot of police, some on horses, especially around an Armed Forces building. The crowd cheered loudly when our event made the Allied Chemical Building news.

We finally finished the 40-block walk. Walked through a Nedick’s to maybe get a better view of the speakers, but could see nothing, and the others were cold and tired, so we took a couple of subways from 42nd Street to a Woolworth’s, where Fred and Alice bought raincoats. Then we walked the few blocks to the car, except Alice who took the bus to Poughkeepsie for an event.

Back over the George Washington Bridge, we stopped for a bathroom on the Palisades Parkway. We heard on the radio John Lennon and Yoko Ono spoke at the demonstration, estimated to have had 30,000 to 50,000 participants.

The diary gap

As I noted, some of the diaries were destroyed in a flood in an apartment I lived in during the latter 1990s. Unfortunately one covered May 5 through September 6. This covered three of the most significant events in my life. I remember them, of course, but I wanted more details, more context. Ah well.

Haiphong

When Haiphong harbor in Vietnam was mined, announced on Monday, May 8, it was perceived as an escalation of the Vietnam war. One can debate the efficacy of the strategy in retrospect, but few events in the US antiwar movement galvanized so many people.

My recollection is that my professors at SUNY New Paltz, at least, were understanding and some even sympathetic to the cause that got the students to cease attending their classes.

An attempt to stop traffic on the New York State Thruway – I believe I was riding with Uthaclena – ended relatively quickly on Tuesday.

Our appearance at a demonstration at the United Nations on Thursday was stymied by a too-late bus whether this was intentional on the part of the charter bus company, we would never know. Still, some picketed in front of the armed forces recruitment center.

As I said

Much of this I wrote about a decade ago. “A large demonstration near the draft board in Kingston, NY was held on Friday.” The board closed preemptively. “The following day, the front page of the newspaper, the Kingston Freeman, had a picture of me and a couple of other people sitting in front of the building. The quality (or reproduction) of the photo was so poor, though, that I didn’t even recognize myself.

“The pivotal event that week was a demonstration at IBM Poughkeepsie on Wednesday, May 10, which building something called the IBM 360. In 1972, the idea of computers programmed to help kill people was quite upsetting to many folks; think an early version of today’s drones. In any case, there were about 360 people protesting – I don’t know if that were actually true or apocryphal.”

Custody

“At some point, we were warned if we walked past a certain point, we would be arrested. It was almost a dare, in its tone. As it turned out, twelve people were detained that day. One guy was charged with disturbing the peace, and his bail was set at $50. Everyone else was charged with fourth-degree criminal trespass, much to the chagrin of the district attorney, who was seeking a stiffer charge; 10 of the 11 got out on $25 bail. The 11th person, my friend Alice, had been arrested and convicted at a previous event, was fined $48, and had not paid it. Her bail was set at $250, and she opted not to pay it, and stayed in jail until the trial, eight days later.

“Did I mention I was one of those arrested?” In fact, I noticed, in looking at the Freeman in Newspapers.com, that a number were arrested around the area that month in various demonstrations, including a guy I got arrested with named Michael. The Associated Press said that as of May 11, over 250 people had been arrested for antiwar activities.