God made the earth… Shiny as a marble

My latest song, Big Blue Marble.  Free here, on Spotify and on all the usual streaming sites.
Jesse Korman on instruments, recorded at his Elephonic Studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I had a hundred dollars in my wallet, had a six-shooter 25 in my pocket...

Fear the Man is a juanty American Murder Ballad. The happy-go-lucky man in the song has a serious message, however, in the last verse:
Why in the world would you run a man down
With disdain and contempt, acting like he's a clown?
You think you're dominating while you mire them in the muck.
You're creating a man who don't give a fuck.

Sounds like American foreign policy to me.
From the album Contrary.  Listen to this movie-in-your-head on Spotify. Download from your favorite source.

God Bless Bristol Bay and Barack Obama.

From the early 1970s until the mid-70s I worked three times for All Alaskan Seafoods company Each time I flew from Seattle to the location of the MV All Alaskan. Once I landed in Naknek/Dillingham, Alaska. My God, the number of salmon boats awaiting the opening gun of the season!
The mines that could destroy this paradise made by God are the work of the devil called unrestrained capitalism. Thank you so much Mr. President.

addemdum, 12/17:
Opps. Bristol Bay has been spared, hopefully forever, by President Obama's memorandum to ban oil and gas drilling  there, but Bristol Bay also faces extreme environmental degradation from the proposed Pebble Mine. This would be an open pit copper mine which would require extreme measures to extract the low-grade copper and gold. Google around. It seems that the outcome of Bristol Bay's environment is still in the hands of Congress. We all know what that means.
The outfit that has already spent hundreds of millions to fight for mining approval overruling the Environmental Protection Agency is a Canadian concern. So we have the destruction of Bristol Bay to add to the Keystone Pipeline project and in both cases our Congress is siding with big Canadian money.
Why is it that the news reports do not include this information? Everything I read implies that Obama has saved Bristol Bay. Just one more example of corporate "journalism." 

Jeb Bush and Rand Paul Will Run Together - Burl's Braggin' Rights

Below is a blog from Nov. 28, 2013 which quotes my blog from July 15, 2012.

  Here is the latest article I've seen about Jeb Bush taking a Radical Right     viewpoint. And below is a short blog from July 15, 2012. I think I was         just too early in my prediction.

   I first thought this in late '09 when I read that Jeb Bush had attended a     Rand Paul fundraiser. Everywhere I've posted it someone says,  "No           way." Well, way.  This criticism of Romney from fellow Republicans is         unprecedented. Republicans don't do that; they hold coronations. I still     think that Romney is a dark-horse, willing or unwilling, for the next King   Bush. I think he (Bush) will incorporate just enough of the Ron Paul           libertarianism for Rand Paul to accept the VP slot and to gather votes 

  that Romney just can't get. If I'm wrong, I'm only wrong, but if I'm right 

  I claim 2 (now 4) years of braggin' rights!

I get at least five years of braggin' rights now.

What can Rand Paul do for the Bush/Saudi branch of US politics? Here are my thoughts; notice that each issue is a beautiful usurpation of what could have been Democratic issues.

They can vow to reduce military spending.

They can vow to reduce CIA/et al wholesale spying on American citizens.

They can vow to reduce dependence on drone strikes.

They can vow to end torture.

They can vow to reduce the prison population of the US.

They can vow to take marijuana off the federal list of illegal drugs, entirely leaving the regulation of pot to the states.

These items simply pop into my mind and I am too distracted by Klezmer music on Pandora right now to come up with more.

Hobo Lady by Keith Sykes

Keith Sykes. If you aren't familiar with the name, google it. He has toured with Jimmy Buffet, written songs with John Prine, and much more. Around 1967/'68 I saw him perform at a coffee house on the campus of West Texas State in Canyon, Texas. He was going on the coffee house circuit. He was open to socialization. For all the little Christian girls who heard him at the same time and could have spent the night in his bed, I have this to say: Thank you for your shyness; because you didn't get to fuck him, he wrote a song instead.
Keith invited me to visit him the next day at the Buffalo Courts (Canyon, Texas). I did and he told me he had written a new song. He said he had received a call from management during the night complaining of the noise, but he had finished the song nonetheless. As I recall, all rooms at the Buffalo Courts were individual structures and built of stone, so the complainer was a pretty sensitive person.
I picked it up pretty fast because it was in open D tuning (DADF#AD) and I was a John Fahey open tuning kind of guy. I didn't write anything down. I learned the words; I learned the guitar part, and it stuck.
In '69 I accidentally ended up in Nashville. While there, I walked down Music Row and, at a small publisher's advice, ended up at a studio called "Queen of Sound."  I paid $5.00 for three tries at recording a song, and I recorded Hobo Lady. I absolutely told everyone at every step of the way that it was a Keith Sykes song. I recorded it because I had NOTHIN', I mean nothing I had written, that would have opened a door for me.
But doors opened. I just didn't walk through. That's another story or two.
Over the years, I have sung this song any time I wanted to knock someone's socks off. I've played it while blitzed on acid, drunk as a skunk, and on a mental ward in Flagstaff, Arizona. It just doesn't fail to rock the room. Anywhere. Anytime.

Confession, an innocent man vows revenge.

Contrary was the first album I paid money to release (CD Baby). My wife was not happy because I had gone down to Austin, Texas to record sweet songs that she had heard me write. But, in the aftermath of an inspiring first recording session I went back the second year and wrote Contrary on the beach of Padre Island. Then I chose to release Contrary as my first release. Sorry, honey. You helped me pay for those trips and I let you down.
I did not let me down, though. I have been a political being, I would say, since 1963. I was 13. JFK was assassinated. MLK. RFK. Viet Nam. 'Nuff said.
Was it not the great Englishman, William Blackstone, who said that the greatest argument against capital punishment was that a mistake would surely result in the execution of an innocent (wo)man?
Was it not Jesus who said that, "Whatever ye do unto the least of these, ye have done unto me?"
Whoever said those two statements, I agree with you.
If you disagree with Blackstone and/or Jesus that is your right as a human being.
I disagree with you and I say, "FUCK YOU." Yeah, in the ass, like a common prisoner.
Sue me, Asshole.
You are about to click on a video I once deleted from Youtube because I appeared with a fake gun in my hand. I held, at that deleting moment, a view that guns were evil. Yes. But...
the execution of human beings is evil, far more evil, so...
despite all logic as to why I should not display this video, I say, Fuck it. This fat old American says FUCK YOU USA "JUSTICE" - YOU (U) SA ARE LYING- WE ARE PAYING TAXES TO A SYSTEM THAT TAKES OUR MONEY AND FUCKS THE WORLD IN THE ASS. WE ARE TO BLAME FOR CRIMES THAT ARE OF THE SAME CALIBER AS THOSE OF NAZI GERMANY AND MILITARISTIC PRE-WWII JAPAN. CRIMES THAT WE PROSECUTED YOU FOR AFTER WWII.
As an American I say go ahead...Please participate in prosecuting Bush, Cheney, et.al. Take it to the World Court. Call on Obama as a witness.
My fellow Americans - Stop thinking that we stand above reproach. God did not create the USA.
DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS DO UNTO YOU. Or suffer and die in CIA-approved "Black" Prisons, Motherfuckers.
That is the spirit of CONFESSION.
And then...
The man is released from his unjust imprisonment. What is he to do? Revenge proves impossible. Reconciliation with his mother, likewise. He goes wild. He seeks true love. He withdraws from the world. He makes a home. Underground.
Are we at a point where continued existence of the human race is a possibility? Is it possible that in a post-apocalyptic world survival is an option?
confession

Joe Hill's "Power in a Union"

As I mentioned in my first blog/album note about my latest album, singing Power in the Blood (at Trinity Baptist Church, Amarillo, Texas) was thrilling. Some hymns soothe, others exalt, this one ROCKS!
Get the latest edition of the Little Red Songbook or the others still out there as reprints and you'll see the changes I chose to make to Joe Hill's words. My changes are in the public domain. The edition I used most was the 1923 version.
Please scroll down for all the blogs about my new album When Hymns Bled Red: Words of Joe Hill in Red. And please check them out on Spotify or your favorite source of streaming music. Gosh, you might even buy a song from iTunes. I've got five albums out.
God help me, I couldn't get this song sung without sounding like an old, congested man. (See my blogs on Colorado marijuana) -)



There Is Power In the Blood

A                                            D              A

Would your be free from your burden of sin?

           E                            A

There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.

                            D         A

Would you o’er evil a victory win?

           E                               A

There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

                            D                      A

There’s pow’r, pow’r wonder working pow’r

           E                 A

In the blood of the Lamb

                             D                         A                 E7                               A

Ther is pow’r, pow’r, wonder working pow’r in the precious blood of the lamb.

 There Is Power In a Union

By Joe Hill     

Would you have freedom from wage slavery,

Then join in the grand industrial band;

Would you from mise’y and hunger be free?

Then come! Do your share, like a man.

Chorus

There is pow’r,  pow’r

In a band of workingmen,

When they stand hand in hand,

That’s a power, that’s a power that must rule in every land –

One Industrial Union Grand.

Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,

And raise your kids in a shack, way in the back?

Would you have wings up in heaven to fly

And starve here with rags on your back?

Chorus

There is pow’r,  pow’r

In a band of working women,

When they stand hand in hand,

That’s a power, that’s a power that must rule in every land –

One Industrial Union Grand.

If you believe corporations and all they’ve said

Then don’t organize, all unions despise,

If you want nothing before you are dead,

Shake hands with the boss and look wise.

Chorus

There is pow’r,  pow’r

In a band of working humans,

When they stand hand in hand,

That’s a power, that’s a power that must rule in every land –

One Industrial Union Grand.

Come, all ye workers, from every land,

Come join in the grand Industrial band,

Then we our share of this earth shall demand,

Come on! Do your share, like a human.

Chorus

There is pow’r,  pow’r

In a band of working humans,

When they stand hand in hand,

That’s a power, that’s a power that must rule in every land –

One Industrial Union Grand.