MONTY PYTHON'S ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL
The great Curtis Mayfield introduces the great Phil Ochs singing "Power and the Glory," the second-most patriotic American folk song behind "This Land is Your Land":Don't say they don't write 'em like that anymore. Here's The Night Watchman, a.k.a. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, circa now, singing "The Road I Must Travel":A powerful reading of Mark Twain's poem "The War Prayer," from Willie Nelson and his friends and family members:
The play list above pretty much captures the essence of my musical tastes, but here's the testimony: I like gritty, rebellious music and I dislike posers. What is gritty, rebellious music to me? The dead legends: Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Lydia Mendoza, Louis Armstrong, Bird, Coltrane, Miles, Fela, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Lalo Guerrero, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Héctor Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Gram Parsons, Bob Marley, Otis Redding, Hendrix, Lennon, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, James Brown; The greats: Dylan, Aretha Franklin, the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Los Tigres del Norte, Leon Russell, the Allmans, Funkadelic, the Clash, the Ramones, Alejandro Escovedo, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Tammy, Dolly, Vicente Fernández, Caetano Veloso, Sly and the Family Stone, Culture, Mahlathini, Thomas Mapfumo, Skynyrd, the Stooges, the MC5, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Joy Division, the Cure, the Smiths, U2, Manu Chao, R.E.M., Black Flag, Minutemen, Husker Du, Nirvana, Liz Phair, Beck, Radiohead, Wilco, Drive-By Truckers, Kings of Leon, the White Stripes, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bright Eyes, the Mars Volta, Interpol, Arcade Fire, the Dixie Chicks, Anthony Hamilton, TV on the Radio, Gnarls Barkley; The real alternatives and out-there experimentalists: Debussy, Schoenberg, Sun Ra, the Airplane, the Dead, Os Mutants, Can, the Velvet Underground, Nico, Yoko, Eno, Ornette Coleman, Television, Wire, the Fall, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine, the Orb, Jim O'Rourke; The Hip-Hop Nation: Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, Eric B. and Rakim, Public Enemy, Stetsasonic, De La Soul, Tupac, Biggie, Mos Def, the Coup, Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Goodie Mob, OutKast; artists on (or from) the Carolina music scene: Tift Merritt, Ryan Adams, Caitlin Cary, Little Brother, Cleo Jones, Roman Candle, the Old Ceremony, Alt-Ctrl-Sleep, Calabi Yau, Pyramid; and all the artists making great contemporary musica en espanol: Cafe Tacuba, Ely Guerra, Julieta Venegas and Molotov, from Mexico; Superaquello and Circo, from Puerto Rico; Andrea Echeverri, Héctor Buitrago and their band Aterciopelados, from Colombia; Los Amigos Invisibles, from Venezuela; Libido, from Peru; Charly Garcia, his legendary folk-rock band Sui Generis, and the more contemporary Babasonicos and Juana Molina, from Argentina; Enrique Bunbury and Bebe, from Spain; and all the domestic spanish-langue artists changing the U.S. musical landscape: the indie rock en espanol and trad-Latin sounds of Cordero and Pistolera, from New York; the funky Pepito and Los Super Elegantes, from L.A.; the norteno of Rey Norteno, from Raleigh, NC; the ska and rock of Bakalao Stars and Eva Fina, from Charlotte, NC ... and the list gets longer every day ...
Dr. Strangelove, In the Heat of the Night, Raging Bull, The Last Waltz, Monty Python's Life of Brian, This is Spinal Tap, Giulietta Degli Spiriti, Bananas, Wings of Desire, Do the Right Thing, Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Memento, Sling Blade, The Apostle, Magnolia, Y Tu Mamá También, Lost in Translation, Life is Beautiful, Donnie Darko, Napoleon Dynamite, The Station Agent, City of God, Diarios de Motocicleta...
I admit it, I love TV. I watch too much mindless brain candy (though I do manage to get out of the house most days): Law and Order, Monk (the early seasons), Seinfeld (though I struggle watching Michael Richards now), The Simpsons, King of the Hill, South Park, The Boondocks, American Dreams, The Office, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Chappelle's Show, Project Runway, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The McLaughlin Group, Anderson Cooper 360... TV cancer: The O'Reilly Factor, Lou Dobbs Tonight, The Glenn Beck Program
These titles immediately come to mind. (I'm sure I've left out many others that have helped me along my way.) Nonfiction: The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James; Why We Can't Wait, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley and Malcolm X; Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver; The Mind of the South, by W.J. Cash; The Burdon of Southern History, by C. Van Woodward; The Civil War, by Shelby Foote; Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown; Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, by Jon Lee Anderson; Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuna; A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn; Mystery Train, by Greil Marcus; The Latin Tinge, by John Storm Roberts; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, by Tom Wolfe; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig; Be Here Now, by Ram Dass; Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott... A few novels that have inspired me: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez; Naguib Mahfouz' "Cairo" trilogy; A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Wolf; Chicano: A Novel, by Richard Vasquez ... A handful of unclassifiable titles that merge fiction and nonfiction with fantasy and myth: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson; On the Road, by Jack Kerouac; The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, by Carlos Castaneda; The Holy Bible; the Holy Qur'an...
Jesus, Kennedy, King, Ghandi, Cesar Chavez, Mother Teresa, Hank and Peggy Hill, Marge and Homer Simpson, and Richard and Joan Kemp (my parents)...............