Music

Yes, Officer, I am under the influence.

Of the following:

Two cups, Bigelow's peppermint tea, probably four full teaspoons white sugar.

Two fat Stauf's porcelain cups, moka java coffee, ten packets (at least) brown raw sugar.

One 12-oz.can Mountain Dew.

Two king-size Reese's Cups.

Madonna's 1989 hit, 'Express Yourself" which she performed at the Women's March last Saturday.

Becalmed, I am ready to start my column.

Having finished consuming caffeine, chocolate and sugar only a few minutes ago, Express Yourself has been mentally greeting me every morning since last Saturday. And why not? It's a really good, maybe even great '80s Madonna pop song, catchy as a cold on a rainy day and way more enjoyable. The chorus flows, the messages are good. Hey, I was an '80s feminist once upon a time!

Baby

B-b-b-baby

Do you believe in love?

Come on, girls!

I've got something to sing about

and it goes something like this...

The year was 2001. My wife and I were both second-year law students at Ohio State, and had just had our first date at what was then the Thirsty Ear Tavern. Casting around for second date plans, I learned that my old guitar teacher’s band was opening up for Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil at the Alrosa Villa. Oh great, I thought, this ought to be hilarious.

Exactly what Neil, who had just gotten off of a world tour with Crue, was doing playing an 800-person capacity club with a group of hair band hacks is an open question. It wasn’t a side project, as he was only playing Crue songs. Maybe he needed beer money? In any event, it was a mess of a show.

Neil was an astonishing ass who couldn’t sing for shit, and my wife still talks about the horrors in the woman’s restroom. Seared in my mind is this weird look of disappointment his guitar player had when a woman in the crown refused to take his suggestion to remove her shirt. In fairness, this was all sort of the point in going.

While celebs and a clutch of great musicians croaked by the dressing room full, did anyone notice the Rolling Stones had a banner year?

Yes, I am writing about the Stones--again.

Because they matter. Perhaps more than ever. More on that at the end, luv.

Early in 2016 they conquered South America with a 10-show tour that included figuratively climbing over the diplomatic and ideological walls and playing a free show inside a communist dictatorship--Cuba. No ordinary gig by any act's standards, hundreds of thousands of Cubans showed up after months of behind-the-scenes finagling (underwritten by a Latino billionaire) complicated by the timing of Obama's surprise overture and visits by both the president and the Pope.

Besides the DVD, Havana Moon, of the concert, there is a fantastic must-see documentary of the rest of the Stones South American tour and hombre, it I think think it is the best Stones movie yet.

Run The Jewels (El-P and Killer Mike) just sold-out the Express Live 3 weeks before the Hip Hop duo’s January 16th show in our fair city.

  Run the Jewels are resonating because the music is futuristic and they speak their minds. El-P and Killer Mike were in Ferguson the night of the Michael Brown verdict. They campaigned for Bernie Sanders.

So their latest album, RTJ3 is hitting an important stride at the beginning of 2017.

RTJ3 opens up with “Down” where Killer Mike states, “One time for the Freedom of Speech/ Two Times for the right to hold heat.” There is a refrain that says, “I could’ve died y’all.” Then El-P arrives demanding attention with bold statements, as one “who dodged his own lobotomy.”

Obviously there are multiple factors that lead to a musical act connecting with how a mass of people feel.

In the beginning of 2016 I hoped: if we get over this election we will be one step closer to a social evolution. Today, I think. Well. 2017 brings us the dystopian future of 2004.  So forgive me how far this thing goes back.

Benefactor of the Unfortunate Election Columbus Hip Hop Album of the Year

Blueprint – Vigilante Genesis

Did I say 2004?

Well, I’m going to jump to 1988 when Iran-Contra proved the government can wage War on Drugs while selling guns on live television. George Bush Sr. used race-baiting to win the election despite the Iran-Contra hearings existing.

At the same time, Public Enemy’s “It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back” and Boogie Down Productions “By Any Means Necessary” are released.

The impact of the Futuristic Hip Hop P.E. created coupled with BDP’s illustration of how someone could be both a revolutionary, and a graffiti writing BBOY was obviously influential on the work by people like Aesop Rock & Blueprint who rose to fame in the Post-911 era where George Bush JR. lied to us to destabilize Iraq, which created ISIS.

It's about me and Hillary, mostly, and how she blows off steam after a major disappointment in life by flying secretly into Columbus, then takes a special Ultra-Secret Uber to my pad where she works off her angst kama sutra kamikaze-style.

On me. It's wild. Unreal.

We met at a fund-raiser in Lima years ago, at the tank plant."Save the tank and let's get spanked," I wittily broke the ice with her at the hor d'oeuvres where she was sucking up the sushi with a hose from her purse. We got to talking about love and war. We clicked like a crazed gigolo Goober of Mayberry and a frisky Aunt Bee. We began our body work later that night. She got really limber after a few sessions. But that was long ago and many primaries away. Sigh.

Nowaday's it ain't purdy, as we used to say in Texas, in one of my many unpublished daydream novels, this energy-work she and I do.

Trump. I’m just getting past the paralysis. For maybe the first time in my life I’m experiencing fear in a macro sense. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of acute terror, but nothing like this ominous dulling crush. Jesus fucking Christ. I’ve seen enough to understand that wholesale bigotry has never stopped frothing under the American surface. Candidly, before I took Trump seriously as a candidate I was somewhat appreciative of him for dragging this filth out into the light, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. But God, I never realized how bad it would shake me to see it out in the open. To actually see people performing the Nazi salute and screaming “heil Trump!” To see just how emboldened people are, how aggressive they have become about indulging their poison. One of those open carry freaks is now hanging out at Indianola and Olentangy, claiming the existence of a “menacing” homeless person. Jesus fucking Christ.

One of the hallmarks of the Donald Trump campaign, and to a lesser extent the Republican Party, is a call for the end of political correctness. I’ve always felt a little sorry for that term, doomed to the grammatical tragedy of becoming a sarcastic pejorative before it ever had a chance to be a straightforward noun. That said, with a few highly regrettable exceptions, I’ve never had much trouble differentiating the loud, profane, obnoxious, ribald and borderline pornographic from language that hurts, demeans, dehumanizes or demonstrates power over someone else. Be polite, just like your mom told you, and you shouldn’t have to worry about anything.

What would a Frank Sinatra White House look like?

You do know a vote for The Orange Lord is a vote for old-school values, right? When men ran in packs and she-rats pretended to run for their lives, especially when those male rats carried names like Sammy, Dino, Peter and Frankie Baby.

Because if Donald Trump isn't a one-man rat-pack, I don't know who is.

Let us ponder this phenomenon, one that is fast disappearing from our culture as the buffalo were in the late 1870s on the American Great Plains.

Buffalo. Rats. White men. See where I'm going with this? I don't. I'm flying blind. But I'm feeling it. And that instinct got me from the Mediterranean French coast to its north, Verdun, in a day on a motorcycle without the use of a map and I don't speak French, except you know, when I'm loving. But I know when I'm on to something, dear reader. So, onward, monks.

The American male as we know him is a living thing of the past, put out to pasture by, oh, a lack of a fence on our southern border? Nah. More like every movement needs its villain. Thus it was decreed: thanks for setting up this good thang but you're politically expendable. Sorr-ee!

I emailed Upski last month because I wanted guidance about the current political climate. Upski’s books Bomb the Suburbs, No More Prisons, and Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs have hugely impacted and influenced Hip Hop culture, and grassroots activism.