Happy Halloween

Vanuatu is in the news again... - Bede's Beat

There was a major earthquake 35km NE of Port-Olry on 20 October. Fortunately no casualties and minimal damage was reported.

Flag of Vanatu

But the news that is really grabbing Australasia and Oceania's attention is that -- after being convicted by the Vanuatu Republic's Supreme Court on corruption charges along with 13 other legislators on October 9 -- Vanuatu's Parliamentary Speaker Marcellino Pipite immediately invoked one of his powers as "acting president", since President Baldwin Lonsdale happened to be abroad on the 9th, to pardon himself and the other 13 MPs. Immediately upon his return, President Lonsdale overturned the pardons. On October 21st, the Supreme Court ruled the pardons unconstitutional.

Coat of Arms of Vanuatu 

We hear of or read about places such as Vanuatu, but what about the people who actually live there?

Vanuatu is home to the "Jeux d'eau" or "Water Games" -- the highlight of which are Water Percussion competitions and demonstrations.
The following clip contains footage from the Jeux d'eau 2007, shot by videographers from the Museum of Music in Paris.

The following clip contains a demonstration of water percussion filmed at Banks Island, Vanuatu.

It is raw footage filmed by AJ Hickling as part of a self-funded hour-and-a-half film exploring Vanuatuan culture through percussion and rhythms, "Evolving Rhythms - Island Adventures"

The film contains some amazing performances, but the filmmaker's attention span is less than I prefer when i drum with someone, as much of the music is presented in tantalizingly (and maddeningly) short clips of local performers, whose performances are often used as samples rather than featured in full and explained and explored... Perhaps AJ should have done more listening and less smoking during his trip...

Here is an example of a Vanuatuan "stomp dance", filmed at a Chiefmaking ceremony in Bethel Village, Vanuatu. The percussion is provided by slit drums.

The final clip is footage of a ceremonial dance, of a type known as a "kastom dance", performed by the Smol Nambas people of Vanuatu. It was recorded on Maskelynes, one of the very small Vanuatuan islands, located off the coast of the larger island of Peskarus. The percussion instrument being played is a slit gong drum. The dance they are performing is called the "raft dance" and tells of how the Smol Nambas came to live on Maskelynes. 

The videographer notes that -- while the ceremonies captured in this video are very sacred and performed at very specific times -- "The men were keen for me to film them and put the footage on the internet for the world to see but I was forbidden to show footage to any villager."

Naked Bunch

I need to get out more. I love my funky city. I had no idea we had an annual Naked Bike Ride in Center City. The 12 mile ride through the city is part of the World Naked Bike Ride movement. 

The World Naked Bike Ride  is an international clothing-optional bike ride in which participants plan, meet and ride together en masse on human-powered transport (the vast majority on bicycles, but some on skateboards and inline skates), to "deliver a vision of a cleaner, safer, body-positive world."

Photo by NYC Pixelista

Remembrance of a Beloved Man

Dear friend,

Would you please consider making the obituary I wrote for Nick included at the bottom of this page available on your blog for his countless friends and followers to read who still may not yet know of his passing. Not a day goes by where I don't encounter at least one of his loyal readers who hasn't. Another, even just yesterday while posting on Raw Story.

Nick and I met at the Philadelphia Inquirer where we both worked during our early 20's while fresh out of college circa 1980. In addition to our other duties we composed literally thousands of obituaries although I never imagined I'd one day be writing his.

Anyone who personally knew Nick would surely agree he deserves and has duly earned all respects including final remembrance.

Gratefully, Mike Adams

adams6abc@windstream.net
  

VANOCUR, Nicholas (1957-2015) age 58 of Nashville TN passed away Sun August 23, 2015.

Beloved son of Sander Vanocur (born 1928, ret) and Edith C. Pick (1923-1975). The eldest of two children, Nick is survived by his dear father Sander Vanocur of Santa Barbara CA and loving brother Christopher Vanocur of Columbus OH (born 1959).

While an official CoD hasn't yet been determined nor released by Davidson County officials (Nashville TN) it's believed Nick passed peacefully while asleep sometime during Sunday August 23rd due to kidney failure or related complications.

Nick was a lifelong writer, editor, journalist and political humorist enjoying a loyal daily readership and following of national proportion. He attended Sidwell Friends School in Wash DC (class of 1975), UCSD and Temple University.

Nick was a professional staff member of The Philadelphia Inquirer (Phila), Temple News (Phila), The Tennessean (Nashville) and Planet Weekly (Tuscaloosa) newspapers.

He also worked for Sam-Eric Theaters and Universal Studios while a student in California. He was chosen for and served two prestigious internships during his earliest years. One as a US Senate page during 1969 and another with IBM during 1970.

Over his career Nick received two “Best of Gannett” Headline Awards and was mentioned in a book by Joe Calloway entitled “Becoming a Category of One" for his outstanding ability to quickly glean the most strategic facts involved with a story and produce a provocative headline of award-winning caliber.

Nick's professional abilities included Journalist, News Production Editor, News Copywriter, News Story Editor, Press Release Agent, News Blogger and Political Humorist.

Interment and memorial services will be announced by the Vanocur family at a later date as soon as they've been arranged and become known.

Abortion Follies

The authoritarians are foaming over the CHOPPED logo being used on a poster for a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. The cleaver gives them wood. I love to watch them foam. 

So while I was having fun slaying fetus freak trolls, I came across this question. 

WelderChick
I wonder what would happen if a huge crowd of pro lifers simply arrived outside the bar, stood silently, all the while holding up pictures of PP's work? Think it would dampen the "fun" mood?

Frankly, I think it would increase the fun mood. Ever seen any fetus freaks in action? Enjoy a quick peek from Jaguar Jones. 

George Carlin: Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place?

One Brief Comment with UPDATE

The Republicans are going to follow the spectacular success of the Benghazi Hearing (laughing) ...

...with a hearing on Planned Parenthood chaired by Marsha Blackburn the Tatty Wedding Cake. What could go wrong?

And please somebody tell me: what does the House Energy and Commerce Committee have to do with my pudenda? And who I choose to palpate it?

This is going to be as effective as the IRS and Benghazi scandals. It will be a hoot. Pearl clutching at 20 paces. No tampon throwing, Ladies.

Editorial Cartoonist is Clay Bennett. 

"House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) rolled out the leaders of his new select panel to investigate the abortion practices of Planned Parenthood, an eight-member group promoting the female members of the Republican Conference.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a veteran conservative who has been outspoken in criticism of Planned Parenthood, will chair the select subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee." Read more...

UPDATE:

I feel sick.

Legislatures must not practice medicine. The clip below begins with Paul Ryan discussing the candidacy of Todd 'legitimate rape' Akin:

Akin is an outspoken opponent of abortion in all cases, including health reasons or in cases of rape or incest and opposes embryonic stem cell research. In a 2008 speech on the House floor, Akin called abortion providers "terrorists" and alleged that it was "common practice" for abortion providers to perform "abortions" on women who were not actually pregnant. - wikipedia

This man Ryan may be two lives away from being President of the United States of America. And he will kill women and hurt children if he can.

In 31 states in the USA, a rapist gets visitation privileges once his sentence is served. That is how caring and serious our country is about sexual crimes. Women have had the vote in America for 95 years, the lifetime of one woman. One of the primary issues taken up by political women from the beginning is sexual crime. Dismissing women's concerns is the primary reason I would never vote for Joe Biden. I am a bipartisan scourge on this issue. The Dalai Lama has said "The world will be saved by Western Women." Let us continue our work.

The rape conviction rate in the USA is 2%. Women do not report rape. I did not report mine. Why? I knew that this was the kind of man who would be seeing to it I received "justice."

https://rainn.org/statistics

Ode to Joy by Hong Kong Festival Orchestra - Attitude Adjustment

Beethoven's Ode to Joy always makes me cry. Beauty and greatness can do that to this person everytime. I just stand there like a fool sobbing with joy. I need adjustment like this often. 

Caricatures of Ludwig van Beethoven (1815).

These sketches show Beethoven walking the streets of Vienna in deep thought and with not a great deal of attention to his appearance. The signatures of Beethoven and of the artist - Johann Peter Theodor Lyser (1803-70) - are included on this artwork. See more portraits of Beethoven at Music Ease.

Over the years, Beethoven's Ode to Joy has remained a protest anthem and a celebration of music. From demonstrators in Chile singing during demonstration against the Pinochet dictatorship, Chinese student at Tienanmen Square broadcast, The Concert Conducted by Leonard Bernstein After the Fall of the Berlin Wall and Daiku concerts in Japan every December and one after the 2011 tsunami. - Wikipedia

See one of the other three flashmob performances of Ode to Joy at Sabodell, Spain here, Perhaps the Music People will come out of the Cellar Conservatory and tell us more about this music than I know. I do know the poem is meant to be the music for Friedrich Schiller's poem Ode to Joy.  

Ari Up the Essence of Punk - Bede's Beat

Five years ago, on October 20, 2010, Ariane Daniela Forster -- better known as "Ari Up" -- died of cancer in Los Angeles. She was only 48 years old.

Ari was the very essence of punk. After divorcing her German father, Ari's mother, Nora Forster, moved with Ariane to London and married John Lydon -- who was then in his "Johnny Rotten" incarnation -- making him Ari's step-father. Their household became a focus of intense musical and artistic activities of all sorts during the intensively creative period that followed The Ramones' first tour of the UK in 1976. That tour produced what is now referred to as "first generation punk", as well as "second generation punk", a term which covers bands such as The Buzzcocks, The Clash, The Ruts and The Slits, who were inspired by bands such as The Damned (the first band to record a "punk" single, "New Rose") and The Sex Pistols, which formed in reaction to The Ramones' 1976 tour, to DIY ("Spiral Scratch", the first Buzzcocks EP, was self-produced and self-distributed, which sparked an explosion in DIY labels and projects).

Despite her youth, Ari was an enthusiastic participant in all of this activity, co-founding the seminal punk band "The Slits" at the age of 14, after being taught to play the guitar by Joe Strummer and immediately beginning to compose music to accompany her poetry. Although The Slits are known as the first all-female punk band -- an all-female five-piece founded when Ari met former members of Flowers of Romance and The Castrators at her mum's place -- over the course of their career as a band, their line-up did include some men, including Budgie, who later became famous as the drummer for Siouxsie & The Banshees, and his and his wife Siouxsie's side-project, The Creatures.

As you can hear in "Typical Girls", Ari brought a dub influence to The Slits -- even persuading her band mates to have legendary reggae producer and bassist Denis Bovell produce their first album, "Cut", 1n 1979 (with a teenaged Neneh Cherry on loan from Rip Rig + Panic contributing backing vocals) -- which made them the perfect touring companions for The Clash in the late 1970s. Ari's flamboyance as a performer is well captured in Wolfgang Buld's 1980 documentary "Women In Rock", only a very short clip of which is available online.

Ari's irresistible energy -- and that of the early punk scene -- is featured in a 5-minute segment from another documentary, "Raw Energy", shot in 1978 and released in 1979 -- which alternates between live performances and interviews.

The Slits also made an unforgettable appearance in the 1978 "The Punk Rock Movie", trashing a bloke's car. The live portion of the footage of The Slits in performance included in the movie was shot in 1977 by Don Letts, most famous as a movie-maker and photographer who documented the birth and death of the original punk movement, who was also a member of Mick Jones' post-Clash project Big Audio Dynamite.

One of my favorite post-Slits side-projects of Ari's were her recordings and appearances with Adrian Sherwood's New Age Steppers -- who have been described as a "post-punk reggae supergroup" -- and which was/is comprised of many of the British-born "usual suspects" from the On-U stable of artists and produced by Adrian Sherwood. Here she is performing a reggae standard "My Guiding Star" with The New Age steppers.

Ari's best-selling hit as a solo artist was her infectious "Mi Done" from her 2005 album "Dread More Dan Dead."

Here is a more mellow dubwise version of "Me Done" with the lyrics delivered at a slower pace, recorded live by Ari Up & her band True Warriors live on the radio station that has done more to broaden my musical horizons than anything else in my life, WFMU, the world's oldest free-form radio station.

The Slits reformed in 2006, although Ari was only one of 2 original members to participate in the reassembly. For their initial EP, they recruited Paul Cook, who drummed for The Sex Pistols, and Marco Pirroni, who is best known for being Adam & The Ants lead guitarist and co-writer of most of Adam Ant's 1980s-era hits. As Narnack Records documented at her last label's website, the last project she worked on -- a video for The Slits' song "Lazy Slam" -- was released posthumously at Ari's request.

Sign of the Month - October 2015

A Planned Parenthood #PinkOut. Notice the men in the crowd who came to help out. Real men, gay and straight, heart women.  

Women vote. Do the Republicans know that Women have the vote? 

Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House? The "rape is just a method of conception" guy? Oh hell no. 

Rock'n'fucking'roll's Greatest Rhythm Guitarist - Bede's Beat

John William Cummings, better known as "Johnny Ramone," was born on October 8, 1948. The original members of The Ramones each took the surname Ramone to display their solidarity, unity and equality. The name was suggested by Dee Dee, who had heard that it was the surname that Paul McCartney used when he checked into hotels.

In a Guitar Player interview, collected in The Guitar Player Book, Johnny stated: "I guess that before me, people played downstrokes for brief periods in a song, rather than the whole song through. It was just a timing mechanism for me."

On the topic of The Ramones' songbook, Johnny often said that every Ramones song has everything a "regular" pop song has, only it's played really fast without any solos, so they simply end up being short.

On September 15, 2004, Johnny died of prostate cancer. He is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Joey Ramone, who developed lymphoma, predeceased Johnny in 2001, Dee Dee Ramone died of a heroin OD in 2002. DeeDee's gravestone isn't far from Johnny's. The last of the original Ramones, Tommy, died, also of cancer, in 2014.

The best way to appreciate Jonny's artistry is to listen to the Ramones live. The "solos" that appear on Ramones records were actually overdubbed by either Ed Stasium, Walter Lure or Tommy Ramone. This is the oldest known footage of The Ramones performing at CBGBs on September 15, 1974:

Here is what was once extremely rare footage of The Ramones practicing a set, filmed at "the Fifth Ramone", Autoro Vega's NYC studio on February 3rd, 1975.

The most famous of The Ramones' live recordings is "It's Alive!" -- a full concert recorded on New Year's Eve 1977 at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The Ramones recorded four full concerts during their 1977 tour of the UK. The band's priority was to provide their fans with an accurate portrayal of their concerts, at which they played every song they'd recorded very very fast. To achieve this, they wanted to use a single, complete concert. Sire Records wanted to hedge its bets and cull the best performances from each concert and edit them together to form a "complete show". After 10 rows of seats were thrown at the stage after The Ramones left the stage for the last time at their New Year's Eve performance, and the London and UK musical press proclaimed it one of the best performances ever held at The Rainbow, Sire decided to use the entire New Year's Eve concert for a double-LP release. A little less than half-an-hour's worth of the New Years' Eve performance which was released on LP was also filmed;

October 8 is also the birthday of Tucker, who has done so very very much to keep we wanderers in the wilderness intact and in contact -- you may have noticed a few of us squatting all over Plum Street. Happy Birthday, Tucker!

BEDE ! WHERE ARE YOU ?

I cannot find the extra columns you made for me. I am still searching. We need a new Bede's Beat. And I worry about your raggedy ass. I worry a lot because I heart you.

"Yeah now, if I have to swim a river, you know I will.
And if I have to climb a mountain, you know I will.
And if he's hiding up on a blueberry hill,
You know I'm gonna find that child you know I will.'

Tune in! Turn on! Please do not Drop Out! Hat tip to Timothy Leary.

Strange Fruit Redux

 Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey

October 2 at 11:05am ·

As I scroll through the news this morning I am saddened to read the details of the horrible tragedy in Oregon. My heart goes out to the citizens of Roseburg -- especially the families and loved ones of those murdered.

The recent spike in mass shootings across the nation is truly troubling. Whether the perpetrators are motivated by aggressive secularism, jihadist extremism or racial supremacy, their targets remain the same: Christians and defenders of the West.

While this is not the time for widespread panic, it is a time to prepare. I would encourage my fellow Christians who are serious about their faith to think about getting a handgun carry permit. I have always believed that it is better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

Our enemies are armed. We must do likewise.
https://www.tn.gov/safety/article/handgunmain

This guy is straight out calling for religious war. Of course, his moldy old balls will be safe in such a war. He so white and Christian, he shine.

The last time Christians did this in the South the Ku Klux Klan was founded and the death toll was so large, they wrote a song about it.

Folks Christians want to kill now are expanded: gays, women who have abortions, Muslims and Secularists, whatever that means. Some of the Christan Irregulars are already burning and shooting and marching on Washington with guns. Two Planned Parenthood arsons in the last month. How long before we see dead Doctors and the funny fruit again? Australia was right to expel Troy Newman. Hate speech and rabble rousing kill people.

I warn you, child... if I lose my temper, you lose your head!

I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion - a blind and aimless Fury. — Lewis Carroll, in "Alice on the Stage"

There is nothing in the world like bipolar rage. I feel electric with it today. This was not the time for one more man to do me sexual dirt. Grrrr.

I was in love with Pope Frankie. He lost me completely with the Kim Davis shit. Back to hating my church with a vengeance again. Some of us Catholics have gay family and friends. Thanks for nothing, Frankie.

You know how it is when you find your lover has feet of clay. I will recover. Much as I hate to send clicks to the NYT, read more HERE:

ROME — Pope Francis met privately in Washington last week with Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, adding a new element to an American tour that saw Francis attract huge crowds and articulate left-leaning positions on poverty, immigration, the environment and inequality. Vatican officials initially would not confirm that the meeting occurred, finally doing so on Wednesday afternoon, while refusing to discuss any details.

I found a new genius of an editorial cartoonist who also has a BLOG: