I — I couldn’t take a blow, sir. I suppose I’ve been too long with gentlemen”
Among gentlemen a blow could be wiped out only in blood; among the lower orders a blow was something to be received without even a word.
C. S. Forester: Hornblower and the Hotspur 1962 p 301
If you want to know why the left in California are not bothered by what is happening in San Francisco Kurt Schlichter nails it in one sentence in an excellent paragraph:
As in California, all the good ones are leaving. There are a lot of complaints about blue state denizens shifting to red places and bringing their clown show politics with them, but in my experience it’s the red people who are saying “The hell with this” and checking out. The poor libs can’t move and the rich ones don’t need to – their little enclaves are relatively safe. The subways may be a concrete jungle where freaks with meat cleavers wander and you might get pushed into an oncoming train by some schizo with 100 arrests and no real jail time on his rap sheet, but the cops are still empowered to act in the well-heeled precincts. People ask how I can stay in LA, but I’m not actually in LA – I’m in a city by the beach where the cops actually cop. The chaos is for the poors on the uncool side of the 405; my neighbors vote for Ted Lieu and let the consequences of their moral preening fall on the people who don’t work via Zoom
Emphasis Mine
There is a word for this. It’s not “socialism” it FEUDALISM.
I’ve been writing about the left’s actions as Feudalism for over 10 years: and it’s become more and more clear that what the left really wants is the status that comes from being better than those who they consider beneath them. After all if everyone has peace and prosperity what makes you special?
Can’t the doorman and driver understand that, like the Lords of old, the Pelosis in Washington like and the Mahers in Hollywood seek power and status simply for the good of all? Don’t they realize if they support the great Lords in DC and Hollywood, as trusted retainers, they might expect advancement from the state, a better job in a growing federal government? Don’t they understand that by keeping an underclass on assistance they provide protection to the retainer like themselves to keep them from revolt (remember Occupy)?
And if such assistance goes to the 2nd or third generation it is a good thing because like those who came before them, they are repaying their bounty with votes that keep the enlightened lords in power.
This entire philosophy & mindset is contrary to the entire march of Western Civilization from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence. It is the idea that some laws can be enforced while others are not, why some standards apply to some and not to others. It’s the idea that the rights are granted by other men, the elites like themselves and not from God
If one were to examine the concept of California as a feudal state, all the pieces would be identifiable. The aristocracy is the wealthy billionaires and the titans of the high tech industry. The knights and the nobles are the public employees. The clerisy consists of the academics and the nonprofit activists, which include environmentalists, homeless and low-income housing advocates, and social justice warriors. Everyone else would be serfs.
California’s serfs would either be members of the state’s dwindling middle-class and small-business owners, paying crippling tithes to the feudal regime, or they would be low income workers and the unemployed, who would rely on alms from the nobles for their sustenance.
You can’t be a lord without serfs, California is returning to it’s Spanish and Mexican roots, Caballeros and Peons and the money that is voted to allow the peons to have drugs and the willingness to let them steal without consequence, that’s today’s version of Noblesse Oblige.
It’s just that it’s not that “noble” and it’s done using other people’s money.
When does a local crime story become a national one? Outside of a mass shooting, a local crime story becomes a national one when there is a race element.
On May 1, a deranged homeless man, Jordan Neely, was threatening passengers on a New York subway train. A former marine, Daniel Penny, aided by two other passengers, placed Neely, who by the way had 42 prior arrests, in a chokehold. Penny has since charged with second-degree manslaughter. I’m sure that you know these details: Penny is white, Neely is black.
The mainstream media, to use an old radio term, still has the Neely killing on heavy rotation.
On May 6 a much more troubling homicide occurred on Chicago’s South Side. Aréanah Preston, a Chicago police officer, had just finished her shift. As she exited her car in front of her home, Preston, who was still in uniform, was shot to death. Jakwon Buchanan, 18, two 19-year-olds Trevell Breeland and Joseph Brooks, and a 16-year-old, Jaylen Frazier, have been charged with her murder.
Preston, 24, was to have been awarded her master’s degree from Loyola University on Saturday.
By now you probably know why the murder of Preston is not a national news story. Preston, and the alleged killers, are African American. If the accused murderers were white, reports about this homicide would dominate the news outlets, particularly MSNBC and CNN, who would introduce each segment on the cop killing with a custom graphic and somber music.
There are additional chilling details about the alleged perpetrators, all of whom are in jail, bail has been denied.
Their crime spree began early on the morning of May 6, according to a Cook County assistant state’s attorney, because the girlfriend of Jakwon Buchanan needed money for a barbecue. That’s right, a barbecue. Buchanan, by the way, has a pending carjacking case in juvenile court.
First, the four teens, who were dressed in black and wore face masks, stole a Kia Forte, after robbing a woman of her charge cards, her smart phone, and a Louis Vuitton belt. As for the youths’ look and their criminality, think Alex and his “Droogs” from A Clockwork Orange crossed with ninja warriors from a 1980s action film. Next, a 62-year-old woman and her son’s girlfriend were robbed by at least three of the teens of a phone and a Coach purse. Then two of the accused allegedly robbed a man as he was leaving his car.
Then Preston was murdered. Her gun was taken and one of the accused allegedly sold her weapon.
I can describe the four accused killers with two words, ones that the holier-than-thou media has deemed racist: “Career criminals,” despite their youth, and “super-predators.” Remember how CWB Chicago portrayed the four, “all with extensive juvenile criminal backgrounds.” And CWB Chicago, citing a law enforcement source, said of two of the accused, “Brooks and Buchanan ‘are by far in the top 10 for prolific juvenile carjackers over the last two years.'”
On Monday, Brandon Johnson, a Democrat who is essentially a creation of the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, will be sworn in as mayor of Chicago. Until his mayoral campaign began Johnson was a “defund the police” guy. Among other things, Johnson favors sending social workers, instead of cops, to domestic disturbances. After a riot last month in downtown Chicago, the mayor-elect had this to say about the creeps, “It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Sheesh.
If people do demonic things, they can expect to be demonized.
A few days later, Johnson doubled down on those initial remarks about the rioters. “They’re young,” Johnson said. “Sometimes they make silly decisions! They do. So we have to make sure that we are investing to make sure that young people know that they are supported.”
Investing?
Johnson is a big proponent of summer jobs programs for young people. I don’t believe such employment would cause youths like Buchanan, Frazier, Brooks, and Breeland to alter their destructive life decisions for $15-an-hour make-work jobs.
Chicago is stacked with career criminals and super-predators. My solution to the city’s crisis is simple, aggressively prosecute these lawbreakers and imprison them when they are found guilty. Johnson, Cook County’s so-called prosecutor Kim Foxx, and Cook County Circuit Court chief judge Tim Evans don’t agree with me. They’re “root causes” people.
Sadly, even though some moms rise to their challenge, there is one root cause the media and left-wing politicians refuse to discuss. Over eighty percent of African American births in Chicago are to single mothers.
I don’t know what the solution to that problem is. But admitting there is a problem is the first step in confronting it.
On Wednesday, four days after she was to receive her master’s diploma from Loyola, the funeral for Preston will be held.
John Ruberry regularly blogs five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.
They will be more careful to just talk beer in the future
Murica!
without coming out and saying the words: We’re sorry to have f*****up and we won’t insult our customer base again, the good folks at Anheuser-Busch might have hoped this would reverse or slow the sales drop they have experienced so far:
Bud Light sales continued to worsen for the week ended April 29, NielsenIQ data showed, amid controversy around the brand’s partnership with a transgender influencer.
The country’s No. 1-selling beer brand saw in-store sales of $71.6 million that week, off 23.4% from the same week in 2022.
The company will provide “direct financial support” to workers, including delivery drivers, sales representatives, wholesalers and bar owners, Doukeris said.
Because apparently you can’t make a living selling Anheuser-Busch anymore in the US.
This means several things:
This isn’t going to change until you get an explicit apology from Anheuser Busch
The company is going to have to be willing to take the short term media hit when they do
The salutary effects this is having on other companies thinking of going woke will continue
The left will be desperate for a scalp to generate greater fear than this boycott has
In the end AB will have to choose between the gay bars in Chicago and the vast swath of beer drinkers, If their primary fear as individuals is dealing with angry leftists a permanent drop of 25% in sales might be acceptable. To a company actually interested in the bottom line it would be an easy choice.
The clock is ticking because if the decide to keep stalling eventually people will get used to their new choices in beer and the game will be over.
The Kinks are celebrating the 60th anniversary of their founding. In March, the legendary band released a two-CD compilation, The Journey – Part 1 (1964-1975), which is a great place to acquaint yourself with these wonderful performers.
To further immerse yourself with the Kinks, I have determined what I believe are their ten-best albums.
By the way, what is one test to ascertain if someone is intelligent? Well, if a person is a Kinks fan, then you found smart guy or gal.
The Kinks were founded in 1963 in Muswell Hill in North London. The heart of the band are the Davies (pronounced Davis) brothers, Ray, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist, and Dave, lead guitarist, and occasional songwriter, who sometimes sings lead. Mick Avory is the drummer.
The band broke up in the 1990s, Avory departed the band in 1984. Over the years the Kinks, first a quartet then a quintet, had a series of bassists and keyboardists. Although they haven’t toured or recorded since then, the Davies brothers reformed the Kinks in 2018, Avory is included as a member.
Last summer, at Skokie’s Backlot Bash, an annual event held near my home north of Chicago–the festival coincidentally honors another English phenomenon–Charlie Chaplin–local band Tribotosaurus put on a Kinks show. In his introductory remarks, the band’s lead singer remarked, “The Kinks are the forgotten band of the British Invasion.” Quite true.
Early Kinks tours were tumultuous affairs as they fought each other and anyone else in their way. “At the height of our success in the 1960s,” the narrator in Ray’s solo song ‘Invaders’ explained, “the Kinks were banned from touring the USA for four years, when we did return, we toured the USA relentlessly, tour after tour. Year after year. To win back what we’d lost.”
Who was behind that ban? The American Federation of Musicians. And those years spanned from 1965-1969, musically they were transformational years when rock was transformed from being pop music into an art form.
Here is one account about why the ban occurred, but there are many others.
While what became into the holy trilogy of British rock–the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who–looked outward musically, Ray and the Kinks turned introspective during their ban from America. For inspiration, they turned to the British music hall songs they learned from the parents. Music hall, the UK version of vaudeville, also describes a style of music. Famous music hall tunes that you probably have heard include, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag,” and “I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am.” Hermans Hermits scored a hit with the last one in 1965.
That sounds horrible for the Kinks, right?
Wrong. The Kinks’ best work was recorded during their “lost period” in America. Only two Kinks singles charted in the United States from 1967-1969, and they peaked deep in the bottom half of Billboards’ Hot 100. But the hits kept coming in Britain and elsewhere.
The Kinks have been cursed with bad luck– and some of those wounds were self-inflicted. In their last album with new material, the mostly-live album To The Bone, Ray looked back in his introduction to their song, “I’m Not Like Everyone Else.” Of that composition he said, “It kind of sums up what we’re all about, the Kinks, because everyone expects us to do wonderful things, and we mess it all up, usually.”
The Kinks’ bad luck even extended to that Tributosaurus gig in Skokie. The band pumped out four great classic Kinks songs, but then a Caddyshack-level thunderstorm struck, which forced the rest of the show, as well as the final night of the Backlot Bash, to be cancelled.
Even if the Kinks’ career consisted of one song, “You Really Got Me,” their international hit from 1964, their place in rock and roll history would be secure. That power cord classic inspired four rock genres, heavy metal, hard rock, punk rock, and new wave.
But there is so much more to the Kinks.
Let the countdown begin.
Not before, that is, a big shout out to the USA-only compilation The Kink Kronikles. That collection not only does a great job covering the Kinks’ “lost years” in America, but it contains such wondrous non-album singles such as “Wonderboy,” “Autumn Almanac,” and “Days.” Those singles, however, often appear on extended versions of some of these albums you’ll soon learn about.
But I’m reviewing the original releases.
10) Give the People What They Want (1981): There are some strong tracks here, particularly “Destroyer,” where Ray rips off himself with an homage to the Kinks’ earlier hit, “All Day and All of the Night.” The Kinks were firmly ensconced in the arena rock phrase of their career when this collection was released, and “Around the Dial” captures that era in just under five minutes. On the other hand, the best track here, “Better Things,” reaches back to that “lost period.” The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, with whom Ray had a romantic relationship at the time, contributes background vocals on four songs.
9) Schoolboys in Disgrace (1975): Beginning in the early 1970s the Kinks recorded a series of concept albums. During supporting tours, these efforts were presented as low-budget stage shows. The last such Kinks “musical” offers a huge helping of 1950s-styles rock, along with a look back at the Kinks power-chord early days. But it betrays Kinks bad luck too. The “rock and roll revival,” rocks first nostalgia movement, which was partially inspired by the Beatles White Album, had run its course by 1975. Power chord music would bounce back in the late 1970s. Wrong place, wrong time. “The Hard Way” would have been a hit in 1979, the same year the Knack scored a number one smash with “My Sharona.” Ironically, the next year the Knack covered “The Hard Way.” Other strong tunes here include “Education,” “No More Looking Back,” and “Jack the Idiot Dunce.”
8) Sleepwalker (1977): The Kinks’ first non-thematic album in nearly a decade, Sleepwalker was a mainstream effort that proved that the band could still rock as well as anyone else. The title track, “Juke Box Music,” “Life on the Road,” and “Life Goes On” are the best tracks.
7) The Kink Kontroversy (1965): In the mid-1970s, Van Morrison recorded an album titled A Period of Transition. That would be fitting moniker for this collection, the Kinks’ third album. “Till the End of the Day” was their last power chord hit. Very early in their career the Kinks recorded many blues rock songs, and there are some on this offering, the best of which here is “Gotta Get the First Plane Home.” Another shining moment, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone,” is sung from the perspective of a middle-aged man, but written by Ray, who was 21 at the time. It foreshadows future greatness.
6) Muswell Hillbillies (1971): We’ll hear about the predecessor to this collection, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One soon, but that album brought the Kinks back to prominence and a well-deserved place, albeit briefly, at the head table of rock’s elite. You remember Ray’s remark about the Kinks–that “everyone expects us to do wonderful things, and we mess it all up, usually.” Not that Muswell Hillbillies is bad. Far from it. But the “Lola” album was mostly a hard rock effort, and the Kinks certainly confused its new American fan base with Muswell’s country rock and music hall flavor. Besides the title tune, “20th Centry Man,” “Oklahoma USA,” and “Have a Cuppa Tea” are standouts.
5) Face to Face (1966): Ray emerged as a first-rate storyteller here. While not a concept album, a minor narrative can be found on Face to Face with “A House in the Country,” “Most Exclusive Residence for Sale,” and “Sunny Afternoon,” the Kinks last American hit until 1970. “Holiday in Waikiki” was composed during the Kinks’ disastrous 1965 tour. And had Buddy Holly not taken that fateful airplane flight in 1959 in Iowa, he may have been writing songs like “I’ll Remember” in 1966.
4) Something Else by the Kinks (1967): This is the Kinks most-music hall album. “Harry Rag” might be the most typical of this collection, as “Harry Rag” is old British slang for a cigarette and it’s a sing-a-long tune, and many music hall tunes were written with audience participation in mind. Dave sings lead in a Ray/Dave composition, “Death of a Clown.” But “Waterloo Sunset,” a smash hit just about everywhere except in America, is the best song here, and arguably the Kinks’ greatest recording.
3) Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970): In the United States, other than “You Really Got Me,” the sorta-title track “Lola,”which is about a strange encounter with what we now call a transgendered woman, is the Kinks best-known song. It was an international hit–and a second single from this album, “Apeman,” also did well as a single. A Dave tune, “Strangers,” is an eerie song about friendship that is one of the Kinks most covered works. This album is yet another band “mess up,” because there was never Part Two. Oh, I nearly forgot, “Get Back in Line” tells the story of worker who a capricious union boss refuses to hire. Yes, it’s a musical punch at the American Federation of Musicians.
2) Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969): It wasn’t their fault, but here’s another Kinks “mess up,” albeit a brilliant one. Arthur is the soundtrack for a television movie, but that film was never made, although it’s not the fault of the Davies et al. This wondrous collection starts off with the rollicking “Victoria,” the band’s hardest rocker since 1965. “Shangri-La,” a sprawling epic, looks, not so fondly, at the British class system. “Some Mother’s Son” ranks with the best anti-war songs ever written.
And number 1 is:
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968): Released the same day as the Beatles White Album, VGPS, another music hall-inspired gem, has Ray telling stories about a sleepy English village. Like the central character of his “Autumn Almanac,” in regard to the title track, it’s difficult to fathom if Ray is celebrating, presumably at least, the little old ladies who are members of the Village Green Preservation Society, or mocking them, as he sings, “God save little shops, china cups and virginity.” Don’t forget, we’re in 1968 here. “Do You Remember Walter” looks at the inevitable disappointment when childhood dreams don’t match up with adult reality. The mellotron driven “Phenomenal Cat” is about a legendary, in the imagination of “idiot boys,” flying feline, who, after traveling the world, decides the best life him is to live in a tree and pursue obesity. While “Animal Farm,” which has nothing to do with the George Orwell novel, views rural life more fondly.
There is no rock album quite like VGPS. XTC’s masterpiece, “Skylarking,” thematically comes close.
If you don’t like my choices, well, that’s why we have a comments section here.
And finally, God save the Kinks.
John Ruberry has seen the Kinks twice in concert, both times in Champaign, Illinois. He usually blogs at Marathon Pundit.
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