Posts Tagged ‘Da Magnificent Seven’

Review: The Kinks the Journey Part 1 and 2

Posted: November 19, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment
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By John Ruberry

A journey, indeed it is. The Kinks are celebrating their 60th anniversary. 

A big part of the revelry is the release, on BMG records of two double-CD or vinyl anthologies, the Journey Part 1, which was released in March, and the Journey Part 2, which was issued last Friday.

And in case you missed it, here is my rundown of my choices for the Kinks best 10 albums, which includes a look back at their momentous career. 

The Kinks emerged from North London and a year later they were at the forefront of the second pack of the British Invasion–or the beat groups, if you are reading this in the UK. Among those early hits were the power chord classics “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” and “Till the End of the Day.” The Journey Part 1 kicks off with first two, The Journey Part 2 starts with the third one.

Looking at the compilations from the vinyl version, each side is represented by a theme, which I just couldn’t make sense of, so let’s just move on. 

Each cut was selected by the Kinks–the surviving members are Ray Davies, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter, his younger brother Dave, the band’s lead guitarist and occasional songwriter, and drummer Mick Avory. Among the many hits on the Journey, you’ll also encounter some rare tracks and alternative recordings.

Both are collections are essential collections for rock listeners with eclectic taste, and more importantly, a those with a strong sense of intelligence. 

If you only have a bit of time and you want to know which compilation is best, then go with Part 1. A crucial reason is that amazingly, there are no songs from my choice as the Kinks’ second-best album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), on it. You’ll find “Australia” and “Shangri- La” on Part 1. Of the Kinks often maligned 1970s”theatrical” period, the best of that bunch is Schoolboys in Disgrace. Part 1 has songs from it, Part 2 does not.

The second collection delves surprisingly heavy into the Preservation Part 2 album, which even many Kinks fans dislike. Preservation Part 1 contributes a song to the Journey Part 1. Although through the flaws, I am a fan of both. Critics hated them, although the stage presentation of Preservation was better received by them. Preservation tells a civil war between a womanizing real estate developer-turned politician Mr. Flash (liberals will see him as Donald Trump, conservatives as Bill Clinton), who is challenged by the seemingly morally righteous Commander Black, a Jerry Falwell Senior-type character. 

If you are British, you can think of Preservation as a 20th-century replay of the English Civil War, when King Charles I and his cavaliers battled Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans.  

The Journey Part 2, includes some of the best tracks from Preservation Part 2 including a previously unreleased version of “Money Talks,” along with “He’s Evil,” and “Artificial Man.” Sadly, one of the worst songs from the second Preservation, “Scrapheap City,” which is flatly sung, literally, by Maryanne Price, is also on the Journey Part 2.

What were the Kinks thinking on that one?

While the Journey Part 1 has no live tracks, Part 2 does, three live cuts recorded in 1975 at the New Victoria Theatre in London, “Everybody’s a Star (Starmaker) one of only two good songs from the loathsome Soap Opera album, “Slum Kids,” a solid Preservation outtake, and another song–not one of the goods ones–from Soap Opera, “(A) Face in the Crowd.”

On the flipside, the other good song from Soap Opera, the 1930s-style “Holiday Romance,” follows the live tracks. You can think of “Holiday Romance” as the Kinks’ answer to the Beatles’ “Honey Pie.”

If you’re a Kinks fan–or of you think you might become one–then here’s a song for you, “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” the B-Side of their hit “Sunny Afternoon.” The first track is on the Journey Part 1. The A-Side is on Part 2. 

Is “Lola,” perhaps the best-known Kinks song besides their power chord nuggets, included on the Journey? Yes, it’s on Part 2.

One more bit of bad news–the Journey ends abruptly. There is no talk of a Part 3, and there are no songs from the Kinks post-theatrical era on Part 1 and 2. Some of those stellar albums omitted in these collections include Sleepwalker, Low Budget, Misfits, and Give the People What They Want. What’s the heck is with that? Contractual disputes with record labels?

Back to the Journey: Even with one collection being a bit better than the other, both compilations contain plenty of pleasing gems. Back-to-back, they are ideal road trip albums, a great complement to any journey, either cross town, cross country, or as a companion to your life’s journey.

God Save the Kinks!

John Ruberry, who saw the Kinks live twice in Champaign, Illinois in the 1980s, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

What happened to caring about babies?

Posted: November 18, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in abortion
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Democrats have been weaponizing the abortion debate and successfully turned it into a choice of either supporting women’s rights or stripping women of those rights. Having been subjected to the advertising onslaught in Virginia, the idiots that the Republican Party put in charge of campaigning have zero response to this.

Zero.

I saw NO effective counter ads, and the ads I did see were bland, “vote for me because I’m a veteran/good person” style ads. These are fluff and filler ads that don’t sway people.

Since Republican leadership can’t figure this out, I will humbly suggest the following ads that might help reframe the abortion debate:

  1. Play a nice slow song, showing a mother cradling her baby. Now overlay a dark figure of (insert politician here) saying “If the baby is born after an attempted abortion, we’ll place it in a bucket and consult with the mother about what to do next.” Cue to a frame saying “We can all get behind protecting mothers and stop politicians from murdering babies.”
  2. Show a black mother with two kids looking a little frazzled. A white lady in a suit walks up and asks if she needs help. She says yes, and the white lady recommends she abort her children in the future. Cue to a frame showing “40% of abortions are from black women. Let’s stop this racist practice. Make our politicians care about taking care of kids, not killing them.”
  3. In the background show a woman and a man crying in a doctor’s office. Have the speaker voice say “Some couples want babies but just can’t have them. Instead of making adoption easy, politician (insert name) wants to kill off healthy babies.” Add a split screen showing another woman on a operating table crying. “Abortion creates two broken couples. We can all get behind expedited adoption laws to make them both whole again.”

This was just me daydreaming for an hour on actual, useful ads, plus a bit of time using these three scenarios when my pro-abortion friends bring up “women’s health” issues. I dated a young lady that had an abortion before I met her, and even 4 years later, she was still bothered by it.

Republican leaders lose on abortion because they refuse to roll up their sleeves and talk about the evils of abortion. Get off your stupid high horse and fight back. Talk about the genocide abortion is causing in the Black community. Push for expedited adoption rules and break the stranglehold the state bureaucracy has on adoption. Highlight the politicians that are totally cool murdering kids after birth. Yeah, its ugly, but Democrats are doing the same to you, and if you fail, millions of innocent children die, and part of that blood is on your hands.

BTW, the cute picture at the top: that’s the best Bing AI would generate. I tried to show a donkey holding a uterus, or put Planned Parenthood on the clinic, and the AI wouldn’t let me. One more sign that Satan is deeply entrenched in this debate.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Side note: The overwhelming majority of abortions (86%) are by single women, and a large chunk (nearly 40%) were from Black Americans.

National media ignores big Chicago anti-migrant march

Posted: November 12, 2023 by John Ruberry in immigration, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Sure, there’s a lot of another news to sift through–the Israel-Hamas War is the biggest story right now–but on Friday, there was another protest march against the building of a large tent city migrant camp at 38th and California in the Brighton Park neighborhood on Chicago’s Soutwest Side.

The city has signed a lease on the tent city site, but it’s not a done deal, official say, as the final decision is pending an environmental survey.

It will happen, I am sure.

And as far as I can tell, the national mainstream media ignored Friday’s protest. That’s because the march, in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood with a large Asian presence, contradicts at least a couple of leftist narratives. Because they are “oppressed,” people of color are always on the same side against the majority. 

Of course, that majority is white people. While whites are the largest racial group in Chicago, America’s third largest city–for now–hasn’t a majority racial group for decades.

The other leftist narrative that the Brighton Parch marches and protests exposes as a lie is that the cities are havens from the xenophobia, unlike the exurbs and rural America, where those deplorable MAGA people live.

The Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, both woke outlets, reported that “hundreds” participated in the Brighton Park anti-migrant march. 

ABC Chicago says that “residents have been protesting against the migrant base camp for weeks” and overall, “the pushback has been relentless.”

Oh sure, some goof from the New York Times, Mitch Smith, says Brighton Park is “divided” over the tent city, which is expected to house 2,000 migrants, most of the will probably be from Venezuela. But it sure seems hard to find Brighton Park denizens who support the Bidenville.

As I explained in my post last month about the opposition of the migrant camp in Brighton Park, residents learned from the rumor mill that the tent city was coming, not even the local alderman, a left-wing Hispanic woman was told about it. 

Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, a full-blown leftist who, according to the rumor mill, has recently suffered from panic attacks, in his mind is always right.  Why is that?

Have you ever met a leftist who admitted to being wrong about something? 

Like Robespierre, Marx, and Lenin, contemporary leftists like Johnson believe they have the inevitability of history on their side.

But Robespierre ended up on the guillotine and the Soviet Union collapsed.

The decision to build the Brighton Park tent city, if it didn’t come directly from Johnson, who by the way is African American, surely it was the brainchild of a top aide of his.

So, another leftist narrative is collapsing. Nothing to see here, the media collectively says to itself. But let’s push out another dozen stories about MAGA insurrectionists.

Oh, let’s say that instead of building the migrant camp in Brighton Park, the Johnson administration chose instead a site inside the city’s 41st Ward, a predominately white area where many Chicago police officers and firefighters live. In 2020, Donald Trump came close to beating Joe Biden in that ward. 

And let’s say anti-migrant protests and marches were held in the 41st Ward. 

Such events would be the lead story for days on CNN and MSNBC. And the New York Times would have sent more than one reporter there.

John Ruberry, who is married to an immigrant, regularly blogs from his home five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

The migrant crime wave is here

Posted: November 5, 2023 by John Ruberry in crime, immigration, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

“That son of a bitch Castro is sh*ttin’ all over us.” US Immigration officer speaking to Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in the movie Scarface.

And now Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s son of a bitch strongman, is defecating on America.

Where is the mainstream media on this story? 

In the Chicago area, where I live, the MSM is asleep at the wheel. Chicago’s woke daily newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, the latter laughingly calls itself “the hardest-working newspaper in America,” are the worst violators of committing the sin of omission in regard to media bias.

Television and radio websites here are a bit better, but if you want to get the feel of what the Joe Biden’s migrant crisis has done to the Chicago area, there is only one website to visit, CWB Chicago, which works a heck of a lot harder than the leftist Sun-Times.

Here are some headlines from CWB Chicago from just the last six months:

Let’s move on to the suburbs:

As for those links, while the alleged criminals are all referred to as “migrants,” it’s not always stated in these reports where they are from. That being said, in every case where a nationality is named, every time they are listed as Venezuelan.

Before you call me a racist, bigot, hater, or whatever, I want to make a couple of things clear. I believe that most of the people who Joe Biden all-but-invited into our country who have crossed the Rio Grande have come here with good intentions–mainly to make an honest living.

Most, of course, does not mean all. And some migrants have been the victims of crimes committed by other migrants–or by non-migrants. Yes, I am aware that many migrants in Chicago live in wretched conditions, including inside police stations and at O’Hare Airport.

My ethnic background is Irish. If these were migrants from Ireland or my wife’s native Latvia–instead of Venezuela or wherever–I’d still be reporting on the resulting crime wave.

That being said, this migrant crime wave, which of course is not limited to the Chicago area, seems to be driven by recently arrived Venezuelan migrants.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have waved in millions of people into America who we know little about, including many criminals.

The Biden Wave needs to stop.

As for these crooked migrants, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which in Cook County, Illinois, may often be just a slap on the wrist. If found guilty, they should be turned over to ICE officials and put on the fast track for deportation.

These migrants are guests in America.

One more thing: Build the wall.

John Ruberry, whose wife is an immigrant, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.


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