« game 4 | Main | confession »

running at the mouth

via Vinny

Something about war and patriotism brings has-been stars out of the woodwork to denounce America.

I'm all about the free speech and stars have just as much right to voice their opinion as anyone else. However, that also gives me the right to call them out for being idiots.

Let's talk about Rickie Lee Jones. You may remember her, depending on your age. She had a hit back in the day with Chuck E's in Love (which, many years later, I drunkenly changed the lyrics to Chuck D.'s in love). I don't think she had any hits after that and she certainly hasn't been doing anything noticeable for the past few years except going down a spiral of drugs and booze. But hey, she's a got a new record to sell, so she's making the interview rounds again.

So, what got Rickie singing again? George Bush. Yes, she came out of the obscurity of retirement to rail against Bush.

Now, though, she is singing about the ugly man with the ugly father who is blighting her nation, the two senators killed in mystery plane crashes, and the need for Americans to tell the world what is happening in the US (in a song subtitled Repeal The Patriot Acts NOW).

Mystery plane crashes? Oh my god, they killed Wellstone! You bastards!

"You're an ignorant, low-class, opportunistic man, both personally and politically, who does everything for political gain and nothing for the wellbeing of the people, and you should not be in office, and the kind of fascism you're perpetrating on our country we don't want, and you're out. We're done with you. Ffffhgggmm."

Ding, ding, ding! You have said the magic phrase that pays. Facism! I'm not sure what Ffffhgggmm means, but I think it's moonbat speak for "I have no idea what I'm going on about, but I thought the controversy of this album would get me some attention."

This is my favorite part:

"I think 9/11 gave this generation an identity, and its identity is potentially fascist. My skin crawls when I think of the first week after 9/11. I was looking out of the window and there were people marching down the street carrying flags. It reminded me of spontaneous, angry Nazis and I thought, 'Oh, man, we are in a lot of trouble'. There's a whole bunch of people who have flags hanging from their cars and who are mistaking fascism for patriotism."

So, people who were traumatized by 9/11 and rallied around their stricken country, waving flags and hanging them from their cars because it was the only way to show some solidarity, some sort of togetherness in a time of need, well, they were being Nazis. Facists. What she doesn't understand is that the flag waving was less about patriotism than it was about standing together. The Nazis saluted Hitler and his genocidal, destructive dreams. Americans saluted the flag, not a person. We were giving each other hope to carry on, to support each other, to not cave into people with, well, genocidal destructive dreams.

I don't expect people like Ms. Jones to grasp any of that. If your initial reaction to those days and weeks immediately followng 9/11 were feelings of disgust at the way Americans were behaving, then you are beyond hope. We behaved, for the most part, proudly. I wouldn't have had it any other way. I don't know what Ms. Jones was looking for, and I'm honestly afraid to ask.

On a related note, see today's Day By Day.

TrackBack

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference running at the mouth:

» The Letter Of The Day Is B from Electric Venom
B is for bold and brave. B is for brilliant: what Tony did with yesterday's Letter of the Day. B is for buffet, Bible-style. B is for bingo! B is for bring back the 80's! B is for brainless - the best way to describe certain school policies. B is for b... [Read More]

» What Does Ffffhgggmm Mean? from The Waterglass
Drug-addicted has-been Rickie Lee Jones is standing up for all our rights in an interview done for the UK's The Guardian. Shilling for her new album, she says: "I hope it wakes people up. You know, people in America are... [Read More]

Comments

I would bet she was cheering the victory dancers in Gaza.

I don't know what Ms. Jones was looking for, and I'm honestly afraid to ask.

Her coke spoon? Directions to the detox center? A plastic surgeon with experience covering over track marks? Flags that read "We Luv You Rick E., Plz Make More Albums?" Am I getting warmer?

I'd like to know what she was doing on and after September 11. Getting stoned? Because frankly, flag-waving sounds a helluva lot more productive, so I'm not really sure she has room to criticize.

I fail to see how she can relate pride and solidarity in one's country after a devastating attack to nationalism behind a bunch of loonies who want to work people to death and then shove them in ovens.

I didn't see the interview, so I have to ask: did she seem sober at the time?

Chrissy,

It's unlikely Ms. Jones will ever seem sober again, even if she never touches another chemical. She's cooked. Once upon a time she was a talented singer. Unfortunately she's never been much of a human being.

For realism, I played her words through Shit Talker, wow. I coulda been there.
http://unaesthetic.net/st/setupv12.exe

Set it to 'The Fly'

Dammit, another obscure '70s-'80s song I can't grin and think, "Wow, how long has it been since I've heard this?" about when it comes on.

Kind of like the entire Pretenders catalog.

As a friend of mine noted (she lives in the Village) her own skin crawled during that time. But it was from the actual memory of the day itself; whenever she walked by her neighborhood fire house; when the flyers of the missing appeared everywhere; the constant smell and smoke from the fire; the multitudes of funerals...

I have to wonder also if Rickie Lee finds a bunch of people marching and chanting in unison while holding pre-printed banners spouting hate-filled slogans just as threatening. The group marching past my apartment last night was chanting "No Palestine, No Peace" and had the usual banner stating "No Bush" with a swastika substituting for the "s". Oh, and they were surrounded by motorcycle cops who were holding traffic and ensuring their ability to move forward unencumbered and safely.

Mark, you need to get your priorities straight!
Rock & roll is what really matters - I'd still listen to the bands I love whether they supported Jesse Jackson or Jesse Helms.

No, people like Rickie Lee Jones confuse patriotism for fascism, not the other way around.

I remember the day after the 9-11 attacks, I was in the press room of an IT trade show in Atlanta. One journalist was describing Congress' singing of "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps as jingoism. When someone asked him "Really?" he said, "Absolutely."

It reminded him, he said, of this: And he gave the Nazi salute. Thousands of people were killed in multiple surprise attacks, our elected reps sing a song on the steps in grief, and that's just like the Nazis. I didn't know what to say. I just glared at him and he shut up and went away. Good for him. He's lucky I didn't show him a little personal fascism.

People like Rickie Lee Jones probably mistake doorknobs for dildoes.

Jesus. I read that bit over at Sully's, and I thought, "Who the f*ck is Rickie Lee Jones?"

Guess that was the right approach. Still don't remember her, still don't care.

I get damned tired of these lying scumbags calling the US fascist or Nazi. Those have become just swearwords to them, when once they meant something that made the blood run cold. What scoundrels to remove the meaning from those words, so that people will no longer understand what evil they stood for.

With their combination of socialism and anti-Semitism ANSWER and its ilk are more like the National Socialist German Wroker's Party than anything else in America, with the possible exception of the Nation Of Islam. Our enemies are the ones who admire Hitler and want to emulate him. The US is not the collectivist, totalitarian, anti-Semitic nation wanting to conquer lebensraum and exterminate the Jews, it is the antithesis of that. But our enemies and their apologists in this country are like the fascists. Scoundrels and pissants.

on 9/11 rickie wrote that spent day the day in a chruch, praying.

she really does have a good soul.