Republican Senator Orrin Hatch Songwriting Prowess: Headed Home (for Senator Ted Kennedy)

In our continuing series on Republican Politicians who double as songwriters, Orrin Hatch wrote this song last year about Teddy Kennedy, who died on Tuesday. The Huffington Post pointed out that it was originally about Kennedy "heading home" to the Senate after his sickness, but it doubles perfectly as a eulogy, he's heading home to Kennedy heaven? We saw Ted Kennedy with our congresswoman Barbara Lee plug for Obama at a black church in Oakland, where he really roared - my comments on that were blogg'd here.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft Songwriting Prowess: Let the Eagle Soar

Mrs Eley-Nelson was looking for "feel-good songs about eagles" for a mix-tape - I looked up John Ashcroft (who famously lost the 2000 Missouri Senate race to a dead man before becoming Bush's US Attorney General), I've only ever heard clips of this song, but the full song is incredible, there's some tight rhymes!

Song of Supposition

How come I no longer carry a pen?
And where has the rum gone?
The internet is for politics & perverts,
So long as you come alone,
A song from the wino at lamplight again.

Watch me, purple princess flower, smoke only camels,
My corner pub's suzerainity,
Imagine a future without underpants,
Listen to the remaining accordion magic,
Can we continue with limited precepts to live in these cold dark shells?

How come I came to this ancient city?
It still has stretch-marks on its breasts,
Handsome young beasts & the kind starshine of ages
Will guide you outward, bounty increases
When charity is replaced by necessity & Charles has no need for pity.

I love a sporting life, & where better to have it?
I need affirmation, a lonesome eagle,
How quick you forget our adoration & our hot tub games,
Our connectivity, you living son of a seagull,
I love a sporting life - want it & grab it.

How come I sense desperation behind your prose?
And don't look for it in the rum cellar.
Keep repeating yourself on the internet,
& I will pay attention to you,
Credentials from the Institute of Pumpkin Yellow,
It's literary fraud, but the noblest kind I suppose.

Indivisible

Last year, when I was working at a bookstore in Berkeley, I made the observation that, if you are wheel-chair bound, all you have to do is add an American flag to your ride to appear crazy. Wheel chair - elicits sympathy or indifference from strangers on the street; wheel chair plus flag - whoa, that guy's crazy. Berkeley is one of the most handicapped-accessible cities in the world, a sort of Mecca for the disabled - &, unrelatedly, it also contains many, many crazy people. There are definitely more American flags strapped to electric wheel-chairs than there are American flags stuck to S.U.V.s.

I saw the Taj Mahal of Wheel Chair patriotism the other day on the BART. This old man had dozens of flags on his person, outnumbered only by Crucifixes. He had masking-tape on his face (on his forehead, with the base going down his nose) with the words "JESUS GODS JUDGMENT" written. &, the kicker, a movie poster for "The Passion of the Christ".

American Flags have been infiltrating Berkeley recently, in several pro-war protests organized as responses to our resident Mothers-Against-the-War group, Code Pink. Code Pink has been camping outside of the Marine Recruiting office downtown since it opened last year, culminating in some angry exchanges between the Berkeley Town Council & outside forces.

Roaring into Berkeley on their Harley’s—with the more sedate aboard red-white-and-blue-draped SUVs—a leather-clad flag-bearing conservative America took center stage Saturday at the downtown Marine Recruiting Center. The event, which drew some 350 people at its height, was organized by two groups, Eagles Up and Move America Forward (MAF).

“I’m Cat Moy, and I’m an American,” said the Move America Forward executive director, speaking from the bed of a pickup truck at the noon rally in front of the center.

Moy praised the patriots she said she saw in the crowd. “We stand today in the bowels of anti-Americanism,” she said as the crowd cheered and waved hundreds of American flags. The Berkeley City Council “paid the way of America’s enemies. They have called our Marines—our heroes—‘unwelcome.’ And these traitors refuse to apologize to the Marines, the very men and women who give them the freedom to act like maniacal dopes. These filthy leftovers from the Vietnam-era and their spawn give nothing to this country….”

-Judith Scherr, Berkeley Daily Planet, 25th March, 2008.

The article continues, calling out the bias of the police's Laissez-faire treatment of the visitor's protest in comparison to our homespun ones. (They were allowed to block sideway traffic, &c.) Ah, Berkeley, hospitable to strangers & travelers to a fault! Even Code Pink basically only just set up an information stand & watched as they were mocked.

If I recall, a few decades ago, an American track-&-field Olympic Gold Medalist got in huge trouble after he won - he put a flag on his head & did a victory lap, & was subsequently chastised for his mistaken debasement. Since September 11th, 2001, the Stars & Stripes have seen no shortage of humiliation in the name of patriotism, to the point where I more associate it with crazies with crosses on their foreheads & pro-war protesters bringing thousands of them to town on motorcycles. Besides obsessive flag-waving being a symptom of fascism, & Sen. Barack Obama getting in trouble for not wanting to constantly wear one on his lapel, any overused image can get wearying & illicit a backlash. Since it is a national symbol & in its very design meant to be unifying, maybe it should be treated with more respect & displayed more sparingly & with more polite, detached reverence. Otherwise, it may only be associated with war & Mel Gibson.

So please put your hand on your hearts & listen to my favorite patriotic song, Toby Keith's Angry American:

Alternate Lyrics;

Or, Alternate Lyrics to the National Epic

What is music without duration or velocity?
Whatever it is, I'm not going to squander it,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
He has bamboozled the college into electing a corrupt mediocrity,
And only one radio host refuses to ponder it,
But I'm going to go see my Lord.
I've been given oversight of the gates of the house, with ancient wine in a brown paper bag as my inner-sentinel.

This is good news, the toxic stream in the lowlands
Has been rerouted thru the oligarch's estate,
And I'm going to go see my Lord.
I remember my mother on the playground humming showtunes,
Oh, but she was really ruminating about that first televised debate,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
Where has the bandstand fallen, where have the blue veins of our county been pecked open by the eagle!

I had previously attempted to be promoted in the Entertainment Industry,
But Orson Welles was impressed by talents more gastronomic than mine,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
These policies on the horizon of mercy - what does that mean again? - are key
To unlocking our anxieties about locust plagues & famine & 21st Century moonshine,
And I'm going to go see my Lord.
Welles had drunk a pint of the stuff a day around the last turn of the millennium, & my song barely sharpens the pencil.

Do you recall the year when I experimented pretty seriously with delphinic fetishes?
I've long given that up, my liver just couldn't stomach the bickering,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
Love has paved our highways with seasonal salads & typical Thai dishes,
More war-car-bar-jars have left the furthest stars flickering,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
The border of Alaska creeped North to Jerusalem thru the Evil Empire, & compassed the corner of the sea southward.

A flurry of civic conflict ignites the nights!
I shan't be discouraged! He knows he can find me singing at the corner pub,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
Fireworks & confetti bring grandmothers to the streets
Every Sunday to celebrate the Revolution - there's the rub,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
The despot was campaigning in Vegas, & the paparazzi found him curled up twixt grimy poker sheets with a mini-hermaphroditic mouth-whore.

Iowa is desolate, only corn can grow there;
Fennel & Caesar's Amanita are running rampant up Henry Miller's coast,
But I'm going to go see my Lord.
My younger sister has always had a crush on the Rev. Marxie Joe Caulahausawatapare,
Yes, ole Marxie doesn't know what he's missing, he will die a loveless piece of burnt toast,
But I'm going to go see my Lord.
What will you do in that solemn day, America, when we are rejoicing our slow food feast, & you are still starving for more?

A green electrical storm at the end of fog,
Hailing bastards, & birds flying a teleologic circle,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
Out of this myth steps a leader named Kellogg,
Even I have eaten a few silly diets in the days of turquoise & opal,
Now I'm going to go see my Lord.
The politics of waste management, amongst other side ventures of the municipality, are clogging the sewers! Please abandon non-vital projects!

I composed a lullaby for the godfather in my books,
There was no audience at the opera house to listen to no Forró Orchester,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
They say that the poet watches movies while the chef cooks,
But All-In-One's bard lifted half his wit from "The Walrus & the Carpenter",
And I'm going to go see my Lord.
An angry tenor bears a letter full of mischief & cross-dressing, it would make good theater if any playwrights remained who could rhyme dialects.

That virgin sister of mine remembers when I tried to fall to my knees & prostrate,
She kicked me when I was down, & I kissed her face &, thanking her,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
Most readers think it's the devil who's around every corner, but wait!
The line forms on the right, & if she's the devil then who's spanking her?
I'm going to go see my Lord.
Down into the coal mine your second grade teacher descends with her martini in one hand & the Brady Bill in her other, where are the students she protects?

I have sired a son in Fifty-Seven of California's Counties, all except Stockton,
They wouldn't let me in, they saw I had no talents,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
This sacred soil remains breathless & the migrant workers have not been clocked in,
Let us eat lettuces & pontificate, every cinema is ultimately in balance,
And I'm going to go see my Lord.
Wind the golden string onto its ball, Ye Episcopalians of the World, your synthetic harp has struck my favorite chord.

The volcanoes have been silenced, & Friedrich Weyerhäuser
Has clear-cut the forests around my heart,
So I'm going to go see my Lord.
Beware the spherical library: its every word is poison lard!
I've sent a press release to the U.N., with enlightenment & nirvana on a pie chart,
Now I'm going to go see my Lord.
No, honey, you can't keep the socks you find by the side of the onramp, middle management's team building workshop was just far too horrid.

Awake! Throw off the pillows of dementia!
I hit my ten thousandth homerun, in Lightyear Shrew's park,
I'm going to go see my Lord.
Plato's bats resound the Batsongs of the Spheres, the Music of Minutia!
Unbuckle your whipping belts! Extinguish your Florescent Blacklight Spark!
I'm going to go see my Lord.
And I will repose upon the couches of Jesus Christ our Lord Savior, a grail of dandelion wine in the right hand of God Almighty My Lord,
And the peaceniks will reign, where gold once did.

Two Songs Lyrics

Living in Lake Tahoe again for the past month, I have written two short songs. The lyrics are printed below.

Baby, Get It Down

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me tonight,
’Till the morning light!

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me today,
There’s no rent to pay!

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me this afternoon,
Fly me to the moon!

Pump up the volume on the Cadillac radio,
Drive to Lover’s Lane,
Soar like an eagle off the cliffs of commitment,
Then we’ll get it again & again & again & again!

Take a journey to God,
Take a journey to the city of the holy light,
Afternoon Delight!


Come Be My Love (The Passionate Californian)

Come be my Eden in the mountain,
Be my Jeffrey Pine of Life,
Come be my space between the oceans,
Be the moonglow’s boundless fountain,
Be my questions, be my naked desert wife,

Come be my nightlight & my new moon,
Be the fall of every leaf,
Come be the envy of the cougar,
Be the shapeless, sacred swoon,
Come anoint me, be the proof of my belief,

Come be the rocks of Lake Aloha,
Be the valley’s exultation,
Come be the cub to every mother,
Be the passage to Nevada,
Be my echo, be my silent annunciation.