I don't know how many of you are familiar with Shakespeare and British history, but the Royal Family whom I really have nothing against and every previous royal family going back before King Henry The Fifth to his father ARE NOT THE TRUE HEIRS TO BRITISH ROYALTY. Read up in King Henry The Fourth (sorry my Roman numerals are so embarrassing I have to avoid them!) and look into Henry Percy better known and known to me exclusively as Hotspur who is my greatest hero in the entire world. He was a Welsh soldier/warrior who was the true heir to the throne along with his family, but Lord "Hotspur" Percy was vanquished in treacherous combat by Prince Hal soon to be the fifth King Henry. He would never be a comfortable person as he fought his past and never could forget it which seems a rather fitting epitaph to England which has been demolished by The Torrie Party conservative Eton boys. I keep Hotspur in my heart and I keep the soldiers who fell in combat by his side and in every battle before and since in my heart. Soldiers are great and the humans who are closest to the earth and the closest to animals in their instinct and what they consider vital. Hotspur shines, but as I've forgotten him too much and strayed too far in the previous two Xmases and they have been disgusting so now the everything-must-be-a-blow-out has become the necessity and just as importantly the loving of my eccentric-as-me family where my mother is by far the most sensible, but sometimes sensible to a fault. I love her and my father, but I'm getting sick of buying records. I'm not thinking of closing the blog or giving up my musical passions, but I am seriously going to throw the unwanted agony of year long monthly nightmares in record stores out the window. Christmas comes with a lot of great and mainly very cheaply priced records from Europe under the tree and then nothing comes again until my birthday. So how did I reach this conclusion? See the blog.
I'm not comfortable in Amerika, but I struggle to think of where I WOULD BE COMFORTABLE. England has gone into the gutter and pretty much the world has gone all the wrong way and I find it frightening that people do not value things that are actually of value and throw everything good into the wastebasket. Money, money, money and more money is what the world is obsessed with thanks to Amerikan capitalistic rubbish brains who have been running our country into the ground for God knows how long and such things as not treasuring persons and already found possessions can lead to things as nightmarish as the wars and oil spills and corruptions that have become the trademark of the 20th and especially 21st century. Hotspur would vomit if he saw what the world turned into and so would everybody from that time in history. I know what Jesus would think: "My, the world hasn't progressed at all since I was on the hill in Calvary." Just listen to "Jesus Came Down" by Lake and see what the truth is. Lake had a lot of truth in their lyrics and it seems rather unsurprising that the talent and inspiration in German, Dutch, Swiss, Nordic, and British bands is a lot more emphatic than the half assed nonsense of most American bands. Hmm. Funny to think about how I was so closed minded and wary to chance taking back a million years ago. Not funny to think and wonder and not know how to fathom where all those past days and months and huge periods of time went. I have come to a very strong belief that my severely unhappy state of mind that I was bogged down into was very much of my own making. Instead of saving I was gorging like a glutton. Instead of thinking I was just acting. I even one morning a month ago got drunk and I mean piss drunk. It had to end. I went to a record store and spent too much money, but it was a pressure situation and now kind of amazing how well it turned out and yet one more time how I discovered a lot of good in an odd place. Fall outs with fake friend happen, but in the store I hope I found a good one in the wonderful owner who is way younger than me, but very keen on running a friendly and kind business.
Not all Americans are bad. Generalizations are rubbish and don't even get me on a rant about the whole Israelis and pro Israeli Jews VS Palestinians and Muslims as it to be frank is far too upsetting to once more see the persecuted become the persecutors and the victims become the savage murderers slaying thousands of people every day. Apartheid has come back. Very disgusting to think how people never learn. I think of my relationship with nature and the intellect. It's a good existence when you don't deal with other people and their constantly growing more irritating irritations- I'm a nature worshiper and proud of it as Hotspur and now only his kind, soldiers, can have the closeness to the earth that makes one know there is an awful lot out there most people are completely missing out on. I see people in this country trying to make a difference, but I guess the issue is we don't have enough of them. I wonder what it would feel like to the founding fathers to see how their dream is forgotten and just turned into a boast. Like hearing a bad record where every word and note is cliched and the singing is more like a bunch of drunken losers clamoring for the inevitable roll after roll of toilet paper (Must I be so vulgar!!!!!!?). The more I hear what are supposed to be American classics the more I think we're really about as classic as some of the horrendous outfits I used to wear. Of course I should have sung and dressed like my blond haired brother Michael Kiske in Helloween at that time, but I didn't like Helloween when I was a teenager and before it so I equated sharp clothes with anything I could grab that had loud colours in it and looked like a hippy garment to me. There were more people who wanted to make this country and the world a better place than just myself definitely, but we grew up and I know we're all pretty disgruntled. America doesn't have enough values in fact the so called "values" are scary. Too much emphasis on power mania. I do, however, think that we could if we tried make this country into something it just will take longer and longer the more we procrastinate.
Helloween are among the perfect examples of the huge amount of love and enthusiasm put into German rock and Dutch bands used often some very idiosyncratic techniques to make brilliant music also. Germany had a lot on its plate when the musicians who made the first musical explosions were born as most were born right after the horrific events of World War 2. As the country had to be rebuilt from ruin so too did the young people have to scorn their elders many of whom openly participated in such evils as Nazi rallies and hate crimes. Also there was the huge amount of tragic war dead who fought under a shroud which makes it even more tragic their good and caring side probably never will be seen by most people. Helloween, Scorpions, Jane, these bands are more about creating a powerful melodic hard sound whilst others go for all out lunacy like Amon Duul II and Faust or more of a quintessentially Teutonic form of symphonic rock. American bands who get and are now getting a lot of praise yodel and moan and grunt and fart. When I heard the first Pearls Before Swine album on ONE NATION UNDERGROUND several days ago I wanted to throw it across the room or break it in half. Sorry, I do not want to hear a failed psychiatrist trying to be hip when he's anything but hip and more of a hillbilly psychiatrist wannabe. That brings to mind Paul Stanley's book FACE THE MUSIC A LIFE EXPOSED which I am reading and getting a lot of joy from. Paul went straight for the Anglo vibes and hated American Yank rock in the 60s and so far his book has quite much of the time had my jaw dropping. This man can write and he can write in some ways even better than he can sing which is saying something as there is only one singer who sounds like Paul Stanley and that is Paul Stanley himself. I laugh, but then I go "Was the counterculture faked? Was it real and just lacked any really substantial music?" The latter is the truth.
Millions took to the streets to protest the Vietnam war and the horrible violence and corruption, but the musical side of the movement didn't have anybody anywhere close to the few brilliant spokesmen of that era two of whom sadly are now dead. Lou Reed died last year I believe and Frank Zappa died quite a long time ago. We still have Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and the most iconic of them all Bob Dylan- a man who has gone really far in making music a perfect expression of well-aimed anger and protest. Dylan began as a folkboom protest singer and then became an electrified voice of revolution. Lou Reed may have been self centered, but he was really hip and he knew how to write sardonic and clever etchings of tough gritty life. I would at one point have said Zappa was the light hearted one, but he was a protest writer disguised as a satirical comedy rock pioneer. The thing is we did have some bands and not just solo artists who stood up for the cause of the much needed peace and good values and even though we had Jefferson Airplane one airplane ain't an air force and it wasn't long before the American "let's get together and love one another FUCK THE WAR" rock idiom turned out to be THE HOT AIR FORCE! The bands didn't know how to compose songs so naturally German and British and Dutch and Nordic and Swiss bands were gonna do it better than us and the Canadians were a whole lot better than us too. Germany had beat groups aplenty when we had frat groups. Then they had electrifying heavy hard power rock like Lucifer's Friend when we had the previously mentioned drunkard toilet turning into MEGA TOILET!
Amerika could never get free from patriotic lying and boasting and that has been the death knell of every American band. Nobody breaks out of the industry and if they do you'll be hard up to find a great band who have made more than one great album. Other Americans at Christmas go to Walmart and buy a lot of worthless junk. We have things in our own way and a Mitchner family law is we always go against the grain! My mother has taste. My father has taste. I have taste. We have a lot of good things to live for just the three of us, but it's time for my long lost muse and best friend Hotspur to come back into the picture. On Christmas eve I will return to CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT a movie that includes the genius performance of an American acting genius as Falstaff none other than Orson Welles.
Everything in this country is made uncomfortable and every experience is made unpleasant. The next time a waitress or waiter gives me the nurse in an emergency room spiel "Hi my name is CINDY AND I'LL BE TAKING CARE OF YOU TONIGHT" I'm getting up and we're getting the fuck out of that worthless restaurant turned hospital. Yes, I want to get away from Amerika. Hotspur would make the whole dinner from scratch, get all fresh ingredients, and once he'd completed making his feast that's when he would finally be able to sit back and relax and think of what sorrowfully never happened- A KINGDOM. My British friends in 1 Rifles are really upset about what their country has turned into and we talk all the time about it. It must be really sad to be a British soldier or any soldier. I think what has always drawn me to soldiers is that we share a very hard life and we could go really far just by being around each other. Hotspur was the ultimate soldier, but he's in Heaven now and unfortunately that is the price of many an ultimate soldier. Of course the days of chain mail and swords have long been replaced by the horrific nuclear threats and the war machines of guns and guns and more guns in Amerika and guts and guts and more fat guts in America and I don't like my fat gut and have every intention of losing it. Hotspur would hate what the world is like now and he'd probably run right back into the time machine and go back to the 15th century.
There's a lot that needs to change. There's also a lot that can grow. I will be working on the growing part and I will snuggle on the sofa in December by the Christmas tree with my great haul of great music and be comforted once more by my noble Hotspur. Till then keep the love flowing and know more by asking more questions!
I might add that Hotspur has the most clever lines in the plays and is a true artist. Through Shakespear and undoubtedly in real life the man was a painter with words and a fantastic individual. I leave this blog with a very deep thought: if we had Hotspur be king instead of the fake monarchy we may not have the fat beer bellied nightmare known as Amerika. Don't wear bright uniforms in combat seems a good ending, but a better ending is to say Hotspur is going to come down from Heaven after being away too long from my Xmases and my life.
Ben
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