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Tommy T
Tommy Tompkins' extreme measures


Friday, August 26, 2005
    Cabbies Who Kill Too Much

    Charles Taylor, the murderous ex-ruler of Liberia (now in exile in Nigeria), used to drive a cab in Boston. Think about that the next time you complain about going the long way. I’m sure there have been other cabbies who went on to big things – although I drove for 5 years in San Francisco, and I don’t remember seeing anyone famous behind the wheel. Still, it would be after leaving the trade that that notoriety would arrive, so I suppose that stands to reason. Almost everyone I knew drove in those days (the ‘80s); none of them have come close to a presidency, although a couple of Maoists I knew back then are still trying.

    Anyway, I was thinking about Taylor, murder in Africa, and John LeCarre’s wonderful book, The Constant Gardener. It’s been made into a film, and since I overslept and missed the preview, I can only say that a few years ago I curled up with the book after a reckless month in Mexico. The misery LeCarre chronicles was a perfect fit for the four days of misery I experienced while reading it. I was getting normal or whatever it is that happens when the shooting stops.

    Along the same lines (Africa, not Mexico), there’s another great book, published more recently. Imperial Reckoning: The untold story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, was written by a Harvard prof named Caroline Elkins. It uncovers the brutal truth behind Great Britain’s savage attacks on the Kikuyu people, whose freedom fighters were demonized as “Mau Mau’s.” The campaign bordered on genocide – 32 white settlers were killed in the years after WWII, while tens of thousands of Kenyan’s were murdered. So much for the UK version of civilization.

    posted by TommyT @ 5:44 pm | Permanent link

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Tommy Tompkins has been on full alert for most of his adult life, looking for art endowed with sufficient power, wisdom, courage, and grace to save a struggling humanity from itself... More


About Extreme Measures
Extreme Measures comes at you at a time when, as a society, we are experiencing a kind of aphasia; language has been so distorted by corruption of aging institutions and the commercial pressures of an all-consuming, popular culture that our range of motion -- our ability to feel, to dream, to rage beyond the toothless dictates of media and capital -- has been critically circumscribed.
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Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?



A:None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day.  Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media.  That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect.  Why do you hate freedom?

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TOMMY ELSEWHERE


Cheap shots, anyone? Hell yes, like shooting fish in a barrel - Crosby, Stills, & Nash, to be exact in "Second Time Around," my weekly reissue column in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

The successful selling of Crosby, Stills, and Nash as one of rock's first "supergroups" was, above all else, a marketing triumph. The insipid folk trio with a penchant for predictable three-part harmonies were packaged as a brilliant, innovative rock band and sold, no questions asked, to a generation that would go on to make history for a consumerism as voracious as its perceptive powers were small...

Read on, please...


Crosby, Stills, and Nash
Greatest Hits (Remastered) (Rhino)


I would have rather been in California than anywhere during those days, and in fact I was in California. Nevertheless, though my ass moved, my ears were another story. Take the O'Jays, for instance, whose blue-collar soul music helped me forget about CS&N's lame folk music.


The core of the O'Jays – Eddie LeVert, Walter Williams, and William Powell – had been together for 14 years when they had their first big hit, "Back Stabbers," during the summer of 1972. Their career had gyrated everywhere except up when they joined forces – for a second time – with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff shortly after the songwriting-production team formed their label Philadelphia International...



O'Jays
Essential O'Jays (Epic/Legacy)



The flurry of reissues may be proof the music industry is dying, but it's produced a few sublime moments, like the "Deluxe Editions" of the Wailers' Burnin' and Catch A Fire. This piece, titled "Wailin'," ran in the Bay Guardian with Jeff Chang's take on the new Trojan Records box, "This Is Pop.".

DURING SO MUCH rain, one – or, in this case, two – bright spots really stand out. Ever since the birth of Napster and the gloomy end of days for the music business, the reissue industry has been going full tilt. It makes sense on both sides of the commercial exchange. For the labels, there's very little overhead and practically no guesswork; deliver Al Green with a couple of mysterious "alternative takes," perhaps a previously unreleased cut, and remixing or remastering – another mystery...
San Francisco Bay Guardian Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Brian Jonestown Massacre: And This Is Our Music
Pitchfork Media, July 19, 2004

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