That music is just degrading and should be banned

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With thanks to M.A.

Taking this from the rear and moving forward, banning anything just makes people want it more. The most (un)successful ban I can think of in recent times is The Satantic Verses by Salman Rushdie. When the towelhead terrorists put a death sentence on Rushdie for the book, he packed it off to England and sales of his book skyrocketed. It's still being sold.

Meanwhile, I am trying like mad to get some of my books banned. I can use the money.

Banning stuff is idiotic. People with more sense than me have pointed to Prohibition as the single act that let the Mafia get a hold on American society. The War on Drugs is absolutely not working.

Anyway, some people would like to ban certain types of music because they find it offensive and degrading. Some record labels will put that "WARNING OFFENSIVE LYRICS" on the album cover. A few artists stuck that same label on their recordings in hopes to selling more. Their work was not offensive.

Or was it?

Many years ago, I sat back stage with The Kingston Trio and had a beer while they ate. The gents told me their song "Greenback Dollar" was nearly banned when it was released. Why? Because of the line "I don't give a damn about a Greenback Dollar." When they performed the song on stage that evening, they emphasized the "damn."

Today, the word damn is ubiquitous. Times change.

(C)rap songs today often glorify violence, put women down and brag about breaking the law. This offends a great many people.

Really?

"But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."

Pretty graphic. That's also a line from Folsom Prison Blues, recorded in 1955, well before the birth of the current crop of (c)rap performers. Hank sang about crying into his beer.

Today's crop of "country" music glorifies getting drunk, having sex anywhere and everywhere. The First Lady of Country Music sang about jackin' another gal up for messing with her man. She also bragged about birth control, a VERY controversial matter at the time.

The truth is, the most popular music of today is pretty inhumane.

The objections to (c)rap music are because it appears to represent - yeah, I'm going there - the Ferguson riots. In other words, it appears to represent a subculture of America that is resentful and is only waiting for a spark to ignite an inferno to destroy everything. The objection is less about the lyrics and far more about fear.

If you get the chance, watch Fear of a Black Hat. It explains in far more detail what I'm trying to say here.

Myself, I do not like most of what passes for popular music today. That is pop, country, (c)rap, R&B, soul and others I probably don't know about. It's not the lyrics I object to, it is the lack quality music. Learn to play and sing and I'll listen. Gimme old blues, soul, funk, rock and I'm a happy listener.

The Traveling Wall

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The Traveling Wall, a 3/5ths scale model of the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC is coming to my community Sept. 4-7. As part of this appearance, the crew in the office has produced the official program (a magazine) for this event.

It is the biggest magazine we have ever produced. It is FTP'ing to the printer as this is written. 40 pages, 6,000 copies.

To say this magazine was hard to produce is both a vast overstatement and an understatement.

It's hyperbole because it's a magazine. We produce them regularly. It's no more trouble than putting out a newspaper every week.

It's a serious shortcoming because this one hurt me. Everything about it did. From the front cover to the back cover, pain everywhere.

The two extremes didn't stop there. As this is an official program, I shared galleys with people who are heading up The Wall's visit. SOP for such a magazine.

When I watched veterans look over the pages and some of them cried - yeah, that hurt.

What hurt me the most and what I am most pleased with are the two infographics. It took a half day to produce the two pages. Normally I can do that in an hour. I had to regularly stop and compose myself as the pages came together. Still hurts thinking about it.

•••

For myself, I barely remember Vietnam. My memories of it are very sketchy and are confined to the last few years of that war. I remember one summer in the middle of watermelon season riding to town  for lunch with Billy Joe and Howard and they discussed the atrocities being committed in the war. True or not, I found the stories fascinating.

But.

The names on that wall. Those who did come home shattered and crippled in body, mind and spirit.

I can't know their pain, but I feel it nonetheless.

When The Wall comes, I'll be there. I'm supposed to be a minister counselor for those who visit the wall and need someone to talk to. I don't know if I'll be able to to hold up.

I'm gonna be there.

I will support the men and women who served there. I just hope none of them wind up having to support me.