Darby Strong

Playing point. Delivering the rock.

The New and Improved Crusades

I live in the Bible Belt. I imagine it to be a real fancy and outlandish belt, like one worn by a princess whose job it is to look pretty and be agreeable, always glistening like cut glass in tar.

I have been around Christian people my whole life; my grandmother was an Eastern Star woman, who wore a dove pin on her shoulder and open heart on her sleeve. She was a true example of a good Christian woman, leaving judgment in the hands of her creator and extending love to all, no matter their religion, sexual orientation, or alternate belief systems. The main lesson I learned from Grandma Rae was to refrain from judging others and to remain compassionate, no matter the situation. She has said to me more than once, “What would Jesus do?”

These are hard lessons, and maintaining compassion in the face of hatred is something I will probably never master, but I try. I am a hedonist, after all, as well as a buddhist, taoist, pagan, and agnostic, all at the same time and sometimes none of them at all. Mostly, I believe that every being deserves respect and dignity. However, I am finding it extremely difficult to extend this compassion and non-judgement to my closed-minded, Bible thumping brothers and sisters who are praising a system that wants to rid the world of anyone not like them.

Jesus IS just all right, but the present day Crusades our moronic administration is conducting has suddenly turned our Christian country into a swarm of obedient and mindless consumers of hate. And proud of it. I see stickers on more than half of the bumpers parked in every church lot from here to Charleston. Please explain to me the idea of war (an unjustified one, at that) in the name of Christianity. I know, I know…they have been married for thousands of years, but it is high time for a divorce.

I have always looked upon this Bible Belt from afar, like a mischievous gypsy observing those faraway lands in her crystal ball. Now, I am IN the crystal ball, and I want to help change the course of the future from hate to at least compassion. For EVERYBODY, including gay, Muslim, Jewish, and even unmarried fornicators like me.

With that said, I keep this quote in mind, by C.P. Snow, an English novelist and scientist:
“When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.”

Pop Music, Talk About It

This weekend at the Savannah Music Festival, David Grisman asked the audience, “so, who out there likes pop music?” I was the only person who emphatically hooted and hollered, surprised (kind of) that not one other person in the place was brave enough to admit it. Granted, some people might just not like pop music, but what IS pop music?

POPular music, as a definition, is limited and does not begin to examine the scope that is pop music. The making of a 2 to 4 minute song which is intended for radio play is a good place to start. “Commercially successful,” a packaged bit of goods that black men made and white boys sang is more accurate, with the roots of “pop music” in the American Blues. And although Elvis was the beginning of the pop song with “That’s All Right, Mama” and Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound got the ball rolling, the Beatles MADE pop music; Thus the beginning of rock and roll, with the line between the two continuously blurred.

From the Beatles came Dylan, popularly speaking, and soon after Hendrix, The Who, The Stones, and on into Bowie, Brian Wilson, The Velvet Underground and Brian Eno. A part of me rejects placing many of these musicians into the pop category, but as icons of pop culture and musical history, they are.

As are the 80’s pop aficionado’s, including the Specials, the Clash, New Order, the Smith’s…(do not get me started, for it is here that my 80’s experience turns my eyes to glaze and puts that nostalgic smile upon my face.)

Today, the inkling to separate oneself from anything popular in order to gain instant access to cool is in itself popular. I leave that bit of my personality back in the 7th grade commons, where it belongs. My musical interests are wide and expansive, but they always include pop music. Badly Drawn Boy, Tahiti 80, and Phoenix are just 3 acts today that are truly pop and outstanding. Sometimes, the mainstream is actually good.

Anyone who says they do not like pop music is lying, dead, or, after all, perhaps they’re only sleeping.

Of Heroes and Heroines

Take a load off fanny. With my heaviness of late, I thought it high time to elect a heroine.


Naomi Klein is my heroine. From an interview in Alternet:

Best known for her brilliant analysis of corporate marketing in No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies a book once described as “the Das Kapital of the anti-corporate movement”, Naomi Klein has long been a voice for moral accountability in the media. Klein talks about Bush, the Iraq war and the need for progressives to “answer the language of faith with the language of morality.”

Naomi Klein does not live in fear. SHE’s got the biggest balls of them all.