Nick Lewis: The Blog

By John Dear 

Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Baptist college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage and got right to the point. “Now let me get this straight,” I said. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ which means he does not say, ‘Blessed are the warmakers,’ which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.”

With that, the place exploded, and 500 students stormed out. The rest of them then started chanting, “Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.

I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president. As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice.

I recently dropped out of college. Now, I know what many of you might be thinking: "wow, that was dumb!" My response to that judgement is, "well, no... what was dumb was not taking high school seriously." You see, I graduated in the top 85 percent of my class (or bottom 15 percent if you want to be an ass-hole about it). Though I did well on my SATs, the sad fact is that I burned my bridges to decent higher learning when I was 18. So today, here I am, 22 years old, with a little bit more than a Freshman year under my belt. My choices in colleges are limited to Austin Community College (which will unfortunatly probably be the last educational institution I will ever attend), or a private college for slackers with money (which, I suppose at this point, no longer seems worth the price to me). Neither of those choices interests me.

Its not talked about very often, but I think its quite a serious issue. Our academic institutions arrogantly assume that everyone learns the same way. And, I feel, had I been given a chance, I could have thrived at college. However, again, I never got an opprotunity to attend a college where teachers and students were actually interested in anything more than getting and giving the grades, and getting out of class on time. Frankly, its disgusting to me how uninterested some people seem to be in our world, and ability to percieve it. Rants aside, at least I can remind myself that Karl Rove never finished his degree. Besides, there appears to be only one place that is offering courses in the subjects that interest me. And, you might see the problem with that. Bygones...

In Austin, there is a famous, local, independent record store called Waterloo records; its one of those stores that, in way, both defines and reflects Austin’s native culture. Anyhow, when I bought James Brown’s In the Jungle Groove, the owner and manager of Austin’s most famous record store happened to be the guy who rang it up. He took one look at the album, and looked me dead in the eye “This album,” he said with a grave tone “is my favorite recording of James. And now that I think about, it might be my favorite album in the entire genre.”

Indeed, after the two years that I’ve been listening to James Brown's In the Jungle Groove; I can say, without question, that it is the greatest musical achievement in all of human history. Or, actually, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. However, at the very least, I can promise that after you buy this album, you'll up saying to yourself, "God damn, that album kicks ass!". And while perhaps In the Jungle Groove is not history's greatest musical achievement; I have no hesitation in proclaiming it to be “James Brown's best album.”

Track one, “It's a New Day” [listen in WMA], starts the album right off with the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk. Out of the hundreds of James Brown recordings that I've listened to, I've only heard one track that has more energy than this one – and it happens to be track three on this album.

During the second track “Funky Drummer” [listen in WMA], James Brown lets his legendary band take center stage. Though most people are unaware of it, you’ve heard parts of this song countless time on the radio. In particular, the drum beat that gave this song its name [listen in WMA] is one of the most widely used samples in hip hop.

The highlight of this album is track three, “Give It up or Turnit a Loose”.[listen in wma] As I mentioned earlier, to my knowledge, there is not a single recording of James that tops this one in terms of energy, groove, funk, and soul (and what else really matters?) The listener will even pick up on how aware James is of the quality of the track. About half way through the song, James begins to freak out. The funk becomes so intense that James starts to scream uncontrollably (and I mean uncontrollably for James brown); he makes sounds that I’ve never heard come from a human being. Toward the end of the track, the band drops out leaving only a funky tribal beat and the god father himself chanting: “clap your hands/stomp your feet. In the jungle brother…” Hints, the title of the album.

Five Stars for this one... no question about it. Now, groove to this, and ask yourself why you haven't added this album to your collection yet. *****

Yesterday, a friend of mine noticed that I never talk about music at my blog. This is actually strange, as music is my drug of choice. For example, as a result of my addiction:

• I've accumulated thousands of pages of classical scores (mostly piano).
• Suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of teaching myself how to play Rachmaninoff's concertos (its been in remission for several years now; but at the cost of having to relearn how to play almost every piece I knew).
• A music collection of about 600 CDs and 80 gigabytes of mp3s.

I'm in the process of building a new, and significant addition to this site. Basically, its an index of some of the best resources on the web. For the record, it aims at quality, not quantity. I'm not creating some crappy yahoo index here. You can browse it by category from the "browse Resources" list on the left sidebar. Anyhow, check it out.

Also note that I will rarely include a resource on my blog's frontpage; the best way to keep track of new additions will be to subscribe to its RSS feed.

"Policypointers is an online facility created to enable those involved in government, academe and the media to gain rapid access to the research and conclusions of think tanks around the world. We believe that policymakers and those who influence the policymaking function can frequently learn from the research done and the results achieved in countries other than their own. This belief is the rationale for creating this website. Policypointers is independent of any government, political party, financial or other influence." [Link]

Note: I give this resource 5 stars. Just follow the link and you'll understand why

Steve Safran at lost remote writes on how to save blogs from ourselves. I suggest you get your little butt over there and take a read:

It only seems fair. I've written How to Save CNN and How to Save MSNBC. Time for a little hair of the dog. Following Cory's lead, here's how we can save weblogs from the creeping suspicions that are starting to hurt us all. [Link] >

I was so deeply moved by this photograph of George W. Bush that I decided to create a work of art out of it. I'm dedicating this piece (it is Valentine's, right?) to all of you shinny, happy, well-sexed couples out there. I hope you find true love in those chalky little hearts, and 4 dollar sub-pornographic gift cards that exploit the love affairs of childern. Fuck Hallmark, and their holiday... that's right: I said it.

Love,Nick  (Kisses!)