Hallelujah Trail

Since I mentioned Charley Crockett very approvingly just a bit ago, I thought I might also highlight this story. Many of you will likely approve of it. 

Self-Proclaimed Devil-Worshiping Duo Twin Temple Say They Were Removed From Charley Crockett Tour Due To ‘Our Satanic Imagery’

There are more interesting reasons to drop an opening act, but not many. Self-proclaimed satanic doo wop duo Twin Temple revealed this week that “The Hallelujah Trail” country singer Charley Crockett booted them from a planned opening slot on his tour next week because of their Satan-hailing image.

“Today we were informed that Charley Crockett has decided to remove Twin Temple from his upcoming shows next week due to our Satanic imagery,” [Twin Temple said]...

“Unfortunately, that means we will not be able to perform for you next week as planned. We are really disappointed as we were looking forward to getting back out and seeing you, and also what it means as far as bringing different types of people and music lovers together,” added the rockabilly/soul group whose songs include “Lucifer, My Love,” “Sex Magick,” “Burn Your Bible,” “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy” and “The Devil (Didn’t Make Me Do It)” and whose most recent album was 2023’s God Is Dead.

I mean, you could hardly be clearer. Even Billy Joe Shaver said that the Devil made him do it the first time. Charley has confirmed the allegation, rather firmly.

I don't know if Charley means his song title to be reflective of the late 1960s movie, but if you've never seen it, The Hallelujah Trail is a fantastic comedy. I love it a great deal in spite of its ridiculous and insulting but very era-normal treatment of Native Americans. There was a time when I was called Oracle by a well known military unit that I won't name to avoid their embarrassment. (There was no whiskey involved for me: General Order #1. I was just good at telling them what was going to happen in the next week or two.) 

The parts I love best aren't even about that; they're about the struggle between women activists and the US military, which was already evident even at that era. It's beautifully explained and rendered, and not with any hostility to either side.

It's a great movie.

Fear of Arms

The British prime minister was given an engraved Turkish revolver, as were other visiting NATO leaders who were at the recent conference in Ankara. He left it in Turkey to be destroyed rather than bring a gun back to the UK. 

Wretchard points out: 

Gifts of presentation swords and guns (or other firearms) between heads of state have a long history in diplomacy. These items symbolize honor, alliance, martial prowess, cultural heritage, or goodwill between mighty warriors.

In rejecting the present Starmer made a negligable contribution to the reduction of firearms risk in the UK, but he sent a strong and largely negative symbolic message to the world at large and to Russia, China and the Muslim nations in particular. It conveys what Britain has become and the watching world will behave accordingly.

In addition to this, rejecting a symbolic gift from another nation is an insult. It is similar to but much worse than refusing to take the tea or coffee offered by a tribal leader when you come into his tent. Weapon-gifts are especially honorable because they transcend the offer of peace symbolized by the hospitality of tea, and convey that you are respected as one who can be trusted to be armed as well. The nation of Britain is humiliated by this action, whereas a nominal ally who needed to be reassured is insulted. 

Turns out Los Angeles Does a Pretty Good Independence Day Too

I certainly enjoyed seeing Grim's posts around Independence Day, and while I've done a few small town Independence Day events and enjoyed them thoroughly, Los Angeles actually has a pretty good time on the Fourth as well- in fact, it turns out you can see it from space, and it's spectacular:

NASA was kind enough to post this little video on X, which is where I caught it.

We live in the hills, so with the high fire danger we don't launch any fireworks ourselves, but we can go up our back hill and have a nice view out over the city and we watch the neighborhood below put on a show for us all night long.  Started before sunset and didn't end until well after midnight.  The dog's aren't so keen about it, but we enjoyed it.

For once I had something to be proud about living here in L.A. and had to post this.

He is Out, Actually

So I hear. The Party is not letting him choose his replacement. 

A nice moment of actual standards. We had to go a very long way to find the wall, but it’s there. 

It’s The Thing

If it’s got a steel guitar anyway. Funny story about that. Hawaiian thing. No obvious reason why it became so central. 

This one is solid. Boy knows what he’s doing. 

The Blue Ridge

Girl seems to understand the region.

When Veterans Have Kids

Or, at least, when Mat Best & the BRCC crew have kids ...

A Lost Documentary on the Crossing of the Delaware

"What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A fable agreed upon."

-- Napoleon Bonaparte (although he was probably quoting Bernard le Bovier de Fontanelle)

Addendum to the Previous

 

America

The beautiful. 

Independence Day, 250th Edition

Dillsboro all out for the veterans' parade.

Some of the local veterans parading.

I was just mentioning the Confederate flag thing and the local pride in heritage; sure enough, a group of them came out to march. Technically, by act of Congress, Confederate soldiers are considered American veterans for certain purposes.

Happy children celebrating in the tremendous heat.

A gingerbread cupcake at the Legion hall.

The Legion gave me a nice challenge coin after the run, too.

It was dangerously hot today, so much so that on the ride back I realized it wasn't safe to continue my ride. Fortunately I was along the beautiful Tuckasegee river, so I climbed down the bank and swam until I was cool enough to resume the ride. I also soaked my shirt so it would help keep me cool for the rest of the ride.

Quite a day. The pork butt came out beautifully thanks to my wife, who took over the smoking so that I could go ride with the Legion. We did a flag replacement ceremony in Robbinsville, the last town before the Dragon. We rode through the Nantahala Gorge to get there, which is a bit out of the way but beautiful. I’d never met these people before, but they put me in the tail gunner position based I guess on the firmness of my handshake. First time I’ve ridden tail for a group ride. I hope I did a good job. 

The article on Robbinsville claims that the mean daily maximum temperature in July is 83. That mean was somewhat exceeded today.

Independence Day

Have a happy one, warriors. 

UPDATE: I got the pork butt on before dawn. It smells just like old hickory out there.

Freedom Barbecue

I'm going to smoke a pork butt for the Independence Day feast. 

I made some Christmas barbecue sauce given the significance of the occasion. This batch was thinned partly with coffee and partly with chicken stock, since I had plenty of chicken stock and not a great deal of coffee. I was also out of molasses, so I added extra dark brown sugar -- which, in commercial sugars, differs from white sugar only by the addition of extra molasses. That's now how it worked historically, but these days they render it all to white sugar and molasses, and then make light or dark brown sugar by putting some molasses back in. Cheaper and easier that way.

I'm also going to smoke some Andouille sausage tomorrow, and a snakeskin hat band I made after Conan's recent run-in. Only a little smoke for the latter, to help preserve and waterproof it. 

Yoda: "No, There Is Another."

At the NY Post today, Eric Metaxas declares the American revolution to have been 'the only one in history that worked.' 

That's wrong, but his examples aren't the wrong part. 

Take the French Revolution, which began just a few years after our own Revolution, and was championed by some of the figures involved in our Revolution — like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. They all seemed to think it would be a happy reprisal of what happened here. It was anything but that, ending in a nightmare bloodbath of terror.

What went wrong? Just like us, the French decided they didn’t like the idea of monarchy. So they beheaded their king and queen. But the radicals didn’t stop there....

Then there are the even worse nightmares of the Bolshevik and Maoist revolutions in Russia and China.

OK, fair as far as it goes. But the American revolution stood on the shoulders of at least two earlier revolutions that had worked: the revolt against King John by the barons who fought him at Runnymede, which produced Magna Carta; and the Scottish Revolution led by William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, which produced a free nation that taught the Pope to accept that men could choose their kings. 

Revolution is a risky business, to be sure. Aristotle spends a good part of the Politics explaining how states grow unstable with an eye towards avoiding revolutionary moments. They often end up being destructive.

Not always, though. The one that just occurred in Syria ended a despotic Baathist regime and at least for now seems to have moved in the direction of a better society -- the al Qaeda-linked leader seems to be moderating pretty fast, making deals with the Kurds and the Israelis alike to try to reach a more stable society. The Vietnamese revolution against the French and then us, which we thought would turn them into another Communist hellhole, actually came off all right: the Vietnamese nation is now one of our better friends in the region. The Irish revolt of 1916 produced a nation that is pretty OK, even if they did send condolences on the occasion of Hitler's death. The recent revolt in Northern Ireland's Belfast is healthy, and might help push the whole UK in a better direction eventually. 

Sometimes it's the only way to fly. The Declaration sets the terms out clearly: "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it... Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes... But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."

Emphasis added, though little needed. Not only a right. Sometimes, a duty.

Georgia Gets a Hard Look

The FBI has made a priority investigation out of the 2020 election there. The article treats it as an open question that might go either way; readers of the Hall know that the matter was settled some time ago, and the remaining question is one of responsibility. 

It would be encouraging to see actual consequences for this sort of thing, even for an anarchist. That a political system should be corrupt is no surprise, but watching the powerful gleefully get away with it while the press proclaims that "there is no evidence" of the corruption is -- probably intentionally -- disheartening. For those who believe that government can be a positive good, it is even more important to see consequences for this.