Yo, sup
Hi.
This is my first post. Thanks for the cash. I appreciate it. What I mean is, I fucking love you.
Have you ever done karaoke?
I have. That doesn't mean I'm good. My dad and sister are amazing singers, but I got mom's voice. It's not awful. It doesn't make babies cry or windows break or send feral cats into heat.
But I remember the first time I ever did it was the song "Ramblin' Man" by The Allman Brothers. It was at a party at a friend's place and there were only about 20 people there so I didn't embarrass myself too much. I think. My wife said it was good, but I think she's contractually obligated to say stuff like that.
Anyway, I just remember that because I figured I should ramble on about some shit as a welcoming "first post" for you folks. And now I've done that.
Perhaps there should be more, what with "first post" and all. Okay. I'm not going to make a habit of this, because the column is "On This Day in History, Shit Went Down" and it's not the day yet and it seems weird to say hey read about something that happened on this day except that day is later next week some time ..."
But fuck it, let's do a wee preview.
Back in July I wrote a piece about the cluster fuck that was Live Aid and people were pissed. I mean, it was super popular, but there were also people who did not like the truth getting out one bit.
This piece is a follow up to that one. Here you go:
Eight months before Bob Geldof held his magnificent white savior clusterfuck of a concert called Live Aid that handed over a couple hundred million dollars to a brutal Ethiopian dictator who weaponized the fucking famine in the first place, Geldof showed the world who he was by recording his demeaning dirge “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November 25, 1984--
On November 25th, 1984, a number of the top music stars of the day gathered in a recording studio in West London to record an atrocity. And I’m not talking We Built This Wang Chung City Tonight kind of shit. The lyrics were problematic as fuck, with a bunch of people of alabaster persuasion explaining poverty and starvation to Ethiopians. Talk about your white Christmas.
Anyway, people loved it.
The temporary “super group” was called Band Aid. Geldof from The Boomtown Rats enlisted the help of Midge Ure of Ultravox to bring together a few dozen mostly white performers from the UK to raise money for famine relief via creation of a charity album. There was Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, George Michael, Boy George, and a bunch of members of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and Bananarama. For Black representation they had Jody Watley and a few guys from Kool & the Gang shoved into the background, but no solos for them.
“Do They Know it’s Christmas?” was a huge hit, selling over three million copies and raising millions while also bringing colonial condescension to the lyrics. But not just the lyrics, which were penned by Geldof and Ure, the album cover had a photo of emaciated African children, complete with buzzing flies, against a backdrop of a happy Caucasian Christmas celebration. Talk about things that make you say what the fucking fuck.
As for the song itself, let’s review by starting with the title. Do they know it’s Christmas? Well, being that the majority of Ethiopians are Christians, it’s pretty fucking likely they did, you condescending cockwaffles. And the third of the population who are Muslim don’t give a fuck. What about these lyrics? “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time.” Snows all the fucking time there, dipshits. Do your fucking homework. “Where nothing ever grows.” The fuck? No. “No rain or rivers flow.” Holy shit this is stupid. “Thank God it’s them instead of you.” Better them than us. Real nice. “Raise a glass for everyone.” Yeah, let’s get fucked up toasting to starving children. So Wokeness. Much humanitarian.
And no mention of the decades of imperialism that ravaged an entire continent to begin with. Fuck this song.
If you missed the Live Aid post from last July, here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/bodyforwife/posts/3275294555864650