Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called “the Miracle of America.” So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July.  He was once asked if he had any ambitions beyond the United States Senate.  He replied: “The only thing I am running for is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Today, Jesse Helms has finished the race, and we pray he finds comfort in the arms of the loving God he strove to serve throughout his life.

Jesse Helms. Kind and decent. Humble. A man whose eyes were always directed piously upward, fixed on the Kingdom of Heaven, and who is now in the arms of a loving God.

Wow. You'd think the President was talking about Tim Russert. 

But I wonder. How could such an imitator of Tim and Jesus be perceived so, um, differently from this by so many?

Has something fallen down Orwell's INGSOC memory hole here?

Let's see. Here's Jesse Helms's characterization of the University of North Carolina, made in 1950:

The University of Negroes and Communists.

That doesn't sound like a very kind or decent thing to say. Certainly Tim Russert would never have said such a thing. But okay, that was way back in 1950.

But then what about Mr. Helms's response to Duke university students holding a vigil for Martin Luther King after he was assasinated?:

They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro.

That sounds a bit ugly. Once again, I think this falls short of kind and decent. But let's give him credit. He didn't say it was out and out wrong for a white student to marry an African American student. He told the white students to check with their parents first.

And again, that was 1968, and 1968 was a long time ago. 

Surely the good Senator from North Carolina became more kind and decent over time, right? 

Well, here was his stated reason for resisting one of President Clinton's cabinet nominees back in the early 1990s:

She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine.

Now the early 1990s wasn't so long ago. When exactly did Jesse Helms start acting kind and decent?

Here's a statement of the Senator in 1995:

Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches. 

Hmm.

And in this quote, the Senator uses a plague metaphor for describing gay people who work in the media:

The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.

Are such comments really consistent with someone who was kind and decent? Or are we being subjected to yet another Orwellian White House moment in which facts and the actual meanings of words are, well, simply not important?

Obviously, Jesse Helms was not always indecent and unkind, and in the course of his long public career he may have frequently been on the right side of many issues, and history may attest to this. The quotes I've offered above do not reflect the whole of the man. Like other human beings, he had positive and negative qualities. But let's not pretend that Jesse Helms's legacy is unproblematic. And let's also not pretend that those who offer up unrestrained praise for the man, as Bush did, don't know what they are doing. They know that Helms was often a bigot and they don't care, and that says as much about them as it does about the Senator. 

Here's a link with a few more of Helms's quotes: http://www.bettybowers.com/helms.html

I was at Millersville University for the Governor's School for Teaching the summer before my senior year when I discovered my apotheosis. I know I've written about this many times before, but I really found a lot out about myself during the four week program. I taught music to 5th and 6th graders from the poor section of Lancaster, Pa.  Not only did a take the role of the teacher, I was also a father figure to some of my students, and psychologist. I only knew these student for three weeks and developed a great bond with all of them.  Out of my group of teachers, I was chosen to ride with our students on their last bus ride from school back home. I cried all the way back to the University, because I knew what kind of world they were going home to, and it wasn't the safe world we created for them in class.

I decided then that teaching was my calling. Since then, I've been preparing myself to teach inner city in the poor school districts. I want to make a difference in my students' lives and show them someone in the world cares about what they do with their lives.  I think that covers the criteria of an apotheosis.

1. "Christmas is Coming" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

"Christmas is Coming", from Guaraldi's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, is consistently overshadowed by "Linus and Lucy" and "Skating". However, this infectious, jazzy little number perfectly personifies the anticipation leading up to everyone's favorite birthing. Whether it's the pert little rest at 0:37 or the meandering interlude at 1:05, "Christmas is Coming" is more vivacious and musically interesting than anything else on the album.

2. The entirety of Nat King Cole's Christmas-themed works.

Yes, his Christmas album is wildly popular. Yes, he butchers the German language in "O Tannenbaum". But it's the best ever, so people aren't listening to it enough. (Epicure friend Lisa says there is a Nat King Cole children's Christmas album. Must acquire!)

3. "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" translated from the Latin by John Mason Neale.

More poetry than carol, this magnificent Advent song is of unknown pedigree and seems to be rarely used even in Church services by Roman Catholics. Sober and solemn, I have seen people moved to tears by it. Not exactly holly jolly fare, but I'm sorta down with that. (Interestingly, the version I learned of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" has variant stanzas. For example: "O come thou wisdom from on high / Who ordered all thing mightly / To us the path of knowledge show / And teach us in her way to go" etc. Check out more variants here.)

4. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland.

Sweet Jesus Christ, the melancholy! Old blue eyes' cover of this song - the one you know and love - is nothing like Hugh Martin's original and can be safely called a bastardization. The carol, already once revised because of its brooding nature, first appeared in the 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis and was marked by its bittersweet tone and Garland's pained vocal delivery. Haunting, perhaps the very embodiment of sehnsucht, this song is a staple for those of us who'd like a taste of our soul being crushed by profound emotion. For a bit more history, check out this article.

5. "Final Waltz and Apotheosis" from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

While the average Christmas enthusiast will immediately recognize the Valse des fleurs or any of the Divertissements from Tchaikovsky's 71st opus, it is much less likely that they will be able to identify the Final Waltz and Apotheosis. Sweepingly Romantic and alive with a sense of triumph and accord, it perfectly exemplifies the elegance with which the work as a whole has come to be associated. I am particularly fond of Peter Wohlert and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra's rendition of the Valse finale et apothéose; it is slightly faster and more expertly conducted than most other recordings.

6. "Here We Come A-Wassailing".

A traditional New Years drinking song that has become associated with yuletide, this little number is a blast to belt out on a snowy doorstep. Nowadays you'll usually hear a version with drastically sanitized lyrics, about caroling and Christmas rather than drink and cash. Wassailing, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (Oh no, L'amour de l'étymologie!?!), means to toast to one's health, and has connotations of "carousing"--their word, not mine! I strongly encourage people everywhere to reclaim the original version of this song by acting out the lyrics as frequently as possible.

7. "I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus" by Brenda Lee.

Miss Lee is best known for "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". In "Lasso" she employs an even more bizarre-cutsey voice to relate a child's conviction to truss, shoot (with a water pistol), torture (tickle...), and finally steal the presents of Saint Nick. The reason for this glut of deviancy? To supply poor kids with presents, Communist style! This isn't the only socially conscious, underrated Christmas carol; check out James Brown's "Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto" for a more saccharine song about impoverished, gift-hungry brats.

8. "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses.

A Christmas carol that begins with "Bah! Humbug!"? Yes please! These deadpan '80s ladies explore the delight an isolated cynic finds in rediscovering the pleasure that is the Christmas season. "Christmas Wrapping" is consistently recognized as a new classic by music-savvy hipsters, but is relatively unknown to the Christmas-celebrating population at large. It has been covered quite a great deal, on and off retail albums; however, alternate versions are odious and should be avoided like the plague.

9. "Once Upon a December" by Deana Carter.

Yeah, I'm man enough to admit that I like it. For the uninitiated, "Once Upon..." is a song from the animated film Anastasia. It occupies a precarious place in this list, as it is popular in the mainstream - with little girls and big fat women that never stopped being little girls - and not really a Christmas song. The in, of course, is the fact that it's generally despised by anyone whose musical sensibilities command respect. Now all you smack-talkers take notice: Hear those sinister chimes in the intro? The rather interesting (for a children's movie) imagery in the lyrics? The shamelessly hilarious backup singer that starts bellowing at 1:03? All pretty damn good reasons to give it another shot, to my mind.

10. "Good King Wenceslas" by John Mason Neale.

Another traditional carol to round out the top ten; I really just love this song because I can shout "Bring me meat and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither!" at the top of my voice with impunity. Eighteenth Century British scholar John Mason Neale, translator of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", composed the lyrics to accompany the 13th Century spring carol "It is Time for Flowering" ("Tempus Adest Floridum" in Latin). Methinks I'm going to have to look into this bloke for a future post; seems he has a monopoly on carols from antiquity.

And we're done! Go out into the world and get these songs from your local library, illegally from the internet, or make them yourself by playing your nose and singing aloud. (If that last one really occurs, please post to YouTube for reasons that need not be verbalized.) Also, look forward to my next Christmas post, which will be about the "Top ten Christmas horror films of ultimate depravity"!

Whitesnake es un grupo de hard rock y heavy metal de los más conocidos (aunque algunos no los recuerden por el nombre). El Hard Rock y el Heavy Metal surgieron a mediados de los años 60 y a principios de los 70 con grupos conocidísimos tales como AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple y Black Sabbath. En aquellos años la gente tenía la sensación que este tipo de música era diabólica sobre todo después de estar los beatles como grupo dominante.

Después de esta primera etapa, llegó la segunda con grupos como Scorpions y Judas Priest. No voy a entrar en detalles de los vaivenes que hubo con los integrantes ya que hubo demasiada movida dentro del grupo pero lo que si que recuerdo bien son los temas que más me emocionaron en los ochenta y noventa que es Here I Go Again, tema que salió en el album Saint and Sinners en 1983 y que se relanzó en una nueva versión en el año 1994 en el album Greatest Hit.

Otros hits de este grupo que seguro recordarán son: Is This Love , Still of the night y Give Me All Your Love del album Whitesnake del año 1987. Luego de este album le siguió uno de los más queridos por su público que es Slip of Tongue y para agosto de este año sacarán uno nuevo llamado Bad to be good. Les dejo el video del concierto con el tema Here I go Again y me dirán si no quisieran estar en uno de sus conciertos eh?

Whitesnake - Is this love
[audio http://www.goear.com/files/sst/338ced081be66a4185940f7dd026f27a.mp3]
Whitesnake - Fool for your loving
[audio http://www.goear.com/files/sst/4ca30535c9479b84160bcd77646b09c2.mp3]
Whitesnake - Give me all your love
[audio http://www.goear.com/files/sst/714960e19ea009683edd85fda2e3c2fb.mp3]

Escucha: Is this love - Still of the night

I don't know where I'm going
But, I sure know where I've been
Hanging on the promises
In songs of yesterday
An' I've made up my mind,
I ain't wasting no more time
But, here I go again
Here I go again

Las mujeres y su aporte en la música es grande, empezando en los ochenta con la incursión de Joan Jett en el rock, siguiendo con el pop , el dance, el hip hop , etc. Hoy le ha tocado a la genial Shannon ocupar un lugar en este sitio al tener temas que son mis favoritos.

Shannon fué la primera en incursionar con la categoría Dance/Freestyle en los años ochenta, específicamente en el año 1983 con su genial tema llamado Let The Music Play y con la cual se ha quedado para la eternidad. De este tema se han sacado muchas versiones cada cierto tiempo, tema utilizado muchísimo en discotecas.

Aparte de ese tema también tuvo otro hit en el año 1984 del mimo álbum llamado Give Me Tonight siguiendo el mismo estilo y que es lo que mejor se le da, tiene una voz especial, muy limpia..que puedes escucharla lo que quieras sin llegar a cansarte. Y aunque no tiene una trayectoria musical amplia (más que todo se versionan sus temas del primer album) sigue todavia sacando albums hasta este año con uno llamado A Beauty Returns.

Otros temas preferidos de ella son: It´s go to be love, Move mania(1999) y una balada llamada Love goes all the way (1986). Me imagino que a muchos les traerá recuerdos esta música ya que siempre ha estado presente desde los ochenta. Posteo esto aprovechando que ha caido una nevada digna de una foto para postal y que bailando un poco esto, entro en calor.

Escucha: Give Me tonight - Move Mania

We started dancing and love put us into a groove
as soon as we started to move.
The music played while our bodies displayed through the dance,
then love picked us out for romance.
I thought it was clear the plan was we would share,
this feeling just between ourselves.

Aprovechando que ando un poco torpe por la medicación pues aprovecho a dar un poco a conocer lo que es la música dance que la mayoría hemos bailado en cualquier discoteca o pub. De paso les dejo una muestra de Rikah que se reproduce automáticamente a la izquierda y aprovechando que es sábado pues todos los que puedan salir a bailar, pues que vayan cogiendo marcha desde ya.

Dance es el nombre genérico que recibe el estilo de música de baile moderna realizada mediante sintetizadores, tanto electrónicos como en programas manejados por un ordenador. Además, pueden intervenir tanto la voz (en piezas vocales) como otros instrumentos (aunque normalmente se usan samples).

Como toda música, se compone de una serie de compases marcados por el ritmo, que varían dependiendo del tipo de música electrónica con el que se trate. Los compases son de 4/4, y su tempo, puede ir, dependiendo del subestilo, de 120 notas negras (BPM) en el House, 140 en el Techno, e incluso llegar a unos 200 BPM en el Hardcore.

Otra acepción de este término es el empleado para definir el conjunto de subestilos de la música electrónica, en su variante más comercial, con melodías o acordes de sintetizador pegadizos y con toques o arreglos cogidos de la música Pop.

A lo largo del tiempo se le ha denominado de muchas maneras dependiendo de la influencia en mayor o menor medida de algunos de los géneros de la música Dance como podrían ser:
- ClubHouse, del 89 al 91:
Influencia House. Con muchos acordes de piano ("I Can't Stand It" de Twenty 4 Seven, "Gipsy Woman" de Crystal Waters, "Feel The Groove" de Cartouche o "Can't Help Myself de 2 Brothers On The 4th.Floor ). El hit "dance" de la época fue sin dudas "Pump Up The Jam" de Technotronic, que dio comienzo a la era dorada de los éxitos comerciales en ventas y ránkings que el género obtendría en la década de los 90's.

-EuroDance, del 92 al 94.
Influencia Techno. Con acordes secos y cortos heredados del Rave y con un claro aumento del rango de beats por minuto utilizados ("Twilight Zone" de 2 Unlimited, "Mr. Vain" de Culture Beat, "Feel The Heat Of The Night" de Masterboy o "U Got To Let The Music" de Cappella). El hit de la época fue "No Limits" de 2 Unlimited.

A mediados de los 90, la música Dance comercial llegó a la cima, siendo muy popular en todos los países de Europa, gracias a un boom comercial de ventas del género gracias a la difusión masiva en radios y clubes nocturnos por parte de los DJs, que en muchos casos eran también productores de algunas de las bandas de moda.

EuroPop, del 93 al 95.
Influencia más melódica del Pop. Con mucha melodía y entonación alegre y con la aparición de temas de los 80 remezclados (Covers), se produjo además una drástica desaceleración en los ritmos usados como bases ("I Wanna B With U" de Fun Factory, "Saturday Night" de Wighfield, "All That She Wants" de Ace of Base o "There's A Party" de DJ Bobo). El hit más representativo fue "The Sign" de Ace Of Base.

-Pizzicato, del 96 al 97.
Influencia Trance. Sonidos más hipnóticos con repeticiones de acordes que recuerdan al Eurobeat, mayor tendencia a los temas instrumentales o de escaso componente vocal ("Encore Une Fois" de Sash, "Meet Her At The Love Parade" de Da Hool, "Move Your Ass" de Scooter o "Lift Me Up" de Red 5). En esta etapa el género perdió la influencia que tenía en la difusión comercial por lo que no hubo grandes sucesos de ventas o hits masivos.

EuroPop, segunda generación, del 98 al 2001.
Con la aparición de nuevas bandas se reflotó el sonido más melódico del Pop. Con estribillos cantados pegadizos y con ritmos de menor cantidad de beats por minuto ("Boom Boom Boom Boom" de Vengaboys, "Barbie Girl" de Aqua, "Lady" de Modjo, "Sexy" de French Affair o "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" de Kylie Minogue)

-ClubHouse DJ, del 2002 a la actualidad.
Influencia House. Definitivamente dezplazada del mainstream de difusión comercial por géneros como el pop bailable o el reggaeton, la música dance ha vuelto a concentrarse en la esfera underground, allí a pesar del desbande de la mayoría de los grupos representativos, los DJs siguen generando música dance para usar en las discotecas y clubes nocturnos, los singles son editados por sellos independientes y rara vez llegan a editarse en álbums de un mismo intérprete sino que se editan en compilaciones de hits de diversos autores para facilitar su venta.
Son exponentes importantes de esta nueva etapa: Gigi D'Agostino, Armand Van Helden, Benny Benassi, Global Deejays, DJ Tiesto, Bob Sinclair, entre otros...