Open Thread - Rants, Muses, Books & Music (and Some Cooking Too).

It's good to see you. Come on in, leave your shoes in the hallway, we've got fire on the stove preparing lunch for later. In the meantime, browse the bookshelves and plunk down on the sofa with one, or pick out some tunes from the music library or come in to the kitchen to help with the cooking. Our special blend of tea is steeping and will be right up.

Make yourself at home...

On Sunday, we went to the always fun and uplifting St Pats For All parade in Sunnyside, Queens. The famous 7 train, which connects Times Sq with Flushing, runs through the heart of Sunnyside, which is known these days for being part of a string of neighborhoods in Queens comprising what has increasingly become known as home to the world’s most diverse and densest cultural mix. While there still exists a vibrant collection of Irish pubs, recalling the community’s past century roots in the Irish and German working class, the aromas, colors, clothes, language and accents coming out of the surrounding shops today reflect the myriad populations of countries all over Central America, Southeast Asia, South America and the Sub Indian continent. As I looked out onto Roosevelt Ave, where the parade ends, I recalled that I've pretty much played in every single one of those Irish pubs some 14 years ago while in a Celtic Rock band, including some that have since gone away.

Each year the parade is a wonderful reflection of that diversity, and never fails to delight the bystanders, who come out in the spirit of inclusion, diversity and explicit support for Gay Rights (joined also by very few detractors). Participants range from troupes celebrating their homeland with traditional dress, costume and music, including this year one from Galicia, to various radical factions, venerating with banners and signs such dissenters as Irish revolutionaries James Connolly and radical Irish-Americans Mother Jones and the Berrigan Brothers priests.

We got there a little late this year and wound up, because parking is so difficult, at the very end of the parade, wishing we'd gotten there earlier. One of the first banners we saw was:

In Christ There Is No Killing

- St. Patrick

That prompted me to call out to its owners, "if only 8-12% of Christians showed up by truly adhering to the basic tenets of Jesus, we'd have a different world, overnight." They nodded in agreement. Some day simple truths like this will make their way into the majority of hearts of conservative Roman Catholic church adherents.

Among the many factions marching were Veterans For Peace, Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG), and Veterans Against The War, as well as the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a radical marching band.

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This year Phil Donahue was the parade’s co-Grand Marshal. Donahue, to me, has to be considered a hero to all progressives, for his unabashed, committed and lonely stance against the invasion of Iraq, as well as an outspoken critic against government malfeasance in the Veterans Administration. I just found out also that his youngest son, Jim, who died a couple of years ago, worked for the Ralph Nader group, Essential Information, as an investigative researcher and writer for more than 20 years.

Some more photos of parade can be seen here.

The St. Pats For All parade was formed eighteen years ago by a couple of LGBT activists (“Gay” activists then) as an alternative in response to the formal, institutionalized and exclusionary one that famously trods down 5th Ave, not permitting gay paraders.

The founder and co-chair of the parade, Brendan Fay, was compelled, after challenging the injustice and bigotry of the official St. Patrick’s Day parade in their exclusion of gay people from participating, to do the hard work of starting his own as an alternative. Year after year Brendan, a former Catholic high school religion teacher, had been arrested (which resulted in him being fired). No doubt co-chair Kathleen Walsh D'Arcy and he had to endure the role of pariah with respect to the Catholic Church and the old guard of Irish heritage.

One can only imagine the conversations they must have had to endure, no doubt including barely veiled threats from the PTB of the Big Parade, having to run up against some of the most calcified notions of what St. Patricks Day™ meant to its mainstream protectorates, borne of preconditioned bigotry and fear of the others, with heaping doses of oppressive patriarchy and misogyny thrown in. It could not have been far from the type of recriminations Martin Luther King referred to in his brilliant, clear-headed “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he chided liberal moderate whites, who in the question of civil rights, he regarded as being the real impediment to the struggle of black people, because they frequently slithered behind the cowardice of agreeing in theory but wondering aloud if “the time is not right,” in order to avoid such public confrontation. Isn’t this the same story whenever the status quo is challenged? Whether it’s the Abolitionists, the Socialists fighting for a 5 day/8 hour work, MLK fighting for civil rights or Act Up protesters calling attention to the inhumane ignoring of dying gay men and women.

And then, just a couple of months ago, after years of fighting the massive twin conservative guard of institutional Irish culture and the Catholic Church in New York, Brendan and Kathleen became recipients of the 2016 Presidential Distinguished Service Awards for the Irish abroad.

Brendan's commitment to Gay rights also includes The Civil Marriage Trails which was like an Underground Railroad to help gay and lesbian couples get married in Canada when it was still illegal here in NY. He helped Edie Windsor and Thea Speyer get married before Thea's death. Edie went all the way to Supreme Court to challenge DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and her victory helped to secure marriage equality.

We've been lucky enough to get to know Brendan, who lives in our neighborhood, a little bit personally. When we were trying to organize an Occupy offshoot locally he was so encouraging and indispensable with his knowledge, understanding of radical history and indefatigable energy.

After the parade, I sat having a pint with a friend, who himself had been a gay activist around the same time as Brendan. He started an offshoot of Act Up in the West Village, in which people in the community could come to discuss incidents in which gay people were being targeted for abuse or assault. They’d break off into working groups and decide on an appropriate action, which could result in standard rallies or marches or the more radical kiss-in at the offending locale.

He's now 50 years old and he never thought he’d see the day when gay people were able to get married legally. Not after all he endured since the late 80’s, how people were treated even when AIDS cruelly wiped out vibrant men and women while mainstream America just shrugged.

Some days, he says, he wakes up and still doesn't believe it’s actually true.

Eventually the times changed; they always do. But it only happens after countless small acts of bravery and bucking the status quo. Now gay marriage is legal in conservative Ireland, where the Catholic Church may still reign but the next generation feels more kinship with an openness and universality missing in its doctrines. People simply need to be shown the way away from their superstitions, their hangups, their preconditioned fears.

The power of just a few bold people is contagious.

The Official History books, the ones sanctioned by the governments of the world and their mothballed museums, don't usually record these stories. We’ll find them in the magnanimous work of greats like Howard Zinn, in whose “A People’s History of the United States” the proper reverence and exaltation of radicals, ordinary folks confronting an oppressive status quo in their times and a longview that history is always made by common people. Common in a sense only that they are unknown. These are titans. They affect and change lives.

In closing, I offer a few Celtic Rock tunes that celebrate this spirit, as well as to honor the fundamental rebelliousness of a homeland oppressed over the centuries:

So, what's going on with you?

Back in the kitchen we're listening to:

Reading/Browsing List:

"My Boy: The Philip Lynott Story" by Philomena Lynott
"Open Letters" by Vaclav Havel
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
"The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine

Amazing Turkey Burger

Roast one eggplant. Scoop out half.

Add to a lb. and half package of ground turkey meat.

Then add the following: one mashed boneless anchovy filet, teaspoon of soy sauce, clove of minced garlic, dash of Thai fish sauce, black pepper and a generous sprinkling of thyme.

Make patties and fry as normal.

Serve on whole wheat English Muffin, topped with chipolte mayonnaise and thinly sliced caramelized onion, with cumin roasted sweet potatoes on the side and a kosher half sour pickle.

Lemongrass Chai Blend

heaping scoop of dried Thai lemongrass
shards of cinnamon bark
a few cardamom pods
a few black peppercorns
A few cloves
fresh chopped ginger

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riverlover's picture

but the burger sounds okay, even good. [Sordid history with eggplant] Cumin-roasted sweet potatoes (or chips thereof) is likely as good as my cumin-chile baked potato fries. My kids would eat them, during the picky years. As long as there was that red tomato-based product. I use that only on naked French fries, but I learned to liberally sprinkle with malt vinegar, instead (very Canadian).

I am trying out one of those weekly meal deliveries, not done, still prep to go, but all ingredients for recipes that come on laminated pages. They are good, but I am one, not two, and have been having digestive problems. You should see my freezer now! Packaged meat for two, usually divisible by scissors. Salmon tonight. I missed out on the shrimp Po-boys. Broken foot and snow. Salmon plus baby bok-choy stir-fry. I tend to eat carrots as they come, no doubt carrot in the stir-fry. Baby bok-choy (sp) I find wonderful.

I see my PCP for tests or something to find out why I did not have reconstructive surgery on my broken foot yesterday. It has been a month since I fell on my foot and other than The Boot, an MRI, more Xrays, nothing has changed, except that I am fighting off new depression due to lack of remediation. Pain all the time, except horizontally. I read a lot. A book or more per day. Cannot clean my house, standing for too long gets painful. I can load a dishwasher, that's about the time extent. So, as I said, leaning toward feeling sorry for myself. But also anger at my lack of treatment. I am well-insured, so that is not the problem. Sorry to vent, I find this a sympathetic group.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Mark from Queens's picture

@riverlover I find with folks who don't like eggplant they might like baba ganouj, since hummus has pretty much made it into the mainstream at the this point and baba is its counterpart (same recipe but instead of chick peas it uses roasted eggplant).

Italian-Americans eat lots of eggplant, though I didn't always love it as a kid but liked it fine. I really got to like it in a Middle Eastern setting (which has become a mainstay in my cooking). There's a place in Bklyn that makes the most amazing creamy, smokey baba by fire-roasting the eggplant, which I'm always trying to get mine to come out like.

In this recipe the eggplant serves the role of a binder, the way an egg would. It's one of the wife's specialties. And since we don't eat a lot of meat or dairy it's our go-to when we want a burger. The combination is pretty amazing. I don't think a lot of people would be able to tell the ingredients.

My sister doesn't cook at all but was excited to make a few of those recipes for us for Thanksgiving that you're taking about, in which they send you all the fresh ingredients and a laminated recipe. I smirked at the whole privileged thing, but it was good.

Hope your foot heals up fast. Are there any exercises you can do/healing soaks or baths that might help?

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

mimi's picture

and feel quite miserable. Nothing works as it was supposed to and nothing is as I expected it to be. I am a ranting, frustrated, angry, old woman in a trap and a nightmare in my comments lately, so I redact most of it.

Have a good day. And hug your kiddo and wife. Always a good idea, no? Smile

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Mark from Queens's picture

@mimi I imagine that transition of going back to one's native land to be something that for those who have made the decision to leave it, must grapple with every now and then in different ways. My music partner arrived here from Ireland two weeks before 9/11 happened and thinks he came to a completely different place than he had imagined. My grandfather grew up in Calabria and always talked wistfully about the panoramic mountains. Neither left to go back.

I think you sometimes can be a little hard on yourself, mimi. And I believe I speak for many here when I say yours is a voice we've come to recognize and look for as one of openness, inquisitiveness and tenderness. Since we met at our little nook on the internet at Joe's EB at TOP I've always been warmed by it.

It's a really weird time; most everybody's feeling it. I've decided to cut down to less and less news, especially the non-stop Drumpf vomitorium. Everything about that schmuck guy is so loathsome, as are the spineless, deviant Democrat money whores, and what passes for the majority of media here is a sick joke. Severely restricted my online reading and bouncing around. I'm more inclined to read books, listen to music, do yoga, strum guitar, cook for and see friends more. Only place I check in online is here.

Thanks for the family greeting. Hug to you. Have a wurst and sauerkraut for me, with some good senf (love that combination, and have been eating a vegan style version lately that I really like).

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

mimi's picture

@Mark from Queens
it's all personal stuff with regards to my "return to the homeland" thingy, so I can't get into it more. I am determined to get out of the hole and manage. Can't stand myself being depressed and/or angry. It has to change.

Did you see this?
Wikileaks says it has published CIA hacking codes

WikiLeaks published thousands of documents Tuesday it described as the CIA's hacking arsenal in what the website called the "largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency."

Wikileaks said the document dump from the CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence represents a new series of leaks it had code-named "Vault 7." The website says the CIA "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal," more than several hundred million lines of code, providing "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA....
"Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook....
"The CIA had created, in effect, its 'own NSA' with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question ...

That sounds serious. I wait for the EB to see what Joe comes up with.

Well now I am going to cook. Compared to 45 years ago, in my town here we have barely four foodstore chains (they all sell the same stuff) and just one single Delikatessen food store. It used to be that we had at least ten independent individually owned food shops in this town. I miss a lot of food here, I could find in the US. No whole fish, everything just filets, no shrimps, all of the fishys things are northern style marinated Hering. Nordish food are quite a thing to get used to again. And what are the farmers markets in the US is here a "Wochenmarkt", but the meat and veggies seem to be the same kind that is sold in the chain stores. Our bread and pastry though beats the US brands all over. Aldi is a low priced foodstore chain now also in the US. I just wished they would offer the same food items in the US as they do here. In the US Aldi there are very, very few real food items made in Germany (may be six to ten only). So, sad.

Ok, I am going to eat a Wurst now, in your honor, but Sauerkraut has to wait. I can eat only one brand and I don't have it handy. I love Senf and anything spicy. Smile

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selected to open for the Waterboys on one of the latter's tours. These guys from Tuam are pretty good with their earlier albums being more in the way of favorites of mine than the later ones. They've played festivals in New York & Chicago too but never made it big.

The Pogues are one of my favorite bands ever - I'll always like them

Good morning & I hope you're having a good day.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Mark from Queens's picture

@duckpin the Irish-American experience so well. Those annual shows at Irving Plaza were such great, fun events, which I only became privy to by playing in such a band. Felt like being in a McCourt book (both Frank and maybe even more so, Malachy).

Used to do "Dirty Old Town," "Jesse James" and another really raucous, fast tune I think we used to open the second set with,...wish I could remember the name.

One of my favorite tunes from our set back in the day was:

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens Glad that you are familiar with the Saw Doctors. They were on a movie soundtrack that a friend played for more and none of their music was available in the USA so I telephoned Ireland and talked to their management and asked how to get hold of their music and I had to put cash(didn't want to "Hey I'm Irish, please don't cheat me!) in an envelope and mail it to Ireland and I got back their first three 45's which I was very grateful for and happy with.

Sometimes the Pogues would introduce "Dirty Old Town" by saying "this next one's written by a communist."

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Mark from Queens's picture

@duckpin Had a similar positive experience putting some American greenbacks in the mail.

Thin Lizzy is one of my all-time favorite bands, and one day I was record shopping along St. Marks when it was still a cultural hub for R&R before it was overrun by franchises and Japanese restaurants.

Got into a good conversation with guy behind the counter about Lizzy bootlegs, who was also a fanatic. When I asked if he knew where I could find some, he said there was a guy in Sweden who has everything - but you have to pay him cash. I think this was the very early days of the internet and I was able to email him for details. Had some amazing stuff but also wanted cash. I trusted him and obliged. Couple of weeks later I had a stack of cd's.

Just goes to show you there's a tribe, especially around music, in which deep, impassioned music fans will recognize the same in one another. And that bond, for the most part, is honored.

Just made me think of another: years ago was at the Fleadh Festival on Randall's Island, wearing my Lizzy t-shirt and met a sweet Irish lad. Naturally, we got into it about them. Long story short, I scribbled my address on a piece of paper, you now how that goes; you never really expecting anything to come of it. A couple of months later I'm opening a padded envelope from Ireland with a short letter explaining that his Dad had died, with a book of poems by Phil and a cassette tape of Lizzy live. Was pretty moved by that.

One more, to wrap things up (it's all just flowing out, once you start going down the path): was playing in said Celtic Rock band, or maybe it was a classic rock band at that point. We're at one of the neighborhood Irish pubs in Queens that back in the day would have pretty good draws for their live music nights on Fri-Sat. In between sets I go up to the bar for a whiskey and stand next to a big dude who is wearing a black Thin Lizzy hoodie. He looks like some kind of weight-lifter but he's gregarious. Can't help myself because you just can't find much Lizzy stuff in the States, and mention how cool his hoodie is and where did he get it. After a chat, he literally pulled the thing off his back and insisted I have it. Felt funny then for being so enamored with it, but he was insistent and made sure I took it. Was blown away. The bartender told me later, or he himself did, it's not clear to me now, that he wore that everyday when he jogged at home in Ireland and it had something to do with his animosity toward his father.

Thanks for piquing me to travel back into that world, and opening some doors to look in on a few moving events I hadn't thought about in a while. Maybe, it's also something to do with the weather bringing it out...

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens he/she normally would not. I've never had a bad experience in buying music from a stranger who is a big fan of the person or band. You get a lot good material that is otherwise unavailable and meet some interesting people sometimes.
Nice story about the sweatshirt.
I like Thin Lizzy too.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Lookout's picture

Hope that foot gets better RL!

Also hope you and the youngin' are getting some rest today Mark.

The starter in my old '63 Tractor went out. I ordered a new one, but they sent the wrong one. Won't be long till mowing season here. Redbuds are starting to bloom. The dogwoods won't be far behind. Our daffodils are in full bloom and are as pretty as they have been in years.

Well here's wishing you all a lovely end of winter day. Spring arrives in less than two weeks.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Mark from Queens's picture

@Lookout Things are fine here, thanks.

Am relishing the overcast, brooding sky here. Love how it always slows things down and lends a coziness to things, a nice grey canopy overhead and the park's colors coming alive in it (maybe Scotland is the place for me! heh...)

'63 Tractor, huh? Now that's a whole different world indeed. Someday I'd like to get down to those parts where you are. Feel New Orleans calling me some time sooner than later. Need to make a trek there, but might be tough with a baby in tow.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Arrow's picture

Of Phil and Dan.
we must try to live up to their eample.

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I want a Pony!

Mark from Queens's picture

@Arrow or thereabouts. It's been passed between folks over the years, always appeared during the march. The current holder was an Asian-American woman who we spoke with about the meaning of those words and the significance of the Berrigans.

I remarked to her that I had lent my autobiography on Daniel Berrigan to a conservative Catholic friend of mine who didn't know who he was. Months later he told me he didn't really like the book, wasn't his cup of tea. All that radical christian advocacy doesn't sit well with him. I want to finish reading it. His story is deeply inspiring to me.

Have you seen this?

On March 8, 1971, a group of citizens (aka The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI) broke into a small FBI office in Pennsylvania, took every file, and shared them with the public. Their actions exposed the FBI's illegal surveillance program of law-abiding Americans. Now, these previously anonymous Americans publicly share their story for the first time.
up
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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Arrow's picture

@Mark from Queens For all this back story.

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I want a Pony!

enhydra lutris's picture

calendar of political events in the Bay Area which is updated daily. Kind of like an electronic rendition of Sproul Plaza in the sixties, just wander by and see what's happening when and where that you can get involved in or with.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

washpo.PNG

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enhydra lutris's picture

@gjohnsit
repeat.

Hey, look, they're starving in Somalia and Yemem.

No, no, Russia! Russia! Russia! Trump! Trump! Russia & Trump!!!!

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

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Shahryar's picture

not Irish...Scottish. Same thing, right? (ducking)

other reactions...Flushing...that's not that far from where I spent some time growing up. Little Neck, which is a world away from Great Neck.

and the Berrigans, Phil and Dan...I read Arrow's comment and my brain naturally took it as "Phil and Don". Two entirely different brothers!

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Mark from Queens's picture

@Shahryar with good melodic arrangements/vocals, and from the UK.

Haven't kept up with current stuff too much. But kind of touches on a whole host of bands that would occupy the same genre, such as Stereophonics, the Charlatans UK, The La's, Spacehog (who were Brits but based in NYC), Travis, Supergrass, and of course, Oasis.

"Phil and Don." I heard McCartney singing, "someone's knocking at the door, somebody's ringing the bell." Well, "Let "em In." The Everlys, that is.

up
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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut