I won't go quietly

"You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly

makin' a noise in this world
you can bet your ass I won't go quietly"

Robbie Roberston in
Contact From The Underworld of RedBoy.

James Brown: RIP.
I used to party a little with James Brown back in Columbus Ohio just before and after the Vietnam war. All the best R and B and Soul singers would come to Columbus and usually there was a party afterwards. I always went with several beautiful girls, so it was easy to get an invite to the afterwards parties.

I also spent a lot of my childhood, and a few adult years, in Augusta Georgia. James Brown is the best thing to ever happen to Augusta. It is also a city know for the masters golf tournament, but no one I know in the real world cares much about that. I had an affair with a married woman who lived at the augusta country club, so that part was fun. I used to sneak across the greens in the middle of the night to see her. James Brown was very influential in my teenage years, he was very popular and always put on a very dynamic and powerful concert. It was in fact nothing short of amazing. Augusta Georgia is a very racist city, then and now. Though there are many black families in this region, their economic and social opportunities remain in a sorry state. I was proud to be in a generation that tried to break through these racial divides and being with James Brown was a great experience.

I am glad in these days that I no longer live in the USA. The racism and intolerance is still a gigantic problem in nearly every community. The fundamentalist agenda of george Bush (both of them) is a disgrace to humanity, a disservice to honor and trust. The new fundamentalist christian attiudes of the usa are archaic and out of place in this world. It is with great disgust that I listen to what I call the "talking toilets" of fundamentalist christian thinking. It seems as if we are trying to bring back the middle ages and in general the intellectual and social atmosphere of the USA has become reactionary, negative and hateful.

Sometimes looking at amerika I think the terrorists have won. One stated goal of so-called terrorism is to make everyone afraid, to disrupt so-called normal society and that is certainly the case in the USA in these days. George Bush is a coward (maybe it is not his fault) and the entire network of loony, paranoid fools who elected him have done nothing so much as destroy the goodwill and trust which amerika might otherwise have in these days. here in Italy amerika is a joke, an embarassment....and this is true not only for its politics but for its low-quality products, its racist attitudes and its cold, unfriendly people, its horrible violent and empty films. Only American Music survives in the goodwill of the international community.

One needs only to visit a typical american indian reservation to see how little progress and how negative these policies are in this country called America. Or drive through New orleans sometime.

James Brown showed all of us how to triumph over the darkness of hatred, fear and racism. He showed us all how to make money and have a good life from following our own dreams and refusing at all costs to be beaten down by your enemies. He went to prison, he faced insanne racist business and political leaders and through it all had an indomitable soul and was a great performer. His music was greater than music; it was a revelation of resistance to the ugly soul of white amerika. He was black and I am proud.....

Turtle Heart
American Indian
Pantelleria Sicilia
31 December 2006