#christy johnson

[sinceileftyoublog]

Robert Finley Interview: Something to Laugh About

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The most stunning and heartbreaking song on blues singer Robert Finley's latest album Black Bayou (Easy Eye Sound), is made up. On album closer "Alligator Bait", the narrator--at first talking rather than singing--describes trudging through the swamp, his grandfather having just purchased for him a pair of hip boots. Backed by Kenny Brown's spindly guitars, Eric Deaton's slinky bass, and Jeffrey Clemens' slow-burning, stomping drums, Finley's gruff voice tells the story of this character wading around, waiting for something to happen. He accidentally steps on an alligator's back, thinking it's a log; his grandfather shoots the gator after it reacts. Matter-of-fact, Finley states, darkly humorous, "A lotta kids got ate like that." But on the second half of the song, he sings, wailing like a bluesman who had his heart broken. Only this time, he's taken aback by familial betrayal, realizing his grandfather had only bought him the hip boots and told him to enter the swamp in order to use him as alligator bait. When the narrator goes home to tell his father, his father laughs and brushes him aside, confessing that the same thing happened to him when he was a kid. Most of us face a mini existential crisis when we learn our parents aren't perfect. The narrator of "Alligator Bait", on the other hand, has just learned of his own dispensability.

When I spoke to Finley over the phone a few days before Black Bayou was released in late October, he confessed, "'Alligator Bait' was supposed to be cheerful. I didn't want to make him look like a mean old grandpa. It's just something to laugh about," before pausing and adding, "Maybe it'll make some kids stay away from the creek." Indeed, seven years into his improbable comeback, Finley views his role as a singer and entertainer as twofold: meeting the audience at the heart while simultaneously giving them advice, telling them the barebones truth when other authority figures won't. On Black Bayou, he reckons with ideas of homesickness and loneliness, lust and love, selflessness and salvation. Buoyed by longtime collaborator Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Finley wrote all of the songs in the studio, and his familiarity with his supporting cast of musicians resulted in songs that were both efficiently recorded and emotionally acute. Brown's guitar winces with longing on "Livin' Out A Suitcase" as Finley's tired of traveling. On "Waste Of Time", a song that sees Finley taking pride in rural living even if it means missing out on opportunities provided by cities, the buzz-saw guitars and Clemens' clattering percussion yield a perfect maximalism to go along with Finley's claims that, yes, there's still a lot to digest right outside your doorstep. "There are so many guys down here with super talent," Finely said. "They haven't been exposed to the right places."

In fact, Finley's daughter and grandaughter, Christy Johnson and LaQuindrelyn McMahon, offer a prototype. Like many musicians and singers in rural Louisiana, Johnson had long been singing at church, specifically in the youth choir before she started traveling with her father, joining him on his 2019 America's Got Talent stint and eventually recording background vocals on 2021's autobiographical Sharecropper's Son. And Finley insisted to Auerbach on McMahon singing backup on Black Bayou, though she's also in her own band, according to Finley. After all, there's not much of a difference between blues and gospel music. As Finley puts it, it's just "Oh, baby!" versus "Oh, lord!"

Really, Finley feels his songs could essentially soundtrack various milestones or important events in life. He made sweet doo wop outlier "Lucky Day" for others. "It's a wedding song. It's for people celebrating their 50th anniversary," he said. "It's one of those songs you can use in different situations." In contrast, he describes "Susie Q"-esque lurker "What Goes Around Comes Around" as "basically scripture," even as he sings lines like, "I got my whiskey and my woman / I ain't worried about a thing." Living the way you want and keeping to yourself can be a holy exercise, too. "They're the true facts. No sugarcoating," Finley said, adding, "Something the preacher ain't gonna say. They'd kick him out the church!"

The line between Finley's performance as authentic versus an act is not one he's really ultimately concerned with, as the very fact that he's gotten here is surreal. "I'm living my childhood dream at my age," he said. "I get a chance to express myself. To be able to go back and look at myself on film to see how I've made a fool of myself." Multiple times throughout our conversation, he referred to himself as in total service of the audience, wanting to make them laugh, wanting to make their lives easier, even if he needs to paint himself as a sinner or dunce in order to do so. Still, he has his head on his shoulders. "There's a difference between acting a fool and being a fool," Finley said. "One means you're a really good actor because you can act crazy, and the other says, 'You're fucking crazy for real.'" Find me a preacher who'd admit that!

#interviews #robert finley #black bayou #easy eye sound #kenny brown #eric deaton #jeffrey clemens #dan auerbach #the black keys #christy johnson #laquindrelyn mcmahon #america's got talent #sharecropper's son

[thevintagevaultllc]

#1980s #studio art pottery #american art pottery #christy johnson #porcelain vase #collectible vase

[missamerican-pie]

#knives out #glass onion #Edward Norton #rian Johnson #Kathryn Hahn #Kate Hudson #Daniel Craig #Benoit Blanc #janelle Monae #glass onion movie #glass onion: a knives out mystery #lol #movies #Agatha Christie #lmao #funny tweets #tweets #twitter #twitter jokes #funny #meme

[artfulkindoforder]

Rian Johnson really said

#glass onion #poker face #natasha lyonne #knives out #rian johnson #agatha christie #detective novels

[esqueletosgays]

KNIVES OUT (2019)

Director: Rian Johnson Cinematography: Steve Yedlin

#knives out #entre facas e segredos #rian johnson #ana de armas #chris evans #daniel craig #jamie lee curtis #christopher plummer #don johnson #michael shannon #toni collette #katherine langford #jaeden martell #lakeith stanfield #murder mystery #glass onion #thriller #agatha christie #whodunnit #cinematography #film screencaps #film screenshots #movie screencaps #movie screenshots #film frames #movie frames #screencaps #screenshots

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Gwendoline Christie attends the BFI London Film Festival closing night gala for "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" at The Royal Festival Hall on October 16, 2022 in London, England.

#gwendoline christie #knives out #glass onion #glass onion: a knives out mystery #bfi #bfi london film festival #lff #lff2022 #rian johnson

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

I think we knew that a federal indictment of former president Donald Trump would elicit a collective primal scream from the right-wing fever swamp — and they have not disappointed.

In true Trump-era fashion, the response from most elected Republicans has been a collective whine about "unfairness" and the "weaponization" of the "deep state." Some have even gone so far as to at least hint around that it's a nice little country we have here, be a shame if anything happened to it. I would expect nothing less. This is how they roll.

There are, notably, a few dissenters from that party line.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney put out a statement saying that Trump "brought this on himself" and it's "consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest," which is true. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2024 GOP hopeful, said "these facts are devastating," which is also true. But they, and a handful of others, are outliers among GOP elected officials.

One very significant former GOP official has come out swinging, however:

There are a number of Trump defenses out there. But the main talking point, which we can assume was coordinated, is that this is a political prosecution engineered by President Biden to take out his most threatening political rival. And their main proof of this is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina probably articulated this the best, including the deployment of some very emotional righteous indignation:

He's not saying it's ok, he's just saying that Hillary Clinton got off so that cancels out Trump's crimes. Or something.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wi. says that Trump refused to prosecute Clinton but Joe Biden sent in a SWAT Team to torment Trump:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the same theme:

“Is there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let's enforce it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules.”

It wasn't a perfect defense of Trump but as long as he makes sure to condemn Hillary Clinton is probably good enough for the moment.

As much as I loathe the idea of re-litigating "but her emails," I'm sorry to say that it's necessary. There was almost no pushback to this talking point from the media, probably because they didn't get the Clinton story right in the first place. A few have since stepped up to point out that Clinton didn't refuse to cooperate with the government, as Trump did, although Trump and his accomplices will no doubt cry inanely about her "bleaching the emails" and "smashing the phones" and that will be enough to sustain the argument. Trump may even say "Russia, if you're listening" again. But those allegations are just plain silly and always have been. And the fact that she didn't obstruct the investigation is only part of the story.

As it happened, Clinton copied all work emails to the State Department system so they had them. The Justice Department inspector general issued a report in 2018 about the FBI Investigation and determined that the people tasked with marking documents as classified had not done so clearly. Moreover, only three email chains "contained any classification markings of any kind," and they were low-priority "call sheets" marked with the lowest priority of classification, which had info and details for Clinton to refer to when talking to a foreign leader. There were no nuclear secrets or war plans among them, needless to say.

The State Department under Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo did two separate investigations and found in 2019 that there was "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" and that Clinton bore no "individual culpability."

And let's dispense with the "magnanimous" Trump defense. Trump tried desperately to get the DOJ to investigate Clinton (and many others he considered his political enemies.) His White House counsel told him that the DOJ operated independently and if he ordered it there would be tremendous unrest from career officials and massive political blowback. That didn't stop him. He conspired with Matthew Whittaker, then an assistant to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get Sessions to assign a Special Counsel to investigate Clinton. In the end, they succeeded in getting Sessions to assign John Huber, a US Attorney in Utah to look into all the allegations against Clinton, including the bogus "Uranium One" scandal which had also already been dismissed. That investigation didn't turn up anything either.

Notably, when Bill Barr became Attorney General he looked into all of it and also came up with nothing. If anyone thinks that Barr wouldn't have prosecuted Clinton if he could have doesn't recall just how much he hates her guts. The evidence just wasn't there. So, the FBI, the DOJ Inspector General, two State Department probes, a Clinton-hating attorney general and a U.S. Attorney assigned to review all the evidence found that Clinton committed no crimes. (I'm not even counting the 10 Benghazi investigations which were the genesis of the email scandal ��- and also came up empty.)

I know your eyes have glazed over by this point and you wonder why in the world anyone should care about this. And frankly, we shouldn't have to. It's long settled ancient history. But the right's "whatboutism" and the media's continued unwillingness to acknowledge that, once the FBI determined there was no crime, there was no crime, I fear that a lot of people who aren't already down the right wing rabbit hole will be persuaded that this is a partisan prosecution simply because of the words "classified documents."

When former FBI Director James Comey held that first notorious press conference in the summer of 2016, in which he larded with inappropriate personal judgments about Clinton, he laid out the criteria the Justice Department uses when it decides whether to prosecute classified documents cases. He said:

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

Assuming they have proof of the charges in the Trump indictment, there can be little doubt that they met three of those four criteria, (the fourth being disloyalty to the United States which I believe to be true as well.) So when you see these Republicans emitting their epic whines about how unfair all this is because Hillary didn't get indicted, keep in mind that it wasn't for lack of Trump trying to get it done. It was because, unlike him, she didn't break the law. And even Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr couldn't find a way to make it so.

In case you were wondering, yes the House Republicans are considering a new investigation into —- you guessed it —- her emails. Because of course they are.

#us politics #news #op eds #salon #republicans #conservatives #donald trump #hillary clinton #sen. mitt romney #chris christie #Sen. Lindsey Graham #aaron rupar #tweet #bill barr #george stephanopoulos #Sen. Ron Johnson #Gov. Ron DeSantis #president joe biden #Rex Tillerson #mike pompeo #Matthew Whittaker #jeff sessions #John Huber #Uranium One scandal #benghazi committee #James Comey #2023

[artemisiatridentata]

coupla recent mending projects :)

(alt text in photos)

#darning is so addicting it makes me sound like a grandma but it’s true! #darning #darn #mending #visible mending #embroidery #also the patterns for the embroidered flowers are from the book Mystical Stitches by Christi Johnson !! #my art #fiber art

[severe-intense-gaze]

【movie edit】 Romantic love in David Lean films — BORN TO DIE

Flames of passion, coming shortly.

I don’t want to make it too sentimental so I almost only include happy footages so no motorcycle etc.

#david lean #movieedit #filmedit #brief encounter #lawrence of arabia #doctor zhivago 1965 #Ryan’s daughter #summertime 1955 #madeleine 1950 #classic movies #celia johnson #trevor howard #peter o'toole #omar sharif #julie christie #katharine hepburn #sarah miles

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

#LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971) #HAMMER FILMS #Hammer horror #Barbara Jefford #Ralph Bates #Suzanna Leigh #yutte stensgaard #michael johnson #Helen Christie #Mike Raven #Pippa Steel #Harvey Hall #Jonathan Cecil #Christopher Neame #vampires #vampire horror #watching

[tomorrowusa]

The Saturday Night Live version of the third Republican debate was more entertaining than the original. Though they missed an opportunity by leaving out Nikki Haley calling Vivek Ramaswamy "scum".

#republicans #third republican debate #republican presidential nomination #election 2024 #donald trump #nikki haley #vivek ramaswamy #ron desantis #tim scott #chris christie #james austin johnson #kenan thompson #snl #saturday night live #Youtube

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

Actors I want to see in future Knives Out movies:

Tom Hiddleston

Brian Tyree Henry

Jason Schwartzman

Jeffrey Wright

Michelle Yeoh

Cate Blanchett

Gwendoline Christie

#knives out #rian johnson #glass onion #tom hiddleston #cate blanchett #brian tyree henry #jeffrey wright #michelle yeoh #jason schwartzman #gwendoline christie #daniel craig #benoit blanc #netflix #movies #film

[parkersgnome]

This is just a joke

#bully scholarship edition #canis canem edit #beatrice trudeau #pinky gauthier #cornelius johnson #gord vendome #trent northwick #mandy wiles #kirby olsen #vance medici #lola lombardi #mrs lisburn #christy martin #angie ng #eunice pound #bullworth gays #bullworth girls #bullworth academy

[jiriceks]

ahhh so kent just needed time with his bestie

#cbj #kent johnson #jake christiansen #kent #christy

[eternal--returned]

Christie prowled around his mind that night, as so often.

B. S. Johnson ֍ Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (1973)

#b. s. johnson #christie malry's own double-entry #bookshelf #quotes

[enthusiasticenthusiast]

UNSEEN BULLWORTH HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

because i think they all deserve something and this is mostly for the year after the game 🤷‍♀️

Bullies:

based on troy dressing up as edna, i think that the rest of them would have coordinated other teachers based on pulling straws and getting to pick from there. they looked something like this:

russell: dr crabblesnitch

trent: mr galloway

tom: neil

wade: mr slawter

ethan: mr hattrick

davis: ms phillips (he got the shortest straw)

Nerds:

let’s face it. besides thad, donald and beatrice (who was a scientist) they were all their G&G characters. they went all out with props

Greasers:

with vance being a pirate, i feel like the rest of the greasers put time periods into a hat and pulled them out at random, there were too few that they could think of though so lucky put a pumpkin on his head. the results were:

johnny: 1500s king (he asked lola to be the queen)

peanut: viking

norton: middle ages knight

ricky: highway man

lefty: victorian chimney sweep

Preps:

obviously pinky was the princess and parker was a vampire so i imagine the others were the same. derby, gord and justin were princes whilst bryce, bif, tad and chad were vampires. chad even dressed chester in a bat costume

Jocks:

horror. movie. villains. damon and casey were the only exceptions with them being an astronaut and demon

ted: ghostface

bo: jason voorhees

dan: hannibal lecter

kirby: was originally john kramer but is now the jigsaw puppet because he makes the wheelchair look like the bicycle - it’s so cool

mandy: annie wilkes

luis: michael myers

juri: freddy krueger

Non-clique:

there’s no backstory behind them really, there all just a general array but ray, lance, christy and ivan all teamed together to do a DC comics theme

eunice: fairy princess (similar to the christmas one)

sheldon: mummy (with pedro)

karen, gloria and melody: the powerpuff girls

lance: joker

ray: oswald cobblepot

christy: cat woman

ivan: batman

constantinos: nothing. he hates halloween and stayed in his dorm all night

#bully anniversary edition #bully canis canem edit #gary smith #bully scholarship edition #bully cce #jimmy hopkins #beatrice trudeau #bryce montrose #bif taylor #cornelius johnson #johnny vincent #casey harris #christy martin #tom gurney #trent northwick #derby harrington