Radio Free California Episode 2143, and some notes about Colin Powell

 

New music! This week includes a couple of unlikely sources (Prince, David Bowie), welcome sources (Adele, Tom Morello, Soul Rash, Finneas) and some fave I've introduced you to this year like The Ceys, Hugh Lee, Hinds, Twelve Foot Ninja ans so much more! Enjoy!

Here is this week's list of artists, with twitter handles unless otherwise marked (save for Prince and David Bowie who don't have Social Media, for obvious reasons):

@tmorello with @Refused and @Lyxzenofficial
@scarypockets with @erickrasno
@WhoisHughLee
Prince
David Bowie
@kylemcevoymusic with @zachezzy, Smile High and of course the fantastic Antwaun Stanley
@Adele
@RemergeBand (who blocked me on twitter - I may have blocked them too as we had a disagreement - but I like this song)
Madskynorway (Facebook)
@ceys_music
@SoulRashtheband
@JasonIsbell with Steve Gorman
@NeilYoungNYA and Crazy Horse
@NicoleAtkins
@hindsband
@TAUKband
@coldplay with @bts_bighit
@WarehamDean
@finneas
onetwothree_band (Instagram)
@Hayden_Thorpe
@TwelveFootNinja
@secretlyfurious
@MikeDawesMusic with Jack Gardiner and @plinirh
@JasonIsbell again with @brandicarlile and @julienrbaker
and once again @JasonIsbell with Peter Levin (and I should point out that any band that covers "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" is going to get noticed by me)
@p_menis

A quick story from a while ago:

In early 2002 the State Department of the United States, under the direction of Colin Powell, put out a call to bilingual business professionals to come work for him at the State Department. There would be a test, then interviews. Although I despised George W. Bush, I still respected General Powell (this was before he debased himself in front of the UN to sell the idea of war in Iraq) and in the uncertain months after 9/11 I asked if they needed people who speak Japanese. They did. I do. I applied.

The test was easy. A few weeks after that, I was flown to Washington DC for a series of interviews. I was fast-tracked because of my heavy business experience in multiple industries and because they wouldn't have to teach me a language - I could be posted within 2 months. I could move myself and my family - which was my goal at the time.

After three days of interviews and sessions they said they would tell me where they wanted to post me. Osaka? Tokyo? Okinawa? Hokkaido?

YEMEN.

I speak Japanese rather fluently. That was the whole idea behind applying for this in the first place. No, we want you in Yemen.

Take a moment and google what Yemen was like in 2002. I'll wait.

I was married with two young children. I wasn't going to drag them to fucking Yemen. I said so, albeit more politely. I wasn't going to leave them behind either. I'm not that kind of father or husband.

They were rather insistent about it. So I tanked my final interview on purpose, with Colin Powell listening in on a speakerphone. Japan or nothing. I got nothing.

I never met the man in person, and all he ever got to think about me is that I'm a complete fuck-up. You know what? I'm okay with that.

On a side note, my wife and younger daughter both met him many years later on a flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C, and they said he was friendly and easy-going.

General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and mostly respectable man died today of complications from COVID-19. He was fully vaccinated according to his family, and of course the anti-vaxxers are jumping all over that. Never mind the fact the the man was elderly, very sick with the worst cancer imaginable (blood cancer), had a heart condition, It's important to also note that COVID itself didn't kill him - but catching it when already so sick certainly wasn't good for him.

Okay, that sounded a lot better in my head than on the page. You get what I mean. He was already in Walter Reed when he caught COVID. As much as I hate to say it, COVID probably only sped things up by a few days. Hey, look at me arm-chair doctoring! 

Okay, reel it the fuck back in. I'm not a TV Pundit for a reason.

No matter what you may have thought of the man, he was a leader and accomplished historic things long before the Iraq fiasco. He was the real deal.

He didn't deserve this. Any of this.

Because I love you, here is the video that led me to discovering Tauk, featured above: