HBO Game of Thrones Recap: The Wars to Come

"The freedom to make my own mistakes is all I ever wanted."

Well we're back. Season Five is underway. We open up with a flashback memory as ten year old Cersei bullies her friend into accompanying her to visit a local witch who can supposedly see the future. Using the ever effective threat of an angry Tywin Lannister, the young Cersei makes the witch tell of Cersei's future. It's grim. Not only will she not marry Prince Rhaegar but her future husband will be a king who has twenty children while she will only have three. All of her children will have golden crowns and golden shrouds. A younger more beautiful queen will eventually cast Cersei down. This prophecy helps explain why Cersei, who clearly was already a bad seed as a child, has become such a paranoid and vindictive adult with an especial dislike for Margaery. Visiting her father's body before the public viewing, Cersei blames Jaime for releasing Tyrion and urges him to find their little brother. Jaime is well aware that Tywin's death will embolden Lannister enemies. Twyin was a bada$$ but now he's just a dead bada$$. At the wake Cersei can barely tolerate the fake condolences and murmurs of support. She's drinking herself into numbness. Cersei is stunned to see her cousin and former lover Lancel, who has joined the religious fundamentalist group known as the Sparrows. Judging by Lancel's appearance these people appear to be into poverty, chastity and bad haircuts. Lancel tells Cersei that he truly regrets playing "Mama's got a squeezebox" with a close relative and one who was married. He also is contrite about helping her to murder the king. He wants her forgiveness and for her to confess her sins. Unsurprisingly, Cersei is not huge on the whole confession thingie and denies knowing what Lancel is talking about. To be fair, confession really didn't work out so well for Ned Stark, now did it?

Margaery may pretend innocence with King Tommen but we're reminded again it's all an act when we see her interrupt Loras and his lover. Showing a disturbing lack of respect for familial privacy Margaery sits on the bed and forces the other man to leave. She wants to talk to Loras in private. She tells Loras that he should be more discreet with his boy toys but Loras sees no reason to do that now that Tywin is dead and Loras' forced marriage to Cersei is likely off. In fact the more open Loras is about his sexuality the lower the chances of marrying Cersei are. Loras feels liberated and unafraid. No dummy, Loras quickly realizes that Margaery wants Cersei married and far away from King's Landing and her. The siblings' interests are diverging. In the Vale Brienne is depressed about losing Arya and is venting her frustration on Podrick. She's tired of having him around and looking up to her. Podrick reminds her that she swore to find both Stark girls. Sansa (with Littlefinger) is traveling just a few hundred yards away from Brienne and Podrick. Lord Pervert and his charge have left Robin Arryn with Lord Royce after Littlefinger received a message which he notably declined to share with anyone. As Sansa later noticed, Littlefinger told Lord Royce they were going somewhere other than their true destination, which appears to be The North. We'll see. In Pentos while Tyrion grumbles over the indignity of spending the entire sea voyage in a box and the horrors of having murdered Tywin and Shae, Varys plays him the world's smallest violin. 

Varys openly admits that he's been working for the restoration of the Targaryens because Robert Baratheon was a crappy king. He thinks that Tyrion could help with that goal. Varys, like Littlefinger, is a remarkably pragmatic individual, though he seems to lack Littlefinger's deliberate cruelty. Or does he? I mean who could have predicted that a released Tyrion would confront and kill Tywin? In Meereen, an Unsullied soldier goes to a brothel. He just wants some snuggling but once he relaxes he's murdered by a pro-slavery reactionary. These people are known as the Sons of the Harpy. Missandei queries Grey Worm as to why an Unsullied would go to a brothel. This is her way of asking Grey Worm if he just lost his berries or did he lose root and stem. Grey Worm declines to answer THAT question. Daenerys continues to learn that leadership doesn't just mean that everyone does what you say. Hizdahr zo Loraq has returned from Yunkai and pronounced the diplomacy a success. He and the leaders of Yunkai do have one request though. They want to reopen the fighting pits, this time with free men, instead of slaves, though in truth almost of the fighters will be former slaves. Finding the idea abhorrent Daenerys peremptorily refuses.

However later after her special "adult time" with Daario, she learns from Daario that the fighting pits are part of the culture. Daario's a veteran of the pits. He thinks the pits were a good thing. Daario suggests that Daenerys show her strength not by keeping the fighting pits closed but rather by openly displaying the dragons again. Daenerys visits the cave where she chained two of her dragons. They're larger than before and don't exactly appear happy to see their "mother". If you think unruly mastiffs are an issue try having untrained dragons. You are probably aware that people give each other a look when they want to do the do. Melisandre, appearing like she stepped out of an erectile dysfunction commercial, gives that look to Jon Snow when she summons him from training to meet Stannis. She even inquires if he is a virgin, and is pleased to learn that he isn't. Mercifully Stannis isn't interested in Jon's sex life but rather his political value. Stannis reminds Jon that Jon is the illegitimate son of Ned Stark. The traitor Roose Bolton, who murdered Jon's brother Robb Stark, now holds Winterfell. As everyone who saw Roose murder Robb is either dead or allied with the cautious Roose, one wonders exactly how Stannis would know these precise details. Did the normally circumspect Roose send out messages boasting that he stabbed Robb through the heart? Anyway Jon isn't having it, reminding Stannis, Davos and Melisandre that he is a member of the Night's Watch and thus beyond revenge or inheritances.

Davos points out that Jon is not necessarily a well liked member of the Night's Watch, particularly by such men as Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt. As Jon won't be tempted by Winterfell, Stannis appeals to his sense of compassion for the wildlings. Stannis intends to dispose of Roose Bolton but needs additional men to do that. He wants to add the wildings to his army. In return he will allow them to settle south of the Wall and become citizens. It's a good deal. But Stannis being Stannis he insists that the wildling leader Mance bend the knee. Convinced that the wellbeing of the wildings is more important than any principle, Jon tries to persuade Mance Rayder to kneel to Stannis and to authorize the wildings to fight for Stannis. In the episode's most powerful and moving scene Mance bluntly refuses. Jon accuses him of putting his pride above everything else. Mance rejects that frame. It's not about his personal pride. To bend the knee to a king would be to betray the whole Free Folk ethos. Mance would lose his people's respect and involve them in someone else's war. Why should they bleed for other people? Mance embodies the New Hampshire state motto. Stannis respects this but still orders Melisandre, arrayed in her typical cleavage bearing gown, to burn Mance alive. Disgusted, Jon puts Mance out of his misery before the flames can finish doing their work.

What I liked

• As Jaime pointed out, Tywin can't inspire fear from beyond the grave. Without the dominant personality of Tywin to compel obedience, many people will feel entitled to push back against the dwindling(?) Lannister power. 
• It's one thing to die in battle. You may never see the sword or spear with your name on it. But to be imprisoned and have time to consider your own death is another thing entirely. Mance is scared because being burned alive is a horrible fate. But like any martyr he holds true to his beliefs even at the cost of his own life. How many people would do such a thing? 
• Varys being atypically confident and direct with Tyrion. No simpering. Straight honest talk. 
• Daenerys initially claiming that as she wasn't a politician she did not need to worry about pleasing people or making alliances. After all she won. Well like every other executive, elected or not, she will see that it's always easier when people buy into your program. 
• The calmness of the fanatic/true believer as exemplified by Melisandre and Lancel is disturbing. They simply aren't able to be reasoned with or influenced by material considerations. You are either with them or against them. Period.

What I didn't like

• I wonder if the producers were sensitive to charges of too much female nudity. Anyhow this episode had more male butt than a toilet seat in a Turkish bathhouse. Not really my thing but if you like seeing this, this was an episode you didn't want to miss. 
• Varys was too chatty with Tyrion . It seemed a bit too much out of character. It felt like an unnecessary information dump. 
• Tyrion's self-pity party.

*This post is written for discussion of this episode and previous episodes.  If you have book based knowledge of future events or have seen future leaked episodes please be kind enough not to discuss that here.  NO SPOILERS. NO BOOK DERIVED HINTS ABOUT FUTURE EVENTS. Most of my blog partners have not read the books and would take spoilers most unkindly. Heads, spikes, well you get the idea....

Book Reviews: Suspicion

Suspicion

by Joseph Finder

This was a very quick read and satisfying mystery/thriller story. A few characters are underdeveloped but fortunately they're not critical ones. I picked up this book on sale. A few twists were predictable; many others weren't. I enjoyed Suspicion. As we have discussed before the executive branch of the Federal Government, via its agencies such as the DoJ, the IRS, the DEA and the FBI among others, has a tremendous amount of flexibility to prosecute and effectively even define crime. Most of us citizens smallfolk do not have hundreds of thousands of dollars in our money market accounts, millions more in stock or bond mutual funds and incredibly skilled, connected and aggressive $800/hr defense attorneys on speed dial. I can't call a US Senator or Cabinet Secretary on his or her private line and snarl at them to tell some overaggressive US Attorney to back up off me or else. So for the average schmuck the Federal Government can bring a frightening amount of resources to compel co-operation. The average person usually won't win fighting the federal government and doesn't even have the wherewithal to try. Do you have $250K to give as a retainer to a lawyer before he or she will even look at your case? Most people don't. Danny Goodman is such an average person. He's a widowed single father in the Boston area who's raising his teen daughter on his own. Danny writes historical biographies. Danny's income stream is unpredictable. But Danny loves his daughter Abby very much even though she often annoys him (and vice versa). Danny has enrolled Abby in a very expensive private school, which he can't really afford. It's far beyond his means but pride and love can make parents do things that may not make financial sense. Danny can't pay for Abby to take school field trips abroad. He's behind on tuition, and it's not the first time.

Although Danny tries to hide his financial condition from Abby, Abby is only young, not stupid. At school, Danny runs into Thomas Galvin, the parent of Abby's best friend. The two men bond together. They have similar ethnic and class backgrounds. Like Danny, Thomas grew up lower middle class/poor in South Boston. 

Thomas Galvin is among the richest men in the Boston area. Thomas owns a hedge fund and is worth hundreds of millions. When Thomas learns that Danny might have to pull Abby from the school he insists on providing an emergency $50,000 loan to cover tuition plus anything else Danny needs. Danny can't decline this consideration because the unpleasant school headmistress is virtually salivating at the prospect of kicking Abby out. Thomas is delighted that his sensitive daughter Jenna won't lose Abby as a friend. 

Upon accepting the loan however, Danny is braced by two officious and bullying DEA agents who claim that the mild mannered classic rock fan Thomas is really the North American investment manager for the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel. By accepting the wired money Danny has just opened himself up to multiple charges of money laundering, wire fraud, tax evasion, racketeering conspiracy and anything else the two agents can find that might apply. Either Danny becomes a cooperating witness and gets actionable evidence of Thomas' criminal activities or the agents will arrest Danny. They'll go to trial where the Feds have a 95% conviction rate. Danny can then enjoy spending the next thirty years in federal prison trying to convince hardened criminals that he's not a snitch and doesn't want to play hide the salami. The DEA agents don't really care. So Danny decides to cooperate. This is no spoiler as it happens almost immediately. It's what occurs afterwards which makes Suspicion a worthwhile read. Danny can't trust anyone. He doesn't know how to plant bugs on Thomas' phone or accomplish the other things the DEA orders him to do. He's a naif thrown into deep shark infested waters. Danny must navigate the cautions of Thomas and his family and the uncertainty of Danny's girlfriend Lucy. Danny's fears deepen when he watches some internet videos displaying how the cartels deal with witnesses. Throughout Suspicion, Finder ratchets up Danny's tension and worry. I would have liked to have seen a few events from Thomas' or Celina's (Thomas' wife) POV. I appreciated the theme of a man who makes one mistake and finds himself being controlled by powerful malign forces. This is more thriller than mystery but if you are a fan of either genre you might enjoy this story. You can finish this book in 2-3 days. It's a page turner. The prose is not dense.

As with the Taken movies I was amused by narrative incidents when a spouse or girlfriend became angry at her husband or boyfriend because he lied to her or omitted details in order to keep her safe (as he saw it). I can understand that emotion but the proper time to discuss issues of sharing, trust and intimacy probably isn't when the bad guys are closing in on the family. This would make a good movie. 

Sesame Street: Game of Chairs and Jon Snow: Dinner Guest

Do you remember watching Sesame Street as a child? Sometimes things are so silly that you just have to laugh. The next ruler of Jesteros will have to play and win the Game of Chairs....(cue music)

Speaking of silly I didn't realize how intense and serious Kit Harrington's cadence is as Jon Snow until he was invited as a dinner guest by Seth Meyers. Depressed and orphaned Night's Watch members apparently make pretty bad dinner guests. Who knew?

And here are some more quick draw summaries for your enjoyment. 

Season Four Recap.

                               

The life of Catelyn Stark

                         

The life of The Hound

                            

Kendrick Lamar, Skin Tones and Personal Choice

There is no reason, as an older mentor once advised me, for anyone to worry about what’s on another man's or woman’s plate. That just gets you agitated and envious. Your life won’t improve. Every person has different skills, gifts and characteristics which will attract people. What's a "must have" attribute to one person can easily be a "can't stand" quality for another. I recalled that advice when some Facebook friends shared what a self-described so-called “dark skinned activist” named Rashida Strober had to say about the upcoming nuptials of rapper Kendrick Lamar and his fiancée, one Whitney Alford. Now I don't listen to Kendrick Lamar's music. I couldn't care less about who he is sleeping with or his marriage plans. This news didn't put any money in my pocket or make me sleep better at night. But I thought the idiotic response by this alleged activist was worth discussing if only because it is a view into a mindset that if not exactly widespread, does have a ugly tenacity, sort of like cockroaches or scabies. Now the normal response when you learn that someone will be getting married is either happiness for them (if you know them personally) or perhaps bemused indifference (if they happen to be one of the 7 billion people on the planet you don't know). However Rashida Strober decided to take the news of Lamar's engagement personally, very personally indeed. 
“Well, well, well would you looky here. ANOTHER FAKE CONSCIOUS MUTHERF-KER EXPOSED. I will never support him nor his music with one dime of my money and encourage all dark skinned women not to either!”

FAKE CONSCIOUS COON ASS RAPPER KENDRICK LAMAR PART 2.
I see calling out and exposing self hating fake black men who speak about consciousness but date and marry NON DARK SKIN WOMEN brought you haters to my page. WELL SHARE THIS MUTHERF**ING POST!!! These type of fake coons are the worst of the worst. DARK SKIN is the essence of true blackness and if these fakers were really and truly conscious they would MARRY DARK SKINNED WOMEN!!! You pissed ?? GOOD!!!

LINK

These ugly words really tell you more about what’s in her head than what’s in Kendrick's. It’s a fact that “black people” come in various different skin tones and facial features. Children in the same family with the same parents can and do vary in skin tones. In the US, at least any sort of visible or acknowledged African ancestry has usually caused the possessor of such ancestry to be identified as "Black" by others and more importantly, Tiger Woods not withstanding, often to self-identify as Black. Other than Kendrick Lamar himself or people who are very close to Kendrick Lamar, no one knows all the reasons why and how Lamar fell in love with this woman. So to reduce his reasons for loving her to just her skin tone seems silly. But I will go further. Even if Kendrick's fiancée were Caucasian with translucent skin it would still not be anybody’s business other than the couple’s as to why and how they fell in love. Life is very short. Too short. Love is a very private and personal thing. It’s not something that should be weighed or measured by others. The political is not necessarily the personal. Someone's commitment to justice, however that is defined, is simply not measured by the level of melanin in their boo's skin. Anyone stupid enough to say that dark skin is somehow the essence of "true blackness" must not have heard of Walter White, Kathleen Cleaver, Julian Bond, Angela Davis, Randall Robinson, Nelson Mandela, Diane Nash or brother Malcolm..

The only reason to be concerned about someone else's romantic choices is if that person rejected you or cheated on you. Obviously you may have nasty thoughts about seeing that person with someone else. But we all deal with rejection. The resulting sadness or anger should only be temporary. Sure, some people's "temporary" may last for a few years. But we should always remember that we do not own anyone else’s good thing. To paraphrase Little Milton, when the good Lord made one (wo)man , Hallelujah, don’t you know that He made two. The world is full of acceptable partners. I just can't understand getting upset about the romantic choices of strangers. Some people live vicariously through celebrities. But that is a dumb way to live your life. You should find your own pathway through life and allow others to do the same. This woman Strober obviously has had pain in her past. Well so has everyone else. That's no excuse for being stupid or controlling. Has this Strober raised a fuss about Eve, Halle Berry, Rihanna, Mellody Hobson or several other black women who have found love with men who are significantly lighter or rather whiter than they are? I'm guessing not. Internalized racism and the need to control other people are horrible sins. But the sheer narcissism on display here (you must marry someone who looks like me otherwise you're a horrible person) is somewhere between amusing and horrifying in its scope. This is bad thinking. 

Jackie's UVA Rolling Stone Rape Allegation Falls Apart

It should scarcely need to be said but obviously rape is one of the worst crimes a person can commit, second only to murder. So society should do its best to prevent rape and failing that, to punish rape harshly. You may recall that a while back we did a skeptical post on the fact that Rolling Stone magazine was forced to retract its story about a gang rape at UVA. Since that time the local police looked into the story. They did everything in their power to avoid saying that "Jackie", the alleged victim, was lying. What they did say is that there was no substantive basis to support her story. Similarly Rolling Stone outsourced an investigation of its journalistic process and procedures surrounding this story to Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The School recently released its report. The report wasn't good in the same way that someone who comes home with 6 F's and one D on her report card didn't have a good semester. You can read the very long Columbia report for yourself if you are so inclined. For those of you who do not have the time or interest to read through 12,000 words let's just say that the report calmly eviscerates the lax reporting, fact checking and editorial standards at Rolling Stone magazine. If Erdely had called Kathryn Hendley and Alex Stock – their true names – to check their sides of Jackie's account of Sept. 28 and 29, they would have denied saying any of the words Jackie attributed to them (as Ryan would have as well). They would have described for Erdely a history of communications with Jackie that would have left the reporter with many new questions. For example, the friends said that Jackie told them that her date on Sept. 28 was not a lifeguard but a student in her chemistry class named Haven Monahan. (The Charlottesville police said in March they could not identify a UVA student or any other person named Haven Monahan.) All three friends would have spoken to Erdely, they said, if they had been contacted.

I always thought that "Jackie" was making stuff up. Let's say I said I'm going on a date. I show you a picture of my date and it's a 1970s picture of Pam Grier. I state that this woman is not Pam Grier but rather an old high school classmate whom I haven't seen in decades. You might reasonably conclude that I was lying through my teeth. This would especially be the case after you tracked down that old high school classmate and she told you that she hadn't talked to me since high school and had never dated me. 

Unfortunately similar to witch trials or child abuse accusations we have allowed the country and its institutions of higher learning among others to become infected with the feminist idea that to even question a rape victim's story is proof of a misogynistic and rape apologist mindset. If a story can't be questioned and can't be weighed against alternate explanations, then how can we have a justice system? An accusation should be enough. Whether we're talking criminal charges, civil suits or journalism, a small but healthy amount of skepticism is important to keep close at hand. When someone already has a strong pov about an issue as Sabrina Rubin Erdely clearly did, it's essential to watch out for confirmation bias and ensure that questions are asked which will challenge the hypothesis.

You may hear some people saying that we should automatically believe victims. Well that's well and good for people I know intimately. I will believe them if they tell me that X happened. But for everyone else I'm going to require some level of proof. And I would certainly expect that other people who don't know me or mine would feel the same way. I wouldn't be offended if you were non-committal in automatically believing something you were told by someone I knew well but you did not know at all. It's why we have society wide procedures set up to determine if someone was a victim in the first place. It's only after that critical fact has been determined when we can start "believing victims" or "helping victims find their voice" or so forth and so on. Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner has so far stood by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the freelance writer of the untrue article, as well as the other editors and supervisors involved in this nonsense. Erdely will continue to write for the magazine. No one will lose their job. This is of course completely ridiculous. It shows how deep the rot has gone in traditional media. Too many readers and viewers no longer care what the truth is. They just want to have their biases supported. Every event must be placed into service to one or another ideological goal, no matter how much fact-bending or "truthiness" must be deployed. Even though Jackie is an apparent liar some people are trying to place all the blame on Rolling Stone. They simply can't find it in themselves to say Jackie lied.

We all have biases. I am not overly fond of police officers. If I were on a jury where there was strong evidence of police misconduct, the accused had better hope God has mercy on him because I surely won't. But if there is equally strong or even stronger evidence that the person accusing the police officer of a crime is lying then I have to vote to acquit. It doesn't matter how much of a problem I think police brutality is in society. Truth is more important than "social justice". Women who lie about rape do a disservice to everyone. They should own that. The fraternity is apparently going to sue Rolling Stone magazine. I don't know how much of a case they will have. Legal experts can give their opinion. But if that is the only way to make Rolling Stone change its practices, then I'm all in favor. It's important that rape victims come forward. It's also important that liars and hoaxers be revealed as such.

Music Reviews: Little Milton

Little Milton

James "Little Milton" Campbell (1934-2005) was best known and marketed as a blues musician and singer. However, placing him solely in this category was by his own admission somewhat problematic. Little Milton grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry and could have been the next Charley Pride. He was a lifelong country music fan. When he turned to blues in his teens and early twenties, blues was already morphing into rock-n-roll and post-war R&B. On the surface, Little Milton's sound, especially by the sixties and later, was different from the older music pioneered by Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Jimmy Reed. Little Milton knew, respected and occasionally worked with the older musicians. Once, before a concert, Little Milton told Howling Wolf that he admired Wolf's expensive flashy cuff links. After the show Howling Wolf called Little Milton over and gave him the cuff links as a gift, jokingly warning him the next time Little Milton saw Wolf with something nice on, to keep his admiration to himself. Little Milton's musical arrangements and vocal timbre, (similar to that of BB King who was an influence), owed much to jazz, jump blues and the burgeoning soul and funk genres. Little Milton worked the same circuit as performers like Tyrone Davis, Bobby Bland and Wilson Pickett. So Little Milton was almost completely overlooked by white audiences during the sixties blues revival as he was not DORF. Unlike many other black blues artists Little Milton retained a solid, though declining popularity with black blues and soul audiences. Through the seventies and beyond his bands would always open with hits by contemporary black performers such as Earth Wind and Fire, The Commodores, Michael Jackson and Prince. He received little attention from the white blues market until very late in life. Life is funny like that. It's odd that different groups who will show up together at a sports event will often decline to attend a concert if either group thinks that too many of THOSE OTHER PEOPLE will be there. But so it goes.

Little Milton, BB King and Albert King 1970 Memphis

Little Milton had a rich smooth creamy baritone voice. But so did many other singers. But few people had Little Milton's vocal range and control. For Little Milton his voice truly was an instrument. He had the same amount of power whether he was singing in a velvet whisper or letting loose with one of his trademark bass to falsetto screams. If Little Milton had been born a different race or in a different time period he may well have become an opera singer. But he was born a black man in pre-war Mississippi so he became a bluesman. As far as guitar Little Milton was influenced by such heavyweights as T-Bone Walker, Ike Turner (who discovered him and got him his first record contract), BB King, Eddie Cusic and Joe Willie Wilkins. As alluded to earlier, because Little Milton's voice was so spectacular, a lot of his recordings, particularly during the sixties, featured his singing far more than his guitar playing. During live shows he would often not even put on his guitar until a third of the way through the show. So some people who were just there for guitar pyrotechnics might have missed out if they left early. Their loss. His live work would often feature a heavier thicker tone than he used for recording.  Little Milton understood that you can't have the volume and excitement turned all the way up or all the way down all the time. His approach was very dynamic. What makes me passionate about blues is how its best practitioners can use tension and release to move you adroitly through very different emotional states. Listen to Spring to hear what I am trying to express. Milton holds vocal notes for 12 seconds or more (!) and occasionally does the same thing with his guitar. 

There were about five major musical periods to Little Milton's work.
(A) Sun Records in the early fifties
(B) Bobbin and Meteor records in the late fifties
(C) Chess Records in the early to late sixties
(D) Stax Records in the late sixties and early seventies
(E) Malaco, Rounder and Evidence Records
My favorite work tends to be the Stax releases, which I think saw a balance between guitar and vocals, popular and classic, which wasn't reached before or since. But with Little Milton you can't go too wrong with much of his recorded output. If you like blues or soul but think that too many guitarists overplay then Little Milton might be someone you should hear. He very rarely overplayed and usually left audiences wanting more. He wasn't just doing 12 bar blues. Little Milton sometimes evinced frustration with audiences who only wanted to hear that or bands who were limited to that style. Little Milton's music always had a very strong groove and swing. I took this for granted but when I heard some rock groups cover his music the missing elements were painfully obvious. Occasionally I even listen to some of the sickly sweet love/pop songs he did at Chess. He was occasionally unfairly dismissed as a BB King clone. Little Milton worked very hard to find his own voice. He thought others should do the same. Little Milton, like some of his contemporaries such as Sam Cooke and James Brown, asserted control over his career. He managed and produced himself and later handled his own bookings and publishing, a rare feat in the music industry then and now. As he said of learning the business of music "Well, every artist should do that if they're capable of doing it. It'll keep you from being a total fool." He also strongly disdained the stereotype of an ignorant drunk disheveled black musician. Little Milton believed in taking care of business. He and his wife booked and promoted such artists as Tyrone Davis, Denise LaSalle, and Millie Jackson. And they did so for a much lower percentage than other promoters.

In the Wilson Pickett styled I Play Dirty Little Milton boasts to women that he "hits hard below the belt" and that they will "come back for more". This song was actually atypical for him because in most of his songs he was the one doing the begging. The 1958 song I'm A Lonely Man does sound similar to contemporary BB King work. Little Milton has said at that time he was just trying to get his name out there and play whatever was popular. I like the jazzy jump blues sound of She Put A Spell On Me. My favorite Little Milton song is his take on the Otis Redding ballad That's How Strong My Love Is. There's no guitar solo to speak of but his singing is truly sublime. The strings are a nice touch. That song has been proven in all 50 states to cause men to spontaneously propose marriage or women to suddenly conceive. Strong stuff. If you listen to no other song, you should listen to that one. On the other hand if you really want to hear Little Milton stretch out on guitar check out the live versions of That's What Love Will Make You Do and Tell Me It's Not True. His tone is round, crunchy and full without being too harsh or trebly. He explores the entire sonic range of the guitar, a novel idea which unfortunately is lost to most blues guitarists today. If You Talk In Your Sleep finds Little Milton cautioning his married lover not to spill the beans to her husband. I think most blues/soul fans are familiar with Little Milton's version of the Little Willie John song All Around The World or as it was known in Little Milton's remake, Grits Ain't Groceries. And Little Bluebird shows all the elements of the Little Milton sound, classy uptown horns, string section, strong deep bass, a guitar sound equally glassy and distorted and powerful masculine vocals that hold notes FOREVER.

Spring (Live at Montreux)  That's How Strong My Love Is That's What Love Will Make You Do
If You Talk In Your Sleep Walking The Backstreets And Crying 
Tell Me It's Not True (Live at Montreux) 
Grits Ain't Groceries (aka All Around The World) I'm A Lonely Man
Let Me Down Easy(Live at Montreux) I Can't Quit You Baby (Live) I Wonder Why  Steal Away
I Play Dirty So Mean To Me Little Bluebird She Put A Spell On Me Feel So Bad
We're Gonna Make It I'd Rather Go Blind I Can't Quit You Baby
You're Gonna Make Me Cry  His Old Lady And My Old Lady  The Blues Is Alright
My Dog And Me (w/Gov't Mule)

Student Loan Repayment Strike

I went to college in the Pleistocene epoch when colleges did not cost as much as they do today. I was fortunate enough to have an almost full academic scholarship, some money saved from summer jobs, access to Pell grants and finally a supportive and demanding father who would and did move heaven and earth to ensure that I graduated on time with no excuses and no debts. The idea of taking out massive loans just to obtain an undergraduate degree was completely foreign to me. The world has changed since the days of yore. It's much more difficult to obtain scholarships and grants. The cost of private and public colleges has skyrocketed. Free money has dried up. If you want to go to college and are not a child of either the 1% or parents who are obsessive savers, loans will likely be a large part of how you pay for your schooling. The obvious problem with loans, as opposed to scholarships, personal savings, grants and money from Mom and Dad, is that you have to pay the loans back. Nobody lends money with any other expectation. That's why they're called loans and not gifts. Although a college degree has increasingly become a requirement for a chance to enter the precarious middle class, it is also more important than ever to get the proper college degree from a respectable university. Just having the B.S. or B.A. behind your name isn't at all a guarantee of finding a good job, particularly if you are of visible/undeniable African descent , but that is a different post. Getting a BS degree from a BS university may only net you a BS job. Many people find this out the hard way when they graduate only to discover that their current skill sets and newly minted alleged education will get them a job that barely allows them to make rent and loan payments each month, if they're lucky. It is a financial pain in the tuchus to pay back student loans. Generally speaking, the loan can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Some former students or actual dropouts have decided that their best plan of action is to refuse to pay back their loans.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sarah Dieffenbacher is on a debt strike. She's refusing to make payments on the more than $100,000 in federal and private loans she says she owes for studies at a for-profit college that she now considers so worthless she doesn't include it on her resume. The "debt strike" sentiment is catching on. Calling themselves the "Corinthian 100" — named for the troubled Corinthian Colleges, Inc., which operated Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech before agreeing last summer to sell or close its 100-plus campuses — about 100 current and former students are refusing to pay back their loans, according to the Debt Collective group behind the strike.

They're meeting Tuesday with officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency that already has asked the courts to grant relief to Corinthian students who collectively have taken out more than $500 million in private student loans. The Education Department is the group's primary target, because they want the department to discharge their loans. A senior department official is scheduled to attend the meeting.

Dieffenbacher said she received an associate's degree in paralegal studies from Everest College in Ontario, California, and later went back for a bachelor's in criminal justice before later dropping out. She said she left school with about $80,000 in federal loans and $30,000 in private loans, but when she went to apply for jobs at law firms she was told her studies didn't count for anything.

Dieffenbacher, who works in collections for a property management company, said she was allowed at first to defer her loan payments, but now should be paying about $1,500 a month that she can't afford. Makenzie Vasquez, of Santa Cruz, California, said she left an eight-month program to become a medical assistant at Everest College in San Jose after six months because she couldn't afford the monthly fees. She said she owes about $31,000 and went into default in November because she hasn't started repayment.

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I've been around for a while now. I have financial obligations that can be tiresome. Sometimes people advised me to take or avoid a certain course of action. Sometimes I listened. Sometimes I didn't. Although not every decision I made worked well I can say that ultimately all of the decisions were mine. Once you're over 18 and certainly once you're over 21, you're an adult. You get to make your own choices. If you decided to attend a sketchy college and overpay for coursework of dubious value that's your fault. If you are wise you will learn from that choice and not do anything that foolish again. I'm not sure you should get a do-over. Although there are a few cases where they are arguably warranted, bailouts almost by definition come with a huge moral hazard problem. The people who get bailed out don't pay the costs of their foolish behavior and thus are more likely to repeat such bad behavior in the future. Additionally other people who are playing by the rules of the game start to feel like suckers. Rationally it may also make sense for them to ignore the rules and default on their debt if the consequences for doing so are no longer punitive. If too many people start to do this the interest rates and fees for loans will increase. Institutions will be less likely to make loans. In extreme situations the market will grind to a halt. But maybe that is the wrong way to look at this. Maybe we should examine this situation not through the lens of loan repayment but rather through consumer protection. If someone sells me something I didn't ask for or is totally worthless then I should have the ability to complain to a consumer protection agency and get some sort of relief. That is the argument the Corinthian 100 are making. If the education was fraudulent should they pay?

I am not 100% unsympathetic to this argument, just 90% unsympathetic. There is no guarantee that a college education will provide any particular individual a path to a well paid career. It's an important factor but ultimately just one among many. Connections, career interest, personal drive, intelligence and the larger economy all play a role. A college or graduate school may boast about its alumni salaries and income but all they are really selling you is an education. What you do with that education is up to you. Still, if someone just doesn't have the money they don't have the money. I would be willing to allow student debt to be discharged in bankruptcy, which is currently not the case. That requires a change in the law. But I would not be willing to allow someone to default just because they entered the real world and learned that they weren't a special snowflake. We do need to rethink how we finance higher education in this country. The structure of loan based financial aid may have done little more than give colleges incentives to raise tuition and salary packages.  There is more than $1 trillion in student debt. We can't keep on in this way. We will see more stories like this.

How do you see this story?

Should the Corinthian 100 be able to walk away from their debt?

Should everyone else be able to walk away from their mortgages or auto loans?