M Is FOR MASHUP - September 14th, 2011
The BOOTIE Top Ten (15) Mashups
By DJ Useo
Today we visit the veritable
center of the mashup scene. What I'm referring to is the biggest bootleg mashup party in the world.
( www.bootiemashup.com/ ) Every week for 8 years (!) in San Francisco A Plus D put on the great & infamous BOOTIE mashup concerts. To get a sense of how well these performances are recieved, we must simply acknowledge that they can take them on tour around the globe any time they wish. The reception is enormous! A regular feature of the BOOTIE shows is the
BOOTIE TOP TEN disc you get upon paying admission (& afterwards found as mp3 files at
bootiemashup.com/blog/category/top10 ) Adrian & The Mysterious D are the font from which all the mashup goodness flows. Their drive & ability enable the bootleg pursuits that people love so much. They hand pick the top ten mashups mentioned previously, displaying the same spot on musical awareness they bring to their own vastly popular mashup mixes. Let's take a look at the latest ten from August, & see what A Plus D regard as fine bootleg listening.
(A Plus D's words speak so well for themselves, I offer their words now)
01 - A PLUS D DOUBLE-SHOT
A Plus D - Party Rock Song 2 (LMFAO vs. Blur) - San Francisco
A Plus D - Gucci Gucci Girl Power (Kreayshawn vs. Toni Basil vs. Le Tigre vs. The Ting Tings vs. The Trashwomen vs. The Go-Go's) - San Francisco
Throwing at least five mashup parties a month doesn't always leave much time for actual mashup production, but we've been abnormally productive this past month. The first was an exclusive for the "Mash-Up Your Bootz Vol. 50? compilation. Remember guitars? We put the actual ROCK in "Party Rock Anthem." CHECK OUT THE VIDEO made by Tommy Papke!
The second features Kreayshawn, a hot, young, white female indie rapper from Oakland, CA who is blowing up right now. We had so many ideas for so many mashups - yes, rap really IS that easy to mash up - that we decided to combine several ideas into one track, connected by the fact that they're all female artists, spanning 30 years of music. Girl power! And as an added bonus, this may be a first: one of the backing artists in this mashup is The Trashwomen, an all-female, regionally-popular Cali surf-punk band from the '90s, which included Kreayshawn's mother on guitar. Yes, we mashed Kreayshawn up with … her MOM!
02 - DEPRESSING DECEASED DIVA DOUBLE-SHOT
DJs From Mars - November Rehab (Amy Winehouse vs. Guns N' Roses) - Torino, Italy
Production Unit - Intro Again (Aaliyah vs. the xx) - Glasgow, UK
Could these two mashups get any more depressing? Or poignant? Added pathos by the sheer fact that the singers in both these mashups died tragically too soon. And if you ever wondered if DJs From Mars could produce a traditional A+B mashup without their signature electro sound, your question has been answered. Their Amy Winehouse tribute nearly brought tears to our eyes. It's that beautiful … and heartbreaking. R.I.P. Amy and Aaliyah.
03 - Divide & Kreate - Dogmother (Danzig vs Rex the Dog) - Stockholm, Sweden
It's been a while since we've heard from Divide & Kreate, but he returns with an electro makeover for a rock classic. Who knew "Mother" could be so electronic and danceable? Don't tell Danzig!
04 - Dylan Vasey - OMG You Changed The Way You Kiss Me (Usher vs. Example) - London
We are loving this Example track - a huge hit in the UK, but still not even released in U.S. Perhaps a guest vocal by Usher will make it more palatable for American ears?
05 - "IT GETS BETTER" MASHUP!
Elastic Productions - Never Be Afraid To Be Who You Are (Glee Cast vs. Westlife vs. Oasis vs. Cat Stevens)
A previously undiscovered gem from "The 3rd World" mashup compilation - see, that's what happens when the meaningful slow songs are buried at the end. It's a beautiful, heartfelt mashup that could very easily be the anthem for the "It Gets Better" project for queer or questioning youth.
06 - G3rst - Cheated Luv (Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs. The Ordinary Boys) - The Netherlands
G3rst is known for his off-beat, creative mashups that often make use of underused source material and musical genres that other bootleggers won't touch. Here, he doesn't disappoint, turning the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tune into a jaunty, folksy ditty.
07 - Jimmy Klok - Drop Dead Pretty Girl Yeah! (Britney Spears vs. Keri Hilson vs. Chris Brown vs. Method Man vs. Cutting Crew) - Germany
Pure pop club gold from a German bootlegger making his first appearance on our Top 10. So very "now now now" … and guaranteed to make the Bootie dance floor move! This also contains a very humble *ahem* Keri Hilson vocal that cracks us up every time: "Don't hate me 'cuz I'm beautiful!" Super fun to sing along to.
08 - ELLIE GOULDING DUBSTEP/ELECTRO DOUBLE-SHOT
Kap Slap - E.T. Feels Starry Eyed (Ellie Goulding vs. Bill Posters vs. Katy Perry vs. Modestep vs. Stellamara vs. Empire Of The Sun vs. Busta Rhymes vs. Xilent) - Kentucky, USA
3LAU - All Night Long (Ellie Goulding vs. LMFAO vs. Mann vs. Felguk vs. Darth & Vader) - St. Louis, USA
Two producers from the Midwest mash up British songstress Ellie Goulding - among others - by giving her the clubby remix treatment. And yes, one of these is a dubstep track. I can't believe we've finally succumbed to including dubstep. It's incredibly trendy right now, but we've been hearing it at Burning Man for years … and have never really loved it. But tracks like this are warming us up to the genre (and the Ellie and Katy vocals help).
09 - Marc Johnce - Who Dat Addictive Bad S&M Girl (David Guetta feat. Taio Cruz & Ludacris vs. Flo-Rida feat. Akon vs. Britney Spears vs. Rihanna vs. Medina vs. Katy Perry vs. Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull) - Germany
With at least six songs mashed into one track, this doesn't do much to dispell the notion that "all pop songs today sound the same." But it DOES prove Marc Johnce's ample production talents! If you like dancefloor pop, this one's for you!
10 - Maya Jakobson vs. Lobsterdust - Deep Dream Control (Missy Elliott vs. Adele vs. Britney Spears vs. Stevie Nicks vs. Tchaikovsky) - Tel Aviv / New York City
We're giving away a "Bootie secret weapon" here. This is actually only HALF a new mashup on the Top 10, since Maya Jackobson's first half already appeared here a few months ago. But she wasn't the only one who discovered that Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" mashes seamlessly with Britney Spears' "Till The World Ends," as dozens of bootleggers have made the same track, including Lobsterdust, who included a surprise appearance by Stevie Nicks. So we combined our favorite parts for a mashup of the mashups! Fun fact: Both bootleggers are Israeli!
11 - Titus Jones - Hello Girl, Let's Party Til The End (Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette vs. Britney Spears vs. LMFAO vs. No Doubt vs. Sum 41 vs. Vanilla Ice) - Nashville
On the lead track off the "Mash-Up Your Bootz Vol. 5? compilation, our favorite bootlegger from Nashville, Titus Jones, knocks it out of the park , showcasing his signature mega-mash style. (BTW, is there a Britney Spears single this man has NOT mashed up?)
12 - DJ Topcat - Summertime In The City (Mos Def vs. Lovin' Spoonful) - Seattle
It's still summertime, so we just HAD to include this one, our favorite track off the annual "Summer Booty 2011? (no relation to Bootie) mashup compilation. Reminds us of hot summer days … which we don't really get in San Francisco! But we hope YOU are out there enjoying them!
Individual links available or full free zip file. You are truly blessed.
Now imagine bopping & writhing to these tracks & many more at the newest BOOTIE show! I hope to see you there.
BOOTIE!
( bootiemashup.com )
Mix Of The Week
Chris Macro's 'MACRO DUBPLATES VOL3 - BROOKLYN VS KINGSTON' is all that you could want. It goes through Old Dirty Bastard, Bob Marley, King Tubby, Beenie Man, Lee Perry, Buckshot and many more. This is Rocksteady-Rap at it's finest. Indeed. Enjoy
here
( chrismacro.com/vol3-available-now )
Mashup Tip : Take a mashup you think you can improve & do it! Any track. Credit the original mixer.
Latest Useo Thing
'Tick Tick Fire' (The Jimi Hendrix Experience vs The Hives) Is Jimi singing over Hives. Hives are my fave modern band.. Jimi is a classic rock fave. Enjoy you this I hope.
( groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2011/09/tick-tick-fire-jimi-hendrix-experience.html )
Podgornio, The Mashup Psychic Predicts
In 3005 mashups will be found to contain curative properties that will eliminate all illnesses. Then, you'll appreciate us dj's!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The million dollar space pen hoax (io8.com)
There's a famous legend that America spent millions on the development of a 'space pen' that writes upside down, while the Russians used a pencil. Here's the truth behind the legend.
Paul Krugman's Blog: More About the 9/11 Anniversary (New York Times)
The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America - a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It's probably worth pointing out that I'm not saying anything now that I wasn't saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there's nothing I've done in my life of which I'm more proud.
Patrick Barkham: Angry US taxpayers stamp on companies paying no corporate tax (Guardian)
Messages on dollar bills point the finger at tax avoiders. … Stamp activism is a growing phenomenon, with photographs of the scrawled-on and rubber-stamped $1 notes spreading across social media. "This is $1 more than GE has paid in taxes," says one message.
Jim Hightower: Goofy for President
Some 50 years ago, the great satirist and comic strip artist, Walt Kelly, ran his main cartoon character -a possum named Pogo - for president. All across America, people began wearing campaign buttons proudly proclaiming: "I Go Pogo."
Connie Schultz: Our Trust Survives (Creators Syndicate)
Last month, I was reading a newspaper in a coffeehouse in downtown Providence, R.I., when a stranger walked over to me and pointed to a nearby table. "Would you mind watching my laptop while I run to my car?" he said. I returned his smile and said, "Sure."
Terry Savage: Take a Lesson from the Hurricane: Prepare for Calamities (Creators Syndicate)
The good news is that every major downturn creates the seeds of future economic growth in the next up-cycle. Debts are erased, liquidity increases - and new and creative inventions are spurred, ready to take hold in the coming upturn.
Geoff Boucher: Berkeley Breathed, drawn back to 'Bloom County' but looking forward (LA Times; from 2009)
He looked down at "Bloom County: The Complete Library" with the same expression of disinterest. "This is an amazing book, amazing to see," Breathed said, sounding anything but amazed. Then he delivered the droll punch line. "When you write about it you should say, 'This guy is a fraud and a cheat.' There's your headline."
Rick Kogan: Ebert autobiography a charming remembrance (Chicago Tribune)
In his easygoing, candid and altogether charming autobiography, or, as he calls it, "Life Itself: A Memoir," Roger Ebert fails to mention me: The nights he and I had many drinks on the porch of his house on Chicago's Dickens Street and elsewhere, the favorable in-print review I gave to one of his early forays into television or the many times he attempted, persuasively but without success, to convince me of the benefits of AA.
Stuart Dredge: Felix Dennis talks iPad poetry, Apple approvals and tablets for the elderly (Guardian)
'Tales From The Woods' marks poetic debut on the App Store, but his magazine company is experimenting elsewhere.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Review
CNN/Tea Party Republican Debate
from that Mad Cat, JD
AMAZING WORD GAME
Did you know that the words "race car" spelled backwards still spell "race car"?
And that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the first letter and move it to the last, spells its own past tense, "ate"? And that "strengths" is the longest English word with only one vowel?
And that if you rearrange the letters in "Tea Party Republicans," and add just a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the fuck up you pathetic, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, obstructionist, out-of-the-closet-racist, resource-sucking, anti-tax, homophobic, violent hypocrites and mindless non-compromising unrealistic fools; and deal with the fact that you've nearly wrecked the country and that our president is black, so get over it."
Isn't that interesting?
JD
Thanks, JD!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Lady Gaga, Usher To Perform
William J. Clinton Foundation
Lady Gaga, Usher, The Edge and Bono will be among the performers at a Los Angeles concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of former President Bill Clinton's foundation.
The musicians will perform at "A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation" on Oct. 15 at the Hollywood Bowl. Other performers will be announced later.
Clinton said in a statement Tuesday that he is "proud that some of today's most influential performers are coming together to raise awareness about the work of my foundation."
For the past decade, Clinton's foundation has sought to improve global health, strengthen economies worldwide, promote healthier childhoods and protect the environment.
William J. Clinton Foundation
MusiCares To Honor
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney will be honored as MusiCares person of the year during Grammy week next year.
The former Beatle will not only be honored for his music but also for his charitable side. Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow says McCartney "exemplifies the phrase 'artist/philanthropist.'"
The annual event celebrates a legend in the days before the Grammy Awards. Previous honorees include Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. An array of music stars pay tribute by singing their songs, and the honoree sometimes performs as well.
MusiCares helps musicians who are struggling due to financial, medical or other reasons. McCartney says he's privileged to try and make the world a better place through charity and he's honored by the MusiCares tribute.
Paul McCartney
Hollywood's Highest Paid Man
Tyler Perry
Actor Tyler Perry, who has his own film and TV studio in Atlanta, ranks atop the list of Hollywood's highest paid men, in a new ranking from Forbes.com that includes director Steven Spielberg and singer Elton John.
Perry topped the list by making $130 million from May 2010 to May 2011, financial website Forbes.com reported on Monday.
Holding the No. 2 position on the Forbes list with $113 million is producer Jerry Bruckheimer. He is behind the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise and had a hit with the latest movie in the series, which came out this year and earned over $1 billion at global box offices.
Steven Spielberg ranks at No. 3 with $107 million, Forbes said. The last film directed by Spielberg was released in 2008, but he has kept himself busy on a number of projects since then where he was the producer or executive producer, including action flicks "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "Cowboys & Aliens" and the upcoming science fiction TV show "Terra Nova."
"Rocket Man" singer Elton John, whose most recent tour grossed over $200 million, takes the No. 4 spot on the list with $100 million in earnings, Forbes said.
Tyler Perry
Supports Gay Marriage....Sort Of
Clint Eastwood
He won't be riding the main float during Pride, but Clint Eastwood doesn't care if same-sex couples get married.
In the October issue of GQ Magazine, the steely gazed slab of machismo says he doesn't think gay marriage should be such a controversial issue.
"These people who are making a big deal about gay marriage?" Eastwood tells the magazine. "I don't give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We're making a big deal out of things we shouldn't be making a deal out of ... Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want."
The Oscar-winning director is promoting "J. Edgar," his biopic about J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial longtime FBI chief, who many suspected to be closeted.
Clint Eastwood
Early Work Retrieved
Banksy
A Berlin gallery says restorers have scraped away more than a dozen layers of paint from an interior wall to reveal an early work by British street artist Banksy.
The graffiti showing five soldiers with angel's wings and yellow smiley faces beneath the slogan "Every picture tells a lie!" is now on show again at the Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien gallery.
Originally sprayed by the artist in 2003 during a street art project at the gallery, the Banksy had disappeared beneath several layers of paint by subsequent art shows.
Kuenstlerhaus head Stephane Bauer said Tuesday that the gallery decided recently to try and recover it, and that the Banksy will now be on show until Oct. 22.
Banksy
Rate Swells To Nearly 1 In 6
US Poverty
The ranks of America's poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.
The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of a re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. The official poverty level is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.
US Poverty
Fraud Convictions Upheld For Broadway Producers
Livent
Ontario's highest court has upheld the fraud convictions of the two co-founders of a Broadway theater company that produced 1990s hits such as "Ragtime" and "Show Boat."
Livent co-founders Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb were both convicted in 2009 of two counts of fraud and one count of forgery.
Judge Mary Lou Benotto found both men manipulated Livent's statements over nine years to attract investors, before the company went bankrupt in 1998.
Drabinsky must now serve five years, and Gottlieb four.
Livent
Ex-ESPN Analyst Pleads No Contest
Jay Mariotti
Former ESPN commentator Jay Mariotti has pleaded no contest in Los Angeles to charges that he stalked and assaulted his ex-girlfriend.
Deputy District Attorney Simone Shay says Mariotti entered open pleas Tuesday on three felony charges, including stalking, and two misdemeanors. The former Chicago Sun-Times columnist was immediately sentenced to five years of probation and 90 days of community service.
Shay says an open plea means prosecutors did not offer Mariotti a plea deal.
The 51-year-old was accused of attacking his former girlfriend around midnight April 15 outside a Venice restaurant and pulling out a chunk of her hair. He's accused of confronting her again Sept. 30.
Jay Mariotti
Told To Take Back Slaves' Descendants
Cherokee
A federal order for one of the nation's largest American Indian tribes to restore voting rights and benefits to about 2,800 descendants of members' former slaves threw plans for a special election for a new chief into turmoil Tuesday.
The federal government sent the sternly-worded letter to the Cherokee Nation after it sent letters last week kicking the descendants out of the tribe and stripping them of benefits including medical care, food stipends and assistance for low-income homeowners.
The tribe also barred the descendants from voting in a Sept. 24 special election for principal chief. The Cherokee Supreme Court ordered the special election after it said it could not determine with certainty the outcome of a close and hotly contested June election between incumbent Chad Smith and longtime tribal councilman Bill John Baker. The results had flip-flopped between the two during weeks of counts and recounts. Baker had twice been declared winner, but so had Smith.
The federal government said that unless the descendants, known as freedmen, were allowed to vote, the upcoming election wouldn't be valid.
Cherokee
'Hidden Writings To Go On Display
Archimedes
Long-hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are ready to go on display at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum.
Teams of scientists and scholars spent 12 years using a variety of methods, including X-rays produced by a particle accelerator at Stanford University, to recover the parchment texts that had been hidden for centuries after they were written over in the Middle Ages.
But before they could begin, curators spent four years taking the fragile book apart because of damage from mold and a spine covered in modern synthetic glue.
The parchment, known as a palimpsest, contains the only known copies of some of Archimedes' works.
The exhibit, "Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes," opens Oct. 16 and runs through Jan. 1.
Archimedes
LA Painter
Alex Schaefer
Alex Schaefer is the hot Los Angeles artist of the moment, thanks to a couple of oil-on-canvas works showing banks burning down.
Although his work has been displayed at several galleries over the years, Schaefer was mostly an obscure figure in the art world whose pieces rarely fetched more than $1,000.
That was until he painted a picture of a nondescript bank on a run-of-the-mill San Fernando Valley street.
With flames leaping through the bank's roof, the work began to take on a look similar to Ed Ruscha's acclaimed 1966 "Burning Gas Station." Schaefer says several passers-by stopped to give him a thumb's up.
Some, however, called police after their suspicions were aroused.
Alex Schaefer
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 5-11. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: New Orleans at Green Bay, NBC, 27.17 million.
2. NFL Football: Dallas at N.Y. Jets, NBC, 25.77 million.
3. "NFL Thursday Pre-Kick," NBC, 23.24 million.
4. "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 20.28 million.
5. "Football Night in America, Part Three," NBC, 14.92 million.
6. "NFL Kickoff 2011," NBC, 14.65 million.
7. "America's Got Talent" (Wednesday), NBC, 12.36 million.
8. "9/11: 10 Years Later," CBS, 12.34 million.
9. "America's Got Talent" (Tuesday), NBC, 11.85 million.
10. "NCIS," CBS, 9.51 million.
11. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 8.99 million.
12. "The O.T.," Fox, 8.6 million.
13. "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.13 million.
14. "Big Brother 13" (Wednesday), CBS, 7.79 million.
15. "NCIS: Los Angeles" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), CBS, 7.03 million.
16. "Big Brother 13" (Thursday), CBS, 6.65 million.
17. "Dateline NBC" (Friday), NBC, 6.52 million.
18. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 6.42 million.
19. "Football Night in America, Part Two," NBC, 6.38 million.
20. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 6.3 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Richard Hamilton
British Pop Art pioneer Richard Hamilton, who depicted Tony Blair as a cowboy and designed a Beatles album cover, has died. He was 89.
Hamilton was often called the "Father of Pop Art" - Britain's answer to Andy Warhol - and was credited with coining the name for a movement marked by its ironic and iconic use of commercial and pop-culture imagery.
Born in London in 1922, Hamilton studied at the Royal Academy Schools and the Slade School of Fine Art, and made his name in the 50s with "Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?" A collage showing a physically idealized naked couple - the man holding a red lollipop marked "Pop" - in a product-strewn home, it was a seminal work of Pop Art.
For half a century Hamilton produced images that were striking and often political, from Mick Jagger in handcuffs after a drug raid to portraits of prison protesters in Northern Ireland to an image of former British leader Blair as a cowboy in a 2007 piece entitled "Shock and Awe."
One of his best-known works is the antithesis of Pop Art's colorful cacophony: the monochrome cover of The Beatles' "White Album," a simple white square embossed with the band's name. Hamilton also designed the collage-style poster that came with the album.
Hamilton also worked for decades on a mammoth project to illustrate James Joyce's novel "Ulysses."
Hamilton's work has been shown around the world, with pieces in major collections including New York's Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Modern Art and Britain's Tate galleries.
He is survived by his wife, Rita Donagh, and son Rod. Funeral details were not immediately available.
Richard Hamilton
In Memory
Carl Oglesby
Carl Oglesby, a dynamic activist in the 1960s who headed the campus organization Students for a Democratic Society and gave an influential and frequently quoted speech denouncing the Vietnam War and those who broke his "American heart," died Tuesday. He was 76.
Oglesby died at his home in Montclair, New Jersey. Todd Gitlin, a friend and fellow activist who went on to write several books, said Oglesby had been fighting lung cancer that spread throughout his body.
Born in 1935 and an undergraduate at Kent State University, Oglesby was years older than Gitlin and other '60s student radicals he befriended and was living a much straighter life at the time he met them. He was married, with three children, and was working for a defense contractor. But while studying part-time at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, he was so disgusted by the Vietnam War and so taken with the then-emerging Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the society with him, that he soon became its president and most memorable orator.
The SDS had been founded in 1960 at the University of Michigan and its early declaration, the Port Huron Statement, helped embody the idealism of the early '60s. The SDS supported civil rights and opposed the nuclear arms race. It was strongly critical of the U.S. government, and called for greater efforts to fight poverty and big business. By the mid-60s, when Oglesby joined, the United States had committed ground troops to Vietnam and the SDS had expanded nationwide, with a more radical purpose, one well captured by its new president.
Oglesby helped organize teach-ins and rallies, and his power peaked in November 1965 with his speech at an early, and massive, anti-war rally in Washington. In an address titled "Let Us Shape the Future," Oglesby spoke as a disillusioned patriot and liberal who rejected not just the war, but much of American foreign policy since the end of World War II and the free enterprise system he believed demanded endless conflict. He was equally critical of Republican and Democratic presidents as victims, and enablers, of the corporate state and insisted the country's founders would have been on his side.
"Our dead revolutionaries would soon wonder why their country was fighting against what appeared to be a revolution," he declared to ever growing applause
In his most memorable phrase, he challenged those who called him anti-American: "I say, don't blame me for that! Blame those who mouthed my liberal values and broke my American heart."
But the '60s proved an unfulfilled dream from which he never recovered, Gitlin says. By the end of the decade, King and Robert Kennedy had been killed, the Vietnam War was still on and Oglesby was being thrown out of the organization he helped make famous. Violent activists such as the Weathermen dismissed Oglesby as a "hopeless bourgeois liberal." Oglesby labeled the Weatherman's politics as "road rage and comic book Marxism."
"He suffered greatly from that, maybe more than anyone else of the older crowd, from being targeted by the Weathermen as a bad guy," Gitlin said. "He used to say that the Weatherman were like the children of his generation, dismantling what had been achieved."
In recent years, Oglesby became obsessed with the assassination of President Kennedy. He wrote the books "Who Killed JFK?" and "The JFK Assassination" and contributed an afterword to Jim Garrison's "On the Trail of the Assassins." In 2008, his memoir "Ravens in the Storm" was published. He also recorded music and taught at Dartmouth College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Carl Oglesby
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