Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Not, "We Are The World?" I'm disillusioned now. I guess it's time to take it off the playlist. That's OK, since both Bruce and Whitney missed the last WATW Reunion.

We Are The World is quite a soulful, boot-scootin' boogie, now ain't it?

Especially in the DJ Mossoró remix, Jerry!

Well, wouldn't you know it...I got a little story...

In January 1990, the first Icestock music festival was held at Mcmurdo Station...I was the musical co-ordinator and played in 6 of the 8 bands featured (including the first Balinese gamelan to perform south of the Antarctic Circle, which I built out of electrical conduit). As part of my role, I kept the ball rolling between acts with announcements and the 'odd' song made up on the spot. You might recall that The Gulf War I was in full swing at the time. I was really upset about it (imagine that), having lost my dad to Agent Orange poisoning following his two tours in the previous oil war...that and my disgust with the Bush family's 45 years of meddling in the Middle East. Kuwait, for one thing, is a country manufactured by the U.S. and the U.K., the Emir of which continues to rule as one of the most corrupt leaders in that or any other region. (His habit of 'marrying' a virgin girl every Friday night, deflowering her, and divorcing her the following morning continues unabated to this day). Add the unbelievable slaughter that was passed off as 'battles', and I was about beside myself, even given that our only source of news about the whole sordid affair was daily teletypes stapled to a bulletin board in the NSF's office building. Well, it was preying on my mind all day, even as I tried to 'Focus On The Fun'...

At one point, killing time at the mic on our flat-bed trailer stage with the wind whipping through our camo parachute 'backdrop', I picked up a ****** Navy Special Services acoustic guitar and sang the following words, which basically welled up out of my subconscious:

"We own the World, we're the Americans,
We'll take your oil to make the gas that runs our Cadillacs..."

That's about all I had time for, as a young black Navy Lieutenant came raging at me from out of the crowd screaming profanities...I mean he was right out of his mind. And I have no doubt he would have killed me if he could have...you know that look in someone's eyes when you see it. Talk about some 'boot-scootin'...if it hadn't been for my friendship with a lot of very large Ironworkers who were working security, I think I'd be lucky to be eating my meals through a tube to this day...

Ahh, the power of music..."The Gulf War Remix"...

Forgive me...a brief correction: it was January of 1991, the second annual Icestock...my eighth season as opposed to my seventh. It all runs together a bit in my aging memory. My apologies to history buffs everywhere...

It did seem a little janky there, Dane!

Thanks for clearing up this burning question.

BTW, if tin whistles are made of tin, what do they make foghorns out of?

boom boom

Hey, it was way back in the last century...

It's a good thing nobody ever tried to warn a ship away from the rocks with a tin whistle. Unless that's all they had going in Prince William Sound that fateful night...