Monday, March 11, 2024

Eric Carmen

From VARIETY:

 

Eric Carmen, who became an icon of early ’70s power pop as the frontman of the Raspberries before achieving solo success with hits like “All By Myself” and “Hungry Eyes,” has died at age 74.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen,” his wife, Amy Carmen, wrote on the singer’s website. wrote. “Our sweet, loving and talented Eric passed away in his sleep, over the weekend. It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy. Please respect the family’s privacy as we mourn our enormous loss. ‘Love Is All That Matters… Faithful and Forever.'”

The latter quote from Carmen’s wife is a callback to the song “Love Is All That Matters,” from his 1977 solo album “Boats Against the Current.” No cause of death or exact date of death has been announced.

 

From WIKIPEDIA:

 

Carmen's first two solo singles were chart hits in 1976. Both were built around themes by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The first of these singles, "All by Myself" – based on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 – hit number 2 in the United States, and number 12 in the United Kingdom where it was his only charting hit. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in April 1976.[8] The follow-up single, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again"[1] – based on the main theme of the third movement of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 – reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and hit number one on the US Adult Contemporary Chart, as well as number nine on the Cash Box chart. In the UK, Dana took it to number 31 and in Australia Mark Holden took it to number 13. Those songs featured on his 1975 self-titled debut album, along with "That's Rock and Roll", a number 3 hit single for singer Shaun Cassidy. The album made number 21 on the Billboard album chart and was certified gold in 1977 for sales of more than 500,000 copies.

Carmen's second album, Boats Against the Current, came out in the summer of 1977 and received mixed reviews.[9][10][11] It featured backup players such as Burton Cummings, Andrew Gold, Bruce Johnston and Nigel Olsson. The album spent 13 weeks in the Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 45. It also produced the Top 20 single "She Did It", but the title track only managed to scrape the bottom of the chart. The title track was later covered by Olivia Newton-John on her album Totally Hot. A third single taken from the album, "Marathon Man", became his first solo single not to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart. However, Shaun Cassidy again made the Top 10 in 1978 with Carmen's "Hey Deanie". For several weeks in the fall of 1977, Carmen had three compositions charting concurrently on the Billboard Hot 100, Cassidy's two big hits and Carmen's own "She Did It".

Carmen followed up with two more albums. Despite declining chart fortunes, the single "Change of Heart" broke into the Pop Top 20,[1] and reached number 6 at AC in late 1978, with this hit also being covered by Samantha Sang on her Emotion LP, but in 1980, after the release of the album "Tonight You're Mine" and single "It Hurts Too Much" (number 75 Billboard Top 100) he temporarily withdrew from the music industry.

In 1984, Carmen and Dean Pitchford co-wrote "Almost Paradise", the love theme from the film Footloose. The song, performed by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno, peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1985, Carmen resurfaced on Geffen Records with a second self-titled album and a sizeable comeback hit "I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips".[5] The single hit the Adult Contemporary Top 10 as well as the Pop Top 40. The follow-up single, "I'm Through with Love", also climbed the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the Top 20 of the Adult Contemporary chart. Another track from the album, "Maybe My Baby", later became a Country hit for Louise Mandrell reaching number 8 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. "I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips" was also covered by Mandrell only managing to peak at 35 on the same chart.[12] In 1987, Carmen's contribution to the hit movie Dirty Dancing, "Hungry Eyes", hit number 2 on the Adult Contemporary Chart and also returned him to the Pop Top 10.[1] "Reason To Try", a further contribution to the One Moment in Time compilation album of songs recorded for the Seoul Summer Olympics, kept Carmen's profile high in 1988, during which the nostalgic "Make Me Lose Control" also returned him to the number one position on the Adult Contemporary chart – where it stayed for three straight weeks – as well as number 3 on Billboard's Hot 100.[1]

The year 2000 saw the stateside release of I Was Born to Love You, which had been released in 1998 only in Japan as Winter Dreams.[5] Carmen eschewed the use of a band on the recording, playing most of the instruments and programming the drum parts himself. The album did not find a large audience, but Carmen has continued to enjoy success placing songs with other artists over the years. In 2000, he toured with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band.[13]

On December 24, 2013, the first new recording in over 15 years by Carmen titled "Brand New Year" was released. The track, written and recorded in November/December 2013 in Ohio and Los Angeles, was issued via a gratis download by Legacy Recordings as a special "Christmas gift", to herald the March 2014 arrival of a 30 track career retrospective entitled The Essential Eric Carmen..[14] 

 

I'm sure at least five out of every ten Americans who listen to music can conjure up "All By Myself."  That's fame, that's impact.  No, he wasn't Carole King or Joni Mitchell or John Lennon.  But he was a huge success who put music out there that we all heard.

 

 

He achieved what he set out to do -- make music we sang along with and remembered.  

 

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Monday, March 11, 2024.  While Marianne Williamson addresses real issues a host of vanity campaigns distract from real issues, Ramadan starts and there's no cease-fire, and much more.

Let's start in the US with electoral politics.   Vying for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination are President Joe Biden and self-made Marianne Williamson.  




Marianne Williamson:  I want to see a new beginning in this country.  I want to see us cut the chord with this aberrational  chapter of history by which corporate power has transgressed, has tyrannized the American people.  I want to cut the chord with that aberrational chapter and I want to begin again.  I want to begin a season of repair.  This has ruined peoples lives.  People have died in wars that should not have been fought.  Children have asthma that they should not have.  There are cancer rates -- such as in your own state.  There is a homeless rate.  There is a highest level of poverty rate of any advanced nation that is here in the United States.  There are so many examples of stress on people's bodies, stress on people's minds and hearts, stress on communities and stress on the Earth itself.  This is unsustainable.  And this is the urgency of this message.  This cannot continue.  There are too many stress points.  And my contention and what I submit to you is it's going to break one way or the other.  It's like some people need to read about The French Revolution here.  It's going to break one way or the other.  It is either going to break in the direction of a radical rededication to democracy and to justice or it's going to break in the direction of dystopia, chaos, neo authoritarianism and possibly worse.  I feel as Franklin Roosevelt said during The Great Depression.  He said, "It has become clear to me that we must become radical for at least a generation."  But radical is not a word that we should fear.  THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE is radical.  The radicalism that we should fear is the radicalism of the last fifty years.  It is radical that we have allowed corporate forces to dominate and tyrannize the American people the way we have.

If you're not getting the importance of Marianne's campaign, you might be an idiot.

Or a member of the Israeli government.  For decades the Israeli government got away with persecuting Palestinians.  It's probably a huge shock to Netanyahu and others in his right wing and corrupt government that people are pushing back.  But that's what information does, it educates.  It confronts pre-existing lies.  It brings us to the point today where the world collectively watches in horror at the crimes taking place.  That took years and years of work.


Need a more recent example?

From the White House transcript of President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address last Thursday:

With a law that I proposed and signed — and not one of your Republican buddies work- — voted for it — we finally beat Big Pharma. 

Instead of paying $400 a month or thereabouts for insulin with diabetes — and it only costs 10 bucks to make — they only get paid $35 a month now and still make a healthy profit.  (Applause.)

And I want to — and what to do next, I want to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it — everyone.  (Applause.) 


Senator Bernie Sanders has raised that issue for years and years.  And he made it a big point of his 2020 campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  He was raising the issue before that -- and continued raising it after -- he introduced the Senate bill in 2023 and US House Rep Cori Bush introduced it on the House side in 2023 -- and by hitting on this issue and raising it, he ensured Americans knew about it -- about the outrageous overpricing of insulin.  Now it's been confronted.  

Real candidates use their campaigns to help others.


That's why Cornel West has never seemed a real candidate.  What is his big issue?  It varies as often as his candidacy -- the People's Party nominee, the self-proclaimed Green Party nominee (he was never the Green Party's nominee  -- though he did get 0.8% of the vote in this month's Green Party primary in Pennsylvania) and now his independent candidacy.   'Brother' Cornel is useless and made himself that way.  

Then there's no nuts Junior.  Robert Kennedy Junior.  He was going to run as a Democrat, then that was too much.  So he was going to run as an independent but that proved too much work for little lazy Junior.  Now he's doing everything he can to get the Libertarian Party's attention.  Poor no nuts.  It's not his fault that he has such tiny nads, he's a 70 year old man taking steroids so you know his elderly nuts have shrunken even further.  Shrunken testicles -- is that his campaign slogan?  Or just his campaign promise?

He'll have dottered along accomplishing nothing.


I bring it up for a reason.  Another party has announced their candidates.  No, not No Labels.  I'm referring to the laughable Socialist Equality Party.  They've been running candidates since 1984.  From WIKIPEDIA:


The SEP has fielded electoral candidates in the United States for local, state, and federal offices. SEP candidates usually run as official SEP candidates on their own ballot line.

No SEP candidate has yet won an election. 


What a great and proud accomplishment.  All the candidates -- for local and state and federal offices and the political party has never produced -- in any election -- a winning candidate.

Well now they've announced their 2024 presidential team: Jerry White for vice president, Joseph Kishore for president.

Are you laughing yet?

Kishore was their 2020 presidential candidate.  

If you're not getting how pathetic they are, Jerry White's been on this ticket how many times before?  Four.  Four times.  

And they get 0.00% of the vote every time.  In fact, you have to drop back to 1988 for them getting better than 0.00% -- then they got 0.02%.

They've got an entire publication behind them -- WSWS -- but they can't get it together ever to do videos regularly or anything at all regularly.  

So they do their vanity run and they do nothing to raise attention or awareness.  They are like Junior or, for that matter, Jill Stein.  The 2012 failure returned in 2016 to fail again and now wants to sink the party in 2024.  If Jill Stein is the face of the modern Green Party, they might as well pack it in.

The nominee will be determined at their convention this summer.  Hopefully, it will be someone like 38-year-old Jasmine Sherman and not the then-74 year old Jill Stein.  A fraud, a failure and someone who left the political party deeply in debt should have stepped aside for younger blood long, long ago.

It's amazing how we rail about the age of Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or now dead Dianne Feinstein but we stay silent when a Jill Stein or a Susan "Medea" Benjamin should have stepped aside long ago.  
 
Nothing changes if nothing changes.  And if you want to see The Geritol Set lose their complete grasp on the levers of power, you have to be willing to do your part by demanding that across the board.  You can't be okay with Susan Benjamin (mis)leading Code Pink -- by standing with Proud Boys, by her recent call (lie) that Donald Trump would be better on Gaza than Joe Biden -- and not join the  call for younger candidates.  Susan should have moved over to Raging Grannies about a decade ago.  Code Pink should be an organization for young women.  


Jerry and Joseph proclaim at their campaign website:

The Socialist Equality Party is organizing the working class in the fight for socialism: the reorganization of all of economic life to serve social needs, not private profit. The fight for socialism is at the same time a fight against war, authoritarianism, environmental degradation and all the consequences of capitalist society.


Oh, well that's something people can . . . not relate to.  Nothing concrete.  Nothing that says we will do _____ and this will make your life better.  Just a list of large concepts to be against and no real plan for any of it.

This is how they are after they make their big announcement: Unprepared.

Once again, they'll spend an election year doing nothing.

Jerry's been doing nothing since he first became the presidential nominee back in 1996 -- restoring 'manhood' to the SEP after 1992 saw a woman as their presidential nominee -- their first and their last.  Jerry sees to it.  'Manly' Jerry makes sure the ladies know their place in the SEP.
 
And not just the ladies, everyone.  Remember, despite the attacks on LGBTQ+ members in this country for the last few years, SEP -- like their publication WSWS -- can't defend LGBTQ+ people -- that would be 'identity politics,' they insist.  Which is why they write:


All the great problems confronting mankind are global problems that require global solutions. The fight for socialism, therefore, requires the unity and collaboration of workers in every country on the basis of a common program and perspective.


Can't use "humankind."  No, that'd be too much for Jerry and Joseph -- they're probably still trembling from the ending of Tim Burton's BATMAN RETURNS (1992) when Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne speaks of "Good will toward men . . . and women."

"Identity politics!" screeched Joseph and Jerry as they threw their popcorn at the screen and stormed out telling everyone waiting for the next showing, "Catwoman dies!"

 
 

At last night's Academy Award ceremony, several individuals wore pins decrying the continued assault on Gaza including actors: Ramsy Youssef Milo Machado-Graner, Swann Arlaud, Eugene Lee Yang, nominee Mark Ruffalo; directors Ava DuVernay, nominee Misan Harriman and nominee Kaouther Ben Hania; and songwriters Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell who were nominated for -- and won for -- writing BARBIE's "What Was I Made For?"

THE ZONE OF INTEREST received five Academy Award nominations.  Jonathan Glazer was nominated for adapted screenplay and for director.  When the film won for Best International Feature Film, Jonathan gave the acceptance speech.  




 Gaza remains under assault. Day 157 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." NBC NEWS notes, "The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 31,000 , according to the enclave's Health Ministry, including at least 25 people who have died of starvation ."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:








And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."   


Meanwhile, instead of demanding Israel stop blocking food from getting it, Joe Biden wants to build a floating aid landing.  Saturday saw a flurry of reporting. Eduardo Cuevas (USA TODAY) reported, "U.S. military personnel are scrambling to build a temporary floating dock off Gaza to help distribute food and other aid to Palestinians by way of the sea, a new route for supplies after months of Israel's intense restrictions on aid delivered by land. President Joe Biden announced the assistance to Gaza during his State of the Union Thursday night, as Army personnel were already pulling plans and equipment together." Meghann Myers (MILITARY TIMES) added, "Over the next 60 days, roughly 1,000 troops will deploy to the Mediterranean Sea to build a floating platform where cargo ships can offload aid onto smaller military vessels, which will transfer them to a causeway attached to the beach, where trucks can pick it up and distribute it within Gaza, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters."  And Tiffany Wertheimer (BBC News)  noted, "The support ship, General Frank S Besson, set sail from a military base in the state of Virginia on Saturday."  NBC NEWS has video of the operation here.  Yet here it is Monday and?  NBC NEWS reports, "A U.S. army vessel carrying equipment to build a pier off the Palestinian enclave's coast has left for the Mediterranean, but the first ship carrying 200 tons of food aid remains docked in Cyprus. Aid agencies have criticized the plan for a maritime humanitarian corridor, saying it falls far short of meeting the needs of Gaza's population of 2.2 million."   ALJAZEERA reports,  "The executive director of the US arm of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Avril Benoit, in a statement criticised the US plan as a 'glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege'."


Last night, the White House released the following statement from Joe Biden:


Tonight -- as the new crescent moon marks the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan -- Jill and I extend our best wishes and prayers to Muslims across our country and around the world.

The sacred month is a time for reflection and renewal. This year, it comes at a moment of immense pain. The war in Gaza has inflicted terrible suffering on the Palestinian people. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children. Some are family members of American Muslims, who are deeply grieving their lost loved ones today. Nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced by the war; many are in urgent need of food, water, medicine, and shelter. As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many. It is front of mind for me.

The United States will continue to lead international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza by land, air, and sea. Earlier this week, I directed our military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments of aid. We are carrying out airdrops of aid, in coordination with our international partners, including Jordan. And we’ll continue to work with Israel to expand deliveries by land, insisting that it facilitate more routes and open more crossings to get more aid to more people.

While we get more life-saving aid to Gaza, the United States will continue working non-stop to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire for at least six weeks as part of a deal that releases hostages. And we will continue building toward a long-term future of stability, security, and peace. That includes a two-state solution to ensure Palestinians and Israelis share equal measures of freedom, dignity, security, and prosperity. That is the only path toward an enduring peace.

Here at home, we have seen an appalling resurgence of hate and violence toward Muslim Americans. Islamophobia has absolutely no place in the United States, a country founded on freedom of worship and built on the contributions of immigrants, including Muslim immigrants. My Administration is developing the first-ever National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination, to take on hate against Muslim, Sikh, South Asian, and Arab American communities, wherever it occurs. No one should ever fear being targeted at school, at work, on the street, or in their community because of their background or beliefs.

To Muslims across our country, please know that you are deeply valued members of our American family. To those who are grieving during this time of war, I hear you, I see you, and I pray you find solace in your faith, family, and community. And to all who are marking the beginning of Ramadan tonight, I wish you a safe, healthy, and blessed month. Ramadan kareem.  

###



 
Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, with people decorating their homes, buying things for special Ramadan dishes, and planning gatherings with family and friends to break their fast together.

But in Deir el-Balah, as Israeli bombing continues and the list of civilians being killed gets longer by the day, there is little to indicate that the festivities are on the doorstep.

“This year’s Ramadan is starkly different,” said Atia Harb, 38, who had some old Ramadan decorations laid out in his market stall and was playing festive tunes, trying his best to attract customers despite the grim conditions.

“There is non-stop noise of bombs and racing ambulances.”


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