“At Woodstock nearly half a million youth gathered to be drugged and brainwashed on a farm. The victims were isolated, immersed in filth, pumped with psychedelic drugs…all with the full and secret complicity of the FBI and CIA.” 

Alas, when in 1979 Fidel Castro (whose regime murdered more political prisoners than pre-war Hitler’s and jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s) invited Stephen Stills to perform in Cuba, the famous Woodstocker could hardly contain his elation. The fervent champion of human-rights, civil rights and free-speech (indeed CSNY’s last tour was titled “The Free-Speech Tour”) not only took up the offer to perform at this “Havana-Jam,” but also composed a song in Castro’s honor, titled “Cuba al Fin!” 

Jazz-master Paquito‘d Rivera, in Cuba at the time, recalls watching Stills on stage at Havana’s Karl Marx theatre lovingly crooning the song to the families of Castro’s Stalinist nomenklatura as if Havana-Jam were a personal performance for the mass-murderer himself. Within blocks of this cheeky “Havana-Jam,” (which also included Human-Rights activist Kris Kristofferson along with Billy Joel) Cuban youths, black and white, languished in dungeons suffering longer prison sentences than Nelson Mandela’s. The Cubans’ crimes were attempting free speech. 

“They (Castro’s Stalinist regime) invited me because they knew I was politically astute,” gloated Stephen Stills regarding the acumen and good taste of his Cuban hosts, who to this day jail and torture youths for the crime of saying “Down with Fidel!”   

“There’s a man with a gun over there, ’tellin me I gotta beware.” 

Cuban youths have much to teach regarding that scenario, Mr Stills. If only you’d deigned to part briefly from your Stalinist hosts (the gunmen) and asked around. 

“You have to give them (Cuba’s Stalinists) due respect because they have a unique form of socialism that’s very significant in the scheme of world history,” Stills further hailed his hosts. 

Oh, it’s unique alright, Mr. Stills. Few 20th Century regimes jailed and tortured youths en masse for the crime of growing long hair and craving rock music.

Famous Woodstocker Carlos Santana should also be notified of Castro’s latest “reflections,” as his Propaganda Ministry headlines his weekly articles. Who can forget Carlos Santana’s grand entrance at the 2005 Oscars? The famed guitarist, on hand to perform the theme song for Motorcycle Diaries, stopped for the photographers, smiled deliriously and swung his jacket open.

 TA-DA! There it was: Carlos’ elegantly embroidered Che Guevara t-shirt. Carlos’ face as the flashbulbs popped said it all. “I’m so cool!” he beamed. “I’m so hip! I’m so sharp! I’m so politically-astute like my buddy Stephen Stills!”

Indeed, if hipness, sharpness and political astuteness denotes Carlos Santana proudly advertising the emblem of a regime that criminalized Carlos Santana music.

Judy Collins, though not physically present at Yasgur’s farm on August 15, 1969, certainly merits mention here. You know that Spanish gibberish that closes out Stills’ “Judy Blue Eyes? Well, that’s Stills, employing a faux Cuban accent, singing:  “How beautiful it would be to bring me to Cuba, the queen of the Caribbean I only want to visit you there, how sad that I can’t go Oh va, oh va, va!”

Well, exactly ten years later Stills fulfilled his wish, and as a personal guest of the beautiful island’s owner and warden.

Upon Che Guevara’s death, the bereaved “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” herself sought solace in songwriting, composing a lovely ballad title “Che.” “You have it in your hand to own your life–to own your land” goes the chorus which represents Che himself consoling Bolivian campesinos who mourn their savior’ death.   

Attempting to own their own lives and land is precisely what got thousands of Cuban campesinos massacred by Che Guevara’s firing squads.  American songstress millionaires certainly mourned Che’s death.  But check out this last picture for a clue as to how Bolivian campesinos reacted. 

“Only through the total eradication of private property will we create the new man,” instructed Che Guevara. “Individualism must disappear. Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible!” thundered this idol of ” do-your-own-thing” Bohemians.

Cuban campesino Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro and Che’s theft of their humble family farm. All refused blindfolds and all died sneering at their Communist murderers, as did thousands of their valiant countrymen.

Not that the victims of this Stalinist bloodbath were exclusively men and boys. In fact, the Castroites were well ahead of the Taliban. On Christmas Eve 1961 a young Cuban woman named Juana Figueredo Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They’d found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits” (Che’s term for Cuban rednecks who took up their meager arms to fight Che’s Soviet-backed theft of their land to create Stalinist kolkhozes.) When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana was six months pregnant.

Not to be outdone by Judy Collins, famous Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson composed song titled Mal Sacate wherein he laments:  “You have stolen all the land that you can steal, and you killed so many heroes.” 

A perfect tribute to his Havana-Jam hosts, you might think? 

Hah!  It’s obvious you’re no Rhodes Scholar! Kristofferson is instead lambasting Stalinism’s enemies!

The very next stanza mentions the “murdered heroes,” among whom we find none other than:  Che Guevara! 

Judy Collins and Kris Kristofferson obviously share the same “political astuteness” with their friend and soulmate Stephen Stills. So let’s excuse for confusing Fidel Castro with Country Joe Mc Donald and Che Guevara with Wavy Gravy.

Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency manipulation and general scuzziness to enlist entertainment celebrities like Sting in his newest quest.  The Drug Policy Alliance is the result, a group whose members, as its founder puts it, “come from across the drug use spectrum.”  Yes, the junkies, stoners, hopheads, dope fiends, pill-poppers, and Lindsay Lohan are unanimous:  Drug laws are bad, and it’s probably BusHitler’s fault.

The threshold problem with comments by Sting such as, “The war on drugs represents an extraordinary violation of human rights,” is that Sting presumably not only believes this piffle, but further believes that he can put down his bass and offer meaningful input into the discussion.  This assumption of competence is a common delusion among celebrities, and here it has more potential for damage than most mindless celebribabble.

Now, Sting is not alone – no one in that clip says anything worthwhile.  One woman, who is bald for no apparent reason, states that “The War on Drugs is a war on people of color,” as if Americans decided they would outlaw crack because they fear that black people might enjoy themselves.  Montel Williams shows up to explain that drug laws prevent him from making choices about his own body, but the awful tie and ridiculous earring he chose to wear make a powerful argument against allowing him to make any kind of choices at all.

Tony Papa also appears.  He went to jail for 12 years for being part of a drug deal – oh, I mean committing “a nonviolent drug offense” – and became an artist on the taxpayer’s dime.  While most of us will likely ask “Why only 12?,” naturally Papa is worshipped by trendy leftist celebrities.  Some Hollywood half-wit even scooped up the rights to his inspiring story.  So, to repeat, Tony Papa joined a drug conspiracy, got arrested, went to jail, leveraged that into becoming a hip artist and the subject of a movie, and yet he is somehow the real victim.

Of course, there’s also the perennial “America imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world!” meme.  In fact, the only drug incarceration problem in America is that too few drug dealers are incarcerated.  Sting suffers from the same delusion that afflicts many of his celebrity pals.  He seems to think that if the kind of people who deal drugs didn’t have drugs to deal, they would naturally flock to the world of hard work and responsibility.  Oh, if only drugs weren’t illegal, the drug dealing scumbags who infest our ghettos, barrios and college sociology departments would morph into clean-shaved, untatted workerbees eagerly embracing the world of 9-5 employment.  Yeah, it was outlawing meth and crack that turned the scumbags into scumbags. 

At one point, the clip promises “new solutions” to the drug problem.  Then Sting pops back up, smug and self-satisfied, to announce that drug laws violate his individual sovereignty.  Uh, typically, when you say you are going to provide new solutions you might consider, you know, providing some new solutions instead of some new cliché.

I certainly enjoy Sting and his pals’ new-found appreciation of my personal autonomy and “sovereignty over my body.”  I assume they’ll be standing by me when I reject the government’s interference in my health care decisions.  Unlikely.  If you think consistency is one of their strong points, perhaps you’ve been smoking the same stuff as them.

Now, Sting was always annoying but here he is reaching new heights of crappiness and pomposity in direct proportion to his declining relevance.  It’s always a pleasure to hear some Brit mega-millionaire who glides around his English manor practicing tantric sex sound off on American domestic policy. 

Please Sting, save us!  Unleash the full intellectual firepower you’ve amassed writing forgettable smooth jazz/rock fusion tunes for people who buy their music at Starbucks.  Just because you’ve been waited on hand and foot for three decades by a coterie of professional sycophants telling you you’re wiser than Buddha and smarter than Einstein doesn’t mean it’s true. 

There may be a case for looking at our drug laws, but these nimrods don’t make it.  The most compelling points are made by the conservatives at National Review and the libertarians at Reason.  Sure, pot smokers steal your snacks, listen to Phish and sound-off with long, disjointed monologues about the miracle of hemp, but I have a hard time getting too bent out of shape by them.  Many celebrities are among them, but Sting and Soros aren’t just talking about causal stoners.  They think we ought to go open season on meth, crack and whatever else these degenerate half-wits today are ingesting.  No thanks – I’d prefer not to live with the mess you’re rich enough to ignore.

The fact is that His Stingness knows nothing – or cares nothing – about the unspeakable devastation drugs cause, particularly within the inner cities.  Instead of standing behind the one truly effective response to urban drug terror – throwing the bastards in a cell and dropping the key down the Guatemalan sinkhole – His Majesty Sting decrees that drug dealing scumbags should run free, then retreats back behind his gates and armed guards to further hone his delayed orgasm skills.

Well, Sting, let’s discuss your really keen points about why poison ought to be legal.  But let’s expand the scope of our discussion to include some other celebrities who might be able to provide us with some valuable insights.  Let’s invite Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, DJ AM, and Brittany Murphy to weigh in with their points of view.  Oh wait, they’re all dead.  So are just a few others.

Like a Sean Penn who can’t help but fly into some hellhole, figuratively fellate the local anti-American strongman then jet back to Santa Monica in time for dinner at Pizzeria Mozza, Sting wanders out of his fairy-tale life for a few minutes to tell the benighted peons in the real world how they need to live their lives before retiring back inside his palace behind three layers of security.  The violence, the abuse, the wasted potential brought on by drugs mean nothing to him; what is important is his own act of scolding his lessers for failing to conform to his personal vision.

That’s Sting’s high – lording over others as if he was something more than a glorified cruise ship bassist who got lucky and didn’t have to spend his career cranking out covers of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” for Corona-swilling passengers during runs between San Diego and Puerto Vallarta on the S.S. Living Hell.  And like so many in the entertainment world, he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of stupid ideas – with intent to distribute.

The large party room with stage at the Senior Center was filled to capacity by the time Elvis appeared.  He brought a ten-piece band including five back-up singers wearing black suits and ties and one black dress.  Elvis wore a dazzling white preacher’s suit with a crimson cravat.  The first half was devoted to Gospel, beginning with a stunning a capella “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” and proceeding through a remarkable set of songs including “Walking With the Spirits, “The Battle of Jericho” (which employed a heavy doo-wop style,) “Rock My Soul,” and an a capella “Johnny Saw a Big Number” that stunned.

This is much more than homage.  George Gray has a huge emotive tenor that evokes Elvis with ease.  Gray and the band worship the King and his music and it shows in every note.  Bass vocalist Charlie Spillman, from Fort Collins, anchored the chorus with freight train authority.  The first half ended with “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.” 

The band returned for the rock and roll half in fresh costume, singers wearing shimmering ivory and slate dashikis, Elvis in sequined white jumpsuit with a belt buckle the size of Texas.  This was the mature Elvis.  Anyone looking for that skinny guy in the black leather jumpsuit was advised to seek elsewhere.  Trombone, flugelhorn and the rhythm section played Strauss’ “Thus Spack Zarathustra,” the official over-the-top pop intro since Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Elvis leaped into “That’s All Right Mama” and his whole demeanor changed.  Whereas before he had been rooted to one spot, this rockier Elvis moved around and struck Elvis poses which were both homage and parody.  There was nothing parodistic about the singing, however, as Elvis ripped through “Return to Sender,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Teddy Bear,” a mash-up of “Hound Dog” and “All Shook Up,” “Love Me Tender,” and many others.  Periodically he would summon some granny from the audience, allow her to mop his brow before bestowing a silk kerchief.  The grannies loved it.

Elvis slowed it down for “Suspicious Minds,” showcasing his powerhouse range and mastery of dynamics.  He ended with a mash-up of “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Out in the hall was a poster for Steve Lippia, the Sinatra impersonator who is bringing a full orchestra to the Civic Center.  The tickets are over thirty-five bucks but hey, if you close your eyes…

As I contemplate the current music scene I wonder which contemporary performers will spawn the sincerest form of flattery.  There are already numerous takes on the Beatles.  The Rolling Stones are problematic.  Future imitators will focus on individuals.  Elton John, Billy Joel, the Boss?  Will there be Springsteen imitators?  Anything is possible but no contemporary figure compares to the iconic status of an Elvis or a Sinatra.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the ridiculous, cynical remake of “We are the World,” an exercise that according to news accounts seemed less focused on assisting the people of Haiti than on stroking the egos of the pseudo-stars and future nobodies who did the yodeling.

The tiresome video (directed by the tiresome Paul Haggis) raises an important question – who the hell are these people?  I think one of them – the dude with the expensive clothes and dull stare – was Puff Diddley or P. Daddy or whatever idiotic moniker he’s using this week.  You know, there was a time when grown men used their given names instead of childish nicknames that are just emblems of the eternal adolescence that modern pop culture worships. 

Now, the original “We are the World” was itself nearly unlistenable, but that’s a matter of taste and reasonable people can disagree (I thought the British supergroup Band-Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was a much better song, though it shared “World’s” inexcusable refusal to confront the reason the Ethiopian drought turned into the Ethiopian famine – the cruelty and stupidity of its left wing government ).  However, at least most of the participants were people with track records of success.  You had Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Dionne Warwick and a bunch of others.  Now, not all of them might have been your cup of tea – I’d rather pass a kidney stone made of broken glass than listen to the Boss – but you had at least heard of them.

Let’s review the crop of hit-making legends present at the recording of the remake:  Well, Barbra Streisand showed up.  She’s a real star, and her presence assures the buy-in of the middle-aged gay couple demographic.  There’s “will.i.am.”  Mr. am is a member of a group called the Black Eyed Peas.  I’ve also heard of them.  They suck.  And you’ve also got noted cannabis aficionado Snoop Dogg, who probably did it because he confused Haiti with Jamaica.

Also present were entities known as “Weezy,” “Drake,” and “Kanye West.”  I thought “Weezy” was Sherman Helmsley’s wife on The Jeffersons.  Apparently she’s gained some tats, some extra appendages and started rapping.  Drake sounds like a cool name for a private eye, but my guess is he’s a rapper too.  Apparently most “stars” today are rappers.  I have heard of this Kanye fellow – I think he blamed Hurricane Katrina on George Bush.  I bet he blames the earthquake on 43 as well – hell, apparently everything’s Bush’s fault anyway.

The news report on the recording session also raised more questions than it answered with sentences like:

Fifteen-year-old Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber, who sang the opening line originally performed by Richie, joked that he would ask his new friend, R&B singer Akon, to get the telephone number of Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls.

I know who Lionel Ritchie is, and I know what Canada is.  Other than that, these words make no sense when placed in that sequence.

We can sum up the whole thing with another sentence from the same news story:  “Randy Phillips, one of the organizers, said his ‘one regret’ was the absence of dance-pop star Lady Gaga.”

How lame is any endeavor where the absence of Lady Gaga makes it worse?

The point isn’t that charity is bad.  USA for Africa generated tens of millions and hopefully it was well spent.  To the extent this generates money that is neither squandered nor diverted into the pockets of thugs, good.  The point is not that these singers are somehow wrong for using their talents, such as they are, to assist others in emergencies – we should all do so when disasters happen.

The point is that in 25 years the concept of celebrity has degenerated into parody.  Borderline cretins with fake boobs and bulging wallets wander the streets of Los Angeles pursued by hordes of shutter-clicking parasites in self-reinforcing cycle of publicity whetting the appetite for more publicity.  Glance about the magazines at the supermarket check-out line – consider yourself on the cutting edge of pop culture if one face in ten makes an impression.  You have some NBC reality star’s heartbreaking split from a dude who plays a brooding werewolf on the CW while a breasty gal from a show on MTV beckons from the cover of Cosmo, promising to disclose her patented sex tips – tips that can probably be summed up with the words “Anyone, anytime, anywhere that might help my career in any way.”

The original “We are the World” was an event; this one is a mere occurrence.  And the reasons are not hard to see.  We have celebrities who do not deserve celebration.  We have a public grown weary of the shameless antics and craven pandering of the celebrity culture.  Who actually believes that most of the participants want anything more from this recording session than a close-up on Entertainment Tonight before they slink back across to the far side of the velvet rope? 

Or perhaps this really isn’t a just another ploy designed to feed the fame machine.  Maybe these “stars” do care about the people of Haiti.  After all, if there’s one thing that the name “Snoop Dogg” is synonymous with, it’s caring about others.

Here’s to hoping that this sing-along can get through the Obamabots calcium deposited skulls!