[Ed. Note: Please welcome Ezra Dulis to BH. He will be covering the music beat for us, commenting on the personalities, business, and doing an occasional review -- all from the unique point of view of a right-of-center thinking young man who's both passionate about music and a musician himself.]

Concerning actors and artists, “Shut up and sing” has become a conservative cliché long since due for retirement.  For one, we’re inconsistent.  We can’t applaud Jon Voight speaking his mind one day and then decry Sean Penn for speaking his the next day.  Sure, we can point out how much his thoughts lack basic self-awareness, but to suggest that he should just do his job and not voice his opinion is a totalitarian thought.  To entertain it is to betray our own principles and become exactly what we hate.

Today, though, I can’t help but entertain it. 

Zack de la Rocha, the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine (who came crawling back to his band once it was clear his career as a solo artist was DOA), has organized a boycott of Arizona’s new immigration law, convincing plenty of well-to-do leftist bands to skip on performing in the state.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with bands deciding where they’re going to play.  The issue is the principle behind the decision, exploiting a cause célèbre to frame themselves as righteous racial crusaders. (more…)

The other day I was asked if I thought I would ever come face to face with writer’s block.  I had to laugh.  Inasmuch as I generally write about things that annoy, frustrate or just plain drive me nuts, running out of material or losing the impulse to complain in print are among the very least of my worries. 

When you factor in that Barack Obama is my president, Joe Biden is my vice-president, Nancy Pelosi is next in line, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are my senators, Brad Sherman is my congressman, Antonio Villaraigosa is my mayor and Jerry Brown is lurking in the wings to be my governor, do you really think I’ll be turning my pen into a plowshare anytime soon?    

But at least now you might have a better handle on why I look back so fondly on what I have come to regard as the good old days when an American’s major complaint was that he had taxation without representation. 

On top of everything else, I live in Los Angeles and have spent most of my adult life laboring in Hollywood, a place that some people regard as less an actual location than a state of mind.  I agree it is a state of mind in the same sense that paranoia and schizophrenia are states of mind.  (more…)

You know how it is when you’re watching a slow-motion train wreck – Britney, say – and just when you are absolutely convinced it can’t get any worse… it does? 

Congress has an approval rating of 21%. And when I heard that Harry Reid is actually discussing plans to sneak single-payer, National Health Care legislation not only past the will of the people, but sneak it past the lower house of Congress by attaching it as a rider to a completely unrelated bill… 

…Well, that is an act of such unremitting and bastardly sinfulness that it simply has to be addressed. 

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I take a look at the four Senators and twenty-something Representatives currently under ethics investigations of one kind or another, and present to you, the American people, my Modest Proposal to get government back in the hands of the governed. 

I’ll save the details for the video, but suffice it to say that the Whittle Plan, at $935,000,000 is not exactly cheap, but it is definitely a bargain at .0003 of the Federal Budget for 2008.  (more…)

Remember the day the healing took place? Remember the day a black man was elected to office by white Americans thereby proving that any established form of racism in this country was a thing of the past? Of course you do silly, and despite what they’ll tell you… so do Liberals.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never met a Racist Conservative in my life. I’ve heard that they’re out there and I’m sure that they exist, but much like a Great White Shark or a decent Joel Schumacher film… I’ve never seen one in real life.

The truth is that a vast majority of Americans are fully on board with a post-racial America. The only problem is that conservatives were the only ones to begin treating it as a reality. They continued standing for the same things that they always had (lower taxes, more power to the individual etc.), regardless of whomever was in office. The almost acted, dare I say it… Color blind. (more…)

Whenever I have suggested that left-wingers aren’t normal human beings, and have wondered if perhaps they’re some weird interplanetary life form like the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the liberals accuse me of indulging in ad hominem attacks, and I suppose I am.  But I am honestly bewildered.  It just doesn’t seem plausible that Americans could find good things to say about tyrants like Castro, Chavez and Ahmadinejad, while at the same time reviling the likes of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and General Petraeus.

Left-wingers side with the so-called Palestinians and insist that their country was stolen from them by the Jews, but when you ask them just exactly where the country was located, what their flag looked like and who their president was, they huff and they puff and they denounce you as a tool of the Jewish lobby. (more…)

We’ve all heard the old saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Now that doesn’t  mean crucifixions, world domination, and little boy rump humping. That simply means live as the locals do. Blend in. We as Americans are notorious for doing exactly the opposite. And definitely we should all collectively do our best to be decent travelers so we don’t continue to come off as obnoxious boobs to the rest of the world already looking for a reason to hate us. I’ve been that boob before, and I hereby apologize to the entire world. I have learned my lesson.

But, hate us? Really. Then why do people cross oceans on tiny little boats, risking their lives in the process, to get to our horrible country? Why do people from all over the world come to us for serious health care when it really hits the fan? Why is it that someone can come to our country, not even speak the language, and in a few years become wealthy? Let me help you Libbies out here: Opportunity, Freedom, Capitalism, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech (well sort of), Pride, Patriotism, and Water Pressure. We have been the beacon of hope around the world for over 230 years. We are still the most successful and wealthy country the Earth has ever known. We share our wealth more than an other nation on Earth. And we have shed more blood than any other country to give others the chance at the same freedoms we enjoy. So all I can say is… Jealous much? (more…)