This is Keith. Today is his birthday. Say "Happy Birthday, Keith".

Keith plays guitar. He plays like Chuck Berry, had Chuck ever picked up the nasty habit of huffing goofballs made of China Brown, Peruvian Flake, and rat poison, while mainlining Tabasco Sauce into his eyeballs. 



This song is called "Gimme Shelter". It features Keith and his buddy, Charlie, who plays drums. Here, with their buddies Mick, Bill, and Mick (a different Mick, also playing guitar, but not as fey and self-obsessed as the first one, who sings), and the epochal assistance of a nice lady named Merry Clayton, they, in one song, singularly define Rock and Roll.

This is a live version of the song. Some consider it the best version ever. It IS pretty good. But it's not as declarative as the studio version. 


The studio version is on an album called "Let It Bleed". It is the greatest Rock and Roll album of all time. Period. I suggest you go and find a copy, and put it on. Turn off all the lights, grab a bottle of brown liquor, preferably named after a fine southern gentleman, hunker down with the one you love, rut like a fevered weasel, and stare down the apocalypse like a man.

Notes on a Wisconsin Hangover

1)Yeah, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ultimately prevailed in keeping his office after a successful recall campaign. But it took a 7 to 1 financial advantage, with cash piped in from mostly out of state sources, to handle an off-cycle election in which Walker's opponent wasn't even known until a month before the election. Claiming some kind of philosophical victory or true political resonance here is roughly analogous to kicking the shit out of Stephen Hawking and claiming yourself UFC Heavyweight Champion. 
2) Exit polls have shown a clear and distinct tilt towards President Obama as the favorite Presidential candidate of many who voted for Walker. Weird, but not unprecedented. In spite of all the money poured into the Republican war chest, and the endorsement and campaigning skills of Republican favorites like Gov. Sasquatch of New Jersey, Walker's election was hardly the conservative mandate the RNC will doubtless try to spin.
3) The fact that Walker was subject to a recall election should be considered a costly  indictment. The recall election cost the Republicans a seat in the state senate, which gives the Democrats control of the state senate, and if that remains through the November elections (the legislature doesn't convene until after then), it will prevent Walker from ramming more unconstitutional bullshit through the statehouse and down the throats of working people in Wisconsin. At the very least, he won't be able to call any special sessions in which he will introduce bills to use debtor's prisons and internment  camps for minorities and abortion doctors as cheap and affordable labor sources for his pals, the Koch brothers. 
4) The Koch brothers (Mario and Luigi) are evil bastards. 
5) Vince Lombardi was a loyal Democrat. 
6) Dem and labor provided the torque for this particular blow to their solar plexus. Not only was the recall itself  ill-advised, on principle and practicality, in spite of Walker's egregious actions, the Democratic nominee was a poorly chosen dupe, a squishy loser and small-time pol who threw a monkey wrench into the proceedings by  entering the election a month before the Democratic primary. 
7) Scott Walker may one day, indeed, be Wisconsin's entry in the contest to name biggest hemorrhoid on the ass of history.  But Badger voters have a history of rank weirdness, sending as they did Joseph McCarthy, a vicious, red-baiting proto-teabagger and drunken jackoff of titanic proportions, to the United States senate. TWICE. You may be a vindictive, gnat-peckered, intellectual sloth, Scottie boy, and a borderline fascist. You've got potential. But compared to McCarthy, who long ago earned his spot on the Mount Rushmore of douchebags, you're small potatoes.