Blood Orange
Today, he wrote his holy manifesto
He stopped at nine hundred and twenty pages
He'll gut and eat those hallowed columned buildings
In biting, raving, formulated stages
We said, 'but he won't do that
Besides, it's just a book.'
Today, he swore to plant a Birnam Wood
Smugly watch it blooming in its slumber
He'll have the witches killed for defamation
And Macduff's head atop a spike of lumber
We said, 'but that's not how
The story's meant to go.'
Today, he vowed that he would save the children
Segment their minds to binaries and slates
He'll spray the saplings down with pesticides
Then pick them, toss them into wooden crates
We said, 'but they won't buy that
They're the future, they can think.'
Today, he pledged to squeeze the villains out
The crooks, the cons, the convicts, rats and thieves
He'll build a wall that's higher than the sun
Peel families apart like stalks from leaves
We said, 'but he can't do that,
It just wouldn't make sense.'
Today, he called to fight, to fight, to fight,
Blood trickled down his wrinkled orange head
He'll live, outlive the charges held against him
The juice of justice; bitter, warm and red
We said, 'he can't
He can't. Can he?'
Tomorrow, they will crown him like a king,
A supreme leader, starting on day one
He'll drink his oil and feast his fill of terror
His friends will rule the world and point the gun
We lost. It's true. It's sad.
But all fruit rots eventually.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
Brian Wilson: Death of towering figure closes a chapter in music history
The death of a towering figure such as The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson marks the closing of a chapter in the history of music and is another reminder that rock's golden generation is passing into the twilight right before our eyes. As the tortured visionary behind The Beach Boys , Wilson helped shape the world in which we live today – providing the soundtrack to everyday life via timeless pop masterpieces such as Good Vibrations, Wouldn't It Be Nice and California Girls. Long before Wilson's mental health struggles derailed his career in the mid-1960s and decades before his recent decline in health, these songs were already eternal – their brilliantly vulnerable melodies and heartfelt lyrics destined to live forever. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and a handful of others, Wilson provided the soundtrack to the past 70 years of shared human existence. With his passing, something has been lost – and yet, there is comfort in knowing his music will be with us in perpetuity. He was also a cautionary tale – a gentle soul ill-suited to the demands of the music industry and ultimately derailed by its vices. Desperate to compete with The Beatles, he turned to LSD as a creative tool. This disastrous relationship would push Wilson over the brink and spiralling off into galaxies from which he never quite returned. READ MORE That he was a pop savant was beyond dispute – driven by his rivalry with Lennon and McCartney, The Beach Boys' single Good Vibrations and the 1966 album Pet Sounds confirmed pop music as an art form. He was also instrumental in the creation of the concept album, with records such as Surf's Up – a weird, difficult piece about environmental decay and the collapse of America as relevant today as when The Beach Boys released it in 1971. Famously, Wilson couldn't surf. The songwriter behind Surfin' Safari and Surfing USA preferred the quiet reclusiveness of the recording studio to the teeming beaches of his native Inglewood, California, where he grew up with his brothers and future Beach Boys bandmates Dennis and Carl (their cousin, Mike Love, would join them as the group's vocalist). Wilson's songs conjured with the cliche of California as a sun-kissed paradise. But there were always shadows amid the light. Stardom would ultimately prove too much for a contemplative individual who never quite got over his abusive relationship with his father, Murry, for many years The Beach Boys' manager. 'People say I'm a genius – it's a compliment,' he told me in 2014. 'Having that [pressure] on me gave me the goose. It goosed me to want to make something really special. As soon as we finished Good Vibrations I knew we would have the number one record in the nation. In the end it went to number three – well that's close to number one. I was happy. There isn't a [note] on that record I would change.' [ The Beach Boys: 'It would be the right time to come back together, while we still have our voices' Opens in new window ] During that conversation, he came across as thoughtful and introspective – though he took issue with the idea that he was perpetually melancholy. It was more that the spotlight was not for him. 'People say I'm a sad person,' said Wilson. 'Well, the songs are sad. Pet Sounds is a sad album. Caroline, No that is a very sad song. Generally, I would consider myself a mellow individual. I like playing to crowds of three or four thousand. I'm not like Paul McCartney, who can play to 20,000 people. I'm not that sort of person.'
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Harvey Weinstein found guilty of sex crime in New York retrial
A Manhattan jury found Harvey Weinstein guilty on a sex crimes charge on Wednesday in a retrial after a state appeals court last year overturned the former movie mogul's 2020 conviction . Weinstein, once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, was accused by prosecutors in the case of raping an aspiring actor and assaulting two other women. Weinstein (73) pleaded not guilty and has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex. The jury found Weinstein guilty on one of the three counts he faced, which stemmed from his alleged assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The jury found Weinstein not guilty of a charge stemming from his alleged assault of Kaja Sokola in 2002 when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actor. The jury has not yet reached a verdict on the third count, which charges him with raping aspiring actor Jessica Mann in 2013. They will resume deliberations on that count on Thursday. In closing arguments on June 3rd, the prosecution told the 12 jurors that the evidence showed how Weinstein used his power and influence to trap and abuse women. READ MORE The defence countered that the accusers lied on the witness stand out of spite after their consensual sexual encounters with the Oscar-winning producer failed to result in Hollywood stardom. Jurors reached their partial verdict on the fifth day of sometimes fractious deliberations. The retrial began on April 23rd. Weinstein has had a litany of health problems and attended the retrial in a wheelchair. A jury had in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping Ms Mann and sexually assaulting Ms Haley. Ms Sokola's allegation was not part of that case. The conviction was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. But the New York court of appeals, the state's highest court, threw out that conviction in April 2024. It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, though their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges. Though the 2020 conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars because of his 2022 rape conviction in California, which resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. He is appealing that verdict. More than 100 women, including famous actors, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. The retrial was handled by prosecutors with the office of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. They portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. The defence rejected that characterisation, saying Weinstein engaged in 'mutually beneficial' relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities. Weinstein cofounded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicised. Weinstein has experienced several health episodes while being held at New York City's Rikers Island jail, and in September was rushed to a hospital for emergency heart surgery. – Reuters
Irish Times
13 hours ago
- Irish Times
Brian Wilson, Beach Boys musician and pop visionary, dies aged 82
Brian Wilson , The Beach Boys musician, songwriter and producer who created some of history's most purely beautiful pop music, has died aged 82. In a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday, Wilson's family wrote: 'We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realise that we are sharing our grief with the world. Love & Mercy.' As the leading creative force in The Beach Boys, Wilson crafted a variously carefree and melancholy sound that came to define the uncertain utopianism of mid-century California. Using ambitious studio techniques to give the band's music a thrilling grandeur, his songs about surfing, driving, girls and the pep of youth modulated to more reflective and often psychedelic material, resulting in one of the most highly regarded catalogues of American song. The Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds – written and produced almost entirely by Wilson – is seen not only as the group's masterpiece, but for many is the greatest album of all time. Wilson was born in Inglewood, southern California, in 1942. A natural musician with perfect pitch who could sing back phrases sung to him as a baby, he learned piano as he and his younger brothers Carl and Dennis fell in love with R&B, rock'n'roll, doo-wop and pop. Despite going partly deaf in one ear (possibly as a result of an attack by a local boy), he and Carl joined their cousin Mike Love to form the high school group Carl and the Passions, later bringing in Dennis and friend Al Jardine to form the Pendletones. They had been encouraged by Wilson's father Murry, with whom Wilson had a complex relationship – he later said Murry was also physically abusive to him. READ MORE Bruce Johnston (from left to right), David Marks, Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine of The Beach Boys at the Grammy Awards in 2012. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Wilson's first song for the group, soon renamed the Beach Boys, was 1961's Surfin' – the first in a series of Wilson-penned hits such as Surfin' Safari, Surfer Girl and Surfin' USA, the latter reaching number three on the US charts and cementing their breakthrough. Wilson graduated to producer, as well as songwriter, for third album Surfer Girl, and powered the group through an astonishingly high work rate, releasing 15 albums before the end of the 1960s. Wilson's ambition meant that he strove not to be boxed in as a novelty band who sang about surfing and cars, and deepened the band's songcraft – including on Pet Sounds, which was conceived as an overarching statement rather than a series of discrete songs, its complex arrangements featuring everything from orchestral instruments to Coca-Cola bottles. [ Brian Wilson's united states of music Opens in new window ] Wilson began using cannabis and LSD, and said the latter was creatively useful – he wrote a signature Beach Boys song, California Girls, while on his first trip, and said acid allowed him to 'come to grips with what you are, what you can do [and] can't do'. But his drug use, coupled with his intense workload, likely exacerbated mental health problems that had started when he was a teenager suffering from anxiety. He heard voices in his head, spent time in psychiatric hospitals during the late 1960s, and became somewhat isolated from his bandmates. Wilson would eventually be diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild manic depression. He said in 2019: 'There were times when [his mental illness] was unbearable but with doctors and medications I have been able to live a wonderful, healthy and productive life.' Amid his difficulties, Pet Sounds' follow-up Smile was never completed (though was later adapted into a 2004 solo album, and the original recordings eventually released as The Smile Sessions in 2011). His bandmates began to contribute more to the songwriting, though Wilson compositions still occasionally featured as the group emerged from a commercial downturn at the close of the decade to record the acclaimed Sunflower and Surf's Up albums (the latter's title track a psychedelic return by Wilson to his earlier fixation). The Beach Boys in 1966. Photograph: Clive Limpkin/Express/Getty After the death of his father, the early 1970s were a low period for Wilson, as his drug intake increased along with his weight, and he became isolated once more. He came back into the Beach Boys fold for 1976 album 15 Big Ones, but descended again into alcoholism, drug abuse and overeating towards the end of the decade; he also endured the death of Dennis who drowned in 1983. Closely controlled by psychologist Eugene Landy, his equilibrium improved in the 1980s, and, having finally split from the Beach Boys, he released his self-titled debut solo album in 1988. The early 1990s was another fractious period: Wilson was extricated from his arrangement with Landy – who had become a songwriting collaborator, and got himself added to Wilson's will via a conservatorship agreement – with a restraining order filed against Landy. Wilson was sued by his mother, Carl, Love and Jardine for defamatory statements in his 1991 memoir, and again by Love the following year over royalties, which was found in favour of Love. [ The Beach Boys: 'It would be the right time to come back together, while we still have our voices' Opens in new window ] Wilson continued to tour and release occasional solo albums, and eventually reunited with the Beach Boys in 2011 (now without Carl, who died in 1998) for a tour and the album That's Why God Made the Radio. The group split once more, with Love touring under the band's name and Wilson and Jardine separately touring together, including for a 50th anniversary Pet Sounds tour in 2016. Wilson was married twice, first to Marilyn Rovell in 1964, with whom he had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy (who later formed a vocal group of their own, Wilson Phillips, and scored three US number one singles). Wilson and Rovell divorced in 1979. In 1995, he married Melinda Kae Ledbetter, who he first began dating in 1986 and who also became his manager. They adopted five children together. In addition to his 1991 and 2016 memoirs, Wilson's story has also been told in a biopic, Love & Mercy, starring Paul Dano and released in 2014, and a 2021 documentary, Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. – Guardian
