The revolution won’t be on YouTube?
Television will not be revolutionized!
Gil Scott Heron inspired this one…
He said that the Revolution will not be televised. I was at the Coat of Arms in Portsmouth, NH talking with some friends about that possibility. Someone said we should fund this war in Iraq with corporate sponsors. Dickie’s pants, Timberland boots, Hummer, they could brand the soldiers, field test their product in a convincing way. It doesn’t seem impossible.
However, the revolution Scott Heron speaks of will have to be the one that targets the cell phone satellites and internet servers. It will be a revolution of the have-nots, as he talks about, because those of us who have this technology can’t imagine life without it, and wouldn’t give it up for world peace.
Here’s his take on it…
The revolution will no be televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back
after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
Does the Coat of Arms still have pickled eggs? Didn’t that place used to be The Toucan? I once went to a yearbook lunch there and ate some stuff that almost made me crap my pants when I got back to PHS. I made it to the bathroom just in time! The custodians at that school probably deserve an apology…
Comment by Lyle_S — January 5, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
I wish it still was the toucan. the coat has an British empire/ English upper class attitude complex. Of course no one there has anything better than an Revere Mass. accent.
I’ve been kicked out of there for dancing. People smoke inside still. Their pickled eggs are responsible for high school diarhea. Need I go on?
How about a quick anecdote from a South of London guy I met at a bar in Oakland CA? I told him “I’m from New England.”
He said, “New England has fuck all to do with England.” I bought him a drink.
Comment by jon — January 9, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
Actually, it was the Toucan that made me almost prolapse my anus. The food was great, just too spicy for my back end. I’ve never had a pickled egg. However, in the bars in Pittsburgh they sell a lot of hard-boiled eggs with hot sauce and I have eaten those. I took the yolk out of one and filled it with hot sauce and ate it. That amount of hot sauce caused an intense tingling in my ear drums. I suspect that this feeling might be what inspired cartoons to draw characters with flames coming out of their ears when they ate something really spicy. Just a hunch, though.
Comment by Lyle_S — January 10, 2007 @ 6:05 pm