Dan Epstein
&
David Rovics
From ANDRAS JONES: Author and musician DAN EPSTEIN joins our Pop Oracle session with DAVID ROVICS to talk about his decision to boycott Major League Baseball in 2019 (and maybe beyond). This decision was motivated by the revelation of MLB’s recent donations to the blatantly racist congressional campaign of Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi. Dan is the author of a couple of books about baseball in the 70’s (“Big Hair and Plastic Grass” and “Stars and Strikes”) and, like many baseball fans, he loves the game in part because of its history as a progressive force for racial integration. This is a history baseball celebrates and congratulates itself for every April 15th with Jackie Robinson Day (for more on the syncs around Jackie Robinson day check out the first episode of the Synchronize podcast I co-produced with Alan Green of Sync Book Press).For a sport that promotes itself this way to actively and financially support politicians who are white supremacists is beyond hypocritical. It’s something that demands a response. Dan’s action inspired me to unsubscribe to MLB this year and perhaps we can inspire you to do likewise. David’s randomly chosen song as the answer is right on the money as is today’s randomly generated Pop Oracle song from the Radio8Ball app. “Hard Lessons” was recorded in Olympia at the venue formerly known as Obsidian (now Octapas) during a live Radio8Ball show featuring Chris “Sandman” Sand as the musical guest, accompanied by an all-star Olympia band featuring Scott Taylor (of The Hard Way), Chad Austinson (of Chelan and many other Olympia groups) and our engineer for this session Skyler Blake. “We all have hard ass lessons to learn”
POP ORACLE Song of The Day (February 5, 2019): CHRIS “SANDMAN” SAND “Hard Lessons”
St. Patrick Battalion
My name is John Riley I’ll have your ear only a while
I left my dear home in Ireland It was death, starvation or exile
And when I got to America It was my duty to go
Enter the Army and slog across Texas To join in the war
against Mexico
It was there in the pueblos and hillsides That I saw the mistake
I had made
Part of a conquering army With the morals of a bayonet blade
So in the midst of these poor, dying Catholics
Screaming children, the burning stench of it all
Myself and two hundred Irishmen Decided to rise to the call
From Dublin City to San Diego
We witnessed freedom denied
So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion
And we fought on the Mexican side
We marched ‘neath the green flag of Saint Patrick
Emblazoned with “Erin Go Bragh”
Bright with the harp and the shamrock And “Libertad para la
Republica”
Just fifty years after Wolf Tone Five thousand miles away
The Yanks called us a Legion of Strangers And they can talk as
they may
We fought them in five major battles Churobusco was the last
Overwhelmed by the cannons from Boston We fell after each
mortar blast
Most of us died on that hillside In the service of the Mexican
state
So far from our occupied homeland We were heroes and
victims of fate
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