The evolution of man continues and Blake Griffin is in the vanguard

I have never seen a human being throw down a dunk like this. Never. Ever.

Dizzy Gillespie's Dream Band - Manteca - 1982

Dizzy Gillespie was as responsible as anyone for wedding Latin rhythms to Jazz in post WWII NYC. 35 years later, when this performance was filmed and now, 65 years after he opened our ears to World music, Diz' is still one of the most vibrant sounds around. 

Manteca!

When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats

When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Read by Colin Farrell

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin do something to Judy Garland

Frank does something marvelous to Judy

Frank Sinatra; A Man and His Music

Has there ever been a more self-possessed, confident and self actualized performer than Frank?

I think not. 

Otis Redding could play it tender or play it rough

I've been loving you too long

Dock of the Bay

Barack Obama; a lingering observation

The longer I observe President Obama’s reflective intelligence, calm and reassuring demeanor, the more convinced I am that he still could become a truly a transformative historical figure for reasons far beyond race. If only he were not perpetually hamstrung by a “loyal opposition”, whose mantra has been from the beginning of his administration and that promises to remain to the end, “No, stop, don’t and you can’t make me.”

But let’s face it: the divisiveness and undertone of violence that swirls about the President is less a considered response to who he is or to his policies than a reaction to the color of his skin and the mixing of his blood; and that's a sin and a shame.

March, 2009


UPDATE AND CLOSING ARGUMENT:

On the eve of our election of the next President of the United States of America, the divided, weary electorate are complaining about the tenor of the campaign. I submit that while other campaigns have been deeply steeped in blood, muck and mire (see Bush/Atwater v. Dukakis, circa 1988), there has been something particularly ugly that has preceded and colored this campaign that has far transcended policy debates about taxes and the economy.

From the moment he emerged on the national scene, throughout his first term and to this election day, the President's enemies have tried by every means necessary, to demonize and delegitimize him. His birthright and ancestry have been repeatedly called into question; his patriotism routinely mocked. He has been called a socialist, a Muslim and worse. (Not that there is anything wrong with being either, but in the tenor of the times we live in, it's a epithet) He has been continually reviled and demeaned and forced to deal with a political opposition whose sole stated purpose has been to make him a one-term president.

The following is a brief excerpt from an extended written dialogue I had with someone on Facebook earlier this year:

“The devil is licking his chops. He is a Jew hating Muslim! Obama was raised to believe in anti colonialism and he is a Socialist! He breeds hate and discontent with fingers pointing in many directions to distract the real agenda. Socialist divide people first by putting them in classes. Why do you think he's running up this huge debt? It is so he can wipe out the middle class by creating a burden so great they become dependent on the gov't....that is Socialism! You and every American best wake up to what the wolf in sheep's clothing is up to!”

In our next exchange, this individual compared the President to Hitler, intent on world domination or destruction. If you think this man is alone, you have not been paying attention.

The President's every move has subjected him to the lash of a blind, unreasoning hatred that would have left scars on any man. Barack Obama has borne it all with an equanimity and grace that is deserving of the nation's respect.

For his accomplishments, from The Ledbetter Act guaranteeing equal pay to women for equal work, the economic stimulus that saved the auto industry and banks, the Affordable Health Care Act, ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell, hunting down Bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq and starting the withdrawal in Afghanistan and more, he is deserving of the nation's trust and votes. 
November 6, 2012

Lamb Chop delivers lessons in life and politics to Charlie Horse.

"Thirty five Presidents, all men and not one could do the job right".

If they had gotten just one girl, she would have been enough" Lamb Chop to Charlie Horse 1962

There are not many celebrities, large or small, old, young or down under that I'm not willing to poke with a giggle or a stick. But from what I know, Shari Lewis was a gracious, talented lady whose greatest gift was that she spoke to children without talking down to them. So, out of respect for Ms. Lewis, I am setting the jokes aside. (On the other hand, the woman did spend much of her life talking to socks and buttons).

Ray Charles and Van Morrison are just crazy about love

At VM's induction into the songwriter's Hall of Fame 1989

Leftover Dinosaurs Department

I know Steven Tyler is an American Idol although I don’t know why.  But even giving him credit for that lofty designation, his rendition of the National Anthems yesterday rests one flat behind Carl Lewis and one sharp note above Rosanne Barr for the most cringe worthy versions of the National Anthem I have ever endured. What does this guy do for a living anyway?

Newty's the real Rootie Tootie

A compadre of great wisdom and insight asks “Can someone explain to me how Newt Gingrich, who was a Congressman from the late 1970s to the 1990s, when he resigned due to ethical questions, has re-invented himself as a non-politican candidate?"

Of course I can.

Newt the Toot offers all that we could ever want in a national soap opera.  Sex, lies, intrigue, corruption, treachery, skulduggery, tons of $$$ and a fearless leading man ever willing to leap onto every podium and into every fray with a grenade in his hand, the pin in his teeth and announce to one and all, “watch this!” 

Who could ask for anything more?

HL 1/22/12

Newt Gingrich takes a header into the dustbin

New York Times columnist and op-ed editor Gail Collins has come under attack for this recent column poking fun of Newt Gingrich for his marital infidelities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/opinion/collins-opening-newts-marriage.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share

Briefly, Collins has been accused of fermenting a story where there was none to advance a Democrat party agenda -and, as I understand it, of poor writing and logical fallacies in general.

The criticisms raised for me several questions that I found rather easily resolved when it come to assigning Newt his place on the Mt. Rushmore of  Hypocrisy.

Why does this column warrant an ad hominem attack upon the columnist?  To my knowledge, Collins has never declared herself a “genius” or, for that matter, a Democrat.  She did not identify the several “political playboys” by either name or party affiliation.  She is, at a minimum, an accomplished journalist, the first female op-ed editor of the Times, and she has earned her forum - just as Newt has earned his.

The column itself is merely a rather light hearted poke at a subject that has come under heightened scrutiny because Newt’s second wife – not the one he left because she had cancer, but the one he left when she was diagnosed with MS – elected to give an interview to Vanity Fair – and because of Newt’s incendiary response to it.

The media is not the issue.  Nor is Gail Collins.  The issue is whether this, (or any candidate’s) sexual mores, are relevant to his (or her) qualifications to become President.

Each one of us is free to decide to what degree marital infidelity and other matters of private and public morality matter in the selection of a president.  Which facts and circumstances do we believe mitigate, aggravate or negate infidelity?”  Are we concerned, indifferent, or oblivious to that infidelity as an isolated instance or pattern?  Do we believe such conduct to be reflective and indicative of a candidate’s trustworthiness, capacity for recklessness, lack of regard and respect for others?  Do we care a great deal, somewhat or not at all?

Personally, I would not have cared a great deal what Newt did in his bedroom, office or car as long as he stayed out of mine, yours and everyone else’s.  However, he has breached that wall so often he has forfeited the right to have his sexual appetites and peccadillos overlooked.  Now he stands revealed, yet again, as someone possessed of a nearly unfathomable sense of self –aggrandizement and entitlement coupled with an incalculable degree of hypocrisy, cynicism, crudity, selfishness, and cruelty.

This is the man who stood in the well of the House chamber day after day after day clamoring for Bill Clinton’s impeachment for emasculating family values and other “high crime and misdemeanors” by  having sex with "that woman", while maintaining his own bevy of supplicants at the ever ready.

This is the man who left his first wife in the midst of her battle with cancer, reportedly telling his then campaign finance chairman that, “She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President.  And besides, she has cancer."  Of course, you can also choose to believe Newt, when he tells us the former staffer was lying.

However, this is also the man who left his second wife as she was beginning her battle with MS.  Here is what she claims was his response when she asked him how he could justify delivering speeches on family values while living with another woman; “It doesn’t matter what I do.  People need to hear what I have to say.  There’s no one else who can say what I can say.  It doesn’t matter what I live.”

Either you accept that statement as an accurate quote or she is lying too.  On the other hand, you can blame it all on Vanity Fair (and, I suppose, their presumably all-Democratic editorial board) for publishing the interview in the first place.

I was not in the hospital, the bedroom or the front seat of his car, so I am in no position (no pun intended), to judge who is telling the truth in either of these instances.  However, Newt has a lengthy public record and has had a great many things to say that provide some context on whether he is capable of such stunning and appalling), hubris, including this gem, “I have enormous personal ambition.  I want to shift the entire planet.  And I’m doing it.  I am now a famous person.  I represent real power.”

Look.  Newt Gingrich is not going to become the Republican President candidate and he is never going to become President so, as soon as he either runs out of campaign dough or exhausts his vitriol against Willard, much of this becomes moot and Newt is consigned to the dustbin of history.

However, as long as he has chosen to place himself on a podium he has invited public scrutiny and his private behavior is relevant for both careful and systematic scrutiny or mockery as one chooses.
For this man who has famously said, “Morality no longer concerns matters of love, sharing, compassion, fairness, justice or tolerance, it now mostly concerns boobs on TV and denying queers pursuit of happiness” it is time for the dustbin.

Johnny Otis was a big time music man

Debbie Reynolds and the Dippity-Do Dancers Desecrate Pete Seeger

Debbie Reynolds, in consort with the Dippity-Do Dancers, desecrates Pete Seeger, proving in the process that either she didn't have a friend in this world or a brain in her head. 

If Bing Crosby was Sargent Pepper ...

Then Paul McCartney is Bing Crosby!

Bing Crosby and The Temptations share My Girl

Bing Crosby and The Temptations

I don't know. You tell me.

Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder; Uptight and looking for Satisfaction

Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder are Uptight and can't get no Satisfaction.

Mr. Charisma himself,Van Morrison, blows off Dick Clark

Mr. Charisma himself, Van Morrison, blowing off Dick Clark and winning The All Time Worst Play Pretend Singing Award while demonstrating that even if he's not a quick draw on the mouth harp, he can use a 10 second interview as an opportunity to craft the lyrics to a new composition, "I walk around parts of cities/and the rain and things." 

Makes one wonder what he was thinking when he turned his back on the audience to stare at the wall ... "Uhhh...a wall ... a wall ... a wall ... the circles ...circle the wall ... in the rain, the rain, the rain and oh, the pain ... and other things".

Of such musings, genius is crowned.

Brown Eyed Girl by the Lip Synching King of Rock

His name was Ranger Andy

If you grew up in Southern New England sometime between  the late-50's and the late-60's and your family had a television set that you were allowed to watch from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, you know the old codger pictured above.

  

His name was Ranger Andy and he traveled all around

Newt lusted to be hoisted on his own petard.

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

- Newt Gingrich, explaining why he cheated on his first two wives. He carried on the first affair while his wife was suffering from cancer, and the second while he was busy orchestrating Bill Clinton's impeachment and she was battling MS.

Mitt the Willow bares his soul and his truth goes marching that-a-way

“What the Court did not do on its’ last day in session, I will do on my first day in office; repeal Obabamacare.’ ‘If we want to repeal Obama care, we have to replace Obamacare”.  - Mitt Romney June 28, 2012.

 "I say we're going to replace Obamacare and I'm replacing it with my own plan. And even in Massachusetts when I was governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions and with young people." Romney on Meet the Press September 9, 2012

......................................................................................................
On December 16, 2007 Mitt Romney appeared on Meet the Press. In that appearance he said, "You can see what I believe and what my family believed (sic) by looking at our lives. My Dad walked with Martin Luther King." 

Days later, his spokesman issued the following statement, "He was speaking figuratively, not literally." 

Mitt then clarified with this, "I didn't see it with my own eyes". 

As long as we know that you stand strong in any stiff breeze, Mitt.

I mean, really! What's so difficult about telling the simple truth - or simply not offering up a pretty little lie? 

The antipathy that Barack Obama arouses

Let's face it: the divisiveness and undertone of violence that swirls about the President is less a considered response to who he is or to his policies than a reaction to the color of his skin and the mixing of his blood; and that's a sin and a shame.

HL, March, 2010

Barack Sr. & Jr.

Barack Obama Sr. with his son in the Honolulu airport during Obama Sr.'s only visit to see his son while he was growing up in Hawaii. Young Barack was in the 5th grade when the photo was taken.

Obama with his maternal grandfather.

((Photos courtesy of Barack Obama)

Mitt Romney: The Evolution of a Candidate - A True Story

As the Republicans continue to winnow their field of cartoon characters pretending to be qualified to become President of the United States, it is time to bow to the inevitable: Mitt’s the one! 

As the elephant parade forms into lock step, we are grateful for another opportunity to examine the starch inside the shirt, the stuffing within the suit and the greasy kid stuff in the hair in search of an answer to the age-old question: What is real about Mitt Romney?*  

Now presenting, direct from the archives, an actual video revealing the true origins and evolution of Mitt the Candidate.

Produced by Mad Men. Not paid for by any of the $12,000,000.00 collected and spent thus far on slash and burn TV ads savaging other Republican pygmies by The Romney Super Pac, "Restore Our Future", made up entirely of corporations who are people that Romney does not know - or owe.

* Remember, when in doubt, don't bet on the hair that won't wave in the wind!

January 16, 2012

Martin Luther King's Dream Speech August 28, 1963

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Marvin Gaye asks an ageless question

What's going on? 

Marvin Gaye in concert 1971

Playing for Change

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillepsie

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - Hot House - 1951

Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins - 1950

One of the four greatest bands in the land, circa 1964 that you may have missed

Submitted:  1964 was a watershed year for popular music.

Submitted: the four most significant bands to emerge in 1964 were ... 

A True American Idol

At the conclusion of another interminable season of American Idol, I remain willing to consider the possibility that the contestants are great singers, but then, I consider Pringles to be vegetables. Ladies and Gentleman, for your consideration, a true American Idol: Ms. Sarah Vaughan.

Perdido - 1955

Cubansimo!

I have no idea what these guys are saying but I bet it's about some girl who impressed them. 

This is the singer and this is the song

This is the singer and this is the song that always reduced me to a prepubescent puddle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pJeBHgYi6Q&feature=related

Pshaw!

The advent of another season has me longin' for them golden days of yesteryear when, after a repast of fresh smoked hickory venison, a feller could toss the remains to Ol’ Yeller, lean back and loosen his suspenders, revealing an ample girth, unleash a chaw of tabacky juice into the nearest spittoon and  punctuate it all with a self-satisfied, “PSHAW!” 

2.28.10

Ooh, Baby, Baby! Smokey and Aretha share a song

Ooh, Baby, Baby! Smokey and Aretha share a song and their memories

Things Ain't What They Used To Be and that's a very good thing

"At least one day each year, all musicians should put their instruments down and give thanks to Duke Ellington." - Miles Davis

Satin Doll

Things Ain't What They Used To Be

VIP Boogie and Jamming With Sam

The great Clifford Brown in his only known filmed performance

Sweet Honey In the Rock

A Sip of Sweet Honey in the Rock to Soothe the Savage Soul

“…I have always believed art is the conscience of the human soul and that artists have the responsibility not only to show life as it is but to show life as it should be. … Sweet Honey In The Rock has withstood the onslaught. She has been unprovoked by the 30 pieces of silver. Her songs lead us to the well of truth that nourishes the will and courage to stand strong. She is the keeper of the flame.” – Harry Belafonte

"We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes". Bernice Johnson Reagon

Motherless Child

Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie

Ella's Song

Wade In the Water

Peace

Let There Be Peace

No Mirrors In My Nana's House

Ella's Song

Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon

Sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

The Arizona shootings four years later - an ugly truth

On the first second, third fourth fifth,sixth, seventh  eighth anniversary of the Arizona shootings that resulted in six (6) dead, including John Roll, a Federal District Court Judge, and nine year old Christina-Tayor-Green and ended the career of Gabrielle Gifford's career, here’s what Second Amendment remedies looks like.

A nine year old girl dead. A Federal judge dead. A congressional staffer is dead. Three others are dead. Another dozen wounded including Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, who, months earlier had implored Sarah Palin, among others, to tone down their inflammatory rhetoric (including the use of cross-hair targets) in political ads, continues to recover from the bullet that was fired into her brain. All for no earthly reason other than that we are a gun crazed country filled with too many untreated mentally ill and too many irresponsible loons with evil souls. 

The carnage goes on unabated and still, there is not one single, high profile politician in the entire country - not one - with enough courage to risk taking on the gun lobby. That’s a very ugly truth.

HL 1/11, updated 1/12, 1/14, 1/19

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

Update July 14, 2015 courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Former Rep. Michele Bachman returned to the spotlight on Saturday warning that the election of Hillary Clinton to the presidency would usher in the complete destruction of America, unless God uses Donald Trump to save the country.

In an interview with End Times broadcaster Jan Markell, the Minnesota Republican lauded Trump’s “1950s sensibilities,” “churched background” and vow to “only appoint pro-life judges.”

“He gets and understands religious liberty,” Bachmann said, noting that Trump discussed the so-called War on Christmas at a recent meeting with evangelical leaders in New York. “He even said, ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘When I was growing up everybody said Merry Christmas. Even my Jews would say Merry Christmas.’”

Markell also warned of the dangers of Clinton presidency: “The Titanic is three-fourths under water right now. You get another four years, another eight years of this progressivism, of this infatuation with Islam and caving to all things Islam, of the LGBT community rammed down our throats, rammed down the throats of the churches, and that’s going to intensify a thousand times more with a Hillary Clinton administration.”

Bachmann, a member of Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, said conservatives who stay home on Election Day rather than vote for Trump will “ensure that we will lose the United States of America; they will ensure it. They will ensure that every godless principle there is comes into this country.”

Clinton, according to Bachmann, will be “pro-Islam” and “bring us into a certain destruction for the United States.”

She then wondered if God elevated Trump to succeed in the Republican presidential primary because he was capable of beating Clinton in November: “When it comes down to it, Trump may have been the only candidate who could actually defeat Hillary. What I kept thinking to, Jan, was the Book of Daniel, and the Book of the Daniel, the essence of the book, was that the most high God lifts up who he will and takes down who he will.”

Update May 31, 2013:  Michelle Moonbeam Bachman has announced that she will not run for reelection in 2014. Naturally, she insists that her decision has nothing to do with the very real possibility that she may lose or that her 2012 belly flop of a bid for the Republican Presidential nomination is under investigation for campaign finance violations. She leaves behind a void on the House Intelligence Committee that can never be filled (supply your own punchline).
While she retreats and, no doubt, plots her return, presenting here for your enjoyment and utter amazement is a collection of her most ludicrous fabrications, outright lies, fairy tales and ventures into the slipstream of insipidity.

Charlie Chaplin raises his voice in defense of humanity

Charlie Chaplin, who would become one of the most beloved artists of the past century, was born on this date, April 16, 1889. Four days later, one of the most diabolical villains of  that same century, a despicable creature who attempted to destroy every vestige of humanity, civility, peace and good will was also delivered unto a then unsuspecting and more innocent world. 

In The Great Dictator, released in 1940, Chaplin used his art and raised his voice to declare war on fascism and extract a measure of revenge for Adolph having stolen his mustache. 

Charlie's closing soliloquy remains as deeply stirring and true today as the day he wrote and spoke them. This scene remains on one of the seminal moments in the history of cinema.

Thank you, Charlie.

I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

Soldiers – don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, use you as cannon fodder.

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers – in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”

"Jazz comes from anywhere a human being has a heart and soul"

When you just gotta have some more oompa in your stride, fill your ears with a dose of the great 

Willie "The Lion" Smith

Duke, Willie the Lion and Billy Taylor swing Perdido

Duke, Willie the Lion and Billy "What's his name again?"Taylor swing Perdido

When they gave Tom Jones a TV show, he knew what to do with it.

The Road to Peace is Paved with Adorable

Adorable. 
Such a lovely word. 
Adore. Able. 
Able to adore. 

Say it aloud 
and hear  
what it means
to see and be 
Adorable.  

Adorable. 
It's the one thing on earth 
that there's just too little of. 
It's Adorable.

Let’s face it: 
puppies.
kittens. 
small children. 
koala bears. 
that's the whole list. 
There is no more 
Adorable.   

Well ... 
(Drum roll maestro!) - 

Starting Here! 
Starting Now! 
We Want Adorable! 
We Want It Now!   

Adorable utility poles, 
Adorable dump trucks, 
Adorable eggplants, 
Adorable iguana, 
And most of all, 
more adorable
of the charming chap below

Follow this simple recipe and world peace is bound to follow. 

Let's Get Adorable Today! 

HL 1/7/12

The Dick who hated us all

One more look back at Richard Nixon’s legacy that stained us all and the justification for Presidential libraries. The excerpts below are from the newly released tapes (2010) that Rosemary Woods didn’t get a chance to erase and prove, if there remained any doubt, that the Dick hated us all.

Thank you, Crockett Johnson, for my purple crayon

One young summer evenin' ...

The Abdication of a King by William Shakespeare

The abdication and surrender of King Richard II to Henry Bolinbroke, with Derek Jacobi as King Richard and John Gielgud as John of Gaunt, Act IV, scene i, in one of the most heart wrenching performances in the Shakespearean canon.

"I'll give my jewels for a set of beads" - Richard II by Derek Jacobi

"Let us tell sad stories of the deaths of ings" - Richard II

"Tell Bolingbroke that every stride he takes upon my land is dangerous treason". - Richard II

KING RICHARD II

Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;

Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.

Now mark me, how I will undo myself;

I give this heavy weight from off my head

And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,

The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

With mine own hands I give away my crown,

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

With mine own breath release all duty's rites:

All pomp and majesty I do forswear;

My manors, rents, revenues I forego;

My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!

God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,

And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!

Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,

And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!

God save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,

And send him many years of sunshine days!

What more remains?