6 - Rotary Connection - Peace

Believe it or not, i put so much effort into last night's review that i sprained my epic imagination muscles. My back hurts too, but that's unrelated.

So instead of a zany corporate adventure about a new album, we'll go back to last year and relisten to Rotary Connection's 3rd album, Peace. Actually, now that i think of it, i didn't actually mention the zany corporate adventures involved in this obscure Christmas absurdity. No plot, just some random stuff.

First, it turns out Rotary Connection really is a Cadet Concept concoction. Marshall Chess was tired of pumping out boring old blues and rock albums for his dad, so he started a new subsidiary with one of the secretaries as the female vocalist. Minnie Ripperton was her name, and you have her to thank for Mariah Carey's career as the dog whistler. Not up on your list of whistle register divas? Ok fine, Maya Rudolph's mom was the lead singer of Rotary Connection.

Marshall really did just invite a bunch of avant garde (for the time) musicians and let them do whatever they wanted. I think you already know they are insane and it's awesome.

This isn't your normal throwaway Christmas thing, this is a bunch of crazy hippies who woke up and said "you know what this whole nasty Vietnam thing makes us was to do? Make a Christmas album."

Yeah, about that. Another corporation really put a damper on everyone's Christmas cheer. 

Some historical perspective: back in the day it was totally normal for corporate executives to walk through the lobby about 9:15, flirt with the receptionists, and then head up to their office for the long day of drinking and phone calls that constituted their "work." One such drunken executive at Montgomery Ward was flipping through Billboard and mistook an anti-war political cartoon for the album cover and angrily cancelled all shipments of the album. What a douche. 

If there's one Christmas album you should definitely check out it's this one. It's not the holly jolly happy dappy showtune kind of Christmas, it's a pretty deep look at the realities that breed the escapist corporate Christmas contraption. 

What would it be like to live in a world where peace was all there was? Not that we had no concept of tragedy, but that our goal was to easy the pains of those unforeseen tragedies as they arise. What would that be like? Seriously. We have no idea. We're all at least twice as cruel and uncaring as 5 years ago. I know i am. Piss on earth, ill will toward man.

I'm sorry, that wasn't fair. You haven't done anything wrong. We're all making the best choices we can in the face of an actively and intentionally dismantled world. I'm not talking about the coronavirus, by the way. Nor is it a conspiracy theory, he did every part of it over the table on national television and half of you applauded.

I only bring it up because 7 shitbags in Waterloo got fired yesterday (insert Toy Story 3 joke here). Tyson itself should cease to exist for all the other horrible stuff they've done in the last two decades, but i'm the radical anarchist chopping off chicken heads in my own backyard so don't look to me for answers.

Some day we'll find it, the Rotary Connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me.