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Michael Franti got his guitar, then headed to Iraq. Any requests for anti-war music?
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/7/2006 | Aidin Vaziri

Posted on 09/07/2006 5:58:57 PM PDT by TFFKAMM

No one can accuse Michael Franti of armchair activism.

When U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq three years ago, lots of musicians spoke out with songs, letters and freshly peeled bumper stickers. But the lead singer of the Bay Area soul-funk group Spearhead handled the situation in his own typical way. He turned off CNN, grabbed a guitar and started pricing tickets to Baghdad.

"I knew I wasn't getting the whole truth on TV," he says. "I wanted to see with my own eyes what was going on there."

Although the members of his own band didn't expect anything less, they were too afraid to join him on the trip. Other musicians he called not only turned him down but tried to talk him out of going as well.

It didn't work. In May 2004, Franti rounded up three video cameras and a ragtag eight-person crew, and made the journey to Iraq via Jordan. After some mild confusion at the customs desk, he was welcomed into the country as a tourist.

"I didn't feel like a tourist at all," laughs Franti, 39, who spent most of his time in Baghdad busking in the streets and chatting with locals. But that didn't mean he wasn't curious. His main mission was to see how people made it through their daily lives -- without electricity or drinking water, and car bombs constantly going off around the corner. "It's so incredibly dangerous, I was interested in seeing how kids get to school, how adults get to their jobs," he says.

Since he was in the neighborhood anyway, the songwriter also decided to stop by other Middle East hotspots in Israel and the Palestinian territories to see what was going on there....

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antiwar; iraq; left; music; rocknroll
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1 posted on 09/07/2006 5:59:00 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
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To: TFFKAMM
the songwriter also decided to stop by other Middle East hotspots in Israel and the Palestinian territories to see what was going on there....

Let me guess--he somehow "became" a supporter of the Palestinians, though he "had no position" before he went over there?

I won't give them the hit to find out.

2 posted on 09/07/2006 6:02:06 PM PDT by Darkwolf377
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To: TFFKAMM
busking in the streets

For anyone else who didn't know this word:

busk [busk] verb [ intrans. ] play music or otherwise perform for voluntary donations in the street or in subways .

3 posted on 09/07/2006 6:02:38 PM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: TFFKAMM
"[Iraqis] told me afterward that they didn't want to hear songs protesting the war," Franti says. "They wanted to hear songs to make them laugh, dance and get on with their lives." It's no coincidence that Lionel Richie is the most popular pop star in Baghdad.
4 posted on 09/07/2006 6:03:21 PM PDT by marron
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To: Darkwolf377

For his sake, I hope he never comes face to face with the Nuge while he's over there.


5 posted on 09/07/2006 6:03:30 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (Fight Crime. Shoot Back.)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

If this guy has a pony tail I'm going to lash out in anger.


6 posted on 09/07/2006 6:07:04 PM PDT by zarf
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To: zarf
How about two??


7 posted on 09/07/2006 6:10:22 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo (Fight Crime. Shoot Back.)
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To: Darkwolf377

Actually, the article is pretty vague on specifics, not really worth a read since it doesn't expand on it's only real premise, that the guy has something important to say about his trip to Iraq.


8 posted on 09/07/2006 6:11:21 PM PDT by saganite (Billions and billions and billions-------and that's just the NASA budget!)
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To: TFFKAMM

It sounds like this guy's lucky his head didn't end up rolling on the floor while his body was sitting upright. What a dumbass.


9 posted on 09/07/2006 6:11:33 PM PDT by GnL
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

Nuge would deal with him. This guy is wasting oxygen and needs to take a dirt bath!

LLS


10 posted on 09/07/2006 6:12:35 PM PDT by LibLieSlayer (Preserve America... kill terrorists... destroy dims!)
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To: TFFKAMM

[..."We can bomb the world to pieces,
but we can't bomb it into peace."...]

Vapid sycophantic child!


11 posted on 09/07/2006 6:13:35 PM PDT by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: saganite

My take was, that he was a typical Berkeley liberal, naive to the point of dangerous, and somehow ignorant enough to think that he could make the world peaceful by playing his sophomoric songs.


12 posted on 09/07/2006 6:14:29 PM PDT by GnL
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To: saganite
The article doesn't need to say anything.

Any musician worth his salt would pull a stunt like this for publicity; publicity intended to impress hot young chicks and getting them in the sack.

Pop music has and will always be a means of getting a BJ.

13 posted on 09/07/2006 6:18:56 PM PDT by zarf
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To: LibLieSlayer
"This guy is wasting oxygen and needs to take a dirt bath! "

Make that "dirt nap!"

He looks like he already took a dirt bath . . .


14 posted on 09/07/2006 6:29:48 PM PDT by guitar4jesus (Black, Conservative . . . and I vote!)
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To: TFFKAMM
>"Any requests for anti-war music? "

HOw about Killa Kommie for Mommie!!

Kill A Commie For Mommie

Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes

15 posted on 09/07/2006 6:35:29 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (I'd rather be carrying a shotgun with Dick, than riding shotgun with a Kennedyl! *-0(:~{>)
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To: Darkwolf377

Hey! One of my favorite songs "way back when" was the FISH YELL! while I was in the USMC.

Haven't heard of it? Well it began ....

Gimme an F .....
Gimme a U ......
Gimme a C .....
.....
you get the idea - it came out after Alice's Restaurant (a lot better quality) Did it debut in Woodstock?


16 posted on 09/07/2006 7:48:02 PM PDT by TimesDomain (When a judge declares himself "MASTER", you become his "SLAVE")
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To: TFFKAMM

Well, we had a great one in SF School, "Napalm Sticks to Kids." Somehow I don't think that's in his repertoire.

Still, props to him for having the nads (or lack of judgment, sometimes that's the same thing) to go there. And I hope it brings him the publicity -- and the Clintonian favors mentioned by other posters -- that he was gunning for (with an eight-man film crew, this wasn't exactly the spontaneous impulse that the damn-fool writer makes it seem).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F


17 posted on 09/07/2006 8:13:51 PM PDT by Criminal Number 18F (In which article of the Constitution is the Press assigned a role in government? Precisely.)
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To: Darkwolf377
"It's not as if Franti is a stranger to shaking things up. Having moved to San Francisco in 1984, the towering Hunters Point resident first made his mark as a member of the Beatnigs and then later in the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, the potent early '90s rap duo that updated Gil Scott-Heron's biting political indictments during the first Gulf War and toured the world with U2."

I've seen a short indy film highlighting this guy. Believe me, he is definitely a lesser talent but very impressed with himself and apparently charismatic enough to influence immature minds.

Nobody - and I mean nobody - has ever heard of the Beatnigs or the Disposable Heroes of Hipopricy or Gil Scott-Heron outside of a few cellar dwellers and lefty moochers.

18 posted on 09/07/2006 8:34:17 PM PDT by telebob
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To: saganite

I think this is the Chronic's way of publicizing his "annual Peace-in" or whatever he calls it. It's being held this weekend.


19 posted on 09/07/2006 8:54:03 PM PDT by hotshu
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To: Jo Nuvark
"We can bomb the world to pieces,
but we can't bomb it into peace."

"Those who start wars never fight them/
And those who fight wars never like them."

Wow, look out Shakespeare and all the great songwriters of the world.

20 posted on 09/07/2006 9:52:09 PM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done, needs to be done by the government.)
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