Broadside Balladeer Blog is by Vic Sadot, a singer-songwriter and social justice activist in Berkeley, CA. He is best known for his tribute song to Phil Ochs titled "Broadside Balladeer". In 2015 Vic made a video from his 1973 audio interview with Phil Ochs for YouTube & Vimeo. Vic's latest CD is titled "Truth Troubadour" at CD Baby. Vic released a new CD titled 9/11 Truth and Justice Songs on 9/11/11. On the same day Vic launched a new web site at www.vicsadot.com
Poetry Video published at Vic Sadot YouTube Channel. Extracted from a longer video of 8 Jean-Henri Sadot poems presented as poems or songs on the July 28, 2003 Dream Streets Radio Show hosted by Steven Leech.
The full Dream Streets Radio video has 8 Jean-Henri Sadot poems presented as poems or songs on the audio track from the July 28, 2003 Dream Streets Radio Show hosted by Steven Leech on WVUD 91.3 FM, "The Voice of the University of Delaware", in Newark, DE.
Blizzardwas written by Jean-Henri Sadot in 1966. The 8 poem video made from the July 28, 2003 Dream Streets Radio Show Presents Poems of Jean-Henri Sadot has: (1) Iron Hill; (2) Early Roses of 1940; (3) White Clay Creek; (4) The Statue of Liberty; (5) Summertime Sunset; (6) Blizzard; (7) A Little Girl’s Bedtime; and (8) The Moods of the Sea. Vic Sadot, son of the poet, is reading Jean-Henri Sadot poems, or sharing renderings of them into song as he relates the history behind the poems of Jean-Henri Sadot. Steven Leech aka “Even Steven” was one of the founders of a poetry publication that gave a platform for hundreds of writers to be heard and the Dream Streets editorial teams managed to produce regular releases of Dream Streets for decades.
This
video
was
created
from a 2003 Dream
Streets Radio
Show
audio
track. This particular Dreamstreets show was
aired
on July 28, 2003 in Newark, DE on WVUD, the Voice of the University
of Delaware.
The 8
poems
on this video are: Iron Hill, Early
Roses of 1940, White
Clay Creek, The Statue of Liberty; Summertime Sunset; Blizzard;
Little Girl’s Bedtime; and The Moods of the Sea. Vic Sadot, son
of the poet,
is reading Jean-Henri Sadot poems, or
sharing renderings of them into song as he relates
the
history behind the poems of Jean-Henri Sadot.
Steven
Leech
(Pardon
svp for misspelling in video as “Leach” in earliest editions)
is the Host of Dream Streets Radio Show on WVUD in Newark, DE. “Even
Steven” was
one of the founders
of a poetry
publication
that gave
a platform for hundreds of writers to be heard and managed to produce
regular
releases of Dream Streets for decades.
See
History of Dream Streets in www.dreamstreetsarchive.com
Screenshot from Dream Streets Radio Show Presents the Poems of Jean-Henri Sadot vidto. There is actually a Jean Sadot poem about The Scuttling of the Free French Fleet, but in this 2003 audio there was only a discussion about the events of 1940 and the formation of the French Resistance and the Free French Army and Navy under General Charles DeGaulle
SYNOPSIS:
Introduction & discussion of Jean-Henri Sadot’s childhood in
Normandy, just across from England; his involvement starting at age
20 in WWII as a French soldier, Resistance camp participant in the
Pyrennes Mountains on the Spanish border, and his escape from Nazi
occupied France on a battleship running out of Toulon harbor that
went to North Africa and then to Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City
for retooling for warfare in the invasion of Provence in 1944. He
participated in the retaking of Toulon, the same harbor he escaped
from just before Admiral deLaborde ordered the scuttling of the
French Fleet to keep it from being used by the Nazis and the Vichy
collaboration government. Jean
Sadot’s poems carry themes and perspectives on history and nature
often grounded in local places or very personal experiences. He
worked on the Chrysler assembly line and attended classes at the
University of Delaware while raising 5 children with his wife Eleanor
Lafferty, who grew up on a farm in Landenberg, PA and graduated from
Kennett Square High School before serving in New York City as a US
Navy
“Wave” office worker during WWII. They met in a Broadway Cafe and
wrote letters until reuniting after the war.
There
is a discussion
of strained French-American relations in
2003 due to the
new invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and UK under G W Bush
and Tony Blair. The French and Germans were very much against this
war. G W Bush and Dick Cheney and the NeoCons had lied to make war
and profited from it with their fellow “Masters of War”. In 2003
the US and UK were not supported in the military and cultural
destruction of Iraq. Most
of the NATO
nations,
and
notably
France and Germany, were against the invasion of Iraq as they were
doing business there, as were many American businesses.
Public
remarks in the media by President G. W. Bush aggravated the
disagreement and tensions as Bush comments compared the
60th Anniversary of the D-Day Landing in Normandy, France to
his
2003 invasion and
occupation
of Iraq as
comparable to
the 1944 “liberation” of France and
other European countries under Nazi occupation.
Vic
had just returned from playing at the FĂŞte de Musique in Carentan,
Normandy, France, his father Jean-Henri Sadot's home town. Vic has a
little story to tell about cousin Gilbert Sadot getting a call in the
evening from the Carentan mayor inviting him, and his visiting
American and other French cousins to meet with the mayor and the
town's cultural minister for champagne at the Hotel de Ville. They
brought up the subject of "Freedom
fries" and strained US-French relations over the G. W. Bush -
Cheney regime US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Official Site for Vic Sadot Music is www.vicsadot.com
Monday, February 26, 2018
A
Review
of the
Highlight
Moments
of My Life in 2017by
Vic Sadot 2-15-18
The
year of 2017 was a pretty good year for me. It was another year of
sobriety with a lot of time spent hiking, and biking around Berkeley,
a lot of focus on song
writing
and video making, and one plane trip home to Delaware for the first
time in 7 years. It
was my 70th
birthday on July 21, and Rob’s 61st
birthday on July 23, and
Marie Sadot Perkins’ 57th
birthday
on July 29.
Since Rob had organized a concert for me to sing Crazy Planet and
Planete Folle band songs in Newark, DE with his current band the
Chesapeake Bayou Brothers Band, this also enabled me to have a
reunion with a lot of people I had not seen in years. So that visit
to DE stands out as one of the best highlights of 2017.
Vic Sadot wearing a new T-shirt sent by Mike Arnold who works with Claudio Marty and others on the 9/11 Truth profile photo visibility Facebook group called "I Am The Face of Truth".
The
several Facebook live-stream video clips by Nick Brush from the concert have been
gathered together in one of my blogs in case anyone wants to watch
them. SadotBrothers Birthday Bash Livestream Facebook Videos by Beat Nick at TheBlue Crab Grill on 7-23–17 in Newark, Delaware - VicSadot.com BlogReport posted August 22, 2017.There
are some great slow rolling scan
shots
of the crowd! If
you were there, you may see yourself in this video! After months of recording, mixing, and mastering work on songs at Ancient Owl Studio in Berkeley, I released a new CD titled “Truth Troubadour” in December 2016. So much of January 2017 was devoted to mailing CD’s to folk radio DJ’s in the USA, Canada, and to several famous folk shows in the UK. Having been a DJ, I know that new CD’s come in by the dozens every week. Your CD can easily get lost in the volume and the shuffle. I tried to distinguish my CD by including a nice one page “DJ CD Info” paper folded inside each DJ. The one disappointment I had about my latest CD was that I was not able to get any written reviews of the new CD. Here’s the CD Baby link to the CD: TruthTroubadour(2016) – 18 songs sung by Vic Sadot. Featuring Eric Golub andRob Sadot. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/vicsadot4 Here’s the CD Baby YouTube Artists Collections playlist for the TT CD: “Truth Troubadour” CD by Vic Sadot was published to CD Baby YouTube Channel on Dec 11, 2016. This site allows full length play of the cover songs while CD Baby sales site only gives clips of our covers of Dylan, Ochs, and Lennon songs. 18 Songs in all! Love Songs & Broadsides for 2017! Listen to the playlist here!
JANUARY
2017
Since
January has Martin Luther King’s birthday as a holiday, I do some
activism around my song and video made to promote William Pepper’s
2nd
of 3 books about MLK’s death. I spent a lot of time in January
mailing out the new Truth Troubadour CD to folk DJ’s.
FEBRUARY
2017
In
February 2017 I spent some hours writing a statement about the
inauguration of President Trump with suggestions for what Trump
supporters should demand of Trump since he was now in a position to
lead and deliver to them the things he promised during the 2016
Presidential campaign. By demanding he prove his loyalty and
commitment to the American people by rescinding all repressive
UnConstitutional laws passed by Bush and Obama in National Defense
Authorization Act military funding bills, and in Orwellian named
repressive legislation with names like the “Patriot Act” and the
“Freedom Act”, all of which exploited the seige mentality of the
“War On Terror” launched by the traumatization of the American
people by the 9/11-Anthrax-DC Beltway Sniper attacks of 2001. So this
article was in effect also exposing that the Democratic Party had
sold out the people’s Constitutionally recognized rights. With
civil discourse lost in Trump tweets and the Democratic Party,
Zionist
Corporate bankster media,
and “deep state” intelligence
smokescreen
of “Russiagate” collusion and election hacking based
on some Christopher Steele dossier that later turned out to be funded
by H. Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. So American
dialogue is mostly derisive insults by two hostile camps instead of
being adults in control of the national political conversation,
standing together on common ground to demand the restoration of our
rights and an end to wars for oil and Israel.
We’re
lost in a shit storm! That’s why I wrote this article and have
reposted it many times on Facebook.
Howto UNITE FOR OUR RIGHTS! By Vic Sadot in Berkeley Calling Blog, Feb
16 2017 In
February, I was involved in organizing two major events. On Feb 16,
2017 we had Alison Weir as a speaker for the BFUU Social
Justice Committee and the local Zionists made strange accusations
about her and threatened to have so many demonstrators crashing the
event that we should shut it down. Some BFUU members that we now see
are “peppers” or “Progressive Except on Palestine” are
actually outright Zionists. I contacted hummux and we got him to
video document the speech. Due to previous confrontations at Walnut
Creek, CA, I alerted the Berkeley police and they sent a cop over to
sit outside in his car and see if anything happened. Not one
protester showed up! One of the two BFUU members opposing the speech
showed up with a paper bag over her head during the entire event.
What was that about? Who knows? The other opponent did not come to
the lecture. But she showed up when it was over and called out Alison
as “Anti-Semitic” outside after the event as she was loading her
stuff into her car. Bizarre! By video taping such events and posting
them on YouTube, these detractors are less able to make up things as
if she said them. Alison Weir is not Jewish. She is the President of
the Council for the National Interest (USA) and the Director is
former CIA employee Philip Giraldi. They have an annual
conference in DC to discuss how to take the country back from Israel
and AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Council, a lobby that
former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says requires all elected
representatives to sign a pledge to put the interests of Israel first
always or face a huge wave of funding of an opponent in your next
election. She documents her 6 terms in Congress in a book called
“Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom” and she also publishe a
book called “The Illegal War on Libya”. Alison
Weir Berkeley lecture: 100 Years of Pro-Israel Activism & Trump's
"Muslim Ban" (58:00) Published on Feb 28, 2017 at
IfAmericansKnew YouTube Channel.
“Against Our Better Judgment”,
a book of 200 pages by
Alison Weir, President of the Council for the National Interest (USA)
and founder of “If Americans Knew” Organization, brings
together meticulously sourced evidence to illuminate a reality that
differs starkly from the prevailing narrative. It provides a clear
view of the history that is key to understanding one of the most
critically important political issues of our day.
The
other event was set up by legendary
poet peace activistArnie
Passman
to commemorate the 59th anniversary of the creation of the Peace Symbol in the UK.
It was a cold rainy day. Our 80 year old friend, Arnie, was not feeling well. He called his speakers and cancelled the event. But Cynthia Johnson and I went to Fellowship Hall, opened
the doors, and went on with the show with a small group who showed up, including Hali Hammer, who captured the spirit of the day in her performance of the commemorative video published at the SJC YouTube Channel. We had Sound
Engineer David Yandle make an excellent audio recording. The content contributed by the speakers inspired
me to do more research and to make the audio into a video, much as I
had learned to do by making the 1973 Phil Ochs audio interview into avideo in 2015. This
style of putting
visuals over what’s going on in an audio is very time consuming!
Phil Ochs 1973 Interview on Nixon, Watergate, & South America Interview by Vic Sadot and Rich Lang. Video Made from 1973 Audio Posted to Vic
Sadot Broadside Balladeer Channel for Vimeo Videos.
By
the way, all of my videos that involve politics are all set for free
dowload non-profit use with credits/no edits. If you’re in a
conversation about what Vic is up to in California, please mention
that I’ve made about 50 videos since arriving in California in
2008. Tell our friends that I am delighted when they share the links
in social media or with friends in emails, and especially those who
get the videos played on Public Access Cable TV, which is always
looking for material from suggestions by their respective
communities.
MARCH
2017
In
March 2017 I attended the 6th
Anniversary protest of Fukushima at the Japanese Consolate in San
Francisco
organized by the No
Nukes Action Committee
on March 11. About
25 of us protested in front of the Japanese consulate at the 6th
anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster and heavy
radiation releases into the ocean and air. I led the group in singing
my No Nuke Blues with new Fukushima verses, which was also released
in Dec 2016 on the new Truth Troubadour CD. A new video with the
sound track featuring Eric Golub on violin and ukulele was released
in 2015 that included scenes from previous demonstrations at the
Japanese consulate: NoNuke Blues Fukushima Update by Vic Sadot
A
lot of time in March, including all-night sessions, were devoted to
creating a video for the audio of John
LaForge
speaking about the update of the book called “Nuclear Heartland”.
John spoke at Fellowship Hall for the SJC. An interesting background
to this event is that John predicted that the UN General Assembly was
going to vote for making 2017 the year to focus on nuclear
disarmament and re-activiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Under President Obama the US voted against having such conferences.
Under President Trump the US boycotted the UN Nuclear Disarmament
conferences in March and July. On July 7, 2018 the UN General
Assembly voted to make nuclear arms “illegal” and to press
forward to getting rid of them through negotiations. This historic
event went largely unreported in the United States even though the
Nobel Peace Prize for the year went to ICAN, the group that
spearheaded the campaign. It was treated as another non -event in US
news outlets!
I titled my video “Nuclear Heartland
USA” and started uploading it to my two YouTube and one Vimeo
channel on March 24 and 25. I think this was the single most
important work I did all year in 2017. The video was posted at my
friend’s hummux’s YouTube channel 911TVorg
YouTube Channel and
he posted it for free download non-profit local Public Access Cable
TV creative commons copyright use with a link to PEGMedia in his
description box.
NUCLEAR HEARTLAND USA - John LaForge in Berkeley
We
were going to screen the controversial movie “Vaxxed” at
Fellowship Hall on March 28. But the BFUU Board forced us to cancel
that event on the grounds that it was not scientific and would hurt
children to not be vaxxed. Two items on this as background: (1) There
was a Big Pharma political campaign that was able to get the film got
removed from the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival by having major
advertisers threaten to withdraw support. Much to the chagrin of
Robert DeNiro, founder of the festival, who believes, with his wife,
that their child got autism from a vaccination, they bowed to the
pressure and cancelled the film. (2) The state of CA legislature had
already passed a law making an increased number, or “schedule”,
of vaccinations “mandatory” for all children or they could not
attend public school. This kind of BFUU Board intervention and the reckless charges of “anti-Semitism” for booking a list of “Jew hating
speakers” was extremely shocking and alienating to me personally.
What happened to “Free Speech” in Berkeley, and to letting people
evaluate issues for themselves? APRIL
2017
The weather was getting quite pleasant in the SF
Bay Area. I live next to the UC Berkeley Clark Kerr Campus and the
vast and steep hills of the Claremont Canyon Regional Park Preserve.
I have a light nylon guitar case with back straps just like a back
pack. So one of my favorite things to do in the warm season is to
hike up into the hills, find a nice place to take photos and play
guitar, and come home after a few hours of exercise and fresh air. I
don’t yet know any other elders in Redwood Gardens Senior Housing
who are fit enough to hike hills that really are quite steep. So I
usually hike alone unless a friend like hummux visits me.
I
was contacted by email by Cynthia McKinney about
using my song “An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther
King” on her radio show out of KPFK in Los Angeles. She is a 6 term
Black Congresswoman from Georgian and the 2008 Presidential candidate
of the Green Party USA. In Delaware back in 2007Rob
Sadot heard about a gathering at someone’s house and we
attended and enjoyed meeting her in person with only about 10 people
there. She was on her way from Maine where a group had called on the
American people to call out the government if another 9/11 style
attack happens, and she was on the road with a Hatian man to drive
all the way to New Orleans to be on a panel investigating the
response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I sent her the latest studio
recording of the song from the latest “Truth Troubadour” CD and
she played the song at the end of her interview of William Pepper,
the King family lawyer who has written 3 books about the murder of
MLK. Cynthia got her PhD and is now teaching at a university in
Bangladesh.
She creates The Midnight Oil Show from there!The
April 6 show was also broadcasted and archived at No Lies Radio. Cynthia McKinney KPFK Midnight Oil Showcommemorated the 50th
anniversary of MLK’s April 4, 1967 Anti-War Speech at Riverside
Church in NYC, and the 49th
anniversary of his murder in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
On
April 15 there were street fights staged in downtown Berkeley that
seemed staged to be broadcast on national media to make people think
such a divide between masked Antifa Black Bloc on one side and white
supremacists on the other side. I watched it on livestream. One other
major event was the April 23, 2017 Oakland, CA speaking engagement of
Dr. Maryse Narcisse, the banned Lavalas Party candidate from Haiti. I
used my cell phone to capture some clips, ran them through a video
editor, and posted them at BFUU Social Justice in the Heart of
Berkeley YouTube Channel.
In
May I began studying some old French songs I like, The Madrague sung
by Brigitte Bardot, Parlez-moi d’Amour by Jean LeNoir, and La Mer by Charles
Trenet. At the BFUU we screened the comedy movie The Russians Are
Coming on May 11 and we had some speakers on “Putin, Russia, USA,
and The Danger of WW III” as Russiagate hysteria was going full
throttle as the Democrats avoided a review of how their war criminal
candidate Hillary Clinton had lost to a chump like Trump. On May 30 I
was invited to sing Ry Cooder’s “No Banker Left Behind” at a
rally outside of Berkeley City Hall.
On
May 11 about 25 of us protested in front of the Japanese consulate at
the 6th
anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster and heavy
radiation releases into the ocean and air. I led the group in singing
my No Nuke Blues with new Fukushima verses, which was also released
in Dec 2016 on the new Truth Troubadour CD. A new video with the
sound track featuring Eric Golub on violin and ukulele was released
in 2015 that included scenes from previous demonstrations at the
Japanese consulate: NoNuke Blues Fukushima Update by Vic Sadot JUNE
2017June
8, 2017 marked
the 50th
Anniversary of the attack by Israel on the USS Liberty. A
lot of people, including myself, made much of the anniversary in
social media. In my case, I had organized for a survivor of the USS
Liberty to speak in Berkeley. So I sent the video that I hired hummux
to make the year before for the 49th
Anniversary. Here
it is available via the PEGMedia link in the description box for
non-profit public educational use under Creative Commons Copyright
requiring only full credits/no edits.
Don Pageler 2016 “USS Liberty Survivor” in Berkeley CA (57:59) 911
Truth YouTube Channel - Published
on July 16, 2016: USS
Liberty Veteran Don Pageler
spoke in Historic Fellowship Hall in Berkeley, California on Saturday
25 June 2016 about the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel on June 8,
1967. Don Pageler gives his first-hand account of how the USS
Liberty, a virtually unarmed American navy ship, was attacked by
Israeli planes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967. 34 American sailors
were killed and 174 injured that day, a causality rate of 70%. This
is among the highest casualty rates ever inflicted upon a U.S. naval
vessel. During this short pre-planned war Israel invaded the Syrian
Golan Heights province and still occupies that Syrian territory. I
finally did a “Truth Troubadour” CD Release Party on
June 10 in
the Redwood Gardens Community
Room. I
had not been able to book myself in any small club in Berkeley. I had
a
small group of about 25 people and
I did
2 sets. I propped up my cell phone on the music stand and captured
the concert. It was then published at VicSadot YouTube Channel.
My
also have TruthTroubadour YouTube Channel.
The two overlap a lot, but they differ a lot in the playlists created
for them. I tend to post the best and final edit versions at Vic
Sadot Vimeo Videos, and there is a special open participation Poetry
Videos group. To my surprise people from numerous countries have
contributed their works that combine poetry with video
interpretation.
It’s fascinating!
In
June
2017Rob
Sadot
was suggesting that I needed to come home for a visit for my 70th
birthday (July
21),
his
61st
(July 23), and Marie Sadot Perkins’ 57th
birthday
(July 29).
When Rob
told me that he booked the Blue Crab Grill for the Chesapeake Bay
Bayou Brothers band and that I should play with them on July 23, I
researched the cost of airline tickets. I
found an inexpensive flight that
was
available! So
I booked a ticket for Philadelphia. Rob invited
me to stay at his apartment
in
New Castle while
in Delaware.
Jeanne had become active in some
environmental groups in Delaware. She made some posts that were
alarming in that there was a push by heavy industry corporations to
have the DE State legislature shoot the DECoastal Zone full of
loopholes. On June 19 and 20 I spent about 8 hours making a 60 second
PSA style video to be used to promote the legislation’s vital role
in preserving the marshland and brackish waters which are the key
breeding grounds of many living things. The video had the one verse
in the song about the Coastal Zone and one chorus. It got some use on
Facebook. Here it is!
Delaware
Coastal Zone Act Preservation Promo (60 seconds) Vic Sadot YouTube
Channel Published
on June
19, 2017.
Please share! Contact your "Representative"!
JULY
2017 -
I
flew back to Delaware on July 17 and stayed until August 9. On
July
4
I decided to hike way up into the hills with my guitar and wait for
the sun to go down to see the Independence Day fireworks in the night
sky in colorful display over the bay. I ended up using my video cam
in my cell phone to capture some of the fireworks, and I spoke about
coming home and promoted the upcoming July 23 music gig at the Blue
Crab Grill. There were a lot of university students up in the hills
sitting on blankets and partying. I also wrote a
Broadside Balladeer Blog,
my blog for folk music, to promote the video and the show. The other
blogs I do are
Berkeley Calling Blog, about
free speech and local events in the SF Bay Area, and Truth
Troubadour Blog, about
9/11 and the Deep State, especially covering films, songs, and events
about such topics.
Video: July
4 2017 Fireworks Over San Francisco Bay (4:49)
Published July 7, 2017
at Vic Sadot YouTube Channel
The
best “Good
News”
of the entire year came on
July 7, 2017 when
the UN
General Assembly voted
indefiance
of the Security Council to make nuclear weapons illegal. It has more
moral than legal force, but it resulted in ICAN, the group promoting
it to win the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017. See the post from March
2017 that is related to the “Nuclear
Heartland USA” film
I made for John
LaForge. It
really detracted from the celebration of the news that it was being
blacked out by most Corp-Gov media. In fact, it was depressing to
witness that Trump tweets and the Russiagate smokescreen diversion
got way more coverage and discussion than the truly historic and
hopeful moment got! I found this local California coverage and have
used it many times since then as a Facebook post.
Posted
by Marylia Kelley; Friday,
July 7, 2017 at Tri-Valley CARE’s (Communities
Against a Radioactive Environment)
On
July 9, 2017 the BFUU Social Justice Committee sponsored a benefit
organized by two homeless advocate groups to purchase spot-o-pots for
the city to use in the downtown park area. It
was called “Party for Potty”. Homeless
people played a major role in the event. I used my cell phone to
create two very short videos. One features the Berkeley
Harmonica Club and
one of the Shadow
Puppet
Theater.
Both
short videos were
posted at SOCIAL
JUSTICE IN THE HEART OF BERKELEY YouTube Channel.
Berkeley Harmonica Club at Berkeley Homeless Benefit
Shadow Puppet Theater at Berkeley Homeless Benefit
On July 13 we
showed a film called
“The River Ran Red” about the 1872 Homestead Steel Strike in
which many people died and Andrew Carnegie was able to get rid of the
union after an anarchist shot the Manager of the steel complex and
public sympathy passed from the workers to the owners. This event was
part of the month long SanFrancisco Labor Festivalwhich
happens at about 50 locations in the Bay Area every July.
On July 17 I
finished
packing took
a bus and two trains and one more bus to get to the San
Jose Airport.
I
was about 3 hours early.
American Airlines re-rerouted me to fly to Los Angeles first and then
to Philadelphia. It
had been 7 years since I had been home or flown in an airplane. How
exciting!
Let
me
tell you about the highlights of my time in Delaware.My
sister Jeanne
picked
me up at the airport on
the morning of July 18 and
we went to Rob’s place in New Castle. Rob
has
a great little apartment only a few blocks from downtown restaurants
and the Delaware River.
On
Weds,
July 19 Rob,
Marie, and
I attended
a concert of the Blue
Cat Blues Band in
Battery Park in New Castle
with the river as the backdrop to the stage. Rob did not tell me in
advance, but my old drummer buddy from Planete
Folledays,
Chris Sherlock,
was drumming. It was nice to chat
with him in between sets!
Vic Sadot and Chris Sherlock have a chat between Chris playing his band sets. We'd not seen each other in 9 years, since 2008.
Rob and I spent time everyday practicing
the songs and creating the set lists and who would be the singer for
which songs. We wanted to work in musicians who might show up from
the Crazy
Planet and
Planete Folle Bands while
showcasing the Chesapeake
Bay
Bayou
Brothers
Band
players too.
On Thursday,
July 20 Rob
went to work and I visited
Dave Sumner’s Music Store in
Newark, and
we talked for some hours. He lent me a nice guitar for the
upcoming gig.
On
Friday, July 21, my
birthday, Rob and I practiced, and we took a walk along the river. On
Saturday July 22 we
practiced in the day, and in the evening we went to hear Gary
Cogdell play
his
Delta Blues at
Nora
Lee’s New Orleans style restaurant in
New Castle.
The
next day, Sunday,
July 23
was the big gig! And
it was Rob’s
birthday! The Blue Crab Grill was
packed! Thankfully, Rob was in charge of event
organization matters
and when
to have the
guest musicians on the
stage on
which songs.
He had printed set lists for everyone, which really helped to
keep the show moving along. Plus, Rob had the songs in an order such that it made each song stand out as very different from the one before or after. Rob's stewardship of the eventleft
me time to mingle with old friends that I had not seen in years.
Jeanne, Marie, Bill, Joe, Lelah and their
friends had
a table near the front. So we had good eye contact with them for the
entire event.
Marie, Jeanne, Joe, Lelah at the Blue Crab Grill
One nice surprise was that
Nick Brush did
a Facebook
livestream for
the event and he broke it into several segments. This was so nice to
watch when I got back to California. I have thanked him profusely
ever since, and I wrote a blog at Vic Sadot
Music site
to put all his links into one spot. George and Paula Wolkind helped me sell CD's. George Wolkind played killer kazoo, and he promoted the Delaware Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.
Rob Sadot, Vic Sadot, & Duffy Llama at The Blue Crab Grill
On
Monday,
July 24
we rested during the day, and in the evening Jeanne, Rob, Marie and I
went to hear the Sin
City Band at Argilla’s Brew Restaurant on
the Kirkwood Highway between Newark and Wilmington, DE. Scott
Birney
came and sat with us during one of his breaks. I gave him my new
“Truth Troubadour” CD. He invited me to be interviewed on his
WVUD
Roots Block Radio
program on the upcoming Friday morning.
Scott Birney and Vic Sadot 7-24-18 at Argilla's
He invited
Rob
and Ito
come up to play two songs with the Sin
City Band.
Scott
is such a good soul that he lent me and Rob his acoustic and electric
guitar to play with the rest of the band.
I
invited Cindy
Hubshmitt to
join us in singing the first song since she was there and we had
co-written it back in 2003, “Are
You A Citizen Or Are You A Slave”. The
second song we did was Clifton
Chenier’s “I’m Comin’ Home”,
We were backed by Steve
Hobson
on guitar, Dave
Berry
on keys and bass, and Alan
Berdoulay
on pedal steel. (Note:
When I got back to Berkeley, I heard on Facebook that Scott was in
the hospital and would have heart surgery. I hear that he is doing
well here in 2018 so far.)
Cindy Lou Hubschmidt, Rob Sadot, Vic Sadot, Alan Berdoulay 7-24-17 at Argilla's
On
Tuesday,
July 25
Rob went to work and I took the bus to a laundromat. We watched TV
that evening, and I made arrangements to meet up with Brenda
Hare
the next day, who was dealing with melanoma skin cancer. Wednesday,
July 26
was a nice sunny day, so Brenda and I took a walk along Persimmon Run
Creek in Rittenhouse Park. It was a bit noisy with camp kids there.
We took a great selfie of our re-union. Then we went to a Chinese
Restaurant. She was feeling week, so she went home to her parents
house close by and I took the bus back to New Castle.
With Brenda Hare Ireland at Rittenhouse Park 7-26-17
On
Thursday,
July 27
I hung out at Rob’s while he worked. Then we went to hear the Larry
Tucker Band
along the Christina River in Tubman-Garrett
Wilmington Riverfront Park.
The most fun was the finale where Larry sang “Love
Train”
and dancers formed a dance train picking up passengers as we passed
through the crowd and came back to the stage as Larry closed the set
with “People
Get Ready”.Rob
was
able to get a clip of that,
which
he
emailed to me in California and I developed that into a tribute
to Larry
Tucker in
early September.
Larry
Tucker Band – Love Train Souvenir Clip (2:25) Published September
5, 2017 at Vic Sadot YouTube Channel
On
Friday,
July 28
I got up and made some coffee and called in to Scott Birney’s radio
show. He picked the songs I would have picked to play: The Frog Jog,
Good Time Delaware, Jolie Blonde, and Bourbon Street. In the evening
when Rob got back from work we got a pizza from nearby and watched a
Bob
Dylan
documentary.
Saturday,
July 29
was Marie
Sadot Perkins birthday. We
had a family gathering and crab feast at her house in Newark with
Kathleen
and Shayla Perkins
and Shayla’s boyfriend.
The next day, Sunday
July 30
we took a long hike along the White
Clay Creek
and we captured
a lot of nice photos along the way. Our father, Jean-Henri Sadot had written a poem in 1967 dedicated to the preservation of the watershed valley at a time when there were industrial and recreational use proposals that would have flooded the valley and dammed the creek. Some members of the Coalition for Natural Stream Valleys and the UAW Conservation Committee urged the poem be made into music, which Vic accomplished in the early 1980's. White Clay Creek live sound track at the 1984 Newark Community Day was preserved and recently posted as a free mp3 download at SoundCloud. The lyrics are posted in the SoundCloud description box.
White Clay Creek photo by Vic Sadot
Marie, Jeanne, Joe, Lelah, Rob, Vic - Photo by Bill Lucas
Vic, Marie, Bill, Jeanne, Rob hiking along Creek Road, Newark, DE
Some
time was spent going through storage at Marie’s and at Rob’s
friend’s place. I brought back a box full of old photos to sort
through and scan and post on Facebook as a retirement project. Rob
and I went to walk around Delaware City where Jeanne lives. I’d
never seen the African American slave cemetery, and along the
Chesapeake and Delaware canal, and ended up dining at a seafood
restaurant.
AUGUST
2017
The
whole family went to Borders on Thursday,
Aug 3, 2017. Long wait & crowded!
Friday,
August 4
was set aside to visit Al and Katy Campbell, friends
from the old days when
we were growing
up on Madison Drive in College Park, Newark,
DE.
They went all out on cooking for us. Later Rob and I took turns
playing guitar and singing the old songs and some new ones we thought
they would like. Rob was particularly good on harmonica and singing
on a Donovan song called “Catch the Wind”.
The Billy Pierce Band at Nora Lee's New Orleans Restaurant
Saturday,
August 5
was a day to run errands and hang out until the evening when we went
with Jeanne to hear Billy Pierce and his two musician buddies play at
Nora Lee’s.
The waitress was nice enough to take a photo of us as we watched the Billy Pierce Band: Rob, Jeanne, Vic at Nora Lee's in New Castle, DE.
Rob and I rose early on Sunday,
Aug 6 to
accompany Jeanne on a Sierra Club hike through some northern Delaware
trails to arrive at Delaware’s only cave. On
Tuesday, August 8 we had got some pizzas with Jeanne and Marie and
Billy Pierce. And the next day, Wednesday, Aug 9 we bid our farewells
and I flew back to San Francisco.
Philadelphia Airport waiting for flight to Phoenix, AZ to San Francisco, CA
The
rest of August seemed so uneventful after so many days packed with
running here and there to meet family and friends. There was a psy-op
event in Chalottesville, Virginia on August 12 and I researched it
like I do all suspicious events that seem staged to divide and rule
us. There were the White supremacists, Confederate flags and Nazis on
one side and the Antifa Black block on the other side just as we had
seen so often this past year in Berkeley, CA. I had some nice hikes
in Claremont Preserve in those days. I saw a Facebook notice on
Tuesday, August 15 announcing that Brenda Hare Ireland had passed
from this life and the rest of the family heard about it from me.
I
got a call from Mark “Mac” MacDonald saying that N CA 9/11 Truth
Alliance would like to use my 5 minute “An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King” video in
the intro to keynote speaker William Pepper at the upcoming annual
9/11 Truth Film Festival in the elegant Grand Lake Theater in
Oakland, CA on Sept 11, 2017. That was a nice good will gesture since
I had been expelled from that group for blowing the whistle on a
member who censored the entire Pentagon chapter of Italian Film
Director Massimo Mazzucco’s epic “September 11: The New Pearl Harbor”.
I
corresponded with William Pepper around that time too and told him I
was looking forward to meeting him in person. He had won a civil
court case for the King Family in Memphis in 1999 which convicted a
former Memphis cop and “un-named government co-conspirators” for
the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. As keynote speaker he was going
to present his third book, “The Plot to Kill King”, to the
Oakland audience. 9/11Truth Film Festival-Part 6-William Pepper(52:27)
No Lies Radio at Vimeo
My song and video were made to promote his second
book, “An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King”. This 2013 version has the studio track featuring Eric Golub on violin and ukulele.
SEPTEMBER
2017 So
much of what activists for truth do in September is related to the
events of 9/11/01. On September
4, 2017
I wrote a Truth
Troubadour Blog about
my song called “Cheney’s
in the Bunker”
and I amended it with suggestions that came in by email from David
RayGriffin. I was thrilled to hear from him!
“Cheney'sin the Bunker - Songwriter Cites Footnotes to Scholarly Research onthe Crimes of 9/11/01”by
Vic Sadot:
Published
on 9/03/17 at Truth Troubadour Blog. This
blog features a discussion of how the song came to be written after
reading the scholarly research of David Ray Griffin; some of the
questions that remain; and links to important 9/11 Truth videos that
answer those questions or debunk the official conspiracy story.
Everything
went well at the 9/11
Truth Film Festival
at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, CA on Monday,
Sept 11, 2017
except that the older 2009 home-studio track video was on
the big screen instead of the one from 2013 video with the new studio sound
track featuring Eric Golub on violin and ukulele. Oddly, the correct
one was used in the livestream being sent out on the internet by
Allan Rees on No
Lies Radio.
The words seemed to come through fine. Later the group sent me a hardbound copy of Pepper’s third
book on the murder of MLK. Very cool! Click on the photo to link to the William Pepper keynote address at the Grand Lake Theater on No Lies Radio at Vimeo!
Meeting William Pepper in the lobby of the Grand Lake Theater on 9/11/17
at the annual 9/11 Truth Film Festival. Photo by Mike Kerr
On
Saturday, Sept 16 my buddy hummux was back from the east coast to visit his son in Oakland. He called me. We took a long hike way up higher than I usually go in
Claremont Regional Park Preserve on the Stoneman Panoramic Trail. Later we went to dinner at Potola
Restaurant
in Albany, CA, which serves organic vegan dishes. hummux somehow overcomes the gap between realism and idealism when he acts on his principles. And he loves the great outdoors. Click on the photo below!
We went out to dinner at a
restaurant with about a dozen people, and Alfred drove me home to
Berkeley. Bollyn spoke again at San Jose State University on Sept 23
and that was booked and livestreamed by Kevin Brant. On Friday, Sept 29 I helped with a program
by the Buffalo Field Campaign in Fellowship Hall. They campaign for
the buffalo to not be treated as cattle, but as wild animals at
Yellowstone Park. I made several videos last year for their event,
but lacked the energy to do that this year. OCTOBER
2017 On October 1, 2017 strange
news came in from Los Vegas about a mass shooting, but the coverage
was suspicious right away due to cameras not working or being
suppressed and no death certificates or crime reports being issued
right away. Then the LVPD was changing the story and a key guard
witness went to Mexico and came back to appear on the Ellen Degenes
Show with what appeared to be a handler. On
Tuesday, Oct 3, 2017 I went to the North Berkeley Public Library to
hear author/sax player Gilad Atzmon speak on “ThePost Political Condition: Brexit, Trump and the Resto of Us". Several of us went out for
Chinese food in Albany after that. Bonnie Faulkner recorded the speech
and aired it on her Guns & Butter Radio Show on KPFA some time
later. Sax player extraordinaire Gilad Atzmon gave me his new book
“On Being In Time” and his latest CD titled “Trane” named
after his sax playing hero Coltrane. I gave him 2 of my CD’s.
Alison Weir and Paul Larudie were there too.
Bonnie Faulkner of Guns & Butter Radio, Janet Kobren, and Paul Larudie
listen to Gilad Atzmon explaining the failure of Identity Politics
replacing the unifying concept of Working Class Politics
in the Democratic Party, which played a major role in the election losses of 2016
President Donald Trump
had made a tweet attempting to shame the NFL football player
protesting by taking a knee during the playing of the US national
anthem by saying they were not “patriotic” like Tillman. Patrick
Tillman had believed the lies of 9/11 in the official story and he
joined the military to “serve his country” and exact vengeance on
those who had attacked us. Widow Marie Tillman released a statement
against Trump. I uploaded my song to SoundCloud as a free download,
and wrote a blog about it on Oct 29 and 30. NOVEMBER
2017
President
Trump made a tweet last month that got me thinking of doing my own
new video for “The Ballad of Pat Tillman”. Dean Banks had made
one in 2006 without my involvement. The visuals selected were various
photos of Tillman in his football gear and others in his Army
uniform. These days I wanted something that showed the relationship between
9/11, the subsequent wars, and that Pat Tillman died because he at first
believed the lies of 9/11 and sought righteous vengeance on the alleged Muslim perpetrators.
I got the idea of doing a new 2017 video
for Pat Tillman's latest birthday, Nov 6, as a response to President Trump's
tweet attempting to use Pat Tillman’s death to shame NFL football
players for protesting by kneeling during the national anthem. Marie
Tillman responded with a sharp rebuke of Trump. Freeze frame the
video to read them both. Marie Tillman defended the First Amendment, and she asked
the President to "not politicize my husband's death". She
said that her husband's death should "never be used to divide our
nation". Pat
Tillman was killed in Afghanistan after having served a tour first in Iraq. He had been telling his fellow
soldiers that the "war on terror" wars were "illegal".
He told his mother he was going to join the anti-war movement if he
ever made it home. The
Ballad of Pat Tillman by Vic Sadot (5:42) Published on Nov 7, 2017
Truth Troubadour YouTube Channel. Pat Tillman would have been 41 this
year. (RIP 11-06-1976 to 4-22-2004). It's free at SoundCloud!
For sale at CD
Baby!
The song was released on 9/11/11 on a CD titled "9/11 Truth &
Justice Songs" by Vic Sadot at CD Baby.
On
November 29, 2017 I went to the UC Berkeley Clark Kerr Cafeteria with
my good friend Frank Bowles, and some
others.
We
had a great conversation and some laughter. Little do we known Frank
would soon be gone.DECEMBER 2017I began a new song called “The Story of the Poles Is Full of Holes” after being inspired by discussions at a new Facebook group called “No 757 Jet hit the Pentagon on 9/11”. It was created by Craig McKee, the founder and editor of Truth & Shadows Blog out of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The songs needs more work in 2018 before it’s right and ready.
December 2017My December 2017 days were mostly spent studying “Russiagate” other false flag events, watching YouTube videos, and celebrating Phil Ochs birthday on December 19. I’m going to have another song featured on a second CD by a Facebook group called “Celebrating Phil Ochs” that’s organized by Shannon Hammock. Last time I contributed “United Fruit” and this time they have accepted “Broadside Balladeer”. On December 18 I took a bus and a train to Oakland to play a song at the Octopus Lounge at the Rocktopus Open Mic where I sang a slow bluesy version of “Please Come Home for Christmas”. My buddy Billy Trice held my cell phone and got some video for me. I ran that through a video editor to make a video that used some recent cool Christmastime photos as overlays in some places.Merry Christmas 2017! Vic Sadot @Rocktopus Open Mic! (5:08) Vic Sadot YouTube Channel. “Please Come Home For Christmas” (Charles Brown & Gene Redd, 1960).
Frank Bowles waving to me as I took a photo before entering the Community Room Christmas Eve Dinner 12-24-17
On Christmas
Eve I went to a dinner at in the Redwood Gardens Community Room
with my fellow seniors. I took a photo of my buddy Frank
Bowles from outside the window before entering and he was waving
back at me. He died not long ago and we had a memorial gathering for
him at which I sang “When I’m Gone” by Phil Ochs. I
put up some colorful Christmas lights in my window, but I didn’t
socialize much over the holidays.
Here's a good
photo of Frank Bowles from my July 21, 2016 birthday dinner at Bateau
Ivre Restaurant on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley. Cynthia Jean Johnson
is a life-long activist on many anti-war and social justice causes
that I agree with, and she is the current co-chair of the BFUU Social
Justice Committee. Many of the events we've done are preserved
atSOCIAL
JUSTICE IN THE HEART OF BERKELEYYouTube
Channel.
Frank,
Vic, Cynthia at Bateau Ivre French Restaurant 7-21-16
I
was invited to a New Year’s Eve Party, but I did not feel
up to the hour or more travel required each way. So I stayed home and
played guitar and watched YouTube videos. Here's a photo of my
outside window with a poster some UC Berkeley art students made.
Here’s
a playlist you may find interesting. It’s what I call “strategic
street singing”.
So
these are the highlights I've selected to share with you from my life for the year 2017. It was a very good year since I
was healthy, sober, active, focused, and very creatively productive.
I hope that some of my works stand the test of time and that they serve to
educate and inspire others to have good will and to carry it on!