I Don’t Believe in Me

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

When one’s self-confidence is leased with an option to buy, as mine is, one looks outside oneself for: 1. Reminders that one ought to have, or to try out, this thing called self-esteem and 2. The nearest venue where one can find some.

Because without self-confidence, some say, one can not achieve great things, or any things. But immediately after sentences like that always comes the caveat: Be humble. Needle-across-the-record screech. From life’s start, we are asked to be philosophers negotiating the nuances of existence: Believe in yourself, humbly. Possess something that no one can give you. Walk softly, and chew gum at the same time.
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Vivian Stanshall: Not an Eccentric

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Twenty years ago yesterday, Vivian Stanshall died. Among his many creations are the stories of the Rawlinson family, especially Sir Henry Rawlinson. There was a real Sir Henry and he died March 5, 1895, 100 years to the day of Stanshall’s sad and accidental end.

Mark Aldrich's avatarThe Gad About Town

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band played the role of jester in the court of the Beatles in the late 1960s, and Vivian Stanshall was the charismatic, curious leader of the leaderless and leader-resistant Bonzos. The missing link between the Beatles and Monty Python (if one was needed), in 1967 the Bonzos appeared in both “Magical Mystery Tour” (partially entertaining the Beatles with a performance of “Death Cab for Cutie”) and in the pre-Python but mostly Python-staffed afternoon television show, “Do Not Adjust Your Set.”

Here, Michael Palin of the Pythons introduces the Bonzos and Stanshall does his best worst Elvis in “Death Cab for Cutie.”

Stanshall, a writer for whom no declarative statement could be too perplexing (“I’ve never met a man I didn’t mutilate”), was paired up with Neil Innes, a songwriter whose Beatles-esque melodies led not only to to the Bonzos being produced by Paul McCartney (the minor…

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#RaifBadawi Remains a Prisoner

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

For the eighth week in a row, Saudi writer, blogger, and activist Raif Badawi was not publicly flogged fifty times today for insulting his home country’s state religion. His official Twitter account broke the news as soon as it was confirmed:

No one is breathing a sigh of relief that this counts as sparing him, or that he is about to be freed. The 31-year-old husband and father has now spent 1000 days and two weeks in jail with little to no contact with the outside world. According to news reports, there was no reason given by Saudi officials for the delay.

Worse, his family is reporting that Raif may be about to face a re-trial on the charge of apostasy (renouncing one’s religion). If found guilty, he is to be publicly executed. Beheaded. He has been found innocent of this charge in the past, which is how and why weekly updates about his punishment for insulting his religion can even be written. Elham Manea, a passionate writer about human rights abuses, released a statement on behalf of his family:

Amnesty International’s press office also reported today that it has been denied access to Raif Badawi:

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