Eagles Of Death Metal (Part Three)

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[...Jesse is talking about opportunity and the responsibilities of Government] When a runner wins the 100 metre dash at the Olympics, they don’t shoot him in the kneecap. They don’t. And so, when you work your ass off, you are honest and you do good business, you create something that grows, why should you suddenly have to give it up to people who are miserably lazy, just because you were successful? Why should the rich have to pay, just because they’re rich? Now, I don’t have a problem with anyone paying, and I’m certainly not rich, but I just have a fundamental problem with my concept of fairness with seeing that it’s true. The type of people that want shit for free, you and I both know what kind of people that is. The kind of people that wants someone else to pay for it. When they want you to go to the store for cigarettes, and the cigarettes cost five pounds and they give you two? You know what kind of person I’m talking about. When you speak in a generalised hypothetic, it’s easy to say, “Well, if everybody owned everything, it’d be beautiful.” Yeah, and if Mickey Mouse was the President of the United States it’d be fucking cool too, but when everybody owns everything, nobody owns anything. And people who offer you all you can drink Lemonade, you just might get it though they’ll get you a glass, pour a little bit in the bottom and go, “That’s all you can drink. I’m a clever good looking guy.”

It’s interesting, that difference between a UK perspective of society and [the American perspective]. There’s always that old adage about the American tramp and the English tramp that sit at the side of the road. The American tramp sits at the side of the road and sees a big limo go past with a guy who’s got a lot of money and goes, “Wow, one day, that’s gonna be me” but the English tramp sees the same thing go past and says, “What a bastard, I’ll fucking have you.” That’s the mindset of this country more than over there, because in America you have that opportunity, you can make things happen.

You have opportunity if you work hard and you… nobody is held back. There’s been a lot of misinterpretation and infection of bad attitudes in America that fuck with it. Like, the limiting of people is silly. England, I understand that English attitude, because, consider the manner in which the monarchies have behaved. You know what I mean? Because, for all intents and purposes, we’re the children of England too. We’re just a very bad child. During the Revolutionary War, we didn’t want to not be English. We wanted to be English. Equally. People don’t look at the complexities of things.

Well, it doesn’t get taught over here.

It’s a generality too. In generals, certain things can be a certain way. But if you actually look – I have, I’ve read – there was a couple of MPs I guess you would call them, or Members of Parliament, that were viciously against King George’s arrogance – because that’s what he was – and they were like, “If this is England, and these are Englishmen…”. It was just a fundamental, it was a hurt feeling. Like, the original letter before the Declaration of Independence was, “Dad? Don’t you love me any more?” was essentially what it was. Even the Declaration of Independence says, “Fuck. I guess you’ve kicked us out of the house and disowned us.” That’s what it was. And if it weren’t such a truth, then we wouldn’t have been so readily and immediately loving of England even after the war of 1812, when you came back and burned the White House. Fucking bad ass. I’ve gotta admit it. It’s the only time we’ve been invaded since. And then, I’m a Southerner, so I can’t help but to appreciate England for supporting the South, you know what I’m saying baby? I totally understand that. I think we’re often, especially the English and the Americans, we’re divided by a common language and a different understanding of things. I know many Englishmen who are my friends who come to America for the opportunity, but they remain English. It’s just too bad that, my point being, with the people, we’re sitting back and letting it happen. You can’t smoke anywhere. We’re just letting them do it and we’ve starting to become accustomed to this dialogue, “Ah well, the Government, that’s what they do.” It’s a hopelessness and an inevitability, probably caused by the Kennedy assassination. If you really thought that the Government killed our President, why the FUCK aren’t you out in the street with your guns right now? Because everything is fucked then. It was the Mafia. The CIA maybe knew but Kennedy was about to fucking end the CIA and he was a pussy and he was soft on Communism, so they just didn’t lift a lot of fingers.

Eagles Of Death Metal – ‘(I Used To Couldn’t Dance) Tight Pants’

The only bit of American history that I’ve ever been taught at University or whatever has been like the Kennedy assassination and a little bit of the Second World War and stuff.

Let’s face it, Kennedy did not win the election. Nixon was an honourable man, and Nixon knew that we were in the heart of a Cold War and that we could not look weak. So, he opted against a recount. But Nixon won. Dead people in the fifty thousands voted in Chicago and because Lyndon Baines Johnson controlled Texas, there are pictures, there is camera film, black and white footage of Democractic operatives throwing ballot boxes in the trash. Kennedy’s Dad was a fucking gangster. I know for a fact because my grandfather fucking worked with him as a rum-runner, a liquor runner.

He didn’t work with Jack Ruby did he?

Jack Ruby was a… who knows what his deal was. They had something on him.

I thought he was a gun-runner for the mob?

He was a mobster though. So they had something on him that would make him do that [kill Oswald]. Um, my point is that, Kennedy was terrible. A terrible President and he used the mob to get in, and like classic gangster-style, as soon as he got in, he put his brother in as Attourney General and he went to go wipe out the witnesses. He betrayed the mob.

And that’s why he got taken out.

Their last great act of defiance was killing the fucking President.

Cuba, Kennedy totally closed down all the gambling dens, didn’t he?

That was their money. When you take a person’s life, they’ll fight desperately…

(Door opens, Manager returns)

JH: We’re doing great in here, babe.

Manager: I think we’re rolling on now

JH: Oh, ok. I loved this. I wanna tell you, the manner in which you’ve allowed me to speak about this shit…

‘Heart On’ is out now on Downtown/Co-Operative.

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