Catapult.IO

06/15/2024

https://amp.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/12/multiple-bands-pull-out-of-download-festival-over-barclays-israel-ties

A message to PALESTINE ACTION and ALL THE YOUNG BANDS resisting BARCLAYS BANK'S COLLUSION IN THE ISRAELI GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE

Here is a poem I wrote to Americans in 2004.
“Why Cannot The Good Prevail”

AMERICA 2004

Why cannot the good prevail?
Here in America there is at heart
A people, just and true,

Open, sometimes to the point of ridicule.
Good neighbors to rebuild the barn,
The doctor’s note of western legend
Carried forth beyond the grave
I knew your Pa, enough.

In caucuses across the land
Deliberate they’ll always stand,
Defenders of the Rosenburgs.
Symbolic of that yearning
To be better than before.

They never will give up their brother
To the grocer’s cold machine

Belt welts livid from the strong arm of the law.

On campuses,
In boardrooms,
Over giving thanks

And pumpkin pie,

On hustings, in committee rooms,
Whenever tyrants loomed,
We always held in our esteem
The ones who hold on to the dream,

Unflinching,
While the bullies
Pose and fiddle on the hill.

Has commerce so reduced the free,

That,

Blinded like a tot

Contaminated by the dog s**t in the grass,
We blunder, slaves to humbug, and this Texan

dynasty.
No!

Beyond the grip of trade

The young strain beautiful and proud,
The hoar frost breath of new blood

Needs but nudges from
The old forgotten guard
To scale the moral high grounds

In the clouds.

YOU ARE THE YOUNG ONES STANDING BEAUTIFUL AND PROUD
I AM ONE OF THE OLD GUARD, I SALUTE YOU.
LOVE
R ✊🏼🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🕊

05/01/2024

02/12/2024

A note to the Military Rulers of Pakistan and their Masters in Washington:

My name is Roger Waters. I am an English musician and a passionate supporter of fair play. What you are doing in Pakistan is not Cricket.

IMRAN KHAN must be immediately released from his false imprisonment so that he can lead his party the PTI in a new fair and transparent election so that Pakistan can have a properly elected democratic government that actually represents the will of the people of Pakistan. Not the interests of foreign and domestic oligarchs.

Yours sincerely,
Roger Waters

12/29/2023

"Under The Rubble” love Roger Waters

12/28/2023

Chapter 24: Just another dream
Tuesday 23rd May 2023
Prague

This morning I woke in a small, cold, byzantine, domed room in Prague. My Missus Kamilah was there beside me of course. Beyond her was the dog. A sort of black and white liquorice, all sorts twirl of heat retention, nose tucked under tail, soft underbelly protected from the wolves, you couldn’t squeeze two fingers past the sharp elbows towards the hot, vulnerable tummy bits in the castle keep. Safe. Asleep. It was dark.

I sensed that K was awake, I listened, there was the almost inaudible but unmistakable sound of a lip tremble. My Missus had had a bad dream.

“Babe?” Tremble. Sob. “What is it?” Essentially, she’d been embroiled in some household malfunction in her dream and had called me for support. A stranger had answered my cell. “Who are you? Why are you answering my husband’s phone?”……”Roger’s dead, we found him in his truck with his guitar, he had one eye open.”

Well, you can imagine. We had a big hold me. I held her. Spoon and number one. The dog, Sweet Georgia Brown, slept on. Then we talked, “I love you”….”I love you”…..”I was frightened.”……….”Of course you were.”

When you lose someone you love, (Even if it’s only a bad dream), it does serve to remind you that this is not a drill. So we got up, all the usual stuff, p**s, contact lenses, (Shouldn’t you do contact lenses before p**s, what if you p**s on the seat?), hearing aids, morning meds, protein shake, pretend caffé latte, check emails. We went upstairs to the beautiful terrace room, my lovely wife had some French toast for breakfast, I lay on the sofa. I thought about the dream, the following lyric popped to the front of the queue.

“They found him in the wreak with his hand upon the throttle, he’d been scolded to death by the steam.”

Where did that come from?

I looked it up.

Boxcar Willie

The Wreck of The Old 97.
September 27th 1903

“He was going down the grade doing 90 miles an hour
When the whistle broke into a scream
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle
And scalded to death by the steam

Well, a telegram came to Washington station
And this is what it read
"Oh that brave engineer that runs old 97
Well, he’s lying in old Danville dead"

Now come on you ladies and from me take warning
And from this day on, you must learn
Never speak harsh words to your kind-hearted husband
He may leave you and never return.

Well, Kamilah and I hadn’t had harsh words, but……… it is all too easy to let all kinds of extraneous stuff interfere with love and the short warm moment we call life.

To quote the end of another song:

“When my synapses pause
In their quest for applause
When my ego lets go
Of my end of the bone
To focus instead
On the love that is
Precious to me
Then I shall be free.”

The dog is watching me from the chair with its head on one side.

Love you Babe.

12/19/2023

Jim Ladd 1948-2023

My old friend Jim Ladd died yesterday in his sleep.

RIP Jim Ladd. As the Irish have it, “I’m sorry for my loss.” I just watched an interview I did with Jim in 1984, f**k he was good, and so was Stewy my cocker spaniel. Jim suffered a setback at work recently. SiriusXM, for whom he worked, cut him from six Deep Tracks shows a week to one. Thank you Scott Greenstein, and if it wasn’t you, you should have stopped who ever it was. I believe Jim was fired, partly at least, because of me. Against the company’s better judgment Jim had interviewed me on Deep Tracks, and our conversation had veered too close to the sacred cow, Israel, and it’s subjugation of the Palestinians.

I loved Jim and he loved me. I got him the job at Sirius when the meat grinder that is modern LA finally closed its door on his legendry career at KMET and KLOS. Jim was a revolutionary. Jim Ladd believed in the power of love. Jim Ladd believed in telling the truth, Jim Ladd believed in human rights, Jim Ladd believed in Freeform Radio.

Jim Ladd and I were in discussion about starting a new Radio Station next year. Radio KAOS FM. I can’t imagine it without Jim, but? Who knows? Maybe someone will step up to fill his mighty shoes?

Resistance to evil empires will always be there, thank god, and the US evil empire is now cheerleading genocides. If there ever was a time for the young to pick up Jim Ladd’s torch and continue his lifetimes work of bringing light into the dark places, it is now!
I will miss you my brother.
Love
R.

12/18/2023

A Note to Ahmed Elgin from Roger Waters:

Yes Ahmed
I’m sick too
I’m older than you
But no wiser I’ll warrant
I too wake before dawn to great each day
In a muck sweat of rage and impotence
Don’t give up on us
They are rich and powerful, but…
They are few.
We the people are many, and…
We are right and…
We have love in our hearts
Our love will conquer their hate, and…
We shall overcome.
Love