This kid is, at least.

A twelve-year-old named Jaiden is the new face of liberty in America after refusing to remove his Gadsden flag patch from his backpack when school officials ordered him to. His mother secretly recorded her meeting with school officials in Colorado Springs who told her that Jaiden isn’t allowed to wear the symbol of the American Revolution because it has “its origins in slavery.” This ridiculous and false assertion was made by a sour-faced woman, the school’s director, who glared at Jaiden as she admonished his mother.

“The reason we do not want the flag displayed is due to its origins with slavery and the slave trade,” she said while gesticulating wildly as if her hand movements would hide the absurd drivel coming out of her mouth. Jaiden’s mother responded, “The Gadsden flag?” and the administrator responded affirmatively, vigorously nodding and repeating, “the ‘don’t tread on me.’”

This ridiculously uneducated educator continued to tell Jaiden and his mother that he would be allowed to take his things out of his bag and go to class but not to take the bag with him due to the district’s desire that other students would not be exposed to America’s Revolutionary War flag (that a bunch of college-educated morons think is a white supremacy flag).

Even after being told that the Gadsden flag has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with the American Revolution, the administrator kept wildly waving her arms and repeating, “I’m just here to enforce the district policy.” A review of the district policy did not find any mention of a ban on patches of any kind. Nor does it mention the Gadsden flag. What the policy does say is that teeshirts depicting violence or alcohol or drugs are not allowed.

And then there were…developments. For my money, I think the kid’s face as he listens to this finger-wagging shitlib “administrator” (ought to become universally recognized as the expletive it so truly is) babbling on in total ignorance of real American history is totally, totally priceless:

And then there’s this Tweet X whatthefuckever, which underscores just how thoroughly young Jaiden understands precisely who and what he’s up against, and that his (and our, and America’s) Enemies understand nothing whatsoever:

And then there were…further developments.

GOOD on ya, Jaiden. Never yield a single inch to them, not one, not ever. Unsolicited advice from an admittedly Old Dude: NEVER give in to them, NEVER bend the knee, NEVER stop hurling liberty in their very teeth, until they’re screaming in pure agony from it. Because as you already know, to give an inch is to lose it all. I whipped up a little something in honor of your courage and old-school patriotism, although it might be considered a tad salty for tender young ears and/or eyes.

That’s all anybody needs to say to the rotten bastards. Anything more wordy or elaborate than that just wastes your time, and annoys the (fascist) pig.

Update! Don’t know how it is that I didn’t think to include this before, considering what I titled this dang post.

Townsend’s Rick is hardly what you’d call unexpected, but man, dig that crazy Mosrite bass Entwistle’s thumping on.

Historical Musical digression update! Guitar geeks will find this backgrounder on Townsend’s Rickenbacker from the above link intriguing. I sure did.

His first purchase of a Rickenbacker was likely a Rose, Morris Co., LTD, 1998 model (ie, model number, not year—M) in early 1964, either directly from Rose Morris or from Jim Marshall’s music shop in Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, West London. This 1998 was fitted — either when purchased or later by Pete — with a Gibson ES-175 “zig-zag” tailpiece. His second was a 360/12 “Export,” from Jim Marshall’s, for £169, both of which are likely pictured below in the 1964-era High Numbers photos.

Chris Downing (guitarist, The Macabre), in Eyewitness The Who regarding The High Numbers appearance at the Railway Hotel, Harrow & Wealdstone, in July 1964:

This was the first time I actually saw them. Pete had the 360 Rickenbacker then, which cost £169 out of Jim Marshall’s shop. It was one of the first five that came into the UK, and I had one of them as well. He liked it because it had a very mod look, and it was great for playing chords. That big power-chord sound he got wasn’t just his amps, it was partly that he used really thick strings.

The 1998 was pictured in the infamous “Maximum R&B” Marquee Club poster. This guitar was the first (of many) to turn to smithereens, when its neck snapped off against the ceiling of the Railway Hotel, Harrow and Wealdstone, in September 1964 (according to Eyewitness The Who, 8 September):

“I started to knock the guitar about a lot, hitting it on the amps to get banging noises and things like that and it had started to crack. It banged against the ceiling and smashed hole in the plaster and the guitar head actually poked through the ceiling plaster. When I brought it out the top of the neck was left behind. I couldn’t believe what had happened. There were a couple of people from art school I knew at the front of the stage and they were laughing their heads off. One of them was literally rolling about on the floor laughing and his girlfriend was kind of looking at me smirking, you know, going ‘flash cunt and all that’. So I just got really angry and got what was left of the guitar and smashed it to smithereens. About a month earlier I’d managed to scrape together enough for a 12-string Rickenbacker, which I only used on two or three numbers. It was lying at the side of the stage so I just picked it up, plugged it in and gave them a sort of look and carried on playing, as if I’d meant to do it.

“The next day I was miserable about having lost my guitar. Roger said, ‘You shouldn’t have smashed it up, I could have got it repaired for you.’ Anyway, I’d obliterated it.”

Pete claims he smashed only about eight Rickenbackers total. He would repair destroyed ones for further stage use and eventually, began using another, more solid-bodied guitar that could withstand the smash-up routine and be repairable.

That would be the Telecasters he’s most well-known for favoring, with brief flirtations with a Les Paul or three along the way. The “Jim Marshall’s shop” mentioned, of course, would be the same London music shop where the famed Marshall amplifier was born. In particular, the 100-watt Super Lead Pro, created by Marshall at the specific behest of one Pete “Pete” Townsend, ironically enough.

You can drop a Tele off a building and it won’t so much as go out of tune. Or, say, drive into a ditch in Pennsylvania at 70+ mph and roll the band van over on top of it, same result, as the BPs did back in ’96.

The van’s roof ended up tent-poled over and around the upright headstock of my poor Tele, which was in a soft bag, so I feared the worst. But LO, when we got out of the ER and went over to the salvage yard to retrieve whatever salvageable gear—precious little of it, as you might well imagine—might be left in our newly-purchased van (bought it on a Tuesday, totaled it early Sunday morn on the way home from NYC), the only discernible damage to said Tele was one (1) tuning-machine knob broken off. The sturdy little beastie was, yep, you guessed it, still in tune. I replaced the tuning machine and kept on a-rocking that Tele for many years afterward.

The guitar ended up in the possession of my dear departed friend Chris Pfouts, who hung it proudly on his living room wall. When he died in Indianapolis, I got a call from a friend of his there who asked if I wanted to come out and get it back. I told him nah, just keep it, which I assume he did. Hopefully, somebody out there is still playing it, using it as God intended it to be.

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