Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets

Bauhaus, "Dark Entries"

2012-01-29T07:22:00.000-05:00

I should be spending the day goofing off with friends, and this seemed like an appropriate enough follow-up to yesterday's Joy Division entry. I won't belabor anything by yabbering. Hope you're having a great Sunday!

Joy Division, "She's Lost Control"

2012-01-28T06:56:00.000-05:00

I was late to Joy Division. Later, I mean: my particular segment of the generation obviously missed out when Ian Curtis was still alive, but then it seems like there was a resurgence of interest in or rediscovery of the band in my late high school or early college years.

At which time they didn't do anything for me. Not sure what it was, as I was already gaining an appreciation of kind of mechanical, droning, post-punk rock (who wasn't?). Maybe I was just being stubborn. Anyway, a decade or so later I heard a cover of "Isolation" from If Thousands that persuaded me to give JD another listen and I was a bit happier with them that time 'round, if "happier" is the right word.

Lana Del Rey, "Born To Die"

2012-01-27T11:20:00.005-05:00

I'm going to be a contrarian, sort of (who, me?) and admit I'm here to praise Lana Del Rey, not to bury her. As you may or may not have noticed, there's been a huge hipster backlash against the synthetic siren since the awesomeness of "Video Games" leaked out onto the Internets; first she was getting a lot of great Indie Pop buzz, which snowballed into enormous Facebook and Twitter buzz, which morphed into a bunch of Facebook hatred and blowback, and then, regrettably, Saturday Night Live happened.

Shitty videos like the one at the top of this post probably don't help her case any, but "Born To Die" is a slick, awesome song; it totally sounds like a Pierce Brosnan Bond song in a good way, with Del Rey's voice wafting over the clickiness and strings and samples. (Oh, and I totally would have gone to see a '90s Brosnan Bond called Born To Die, wouldn't have you?) I grok that part of what Del Rey is trying to market as part of her image is a kind of trailer park chic, I just don't think it works for the song and I'm not sure it's still working for her ever since it became public knowledge that she had a previous incarnation as a preppie kid with a previous failed record to her name.

I've talked a little about authenticity in pop music here and there in the blog, and I think I've tried to say that authenticity is overrated. Most of what gets pushed as "authenticity" is itself a kind of schtick. one of Bruce Springsteen's musings on the irony of inauthentic "authenticity" always seems to me worth repeating: "It's a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending," he sang in "Better Days, "A rich man in a poor man's shirt." I don't think it makes Springsteen's work less sincere or less-powerful that he's a millionaire who regularly takes on the personas of blue-collared regular Joes and of the oppressed and distressed; I also don't think the fact that "Bruce Springsteen" has become (no, really, always has been, going all the way back to Asbury Park) a character played by Bruce Springsteen makes "Springsteen"/Springsteen any less relevant. "Bruce Springsteen" a.k.a. "The Boss" is a character not just played by Bruce Springsteen, but is so closely based on Bruce Springsteen that it's likely only his family and closest friends clearly know the difference. They're kinda the same guy, only different. And it's completely to Springsteen's credit that he obviously gets this, understands the irony, and is willing to acknowledge it and take shots at himself for it.

I feel like I should also say that I'm not sure you have to take on an alternate persona to go on stage for a crowd or record a record, though the examples that come to mind are actually people in bands like Pink Floyd where the members sort of hide behind the band identity or are subsumed into it. I'm not sure the relatively lesser solo success of Floyd's individual members can be entirely attributed to the strength of the Floyd brand versus the conscious choice the members made at the height of the band's success to keep their pictures off the album covers and bury their names in the credits; it plays a part, yeah, but there's also the matter of Gilmour, Waters and Wright not really being the kinds of guys to step into the acting role of rock star; Gilmour and Wright were never, forgive me for having to say it about two of my favorite musicians, really all that interesting as individuals (not interesting in the way David Bowie is interesting, I mean) and Roger Waters, although he's mellowed a lot, has always been kind of a dick (he's never really managed to be anybody else and it's off-putting when he embraces it). Syd Barrett might have had the capacity to wear the mask of a popular entertainer, but he went dysfunctional before anyone could find out how well he could have pulled it off. (I'm not neglecting Nick Mason on purpose, there's just nothing much to say beyond I loved Inside Out.)

I bring all this up because you have to be sort of a natural at it for it to work for you, or at least choose an entertainment persona that you can slip into, and I think part of Lana Del Rey's current problems come down to her either not being good at it or choosing unwisely. The idea of a sort of low-rent, Lynchian, mysterious chanteuse has some potential, and (although I've heard bad things about the rest of her upcoming album) the three tracks she's released thus far are slick and magical enough to convey the possibility. Though, having said that, I also feel obligated to point out that, as cool as Floating Into The Night was for several months at the beginning of the Nineties, I think almost everybody stopped paying attention to Julee Cruise as soon as David Lynch got bored and wandered off to make movies again; I realize that's horribly cruel and unfair to Ms. Cruise, but it is what it is; anyway, I mention it not for the cheap and ugly shot, but because even if Del Rey pulls off her new record in spite of the backlash and bad press, I have to wonder what the next trick would be.

I'm not sure the part Ms. Del Rey means to play is a natural fit for her. I get what she's trying to do and that there's probably available space in the zeitgeist for it, I just think she may have set herself up to be the pop music equivalent of Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing: not nearly as bad as anybody ever makes him out to be, and yet nonetheless miscast and woefully out of place, obviously floundering in high waves he chose to jump into. I'm also wondering if she's getting some bad advice or acting on some weak instincts: I get that there's a temptation to strike while the iron is hot (especially when your first shot at a career silently flopped), but if you're already bordering overexposed from hype it probably doesn't make any sense to further overexpose yourself, especially if the whole bit you're doing is supposed to be built on being all enigmatic and out-of-nowhere. You might think that getting as much attention as you can is a good way to bring in a bigger audience or at least cash in while the getting's good, but exposure is really pretty toxic to maintaining a mysterious profile. And, of course, it doesn't help at all if you're just not ready to play in front of a live national audience; there is always the pragmatic consideration of whether your ability can keep up with your ambition.

I wish her well, but I suspect Del Rey's counting down her fifteen at this point. If so, it was fun while it lasted. I don't care that "Born To Die" is a slick, processed confection, it's a damn good piece of pop music. Take pleasure in it.

An open letter to Oklahoma state Sentaor Ralph Shortey

2012-01-26T00:12:00.006-05:00

FROM THE DESK OF HAROLD SCHERNEROFSKY BRIGMAN-JOHANNSON

January 26, 2012

Dear Sir,

Sir, I have one question for you. Just one question. One question is what this all boils down to. Why do you hate capitalism? Why do you hate free enterprise? Why do you hate entrepreneurship? Okay, that's three questions. Let me rephrase all of that: why do you hate me?

I have just learned--I am utterly appalled to have just learned--that you have taken steps to infringe upon my rights as a businessman, inventor, capitalist, and citizen by engaging in an unfair, unconstitutional restraint upon my right to make a living as an honest entrepreneur pursuing the American Dream in your home state, Oklahoma. Why do you hate the American Dream, Senator? Did the American Dream ever do anything to you? Perhaps you don't just hate the American Dream, perhaps you hate America. Perhaps you are a Soviet mole hunkered down in Oklahoma decades after the end of the Cold War and demise of the Russian threat to world liberty, much like one of those Japanese soldiers you used to always hear about in the decades after World War II, stranded alone on some Pacific Island with their raggedy uniforms and barely functional rifles, unaware the War was over and their side lost. Da, comrade?

I am, of course, referencing your fascistic proposal to ban the use of human fetuses in food.

I can hardly consider it a mere coincidence that your illegal, trade-restraining, philistine, Luddite proposal came just weeks, mere weeks before my company, Happy Sunshine Baby Foods, Incorporated (HSBF, Inc.), of which I am the founder and president, unveiled our flagship line of products in test markets across your state of Oklahoma. I have to assume you either despise business and the American Way or you were bought off by some competitor. Whose pockets are you in, Senator?

Or do you just hate new experiences? Perhaps you loathe fine, affordable, nutritious, fetus-based haute cuisine in a can? Until you came forward with your cretinous plan to keep civilized tastes from your fellow citizens, HSBF was prepared to roll out such sophisticated products as Child Tartare In A Red Wine Reduction Sauce™, Baby With Asparagus And Lemon Butter™, Enfant Ceviche™, Enfant en Croûte™, and Fetus Newburg™. Additional products were already in development by our staff of five-star, Paris-educated master chefs, including a promising (and delicious!) Enfant Meunière™ and Foetus Au Poivre™.

Our chefs use only the finest ingredients and the freshest fetuses, all certified organic and/or free range. Using an innovative and new patented process, each meal is pre-cooked and then canned to ensure freshness from our factory to your table. Simple reheating instructions are provided on every label, in terms so simple that even the most inexperienced cook or kitchen klutz can expect to have a meal worthy of the finest tables in Europe! And unlike "similar" products we understand to be in development by a rival company and expected to be sold under the brand/endorsement of Wolfgang Puck, our recipes are certified low sodium and absolutely no unnecessary preservatives or so-called "flavor enhancers" like MSG.

Let me tell you, sir, I have personally tasted every product we were going to roll out, and our baby food was fantastic. I can honestly say I have never had a finer fetus-based dish than the gourmet canned meals we hoped to bring to the benighted hemorrhoid on civilization's nether regions that Oklahoma must be to have a man like you in the state house. HSBF's top concern, unlike some of those "dehydrated instant fetus" and "fetus concentrate" products you may have had bad experiences with, was and always would have been top quality. We do not believe that just because someone is working three part-time jobs to barely scrape by in today's economy, that they shouldn't be able to feed their children children. No, HSBF's founding ethos was to bring the kinds of delicious, five-star fetuses millionaire celebrities and royalty might eat in a fancy restaurant to the tables of ordinary, hard-working, lower-income citizens, and at an affordable price.

Do you hate families, Senator? Do you hate nutrition? Do you know that our company's Baby With Asparagus And Lemon Butter™ is not just tasty, but is also fortified with several essential vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin C and calcium? Our babies aren't just delicious, sir, they're good for you, too. But I guess we can't have that in Oklahoma, now can we?

Sir, you disgust me.

I hope you realize that not only are we having to cancel our rollout plans, but since our entire business plan was based on a successful trial and promotion in your home state, we have had to lay off a hundred hard-working cannery workers, our entire kitchen staff including our team of top chefs, the secretarial pool, and the marketing department. In today's struggling economy, you have caused a hundred-and-seventy-five layoffs with one foul knife-to-the-back. As of today, I am now the sole employee of HSBF, Inc., sitting in a windowless closet with the one laptop I saved from the bank's repo men, waiting for the lights to get disconnected and wondering what I am going to do with the 10,000 gallon tank of fetuses behind Building G. God have mercy on you for what you have done, sir. I will never forgive.

Sincerely,
Harold Schernerofsky Brigman-Johannson,
President, Happy Sunshine Baby Foods, Incorporated

PUT A HAPPY SUNSHINE BABY™ IN YOUR POT TODAY!
THEY'RE THE YUMMIEST!

(H/t David Atkins.)

Worm rider

2012-01-25T03:57:00.003-05:00

I don't know if you heard, but Newt Gingrich is an unhappy man.

You see, it appears that Mr. Gingrich had something of a lackluster performance at the Republican debate this past Monday. Now that's the kind of thing that happens to most of us at some time or another, actually: we have a bad night, we're tired, we're a little off-beam, we fumble a little; but what you have to understand about Newt Gingrich is that he is, in fact, America's preeminent master debater ("master 'bater", as we knowledgeable types like to call a seasoned pro like Gingrich who's able to spout off at any time, day or night, with a splash of fresh material). The man who eagerly challenged President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas style debates isn't the sort who has a bad night... not unless someone causes it to happen.

Which is what happened this week: Gingrich's one, sole, fateful error that killed his performance Monday was to agree to allow NBC, which hosted the debate, to staunch free speech and suppress the natural instincts of a crowd hungry for Gingrich's intellectual meat, and he's not about to let it happen again. The media may want to silence Newt Gingrich, but he'll be damned if he's going to stand by while the left-wing media elites suppress intellectual debate and the free flow of ideas by imposing such meaningless tropes as "rules" and "order" on a proceeding.

The people have a right to be heard. Especially over his opponents' rebuttals and to cover any spots where he's drawing a bit of a blank about that thing, you know, um.

Now, I was a little bit curious about Gingrich's reaction. Not because I didn't understand it--I do, perfectly--or because it isn't unreasonable for him to want the same kind of audience support any proud American Wheel Of Fortune contestant might receive while struggling to decide whether or not to buy a vowel, but because he seemed so emphatic and certain about the matter, as if he had something up his sleeve to keep the networks from screwing him again. So I reached out. This blog has some pretty surprising contacts, and I figured if those skeezy layabouts at The Smoking Gun could get their hands on tour riders for an assortment of musical artists, it wouldn't be hard for me to get my hands on a Gingrich rider if he'd drawn one up for future venues.

In fact, it took me fifteen minutes and three phone calls to get a promise, and another forty-three minutes to get a copy of the Gingrich rider by fax. Suck it, TSG.

I've had one of my staffers here at SotSoGM transcribe the document, which follows. The name and phone number at the bottom were redacted in the copy I got, though, curiously, the name of the contact person at Gingrich's campaign headquarters remained visible in the document and is reproduced below. Behold, my friends, the official Newt Gingrich campaign rider:

TO: DEBATE CO-ORDINATOR
FROM: NEWT 2012 CAMPAIGN HQ
RE: NEWT GINGRICH DEBATE REQUIREMENTS
DATE: JANUARY 25, 2012

THESE ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR MR. GINGRICH'S CONTINUED PARTICIPATION IN YOUR EVENT:

1) NEWT 2012 WILL PRESENT YOUR ASSISTANT WITH A LIST OF PROSPECTIVE ATTENDEES TO YOUR NEXT EVENT. NO FEWER THAN ONE-THIRD (33%) OF THOSE IN ATTENDANCE WILL BE FROM THIS APPROVED LIST.

2) THE MEDIA DOES NOT CONTROL FREE SPEECH. EVENT ATTENDEES WILL BE ALLOWED TO APPLAUD AND INDICATE VOCAL APPROVAL OF STATEMENTS MADE BY MR. GINGRICH AT APPROPRIATE TIMES BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE EVENT. MODERATORS WILL NOT MAKE ANY ATTEMPT TO QUASH AUDIENCE RESPONSE DURING THE EVENT.

3) EVENT ATTENDEES WILL BE ALLOWED TO CALL MITT ROMNEY A MAN-WHORE.

4) SHOULD EVENT ATTENDEES BEGIN CALLING MITT ROMNEY A MAN-WHORE, MODERATORS SHALL ACKNOWLEDGE THIS BY REFERRING TO MITT ROMNEY AS "MR. MAN-WHORE," E.G. "MR. MAN-WHORE, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOUR WEIRD AND ICKY CULT FORCES YOU TO WEAR SPECIAL UNDERWEAR AND HOW THIS WILL IMPEDE YOUR ABILITY TO FACE THIS COUNTRY'S MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEMS, SUCH AS THE THREAT POSED BY THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP)?"

5) MODERATORS SHALL ASK MR. GINGRICH THESE THREE QUESTIONS:

a) "I KNOW I'M A DICK FOR ASKING, BUT HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR EX-WIVES' MALICIOUS AND UNCALLED-FOR STATEMENTS ABOUT YOUR PRIOR MARRIAGES, MOTIVATED AS THEY ARE BY THE FACT THEY NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD YOU AND HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN BRIBED TO LIE ABOUT YOU BY BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND THE LEFT-WING INTELLECTUAL ELITE SOCIALIST MEDIA?"

b) "I FEEL REALLY BAD THAT MY LIBERAL BOSSES ARE FORCING ME TO ASK THIS, BUT HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE WAY YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL EFFORTS HAVE BEEN MISREPRESENTED BY REPUBLICANS-IN-NAME-ONLY LIKE MITT ROMNEY AND RICK SANTORUM AS IF IT'S A CRIME FOR A DISCIPLE OF OUR GREATEST PRESIDENT, RONALD REAGAN, TO EARN A LIVING IN THIS GREAT COUNTRY OF OPPORTUNITY OF OURS?"

c) "WHY DO RACISTS LIKE ME WANT TO PROTECT THE WELFARE STATE AND KEEP DOWN PEOPLE WHO OUGHT TO BE RAISED UP AND GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITIES THEY SO RICHLY DESERVE TO EARN AN HONEST DAY'S WORK AS A MAID OR SHOESHINE BOY?"

6) MR. GINGRICH SHALL HAVE NO FEWER THAN FOUR OPPORTUNITIES DURING THE DEBATE TO BE INTERRUPTED BY MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE SHOUTING, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

7) MODERATORS SHALL INTRODUCE MR. GINGRICH AS, "SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH, PH.D., AUTHOR OF 'THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER,' 'RONALD REAGAN: RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY,' 'TO SAVE AMERICA' AND OTHER TITLES AVAILABLE FROM FINE BOOKSELLERS EVERYWHERE AND DIRECTLY FROM WWW.GINGRICHPRODUCTIONS.COM AND OTHER ONLINE RETAILERS. NOW ALSO AVAILABLE IN KINDLE AND AUDIOBOOK FORMAT. SPEAKER GINGRICH IS ALSO AVAILABLE FOR SPEECHES, LECTURES, CONSULTING AND BAR MITZVAHS AT REASONABLE RATES, CALL THE NUMBER ON YOUR SCREEN NOW."

8) MODERATORS SHALL INTRODUCE MITT ROMNEY AS "THURSTON HOWELL THE THIRD."

9) MODERATORS SHALL INTRODUCE RICK SANTORUM AS "THAT GUY."

10) MODERATORS SHALL NOT ACKNOWLEDGE RON PAUL AT ALL DURING CANDIDATE INTRODUCTIONS. MID-WAY THROUGH YOUR EVENT, ONE OF THE MODERATORS SHALL ADDRESS MR. PAUL AS "WAITER" AND ATTEMPT TO PLACE A FOOD AND/OR BEVERAGE ORDER WITH MR. PAUL.

11) MR. GINGRICH WILL BE TRAVELING BY TOUR BUS. IN THE EVENT THE CANDIDATE DOES NOT TRAVEL BY BUS, THREE VANS AND A MIDSIZE SEDAN SHALL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE CANDIDATE, HIS WIFE, AND STAFF, ALTHOUGH ONLY THE MIDSIZE SEDAN WILL ACTUALLY BE USED. AMPLE PARKING MUST BE PROVIDED AT YOUR OR THE EVENT VENUE'S EXPENSE. ALL LOADING DOCK AND DOOR AREAS MUST BE CLEARED PRIOR TO LOAD-IN. THE CANDIDATE'S TOUR BUS SHALL REQUIRE 60-AMP SINGLE-PHASE POWER WITHIN 75' OF THE PARKING AREA AND THIS POWER MUST MEET ALL LOCAL CODES.

12) MR. GINGRICH WILL USE ANY GODDAMN DOOR HE WANTS AND DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT HUMILIATING HIM BY MAKING HIM USE A BACK EXIT WHEN HE OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO EXIT WHEREVER THE MOST CAMERAS ARE, COMMIE. HE'LL CUT YOU.

13)MR. GINGRICH'S SHALL REQUIRE A BACKSTAGE DRESSING ROOM FOR MR. GINGRICH'S EXCLUSIVE USE. (THIS ROOM SHALL NOT BE ACCESSIBLE TO MITT ROMNEY, RICK SANTORUM, ANY MEMBER OF A CANDIDATE'S STAFF, EX-WIVES, CREDITORS AND/OR ANYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE A PENDING PATERNITY SUIT.) THE ROOM SHALL BE PROVIDED WITH ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:

a) SINK, PRIVATE SHOWER AND PRIVATE TOILET FACILITIES.

b) FULLY STOCKED WITH TOILETRIES AND SOAPS.

c) ONE STEREO SYSTEM WITH CD AND CASSETTE TAPE PLAYER.

d) TWO COMFORTABLE UPHOLSTERED CHAIRS AND A MINIMUM OF ONE CLEAN, UPHOLSTERED, COMFORTABLE SOFA OR LOVESEAT.

e) TWO LARGE END TABLES.

f) A WRITING DESK WHERE MR. GINGRICH MAY PEN ANY REALLY DEEP THOUGHTS HE HAS BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE.

g) A LARGE CLOTHING RACK FOR LARGE CLOTHES.

h) A COFFEE TABLE.

i) A LINED TRASH CAN.

j) TWO FULL-LENGTH PORTABLE GLASS MIRRORS.

k) TWENTY-FOUR LARGE, FLUFFY, DRY TOWELS. (MR. GINGRICH MAY KEEP ONE OR MORE OR POSSIBLY ALL OF THESE TOWELS AFTER THE EVENT.)

l) FRESH UNDERWEAR CONSISTING OF: TWO XXXL WHITE COTTON NON-POLY T-SHIRTS (HANES OR EQUIVALENT BRAND), SIX PAIRS OF COTTON NON-POLY XXXL BRIEFS (ALSO HANES OR EQUIVALENT BRAND--NO STORE BRANDS!!!).

m) TWO BANQUET TABLES AND THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

i) TWENTY-FOUR BOTTLES SPRING WATER, NON-CARBONATED (PLASTIC BOTTLES ACCEPTABLE);

ii) HOT, FRESH-BREWED COFFEE, REPLENISHED DURING THE EVENT SO AS TO BE AVAILABLE AFTER THE DEBATE;

iii) HOT WATER AND ASSORTED TEABAGS TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING: TAZO ZEN GREEN TEA, TAZO SWEET CINNAMON SPICE TEA, TWININGS EARL GREY TEA, TWININGS EARL GREY DECAFFEINATED TEA, CELESTIAL SEASONINGS LEMON ZINGER TEA AND CELESTIAL SEASONINGS SLEEPYTIME EXTRA;

iv) ASSORTED SOFT DRINKS, SIX TWO-LITER BOTTLES VARIOUS FLAVORS, COCA-COLA PRODUCTS ONLY, NO PEPSI, AND ONE SIX-PACK DIET COCA-COLA WITH LEMON.

v) MILK, THREE GALLONS.

vi) AMPLE ICE, IN COOLERS AND WITH SCOOPS AVAILABLE.

vii) CONDIMENTS AND UTENSILS: AN ASSORTMENT TO INCLUDE SEA SALT, PEPPER, SUGAR, HONEY, HALF-AND-HALF, HUNT'S KETCHUP, GREY POUPON MUSTARD, MIRACLE WHIP SALAD DRESSING, A-1 STEAK SAUCE, HORSERADISH SAUCE, PACE MILD SALSA, ONE BOTTLE HIGH-POTENCY MULTIVITAMINS, TWO BOTTLES OF ASPIRIN (ANY BRAND EXCEPT STORE-BRAND/GENERIC), COFFEE-STIRRERS, SPOONS, KNIVES, PAPER NAPKINS, PAPER TOWELS, SOLO CUPS.

viii) THE FOLLOWING FOOD ITEMS SHALL BE PROVIDED: CEREALS (ASSORTED FLAVORS), QUAKER BRAND INSTANT OATMEAL (ASSORTED FLAVORS), TWO LOAVES WHITE BREAD, ONE (WHOLE) GRILLED CHICKEN, ONE ROAST TURDUCKEN, SIXTEEN POUNDS OF MASHED POTATOES, INSTANT GRITS (ASSORTED FLAVORS), TWO KEY-LIME PIES, ONE PECAN PIE, THREE GALLONS OF ICE CREAM (ASSORTED FLAVORS), MIXED GREEN SALAD WITH BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE DRESSING, FIVE POUNDS MIXED NUTS (NO CASHEWS), TWELVE 40-OZ VARIETY BAGS OF HERSHEY'S MINIATURES WITH ALL THE HERSHEY'S DARKS REMOVED, FOUR BOTTLES OF ZINFANDEL (CHOSEN FROM LOCAL/REGIONAL VINYARDS), FOUR BOTTLES OF CHARDONNAY (CHOSEN FROM LOCAL/REGIONAL VINYARDS), ONE TWELVE-PACK OF HEINEKEN, ONE TWELVE-PACK OF SAMUEL ADAMS (SEASONAL BREW ACCEPTABLE), TWO BOTTLES OF JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK LABEL, ONE BOTTLE OF COURVOISIER XO, ONE BOTTLE OF PATRON TEQUILA, THREE FRESH WHOLE LIMES, SIX POUNDS OF M&MS, ONE POUND OF DELI ROAST BEEF (SHAVED), ONE POUND OF WHITE AMERICAN CHEESE (SLICED THICK), THREE FAMILY-SIZED BAGS OF DORITOS, TWO FAMILY-SIZED BAGS OF TOSTITOS, TWO 8 OZ BAGS OF STACY'S PITA CHIPS (ANY FLAVOR, "NAKED/SEA SALT" PREFERRED), A BASKET OF FRESH FRUIT.

ix) THREE BOTTLES OF ASTROGLIDE NATURAL PERSONAL LUBRICANT, TWO BOTTLES OF BODY/MASSAGE OIL, ONE PACK OF EDIBLE UNDIES (CHERRY).

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROMPT ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR DIFFICULTIES ACCOMMODATING THE ARTIST, PLEASE CALL THE NEWT 2012 CAMPAIGN HQ AT [REDACTED] AND ASK TO SPEAK TO "MIKE HUNT."

SINCERELY,
[REDACTED]

Pauline community

2012-01-24T10:09:00.012-05:00

Oh dear. Sweet. Gods. Of irony. How in the Nine Hells did I miss this?

I mean, apparently it isn't actually "new" insofar as news items about Paulville go back to 2008. And yet, somehow, the fact that a bunch of Ron Paul supporters announced four years ago that they really were going to buy a bunch of land in the middle of a foreboding Texas salt flat and actually plan on Going Galt after a fashion just totally slipped past me.

So, anyway, if--like me--you missed this item: a whole bunch of libertarian Ron Paul supporters have bought some land and want to set up a utopian cooperative (their word and their link, "cooperative") in the midst of a Texas salt flat chosen for the availability of solar power (so that everyone can be off the grid if they want to opt out, natch). Everybody in Paulville will also be able to opt-out of waste treatment and being on the water mains, and (according to Wikipedia) a Minnesotan Ron Paul supporter named Jason Ebacher insists the location will be excellent for raising sheep.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'm actually mildly disappointed, I have to confess, that this libertarian commune--wait, hang on. "Libertarian commune"? Is that not some kind of oxymoron? These libertarians want to establish themselves in a co-op? Really?! Good grief, this thing is comedy gold. An entire, ahem, "cooperative" made up of people whose fundamental ethos is basically, "every man for himself".

I'm sorry. Give me a minute.

Okay, so I'm back, obviously. As I was saying, I'm actually mildly disappointed that this tract is still, much like Ayn Rand's philosophy, an empty, isolated wasteland. Nobody has actually put up a house, possibly because a fat lot of good it would do to try to organize an old-school Amish-style barn raising when all your neighbors have sworn by their life and love of it never to live for the sake of another nor ask another to live for them.

I mean, if they ever actually do move off and set themselves up in Galtville, what do you think the over-under is on how long it takes the whole place to Go Golding? Some guy goes over to his neighbor's place to complain about the neighbor's sheep knocking over all his solar panels and why can't the neighbor put up a fence, and the neighbor says you have no right to trammel upon my will, and he can't exactly call the police to complain because the state has no right to exercise violence on the sanctity of a man's sheep and the next thing you know they're shooting each other. And that's before the cholera epidemic because everybody opted-out of the septic system, y'know?

I'd give it months: there's enough instinctive goodwill in humans (even selfish assholes) and probably enough space out there for people to mostly get along for a bit, and a lot of people are going to just up and quit, frankly, as soon as their sheep all die or their Range Rovers break down and not paying for local roads suddenly seems like it might have been a dumb idea after all. But at some point, the guns are going to come out, don't'cha think?

Assuming these idiots don't die of other causes, first.

After all, one of the fatal flaws of Paulville that anybody who isn't a complete idiot might pick up on is that all the social systems Paulites and Randroids turn their noses up at evolved by a sort of social natural selection, they have reasons for existing that go back to why they were started and why they endured over other forms of social organization and governance that have died out because they couldn't compete; I don't want to push the Darwin metaphor too far, because it's a (very) crude metaphor at best, but the point is that people didn't come up with, say, urban sanitation (for instance) because it was just another way for the ever-encroaching government to exert its evil and irrational will upon the freedom and dignity of human beings; we came up with urban sanitation because we realized the alternative really sucks (or stinks, ha-ha-ha); and we made compliance mandatory because, you know, it doesn't really solve the problem if half the houses on the block have septic tanks and treated drinking water and the other half dump their shit out windows and let the runoff seep into the same ground they're drawing their wellwater from.

You can say the same kinds of things about police forces, fire departments, the national defense apparatus, public schools, transportation departments, etc., etc., etc. We didn't invent these things because some tyrant decided he'd get his rocks off by forcing people to have their housefires put out before the block burned down (take that, common man!), we came up with these things because they were kinda necessary.

Guess which currently-hypothetical Texas township is going to wish they had a dogcatcher when some bozo lets his dogs run wild?

So good luck to the Paulites, and to Paulville! Four years is enough dicking around, it's time you started building some no-code housing and settling your disputes over noisy parties, roaming beasts, driving your ATVs through other people's beanpatches, disease-infested shitpuddles, etc. the old-fashioned way: lying in ambush and shooting somebody in the back like they did in the glorious, halcyon days of the Old West when a man was free to be a man and a woman could be traded for a pony. Go, citizens of Paulville, and prosper... more importantly, try to post some clips to YouTube if you can figure out a way to run phone cable without eminent domain. We'll be pulling for you....

Well, maybe not "pulling" so much as "placing bets", but, you know, I'm sure each of us will have his or her own crazed ideological survivalist type we'll be rooting for. Good luck!

Matrimony, "Obey Your Guns"

2012-01-23T11:44:00.002-05:00

I've mentioned the local band Matrimony before. They have a new video posted for a kicking new song (follow the link in this sentence for a link to a free download of the song), but what really tickles me about the video for "Obey Your Guns" is that most of it was shot in my neighborhood or fairly close-by.

I even amused myself looking to see if I was possibly in the background somewhere, or my car, but haven't spotted myself. Probably not around if they shot it on a weekday. Still, fun stuff. And, again, a great little song. I really do suggest you check these folks out; I know that their six-song record The Storm & The Eye is available as an Amazon digital download, for instance, and I can't say enough nice things about it.

Why I kick myself every time I make the mistake of reading a Glenn Greenwald column

2012-01-22T01:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I do it to myself. I have realized that Greenwald is at his best disingenuous and at his worst just a pure-all-out troll, and still every now and again when I'm over at Salon I end up seeing an interesting headline he or a Salon editor has written for him and I click on it and wham! I've gone and fucked myself again clicking a link to an article that, more often than not, will have me headdeasking again and again and again until I'm seeing more stars than the Hubble Space Telescope.

His latest tripe (as of this writing--Greenwald is prolific, I'll give him that) is worth mentioning here just because it's sort of related to last Wednesday's post here. Like everybody else on the Internet, just about, Greenwald has some things to say about SOPA/PIPA and the subsequent announcement of the Megaupload indictments. Of course he's horrified: civil libertarians may think they won a victory with the shutdown (for now) of SOPA and PIPA, but really they've won nothing because all these bills would have done is codified the existing overreach of the nefarious and evil government, which already (Greenwald claims) has the power to shut down websites willy-nilly, and already exercises it at the twirl of a long moustache.

Go take a look if you'd like, but it's about the stupidest thing anyone's said about the whole business, and I'm including a number of poorly-spelled and grammatically-challenged 140-or-less Twitter farts in that comparison.

For those who are late to the Internet, just after various members of Congress backed away from SOPA and PIPA after a massive online protest and lots of petitioning, the Justice Department announced indictments against the owners of the filing-sharing site Megaupload, along with their arrests abroad for extradition to the United States for trial. Megaupload is, or was, or was and still is, a website that allowed people to upload large files to Megaupload servers, and then those users could publish links to that content on their own pages, allowing other users (in turn) to access the servers and download the content. There's a wonderful explanation of how all this work(s)(ed) by Bill Wyman over at Slate that's worth a look, especially if you've never... ah, if you've never had a friend use Megaupload to download a file. (Yes. That's it: a friend. His... or her... name will come to me in a moment, I'm sure.)

File-sharing sites, like peer-to-peer sharing (P2P) sites, are not necessarily per se copyright violators, as Wyman covers. My primary use of P2P these days is to get the latest Linux distro if I'm having to do a clean install from disc or USB stick. The primary file-sharing site I use is Dropbox, and my use for it is entirely legal: I can sync writing projects between multiple computers so that, for instance, a short story I start writing on the netbook while I'm out at a coffee shop automatically shows up on my desktop-replacement notebook when I get home. Journal notes, virtual index cards, storylines, etc. kept in Writer's Café show up on both machines (and, since we're talking about legal use: yes, I actually have two licensed, purchased copies of Writer's Café, by the way).

But--and again, Wyman covers this pretty thoroughly--the fact is that Megaupload wasn't exactly running that kind of business: Megaupload, in spite of any disavowals from the owners, was extensively, if not primarily, in the business of re-distributing third-party content, i.e. material that is or was copyrighted (there is certainly a great deal of material on Megaupload that was copyrighted, but the copyright has expired without renewal or the work has fallen into that great abyss between the realms of copyright and the public domain--works that are possibly technically still under copyright, but the holders no longer exist or can no longer be found). If you've used... heard of someone else using the site, you may be aware that it isn't set up the way Dropbox is to facilitate bouncing one's own files around, and while I'm sure you could use it that way, it's horribly inefficient in much the same way using Dropbox for redistributing large files is a bit clunky. (Having once used Dropbox for a pretty large backup in an emergency--it was a ridiculously bad idea, one that took several days because of the way Dropbox logs new files.)

But, you know, the real problem with Greenwald's post on the subject isn't that Megaupload is, frankly, probably guilty of what the government's accusing them of. Guilty people have rights, too. (I do make my living, such as it is, from this very premise, you know.) The real problem is Greenwald's fundamentally dishonest approach to the whole thing. See if you spot the horseshit:

But just as the celebrations began over the saving of Internet Freedom, something else happened: the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world’s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets — all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement. [emphasis in original]

Indictment by Grand Jury is considered one of the cornerstones of Anglo-American jurisprudence and a foundation of Due Process. It isn't tantamount to a conviction: the burden of proof sufficient for the return of an indictment is based on a probability instead of a moral certainty, that is: a Grand Jury may indict based upon a preponderance of the evidence, and is not required to make findings beyond a reasonable doubt as required for criminal conviction by a petit jury. Furthermore, the presentment to a Grand Jury is generally one-sided: the state presents evidence while a suspect may not even have notice that the state is seeking indictment.

That being said, a lower burden of evidence is still evidence and preliminary procedures are still process. The United States Government moving against Megaupload by getting a signed Grand Jury indictment--i.e. having presented at least some evidence of statutory violations to a duly-constituted-and-convened group of ordinary citizens--and proceeding via in rem proceedings against Megaupload's property with a court order obtained through proper proceedings before a Federal judge--isn't tyranny as Greenwald is practically peeing himself to imply, it's how things work under our system of laws and have worked, more or less, since the nation's founding. You certainly don't have to like it, but then you just need to go ahead and own up that you don't like the American legal system and want it replaced by something else entirely. Greenwald is being an ass: he either doesn't know what he's talking about or he just doesn't care because he thinks he's scoring points this way; I'm inclined to think it's both of these things.

It rankles me. It just rankles. Greenwald is an opportunistic troll who posits himself a civil libertarian crusading to uphold the laws against ever-encroaching government tyranny, except that he's more than ready to go and accuse the government of lawlessness even when the government is actually proceeding in a completely legal manner. It may lift him up in his own mind or the minds of his adoring throng, but it disparages the hard work of those on both sides of the legal process who are attempting to follow the rules and do the right thing by the books. Do I think the Grand Jury process is perfect or can't be reformed? No, but if that's the rules we're playing under, don't accuse anyone of lawlessness when they're following those rules; just as vitally, while I have deep concerns about how Grand Juries actually end up working in practice, I hardly have a better idea to replace them with, and if I did, I still think Megaupload would be facing whatever substitute criminal process anyone came up with. And if Megaupload faces a difficult time of it comparing their resources to defend themselves against the resources the government might set against them, well, yes, I have a problem with that, but it's a problem faced by every single criminal defendant facing the due process of law as it's currently constituted.

Greenwald disparages due process even as he's supposedly defending it: the proprietors of Megaupload face extradition proceedings in New Zealand and any other countries they were arrested in, and presumably will get whatever due process Commonwealth law gives them (n.b. Greenwald is happy to bash American legal proceedings, but doesn't mention that much of the property seizures are occurring in New Zealand and this is where Megaupload founder "Kim Dotcom" has been arrested pending extradition to the United States; presumably "Dotcom" will receive the benefit of law and opportunity to fight extradition and contest the seizure of property by New Zealand authorities: I must suppose that either Greenwald doesn't understand this or he simply hates the entire Anglo-American system of jurisprudence going all the way back to the Magna Carta); if extradition is waived or granted, Megaupload will have the benefit of a trial in Federal court (or, if they decide to plead for whatever reason, perhaps under Alford, the benefit of a filed plea agreement and hearing before a sentencing judge or magistrate); and, assuming Megaupload is convicted, they'll have the benefit of appealing the case to the appropriate Federal circuit or perhaps even as far as the Supreme Court Of The United States should they wish and cert granted. What more do you want? What more is there, actually?

"Duck Amuck"

2012-01-21T11:07:00.002-05:00

I've probably posted this before, but what the hell, it's still one of the great classics of short animation. The ScatterKat and I were watching it again this morning and it seemed like a Saturday morning cartoon sort of day; I don't know how it is where you are, but here it's just kind of chilly and wet and miserable.

It's a woefully indecisive day. Chilly, but not cold; cold, you go out and your cheeks are pricked and your hands are numb but you know there's hot chocolate (spiked or not, as you will) waiting for you inside; chilly, it's just the worst of all temperature worlds, if you know what I mean. It's drizzly, too--not rain, not snow, not even sleet, just indifferently pissy falling... mist. It would be nice if the weather were one thing or another, but it isn't.

Complaining about the weather seems awfully pointless and tired, doesn't it? I apologize. Hot chocolate might be in order anyway, that's the silver lining in this. I hope you have a fine Saturday.

Bruce Springsteen, "We Take Care Of Our Own"

2012-01-20T11:47:00.008-05:00

Being the anointed one has got to be a bitch. I remember how excited everybody was over The Rising when it came out in 2002: here was The Boss' first album since the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks, and it was just a given that he as one of America's cultural spokespersons, he was going to make a statement about 9/11, this was The Boss' statement about being an American, Mr. Born In The U.S.A., the man from New Jersey, just across the river from ground zero. Well, it was an okay album, but let's be honest: it wasn't great, either, a couple of strong tracks but nothing really matching his early passions or, seen in retrospect, the subsequent strength and confidence of records like Magic (2007) and Working On A Dream (2009).

But he was stuck with that, you know? I mean, some of the tracks on The Rising weren't even originally written with September 11^th in mind: they were pieces he'd been working on well before the attack; some of them he reworked but there were others, really, that really just became 9/11 tracks by virtue of seeing their first official release ten months after the event. Of course, being Bruce Springsteen™, anything he might have done would have been hungrily poked over for authority, solace, statement of intent; and being expected to say something, it's natural (and justifiable) that Springsteen gamely tried to step up to what was collectively expected of him by fans, critics, the music press, talking heads on TV, maybe the whole country even.

It just wasn't, to repeat, much of a record. Not bad, not bad, I didn't say it was bad. Sometimes I forget he recorded it, though, or would if there weren't some awesome live recordings of the title track bouncing around out there.

Anyway, it comes up because (as you may already know), it's kind of happening all over again. Springsteen has a new album coming out in March and there's already talk circulating about how angry and raucous and 99% it's going to be (even if some of the people doing the talk are conceding the album was largely written before the Occupy movement became a thing--shades of The Rising, again?). (I can't help thinking of that great line Bono drops when introducing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" on the Under A Blood Red Sky EP: "There's been a lot of talk about this next song, maybe, maybe too much talk; this is not a rebel song...." There's been a lot of talk about this next Bruce Springsteen album....) Which is what everyone expects of Springsteen, right? It probably isn't fair, because I don't really think he asked to be the anointed one, I think he just asked to be loved for, and make a pretty good living by making music, but when you've hit the level where Ronald Reagan was talking about how awesome you are (even though Reagan doesn't know what he's talking about, has missed the point completely, etc.), well... well, you're pretty much fucked into having to make statements for the rest of your career.

If the statement is "We Take Care Of Our Own", I'm a bit disappointed. (Yeah, that's what all this was building to.) It starts off promisingly with that pounding beat and dogwhine guitar (e-bow, I presume); I'm always thrilled when an old dog I like shows up with a new trick he's learned, and I am clapping my hands with childish glee if this is the kind of thing that will happen because of all the time Springsteen's spent over the past few years with Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello, a damn fine guitar player, that one. (Springsteen--who may or may not be the one playing that part of the song, as surrounded by guitarists as he is these days--is a damn fine and underappreciated guitar player, himself, as a look at videos from some of his live performances can attest.)

If only the song wasn't kind of tripe. It's nicely anthemic, it just doesn't say a whole lot, which is regrettable when Springsteen is a guy who is generally great at saying things. I don't mean just political or economic things, I mean, he's eloquent just singing about carnies and checkout girls (and, yes, in fact I did purposely choose a song from his first album and his last (to date) album to make that point--though I also have to edit this to add: I chose songs with "queen" in the titles by some subconscious accident, I just realized). But--

I been knocking on the door that holds the throne
I been looking for the map that leads me home
I been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone
The road of good intentions has gone dry as a bone
We take care of our own
We take care of our own
Wherever this flag's flown
We take care of our own

I'm not even sure what that means. Seriously. The throne of power, God's throne, somebody's tying up the bathroom? He's lost, okay, I get that, but then he's, what? Bastards are good people, too, when they're not being bastards, or does he mean that good people are no longer good (which seems sort of an oxymoron to me, maybe)? The road of good intentions used to be, what, rain-soaked, underwater, moist? And then the platitudes and, hang on--"Wherever this flag's flown", huh? American flag? Surrender flag? Freak flag?

That's the first verse, and the whole song is pretty much like that. I've got no idea what he's talking about. And maybe somebody's saying, "Well, Eric, it's an anthem, you know, it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to get your heart pounding and your fist pumping." And if there is anybody saying that, let me just say that's a load of horseshit--I've got your first verse (and chorus) of an anthem, buddy:

Lights out tonight
trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision
smashin' in my guts, man
I'm caught in a cross fire
that I don't understand
But there's one thing I know for sure girl
I don't give a damn
For the same old played out scenes
I don't give a damn
For just the in betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul
I want control right now
talk about a dream
Try to make it real
you wake up in the night
With a fear so real
Spend your life waiting
for a moment that just don't come
Well, don't waste your time waiting

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good

There's a guy who's lost and looking--and then what he's going to do about it clearly involves kicking ass, chewing gum (he is, like Roddy Piper in They Live, out of gum), and assuming defiant poses while the wind blows dirt against his gritted teeth.

But, most importantly, it makes sense. I've got a sense of place ("trouble in the heartland") and a physical sense of turmoil ("a head-on collision smashing in my guts, man"), a sense of action ("We'll keep pushin' till it's understood and these badlands start treating us good") and what it'll cost us ("broken hearts... as the price you've gotta pay"). These are all very sharply focused images establishing where we are. I don't expect Springsteen to be as passionate now about anything the way he was when he was in his twenties--I'm not as passionate now as anything I cared about when I was in my twenties, this is just how the world works, we get older and our fires come down (which is good, in a lot of ways: those of us who don't learn how to smolder burn out quickly 'til there's nothing left). I don't expect Springsteen to still have that fire (or car wreck) in his belly, I just expect him to make sense.

I hope the rest of the album is better. I mean, I'll be buying it (surprise, surprise) and I'd like it to be a record I listen to a lot this year and am glad I bought, and not just something that occupies shelf space between other discs for the sake of some kind of fannish completism. Heck, if the rest of the record is great, maybe "We Take Care Of Our Own" will be one of those tracks I crank up in the car but don't really listen to (maybe you know how that is)--it really does have a good beat to it.

Still, color me disappointed.

I think I have to add in closing that there's some further, sad, ironic absurdity in that Springsteen probably summed up a lot of the national feeling already--thirty-or-so years ago, now that The River (1980) and Nebraska (1982) have become depressingly relevant again, and around fifteen years ago with the underrated The Ghost Of Tom Joad (1995). In fact, here's a pair of songs about people who have lost everything in an economic downturn and are struggling to take care of their own in ways that are much more affecting than the song we've been talking about--"Atlantic City" and "The Ghost Of Tom Joad":

An open letter to tarps@stauktibet.com

2012-01-19T11:12:00.006-05:00

Dear tarps@stauktibet.com,

Oh, thank God. Thank God, thank God, thank God. He still loves me. Do you know, there I was, elbows-deep in a project, when I said to myself, "Self," (this is a running joke I have with myself) "Self," I said, "this is not working out the way it is supposed to, why don't you take yourself a little break, have a nice cool glass of strawberry lemonade, and check your e-mail." So I go over to the sink, wash up as best as I can, put some clothes on and go upstairs and do what I suggested to myself. Well, I say I suggested it to myself, but I do believe it was the voice of God Himself whispering in my little ear, because there was your e-mail right there on top of the list.

Now, I must confess: as careful as much as I think myself a careful planner, I had not thought of tarps. It may be that we simply see what's before us without much due thought. In my situation, I had a big pile of old carpeting all rolled up from when I last re-carpeted the place, and I had been cutting myself big swaths of that (there really is a lot of it) and using that. This has ended up being a failure in all sorts of ways--carpeting being so hard to clean (why, that's the reason I had to replace so much of it to start with) and one hearing all sorts of things on the television about fiber experts (though I do not know how much of that is to be taken for true). Still, I soldiered on with it, for carpeting I had and carpeting I knew, and I did not even think--though it seems foolish of me now, I agree--of tarps. Not until I saw your e-mail.

They're useful for everything.

Now it seems to me I must put some questions to you. How durable are your tarps? Do they tear easily? If I roll something up in one of your tarps and tape the loose end shut with lengths of Duck Tape, would the tape be wont to hold or are your tarps made of some material that will work loose, or that will hold the adhesive but readily tear? Do your tarps retain odors or stains? Are your tarps in any way absorbent or do they completely repel fluids? If one had to use a very sharp object to suddenly punch through one of your tarps that was rolled up around something all burrito-like because the package was making some annoying noise or trying to work itself loose, would I be able to punch straight through the layers of tarp? Conversely, how easy would it be for something to punch out, assuming it was wrapped up in a way that restricted its leverage? Do you have a price list? Would you say that your tarps are suitable for re-painting the inside of the house if I needed to? Are your tarps air-permeable to any degree? Can you arrange express delivery if there's an emergency? Are they marked in any way that might make them easily identifiable or traceable? Do you only deliver them to residences or would there be some way to arrange delivery to, say, an abandoned and undeveloped empty plot of real estate a few blocks from my home? Speaking of which, how heavy are your tarps, could they be easily-lugged over one's shoulder or would I need a wheel barrow? (I do have one available.) What sizes of tarp are available? (Width is very negotiable, as I can roll up or trim as needed, but I think a length of around seven feet is requisite, as I can tie or tape off the ends--much less than that is almost definitely too short.)

I hope you will respond immediately. I expect it's too late for a response that would help me with my current project, but I have several things in the works right now, and will probably initiate my next project sometime before the week is up. (There is no rest, they say, for the wicked, and while I myself am certainly not wicked, I believe I have identified a few who are. I sometimes think of myself as being a little like Santa Claus, as we both keep lists of who is naughty or nice, though we have our different purposes.) If you could please get back to me ASAP.

In the meantime, I must say that your message has reinvigorated and excited me! When I came upstairs, all I could think about was how tired my arms were and how much my back was hurting, and how little I looked forward to going to the hardware store for a new drill bit for my next project (the dull nubbin on the end is hardly getting anything done on this project, I'm afraid). But now! Now I have something to look forward to! Why, I can hardly finish my strawberry lemonade! I may even--if it won't jeopardize our promising business relationship--see what tarps the hardware store has in stock. Just to hold me over, understand.

I can hardly wait! I think I'll take the rest of my beverage downstairs, get out of these clothes and get back to work! Thank you, tarps@stauktibet.com, thank you God and Jesus and Mary!

Tarps! They're useful for everything!

Dark day

2012-01-18T12:35:00.010-05:00

You may have heard, or just noticed: chunks of the Internet are dark today to protest two bills being considered in Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP [intellectual property] Act (PIPA). I've sent a protest note through the Electronic Frontier Foundation's contact Congress tool, but I'm not taking Giant Midgets down, mostly because I doubt anybody would really notice all that much.

I haven't said anything about SOPA and PIPA here because I haven't had much to say. They're shitty laws, and the President has signaled he probably won't sign whatever makes it through Congress (SOPA is the House version, PIPA is before the Senate), but I suspect they're also more-or-less inevitable. Critics contend that either bill would cripple the Internet and damage innovation; either bill would clearly transform the Internet and could seriously hurt open-source software development, but I suspect those claims are more than a mite bit overstated. Meanwhile, the punch line is that neither bill will save any of the corporations that actually wrote it and/or supported it from their probable obsolescence. Anyway, the result there is that we're going to be getting this sooner or later, and it's going to suck, but we don't know how hard it will suck, and it won't help anybody and might hurt somebody and we'll still be stuck with it; all of that's reason enough not to pass SOPA or PIPA, obviously, but since when did obvious lousiness ever halt a piece of half-baked legislation? (I'll answer my own rhetorical question: never, that's when.)

See, what this can all be boiled down to is this: certain industries dealing with intellectual property are simply doomed and have nothing to bring to the game except lobbyists and lawyers, of which they have plenty. So this is what their death throes look like as they suffocate on the cometary ash or freeze to death beneath the long curtain of indefinite night: they send their lobbyists and lawyers to the capitol to lobby and law, bribe and hobnob. Because that's all some of them can do now, and for the ones that might be able to eke through what's happened to technology in the past twenty or thirty years, well, for them this is all they can think of while listening to the shrill death screams of their cousins; not all the dinosaurs died at the K-T extinction event, you know, some of them flew away, but while they waited for clear air to fold beneath their wings, they must have heard (and must have seen) terrible, terrible things happening to familiar beasts.

The recording industry, for instance, is doomed. I mean, flat-out doomed. If I wanted to commit to prophecy, I'd give them twenty-five years. The publishing houses are in a superficially similar but actually distinguishable situation and gods only know how that's going to work out for them. The movies and television might snake through, but it's going to be interesting for them because they're going to have to work out how to make money at what they're doing.

See, the problem for the record labels is they set up this funny little business where they don't really do what they get credit for doing, or they really only do themselves the parts that have almost stopped mattering. The way it used to work was, if you were a recording artist, the label gave you an advance (generally against future earnings, so it worked as kind of a fucked-up loan with your career as collateral) and then you paid for stuff that was basically subcontracted out: i.e. you rented your studio time from somebody (possibly the label), hired a producer and techs (possibly people the label had an arrangement with), paid for packaging (maybe using the label's house artists, or whomever they hired), and then maybe the label would pick up part of the promotional costs, and of course they'd press your record and pay for trucks to take those LPs to Camelot Musics and WalMarts all over the United States (or planes to fly them to Europe and Japan or wherever). And this was, I think you'll notice, immensely profitable, in large part because the money the label advanced you got paid back out of whatever they tried telling you your sales were and they were usually skimming various fees here and there; this is how you get some sucker you read about getting a million dollar advance in Rolling Stone showing up on a trashy reality show in the only pair of pants he owns and looking like a bus hit him and the driver only stopped to steal his wallet while he was lying there bleeding, bruised and confused; you'll hear it was all drugs and women and expensive crashed cars, but probably you ought to read Steve Albini's "The Problem With Music" if you haven't already.

Now, if you have any kind of smarts and learning--say you're Trent Reznor or a member of Radiohead, for example--maybe you finally figure out that if you're going to basically pay the record label for stuff they're going to pay somebody else to do, you could just cut out the middleman and maybe rent your own studio and hire your own friends, and, hell, with all this fancy computer recording gear, maybe you don't even have to hire out the studio. And then you think that maybe you still need to have a label for marketing and distribution, until you realize that for the latter you could just upload the stuff to your own website or arrange for digital distribution via iTunes, Amazon, et al., and that your buddy Sam (or whatever his or her name is) can do all sorts of boss marketing for you and they're your buddy, and good at it, and they get you, and you're not only (perhaps guiltily) spending a little less, you're also putting money into your own people's pockets instead of some label stooge's. And the only thing that's left that the label can do that you (and Sam) still can't do for yourselves is get the song on the radio, but does anybody need radio anymore when there's YouTube, f'r'instance? And if you don't need the label for "let's-not-call-it-Payola-let's-call-it-being-friends" sorts of shenanigans with the suits at Clear Channel and you don't need their pressing plants and freight trucks, what do you need them for?

But those labels will tell you it's piracy that's killing them. It isn't piracy. Piracy isn't helping, don't get me wrong. But what's killing them is that there's this technological renaissance that's going to deny them the ability to fuck their artists in the ass, which is basically what their business model boils down to even when you're talking about the labels that actually care about music and aren't just subsidiaries of liquor companies that were looking to diversify back when.

The funny irony--or maybe it isn't funny, sorry--about the publishing houses is that they actually do a lot more in house and aren't merely glommed on to a process that would only need them for manufacturing, marketing and distribution. That is, to be clear, the publishing houses share the record labels' problem that a big part of what they do does involve activities that the Internet may render obsolete, like printing up thousands of copies of something and trucking the something to retailers, but the publishing houses are also where you traditionally find people like editors, copyeditors, typesetters, layout artists and other such persons in the sorts of roles the record labels have almost always farmed out. Where the record labels still get credit for things they're not actually doing themselves, the publishing houses really don't get credit for things they really do and that are actually kind of vital to generating a worthwhile final product. People have this idea, though, that you could just word-process your Great American Novel and self-publish it on Amazon; this is absolutely true, although what will really help you with this accomplishment is not giving a shit about how it reads or looks. It's possible to record A Pretty Good Song in your basement on a digital multitrack recorder and upload it to YouTube without needing much by way of a second opinion, it's not really the same thing to upload a four-thousand-word short story to your blog and nobody else has ever read it or pointed out that a character doesn't seem fully developed and here are some paragraphs that ought to be cut while over here, what the hell is this supposed to be and why?

They're just different beasts. I hope there's not a whiff of parochialism about this, because I used to be a sort of serious musician and interested in pursuing it (though I haven't picked up an ax in ages) and now I'm a (I hope) sort of serious writer and interested in pursuing it (though pulling out the words sometimes seems like getting a particularly nasty clog of hair out of a slow drain); the deal here isn't that publishers are somehow better than labels or necessarily have a better chance of survival; indeed, I suspect publishers, at least as they're presently constituted, are about as doomed as record labels (it's always been a marginal business anyway).

I think the real point is that serious writers are going to end up realizing that they can or have to or possibly should do what recording artists are already doing: getting their own business associates, colleagues, friends, artistic peers, etc. to do the things they used to negotiate through the labels. I.e. just like a band might go ahead and hire their favorite affordable producer to come out to the rental house for a few days to record their record, writers might go ahead and form their own contract with their preferred available editor. Etc. The difference between publishers and recording labels being that editors generally work at publishing houses (yes, I know, there are plenty of freelancers) while producers don't generally work for labels anymore (again, yes, exceptions; the major point still stands, I think). Trying to sell your book to a publisher isn't just how you get your book onto shelves, it's also (and perhaps more importantly) how you get your Polished Final Draft turned into a Real, Actual, 100% Booky Book that has been edited and typeset and laid out and everything that makes the difference between a stack of typed pages and something somebody reads on a beach somewhere (perhaps, yes, on their Kindle).

I wonder if the next evolved form of the publishing house in the Amazon Age is smaller, faster, feathered and definitely warm-blooded? If Random House in 2050 will be a company that doesn't own a single press or print a single book, but rather contracts with authors to edit, etc., and then negotiate the business end of digital distribution and print-on-demand for the remaining "real books are made of paper!" crowd; it seems to me that most publishers are in a better position to take this step than all but a number of indie record labels.

(I also wonder if I'm full of shit, but moving along....)

I don't know if it's obvious that movies and television are a different animal altogether. There is, first of all, the fact that even a small, low-budget movie is ridiculously expensive and generally requires lots and lots of people to make. (Yes, you have your arthouse and documentary flicks where the director is the cameraman and the editor and the sound guy and does all the interviews or whatever and he also wrote it--does anybody really watch any of those and are any of them really any good? Again, I'll answer my own rhetorical questions: hardly ever and hardly ever.) There's an interesting technological thing in that the digital revolution has done for film gear what its done for musical gear: you can get buy (or rent) some reasonably affordable pro-quality gear--it isn't like the early days of film where purchasing (or manufacturing!) a camera was, in and of itself, a small business venture--but where a digital recording desk might be something you can sit at with your guitar and record something with the sonic clarity (if not polished performance) of Dark Side Of The Moon, odds are high you still need someone on your movie set to hold the goddamn boom mic along with gaffers to get your lights set up.

There's also a secret weapon the movie studios have, which is that seeing a movie remains, despite television and home video, a special sort of social experience in which lots of people huddle in darkness and watch the shiny lights. Reading a book on a tablet versus reading a book on paper may or may not be a truly fungible experience (people will always argue over this), but the differences between words in pixels and the same words in ink aren't nearly as profound as the difference between seeing a movie eighty feet wide in the midnight hush of an auditorium and watching in on your 40" set at home on the couch. Even the rituals are different, what with "going to the movies" involving the queuing for entry and (perhaps) purchasing the popcorn, things that profoundly change the experience of the work even if it's the same goddamn Hollywood fluff on the Metroplex screen as you'd see two months later if you rented it from Redbox. You, yourself, can possibly attest to this if you've ever had the experience (and you know you have) of being utterly blown away by the sheer tremendous spectacle experienced under the sort of sensory deprivation a darkened movie theatre offers and then found yourself crushed a year later after purchasing the DVD by the discovery that the very exact same movie, viewed at home in the homey environment of the family room, is in fact a bit shallow, hollow, and almost exactly like another, better movie, aside from that other movie not-sucking, I mean.

Again, this isn't to say movies and TV shows are better. Actually, they have a bigger problem, in some ways, since they have to figure out how to monetize and profit on those secret weapons (expense and uniqueness of experience). The fact that an amateur can't make a little movie as readily as an amateur might make a little song or little story isn't really helpful if nobody sees your expensive professional picture. Indeed, it's possible your secret weapons can turn in the hand and put you into a death spiral in which you decide to only make movies that look like they have a good past performance/future success indicator, e.g. a lot of people went and saw Muscular Guy Blowing Things Up, so it stands to reason (supposedly) that just as many people (maybe more!) will go see Muscular Guy Blowing Things Up 2: Sidekick With Huge Tits, and if that line of reasoning bears out and generates a win, MGBTU 3: IN SPACE becomes inevitable (and when it fails, you can throw the director under the bus and/or see if MGBTU IV: Return Of SWHT will sell on Blu-Ray and PPV, right?). Of course, you've already noticed the problem with this--namely, the law of diminishing returns ("You do realize, don't you, that MGBTU 3 is just MGBTU except they struck out the words "sports car" and "submarine" and replaced them with "rocket ship", and now the villain is a vaguely-Middle-Eastern terrorist instead of an approximately-South-American drug dealer, right?"); if you did, then you're smarter than just about anybody who's helmed a movie studio since, oh, 1983 or thereabouts.

Anyway. As you already know, much of the above is what the studios are already doing. The whole point of 3D as it's currently being used, for instance, is pretty much to take a bad movie you could watch on TV and turn it into a bad movie that looks really swell and costs extra money to see. That's not a sustainable strategy; I think the erratic box office receipts for 3D pictures are bearing that out. But the idea, at least, is in the right ballpark insofar as Hollywood has sort of dimly grokked that their future is going to lie in offering the experience versus the product (and then selling the product--on home media, streaming video, etc.--as luscious gravy). I don't know if they can make that work, but it's at least a valid concept. (C.f. the music industry's golden goose of the '80s: re-selling consumers inferior versions of what they already owned--poorly remastered compact disc reissues cheaply manufactured into quasi-defective discs subject to bit rot and sold with tiny, poorly-printed booklets and a lack of features taking advantage of the potential of digital media (e.g. track indexing, digital labels, data sectors, CD video, bonus tracks using the additional running time available); followed by the industry's collective shock when their milking contributed to the backlash that came with the advent of computers capable of burning and ripping discs--because why buy a CD if you're getting basically the exact same thing for free since the official version has nothing going for it; hell, I've seen bootlegged CDs that had better packaging and more features than their official counterparts, which is a great example of You're Doing It Wrong as far as the record companies are concerned.)

This isn't so much the future we're talking about as it is the emerging present. Facing a choice between adapting and dying, the media industries are largely sticking their fingers in their ears like spoiled toddlers yelling, "Nononononononono--". Dignified, it isn't. Worse still, with things like SOPA and PIPA, they're likely to take something useful down with them. The media industries have already made it clear, for instance, that they are morally opposed to Fair Use even when they sometimes say they aren't; quite frankly, I think there's a good argument that Fair Use is one of the only things making copyright law sufferable at all (the other is expiration into the public domain), and that while copyright law is a necessary evil, a copyright regime without Fair Use would generally be more evil and less necessary than no copyright regime at all (indeed, I would say that an indefinite copyright regime lacking both Fair Use and a public domain is intolerable and measurably worse than letting creative people starve for theft: copyright must be a compromise between the needs of creative persons and a functioning culture's need for free-flowing information to be worth anything at all). SOPA or PIPA or whatever we get instead (and we will get something) won't stop the decline and demise of pre-contemporary business plans and technologies, but they already threaten contemporary ones.

As a quick f'r'instance before I finally wrap this piece up (and thank you if you've made it this far): much of SOPA and PIPA deal with "streaming", by which the proposed legislation means video and audio streaming, which are one kind of use for disassembling a file on one end, sending it through wires as bits, and assembling it on the user's end while he's already started using it. This is very clever technology, actually. And the thing to pay heed to re: how clever it is is that computers have no idea whether a file being picked apart, transmitted, and put together on the fly is a media file, a data file, an application; from the computer's POV, everything is just a one or a zero and ones and zeros get decoded in a certain way by the local ones and zeros. What this means, if you're not seeing it yet, is that there's no reason (at least in theory) why movies and albums and books are the only things that can be streamed (for those unaware: the Kindle, Nook and other modern e-readers stream text, allowing you to read a book before you're done downloading it); you could, perhaps, figure out a way to stream a cloud-based application, allowing a user to begin word processing (for instance) before he's finished installing his word processor. Or a game (I will be unsurprised if Valve isn't working on ways to do background downloads of game content while a user plays the game, if it isn't already a feature that I just haven't noticed yet; there is no earthly reason I can think of that the next level of a game has to live on your computer until you're entering it). Or something else. Do you have to have a complete operating system on your machine, or can you manage with an amorphous OS that expands and contracts as applications demand and release different bits of hardware? (One notes that already modern OSes often don't come with a complete driver library, only downloading necessary drivers when they detect a component's been plugged into the system.) Of course, the media industries could care less about the future to the extent that they won't be a part of it; that's the whole problem.

I'm cynical and pessimistic about all this, however. Hopefully--hopefully--the backlash and furor over PIPA and SOPA have at least killed this incarnation, but that's just a setback to the industries, who will still have the lobbyists and lawyers and no future I previously mentioned. They will regroup and will go back to contributing to political campaigns, by which I mean bribing legislators, and, having paid for access, will be back again with another drafted bill. (I'm assuming SOPA and PIPA are effectively DOA. If I'm right, and the industry lawyers come back with SOPA II--Electric Boogaloo, don't be surprised if it "solves" a lot of problems with SOPA by doing the exact same things SOPA does, only they've changed the words a bit so that it sounds different. Clever ladies and lads, those industry lawyers.) We're not done. We'll never be done. Well. We will be done if the holding action stalls the industries past the point of collapse; that might happen. I give the recording industry, like I said, twenty-five years.

I don't know. Can we hold out that long?

An open letter to Mr. Richard Tang

2012-01-17T15:57:00.004-05:00

Please Get Back To Me On My Email‏

From: Beatriz.Rios@avon.com
Sent: Mon 1/16/12 11:30 PM

Good day,

I am Mr. Richard Tang, the Director of Operations of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, Sai Wan Ho Branch, Hong Kong.

I have an obscured business suggestion for you.

Please Get Back to me on my Email Address: richardtang505@yahoo.co.jp and finally after that I shall provide you with more details of this
operation.

Kind Regards

Mr.Richard Tang
Private Email: richardtang505@yahoo.co.jp

Dear Mr. Tang,

Well, first things first: you've asked me to get back to you on your e-mail address, and I have to say I think it's pretty dull and boring.

I mean, okay: I get that sometimes an e-mail address is chosen by an administrator and you get no say in it whatsoever. But yours appears to be a Yahoo account, so I assume you chose it yourself, or, rather, that you let the Yahoo signup process choose it for you, going with your name and a randomly-generated number. And that's fine. Most of us, I expect, have similar kinds of e-mail addresses. But you asked for my opinion on it, and it's kind of drab and ordinary.

Then again, maybe you're dodging a bullet. I hate to make fun of somebody's name (gods know, I spent plenty of time being called "New Jerk" when I was in school--and that was by a teacher; the last laugh here being that I can't recall the yutz's name, so there), but it's pretty clear to me that you may have spent much of your life as "Dick Tang".

tang [tang]
noun
1. a strong taste or flavor.
2. the distinctive flavor or quality of a thing.
3. a pungent or distinctive odor.
4. a touch or suggestion of something; slight trace.
5. a long and slender projecting strip, tongue, or prong forming part of an object, as a chisel, file, or knife, and serving as a means of attachment for another part, as a handle or stock.
-Dictionary.com

Of course, there's not a single one of those that isn't funny/disturbing/funny-in-a-disturbing-way. I have to admit, the craziest (and therefore best) mental image comes with #5, as I assume a dick tang would be part of some kind of crazy prosthetic device (perhaps required because of an old war wound).

Somewhere--this may seem like a tangent, but bear with me--somewhere I once read that Tycho Brahe had multiple noses for different occasions, an account that the Wikipedia link in this sentence vaguely corroborates. Tycho, you may know, lost his nose in a duel and had one furnished (depending on whom you ask) out of copper, silver or gold--possibly all three, with a copper "hanging out around the castle" nose for when he was chilling in his sweatpants with his pet moose and a gold "where the ladies?" nose for when he and the elevated-to-wingman moose were hanging out getting wasted on whatever Danish pimps drank before Courvoisier was invented.

In a similar vein, I once heard of a one-eyed man who purportedly had a succession of glass eyes manufactured in various states of reddish discoloration, ranging from "everyday eye" through ascending degrees of bloodshot culminating in a blank white orb with the word "TILT" printed upon it, and this gentleman (the story went) would switch out the glass orbs in his head as he increasingly got out of it.

You might see where I'm going with this. A man with the sort of prosthetic limb that ought to have a "dick tang" at one end could, perhaps, have a "just getting my mail and running errands" device for those kinds of occasions and a "happy to see you" assembly for others; he might, like the fellow with the glass eyes supposedly, have a "windsock" for those awkward occasions, though I don't really know that the humor value of it goes much beyond the initial presentation (if then, even). In any event, of course, the "dick tang" would (I imagine) be a feature of all of them. Or, perhaps, this gent might borrow a page from Old Tycho and have organs made of various precious metals, even if the use of various plastics and ceramics seems much more 21^st Century than that.

Does the tang insert into some kind of belt apparatus or is there some kind of surgically-installed holder? For the gent, I mean. Other insertions... well, nevermind.

I'm sorry, what was this all about? Oh, of course.

What first caught my eye in your e-mail, actually, was your offer of an "obscured business suggestion". (I imagine that caught most of my readers' attentions, and I'm the only one who started pondering dick tangs. There's clearly something wrong with me, and probably nobody knows what it is.) Now, the thing about this is that I'm really willing to critique your e-mail address (boring but sufficient) for free, as I have zero idea what I'd do with a heavily-redacted business proposal. Or, perhaps, it isn't blacked-out, but instead has been put underneath a book or something and I'm supposed to look at it from a distance, or you'll send me one of those pictures with pixelated bits or a smeary fog, as if somebody's dick tang is exposed in the picture. (If that's your business proposal, I'm especially uninterested.)

So, let's see: e-mail critique, Tycho Brahe and glass eyes, application of prosthetics, polite refusal of I-don't-know-what? Yes, I think I've covered it. Any questions?

-R. Eric VanNewkirk
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets

MLK day, 2012

2012-01-16T09:37:00.003-05:00

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.
-Martin Luther King, May 1965, as quoted in Thomas F. Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice (via Wikiquote)

I expect to be out of the blog for much of the day, but please take a few minutes to think about Dr. King's legacy if you can. Thanks.

An open letter to The Society Of Agrictultural And Biological Engineers, care of Mr. Erickson George, Group Co-Ordinator UNDP

2012-01-15T03:46:00.001-05:00

(No Subject)‏

SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERS

From: SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERS (eric_george2@aol.com)
Sent: Sat 1/14/12 9:19 AM

SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERS
AND UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION
(UNITED NATION DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME)
OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AWARD PAYMENTS AND TRANSFERS.
LIASION OFFICE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Beloved Sir/Madam,

This is to inform individual that the united nations development department is currently initiating an agricultural programme as to help meet the 2012 world food scarcity challenges following the search down last year by our agricultural/food department,we are therefore offering financial support and assistance to beneficiary of this E-mail and the sum $500,000.00.This fund is to be used to establish the underlisted programmes,Fish farm,Poultry farm,cassava farm,crop farm,animal raring and husbandary etc.This programme is designed for second and third country citizens.
(1) Full Name
(2) Address
(3) Telephone Number
(4) Age
(5) Occupation
(6) Country
(7) Sex
(8) Province and state.
(9) Scan of copy driver's license,international passport,working identity card to be attach to your response to this mail.

Our sincere thanks for ur anticipated and good co-operation.

Best Regards,
MR.Erickson George
(GROUP CO-ORDINATOR UNDP)
Email:eric_george28@aol.com
Tel:+(44) 704 572 9282

Dear Society Of Agrictultural And Biological Engineers, care of Mr. Erickson George, Group Co-Ordinator UNDP,

Thank you very, very much for your letter! It arrived at the perfect time, a point in my life when I find myself questioning my direction in life, choice of career, ultimate destiny, etc. I recently entered my fourth decade in life, and I suppose it's inevitable that one finds oneself asking all sorts of existential questions. "Why am I here?" "What is the point of it all?" "What am I doing?" "Where do babies really come from?" (I'm kidding about that last part: I know, babies come from the same place plates are made.)

But you get the idea. I found myself casting about, wandering in my mind, wondering if any of the ambitions I had for myself when I was younger might be fulfilled, when I came upon your letter in my e-mail folder, and there it was! An answer, a light at the end of the tunnel that wasn't the diminishing tail lamps of an accelerating train speeding away from me to leave me to the cold damp darkness!

I have wanted, you see, to be a farmer for many, many years. Most of my life, really. It is an ambition I can trace back to my early childhood, and a song I heard in my adolescence that has always stayed with me. Perhaps you know how it is: some seemingly trivial thing inspires you. It might be a movie, it might be a poem or a short story.

In my case, the story really starts with a song I heard when I was maybe five or six years old; I was riding in the car with my parents, I remember, and the DJ played a song--this was still the era of album-oriented radio--and this amazing, glorious song came on. I remember my parents tried to change the station, but I put up a huge fuss--the panoply of notes coming over the speakers were utterly heavenly, the vocals delivered with magnificent power and the words unfathomable mysteries.

The last notes faded away--a little quickly, I thought, even at that tender age--and then the radio announcer came on and apologized. I will never forget that, how strange it was that he played this incredible, magical song, only to come in afterwards and say that someone had put a record in the wrong sleeve. And then he added something along the lines of, "But if anyone cares, I think that was 'Obelisk' by Spine Tape [sic]. Here's the Deep Purple I meant to play."

I was obsessed, utterly obsessed. I nagged my parents, nagged them for a "Spine Tape" record until they finally relented, and there, under the Christmas tree that year, the very first album I ever owned: Spinal Tap's 1980 metal opus, Shark Sandwich. I tell you, I played that thing to death. Almost literally: when I was nine there was a tragic housefire in the apartment we lived in (happily, the damage was almost entirely confined to my record collection and my favorite shirt, a "Moustache Rides Five Cents" tee that a drunken uncle gave me when I was ten).

Sandwich is an amazing and impossible to overrate album (sadly, I've never been able to find it on CD, though there is a minor label, Braggadocio Records, which is currently reissuing a deluxe edition of the album on 8-track; if only I had an 8-track player). And there is one track on it which has stayed with me forever and is relevant to the lifeline you fine folks have offered to throw me. I am, of course, referring to the legendary song, "Sex Farm".

Now, I have to admit: I'm something of a city boy, and I'm not actually sure exactly what is raised on a sex farm. No doubt it involves much hard work, plowing and planting, really getting in there and bending over, using your hands and perhaps spending a great deal of time on your knees. But if I'm given a chance to become a sex farmer through your offer, I promise you that I will really get in there and pound away at it until the ground is flush and lively, exploding into full bloom. I absolutely think I can rise to the occasion, poking and prodding from dusk to dawn if that's what it takes, or even sweating away all night long if I have to.

I promise that your investment will not be wasted. Invest in my dream, and I promise you, you will be able to visit the most fecund sex farm in the world before I am done.

Now, I recognize, of course, that "sex farm" is not one of the categories you've listed. I hope that this will not prove too formidable an objection, and that your list was not exhaustive or some waiver can be made. Surely, if you're willing to work with people who make animals rarer, you could be willing to work with a humble sex farmer. (If not, perhaps you could suggest an appropriate program offering support and protection to those who want to enter sex farming. If there's a high turnover, maybe I could slip into whatever a current sex farmer is withdrawing from, or perhaps there's some kind of rear entry to sex farming, a way to get in through the backdoor with proper preparation and/or money or connections to lubricate alternative passages?)

I also note that you are very explicit that you are looking for programs in the Second and Third Worlds. At the present time, I am residing in the United States and therefore would be ineligible (I don't live in Alabama). However, I am willing to relocate, and would have no problem starting my sex farm in just about any part of the world you might think needs a hardworking sex farmer. I am also willing to take over an existing concern or perhaps join some sort of "gang" if you know of any sex farm cooperatives or communes looking for someone who can make up for in enthusiasm what he lacks in experience and other attributes. (I also like to think I'm a fast learner.)

Since I don't want to waste your time by turning in an application which will be turned down because sex farms are somehow ineligible for funding, I will refrain from providing the requested information until you've responded to my overture and indicated whether you're receptive to my proposal. I certainly don't assume your program is easy, and if it would help to take you to take you to dinner and get you drunk, I can certainly take that under advisement. (Or would it be even easier still to just give someone the money? I'm flexible.) Whatever, just let me know.

Thank you for the chance to make my deepest dream come true.

Sincerely,
R. Eric VanNewkirk
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets

Radiohead, "Optimistic"

2012-01-14T13:02:00.002-05:00

I have to admit, I don't really have anything for today and I have a little bit of a headache, actually. So, here, have some Radiohead and I hope you have a most excellent Saturday.

So much for the news

2012-01-13T12:19:00.005-05:00

I'm late to the party, I realize, but if you somehow missed it: the funniest and most surreal item of the past week may have been a New York Times staffer asking his readers whether or not the Times ought to print the truth. No, seriously. The improbably-named Arthur S. Brisbane (I swear that's the name of a Monty Python character, but Google and YouTube keep failing me), the Times' public editor (i.e. the guy who has to answer the crank mail), basically raises this question in a January 12^th column titled "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?", and then, after being mocked by the collective might of Twitter and The Whole Entire Internet, cluelessly doubled down later in the day with, "Update to my Previous Post on Truth Vigilantes".

Mr. Brisbane, in a nutshell:

...I must lament that "truth vigilante" generated way more heat than light. A large majority of respondents weighed in with, yes, you moron, The Times should check facts and print the truth.

That was not the question I was trying to ask. My inquiry related to whether The Times, in the text of news columns, should more aggressively rebut "facts" that are offered by newsmakers when those "facts" are in question. I consider this a difficult question, not an obvious one.

Brisbane offers two examples of the thorniness of this issue, which, taken together, pretty much illustrate how his approach explains a good bit of what's wrong with the mainstream media these days. First, he points to an article written about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' claims that he failed to disclose his wife's earnings from a conservative lobbying group on financial disclosure forms because of a "misunderstanding". Thomas' claim is, frankly, improbable, but of course there's probably not an objective way to prove he isn't telling the truth, and in the absence of any hard evidence, logic and decency require us to concede that Justice Thomas might be telling the truth despite our justifiable skepticism. Brisbane asks if a Times journalist ought to call out Justice Thomas as a liar, and of course the answer is negative; if nothing else, a claim that Justice Thomas is lying might be libelous and the Times legal department would probably be happy to avoid that. (By way of a further pragmatic consideration, I'm sure the journalist filing the article would prefer not to field a bizarre phone call from Ginni Thomas before breakfast.)

Unfortunately, the second example Brisbane cites involves demonstrably false claims made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has repeatedly said that President Obama has made speeches apologizing for America. Nevermind that America actually has some apologizing to do, the fact is that you can go through the President's speeches, analyze the language used, and come to a reasonably objective conclusion that Romney's claim is factually untrue and Romney's spin on it is, as put by one analysis, "ridiculous".

The real problem here, I hope you already see, is that Brisbane thinks one of these things is just like the other, when, in fact, they're utterly incomparable. I may be skeptical of Justice Thomas' "misunderstanding" given the circumstantial evidence, but I do not have enough proof to say I disbelieve him beyond any doubts raised by reason and common sense (to liberally paraphrase from the time-honored courtroom standard). I might say, subjectively, "I don't believe he is telling the truth," but I cannot reasonably and objectively say "He is being dishonest." On the other hand, all I have to do to test Romney's claim is hit up Google; a few minutes' research confirms that Romney's claim is demonstrably false, a point that absolutely should be reported by anybody expecting to be taken seriously as an honest broker.

You know, this is why people end up saying The Daily Show is a better source of news than most newspapers and news programs. Much of the well The Daily Show goes back to again and again involves running the clip of what Mr. Politician said yesterday and then following it up with the clip of Mr. P. saying the exact opposite thing six months ago, followed by Jon Stewart's exaggerated performance of Everyman's reaction to the obvious hypocrisy and dishonesty--the spit-take or the comic pantomime of a man whose head is about to explode from all the cognitive dissonance. TDS exploits this for comedy, but underneath the sarcasm an important news function remains: the audience sees clip A and then clip B, and is thereby informed that the clip's subject can be trusted about as far as he could be thrown out of a deep well. TDS, in short, finds unexploded petards and detonates them under their hoisters' asses.

Pointing out this kind of inconsistency--with oneself, with easily observable and demonstrable facts--isn't opinion journalism or partisan, it's simply reporting what is. Fact one is that Mitt Romney said the President went on tour to apologize for America, fact two is that the President has never actually done that. Draw your own conclusions, then, about what this says about Mr. Romney. Fact one is that the Bush Administration insisted that the Hussein regime in Iraq had an advanced WMD program that justified an American military response, fact two is that no such program was found after the invasion; that the Bush Administration lied, or made an honest-but-tragic mistake, or behaved foolishly, or should have known better, or did know better and went along anyway--these are indeed opinions and you may choose whichever explanation suits you; what is not an opinion is that the Bush Administration's pre-Iraq War claims were inconsistent with reality. It is a fact that there is overwhelming evidence to support the majority scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and it is a fact that the most vocal critics of this consensus are those who would be directly or indirectly injured by efforts to control or eliminate carbon emissions.

Now, it ought to go without saying that sometimes facts make somebody look bad. Facts are unfortunate things, and they have a bad way of often making somebody look like a liar or at least a fool. Going back to Brisbane's Romney example: somebody who repeatedly says something that is untrue even after it has been widely and publicly reported that the statement is untrue is at best reckless with his speech and at worst indifferent to the truth due to some defect of character or reason. Neither, of course, is an attractive feature for a man auditioning for the Presidency Of The United States. It should not, however, be the job of the press to save public figures from themselves, least of all when doing so requires a reporter to lie by repetition. As others have already pointed out, repeating someone's untrue comments without appropriate comment as to what the truth actually is may well misinform the reader, who perhaps doesn't realize what the untruths are. (Reporters and their editors ought to also remember that a cynical subject might take advantage of the situation if he thinks he can knowingly make false statements without fear of being corrected or called-out by the press.)

It is beyond baffling that anyone working at America's unofficial paper-of-record doesn't already get all of this, and has to ask if he's doing it wrong. If you have to ask, you are. It's beyond-the-beyond that he then, apparently, doesn't understand why he's being routinely mocked for, in effect, asking if his paper ought to report the truth or should it go on misinforming the public by routinely failing to report facts when a news subject goes on record with contrafactual statements. And then, no doubt, he'll wonder why nobody believes newspapers anymore, and I expect he'll blame bloggers and comedy shows.

I'd feel remiss if I didn't point out that Steve Buchheit posted a fine response to Mr. Brisbane, here. I also owe a hat tip to Salon's Alex Pareene for the item that brought Brisbane's post to my attention in the first place. Another hat tip to Balloon Juice for a piece pointing me to Brisbane's ill-advised update (and a hat tip to whomever it was that got me to Balloon Juice, a blog I rarely get to on my own).

Sarah Jarosz, "Run Away"

2012-01-12T12:19:00.000-05:00

The ScatterKat and I have tickets to see the wonderful Sarah Jarosz this evening, and I don't know that I'll have time today to say much more than that. Which is maybe just as well, all things considered.

I've run posts about Ms. Jarosz before (here and here); at the present writing I only have her first album, Song Up In Her Head, which I can't recommend enough. She's just a wonderfully talented performer (as the video clips posted today and previously in this blog surely attest), and it ought to be a treat to see her this evening; it's one of the advantages of being within walking distance of a decent venue (she'll be up at The Neighborhood Theatre, a five-minute walk). The only bad thing, frankly, might be if it's raining again like it's been doing all week.

Meanwhile, I hope everybody is having a cromulent Thursday.

Decade

2012-01-11T17:58:00.005-05:00

If there's a single issue that exemplifies my loss of faith in my President and my loss of faith in my entire government, it's probably the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. The prison camp turned ten, today, if you missed the news somehow. What's the old Morrissey line, "I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday, because you're evil and you lie"? Different subject matter, not a wholly unrelated sentiment.

Part of what is frustrating, of course, is the pure impotence I feel. President Obama has broken a campaign promise to close the camp, but he's been abetted in doing so by the moral cowardice of Democrats and Republicans in the Legislative branch who have blocked the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo to effectively bar any attempt to close the prison. And it isn't as if whichever member of the Gang Of Idiots And Jon Huntsman the GOP selects as their 2012 presidential candidate is going to shut Gitmo down. (And, gods know, if, let's say for instance, the Republicans somehow chose Rick Santorum for a candidate and he somehow pledged to close Gitmo, would that be worth voting for someone who thinks Griswold vs. Connecticut was wrongly decided? Ditto for the guy who wants to restore America to the glory days of The Gilded Age, the guy who reminds everybody of a dumb clone of George W. Bush, the guy who was willing to shut down the Federal government because he didn't get to leave an airplane the way he wanted to,¹ or the vaguely evil guy who's totally out-of-touch with all the working schleps who don't actually have the option to switch insurance companies at a pleasurable whim.)

It could have been different. It didn't have to be this way. You look at the Wikipedia entry, and the Bush Administration didn't even keep very good records of who they had down there (that's a surprise). And then the Congress pretty much took it out of President Obama's hands and he signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, saving whatever ammo he has left for other fights. I'm not trying to deflect blame off the current administration, I'd like to be clear, because I happen to think the buck pretty much stops at the President's desk regardless of whether or not your last name's Truman. It's an ongoing cluster fuck, is what it is, and it didn't have to be. The Bush Administration could have started having trials for these guys and the Obama Administration could have continued with them, and Congress could have stayed out of the way and just signed the checks to keep the courtroom lights burning. At this point, the whole debate over civilian trials or military tribunals is a quaint bit of political nostalgia; in retrospect, any kind of hearings at all would have been an improvement over what's probably become a kind of American gulag of sorts. I might have settled for kangaroo courts featuring actual boxing marsupials, now that I look back on it.

I'm a lawyer. I like to think that the whole concept of laws and courts and hearings and trials and due process and the rest are fundamentally sound, no matter how frequently events in my professional life or in the news set out to dismantle my faith with the methodical diligence of a cat disassembling a mouse she's caught. No, that's wrong: I don't like to believe it, because the belief truthfully causes me grief much of the time, but I have to believe it because it keeps me from becoming a drunk. I believe it with the one-eye-shut cynicism of Blaise Pascal wagering on the existence of God, because to believe our legal system might be functional and good causes me little harm while a rejection of that belief means that I have pretty much wasted almost twenty years of my life if you count law school.

Hence, I'd like to think we could have trials for all these guys in Guantánamo, military, civilian, whatever, and that these trials could mostly be fair and mostly achieve the right results. But I don't suppose it will happen. I don't suppose anybody wants to deal with whether some of these guys are utter innocents who have been falsely imprisoned for ten years and others are so dangerous we would have all been happier if they hadn't been breathing when they were run to ground. (And, let's be honest, I think reasonable people would have to agree that there are representatives of both these classes of people, along with all the ones falling into categories in-between.) It is much more convenient to let them all grow old together in Cuba, I suppose, and if they didn't want to die in an American prison camp, they shouldn't have allowed themselves to be captured in places we attacked. It's much easier, at least, than some Latinate crapola Congress stuck on the back end of the Constitution in 1789.

There's not much more to add to this, is there? There is nothing here but fatalism and despair. No votes to cast, petitions to sign. You can march in the streets if you want to lose a few pounds, you can sit in the park if you like the taste of astringents. I might, instead, just pour myself a drink.

But only, you know, just the one.

¹True story: I'm driving down I85 to get to work this morning, and suddenly realize the tour bus I'm following is Newt Gingrich's, obviously on its way down to South Carolina for some heated Romney-bashing because Newt may or may not realize he has no chance of winning the nomination, but after getting pistol-whipped by Romney's superPAC he at least thinks he can somehow take Romney down with him (I expect that to work about as well as Gingrich's brilliant attempt to get rid of President Clinton).

I sort of thought about flipping the bus off as I passed, but, y'know, it seemed kind of like a déclassé thing to do--the sort of déclassé thing Gingrich might do if he were passing Mitt Romney's tour bus, actually. Plus, I decided, it seemed like a pretty useless thing to do; I mean, if Newt happened to be looking out the window when I did it, he's the sort of arrogant bastard who would just figure there was something wrong with me. Someone flips the bird off at me, I wonder what I did wrong, how did I offend the other driver, what did I do, did I cut him off by mistake, am I driving too slow, etc.; you flip the bird off at Newt Gingrich, he's the type who thinks his shit doesn't smell and just assumes you're the asshole. And then, I thought, it's possible the only person who would see me flipping off the bus would be the driver, and I don't even know if he supports Gingrich or if he's even a Republican; the driver might be some poor SOB who just took a steady gig driving this bus and thinks Newt Gingrich is the biggest, sorriest, lousiest prick whose ass he's ever had to kiss for a paycheck, but his kid really wants to go to summer camp this year and the water heater's busted. The last thing he needs on top of all that is some turd flipping him off as he whizzes past, and just because he has to drive some dumb jerkwad's goddamn bus. So I refrained, you know? But I got round the stupid thing as fast as I could so I wouldn't have to look at it more than I had to.

An open letter to Mrs. Yetunde Owolabi

2012-01-10T17:33:00.006-05:00

CHILD FOR ADOPTION. FHEWNSRVVM‏

From: Owolabi (owolabiyetunde0@gmail.com)
Sent: Tue 1/10/12 4:37 AM
To:

Hello,

My name is Mrs Yetunde Owolabi from Republic of Benin, I gave birth to three plates, 3 children at a time after the death my husband on 18th of June 2011 by auto car accident. Already we have received 5 children from God, right now I can’t take care of them so I have decided to give them out for adoption, if you are interested let me know, I am not selling them but you will only pay for adoption fees to the ministry in concern and the Lawyer will legalized all the relevant documents and the baby will become legally yours.

Thanks,

Mrs. Yetunde Owolabi

VFGUWIUVRLVKTFLPNUOEUKKWZZJOIRBMKUCJLM

Dear Mrs. Owolabi,

I am not, myself a father. To the best of my knowledge, I have never impregnated anybody. The sole "miracle of childbirth" I have ever attended in person was my own. Everything I know about birth, then, has been learned from books, magazines, television shows, movies, sex education teachers, biology classes and similar sources of vicarious information. The earliest source of information on this subject I can recall (albeit somewhat vaguely) is Peter Mayle's classic book for children, Where Did I Come From?, which explains the mysteries of procreation and birth with a gentle clinical tone and drawings of fat people.

So while I certainly feel comfortable stating that I understand the proverbial birds and bees (though, perhaps, not so clear why birds and bees are the traditional euphemistic animals instead of, say, manatees and ocelots¹), I wouldn't present myself as an expert with firsthand, personal, direct knowledge.

Similarly, while I am reasonably well-read and majored in History back in the day, and while some knowledge of simple ceramics is imparted to the historian in intro material pertaining to the dawn of civilization and even in elementary school when students are required to make ashtrays for their non-smoking parents², and I thus feel relatively comfortable describing in the most general terms how tableware is manufactured, I would never hold myself as an expert. This is notwithstanding the fact that it now occurs to me, as I write this, that I probably made some kind of bowls or assorted objects along those lines that weren't ashtrays when I was in elementary school, and have therefore almost certainly manufactured more ceramics than babies, even factoring in any opportunities for accident and subsequent ignorance. Still, I would not claim any expertise in the area.

All of which is a long way of getting to the point that I am reasonably certain you're mistaken, Mrs. Owolabi, about how plates are made.

I realize, of course, that having (you claim) birthed three of them, you might believe you're in a better position to know about the subject than I am. I also realize that you might be speaking metaphorically, although I think you possibly are straining things or are getting a bit too precious when you ask me to adopt your... creations. Especially if you're asking me to accept a plate on some sort of, I don't know, "loan" or something. I go to a store, whether it's a department store selling mass-produced goods or an artsy-craftsy store selling artists' works on consignment, I expect to buy a plate that the proprietors are selling, not to "adopt" a plate that is not, technically, being sold.

One reason for this policy, to be blunt about it, is that I am a klutz. My girlfriend, I perhaps shouldn't say (except she'd be first to admit it) is also a bit clumsy. And I have a cat, a member of a species ironically known for grace and dexterity notwithstanding the fact that every single member of the species I have ever observed seems mostly unaware that they naturally have an independent and uncoordinated appendage sticking out their wazoo, ostensibly for balance although in practice it mostly (and in this order) (a) is used as a footwarmer, (b) attempts to knock down everything in their wake, and (c) periodically ambushes them (despite being attached at all times) and must be viciously counter-attacked. The point of all this being that I really don't want to have to inform you that I dropped your child taking it out of the microwave, or that I had it displayed on the mantle until the goddamn cat shattered your kid into pieces that I managed to glue back together except for one large chip that shrapneled into oblivion (i.e. way up under the couch, most likely).

I just can't say your offspring would be in safe hands with me, not with all the, ah, "somebody's nephews" I've broken by leaving in the sink instead of washing them and putting them away after drinking coffee from them. So I would rather just give you money and not feel quite as guilty if I destroy your objet d'art like a common Visigoth.

And this is before we even start talking the crazy talk about your lawyer and legal documents. I mean, seriously? It's a plate. I know you probably spent hours lovingly shaping it and glazing it, and I do not mean to minimize your work, which I'm sure is brilliant and (even though you're soliciting exhibition through random e-mails) gallery-worthy. But I don't really plan on signing legal papers and paying fees to a ministry, etc. for a ceramic piece, regardless of whether it's going on top of the bookshelf for display or will be holding yeast rolls the next time I throw a dinner for friends.

I'm very sorry if that offends you.

Before closing, let me add--on the off-chance that there is an even more profound misunderstanding than is obvious--that if you in fact are talking about human babies and not metaphorically about molded-and-fired clay: please do not eat off your babies. Please do not make sandwiches on them, nor should you put a hot bowl of soup on any of them, or use them to serve cheese and crackers. I really hope you understand that small children are emphatically not microwave safe and should not be used for heating or reheating anything. Please consult here and here if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
R. Eric VanNewkirk
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets

¹At first I thought of asking, "instead of aardvarks and zebras," except the answer to that one is obvious: since those particular animals represent an aleph and a zed, they might be taken as a first and last instead of a reproductive metaphor; i.e. Jesus might well have said in his Revelation to John, had he been so inclined, that he was "the Alpha and the Omega, the aardvark and the zebra." In fact, I'm really not sure why he wouldn't have taken the opportunity to do so every time it presented itself.

²It has been some time since I was in elementary school, and I suspect that with the cultural turn against smoking, this activity is no longer mandatory.

The replacements

2012-01-09T15:13:00.009-05:00

The proposal to draft [Hillary Clinton] in place of President Obama this year is preposterous. It exaggerates his vulnerability and discounts Hillary’s loyalty. But the idea that she should replace Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate in 2012 is something else. It has been kicking around on the blogs for more than a year without getting any traction, mainly because it has been authoritatively, emphatically dismissed by Hillary, Biden and Team Obama.

It’s time to take it seriously.
-Bill Keller, "Just the Ticket",
The New York Times, January 8^th, 2011

No, it's not time to take it seriously. With all due respect to Mr. Keller, whose sources clearly are not up to snuff with the contacts inside the White House that Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets has generated as an important and vital liberal conduit for issues close to the President's heart (such as the canonicity of various contributions to the Star Wars Expanded Universe and which writer since Robert E. Howard has had the best grasp on the character of Howard's greatest creation, Conan The Cimmerian) it is time to get used to the idea that Hillary Clinton will replace Joe Biden in the Vice-President slot.

But that isn't all. Joe Biden will not be going to State. He will be going to Interior. Mr. Biden has become convinced during his tenure as Vice-President that one of the most pressing and overlooked issues facing the country is the status of the National Park System, and he has pledged that his first act as Secretary Of The Interior will be to make a personal tour of all of the nation's National Parks, starting with the ones with the best fishing and nicest lookouts for Jill Biden to take up photography again, and proceeding down the list of all parks that have the proper facilities for him and Ms. Biden to hook up the sanitation line of the ginormous RV the government will be procuring for the inspection tour.

Canny observers of the Administration will realize that this changeover will have the unfortunate effect of displacing the current Secretary Of The Interior, Kenneth Salazar. Those expecting Mr. Salazar to leave the Administration, however, are in for a surprise: Mr. Salazar, who throws really excellent parties, apparently, is too vital a resource to be lost and will in fact be taking up the helm of The Office Of Management And Budget.

Current OMB head Jacob Lew, as everyone knows, is a natural fit for the Department Of Homeland Security, however this means that DHS chief Janet Napolitano will need to be nominated for Secretary Of Defense. Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta must therefore, inevitably, go to Commerce, and John Bryson will replace Eric Holder at Justice. Holder, an old friend of Obama's, will take up the reorganization of Education, while Arne Duncan is moved to Veterans Affairs, a position that will be made vacant by Eric Shinseki's lifelong dream as a model train enthusiast to head the Department Of Transportation. Happily, Ray LaHood has long wanted to head the Department Of Energy, which is as good an excuse as any for Steven Chu to become Secretary Of Labor.

One might expect, given the level of reorganization involved, that current Secretary Of Labor Hilda Solis would move to another cabinet position, but (as it happens) this will only be half-true: Ms. Solis will continue to serve as co-Secretary Of Labor with Mr. Chu on alternating Wednesdays while sharing Department Of Agriculture responsibilities with Thomas Vilsack, who will also take on the mantle of Health And Human Services from Kathleen Sebelius, who will become the Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development while Shaun Donovan takes over the Treasury from Timothy Geithner. Mr. Geithner will, naturally, be relocating to the Environmental Protection Agency, and Lisa Jackson will then become the 45^th President Of The United States if Barack Obama is re-elected.

Mr. Obama, who continues to be popular abroad and who (like many before him) has obviously been aged by his experience as President but still wishes to serve his country in a capacity that builds on his obvious communication skills, legal talents and natural knack for the kinds of wonkish intricacy one collides with while attempting to navigate the bureaucratic morass of Foggy Bottom, is a natural fit for Secretary Of State, and Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets is pleased to be the first blog on the Internet to congratulate the President on his new position. He may even find, if he so wishes, that State is an ideal launchpad for any presidential ambitions he may harbor. We wish him well.

(H/t Alex Pareene at Salon.)

Until the end of the dancing

2012-01-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

Following along in the wake of yesterday's post: here's Patti Smith covering U2's "Until The End Of The World" and U2 covering Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" (along with a fan-made video for it). Nice little symmetry, I think.

I have to confess, U2 was the backdoor through which I came to Smith. A friend played me some Patti Smith many years before I heard the U2 cover and I didn't grok it. I dunno, the context may have been wrong: people were trying to have conversations, I think there was dinner being prepared somewhere, and it wasn't really a good time for, "Hey, listen to this." Or maybe I was just stupid, that happens sometimes. Sometimes I can be kind of perverse and when someone says, "Hey, listen to this," some weird contrarian bell rings in my subconscious somewhere. Doesn't matter. Point is, eventually I heard U2's cover of "Dancing Barefoot" and I said, "Whoa, that's really cool--that's a Patti Smith song? I have got to hear the original." I heard the original and now I'm a devotee; that's almost redundant, I think you either hate Patti Smith for some stupid reason or you're a devotee; okay, so I'm talking out my ass, now, but I do feel strongly about the proposition that Patti Smith is made of awesomeness with awesome sauce on top.

Even before a friend tried to introduce me to Smith and we didn't get on, of course I was familiar with "Because The Night". I'd grown up with Springsteen, and then that terrible 10,000 Maniacs cover from MTV's Unplugged was a huge big deal when I was in... must have been college. Again, doesn't matter. Really, I was familiar with The Boss' version and then there was the 10,000 Maniacs version, which was spineless and bloodless, a jellyfish interpretation of a song that, when Springsteen does it and when Smith does it (their versions are slightly different), is full of bodily fluids. I like Natalie Merchant and I got along with The Maniacs okay, though mostly in small doses; she has a lovely voice and the band were decent enough musicians, but 10,000 Maniacs were just too clean a band to really know how to get away with a song that's entirely about bodily secretions (I really am putting this as tactfully as I know how, if only in a futile effort to keep this blog from getting the wrong kinds of hits via Google). Natalie Merchant croons "They can't hurt you now" she's like a schoolgirl doodling in a notebook; when Springsteen or Smith respectively shout and moan the line, either way it's like someone's gonna get cut if they even try to hurt whomever, now. I know, I know: a lot of people like the 10kM version. Well, they shouldn't.

U2's version of "Barefoot" is delightfully faithful; I mean, there's that distinctively Edge guitar, but Bono sounds like he wants to be wearing Patti Smith's pants so badly, and who could possibly blame him? Smith's "Until The End Of The World", meanwhile... sounds delightfully like Patti Smith. She could have written it the way she performs it. It's kind of awesome, really: everybody wants to be Patti Smith (except, possibly, Bruce Springsteen), but only Patti Smith gets to be Patti Smith; Natalie Merchant noodles in her notebook and Bono does a surprisingly good imitation, but Smith is the actual real deal between the fire and the cave wall, y'know? Given the chance to be Bono for three minutes and thirty-seven seconds, she basically goes, "Who the fuck wants to be Bono?" and again, who can blame her? "I'm Patti Fucking Smith," she's basically saying without saying it, "and I can't be anything else."

Damn straight she is, and damn straight she can't.

Jack White, "Love Is Blindness"

2012-01-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

Last year, Q magazine celebrated the 20^th anniversary of U2's Achtung Baby with a tribute album featuring covers by various artists. I have to confess that The Killers' take on "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" didn't impress me, and I was disappointed in the version of "Zoo Station" that Nine Inch Nails (one of my favorite bands) turned in. But the other night I heard Jack White's version of "Love Is Blindness", and that kicked--was maybe even better than the original.

I was in my first year of college when Achtung Baby came out. This is memorable to me at least partly because Achtung was the first album I think I can remember for which there was buzz, or at least the first album for my generation. Contextwise, for those of you who don't recall, you have to understand that for at least a segment of Gen Xers, The Joshua Tree was kind of almost our generation's Sgt. Pepper's, for want of a better reference point; it's not quite a valid comparison, I realize, and for all sorts of reasons, but it might be the best I can do. If you were of a certain demographic, this was the single ubiquitous album that staked probably the best claim for Single Most Important Record In The Universe.

But what followed it was Rattle And Hum, and, really, Rattle And Hum was kind of crap. I mean, it isn't a terrible record, and a couple of the songs are even kind of great even; "All I Want Is You" is pretty incredible even after every single Gen X romantic comedy made in a five year period attempted to kill it by playing it to death. But mostly Rattle And Hum was a bit self-indulgent, was U2 discovering America in much the same way and to much the same effect as Columbus and his crew happening upon it: they were clearly mighty-impressed with themselves, but the natives kind of already knew it was here.

So I don't know if anybody really expected much from whatever was going to follow Hum. More self-indulgence, more shout-outs to African-American roots music, more echo, I dunno. What I don't think anybody would have predicted was that U2 would sort of follow David and Iggy's fading footsteps and head to Berlin with Brian Eno. And then we all started hearing about it. The Edge did an interview with--I think it was Musician that one of my friends had a subscription to, and this was one of those articles you started reading on the john with sort of a ho-hum kind of thing and finished breathlessly on the couch, needing to hear what this guy was talking about now, immediately, no, yesterday. This was all effectively pre-Internet, these days the thing would have leaked online and people would be streaming it, you'd be able to find torrents of it, people would have choice cuts (or even the whole thing) posted on their blogs. Then, not so much. (Though, if memory serves, some of the band's early session tapes had been stolen and bootlegged onto a really expensive and illegal vinyl that nobody I knew had actually heard.) I don't know if it's better or worse that you don't have to wait so much anymore.

But what really sealed it--because writing about music (even in an interview with the musician himself) really is a lot like dancing about architecture (as the cliché has it)--was when "The Fly" debuted on MTV. MTV was still showing music videos back then, though they'd already begun something of a transition by throwing in some game shows, sketch comedy series, cartoons, etc. An I remember my friend Don and I watching "The Fly" in the living room of my dorm suite and just looking at each other, because this wasn't what U2 sounded like at all and it was fucking amazing. It wasn't like we didn't like old U2; hell, I was playing guitar really seriously then, and my entire so-called "sound" was more or less cribbed wholly from The Edge's jangle and twang (and I still like me some serious delay... elay... lay... ay....). We loved U2. Nearly everybody did. But this was... this was stunning. This was U2 walking away from the wreckage of their last badly-conceived concert film/documentary/live album/what-were-they-thinking as a completely different band.

I remember all of my friends tracked the release date. And then a bunch of us had classes, so we all gave our money to one guy--I think it was Don, actually--and he went and stood in line at the record store and bought a half-dozen CDs for everyone. I was, again if memory serves, the first person who'd heard about this new album and the last person who got his copy in his hands. And gods, it was a good record. It was a great record. It was just something else. Twenty years later, I don't know if it's really as good a record as Joshua Tree was, or The Unforgettable Fire, an album that got mixed reviews at the time but stands out of the band's discography like... well, like an unforgettable fire, actually. (Might as well go with that, I can't do any better than they already did when they titled it.) But in 1991, Achtung was the shit.

I don't know if that kind of excitement for a record is something I'll ever experience again. I don't mean that I don't get excited about music, I mean that particular kind of excitement, that anticipation, that tension. I don't know if that kind of thing is a figment of youth or just part of a lost era when things moved more slowly and you had to wait. It was something, though. It was something.

Girls, "Honey Bunny"

2012-01-06T17:19:00.003-05:00

It's been a long day. It's been a long week. I feel like I have exhausted my well of words, and can only hope that more words seep in from the bottom and can be dredged out at some point.

One of the things my sister gave me for Christmas was last year's Girls album, Father, Son, Holy Ghost (on which the above track, "Honey Bunny" can be found). It's a great record, a remarkable synthesis of a lot of swell 1970s sounds, really; I tend to feel like I'm listening to a no-longer-extant FM station when I play it. For an album with plenty of dark vibes, the record is nonetheless comfort music, the vocabulary I came up with before MTV introduced me to synthesizers. (Well... a misleading colloquialism: most of the instruments referred to and sold as "synthesizers" are technically samplers, but I suppose that's neither here nor there nor anywhere else in particular.)

I don't think it's merely old-fogeyism to say that radio has generally gotten worse over the decades. It's all Clear Channel's fault, except the truth is you can't really blame them for jumping on the opportunities presented by deregulation under Reagan and Clinton. Of course if you own eighty-bajillion radio stations it only makes sense to mass-produce the content, anything else would be kind of stupid and inefficient; sure, it might be nice if the standard boilerplate programming didn't suck ass, but you can't have everything, can you? (Not unless you have a near-monopolistic grasp on every market in the country, but let's not get technical.)

Thank goodness for Internet radio and the college stations and the odd here-and-there low-wattage stations clinging tenaciously to existence. Strangely enough, thank goodness for satellite radio, where a true-and-actual monopoly offers a huge slate of programming because their marketing strategy involves positioning themselves as an alternative to shitty commercial radio programming by offering a buffet ranging from stock copies of Clear Channel-formatted stations to niche formats. I don't know what I'd do if I had to listen to FM; that's not true, what I used to do is I'd only listen to the local NPR affiliate if I didn't have a tape or CD or iPod in the car (depending on the year we're talking about, natch).

But I do miss the radio I grew up with, or maybe just my nostalgia-infused memories of it. Charlotte radio was never that good, not really. It wasn't like it was one of those really cool and legendary radio cities like New York or Detroit or anything. (Funny: a lot of those old school, legendary DJs now spool the music files on satellite radio channels.)

I suppose this was a bit of wander and ramble. Not quite what I intended or where I thought it might go, but there you are. It's been a long week; I said that already, but this time, I'm saying it in the context of saying "good evening" to you. I hope you're having a lovely evening, however cold it might be wherever you happen to be.

"It's a hit"

2012-01-05T17:08:00.008-05:00

I am swamped, just swamped, and now I need to get out of here so I can meet the ScatterKat for dinner with friends. Seeing as how I've spent much of the week online talking about a libertarian goon, why don't we play him out of the blog for the week with a nice little song about the master of so many libertarian hearts?

From the last true Pink Floyd concert possible--i.e. the final performance of Messrs. Gilmour, Mason, Waters and the late, great Mr. Wright at Live 8¹--here's "Money":

Try to stay warm out there, folks, and I'll try to come up with a happier topic tomorrow if I can think of one.

¹An example, by-the-by, of liberal interventionism and paternalism, which, it should be clarified, doesn't have to be militaristic in nature.

Robbins fly

2012-01-04T10:54:00.005-05:00

Long-time readers may have noticed my sister occasionally popping in to leave a comment. I'm pleased as hell to announce she's finally started her own blog, Run, Robbin Bird.

Okay, I hate to do this, but there are actually three problems with her blog:

She's a better writer than I am, which makes me look bad.
She's currently focused on a single subject, which Wise Old Bloggers all say is the best way to generate interest and hits, as opposed to the scattershot, what-interests-me-now, anything-goes approach of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets, which is an approach (I have read) that tends to alienate and confuse visitors who drop by for a post on one thing and then never see it mentioned again. Which makes me look bad.
That subject of hers happens to be how she runs millions and millions of miles, like she's some kind of superhero or something, whereas I get winded waddling over to the refrigerator. This, obviously, makes me look bad.

All of that aside, if you want to find out what the smarter kid in my family has to say, hie your ass over to her new blog. Why are you still here?

Quotes of the day--libertarians and liberals edition

2012-01-03T16:47:00.007-05:00

It's as if there was a kind of theme going on today. Jung might have called it synchronicity, but it's more probable that my brain is just wired right now to perk up when someone takes the piss out of Ron Paul after I wrote yesterday's post. From two worthy posts to Hullabaloo and Salon:

Liberalism is and has always been about intervention. It is the opposite of libertarianism, and always has been. Liberals understand that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Left to their own devices, people with weapons and money will always try to exploit and dominate people without weapons and money unless they are stopped from doing so. It is not because we are taught to do so. It's just innate human nature. If this were not the case, libertarianism would work as an ideology. It does not, and never has at any point in history.

....

This is what liberalism is. It is unavoidably, inescapably paternalistic in nature. It is so because it understands the inevitable tendency of human beings to be truly awful to one another unless social and legal rules are put in place--yes, by force--to prevent them from doing otherwise.

Conservatives use force of government as well, of course, but not in defense of the weak and oppressed, but rather to maintain the power of money, of patriarchy and of the established social pecking order. Where the oppressive hand of government helps them achieve that, they utilize it. Where libertarian ideology helps them keep power in the hands of the local good old boys, they use that instead.

But a liberal--a progressive, if you will--is always an interventionist, because a liberal understands that society is constantly on a path of self-perfection, in an effort to use reason and good moral judgment to prevent insofar as possible the exploitation of one person by another.
-David Atkins, "No, Stoller and Sullivan:
there is no liberal conflict over Ron Paul",
Hullabaloo, January 3^rd, 2012

Like other libertarians, Ron Paul does not understand American values. The American experiment is an experiment in creating and maintaining a democratic republic, not a minimal state. American political culture is founded not on the theories of Ayn Rand or Ludwig von Mises but on the reasoning of natural rights theorists like John Locke, for whom coercion in the service of communal self-defense is perfectly legitimate. In Lockean social contract theory, in order to protect themselves from human predators, people form a community and then transfer the pooled power of self-defense to the community’s trustee, the state, the better to resist invasion and crime. While abuses of military and police power are to be guarded against, the idea that the military and police and government as such are inherently tyrannical, a familiar theme in libertarian and anarchist thought, is utterly alien to America’s Lockean republican tradition.

Libertarians typically argue that only government, backed by military and police power, can be tyrannical. Lockean republicans in contrast believe that private power located in the for-profit or non-profit sectors can be tyrannical, as well. By means of their agent, the state, the sovereign people legitimately can protect themselves from predation by private sector tyrants as well as public sector tyrants.
-Michael Lind, "Race, liberty and Ron Paul",
Salon, January 3^rd, 2012

Atkins goes on to observe that there are indeed divisions within liberalism as to the extent force may morally be deployed, with shadings ranging from the neoliberal to the communist, for instance; Lind, meanwhile, does an excellent job of pointing out that Paul is an at best an idiot and at worst a bigot and hypocrite who doesn't really subscribe to the idea that government has no authority when it comes to racial segregation: he would either de facto or as a matter of principle have that authority side with bigoted property owners.

My own further thought on Atkins' points, expressed briefly elsewhere, is that one also has to remember that in a democratic or republican society, The People are the government, a point Lind essentially makes when citing Locke. So, when "the government" exercises force to protect the vulnerable from the powerful, it is (assuming things are running the way they ought to) The People who are in fact exercising that force. One of the faults of libertarianism, generally speaking, is that it necessarily assumes that the government and citizenry are separate entities, which may be true in many of the myriad non-democratic forms of government human beings have experimented with in the long course of human history; this premise is simply stupid, however, in a functioning democracy (or republic), where your government consists of your neighbors and people you went to school with and friends-of-friends, as opposed to (say) a caste of oligarchs or hereditary leaders. It should be a matter of common sense, or at least a matter of ninth-grade Civics class, that if The People are unhappy with the way their delegates and nominees exercise the use of force, they have the right to strip the delegates and nominees of that power (you were the Chief Of Police, now the newly-sworn-in City Counsel is firing your ass as they were elected to do, for instance).

There is something of a schizophrenia in people who complain that "the government" shouldn't have the right to force them to do such-and-such. Well, in fact, the government does have that right so long as you're a part of a civilization in which The People (of which you're a member) have delegated that power, and if you don't like it, you retain the rights to assemble, petition and vote. Speaking of, I'm not saying such complainers aren't entitled as a matter of free speech to whine and complain, I'm just saying they're fools, since they're in essence complaining that they're abusing themselves.

The larger point that I'd like to make, however, is that I'm pleased that Lind and Atkins aren't shying away from what all of this is really about: that conflict between liberals and libertarians is not about tyranny versus freedom or the size of government or some other red herring, but about the moral use of force in a republic. It seems to me that a libertarian comes in two shades, basically: those anarchists who would abrogate the moral use of force altogether and thereby leave the weak to be exploited by the strong, or those who would define the moral use of force in such a way as to protect those who have from those who want (and therefore possibly leave the latter prey to the former). Whereas a liberal--of whatever stripe--believes in intervening on behalf of the weak to limit their exploitation by the strong, though liberals will disagree about where the pivot point lies between abstaining and interceding. I suspect (at least partly from personal experience) that liberals shy from putting things so bluntly: force often becomes synonymous with oppression even though the latter is merely an extreme degree of the former; i.e. if any use of force is oppressive, every controlled intersection in America is a pocket exercise in totalitarianism. We ought to be candid about it: yes, having the police enforce the rights of racist storeowners against minority "trespassers" and having the police provide a protective escort to minority children threatened by an angry mob are both exercises in state power, but there is a stark difference in the moral statement made by the first and that made by the second. I know which of those moral statements I want to make myself a part of when I decide who will use force on my behalf.

POSTSCRIPT, January 5^th, 2012: Seth and I had quite a bit more discussion about this topic at his blog here, here and here, for anyone interested.

Dumb quote of the day: say what? edition

2012-01-02T13:11:00.005-05:00

"It’s as though we've tried to make hard boiled eggs by putting them in the freezer," [Newt Gingrich] told a packed, eager room at Tish’s Restaurant, a classy joint in Council Bluffs [Iowa].... "Now, you can get a hard egg by putting it in the freezer long enough, but it’s not what you want. I think Obama is in relation to jobs as putting an egg in the freezer is to getting a hard-boiled egg."
As quoted by David Weigel, "Mr. Positivity",
Slate, December 31^st, 2011.

I confess, I'm a little jaded on American politics at the moment. It's not something I feel terribly compelled to write about right now, it's just that there's a shortage of other topics catching my interest right now and I feel like I've done maybe a smidgeon too many embedded music clips lately.

I was so desperate for material, I very nearly posted part of a Glenn Greenwald rant from Salon as today's dumb quote, but the truth is that very nearly everything Greenwald seems to publish these days is a potential candidate for a dumb quote of the day. (The latest: liberals ought to really value Ron Paul because he's talking about the serious issues of American imperialism, and they should only be willing to write him off for his bizarre embrace of the 19^th-Century version of the social contract if they're also willing to admit that they love murdering Muslim babies; Greenwald mourns the shallowness of American political discourse with a notable lack of irony, given his fondness for straw men. A runner-up for t3h st00pidist quot/2day would have been from a Matt Stoller piece Greenwald endorses as "genuinely brilliant", in which Stoller claims liberals are "angry" at Paul for forcing them to confront their hypocrisy and therefore obsess over his "character defects"--as opposed, say, to dismissive of Paul's "ideas" because Paul's theology is comprised of a vapid hodgepodge of failed and obsolete ideas mostly lifted from the pre-World War I Democratic Party dressed up in crypto-libertarian rhetoric with a generous garnish of Randism. Oh, and by the way: did you know that a professed desire to roll back women's reproductive rights and civil rights for minorities by de-Federalizing those rights and leaving it to the fifty individual states to do whatever they wanted vis-a-vis gender, privacy, equality and human dignity is a matter of "character defects" and not substantive policy or political ideology? I did not; until I read the Stoller piece, I thought Paul's views on abortion and civil rights were part and parcel of his regressive, reprehensible, juvenile and ill-considered ideology, but apparently they should be set aside, because while they may signify he's a dick, he's supposedly a dick with good ideas that should be engaged on their merits. Okay, here's me engaging Ron Paul's ideas on their merits: bleh.)

Picking on Newton Leroy Gingrich, meanwhile, is becoming something like, to use a metaphor that actually makes sense, shooting fish in a barrel with a rocket launcher. But we have to go with the quote, above, just because I have no idea what the hell he's trying to say, and I consider myself a reasonably bright individual; "smarter than the average bear," if I do say so myself. Well. Actually, I do know what Gingrich is trying to say insofar as a generality goes: "Obama bad." That, I get. But when Gingrich starts talking about making hard-boiled eggs in the freezer, my eyes start rolling back and I start going off on all sorts of tangents. First, I ask myself whether or not Newt Gingrich understands that a frozen egg and a hard-boiled egg are two completely different things: one of these eggs is raw and might give you salmonella. But I'm a nerd, so the second thing I think is that maybe Gingrich means to freeze something by lowering the boiling point of a liquid by exposing it to vacuum, and so what he's talking about is a hard-boiled-frozen egg. At which point, being a nerd, I start trying to imagine what kind of device you might have to build to freeze-boil an egg without cracking it or rendering it inedible, and would it taste the same as a regular hard-boiled egg, or could you achieve a similar effect chemically without a vacuum? Obviously, I'm prone to taking Gingrich's weird metaphor and turning it into a molecular gastronomy problem and have practically forgotten what he was talking about or what his point was ("Obama bad"); worse yet, I end up putting more thought into Gingrich's stupid comment than he did before making it.

And he's supposedly the smart one.

I have to confess: this is going to bother me for much of the rest of the day, I suspect. No, not that people keep on claiming that Gingrich is clever because he says dumb things. I mean the fact that I really think you probably could in fact make a hard-boiled egg by freezing it, not by putting it in the freezer long enough like that dumbass claims, but by being clever about boiling points of liquids at various pressures. I even checked YouTube but the closest search match is a fifty minute molecular gastronomy lecture I don't have time to watch right now (maybe later).

I'd really like to know.

This is gonna bug me.

Dammit.

Stupid Gingrich.

Happy 2012!

2012-01-01T00:16:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year, everybody! May your 2012 be filed with joy.

Nine Inch Nails, "The Great Below"

2011-12-31T02:29:00.001-05:00

I can't think of anything less appetizing than writing a year-in-review post. "Best Of", "Worst Of", whatever. It was a good year for me, personally, and I can't deny that; I went to SXSW and I fell in love. A few other nice things happened, and inevitably a few not-nice things that could have happened to anyone and didn't cancel anything out. I know some people had a shitty year and so I don't want to seem like I'm rubbing it anyone's face. It just is what it is.

Anyway. Moving along.

I don't necessarily work well in silence; I usually need some kind of tuneage going on while I'm writing, which I know is a controversial subject for some folks. There are people who can't comprehend having background music on or see it as somehow being some kind of moral failure. I've known people who suggested I'd work better if I didn't have anything on in the background; what I think they don't get is that I have this tendency, if there's no music on in the background, to start playing music in my head, which is actually more distracting if I'm trying to get my head to do something else. Worse yet, sometimes the music going on in my head is original, which doesn't mean it's any good but does mean that creative cycles are being stolen from a more important process. Better to have something on.

Except that it can't be just anything. If you're a fellow background-music-er, you probably know that. There are some things that are just distracting for whatever reason. It has nothing to do with quality, there might be a good artist who works really well as background and a shitty artist who doesn't. And something that works as background music might still be something you'd immerse yourself in if you were sitting in a dark room with headphones on or cranking it in the car or whatever.

I don't know why, but Nine Inch Nails has been working really well as work music, lately. Could be that quite a lot of what Reznor writes is, in fact, instrumental music, though even the songs tend to work pretty well for my purposes. Ghosts I-IV, the band's all-instrumental album from 2008, is excellent work music, though. (At least a portion of it is still available for free download if you poke around the official website at the previous link.) Earlier this week, The Slip was the perfect thing to get a few words done to (it's another one Reznor's giving away, bless the magnanimous S.O.B., and I truly mean that with respect and affection--I love that this is an artist who's trying to figure out how to work in the new commercial environment technology's created). And then, the next day, it was The Fragile.

Good stuff. What works changes year-to-year, but Mr. Reznor's been helping me knock out the words this week, bless him.

Camper Van Beethoeven, "Tusk":

2011-12-30T12:11:00.002-05:00

Just something about a weird band doing a cover of a weird song, y'know? You wouldn't necessarily reckon on Camper covering Fleetwood Mac--the latter being a million miles from Camper's usual Americana-rooted skachedelia or whatever you'd like to call it--but "Tusk" is simply a fucked-up song and right up their alley.

Only, as you might suss out from the cover-image in the embedded clip (which isn't exactly the Fleetwood Mac cover: the original cover featured exactly one less jackalope than the Camper version), CVB didn't just cover "Tusk"; they covered the entire album, track-for-track. I'm afraid I haven't heard the whole thing, couldn't tell you if it was any good. One suspects fidelity to the Buckingham numbers and snark towards the McVie tracks, but one could well be wrong.

Meanwhile, the year and my vacation are drawing to a close. It's the 30^th of December already, and I have no idea how that happened. A turkey purchased during the post-Thanksgiving poultry markdown has been thawing in my fridge this week and shall be roasted this afternoon/evening. I'll need to run out to the supermarket and get one or two things to make this happen the way I'd like to, and then it's back home to write a bit. Not sure how much posting there will be this weekend with New Year's Eve partying and such. Tuesday, it's back to the office--it seems, happily, like forever since I was there and I can't say I'm eager to get back to the grind, but it pays the mortgage.

Dumb quote of the day--"Nobody is really this dumb, are they?" edition

2011-12-29T12:37:00.003-05:00

"Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source," Mr. [Rick] Perry said in Clarinda, earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause.
-Michael D. Shear, "What Moves Republican Crowds in Iowa",
New York Times, December 28^th, 2011

It's not just that Governor Perry's remark is outrageously stupid from the "Guess-Who-Flunked-7^th-Grade-Geography" perspective, it's that you really just have to assume it's actually a classic Freudian slip: that, as David Atkins says over at Hullabaloo,

In Republican land, "foreign" doesn't mean what it does to you and me. It means "vaguely brown, Mooslim countries with names likes Ooz-beki-beki-beki-stan."

A lot of people have compared Perry to George W. Bush, a comparison that I think is actually pretty unfair to the former President; my own views on Bush's intelligence are that, for all his ludicrous malapropisms, he isn't "dumb" so much as he's a broad, shallow thinker who is intelligent in his way but has a stereotypical CEO's monomaniacal focus on a chimeric "The Big Picture", expecting depth, details and execution to be the provinces of his delegates and advisors; give him shitty advisors--and George W. Bush had some of history's shittiest--and you could have predicted the awful results. For all the books Bush supposedly reads (and I'm sure he understands what he reads), I suspect his brain isn't the sort that makes leaps of insight, that links seemingly unrelated and independent facts into a kind of cognitive gestalt, that is comfortable with reasoning by analogy. (Parenthetically, one can't help adding that these are the kinds of thought processes and the sort of information intake encouraged and nurtured in traditional law school curricula, e.g. the kind of legal education one might get at, say, Harvard Law, just saying.)

Rick Perry, on the other hand, strikes one as simply dumb. This is the kind of glad-handing Southern pol who does just fine at barbecues so long as he doesn't have to talk about substantive policy. It's a bit baffling anyone would think this man was presidential material, and one has to assume his primary appeal to the Republicans who goaded him into the race was that Mitt Romney is too nuanced and Mormon to ever be his party's ideal man, which continues to be more than a little pathetic and can't possibly bode well for their party in the long term. (Oh, and by the way: if the sarcastic part of the last sentence didn't quite come off, please feel free to go back and put little finger air-quotes around "nuanced".)

It doesn't bode well for the country. First, because (I've said it before and I'll say it again), you want principled, intelligent opposition and hope that out of the conflict between you and your ideological opponents, some better solution will emerge (or at least that a little friction will encourage methodical progress). And, second, because it is possible one of the idiots the Republicans seem intent on nominating will actually be elected President, and I don't think it's really worth the gamble to hope the GOP nominates somebody like Perry or Newt Gingrich who President Obama ought to be able to bitch-slap into oblivion in public debate. If nothing else, Democrats have had something of a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since the Johnson presidency. If not that, there's a stagnant economy of the sort that brings down Presidencies. And if not that, of course there are all the accidents and odd turns of history--i.e. bad shit could happen no matter how we hope it doesn't, and we could find ourselves stuck with the results. In short, you want both sides to put up somebody who, even if you don't agree with them and regardless of whether or not you like them, you wouldn't fear for the whole country if they got elected, somehow. You don't want one party to put up a total nonce just because you think the guy you like more could whip him.

Hell, at the very least, you want both parties to put up a guy who knows what Canada is.

Adventures in purgatory

2011-12-28T14:45:00.004-05:00

Ah, the joys of modern bureaucracy. I'm writing this up at the Division of Motor Vehicles offices, here to renew my driver's license. First, I was in a line outside. Then, I was in a line inside. That was so I could get a number. Now I'm sitting in a chair waiting for my number to be called. It is 2:49 P.M.; I got here before 12:30.

This isn't really a complaint, per se. For one thing, this is my own damn fault: I could have and possibly should have called ahead and made an appointment; they let you do that now. Instead, I decided I'd rather bloc-out a day to spend queuing. (I also have to confess: I underestimated the wait.)

For another thing, the real point is that there is something simultaneously depressing and weirdly... invigorating about what is a universal, alienating, social experience. We are all meat in the chute, we are all anonymous numbers waiting to be called for, but we are all a worthless horde stripped of basic dignity and waiting for processing together. Drones, yes, but drones bound in common solidarity.

Of course, that could just be the Stockholm Syndrome talking....

I find the process of getting my license renewed to be faintly terrifying. We only do it every eight years in North Carolina, but that just seems to mean I have almost a decade to forget how all this is supposed to work. I find myself irrationally fearing that some complication will be discovered: someone else fraudulently using my license number is wanted for DWI in another county, somehow the insurance company has reported my policy as being revoked. I've seen Brazil, I know all it takes is a dead fly in a teletype to get the Men In Black Hoods trundling you off for questioning. I also start worrying I'll somehow forget all the signs when they give me the visual quiz ("Um... UFO landing strip?").

Ah, thank you. You've helped me through a time of stress, yet again.

Even as I was typing the above, my number was called and I went up as a humble penitent to the desk of a woman who proved to be kind and efficient. This, in a way, makes me feel bad for hacking on the whole "drones in a sea of bureaucracy" kind of way, but there you go. These are the hazards of being a writer, I suspect, or rather the hazard: at the bottom of everything, you really are a colossal dick, because if you weren't you'd keep it all to yourself and/or wouldn't actually have anything to write about. Heck, even if you write fiction. you kind of have to be a dick, although possibly just to imaginary people, which sounds better but isn't, really, because it means you're just bottling up all your dickishness all day long and saving it up for your passive-aggressive, dysfunctional inner life.

Anyway, they're going to keep letting me drive, which is a wonderful boon. For the nonce, I get a piece of paper telling me this and then in several weeks I should receive a piece of plastic with a picture of (I assure you) a complete and total stranger who looks nothing like me, possibly familiar from a mug shot displayed on an Unsolved Mysteries episode twenty years ago. It will also have my name, address, age on it, and will inform everybody that my organs can be harvested if they can be pried from out between a mess of twisted metal where a Volkswagen Beetle and an 18-wheeler have tried to occupy the same space at the same time in violation of the laws of physics as they're usually understood (but not for want of trying).

Dropping in at my own place, bringing nothing to the table

2011-12-27T16:55:00.002-05:00

I was proud of myself for having a Boxing Day post in the chute before I went down to see my mom and sister this weekend; I'm much less proud to discover that I have nothing to write about the day after Boxing Day. I was assuming--wrongly, apparently--that something would show up and save me, some topic of conversation or significant incident that would be worth writing about.

Oops.

Christmas with the family was excellent. Gifts were exchanged and seemed appreciated; I can say I liked the things I received, though I can only hope the things I gave were/are/will be enjoyed. And now I've exhausted this as a writing topic for the nonce.

Ditto for hanging out with friends online playing The Old Republic: excellent, appreciated, and now I've exhausted it as a writing topic, just about. It's a heck of a fun game so far; I've never played an MMORPG before, or at least not a subscriber one with the fighting and shooting and people running around on dozens of quests. This is all new to me, but it's Star Wars and it's Bioware, one of the best game companies out there, and a bunch of my friends were doing it, so how could I not? Okay, now I've exhausted it.

All-in-all, what we have here is an uninteresting filler post. My apologies. I will try to have something this week.

How are you, today?

Warren Zevon, "Boom Boom Mancini"

2011-12-26T01:26:00.003-05:00

Or, to readers in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere in The Commonwealth, Happy Boxing Day!

I figured I'd commemorate the occasion by finding some kind of endearing or entertaining song about Boxing Day on YouTube (being unable to remember any off the top of my head); but either because I'm too lazy to think through the right search phrase or simply because nobody has ever written an endearing or entertaining song about Boxing Day, I simply couldn't find one.

So, here's a song about boxing.

I would have to confess, I'm not a fan of boxing and really find the whole activity a little barbaric. Men get into a roped-off area and hit each other until one of them almost dies or the match gets called for a winner based on what seems like a suspiciously subjective scoring system. I'm not saying I don't get the appeal at all: there's something viscerally appealing about violence, and strategically inflicted violence manages to appeal to the lizardy parts of the lower brain that enjoy a really good punch to the face and the forebrainy parts that appreciate cause-and-effect. There's a certain skill and grace a talented boxer possesses until too many shots to the head turn him into a somewhat mobile pudding, a grace that satisfies both aesthetic and primal sensibilities. That doesn't mean I approve.

Consequent to the above, I confess I knew nothing about Ray Mancini prior to Warren Zevon releasing a slamming song about him, indeed, I can't even say for sure if I'd heard of him, or if I had it must have only been in a passing way. And enjoying the Zevon song as much as I do--that's really just an excellent beat driving it, and the way Warren spits out the syncopated lyrics is just perfect--always seems a little sleazy and poseur-ey: everything I know about Boom Boom Mancini I learned from Warren Zevon and eventually looking the guy up on Wikipedia when I got tired of wondering what the Duk Koo Kim reference was all about. That's probably irrational on my part: a song is a song, the subject is the subject, and there are lots of songs about places I've never been, things I've never done, people I haven't heard of, etc. Still. There's just something about the specificity in this instance that bothers me a little when I crank this one up. And you have to crank it up.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Frank Sinatra, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"

2011-12-24T12:43:00.004-05:00

I will be sparse the next few days, what with the usual seasonal commitments to friends and family in the meat-world and all that. Actually, physically speaking, I'm unlikely to be any more spare than usual, and with all the Christmas snackage that seems to flow like toys from a gigantic sack--well, I'm likely to be much less spare than usual.

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" comes off as a little treacly, but is still one of those songs that a number of talented people have visited and invested with more power than it might seem to deserve. What surprises me is that the song was a bit less slight as originally written, with lyrics suggesting it might be your last Christmas so you might as well enjoy it. (Thinking about Sinatra's alleged mob ties, those lyrics might have had added significance if he'd used them in his version, thinking about it.) Anyway, I love Sinatra bringing the world-weariness he sold so well in the '50s and '60s to this particular rendition, giving it a kind of cocktail-soaked happy melancholy; you can practically hear the snow rustling on the window as he stands next to the fireplace with a glass in his hand.

On a completely different note, if you really want to veer away from the usual Christmastime fare and like listening to someone reading you a scary story, Pseudopod's December 16^th Christmas-themed offering, D.K. Thompson's "Saint Nicholas’ Helper" is a great, nasty little number. These days, many of us forget that among the many, many, many versions of Santa lore, there are several in which Santa doesn't do anything as dull as leaving coal in a naughty child's stocking, but rather leaves those terrible children to his henchman, Krampus, a demonic little imp known for stuffing wicked tykes into his sack and abducting them. As with so many fairy tales we've cleaned up in our gleaming modern age, at least some versions of Santa had teeth, or at least his sidekick did (which, as Thompson's protagonist comes to learn in "Helper", is much the same thing). Thompson's story, I'll warn again, is frightening; I also have to add that it's a bit sad, too. I wouldn't be recommending it if it wasn't good and if Marie Brennan's reading wasn't fine; I merely feel obligated to paste the recommendations with many warnings, as a lot of people understandably don't consider Christmas a time of year for stories about monsters attacking little kids. But if you like a little blood in your 'nog, well... consider the download.

Talking about Krampus and alternate versions of Santa, it would be remiss of me not to mention David Sedaris' classic side-splitting breakdown of Holland's version of Santa's sidekicks, "Six To Eight Black Men". It was originally a written piece in Esquire that can be read here, but the truly priceless rendition is Sedaris' reading of the essay at Carnegie Hall, which you can listen to on YouTube. Sedaris' description is utterly hysterical, though I think his wide-eyed-innocent-traveler fixation on how the Dutch Santa differs from the American version sort of inadvertently glosses over the ugly racist aspects of the Dutch Santa and Zwarte Piet, recently featured in an article-worth-reading over at Slate.

Oh, and Happy Christmas Eve!

The Pogues (featuring Katie Melua), "Fairytale Of New York"

2011-12-23T10:25:00.006-05:00

She's no Kirsty MacColl, but nobody is; MacColl not only had a swell set of pipes, but she had this amazing cadence and sense of harmony. That woman could sing and the world lost a rare treasure when we lost her. But it's to Melua's credit that she doesn't really try to fill those shoes, and she's a swell singer. I don't mean to disparage her when I go and state the obvious, it's just that it's inevitably the first thing you have to say.

And then, poor Shane.

Is it somehow parasitic to observe that the way everything has caught up with Shane MacGowan, and finally collapsed on top of him gives performances like this one a kind of painful power? He sways, puffed and dissipated, little left to his voice beyond a dry husk that sounds like a desert wind blowing sand over the paper skin of a dessicated insect (all shell and no bone). But isn't that a perfect voice and manner for a song from the point of view of a man who has had his ship come in after many dissolute years, only to find himself on the verge of losing the only thing that ever mattered to him in the first place? He could have been someone; well, so could anyone.

MacGowan came to Chapel Hill with The Popes (his post-Pogues band) when I was in law school there. I had never seen anybody that publicly drunk and still conscious before, I don't think; I think that's probably still true. It was tragic and comic at the same time, a horrifying spectacle you couldn't help laughing at and pitying all at once. He unsuccessfully tried to pick a fight with the audience (he seemed to think a bunch of college students in North Carolina's most liberal town, in attendance to see a a songwriter known for celebrating causes generally associated with the American left--immigration, labor, opposition to war, sticking it to the religious and political orthodoxy, etc.--would take offense at being reminded of the region's embarrassing history of racial violence because we were all in The South). And then he picked up his mic stand, presumably to perform some kind of Daltreyesque maneuver, instead to clumsily and narrowly miss knocking out at least one of his bassist's eyes with it. I remember the show more than I remember anything he might have played. The Popes, anyway, were troupers to put up with it.

He deserves better, of course. That might not mean anything: so could anyone. And the drugs and cigarettes and alcohol were part of the persona behind those songs of hope, despair and anger. I don't know if those songs could have existed without a Shane MacGowan who was slowly murdering himself. And was that worth it? We--the world--got great music; he got himself all-but-killed. It might be that wasn't worth the trade. I hope he's better now, I hope he's doing reasonably well; I hope the organs he destroyed are recovering as well as they might.

I inevitably choke up towards the end of "Fairytale". I imagine there are some people who think it might be strange that so many of us nominate a song about two Irish addicts squabbling on Christmas as the best song of the season. I don't think it's cynicism or contrariness (nor do I think it's merely the power of that lilting melody). I think it's that last bit of it, the one that always breaks my heart; the part where he regrets how he's wasted his life and she throws it back in his face along with her own mourned-for past--and he replies that her hopes aren't lost, they're the foundation of all he has left. Frankly, I'm getting a little verklempt typing this. The point I wanted to get to, though, is that all of this is sort of what the season is about (aside from the whole birth-of-Jesus-thing if you're a Christian, that is): i.e. that this is a time when the year is drawing itself up into a closing knot and we look back at ourselves and remind ourselves that it's those we love who actually sustain us and give us the reasons we need to stagger through the next day and the day after that. If there's any point to exchanging gifts beyond crass consumerism (and that, to be perfectly honest, is also part of what this season has come to be all about, an all-but-inevitable accident or side-effect of living in a consumer capitalist society), it's the expression of thanks to others for providing us with frames to hang our own hopes and dreams on.

John Common and Blinding Flashes Of Light, "Go To Hell (With Me)"

2011-12-22T00:08:00.002-05:00

The ScatterKat and I realized that we were going to be separated Christmas Day, spending it with our respective families, so we went ahead and did unwrapping days early. I'm afraid this was partly selfishness on my part: I really wanted to go ahead and give her my present, (1) because it seemed like such an obvious thing to give her that I wanted to make sure I beat anybody else to the punch and (2) because there had been a couple of times over the past weeks when I wanted to tell her what an awful experience I'd had at Best Buy and couldn't, because that whole experience involved buying her present.

A brief outbreak of kerfuffle occurred earlier this month because Amazon.com ran a promotion where you could get a discount for using their smartphone app that allows you to take a picture of a bar code in a store and comparison shop it on their website. Lots of people (more than just the New York Times in the previous link) went frothy over the threat this posed to booksellers even though books apparently weren't part of the promotion. But the relevant part is that at least one author attempted to tie the Amazon deal to Best Buy's recent disappointing third-quarter profits report even though the Amazon deal happened, like, weeks and weeks after Best Buy's Q3.

What I'd submit to you, and the reason I went into all that, is that Best Buy's lousy profit reports might have something to do with the shitty and incompetent service I got a couple of weeks ago. The ScatterKat needed a new car stereo and I'm a gallant white knight who wants his baby to have good tunes to shake to while she's driving, so I went down to the nearest Best Buy; there, I stood in car audio for about ten minutes waiting for someone to notice me, until I finally asked someone at customer service if they could find someone to help me, which prompted another fifteen minutes of waiting until someone helpfully came over and told me she didn't know anything about the department but would see if she could "bullshit an answer for you" (seriously, my hand on a stack of Silmarillions, that's an honest-to-Ilúvatar direct quote). Her honesty was of dubious merit, since while it was appreciated, I also had done a little homework before going to the store and actually had specific questions that I hadn't been able to answer online and expected an actual car audio person to be able to answer; nonetheless, I let her waste my time until she and a co-worker more-or-less lied to me, probably not out of malice so much as they hadn't actually read their own website and I had.

At this point, I vowed never to spend a dime at the store again. Only to discover I couldn't get a better price anywhere else, whereupon I was forced by my bank account to swallow my pride and dignity and buy the thing from Best Buy after all, though I at least did myself the honor of ordering it online and scheduling an in-store pickup, and of choosing a device I might (from the online documentation) be able to install myself. (If I can't, I may have to return to the accursed place. At least ScatterKat will be able to ease my suffering by sharing it now.)

The bottom line being that the one thing brick-and-mortars still have on online vendors is that you supposedly can get help from an actual honest-to-goodness meat creature. But if these companies--whether we're talking about your friendly local mom'n'pop biz or evil megacongloms like Best Buy and Walmart--aren't going to pay their employees enough to make it worth the employees' while to know what the fuck they're talking about and be legitimately helpful, what's the point? I mean, I don't want to defend Amazon, here: I'm trying to resolve my own qualms about being addicted to the easy-to-use services offered by a company that runs sweatshops and doesn't collect sales tax¹ and sucks money out of the local community. However, on the other hand, I'm one of these neurotics who starts feeling anxiety in most stores (ironic, considering time I've spent working retail in my lifetime), and if I can just type some things into a search bar, get a summary of three hundred user reviews of a couple of items, make a final decision with a mouse-click and then the thing arrives as if by magic on my doorstep--I can't even begin to express how well that works for me on a visceral, non-anxious, I would totally buy my groceries like this if we had one of those online supermarket things around here like they have in New York, level. What I'm getting at, here, is that what actually may make the difference between whether I go to an intimidating store full of things or whether I just go clickity-click and do a happy dance while I wait for the mailman are (a) liberal guilt and (b) the need for real-time Q&A with a knowledgeable and physically-present fellow-mammal; and if you're going to deny me the latter, I don't know if even I am guilty enough to go down and suffer and spend just to assuage my need to "put back into the community", especially if my fellow mammal is going to leave me full of frustration and rage and a possibly unfair sense that it would be nothing more than just desserts if her workplace went belly-up in the midnight hour and had to be demolished by the city to make way for another parking lot.

The ScatterKat, being a woman of sweet disposition and good taste, apparently had a much better holiday shopping experience and gave me a couple of things (some of which haven't arrived yet--it's like early Christmas plus late Chanukkah!) including an album by John Common and Blinding Flashes Of Light, 2011's Beautiful Empty, which includes the delicious number performed acoustically (and for some reason in a conference room) above. I am pleased. Actually, she did have one issue finding a DVD for someone else, involving a moron who should be strapped to a chair and made to watch Turner Classic Movies for days at a time; I won't go into further detail but to say that it sadly reaffirms what I was saying a moment ago about businesses not paying their employees enough to care about knowing what they're selling. Oh well.

¹Though, to be fair, is this really an issue? There's actually a bit of a con going on here, and while I don't think Amazon comes away clean, I don't think they're wholly at fault, either.

See, Amazon doesn't collect sales tax, and Amazon has a history of making arguments (many of them kinda dubious) about why they shouldn't have to (though they may be changing their tune about that), and Amazon leverages that as a kind of implicit promotion for their wares (a good price made better because there won't be a tax surcharge added at checkout!).

But here's the thing: most states, if not all, require taxpayers to pay sales tax even if a retailer doesn't collect it. There's almost certainly a box on your state tax forms for a consumption or use tax, where you're obligated to report how much you spent that you didn't pay state sales tax on, and you're supposed to accurately report it or make a good-faith estimate and then pay the appropriate tax as part of your state tax filing. Which most people don't do, and is why so many states are irate at Amazon for not collecting. The rub being that while states have some right to complain that Amazon is helping their customers cheat on their taxes, those mostly-cheating, tax-evading consumers really don't have quite the same moral legs to stand on. Even if you're one of the few who do accurately report your online and mail-order expenditures, shouldn't you really be blaming your no-goodnik tax-dodging neighbor at least as much as the megacorp?

Municipal sales taxes (where applicable), on the other hand, are certainly another issue, however.

"The Count Censored"

2011-12-21T00:08:00.001-05:00

My sister shared this on my Facebook wall. I have not stopped laughing since. This is wrong, wrong, wrong, but who wants to be right?

The Grandfathers, "It Works For Me"

2011-12-20T02:22:00.001-05:00

Nothing spectacular to see here, but a helluva lot of fun if you can catch them live, or they were back when I was in law school. Back then they were The Grandsons Of The Pioneers, but The Sons Of The Pioneers have no sense of humor; there were litigious letters signed by actual lawyers, apparently, and now a witty band name that reflected a band's hip willingness to do alt-country covers of really old-school mid-century country-and-western tunes is reduced to, well, meh is what it's reduced to. I'd have gone to see a band called "The Grandsons Of The Pioneers" at least once even if a friend hadn't dragged everybody she knew to a show every time they were in town; "The Grandsons", eh, not so much.

The town in question was Chapel Hill (well--technically Carrboro, actually), but The Grandsons were from Virginia or D.C.; their press kit describes them as a Washington band, but why does it seem like they were from Arlington back then?

And I have no idea how many of the current members were in the band I saw a ridiculous number of years ago and have a couple of CDs by. What is a band, exactly? A brand name, a particular set of guys. Why is Genesis a band fronted by Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins but not one fronted by Ray Wilson? (Who?) The ScatterKat and I agreed to disagree this weekend over one of the most divisive points of rock and roll history: I happen to be a member of the small but feisty minority that thinks Van Halen was vastly better with Sammy Hagar at the mic than David Lee Roth; on this score, ScatterKat is an originalist. (Nobody, it must be noted in this context, thinks Van Halen was better with Gary "Who The Hell Is This Guy?" Cherone.) There are still people, indeed, walking the Earth, who think Pink Floyd should have quit when their creative mastermind and lyricist left--I mean Syd Barrett in 1968, not Roger Waters in the mid-1980s; this notwithstanding the fact that, for all of Barrett's charm and mad genius, Pink Floyd did a lot better commercially (and ultimately artistically) without a paranoid schizophrenic Mandies burnout at the wheel.

Meanwhile, King Crimson is any project Robert Fripp decides to call King Crimson, The Kinks are Ray and Dave Davies with some other guys, and the guy with the flute isn't named Jethro Tull (though Ian Anderson might save a few twits some confusion if he just started calling himself that).

There's some weird chemistry--no, alchemy--by which the fans really decide who's in a band, no matter what the people who are actually in the band might think about it. I'm not sure R.E.M. wouldn't have done better to change names after Bill Berry left, because even though Berry was "just" the drummer and maybe the most enigmatic figure in the band (it's a rock drummer's special privilege to be the -est member of a band: the zaniest, or the weirdest, or the wildest, or the quietest, or any other superlative with-or-without an actual "-est" you might think of). R.E.M. was never really R.E.M. again after Buck retired. Everybody knew it except the remaining guys in the band, apparently. Or maybe not: Peter Green leaves Fleetwood Mac and is replaced by a spacey eccentric from California whose condition for joining the band is they have to take his weird girlfriend, too, and history is made while millions of people forget who Green is.

Pondering this sometimes gets me to thinking about alternate histories where The Beatles tried to keep going. In my brain, it's Paul McCartney who always tries to keep the wheel rolling, even though in real life, he's the one who filed the lawsuit that formally dissolved the band. You can try to imagine Lennon telling McCartney he could stay or go, but The Beatles would be continuing with or without him, except it's just damn nigh impossible to imagine John Lennon wanting to have anything to do with the brand name at that point (hell, he even wrote whole songs about how done he was with The Beatles). What about a Harrison-led Beatles? John and Paul taking George and Ringo to court while the latter two book shows across Europe and the U.S. with a couple of surrogates standing in? Yeah, I guess that one's hard on the suspension of disbelief, too.

And yet it just seems apt for the Rolling Stones to keep... ah, well, rolling. Or, if the Stones should quit, it's less because of turnover than it is that they've been orbiting some kind of existential drainhole for decades. (Since they flirted with disco ca. 1978, I would contend, though I think The ScatterKat disagrees; I know she's fond of "Emotional Rescue" (1980).)

Is there a magical rule I'm missing? How much turnover does there have to be in a band before, say, they stop calling themselves The New Yardbirds and go with something dumb and in-jokey like Led Zeppelin? Anyone have any thoughts? Better yet, figures and charts?

An open letter to Lukas Willson and/or Gabrielle Walcott and/or Augustin Maranatha and/or other persons unknown

2011-12-19T00:11:00.000-05:00

(Click to embiggen)

Dear Miss Trinidad and Lukas Willson from Tobago,

First, I have to confess: I don't know who I'm responding to. The current Miss Trinidad and Tobago Universe, per Wikipedia, is Ms. Gabrielle Walcott, and there has never, so far as I can tell, been a "Miss Trinidad" named "Lukas Willson". Or maybe this is a letter from Ms. Walcott and Lukas Willson, in which case I'm very sad to hear you're both in the hospital together and am not sure why you speak of yourselves in the singular; the only suggestion that Ms. Walcott might be one half of a conjoined pair is this photograph:

...but the text of this article makes no mention if this seemingly salient fact (on the other hand, it might explain why you introduce yourself as "Miss Trinidad" when the proper name of the country would be The Republic Of Trinidad And Tobago: it would be fair and reasonable, I think, if you were Miss Trinidad and your twin was Miss Tobago--poetic, even).

Or I may be horribly misreading your missive and, in fact, you just happen to have the last name "Trinidad", in which case I apologize for overthinking things a bit.

Still, it's that tendency to think too much that has me wondering why you're using your dwindling time on this planet to send an e-mail to me instead of to some great detective or to the police. Or, for that matter, to your stepmother. ("Dear bitch," I would write, "fuck you for poisoning me and I'm giving my money to a complete stranger whose name I randomly picked. Suck that.")

Speaking of your (perhaps murderous) stepmother: first, I don't know why it matters she's from Côte d'Ivoire. You write "she Is An Ivorian by Nationality" as if this signifies much, but as I don't know any Ivorians, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. If you're signaling that she is particularly ruthless by way of her upbringing (which frankly seems a bit xenophobic and bigoted to me, but what do I know?) it raises the question of why I'd want to get involved in the battle over your inheritance. Is your stepmother the kind of person who might come after me? Would she try to poison me as well? Would she poison me and some other person, as that appears to be her modus operandi, unless she only does that to conjoined twins? This seems a bit hairy and involved to me, and I'm not sure I want to get involved in that kind of kerfuffle. I am under the strong impression I have only the one liver and would prefer poisoning it myself, if you know what I mean.

Things get more confused from there. I know some athletes give nicknames to special and distinct plays and strategies they've come up with, but calling your tennis serve "Augustin Maranatha" and hiring a lawyer for it seems a bit much. Are you sure your poisoning didn't cause some kind of brain damage? Oh, wait--it must have been a typo, as later on you clarify that "Augustin Maranatha" is your servant, and that I should... bring him to America and "esterblish [sic] HIM as [my] sound"?!

What?

I regret not playing guitar nearly as much as I used to; not at all, really. I should do something about that, I know. But, to the extent that I ever had my own sound, it wasn't really so much my own sound as it was a sound I kind of copped from The Edge: lots of saturated reverb and brittle jangle, mostly, though sometimes smoothed-out with a bit of chorus or flange. Part of the reason I don't play much anymore, however, is that I'm trying (with mixed success) to spend more time writing. What I'm getting at, is forming a band with Mr. Maranatha, or learning to play like him, or whatever it is you're trying to get me to do, sounds like a time commitment I'm not prepared to make, even less when I haven't heard the man play and have no idea whether his "sound" is that of a flatulent tuba or what.

One last thing, in the spirit of helpful advice (for I'm afraid that's all I can offer you, really). The idea of using a code word or phrase in messages to authenticate them is a good one, but I'm obligated to point out "Hospital" is a terrible choice. You are in a hospital, anybody who describes what's happening to you or where you are must use the word, etc. If I were to get a message from your stepmother that read, "What did my stupid dying stepdaughter who is in the hospital ask you to do? Did she mention the money?" I have no way of telling whether or not it's a coded message from your musician butler or not (aside from the obvious clues, I mean). I would suggest you incorporate a more subtle codephrase than that, something that would sound natural but not come up in an ordinary exchange, e.g. "Have the pomegranates hatched yet?" (though, on re-reading that, it's just terrible: pomegranates don't usually hatch, I don't think). You get the idea, though.

Good luck, Mr. Willson (lukas48@msn.com).

Sincerely,
R. Eric VanNewkirk
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giant Midgets

Leonard Cohen, "Tower Of Song"

2011-12-18T04:07:00.000-05:00

"I ache in the places where I used to play." Could be a kind of motto for me, it's one of my favorite Leonard Cohen lines and the kind of thing you increasingly understand, I fear, as your odometer advances. You awake in the morning and their are parts of your body you're pretty sure you weren't born with--their sole purpose, and reason for spawning within you while you slept is just so they can hurt in the morning when you wake up. Oddly, some of these incongruous body parts return to the unknown regions they originally emigrated from during the daytime hours, only to return the next morning when you're getting out of bed again, as if vampires returning to entomb themselves in your joints with the next sunrise.

I think I would like to blame aliens, now that I consider it: they abduct me while I'm asleep and implant me with incompatible parts. There's probably some kind of grisly experiment associated with it, or maybe it's just that they're aliens, motivated by some exotic, extraterrestrial, inhuman logic incomprehensible to beings from our world. It can't possibly be that we're all getting older.

Nick Cave, one of my favorite artists, did an absolutely terrible cover of "Tower Of Song" for some reason--I mean, I think there was a television program or something that paid him for it and/or asked him to do it; he had the sense not to release it more generally until he put together the B-Sides And Rarities boxed set, which makes sense (somewhat regrettably in this instance) because that's the kind of thing you put on a rarities album that's obviously targeted for the completists and devotees. Cave's grand concept was to take Cohen's fairly simple and straightforward (though lyrically elegant) song and turn it into a sort of actual tower of song, stylistically bouncing from verse to verse through different musical styles and genres like jazz and roadhouse country; this is the kind of idea that sounds sort of cool when you're bouncing it around but turns out to be a bit of a disaster when you actually try to implement it. One problem being the fact that "Tower Of Song", specifically, is to wiry and elegant a frame to load with that (if "Tower Of Song" were an actual tower, it would be the one Gustave Eiffel is famous for, spindly, classic and tapering to a fine point). Another problem being that few artists, if any, actually have the versatility to make such extreme transitions between genres work without sounding like they're either trying to hard or not trying hard enough (sometimes simultaneously); there are credibility issues. Cave may be a fucking genius, but when he tries to do a country riff, he ends up sounding like somebody who had Nashville described to him by a friend who knew someone who visited the place for a few days.

Uncle Tupelo, "I Wanna Be Your Dog"

2011-12-17T00:28:00.000-05:00

It never fails to astonish me how well Uncle Tupelo's No Depression take on the Iggy song works--you wouldn't think a protopunk tune would work as a hoedown, but there you are.

I came to Uncle Tupelo, I'm afraid to confess, via the backdoor of becoming a Wilco fan after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That led to Wilco's back catalogue and eventually to Uncle Tupelo; for those unfamiliar with the territory, when UT acrimoniously split up, Jay Farrar went off to form Son Volt while Tweedy and the rest of Tupelo's then-lineup started going by Wilco.

I'd have to confess I've never quite been sold on Son Volt. Maybe I'm missing something, I dunno. Every now and then a track surfaces that I kind of like, but nothing I've had to run out and buy. I suppose that possibly makes me a Tweedy partisan by default, which I suspect is somehow supposed to be unglamorous as such things go; the sense that I've always gotten from the old-school Uncle Tupelo fans is that Farrar was supposed to be more authentic somehow, or something. It's not something I actually care about, just one of those things I noticed somewhere along the line, or thought I did.

Soul Coughing, "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago"

2011-12-16T18:07:00.003-05:00

While they usually got labeled as an alt-rock band, the best description anyone ever gave of Soul Coughing was that they were a jazz band. Which about sizes it up, funkified grooves or not.

There was also a strange paranoid vibe in so much of their stuff that was sort of inescapable and buried at the same time. The same sort of claustrophobic trapped-in-your-basement funk that Talking Heads and Gary Numan had pioneered once upon a time. Soul Coughing contributed songs to both of the X-Files companion albums and were possibly the artist or band best-suited to that whole reactionary cutting-edge setting, that futuristic teetering on the millennial, phone back to the Birchers and science fiction cults (e.g. Dianetics, the Atheriusians) of the 1950s cocktail Chris Carter mixed so damn well for a few seasons in the '90s. You may have tinfoil over all the windows but at least you're shaking your booty in the safe room. Good stuff, yes.

The Muppets (feat. The Swedish Chef), "Pöpcørn"

2011-12-15T11:49:00.005-05:00

The ScatterKat has been pleased with my cooking so far, insofar as I've actually cooked much for her; I've made a few things, mostly pretty simple, though there's also been a good bit of frozen vegetables you steam in the microwave or prepared-cook-to-eat meals from the supermarket. (I try to avoid frozen prepared meals for the most part because the ingredients lists just look too much like a stock order for a high school chem lab or something.) I really suspect she's just a very easily-pleased audience, though the nice thing about that is how much she enjoys a bite of food.

The thing is, I tend to be a neurotic cook. This probably doesn't surprise anyone who knows me or is a regular reader. I like recipes to be explicit: tell me exactly what a "dash" is or exactly how many minutes something should be in the oven; giving me subjective instructions like, "until it is thoroughly browned" will have me all nervy. Which is absurd, of course, because there's no way for some of these directions to be any more explicit than they are--e.g. there isn't really a way to say that a roast should be in the slow cooker exactly so many hours and minutes because it depends on the size of the roast and personal preferences about how rare or tender the thing ought to be when it's "done" and vagaries of starting temperature and of cooking equipment and so on. And the truth is, I haven't done too badly (if I'm allowed to say so) by winging (no pun intended) things like just improvising how I want to prepare a duck before I put it in the oven. I did alright with my last roast with some improvisation; and here the neurotic thing comes back into play because that puts the pressure on--now I want to make the roast exactly as I did last time, because it was successful, but because there was some improvisation involved, I can't actually repeat the precise steps necessary to replicate the results, so now I have another roast in the fridge but I'm almost scared to cook it.

Cooking is art, not science, which is unfortunate for me. I have control issues, I have to admit. Personal control issues, I mean, not that I like controlling others: i.e. I like to know exactly when and how something is going to happen or I get all angsty and high-wired about it. Spontaneity is not my strong suit.

I have to sort of admire The Swedish Chef, you know. He's all id in the kitchen. Okay, so he usually blows something up, and gods know, "popcorn shrimp" is not shrimp served with popcorn. (Not just the gods, I mean: we all know that, right?) He's got that little-kid-bravery in the kitchen, that critical inexperience that allows small children the liberty to invent anything because they don't know you're not supposed to. So it makes him a force of comedic chaos and usually results in singed eyebrows and besooted clothing; I still have to respect and admire the gleeful panache.

It's an obvious short step--to me, at least, and perhaps to some of my readers but maybe not to others--from The Swedish Chef's mad creativity in the kitchen to mad creativity just everywhere. I hate that I've lost that innocence if I ever had it. The curse of age to an arty type, I think, is that you usually have this horrible tradeoff between the spontaneous creativity that youthful ignorance allows and the skills and experience that age permits. That is, I think we've all wondered why some musician, director, novelist, painter or other artist was so much "better" (and often more prolific, too) in their early days even though they're very obviously objectively more-skilled at their craft now. I fear the answer may be that the fact they didn't know what they were doing back then was what allowed them to be so bold and inventive while what they know now constrains them even as they're so much better, now, at what they're actually doing within that smaller perimeter. And what really scares me, personally (because I like being creative and have a self-image of myself as a creating person), is the probability that there isn't much of a sweet spot where one is simultaneously good and fecund; I'm pretty sure I'm a better writer than I was yesterday, and will be a better writer tomorrow than I am now, but I'm very much aware that I seemed to have more to say when I was thirty and more than that when I was twenty (and, honestly, was imagining shit all the time when I was ten) than I do approaching forty. (It's not hard, inevitably and irrationally extrapolating from there, to fear the springs will be bone-dry by fifty.)

If I may conclude with a toast: here's to The Swedish Chef, and who would've thought of him as an aspirational figure? We can only hope we never lose the knack for accidentally destroying our kitchens while our meals continue to taunt us.

Tori Amos, "God"

2011-12-14T12:58:00.002-05:00

Apropos of conversation in another place, here's some classic Tori:

You don't pull on Superman's boots

2011-12-13T18:14:00.006-05:00

Facebook friends may be aware that the other night I commented on a realization that shattered my fragile sanity. To wit:

I just noticed something for the first time in forty years. Superman wears his uniform under his Clark Kent clothes, right? We all know that. INCLUDING HIS BOOTS. That's the part I never noticed before. HOW THE FUCK DOES HE WEAR HIS BOOTS UNDERNEATH HIS LOAFERS? Or does he just carry them around somewhere, WHICH SOMEHOW MAKES EVEN LESS SENSE. What the fuck? Solar-powered humanoid super-alien who can fly and shoot heat rays out of his eyes? Okay, you haven't lost me. I can roll with that. WHERE THE FUCK DOES HE KEEP HIS BOOTS WHEN HE'S DRESSED LIKE CLARK KENT? Suddenly, all suspension of disbelief is lost.

This is totally going to keep me awake all night from now on.

This provoked a surprising amount of discussion. A surprisingly common theme was that several people didn't really have a big problem with the boots, but they did want to know what the hell he does with his cape when he isn't wearing it. James came up with this:

...maybe he rolls it up and wraps it around his waist and gives himself a belly? "No, Clark can't be Superman. Clark had a beer gut, and a very wrinkly one at that."

The only thing wrong with this solution, actually, is that it fills me with a sort of regret or bitterness at the thought of seven decades of missed opportunity: of course this has to be it, doesn't it? Clark Kent ought to be a paunchy guy who uses a fake belly to (a) carry his cape and boots and (b) further disguise his identity. This would have been perfect. One of the biggest plotholes in Superman's long run has been the fact that Clark Kent looks like Superman wearing glasses; if he was a fat dude, nobody would make that mistake. And it solves that old cape problem.

What got me onto this was that I was watching some of the old Fleischer Superman cartoons the other night. They're beautiful pieces of animation, especially the first several in the series, just gorgeous stuff. I covered a lot of this in a post three years ago, so I'm not going to belabor the point. But, anyway, I noticed the boots. Those big, heavy, red boots. They're not socks, they're not floopy or foldable: they are big-ass shitstompers, is what they are, and there's no way they fit under Clark Kent's loafers like socks. I can sort of see how most of the rest of the skintight Superman underwear might fit beneath the suit like long underwear (d'ya think Superman is a space-Mormon, like everybody on the original Battlestar Galactica?), but those clodhoppers?

This is the first and in many ways the best of the Fleischer Supermans, presented mostly for your enjoyment and also so you can get a good look at Superman's boots:

Of course, you may have noticed the cape and boots thing isn't much of a problem in this one: Clark goes into a stockroom to change, so maybe he has some or all of his Superman duds stowed away in there behind the staples or something. Granted, it might be a little awkward if someone went in there looking for paperclips and stumbled onto the costume, but at least Clark could point the finger at a coworker or maybe tell Lois she needs to start searching the skies for a naked Superman.

Speaking of which, Naked Superman is another awesome concept DC Comics has been missing out on for seven decades. Okay, maybe not. But it's not as bad an idea as you might think: I mean, Marvel Comics has lots of naked and semi-naked superheroes; The Silver Surfer, I'm pretty sure, is naked, and The Incredible Hulk is almost naked; and, actually, tons and tons of superheroines from lots of different comics publishers might as well be naked--in fact, I have to imagine that some of those superheroines would be more comfortable if they just shed the criss-cross spaghetti straps, thongs and thigh-high boots and flew around in a pair of comfy cotton panties and a sports bra, but I guess that's not really the point of a superheroine's quasi-fetish-wear.

Which mentally segues, I'm afraid, into asking the question, "What if male superhumans in comic books had to wear costumes similar to what the female characters end up wearing?" And the answer of course, is Superman dressed as Sean Connery in Zardoz:

Oh dear. I'm sorry, I really didn't need to see that again.

By the way, I've never actually seen Zardoz. Heard a lot about it, yes, and I've seen... that. And I have to assume or at least hope that there's some reason Sean Connery's costume makes sense within the context of the movie. He isn't, in other words, playing James Bond in that picture, though I'll concede that would be kind of awesome. Goldfinger would have been really uncomfortable spread-eagling James Bond on a laser table if Bond had been wearing that outfit, let's just put it that way. Most evil geniuses would have, really. "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to put on a pair of pants and a shirt, for God's sake."

Hrm. What was this post about again? Ah, yes: Superman's boots. Would not fit under Clark Kent's shoes. Just thought I'd point that out.

Baby bust

2011-12-12T12:13:00.010-05:00

One of the most unsettling moments of 2008 campaign came when Barack Obama told an interviewer, "I come from a new generation of Americans; I don't want to fight the battles of the '60s." What an oddly cavalier thing to say. Obama's presidential campaign, in fact, most of his career, would not have been possible without the battles of the '60s. I wasn't sure what was worse, that he believed what he said, that he thought we'd reached some kind of post-racial, post-ideological promised land, that we’d won the battles of the '60s? Or that he didn't, but he thought it was a politically winning message, putting all that muss and fuss behind us. I have to think it's the latter. He's a smart man.

Obama's comments about the '60s shouldn't have been surprising. He’d already gone on in the same vein in his second book, "The Audacity of Hope." There he confided that "in the back and forth between [Bill] Clinton and [Newt] Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation--a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago--played out on the national stage."

The vicious GOP crusade against Clinton had been like an old college feud? Gingrich had proposed putting the children of welfare recipients in orphanages, and blamed Democrats for Susan Smith drowning her little boys. He personally wrote the GOP playbook for demonizing Democrats, advising other Republicans to call them "sick," "corrupt," "destructive," "traitors" and about 50 other words for depravity. And Obama likened his differences with Clinton to the rumbling of rival frat boys? Obama did nod to "the victories that the 60s brought about" in the book, but he also blamed the Clinton-Gingrich gridlock on a case of "arrested development" among Americans raised in postwar affluence. So maybe there’s some kind of karma in the unlikely but growing possibility that the president himself will have to face Gingrich head to head in 2012. It’s becoming clear we’re still fighting "the battles of the '60s."
-Joan Walsh, "When Obama underestimated Newt",
Salon, December 11^th, 2011

I wasn't impressed with Obama's analysis at the time. It was hard to know if he was just posturing for electoral purposes but it sounded to me like it could be a harbinger of things to come--an unwillingness to come to terms with the very real faultlines in American politics.
Digby, "Newtie in Nixonland",
Hullabaloo, December 11^th, 2011

A funny thing about President Obama, I think, is his age: he was born in August, 1961, so he's almost exactly halfway between my parents' ages and my age; too young to be a Boomer like them and too young, really, to comfortably be a Gen Xer like myself. But in a lot of ways, his attitudes do seem, at times at least, to track more closely to an Xer's than to a Boomer's; at any rate, he's young enough to be my older brother and no way he could be my dad.¹

I mention this because when I read Walsh's piece over the weekend, I just sort of assumed she was old. Sorry. Not old, I mean, my parents aren't that old or anything. (Why do I suddenly foresee irate calls from the 'rents this week?) But I figured Walsh, who I really do love, just didn't grok it because she was a Boomer and hung up on her own generation the same way so many Boomers are--sorry to paint with a broad brush and hastily generalize and so on, I know it's terrible of me, etc., but there it is and if that's going to be a showstopper for you, maybe you should go ahead and stop reading because that's kind of what this piece is about. Anyway, that's the conclusion I leapt to, but I shouldn't have, because then I looked it up on Wikipedia and Ms. Walsh is only three years older than the President, which seems like it shouldn't make a difference but maybe it does. Then I read the Digby piece today, and--well, I have no idea how old Digby is, to be honest.

All of this probably sounds overly personal, I realize. Somebody is probably already asking themselves, "Why does it matter how old Joan Walsh, or Digby, or Barack Obama, or Eric VanNewkirk (whoever the hell he thinks he is) are?" Age might be a suspect class, like gender or ethnicity or orientation.

But the thing is, I understood exactly what the President was saying in the quotes Walsh cited, I immediately got it and agreed with it, and I didn't find it distressing so much as I found it perceptive and agreeable. And I suspect--I don't know, maybe I'm way-off-base--but I suspect I'm not the only person in my generational cohort who read or heard those lines from the President and nodded their heads, not because of some kind of post-partisan fantasy but because, really, we are just so disappointed in and burned-out on our parents' generation.

There, I said it. Goodness knows, I'm not saying, necessarily, that we're disappointed in our parents, specifically; I love mine to death. (Oh gods, I think the phone might already be ringing.) But the Boomers as a generation--to the extent that there can be anything like collective guilt for being a collective letdown.... When I put it like that, of course, it sounds silly and irrational, and maybe it is silly and irrational. And yet.

There's a certain irony in the fact that the sense of fatigue with the Boomers was summed up as well as anybody could do it by a Baby Boomer in 1976; a disillusioned, defeated-sounding Jackson Browne asked his listeners to "say a prayer for the pretender, who started out so young and strong only to surrender." The generation that was in college during the late '60s, fighting those battles Walsh alluded to, aged out of the draft while the Vietnam war wound down, and what did most of them do except cut their hair, get straight jobs and, when the economy went to shit in the late '70s, vote for Ronald Reagan? I know that's harsh and plenty of people really did keep a flame guttering in the candle holder, but it's hard not to feel "the changes [they] waited for love to bring", to paraphrase Browne, were less than "fitful dreams of some greater awakening".

It's only a matter of time until one generation starts replacing preceding generations in places that matter. They inherit the political positions and boardroom offices, and you judge them against the people they replaced. And when the political Boomers began filling Congress in the late '80s and early '90s, it was hard not to see them quickly turning out to be a letdown. I should probably go back and clarify something, which is that we all know, perhaps contra Browne, that not every Boomer was a longhaired hippie peacenik, that some of the guys who started taking the reins in those late/post-Reagan years weren't any more hypocritical or sold-out than they had been when they were in the Young Republicans. But it was hard not to see any of these people as anything but a letdown as compared to some of their elders; I mean that whether you agreed or disagreed with Bob Dole or Ted Kennedy, whether you even liked either of those guys, there was something historic, for want of a better word, stuck to their like. You could hate everything Bob Dole stood for and think he was a sanctimonious prick, and he was still a guy who lost the use of his arm defeating Hitler. Kennedy was a little younger and avoided being deployed to Korea while he was in the army, but you might still dislike his politics and personal foibles while seeing him as a last vestige of Camelot for all the good and bad that might entail. But as for the guys coming into power behind them: it just seems sort of obvious to me that there was something entitled and unprincipled about so many of them, I don't think it's just me.

So I think a lot of us saw what the President describes, yes: that the fight between Clinton and the House Republicans looked just like a bunch of Young Republicans alumni who had supported Nixon way back in the day trying to even the score by bringing down a kind of smarmy sellout of the sort Jackson Browne had described. Joan Walsh tries to dismiss that with the rhetorical, "The vicious GOP crusade against Clinton had been like an old college feud?" Well, yeah, yeah it was. And again, with, "And Obama likened his differences with Clinton to the rumbling of rival frat boys?" Well, no: not like frat boys, but like a bunch of Young Repubs and Federalist Society members who really don't care about the issues or the country nearly as much as they care about their team "winning". It's not that they don't have an ideology as such, they do; it's that the ideology really ultimately takes a back seat to an Untouchables-approach of "they send one of yours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue", and of course the guy the Democrats had hospitalized was Richard Milhous Nixon so Clinton was the one the Republicans decided to bag and bury, addressing a grudge these punks had held since they were eighteen.

President Obama seems to get that, I get that, I suspect a lot of people in my generation get that. And to comment on it, I think, wasn't so much an expression of some kind of post-partisan naïveté so much as a sort of STFUA that a lot of us wish would register with Boomer Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist and, to a lesser extent, with Boomer Democrats like the Clintons. We get that some of you are angry because dirty smelly hippies got laid more often than you did and your guy Nixon got treated like the schmuck he was instead of getting a pass like the Kennedys always seemed to get. We get that some of you are smug because you went to a couple of concerts and then the Vietnam War ended without your draft number getting pulled, and it was almost like one of those had something to do with the other, so I guess you ended the war, didn't you? We get that when the smoke cleared and your deferments and National Guard stints and sham postings ended, you all went and got nice jobs and haircuts and put away your Indian jewelry and ran political campaigns for your parents and your parents' friends and were mentored by these guys who, really, had actually done something with their lives other than go to college, smoke pot, and get jobs after graduation, and now you feel groomed, you feel entitled, you feel like the sons and natural heirs, the inevitable end product of the system that produced you and now you have some personal issues to resolve, scores to settle, scales to balance, you have agendas and contracts that are really just window dressing for trying to buttress your personal inadequacies and lack of accomplishing anything more than winning a popularity contest in your district, your state, your nation.

We get it. Now STFUA.

Walsh points at the poisonousness of Newt Gingrich's '90s rhetoric as if it were evidence that this was something more than a college grudge being played out while the whole country was held hostage to it. Actually, Gingrich's rhetoric--e.g. blaming Susan Smith's murders on Democrats--was sophomoric; it was also the kind of nonsense trash-talk you'd expect from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about and really doesn't care what he's talking about so long as it sounds like it might obscurely score points on the other team. The truth is that while such language was undeniably a nadir of discourse, it could only really be described as "vile" if you took it infinitely more seriously than such facially-ludicrous statements could possibly be taken. The rhetoric of Gingrich and other House Republicans against the Clintons in the '90s was too idiotic to justify taking offense over, possessing all the intellectual coherence and perspicacity of Bluto's rallying speech in Animal House (albeit with none of John Belushi's charm; but, really, how much of Republican political grandstanding of the past several decades is even better summed up in Otter's follow-through to Bluto's rant: "I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part and we're just the guys to do it"?). It was always the kind of inane rhetoric you heard in college from campus conservatives who didn't really know what the hell they were talking about, but that didn't matter so much as whether they won races.

I really think, unfortunately, that what the President thought when he took office was that he didn't have a dog in the fight, so maybe the chowderheads wouldn't still be pursuing their stupid vendettas against their old college rivals. I can't really fault him for that: he's a reasonable man, and it would be unreasonable and asinine for somebody to transfer their old grudges--which were really pretty stupid things to be hung up on at this point, anyway--to the new meat. There's a battle between Republicans who are around Newt Gingrich's age and the left that nobody younger or older than a Baby Boomer ought to have even the least bit of interest in (assuming, arguendo, a Boomer ought to care, which is frankly a dubious and pathetic proposition). I would call this a cultural battle, except that tends to confuse it with legitimate cultural battles such as the proper role (if any) of religion in politics, how to handle class differences, and acceptance of differing others; legitimate battles that are parallel to and sometimes intertwined with a more personal battle between people who were in school together forty years ago and still feel a personal contempt for one another that is rooted not just in ideologies and lifestyles but in ancient tribal affiliations that may well transcend ideology; Clinton, after all, repudiated much of the left's ambitions, goals and past successes in order to score "wins" for his party, while Newt Gingrich is a huckster and hypocrite who has bounced from position to position not because of a personal evolution (it's no sin to change one's mind; it may even be virtuous) but solely to score "wins" for his party; "wins" being defined to these people as Congressional districts won, Senate seats held, offices filled, money raised. It would be nicer not to care about those old animosities and rivalries, not in a "post-partisan" way but in the sense of thinking one's own ideology is a good path for the country but being willing to have a meeting of the minds with another ideology and perhaps one side might be swayed or a compromise forged; the Vietnam War ended when I was three (Obama was fourteen) and hippies are an endangered species to be raised in captivity, I don't think I care all that much about the campus cliques of 1968 and it doesn't sound like the President does either. I'm tired and I'd like a jobs bill and bank regulation, but I guess that's too much to ask for.

But it hasn't worked out that way, of course. This is a problem with the Boomer generation, that not too many of them have proven worthy of inheriting their parents' mantles but all of these are nonetheless too young to step out of everyone else's way any time soon. I suppose I should add that I have no idea whether GenX is particularly worthy of anything, either (I think we're pretty good at sarcasm and feigned indifference, for whatever that could be worth), and I'm not about to add some dubious complaint along the lines of having been denied some imaginary opportunity to step in because of our elders' refusal to gracefully withdraw. (Besides which, the truth is that no generation ever has the sense to gracefully withdraw, not even the Greatest.) I just would say that at least some of us would be prepared to deal with the kernels of the issues arising from of the social and economic transformations of the last several decades without much interest in the chaff. I think some of us would be ready to say our elders had a shot at doing well and ended up not-so-young and not-so-strong, who ended up, one might say, striving to be "happy idiots".

So I get what the President was saying, but Joan Walsh doesn't and Digby doesn't, and I have to wonder: do a few years make such a big difference as that? Or are these writers being willfully obtuse to make a different point? Or have they gotten so wound up in the nonsensical Dodgsonian realm American politics have devolved into that they can't see what an eye-blistering mess it's become. (An aside about the previous descriptor: Lewis Carroll's works are typified by absurdity and a love for math, and how could that be any better as a description for a political system in which madmen say ridiculous things in a surreal environment in which the overarching motives are increasingly decontextualized numbers: how many seats have we won (it doesn't matter who's sitting in them, the letter following the name we don't care about is sufficient)? how much money have we raised (and it doesn't matter where we got it from or what they want for it)?)

Digby concludes that it's good news that the President might be debating Newt Gingrich, if Gingrich wins his party's primary. Walsh isn't so sure because, really, Gingrich shouldn't be allowed into the debates at all because he's a big fat lying liar. I'm going to see Walsh on that one and raise with the fact that Gingrich, more than many others in his party, is emblematic of the political culture the President derided as (I'll paraphrase) a collegiate pissing contest. In that regard, Gingrich is a political Boomer relic, a ghost of the '90s and it really would be great if we could just attribute his reemergence to a blot of mustard (I'm afraid, however, he is indeed rattling the chains he forged in life at us, all Marleylike and incontestable in his presence). The really bad news is that whether Gingrich is nominated or not, and whether he wins or not, he is too old to be put up with any more and too young to retire, and we shall have years of suffering ahead of us.

We shan't be moving past the sixties at all.

¹Digby claims Obama as a Boomer like herself, and I will give her this: the Census Bureau agrees with her. The problem is that by at least two definitions of the generational cohort--Landon Jones, who coined the term, and that of Strauss and Howe (see previous link)--Obama was born a year after the boom ended in 1960 (the President was born in August, 1961); indeed, the President would perhaps more aptly be described as a member of Generation Jones if that term had any currency at all.

Generation X, meanwhile, has sometimes been defined as beginning in 1961.

On the one hand, this is possibly a sign of Obama's charisma even to people who maybe are a little frustrated with his job performance as President: we're fighting over including him in our respective cohorts, Digby and I both trying to say he belongs to ourselves. On the other hand, what this is really demonstrating is just how wiggly generational labels can really be; the President may be a Baby Boomer insofar as an arbitrary bright line might be drawn at the end of 1964 by the Census Bureau, but it still seems a bit ludicrous to say that he was more impacted by John Kennedy's assassination (a milestone event in most Boomers' lives) right after he turned two years old than he was by Star Wars (a milestone event in most members of my generation's lives; and yes, I realize there may be something pathetic in comparing a seminal national tragedy to a seminal pop film) when he was fifteen (Star Wars was released in May 1977; the President would turn 16 three months later).

So much for easy labels.

The Raveonettes, "Let Me On Out"

2011-12-11T04:13:00.000-05:00

I think we'll share some Raveonettes today, just because they're awesome. Any questions?

Nils Lofgren, "Old School"

2011-12-10T03:56:00.000-05:00

Nils Lofgren is one of those artists whose work I adore as a session player (especially his long stint with the E Street Band) but often can't cope with as a solo performer. He is an utterly phenomenal guitar player, just monster talented, but his efforts as a songwriter usually leave me cold and his singing voice is one that can be gorgeous as a backing or harmony vocal somewhere in a mix but I generally find it too thin and reedy to carry a whole song. (I'll cap to some inconsistency on the latter point: I have no problem with vocal performances from Lofgren's former-frequent-associate Neil Young, a singer who can make Lofgren sound like a baritone.)

But I really liked "Old School" when I heard it the other day. I don't know that I've heard another song where Lofgren snarls his way through the lyrics quite like that--I'm not saying he should try that all the time (it probably wouldn't work with a ballad, f'r'instance)--but it's a sound that works, and of course the ferocious dancing of his fingers on the guitar strings is ever wonderful. Not sure this track is enough for me to dare the whole album, but it's a strong cut and if you've listened to the whole record, you'll have to let me know how you feel about it.

R.E.M., "Can't Get There From Here"

2011-12-09T00:05:00.000-05:00

I know some people have been saying Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore are the tragic and gut-punching unexpected alt-rock divorce of 2011, but I think we all know it was really Michael Stipe and Mike Mills. Well, that's my opinion, anyway.

Mitch McConnell flunks College

2011-12-08T09:25:00.002-05:00

Addressing what he called "the most important issue in America that nobody is talking about," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned Wednesday that the National Popular Vote movement is "getting dangerously close to achieving their goal of eliminating the Electoral College without actually amending the Constitution--without anybody even noticing, unfortunately, what they’re up to."

The National Popular Vote is a compact among state legislatures under which they pledge that they’ll award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes nationwide, even if that candidate was not the majority choice of their state’s voters.
-Tom Curry, "McConnell warns of popular vote 'catastrophic outcome'"
MSNBC, December 7^th, 2011

Oh, well--then by all means, let's talk about the issue, then: why does Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, hate the Constitution, federalism, and states' rights so much whenever it suits him and bangs his little fists about how important they are whenever that suits him?

It happens that the Constitution doesn't specify how states allocate their electoral votes aside from the requirement that the electors have to choose at least one of whom isn't from their home state and the 1804 amendment requiring them to assign their electoral votes to a unified ticket. That's it. Hell, the title "Electoral College" itself is a statutory and cultural term, not a strictly Constitutional one; what McConnell is dishonestly and incorrectly claiming is threatened doesn't, from a certain point-of-view, actually exist, being essentially a statutory term of venery as opposed to a single formal body constructed along the lines of The College Of Cardinals, say.

In many respects, the framers of the Constitution of the United States conceived of the country they were creating as an elitist, anti-democratic republic. That's a bit of an extreme statement and in some ways inaccurate, but no more inaccurate than most folks' apparent idea of what kind of country the founding fathers invented. The founders didn't trust mobs, didn't trust the ordinary rabble, wanted to put in stopgaps, speedbumps and obstacles between the people and the rods and levers of governance. First, they created a representative democracy, obviously, and not a direct democracy. Moreover, secondly, they deliberately set things up so the executive branch and the superior house of the legislative branch would be chosen by the states, with the representative house chosen for the people being the inferior house. It has even been contended that the system devised to select the President and Vice-President was intentionally broken by design so as to require Congress to select the executive, the state electors serving essentially as nominating bodies.

There's nothing illegal or unconstitutional about The National Popular Vote (NPV) compact. Indeed, constitutionally speaking, it would be perfectly within the power of a state to dispense with a popular vote for the presidency altogether. The only restrictions are those set forth in state constitutions. There's no reason, assuming their state constitution permitted it, a legislature couldn't pass a law giving themselves appointment of the state's electors, or delegating the selection of electors to the governor, or appointing electors in some other fashion (e.g. by picking electors at random from the lists of licensed drivers, or by auctioning off electoral seats to the highest bidders).

Similarly, it's entirely a matter of state law as to whether or not an elector has to cast his vote for anyone in particular. I.e. most states have a winner-take-all system in which all of the electors are expected to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state election, but only slightly less than half of the states have laws that punish an elector if he or she actually fails to do so. I'm not sure there's any particular reason, for instance, that any or all of Texas' electors couldn't go rogue in the next Presidential election and cast their votes for Chuck Norris despite the likelihood he won't actually be on the state's ballots in the election, and if there is a reason, it's a matter of Texas law and has nothing to do with the Constitution of the United States.

So what is Mitch McConnell on about? Does he not know his Constitution? Is he merely pandering to the crowd he was addressing? Is he driven by a practical concern that population growth in blue states increases the likelihood of more elections like 2000, in which the Republican candidate loses the popular vote but wins the electoral vote because a narrow (or even questionable) margin in a state throws all of that state's electoral votes to him? (If Florida had been part of some kind of NPV compact in 2000, its electoral votes would have gone to Al Gore no matter how many chads were hanging.)

The more salient point, naturally, is that whatever inspires McConnell's comments, his commitment to the Constitution is a matter of personal convenience. This goes beyond broad or narrow constructions of ambiguous provisions, beyond originalism and strict constructionism versus a living Constitution and penumbras surrounding the Bill Of Rights and XIV^th Amendment. The Constitution simply flat-out says states can choose presidential electors pretty much however the hell they want to and doesn't require them to base their decision on any popular vote at all. In sum, McConnell's position is part of a prevailing hypocrisy seen in so many of our leaders these days, especially among the supposed "conservatives" who fervently profess to cling to reactionary ideals while in fact they cherry-pick to suit whichever members of their queued-up coalition of theological primitives, libertarian anarchists and imperialistic cryptofascists have just had their number called. It ought to be embarrassing to them, but hardly anybody knows a damn thing anymore, and so they don't suffer much chance of being called out on it.

The Secretary's 'stache

2011-12-07T15:34:00.016-05:00

I know, I like to bag on Newt Gingrich a lot. I mean, it's like shooting fish in a barrel--with a stick of dynamite. He's dumb, sleazy, corrupt, and just an awful person, the kind of guy who'd shut down the Federal government because he had to use the back door on Air Force One that one time.

But I like to think of myself as fair and balanced, right? So when Gingrich, improbably enough, has a great idea, it's only appropriate for me to say something nice about the man and acknowledge he's on to something.

So it's in the news today that Gingrich is promising to offer the job of Secretary Of State to former United Nations ambassador John Bolton in the unlikely event Gingrich is elected President. Damn. Wish I'd thought of that--that's a damn good idea.

My saying that might surprise you. First of all, long-time readers with some kind of obsessive-compulsive memory disorder might remember I've been known to bag on John Bolton, too. Also, you know, there's the fact Bolton has picked up a reputation in some circles of being something of a loose cannon; that many consider him aggressive, vindictive and hard to work with; that he's surprisingly undiplomatic for someone with a career in diplomacy; that his honesty has been publicly questioned on at least one occasion; that he's also been accused of supporting terrorist organizations; and, basically he pretty much comes off as a total dick every time he says or does just about anything.

To all of these more-or-less valid criticisms, I have only one response:

Look at it! Look at it and quail!

Feel the power of John Bolton's Moustache Of Authority¹, and tremble.

John Bolton is an asshole--I don't think I need to go into it yet again, I feel like I've covered that part already. But have you ever wondered how an asshole like that rises to a position of power he's uniquely and specifically unqualified for? He's a tactless and abrasive man who has repeatedly expressed his opinion that the United Nations ought to be destroyed, so what kind of job is he famous for formerly holding? Ambassador to the United Nations. How is that even possible?

I submit to you, it's his moustache. He--no, I'm sorry--it must be obeyed. Bolton sans moustache is nothing, nobody. With the moustache, he has direct power over the minds, hearts and souls of men and women. His 'stache is like Dracula's eyeballs, irresistible, terrible, haunting, compelling.

Which is why Gingrich's idea to deploy Bolton--or Bolton's moustache, at least, which is attached to Bolton and probably can't exist independently for any notable length of time (though it might be a worthy scientific project to see if Bolton's power 'stache can be transplanted onto somebody likeable)--as America's chief diplomat is amazingly good. No recalcitrant emir or intractable prime minister would be able to outlast that moustache at the bargaining table. Rounds of negotiations that would be interminable left to a Henry Kissinger would end in quick capitulation to Secretary Bolton's Moustache Of Authority.

Fronted by that moustache, Bolton's obvious and otherwise crippling weaknesses as a human being become strengths. E.g. Bolton's willingness to go off reservation and act on his own as a wildly-shooting rogue agent becomes a relentless force which brooks no compromise. Kind of like the madman theory with mighty facial hair replacing the sweaty upper lip; imagine Secretary Of State Bolton sitting down with Premier Wen Jiabao of China over a currency dispute, and before the legion of interpreters can even finish translating the formalities, Secretary Bolton ends the proceeding by saying, "Fuck this, fuck you, I don't care, do whatever the fuck you want, I'm leaving, my moustache and I will be out by the pool," and he walks out. Just stands up, pushes through the crowd of photographers and the next time he's seen he's sitting in a lounge chair watering his 'stache with 160-proof vodka and mumbling about how someone ought to nuke the shit out of Iran. Wen Jiabao is a rational man--which means he isn't going to want to be in the same hotel or even the same city as John Bolton, plus he's probably mildly disturbed by the way the feral eroticism of Bolton's facial hair stirs deep feelings he's not entirely comfortable with; so he does the only reasonable thing possible, which is to pass a note written on the back of a cocktail napkin to Bolton's latest assistant, reading (in neat, precisely-written English capitals): "PLEASE RELAY TO YOUR INSANE MASTER THAT WE CAPITULATE TO ALL HIS DEMANDS". And then he checks out and flies back to China, brimming with a disturbing mix of relief, dread and longing, and informs the Party that he will be taking a very long vacation and should not be disturbed under any circumstances whatsoever. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, John Bolton trashes a hotel room while demanding someone bring him a manatee, or at least a quart of its blood and the organs from its endocrine system.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. America will be an empire. After the first year of a Gingrich presidency, we won't even have to use Bolton's moustache, we can just threaten our enemies with it. "Perhaps we could have an international summit, Secretary Bolton would be pleased to meet with the Chancellor." "Ah. Yeah. Um. No thanks, um, we're good." "But Secretary Bolt--" "Look, how about you just annex our country and we'll call everything even, okay? Please? Please?"

I think Gingrich is onto something, but it's really just a start. May I humbly propose a candidate for Secretary Of Commerce:

Hell yes. He may not be smart, but that's a damn fine 'stache he's sporting. Here's to hairy governance.

¹I am aching to give Chris Hastings and Kent Archer the credit they so richly deserve: if they didn't coin "M(o)ustache Of Authority", they at least made it a phrase of beauty.

David Bowie, "Kooks"

2011-12-06T17:58:00.003-05:00

I wondered what to post today, and then suddenly it was a total no-brainer. This one's for Nate and Jessica: congratulations, you crazy kids.

Down in the pig mine, what else could you hope to find?

2011-12-05T15:33:00.003-05:00

I don't have any particular animus against Representative Nancy Pelosi, but I have to wonder if she's lying:

Pelosi didn't go into detail about Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich's past transgressions, but she tipped her hand. "One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich," Pelosi said. "I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff."

Pressed for more detail she wouldn’t go further.

"Not right here," Pelosi joked. "When the time’s right."
-Brian Beutler, "Democrats Gleeful At Prospect Of Running Against Gingrich",
Talking Points Memo, December 5^th, 2011

Pelosi says she has more dirt on Gingrich. She implies she's holding something back that would disqualify him from being President of the United States. Classic whisper campaign stuff; I don't buy it. She's bullshitting.

I mean, seriously, we're talking about Newt Gingrich: what else could possibly be left?

We're talking about the guy, remember, who was fined three-hundred-grand for House ethics violations when he was in Congress. He cheated on his first two wives, the second time around while he was trying to get Bill Clinton impeached for lying about an extramarital affair (for the record, Clinton stayed married to his one and only spouse). The first wife he divorced, of course, is the one he hit in the hospital "with divorce terms while she was recovering from uterine cancer and then fought the case so hard, [she] had to get a court order just to pay her utility bills." This is a guy who, charitably speaking, has been "flexible" when it comes to presenting himself honestly to spouses and colleagues (see the previous link), whose financial affairs have been a constant mess from the book royalties that led to the House Ethics Committee sanctions to his interesting credit arrangements.

Character flaws may not be indictable (and perhaps we should be grateful), but this is a man who is considered by many--including former colleagues and family members--to be insecure, mendacious, pretentious, narcissistic, driven only by a desire to be powerful and important for the sake of soothing his own insecurities. And he's an idiot. He is utterly without principles, taking large sums of money from organizations he readily turns on as soon as it's politically expedient to do so. A 1999 list of his baggage includes enough to sink any regular mortal politician's career, but you can find updated lists here and here. Oh, and pace Leo Rosten, I have no idea how Newt Gingrich feels about dogs, but I'm reasonably certain he hates children.

What on Earth could possibly be left? Farm animals and choirboys? A secret career as a brainwashed assassin for the North Koreans? He's a Red Lectroid? He once raped a clown in Reno just to watch him cry? This is like looking for a smoking gun at the Battle Of The Alamo. Newt Gingrich is a dumb, sleazy, crooked, hypocritical, two-faced, self-obsessed, power-hungry snake-oil-salesman whose latest book tour has taken a completely shocking turn mostly because there's a crowd of Republicans who somehow manage to despise Mitt Romney even more than progressives do, possibly because he's a Mormon but maybe because these Republicans have Massachusetts bound up so tightly with the Kennedy family in their ophidian brains they'd take you seriously if you told them Mitt Romney drowned Marilyn Monroe in a Chappaquiddick inlet while bootlegging Canadian booze.

In some ways, it's hard not to be reminded of Herman Cain's now-defunct Presidential bid, seemingly brought down by revelations of consensual and non-consensual hanky-panky (as if those are somehow the same thing or even similar at all) and not by the fact Cain is an idiot who was running a completely unserious Presidential campaign catapulted to unexpected prominence by the same Romney-haters who are fueling Newt Gingrich's sudden success. (Speaking of: if you haven't seen Andy Borowitz's "A Farewell from Herman Cain", he pretty much nails it.) You have a self-evidently unqualified candidate whose campaign is already too farfetched to pass as a Saturday Night Live and you're trying to tell me, "No, there's something else that really makes him unqualified." No, there isn't. You can quit with the bombshells, it's already just a hole in the ground.

It somehow seems obligatory to mention that Gingrich has come out swinging in response to Pelosi's comments, pointing out that re-disclosing evidence from the Ethics Committee proceedings is itself an ethics violation (I guess we can trust him on that one, man's an expert on ethics violations, y'know) and, anyway, he was only found guilty of one of the alleged violations, he wants you to know most of them were thrown out. He was only a little bit guilty, and only because he doesn't read important legal papers very carefully--hey, look, I didn't say it, I'm just telling you what he said. (As an aside, I always like it when I'm talking to a client about his prior record and he tells me, "Most of those were dismissed.")

My absolute favorite thing about the Gingrich quotes in Politico, though, is that he's gleeful at the prospect Pelosi might get herself in trouble by breaking Ethics Committee rules--note that he's not, apparently, saying there's nothing for Pelosi to disclose, only that she's not supposed to tell. This might tell you everything you really need to know about Newton L. Gingrich when you really get right down to it: that he's not the sort of person who cares if his name gets dragged through the mud so long as he's got some company down there with him. The fact that Gingrich isn't responding by saying that there's no there there for Pelosi to expose pretty much confirms that there is more that could be told and that Gingrich is too dumb or calloused to bother with even a proper token denial.

Which seems utterly implausible, but there you have it. What could it be? I can only speculate that it involves a leatherboy, some chickens, three gallons of Vaseline and a stack of overdue library books--but nothing that ought to keep a man from being elected President nearly so much as being a dumb, selfish, misanthropic, shallow, skeezy grifter ought to.

Judas Priest, "Breaking The Law"

2011-12-04T00:01:00.002-05:00

Because, y'know, sometimes you just need The Priest.

POSTSCRIPT: As of the date of this post, Wikipedia's post for "Breaking The Law" is pretty awesome and worth checking out. Clearly written by a fan, it's not exactly objective:

Clocking in around a concise two and a half minutes, "Breaking the Law" combines a memorable minor-key opening riff and a fist-pumping yet controlled chorus (in which Rob Halford simply growls the title over and over, to marvelous effect) as its main hooks. There isn't a whole lot else to the rest of the song--a few power chords ring out over a steadily chugging rhythm section (and a ridiculously simple bass line), and both guitars pump away at the open A string during the chorus. There is a change-up on the mostly instrumental bridge, a new chord progression with Halford shouting "You don't know what it's like!" before the sound effect of a police car's siren leads back into the main riff. And the band does vary the rhythmic accents a bit in the final chorus. But for the most part, the song keeps things very, very easy. And there's nothing wrong with that, because it already has everything it needs to be utterly memorable. The lyrics don't hurt, either; even though there are only two verses, it's enough time to throw out a litany of romanticized adolescent frustration--the lawbreaking narrator feels unloved, directionless, vaguely betrayed, and misunderstood, and he's rebelling against all of it in the most open way possible. But even if you're not taken in by that theatricality, it's still difficult to resist singing along to the chorus.

Indeed. Rock on, dude.

After Nuclear Joyride, "Gorbachev"

2011-12-03T01:17:00.001-05:00

It just seems fundamentally implausible to me that I might not have ever posted the greatest music video ever made to this blog, but I have looked through the archives (admittedly not too thoroughly) and cannot find any evidence of ANJ's "Gorbachev" sitting around here. Which is terrible of me. Negligent, atrocious. So, rectification. So, just in case--here's the best music video ever made, After Nuclear Joyride's "Gorbachev". (Again?)

And if this is a rerun--you have to admit, it's so nice it ought to be posted twice, right?

Carl Sagan, "The Meat Planet"

2011-12-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

This. Oh dear gods. This. This is the best thing ever. I am laughing. I am laughing so hard my ass has popped right off the load bearings and is bouncing around on the floor like a pair of tetherballs. I cannot breathe. I just cannot breathe at all.

(H/t io9!)

Catherine Wheel, "Sparks Are Gonna Fly"

2011-12-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

Dumb quote of the day--maybe you could have rephrased that edition

2011-11-30T01:06:00.003-05:00

You go through life and you believe that you have some people that are friends. And when someone that appears to be a friend turns around and concocts this story, you've got to question, the hundreds of thousands of people that I have met in my life? A hundred thousand people could possibly come out.
-cratering Republican presidential candidate
Herman Cain explains allegations of sexual impropriety
to improbably-named talking head Wolf Blitzer,
as quoted by Libby Copeland, "Herman Cain Decides Which Questions May Be Asked of Herman Cain", Slate,
November 29^th, 2011.

Wait, wait, wait. Hang on a second. Herman Cain expects a hundred thousand people to accuse him of sexual harassment and/or consensual extramarital affairs? Wait. Herman Cain expects a hundred thousand people to accuse him of sexual harassment and/or consensual extramarital affairs?

I'm... I'm kind of impressed, actually. Not entirely sure he ought to be running for office, but kind of impressed. Or the word I might be looking for could be "disturbed". I'm kind of disturbed, actually. Disturbed and impressed. Impressed and disturbed.

I mean, okay, maybe he's exaggerating. Maybe he hasn't met "hundred of thousands of people" like he claims. That seems improbable, sure. Maybe it's only tens of thousands of people, and only a few thousand of them are about to accuse him of impropriety. And it's not like he's saying the allegations are true, he's just saying thousands of people might accuse him. So, you know, maybe he just settled out of court with a few hundred of them and it's only a coupla dozen who allegedly have phone records corroborating their affairs.

So it's not like I care all that much what Cain is up to. He's a stunt candidate with zero chance of being nominated by the GOP and it's pretty much a matter of counting down the clock until he officially drops out--but quotes like the one above are pretty amazing, no? I mean, it makes you want to market a t-shirt that says, "I was sexually harassed by Herman Cain and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", not just because that would be sort of funny, but also because, according to Herman Cain, apparently you could sell a lot of them.

The implication is that if Herman Cain were a restaurant, it wouldn't be Godfather's Pizza (ironically enough), it would be McDonald's, what with the scoreboard showing how many customers have been served on the sign and all.

Herman Cain: he's like Disneyland, only gropier.

Anyone who has told you they went to a Herman Cain town hall and said they were touched by the experience... yeah, I guess I misunderstood what they meant, too.

We ought to elect Herman Cain for President just so Bill Clinton has someone to hang out with at Presidential funerals.

Okay, that's all I've got right now. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

It can get worse

2011-11-29T02:11:00.000-05:00

The ScatterKat and some of her friends and I went to see a showing of Plan 9 From Outer Space last night. She hadn't seen it before, but was excited about it because she really loved Ed Wood. (Well, who doesn't love Ed Wood?) Me, it had been a while, a long while. Maybe twenty years or so since I'd seen Plan 9.

I saw Plan 9 way back in the day for the same reason most people have seen it now: Plan 9 has this almost-wholly-undeserved reputation for being the worst film of all time. It apparently originally got this moniker from Michael Medved, who used to be a pretty well-known film critic but these days spends lots and lots of time being wrong about stuff: he's a senior fellow at The Discovery Institute, which is a big Creationism shop, and he does a lot of right-wing talk radio and writes books about how shitty everything in Hollywood is except for Mel Gibson's movies. So, you know, chalk it up as another thing Michael Medved got wrong.

Don't get me wrong: Plan 9 is a pretty awful movie, poorly acted and badly shot, with some of the most hysterically ridiculous dialogue ever written and an incomprehensible plot that folds back on itself not just every few minutes but sometimes within a single character's dialogue (e.g. the aliens keep on complaining that the humans won't acknowledge their existence before immediately--in the very same lines of dialogue--talking about how they're going to kill the humans who have stumbled across their existence; Jeebus, star people, make up your freakin' minds, already). The Wikipedia entry for Plan 9 suggests that some of the film's most notorious "gaffes"--e.g. visible boom mic shadows--are the result of improper matting on contemporary prints (Plan 9 was shot in 4:3 and evidently intended to be matted in widescreen 1.85:1) or the result of incomplete post-production once the negatives were out of Woods' hands--e.g. shots that were filtered day-for-night were improperly processed, causing the appearance of continuity problems--but this doesn't do anything to explain away actors knocking down parts of the set. For starters. Or the mind-boggling dialogue, e.g. Criswell's infamous, rambling opening monologue:

Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?

--Ah, yes, I am interested in the future, probably moreso at this point than Mr. Criswell, who died in 1982. Wonder if he saw that one coming?

And then there's Plan 9's most infamous... issue? Can you call it a gaffe when it was done completely on purpose and planned out? Director Ed Wood had a bit of unused and essentially unusable footage of his friend/star/muse Bela Lugosi, some of it intended for a Dracula picture Wood was never able to get the money for and some of it possibly intended as personal home movies. Anyway, Lugosi died before Wood could make another feature with him, but Wood wasn't one to waste any bit of film he had, and he wanted to include Lugosi posthumously in Plan 9 when he made it three years after the horror legend's death. Not having the sense, however, to make the dead Hungarian's role an incidental one, Wood padded the part out with an uncredited stand-in... a chiropractor who was, as you may know, younger, taller and hairier than Bela Lugosi, who indeed looked nothing like Bela Lugosi even with a cape pulled up in front of his face, which is how he appears throughout the whole thing except for the little bits here and again when he accidentally lets the cape slip a bit.

I suppose Plan 9's plot does deserve a small mention (even though I already said it was incomprehensible): it's delightfully nonsensical, bearing some resemblance to the Underpants Gnomes' nefarious scheme. Aliens have been trying to contact the Earth (in between the times they've been silencing witnesses, I mean), and their first eight plans have apparently failed so now they're stuck with Plan 9, explained by the aliens' leader:

Plan 9? Ah, yes. Plan 9 deals with the resurrection of the dead. Long distance electrodes shot into the pineal and pituitary gland of the recently dead.

Ah, yes. Plan 9. That Plan 9. And the point of raising the dead? Well, obviously, it's... you know... the dead rise from their graves... and... uhm... so they're dead, you know, and now they're sort of like zombie vampires that... you know... have risen, right, because they have electrodes that have been shot into their pineal and pituitary glands... which causes them to rise... if they're recently dead, okay, and the electrodes are... uh... well, they're long-distance electrodes... which were shot into the glands... which... raises... them....

No, I mean that's pretty much it. And the aliens raise three dead people, who just wander around a graveyard where they were buried, except for Bela Lugosi, who sometimes walks out of the woods wearing a version of his Dracula costume and then turns right around and walks back into the woods--when he isn't growing several inches, darkening his hair and becoming younger, that is.

And yet, for all of this, Plan 9 just absolutely isn't the worst film I've ever seen. For that matter, the Wikipedia entry for Plan 9 makes the still-completely-valid point that Plan 9 doesn't even rate on IMDb's bottom-100 movies as rated by users. Manos: The Hands Of Fate, a movie that makes Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane and that has sometimes been described as the worst movie ever shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the cast and writers of MST3k have said that Child Bride was in fact a worse film--so bad they couldn't even use it)--Manos ranks third on the IMDb list, behind Daniel The Wizard and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, a pair of 2004 movies I haven't seen. But that's at least fair so far as Manos is concerned: it's a worse movie than Plan 9.

I might have to say the worst movie I've ever seen is actually Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, which is possibly a hugely polarizing statement for me to make, as there are people out there who still swear Kelly is a great director and that Tales is some kind of misunderstood masterpiece. I'd also have to concede that Tales has one saving grace that isn't found in Manos in the form of a single, surprisingly great performance from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and a tolerable performance from Justin Timberlake, who manages to be charming despite also being visibly lost in a thankless, pointless, and pretty much completely nonsensical role; on the other hand, it's probably also fair to say that a cluelessly wooden performance from Sarah Michelle Gellar and simply bizarre appearances by Christopher Lambert, Kevin Smith and almost the entire nineties cast of Saturday Night Live more than offsets anything good Johnson and Timberlake (these two, of all people!) bring to the table. Plus, Tales is offensively pretentious with its whole allegory-for-Revelations shtick, with its freshman Philosophy 101 late-night-bull-session-at-the-dorm nonsense passed off as intellectual profundity which Kelly then believes he has to explain to everybody in the audience too stupid to get all the metaphorical crap (Kelly, indeed, seems to think this is everybody watching his stupid little epic, when it's nobody), with its attempts to "cleverly" cite indie pop music (which just come off as clumsy), and its ridiculous pseudo-scientific Macguffins (which are clearly meant to bowl the audience over with mind-bending, cutting edge quantum mechanical notions--but instead come off as demonstrating that Richard Kelly once skimmed a Discover magazine in a dentist's office while waiting for some anesthesia to wear off because he didn't think to get somebody else to drive him home). There's also the added post-Wachowskian sin Kelly commits of having too much material to fit into one movie and not enough money to make the three movies he envisioned, so he made one movie and then wrote a bunch of tie-in comic books that are supposed to explain or set up everything, meaning that the movie in and of itself is actually an incomplete experience that isn't supposed to be comprehensible standing alone even though it's paradoxically meant to be capable of being enjoyed by itself as a self-contained project, except (as if this wasn't actually already bad enough) the comics suck and the whole affair is more or less twaddle no matter what.

The thing is, Southland Tales isn't entirely incompetently made, despite the bad effects, despite a fair amount of wasted talent, despite the terrible script, despite the heavy ham-fistedness of all of it. We could go back to Manos, really, which is so technically incompetent there are better home movies made by little kids.

Or we could pick on the improbable Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. Nobody ever believes this movie really exists, despite the fact that you used to be able to watch the whole thing on YouTube (these days, you have to settle for clips). Patton Oswalt didn't actually make this thing up, folks. My Dad actually knows a guy who worked on it, even. Death Bed has a ridiculous premise: no, the title isn't poetic or anything, this is actually a movie about a bed that eats things and people, and since beds aren't exactly known for swimming around off the Massachusetts shoreline eating summer vacationers or, really, for any kind of mobility whatsoever, this means that victims must actively participate in their demise by lying down on the bed and waiting to be devoured (which consists of sinking into the bed and being skeletonized in some kind of deep, red digestive juice that is somehow inside the mattress). The ironic thing about this, and the really criminal thing about Death Bed, is that waiting for people to lie down on the bed and get dissolved in it turns out to somehow be even less interesting than you might imagine, and Death Bed isn't so much a silly, campy bad movie as it is a really horribly dull bad movie. You know, Plan 9 is at least a sprightly, short bad movie that springs along at a decent clip and is over before it stops being funny. Death Bed, meanwhile, is pretty much interminable. They're possibly showing it in Hell right now.

And speaking of boring: BloodRayne. So, here's a movie that has a kind of amazing bizarro cast: Ben Kingsley, Udo Kier, Billy Zane, Meat Loaf, Michael Paré, and Michael Madsen, any of whom can normally be expected to liven up and steal scenes from an awful, awful movie. Plus, there's Kristanna Loken in a skimpy, skintight outfit for much of the movie, which ought to be a good thing. Problem is, it's an Uwe Boll movie, and Boll is one of the worst directors in the history of cinema.

Let me explain Mr. Boll's entire career in a nutshell: see, for a long time, Germany had this crazy tax code that allowed investors to sink money into a movie production and write it off pretty much no matter what, but especially if the movie tanked. And so what Uwe Boll would do, is he'd buy up the rights to make film adaptations of video games, and then he'd get all these German investors to sink shit-tons (I mean shit-tons, really) of money into these productions and he'd hire some crazy-talented people to appear in these awful movies that usually had nearly nothing to do with whatever the source material happened to be and that generally (with one or two exceptions) have lost money at the box office. Which led to Boll gaining even more investors for his next project; the worse his last movie did, the more Germans lined up to invest in the next one... until, that is, Germany went and tightened up a bunch of their tax loopholes, at which point suddenly Uwe Boll couldn't even get a sandwich made, although he's had a string of straight-to-video releases the past few years. But the gist is this: Uwe Boll's entire film-making career is predicated on him being a shitty director and producer who could lose money for his investors.

BloodRayne, a movie about a half-naked vampire hunter and featuring some crazy-cool performers, is a long boring slog interrupted midway through by the single most tedious and un-erotic sex scene ever committed to film. Whereas some of Uwe Boll's movies are at least funny-bad, a special-edition DVD of BloodRayne ought to be released in a box with a melon-baller so you can scoop your own eyeballs out during the movie and somehow salvage the whole experience that way.

I think it's hard to write an already-too-long blog post about movies worse than Plan 9 without at least mentioning John Travolta's faith-based vanity project, Battlefield Earth. The only thing about that is, Battlefield Earth, as reviled as it is, isn't actually as bad as the last few movies I mentioned, and while it might be worse than Plan 9, I think I'd really have to put them on par with each other. Aside from the fact Earth had a lot more money dumped into it, and aside from the fact it actually made IMDb's worst-movies list, Earth and Plan 9 really have a lot in common: bad acting, awful dialogue, ludicrous scripts, campy aliens, bizarre plots, a great deal of presumably unintentional humor (Travolta probably didn't mean Battlefield Earth to be funny, but it's not impossible Ed Wood was winking at the audience to at least some degree with Plan 9). Contrary to what some people may have told you, Battlefield Earth is a thoroughly enjoyable film--if you're drunk and/or have a bunch of snarky friends to watch it with, and if you don't regret throwing away whatever money you spent on the rental or buying it from a bargain bin at Wal-Mart or Target or wherever. Any movie where the plot hinges on both the fact that the antagonistic aliens are basically allergic to the planet they invaded for whatever stupid reason and on the protagonist cavemen defeating the aliens by using the exact same technology and tactics that failed when deployed by their ancient ancestors can't be all bad: more like, it has to be so bad that it becomes good again, but not "good" in any of the usual senses of the word when it's used to mean, you know, "good".

I probably could go on. I never did get around to talking about Robot Monster, for instance. Assuming you're still with me, though: what's the best worst movie you've ever seen, and was it really that bad?

Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine"

2011-11-28T16:27:00.007-05:00

From a 1968 Belgian television program, here's the Floyd doing an anarchic version of "Astronomy Domine". My favorite things about the clip, actually: (1) Nick Mason's hat, which isn't anything nobody's seen before (he wore it a lot back then) but is a really cool hat until it magically disappears during a bad splice around the middle of the song; and (2) a wonderfully candid assessment from Roger about whether Pink Floyd is a commercial band:

Interviewer: Are you commercial or are you not commercial?

Roger: Um, I don't know--you tell me. You live here. If our records are selling, we're commercial.

Interviewer: I think you are not, not commercial.

Roger: So our records aren't selling here.

It was a rough time for the band, and they weren't selling records, or at least nowhere close to as many as they'd have liked. The band's practically-sole-songwriter, Syd Barrett, had just been fired or was being fired and the remaining band members, along with Barrett's replacement, David Gilmour, were trying to figure out how to fill the void with the songs Barrett had finished before losing his mind and write their own new material in his stead. Roger Waters and Richard Wright, particularly, would attempt to write singles (something Barrett had an aptitude for), but none of those 45s sold especially well and after "Point Me At The Sky" failed to chart, the band would all-but abandon singles and focus on album tracks.

The bad news about that decision was that this was still, really, the heyday of the single and by foregoing singles releases, the band was seriously limiting their exposure. The good news was that the decision was made during the nascent days of what would become the album-oriented rock radio format, and singles were about to become a little less important for promoting an act. It was also a good choice insofar as the only member of the band who had any real aptitude for dropping single cuts on short notice was Waters, but focusing on albums instead of singles freed the band up to compose tracks out of stage and studio jam sessions, ultimately leading to the "spacier", whole-side-of-the-LP songs and suites the band would become famous for in the '70s. (Indeed, an early problem for the band even in their singles days was cutting some of their longer freak-outs down to single-length for studio release. Deciding they weren't going to release singles that weren't going to sell anyway freed the band from having to make the same kinds of cuts for length.)

Now, about that hat, though. I mean, it has a feather and everything. It's a seriously cool hat, though I have to wonder if a man can really rock a hat like that without the shaggy hair and 'stash. It probably sounds like mocking when I go on like this about it, but I truly dig that hat. I wonder what happened to it. Does he still have it? Why doesn't it have a Facebook page? Could I make a Facebook page for it? Etc.

Somehow, I fear it's a young man's hat. A young man's or Sam Elliott's, but only because Sam Elliott was born to rock a hat (he was also born with a moustache and looking like weathered granite, I'm reasonably sure). I may well be too old to rock a hat like Nick Mason's hat; rocking a hat requires a certain kind of youthful conviction that you magically lose around, oh, probably twenty-eight, twenty-nine, somewhere around there. Men who aren't Sam Elliott can wear hats after that age--sure, they do it all the time, I've seen them, I'm not oblivious, but I don't think they rock them, I don't think you look at their hats and say, "Holy shit, now that is an awesome hat, my friend," when you see an older guy wearing a hat. You see a guy who's past his twenties wearing a hat, you ask him if it's cold outside. Unless, of course, he's obviously Jewish or Amish or something like that, then you just figure it's one of those "God" things that some people have to do, because, you know, The Lord just digs yarmulkes, I guess.

I used to wear a hat in college a lot, actually. It was a pretty awesome hat, a suede fedora and it went with a great duster I owned. Twenty-somethings are such pretentious asses, right? But it was a boss hat; not Nick Mason's hat, by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn't have a cool 'stash or anything like that, but I felt kind of cool wearing the ensemble, y'know? I cannot for the life of me remember for certain if there were feathers in my cap, but I think there were. Pretty sure there were, anyway. So I had this hat and I had this duster, but I think the hat died a miserable death somewhere along the line--nothing dramatic or catastrophic or memorable, you know, just the sort of gradual death things die when they're used every single day for years on end, a bit worn out here and faded thin there; same kind of thing with the duster, but I think there were actual holes in it by the time I'd knocked around in it for years and years; a nice coat, but less practical than it might have seemed: waterproof, yeah, but a little too heavy for cool weather and really too light for cold. But I like to tell myself I looked pretty awesome in it. It's not wholly inconceivable to me I may have rocked the look a little now and again, though of course I'd say that and you might want to ask somebody else (though I'd rather you didn't).

But if Nick Mason has any similar self-doubts, he can go to sleep at night knowing he rocked the hat.

The Real Tuesday Weld, "Me And Mr. Wolf"

2011-11-27T02:47:00.002-05:00

io9 was right, this is awesome: The Real Tuesday Weld and animators George Fort and Monica Smith have come up with the cutest, bloodiest, most demented music video I've seen in a while. "Me And Mr. Wolf":

In the spirit of hosts like the Crypt Keeper and Cousin Eerie, let me just add that I hope this single goes gold... silver wouldn't be good for their health.

Pimping my girlfriend...

2011-11-26T11:25:00.003-05:00

...'s blog. Sheesh. You people have to let me finish.

ScatterKat actually started the blog a couple of weeks back, but wanted me to wait for her to post again before I did the traditional friendly pimping of the blog. And I didn't really want to put her on the spot; I mean, I don't have an enormously wide readership or anything, but didn't necessarily want to subject her to a dozen people descending upon her new blog like pigeons on Tippi Hedren.

Sadly, her latest entry as of this writing relates to the recent death of a friend of hers. But go drop by, pay her a visit, say hello if you want. You'll find her over here.

As for my latest posting, I may come up with something more today or I may just drop in again tomorrow with another embedded vid or something. Lazy Thanksgiving weekend here in the states and all that; staying away from the stores like they're skeezy roadside motels run by Anthony Perkins' mom. Cheers.

George Winston, "Thanksgiving"

2011-11-25T12:29:00.002-05:00

Seems apt enough for the day after, still, no?

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-24T21:30:00.004-05:00

I've roasted ducks in Thanksgivings past, but this is the first year I've had company. I roasted a bird for ScatterKat; afterwards, we slow-danced to George Winston's version of Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here"; a little early, sure, but Guaraldi's Charlie Brown music is synonymous with the winter holidays (especially if you're a certain age), and that song was meant to be danced to.

This was the bird at various stages of its evolution prior to its eventual demolishment by nom. I was worried because, y'know, screwing up a bird for yourself is one thing, messing it up for the girlfriend is another. But I done good. It was a damn good eat.

It was a simple roast: the bird was stuffed with apple, pear and celery; the outside was rubbed with garlic, paprika, kosher salt and cracked pepper. I went for a slightly crispier skin this year (which was one of the things that made me nervous), and so poked some holes in the skin to let more of the fat run off. About a half hour cooking time per pound at 350 °F (oven preheated to 400 °F), so two-and-a-half hours; I was worried I'd overcooked it when the thermometer ran high when I pulled the bird out, but the meat was as moist as it ought to be.

None of which is important except insofar as I fed my woman, which is a biological imperative going back to when Thag One-Hand stuck a handful of fresh wildebeest into the tribe's open flame to impress Gah-Daughter-Of-Ug; about a week later, natch, Shkoo Under-Your-Nose won away Gah's heart by repeating Thag's one-time trick except with the radical innovation of using a pointy stick instead of his hand, but that's a different story (and has a tragic ending, as Thag One Hand shortly thereafter discovered The Heavy Rock That Causes Sleep-No-Wake, but I digress).

I have to confess, at the risk of disgusting my regulars, the best part of dinner was dancing to George Winston, a point I make only to say: love, as William Goldman once wrote, is the best thing in the world except for cough drops. Okay, I think I had some other thing I wanted to say that didn't involve cough drops and did involve dancing, but I'm having a bit of a hard time getting the words in the right order. Maybe you got the point already, or knew it before I tried to make it. Anyway, I'm thankful.

Ray Davies, "A Long Way From Home"

2011-11-23T16:11:00.002-05:00

Nothing else coming to mind at the moment, here's a clip of Ray Davies rendering a tender performance of one of my all-time-favorite Kinks songs on Austin City Limits: