the defeatists!

Alienation is a helluva drug

Last night I dreamt of you, Abbie Hoffman peddling your books, I gave five bucks to you, the other kids just gave you dirty looks.

 I said "I'm sorry it didn't work out quite the way you planned."

You said, "That's silly boy, the revolution is at
hand."

And if you got a ten spot brother, I got a dime,
These are desperate,
desperate times.

Last night I dreamt of you, Pepe Lopez strung out on a stage, It don't even look like you, smiling like sawed-off twenty gauge.
I still remember the
Telecaster down around your knees,
It's late November and I think I smell tequila on the
breeze.

And if you got the Cuervo honey, I got the lime,
These are desperate,
desperate times.
And if you got the shotgun honey, I got the crime,
These are
desperate, desperate times.--Rhett Miller

Crusader AXE has been too busy dealing with family issues to write or think or do anything really coherent of late. Mrs. AXE retired from Federal Service after 35 years of helping to make the state function, if not optimally, at least better than if she were not there. The afternoon of her last day, she got the diagnosis of colon cancer...so, by mid-month she was in the hospital for surgery, and there she remains. Friday will be three weeks...the words rehab facility were spoken last night. I am not exactly happy about this -- I have no complaints about the quality of her care for the most part, or the professionalism or kindness of the staff. I have concerns about the quantity of the staff...I think this is a problem nationwide, but probably more acute in Southern California because there are so goddamn many people... 

Things haven't gone well. They appear to be unable to actually get the bag to seal to Joyce's skin, which results in her constantly leaking. She remains in the hospital; her surgeon was there last evening and found himself helping try to get the illeostomy bag to work. They had had five iterations earlier, all failing. Which results in linking shit all over everything. On Tuesday,  I had had a brain fart when I left the Crossroads of Opportunity to go to the hostpital after getting home at 1130 Monday night  and had to stop in Target and buy her clothes to come home with. Well, that didn't work as planned...Had gotten her a stuffed animal for a comfort thing, and that got to come home tonight along with the socks she'd been wearing, all of it shit stained. Surgeon is confused since this is a "good stoma" since the hunk of intestine that's leaking into the bag is what he can do with what's available to him. For some reason, they can't seem to get the base of the bag to seal correctly with her skin, and as a result it leaks out the sides. Now, the surgeon does not want her coming home until they get this to the point where she has some faith in it, and the topic of nursing homes came up. I noticed that they do not seem to have a standard procedure, and are experimenting. They have 1 (ONE) colostomy nurse on staff and one brand of stuff with not all the possibilities covered. Anyway, the surgeon had them get some surgical adhesive from the emergency room -- if they can get that to work, and keep the base fully closed on the body, she'll be able to come home. If not, the word nursing home was used tonight. She would prefer that to having her small intestine leak all over her home, but she'd prefer to have the bag work and be able to come home. To finish healing, so she can go back in and have the ostomy reversed and go back to a normal set of solid waste disposal equipment.

I thought that I'm pretty much ok with this. After all, I'm a tough guy, it's not fun or easy, but I'm just lending moral support and helping her when I happen to be there. And, washing the stuffed big eyed Zebra she's got for company. I'm starting to come to grips with the fact that it's a lot harder on me than I thought. Just beat all the time. I go in there, help her get out of bed to use the commode and such stuff, and feel if not helpless at best incompetent. 

Did I mention that getting her to eat is hard? Today she had a hard boiled egg, a piece of toast, and two bottles of Boost Clinical Strength. Well, since whatever she eats is leaking out of her side all over her within an hour or two, she's probably not all that interested...So, at some point this will get resolved but I'm not feeling comfortable with how it's going. She's still in a lot of pain although a lot of it is from the irritation on her skin. They were using something as a binding agent that was largely alcohol. Great...the woman has inflamed skin caused by chemical burns and part of their solution is rubbing it with alcohol. Surgeon is getting incensed...wonder why? Shit. 

Medicine could stand to have some statistical process control and analysis. Got a call from a rep at one of three companies that manufacture and distribute colostomy supplies. There are drying agents, it turns out, that do not involve alcohol. If you have what are basically chemical burns over an area and they need to dry the skin to apply something, using an alcohol drying agent is a pretty bad idea. Unless you're trying to wring out a confession....the gal apologized for the hospital, saying that "a lot of times the product works first time but a lot of times it's a process of trial and error." Sure, let's look at new, non asbestos options for brake pads. Let's start with cheese....nothing is a better stopper than curdled milk products!" 

I've always been a fan of Tiberius Caesar, pre-Capri. I know that my friends IOZ and Captain Capitualtion probably prefer him at Capri, IOZ becuse of lifestyle appeal and Crispin because he just said screw government...but pre-Capri, he was kind of a Julian John Adams.  Grumpy old bastard following Augustus who just quietly went about making the state work. Would be welcome today -- I think that is where dictators come from, the inability of representative systems to work adequately. Or at all, over time. 

 

I don't care about gay marriage.  I'm not that concerned about using predator drones, Gitmo as we sweep up the ashes of the Bush administration, and so on.  I want the state to work. Jobs,food, schools, infrastructure...I want to turn the ignition on my car and not have the fucking thing blow up because there's no requirement to make a car that won't blow up when the car is started. I want to eat a cheeseburger assured that it's not made of horse or rancid meet. I want the ideal society of 1950s Eisenhower Republican America only with racial and gender equality. The curiously fucked up world that I was alienated by/against doesn't look bad at all as a baseline. 

Reading a book on my KIndle while visiting Mrs. AXE  called The Angry Buddhist. Involves California celebrity politics, dog murder, and various forms of madness. Poor protagonist is trying to use the Dharma to keep from ripping the head off a lot of people. It ultimately seems to have the theme that, well, make a list, motherfucker. And keep making it -- you'll never run out of vacuous, vicious and verminous assholes needing to have their heads ripped off. 

 One of my brothers sent out this note about Genesse Cream Ale going back to retro packaging. Upstate NY had some pretty good local beers. Utica Club, Genesse...Utica Club had talking Beer Steins in commercials when I was a kid -- Shultz and Dooley; Genny talked about the sparkling waters of Hemlock late. Far better than 'Gansett or, for that matter, Coors or Strohs. Of course, there had been the Haverly-Congress line, that I still recall a joke of my dad's after they closed down. He said that it happened because they sent a sample in to be tested in the State Lab regulating such stuff, and got an emergency call saying, "Shoot the horse, it's got diabetes..."Still remember the song for the singing beer mugs -- "Brew me no brew with artificial bubbles, those carbonated beers of today/Cause Utica Club'll still take the trouble to AGE BEER THE NATURAL WAY! Utica Club, UC!!"

 

Run Run Rudolph...or not

 

I generally hate Christmas music. Happy, happy, joy, joy -- elves, lollypops and sugarplums. . I am looking for a Bluegrass or Rock version of the Messiah. A goth or punk version would be fun.

 

Not that there aren't some great Christmas songs. A lot of them are in Latin or German, and reflect emotions other than "oh boy, oh boy, this is gonna be great!" They reflect a sense of yearning, hope and melancoly. If you're a believer, you realize the agony necessary for the promise of the Messiah to be fulfilled...and, if you're a realist, your recognize that the agony will go on far longer than the  Passion. If you tend toward the agno-anti-atheistic side of things, you can scoff, or appreciate the need for balence and forgiveness and hope in a future that remains dark and beyond a present tied to a past full of pain, disappointment and loneliness. We are spared despair by those moments of anticipation, fulfillment and hope, and I believe that the best Christmas songs capture all of that. Even though few were written in minor keys, they can be played that way...from Away in a Manger and Silent Night -- which I once got to hear in a 9th Century Catholic Church played on zither and guitar and sung by the children of Berchtesgarden, a somewhat haunting moment --to White Christmas and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. 

 Christmas is the Holiday that is most human. Perhaps since so much of it results from Christianity ripping off the various Solstace feasts and festivals; perhaps because it speaks not to the past in our western mythology but rather to the past living through and to a future, real or not; perhaps because it is child-centered regardless of the worst Church bureaucracy and commercialization have been able to do to it since the Milesian Bridge -- it is just that way. In China today, Christmas is celebrated as a lead-in to the Spring Festival, which starts in early January. The nicest Christmasy-Christmas I've spent in recent years was in Shanghai, where there was enough Christmas stuff around to not make me homesick, but it was weird enough in many ways to make me smile. The Chinese in Shanghai and I suspect other parts of China don't really get the whole realm of sacred versus profane thing. I saw this my first evening wandering around a Shanghai mall, where the anchor store, Carre-Foure, had a large number of displays with Santa, Reindeer, Angels, Cribs and Wisemen. All together -- with a tree and presents. Go figure. 

So what are my thoughts on the best contemporary Christmas stuff? 

 

 The Guardian had a piece with some of their critics favorite Christmas songs and Fairytale of New York came in 2nd on their poll; Planet Rock did one of their listeners and the Fairytale came in first. It's one of my favorite pieces of Celtic stuff, as well as of  Christmas songs. The reason that it didn't win the Guardian poll, by the way, was that one of the judges felt it wasn't really a Christmas song and it got zero points. Well, he's a fucking idiot. Yearning, past happiness, despair in the present and acceptance of a confusing future, forgiveness and redemption. If that isn't the best of what Christmas offers, then screw it. It should be.

 While I was screwing around last night, I found a new Shane McGowan and Popes compilation and they had this one. I thought it was almost as good as the Fairytale. It looses points in my estimation because it feels overproduced and it takes the Toora-Loora-Loora melody without a lot of modification. However, I think people like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan would have little problem with it, seeing the borrowing fo the tune as part of the folk process, and who am I to argue. (In case you're wondering why I cite Dylan, I recommend listening to Dominic Behan's The Soldier's Song and then to With God on Our Side; closer to home, listen to All I Really Wanna Do and then to Muddy Waters' I Just Want to Make Love to You --same song, same phrasing, different instrumentation, voicing and lyrics.) and, as with a lot of McGowan's material, the lyrics drive the train. The Pogues were a better band, and he needs someone like Kristi McCall or Sinead O'Connor of Delores O'Riordan singing harmony to make it perfect. But, it's close. Same emotions, stronger on the hope perhaps and on the acceptance than Fairy Tale. But in the same veing.

 

On a far more contemporary note, there's my young,  sort of little friend Sheri Miller. She hasn't recorded this one yet, and doesn't want me to publish her lyrics for it until she's got a polished version and video. I can understand that -- the version is I've posted is from several years ago, and Sheri is still evolving artistically. He most recent effort included a wider variety of musicians, including people like Steve Cropper. This is more of a straight folk, kinda Shawn Colvin kind of thing, and she's done a variety of stuff in her short career. She recently wrote something about Rock and Roll Landmarks, and I'm not sure where she went with that. Although she got a kick out of Keith Moon's antics in various LA hotels and the idea of Sun Studios and Stax in Memphis among my various recommendations. I wish I had thought to mention the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, by the way -- the hotel is on pilings over Elliot Bay, and supposedly John Lennon tried to fish out his bedroom window the first time the Beatles came through Seattle. Anyway,However, she's working on another album and says that this number, Merry Christmas...Jesus it's been a helluva year will be a great fit. While I'm looking forward to it, I think the rawness and starkness of this version combined with the lushness of her voice should be a performance classic in years to come. After this, musically, I can forgive her anything, even Spoons.

- 

 

Steve Earle has kind of a classic Chrismas protest song here, showing his Woodie Guthrie-Townes Van Zandt roots. I had a senior moment earlier, thinking that it had originally been titled Christmas in Taneytown, a city in Maryland between DC and Baltimore and Gettysburg. For some reason, I thought this might have had something to do with Larry McMurtry's book store that he owned before going back to Texas. Well, the song resounds even today, and adds Phil Ochs to the list of his antecedents. It also reminds me of some Guy Clark stuff and some Robert Earl Keen stuff. But, it is a Christmas song -- calling us to do, be and build something better.

 Speaking of Robert Earl Keen, it would be blasphemous for someone like me to not cite Merry Chrismas from the Family as a marvelous contemporary take on things.And then, there's the Jeff Foxworthy vision which I first heard on a Christmas in Germany, and have chuckled over at least once a year -- especially those years where I own a Mustang GT.

Thinking again of my Celtic roots, I thought of the Chieftains. This is one of their carols, with Nanci Griffith providing the vocal. They have a history of recording with interesting talents, and here is a more normal carol, but with Ricki Lee Jones providing the vocal. However, again, the minor key and the sense of resignation.

 

How can you think about Ricky Lee Jones without a nod to Tom Waits? I suppose it's really not that hard, but this is a fascinating little piece by a major artist who irritates and illuminates. And then irritates again -- I suspect he wouldn't want to have it any other way. Now, in mercy for the season, I'm using Neko Case's cover -- his voice is an acquired taste, where as her voice is insanely good. 

 

Finally, I thought of blues and R&B. As you probably know, Hubert Sumlin died recently and Etta James is dying -- and in the tradition of the music, friends paid for Hubert Sumlin's funeral and Etta James family is squabbling over her estate. Now, I heard this piece earlier this week on Little Stephen's Underground Garage at XM21. James Brown is definitely telling us to get a grip and a perspective -- particularly at this time of economic injustice and oppression. Still resonates, and I hate to say that, but I find that very sad indeed...

 

Here's Etta James take on the holiday --

 

Sumlin isn't really identified with any Christmas music; there is a school of thought that "Sittin On Top of the World" is kind of a Christmas song. That school is wrong. If that's a Chrismas song, I can make the case that St Valentine's Day is a Christmas song. And, Sumlin wasn't in Howlin Wolf's band when he cut "Sittin..." for Sun Records before going off to Chicago and Chess. However, the Drifters cut this piece, and it's definitely worth considering..

 

 

This is why we can't have nice things...

Seriously...

This is a Commie-Music and Food Blog you know...with some slacker and anarchist overtones

One of the loose collective of my friends -- The Defeatist-Malcontent-Anarchist Slacker Collective and Bait Shop -- a Vet who's trying to get his band going in upstate New York doing kind of boogie rock with metal overtones, spends time he should spend doing something like picking up bottles for the return fee on a Marshall Amp blog, and one of the folks on it posted something about a piece of software that my pal had not heard of. He tossed it out to the collective, and one of the guys explained that it is really kind of an auto-cad system that enables engineers, architechts, and marketing types to overlay everything and walk the customer through the whole bloody thing. He then commented that if he wanted to go back to working for somebody else, he's take some classes...and then realized what he just said. Commented that he hated his life, and went off to drink copiously in the pine woods of Maine. 

This made me realize something. The goal is not 3D confusion but infinite dimensional confusion. Then,
people can do things like compare the budget and expenditures of the United States with your family checkbook, and have people pay attention. This software then is part of the Koch agenda and goal for the brave new world where You can confuse the customer in multiple dimensions, including time, simultaneously! What is it? It's all of this. When will it be done? When it is done. What will it look like? Like all of this in layers. Why is this here? it's in the regulations. In France, it would have to be here, but we're not in France so it has to be there. Don't blame us, it's in the regulations. What is it going to cost? What it costs. Cost =f(X,L) where X is the "cost" and L is "a lot" and the relationship is undefined...either you add a lot or you multiple by a lot, but it's going to really cost a helluva lot.

So, I decided to hide in music for the rest of the day...Anybody besides me remember The American

Breed? 60s garage band that incorporated a trumpet in a lot of their fadeouts. Almost recruited a chick trumpet player for my non-existent but brilliantly conceived garage-punk-blues-rock band...The Barstow Bad News Blues Band. However, she can't sing and only knows how to play marches. Wouldn't really help get a unique sound. Have been thinking about substituting kazoo for the trumpet if we do a cover version of their hit, though?

 

Looking for the one thing led to a lot of others. Here's some other garage-type stuff from my youth...For example, the Knickerbochers.  Guys were from Yonkers, or someplace else in the neighborhood,  but everybody thought they were either the Beatles or from Liverpool. Yeah...Liverpool, outside Syracuse, home of Heides Hotdogs...

The Beau Brummels were an interesting group. With that name, in the 60s, they should have been dressed in electric suits (really electric, plugged in like Christmas trees) but I guess they just liked the name. Pretty good song...

The Zombies had an interesting kind of vibe and were a talented band. Sort of stuff the Moody Blues originally did before they discovered psychedelia...and flutes.

Here are the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page supposedly playing the Beck riff because he was off being "brilliant" some place. I hate Jeff Beck, although I think his current bass player is hot. Actually, seeing her with that geezer is something I find scarey... I also think this was lip synching. Here's the   Original with Beck --and, I don't hear the difference. To complete the circle of jerks and egos at the time, here's one their first lead guitarist, What's his name, Dick Crampton or something...I read something recently that said that the Minor Pentomic Blues Scale was what differentiated the three of them. Beck rarely uses it; Page was sloppy with it; Clapton precise and thorough. Yeah...sure.

Now, We Five was an interesting group -- kind of folky, with a big voiced lead singer named Beverly. Who had a helluva voice...since by then the folk voices for women were the amazing altos of Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell, not too surprising that they got lost in the dust. Kind of a shame -- she's dancing, shaking and jiving on stage like she might mean it, in a nice Christian California girl way. 

Syndicate of Sound -- A classic song, but what a waste of two Rickenbackers including a George Harrison 12. Couple of Japanese Squier knockoffs from Kresge's before it was K-Mart would have done the trick for that rif.  Saw these guys in 66, one of the opening acts for the Stones.

Finish up this nostalgia with two organ songs...despite the legend, not  Augie March on both of them.  She's About a Mover  was Doug Sahm, Augie and some other guys. Flip side was his attempt at being part of the summer of love, which I think was horrible. MENDI-cino. MENDI-cino. Mover was a helluva number though...\ Then, of course, there's that great American Band, ? and the Mysterians.

There is nothing about these numbers that doesn't say the yearning of teenage sex, Budwieser and cold duck on a Friday nite after the dance in the gym...who wouldn't like that, again?...

That should ruin the weekend for those of you with daughters!

 

Womba the fool and Homey the clown led by Til Eulenspiegel save the day

As a counter to the GOP’s inquisition of climate scientists, let us remember that in the last year or so, UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller re-examined all the temperature data from the NOAA, East Anglia Hadley Climate Research Unit, and the Goddard Institute of Space Science sources. Even though Muller started out as a skeptic of the temperature data, and he was funded by the Koch brothers and other oil company sources, he carefully checked and re-checked the research himself. When the GOP leaders called him to testify before the House Science and Technology Committee last spring, they were expecting him to discredit the temperature data showed real change. Instead, Muller shocked his GOP sponsors by demonstrating his scientific integrity and telling truth to power: the temperature increase was real, and the scientists who had demonstrated climate was changing were right.9

This is the essence of the scientific method at its best. There may be biases in our perceptions, and we may want to find data that fits our preconceptions about the world, but if science is done properly, we get a real answer, often one we did not expect. That’s the true test of when science is giving us a reality check: when it tells us something we do not want to hear, but is inescapable if one follows the scientific method and analyzes the data honestly.

Thomas Henry Huxley said it best over 150 years ago: “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.”--Donald Prothero, Professor of Geology, Occidental College and Cal-Tech

This month's edition of E-Skeptic has a great article by Dr. Prothero about the interseces of faith, politics and science, and based on his discussion I'm kind of convinced that we have a fascinating problem -- when the three collide, bet against whichever has the greatest value and truth. In the article, Denialist Demagogues and the Threat to Science, Prothero makes the point repeatedly, that there are whores amongst us who will sell out as well as dupes and those unwilling to accept science and the scientific method. Rick Perry has famously commented that four semesters of biochemistry made a pilot out of him; thing is, even that "misunderestimates" his level of ignorance. It's not that the man is stupid -- he is willfully ignorant. This seems to be par for the course for the right this cycle, and probably should be on the minds of most of us. When confronted by facts, theories, hyposthesis, evidence that they do not disagree, they proclaim along with the choirs of angels and saints that it's a mystery and the Lord will provide. Since I know more than a few conservative atheists,for whom this seems disingenuous they proclaim a conspiracy which then, on examination, turns out to be a combination of right wing PR combined with whoreish behavior by a few and eye on the prize hypocrisy by others combined with a degree of malign, self-serving calculation.

Professor Prothero cites  Paul Krugman on what the current reality is and where the stakes lie. It is worth considering..."But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."

Now, I am a middle-aged white, anti-theist man without children who doesn't have severe upper respiratory symptoms. I don't expect to live long enough to really suffer from client change. The only dog I have in this fight is that nurtured by my being a member of society and having a sense of ethical responsibility to my neighbors and to those who will come after me. For people who know better to blur the lines on this issue, and so many others, proves that not all self-interest is enlightened and that greed and ignorance can trump science and good will...if we let it. Now, Jefferson felt that the need for a free press to ensure an informed electorate and thus gain a reasonable chance to get the best results from a democratically elected college was critical. The press today is not free -- it costs a lot of money and as a result, since the cost of production outweighs by far the profit from the sales of copies and on-line subscriptions, whether it's Gannett, McClatchey, Murdoch or the Schulzbergers have to be concerned about not pissing off their alien overlords, the people who buy the advertising. Since the press includes TV, radio and blogs it gets even more complicated. Rachel Maddow, for example, had a mutually respectful and and rational conversation with two of McCain's key staffers, Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace about a controversial topic -- the Palinator. However, the Maddow show is a rare exception. (Frankly, I'm amazed that people like Huntsman,Wallace and Schmidt are still Republicans. It's like people in Italy being tied to Soccer teams from birth...) People yell at each other, and only those able to outscream the other can be heard. You can decide who is actually speaking what they think based on some sort of objective reality as opposed to fantasy, greed or calculation by how quizzical and bemused their expression and the calmer their response, until they get frustrated and then either get funny or furious. Or both...If you can continue to not be overwhelmed by these bozos, you can be heard, but it can be hard. It seems to me at times that despite the best efforts of informed journalists, principled academics and commentators, and excellent thinkers who strive to be heard, our fate depends on the Till Eulenspeigel's amongst us. That's probably not the worst defender, but when satire is all that stands between the polity and the deranged, insane and barbaric things can get dicey quickly.

It would be nice if it was just hard science. It's not. Economics, foreign policy, and so on -- doesn't matter. A rational person's response to this really can only be "Are you fucking insane or are you fucking kidding me!" Or both...doesn't matter. Budgets are not just about spending, they're about what we plan to do with our country, not our money. Or your money...what do you have to pay to be part of the country after we figure out what it needs to be is a totally different question. Either money for the rich or schools, culture, infrastructure, national defense, keeping promises -- you know, all those things that the Founders expected would happen as the union became more perfect. Instead, we have Rand Paul coming out in favor of letting pipelines explode; he's already come out in favor of lets methane do it's things and kill coal miners. Boehner and Kantor et al are starting to bear a striking resemblance to Ozimandias prior to the statuary phase of that Republican leaders's career. If I hear another right wing clown say that we need to reduce taxes and cut spending to reduce the deficit and not leave our children a mountain of debt, I think we take them on a tour of places where nobody bothered to do the right thing because it was politically expedient or violated their totalitarian faith -- in Marx, or Hitler, or Caesar. We can leave your children -- remember, I'm in this for the laughs -- a reasonable debt and a functioning commonwealth, or we can leave them...Zimbabwe.

Oddly, let's let Percy Bysshe Shelley have the last word.

 I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Amen, brother.

Angst is for Leonard Cohen.

Why do we bother to establish things like Halls of Fame and lists? Is there a human gene that requires rank ordering things that really are unique? The best hamburger? The best muscle car? The uniquest unique thing of all? 

As soon as you start this process, you're trying to rationalize your own likes and dislikes. There are things that can be quantified and rationally explained. Sports Halls of Fame are an example here as are things like the Triple Crown in Baseball. You win the triple crown if you lead the league in average, home runs and runs batted in. There's also a pitcher's Triple Crown, and it happens more often than the batter's, but not that often. It's quantitative -- also, meaningless. The most dominant players in the history of baseball don't show up very often; you have a really good year. So what?  

The folks at Gibson have once again compiled a list , this time of the top 50 American Bands. Well, great. It's a fun exercise, and produced some interesting fan comments, mainly along the lines of "what the hell were you thinking when?..." I agree with many of the Bands being on the list, scratch my head at some others, and wonder what was driving the rankings? I think they probably had pigeon races. Three legged pigeon races...I can agree with number 1...Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. If you've been awake since 1976, it's hard to skip that one. Then it gets into trouble...

I have two major complaints -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is ranked at number 24. Bands outranking them include such exceptional organizations as Sly and the Family Stone, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Buddy Holly and the Crickets and The Ramones. What the hell is that all about -- Eddy Veder has done guest turns with Petty. The Ramones covered a Heartbreakers cover of a Searcher's song. Hell, Veder has just released an album of ukelele music. What the hell? I think that being ripped off by Ronald Reagan and Michelle Bachman and John McCain should result in at least a ten place bump in the standings. 

My second gripe is the failure to remember the bands in the 60s that made Rock and Roll. The Beach Boys get a mention and that's great, at Number Nine. Of course, they stopped being a great band about the time of the Manson Family Circus, but they continued on. How about, and this is crazy on it's surface, but "The Monkees?" The Grassroots? The Boxtops? Jay and the Americans? Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? What the hell were they thinking?

And of course, Paul Revere and the Raiders. There is a strong movement among Rock Cognoscenti -- Steven Van Zandt and gang at Wicked Cool Records and Underground Garage as well as others including Tom Petty -- to question why these guys aren't in the Hall of Fame. I think they weren't pretentious enough. They had costumes, and appear to have really enjoyed performing and to continue to do so. Seriously watch a Boston video and see if you think they're having fun...and then watch something from those guys. No great banks of amps with special effects and electronics...a bunch of Fender Amps and guitars, some silly uniforms and a lot of smiling and goofing around.  The band has been around in a variety of incarnations, but Paul Revere and the other players have been constants. There's a new drummer and vocalist. I think that a lot of bands went south when they decided to become "featuring" someone. There's a famous story about the Stones where Jagger decided to refer to Charlie Watts as "his drummer." Watts proceeded to knock him on his ass, and threatened to keep doing it. Personalities are important -- but when someone makes the band about them, there are problems. Charlie realized that. Seriously, were the Animals really any good after they got pretentious and Eric Burdon got top billing? Were Dianna Ross and the Supremes better than The Supremes? When Paul Revere and the Raiders became a "featuring" band with Mark Lindsay, things went south. But, it appears in seperate incarnations, they're all still having fun. 

Ultimately, that's what rock and roll is about. Van Zandt talks a lot about the difference between the art form of "Rock" with it's self-indulgent, navel staring quality versus rock and roll. He appreciates both, but has a marked preference for" getting your emotions and feelings delivered in three minutes or less..." It's supposed to be fun. Angst is for Leonard Cohen. 

Update. I hit publish on this thing, and went to take a shower. While I was in there, I thought of some other omissions -- The Band, for example. The Doobie Brothers. Where's Booker T and the MGs...the Funk Brothers? The Muddy Waters Band is one example; the Junior Wells Band with Buddy Guy. Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Ike Turner and the Rhythm Kings, or Ike and Tina...Buck Owens and the Buckaroos...Any list is doomed, unless it's a telephone book.

Went from being an art student to writing songs...some you don't want to hear

Ray Davies is still alive and kicking. Which is kind of fun, given that he's been shot in New Orleans pre-Katrina and has a hate-love-hate relationship with Dave Davies and probably with himself. However, at 66 he's running a festival in England with people like Sonic, Nick Lowe and Madness. Interesting, opinionated and an underappreciated genius..and, I get to read about him in the Wall Street Journal. What the hell is that about...I found this interview comment especially telling. 

Many of your songs are about everyday people. Have you observed anything lately that might be a lyric in waiting?

Mr. Davies: Just the joy of seeing people in these troubled times who are basically just getting on with their lives. I was in the studio today. It's in a real down, blue-collar area. Over the road there's a Pakistani shop that's been there for eight years, or it's the Turkish café. The neighborhood is still struggling, and that's what I like to celebrate in my songs, the act of living. The characters. Everyone's got a soundtrack. Some you don't want to hear.

I find that telling because I keep wondering why and how we're all going to survive our current economic and cultural cesspool. There are bacteria that thrive in slime and gunk and dark, and there are humans who do the same. And, yet, there are still people who hope and watch and live.

I had to run some errands, and stopped at the grocery store. Saw a guy I've met before, who is now reduced to begging, sitting on the curb with a everything he owns because the mission has exhausted its space long since -- he used to work detailing cars but the GM dealership closed down. I gave him $20 and wished him better days. That's Davies, I think -- giving us music instead of a handout and wishing better days for us all, because the act of living entitles us to that. 

 

Realizations arise...

When I contemplate mortality, and I accept that mine is rapidly approaching, I often think back to a really awful movie, The Hunger with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie. A soft porn, kinda lesbo porno vampire flick, Bowie plays a totally unredeemable character who suddenly discovers that the idea of eternal life sold him by Deneuve is really not going to turn out the way he thought she meant. There are some nice touches throughout the film, of course. That's not the problem...it's just unredeemably sad. 

Kind of like the Anthony Wiener thing...like Bowie in that filem, did he not realize that power and glamour were kind of incomplete promises?

So, when I saw this trailer, I was surprised. I think it's very cool, by the way. And, ultimately, I feel old. I'm looking forward to the film, and it makes me aware of how age trips up on you. I saw something this week that reminded me that Sergeant Pepper came out 44 years ago. I was 16, and I saw it in a Woolworth's window while waiting for a bus to go up to my first real job. Bought it on the way home...and, frankly, still not sure why it's "The Greatest ALBUM OF ALL TIME..." Anyway, here is the trailer to the last Harry Potter film. Enjoy...

 

murder now the path called "must we"

Oh Capn, My Capn

American Power is not a mythical tale.  it's not a story.  it's not a transformational capability or capacity. it's not freedom.  it's not a beacon of hope in this world.  it is fucking ordnance.  

how many multiples of 10 is Obama worse than WBush?  I'd like to know.  WBush wore the cloak of Myth that is American Power like a ten dollar suit; it did not fit him and he just looked bad in it.  yes this is to accept that such a thing does fit a human being, but no this does not justify it.  Obama is the full silk Italian suit, and he's pissed if it doesn't look good on him.  people complained that WBush was a crony, that he was somehow a false leader, because he was just working for his pals at Halliburton and Enron, his daddy, the Saudis, etc. et al. ad. inf.  look at the language that was put forth: WBush abused, misused and made a mockery of the power bestowed upon him.  he wasn't cut for the throne, he was a hack, a C student at best who was a failed businessman that rode his family's coattails wherever they would take him.  WBush was callous,  a former drunk.  he was a rank amateur dressed up in big people garb playing a big person part.  well what's worse, that, or someone that fully believes in the rightness and necessity of American Power?  someone that rightly fills the part?  WBush used the power for his own devices, his own wars, his own debauchery, for his own constituency and his own people.

CHANGE.  

Obama uses American Power because it is American Power.  he doesn't need a reason, an excuse, because there is no justification for it, and that's all a Dear Leader needs to know.  he's the worst - and by that I mean the biggest - purveyor of the falsehood that is American Power.  I'll take the former WBush over the L-D Obama any day.  when you embarrassed WBush, he looked a fool.  when you took a peek under the cloak, he'd hide and grin sheepishly, covering his nuts with his scrawny, chicken-shit hands.  Obama on the other hand gets pissed off and comes back at you for revealing his naked self.  Obama is a worse purveyor of the mythology and singular teleology that is American Power and Primacy in this world, because he's a wholesale believer in it, and because he was popularly elected by a bunch of folks that want to believe in it, and that do believe in it.  he's no skeptic of American Power.  neither are his supporters.  neither was WBush.  but Obama is a worse leader because he wholeheartedly believes his own bullshit.  WBush just thought it was a joke, like everything else: it was just a job, the best job he could get given his background, connections, and talents.

it's like your view of belief, Capn: 

'Belief is, at its core, an emotional commitment to some claim or view.'

we have all this ordnance, now we must rationalize its very existence. we must now create the arguments for its existence, and its continued existence.  hence the President and his Speechifying.  

but it's just ordnance.    

America may have saved those poor fucks (flaps arms) in that Libyan town that day, but honestly, America has only deflected the violence into other forms, and in other directions.  people that want to kill each other want to kill each other.    

what America is doing in that region in the first place, is all you need to know about American Intention.      

 

 

Official Defeatist Stuff and People and Things...

After accepting Tiffany as the official Defeatist Goddess, and Cthulhu as our offical Defeatis presidential/gubantatorial/senatorial/school board nominee, we began to fill out our pantheon. Crispin Sartwell, Hipster and Amish Farmer wannabe is the official prophet...

There was Cairo the Offical Defeatist Wonder Dog.

Then there was Fleshy, the Offical Defeatist Cat.

Pearls Before Swine, the Official Defeatist comic strip.

Julia, the official Defeatist Baby...

And now, Bob the Squirrel, the official Defeatist Squirrel.

Of course, Melissa remains the offical Defeatist Troll...