the defeatists!

Instead of throwing it at the counterman, they should have given it to the demon...

Again, it's confusing. Not many a lesser demon appears from the fiery depths of hell with a penchant for human food. You'll usually find a hell-beast hell bent on devouring souls. Or babies. Or baby souls. Rarely do you find one who wants sandwiches. And when you do, if you're in Washington D.C. to protest taxation (is that why they're here?), well then for some reason the sandwichery strikes a menacing chord.

Well, the demon found the teaparty people he met fairly generous, getting so many sandwiches he fed a bunch of them to ducks. He did not get his ass whipped, although there were some people who discussed it with him. He appears to be David Cross, comedian and cast as a possible homosexual opposite Portia de Rossi in Arrested Development.

At the same time, there was a case of exploitative violence at the George Washington University Deli. Yokels in Tea Bagger regalia supposedly came in, got incensed that the District was going to tax the paper bags that they wanted the sandwiches in, and got so angry one of these fine Americans threw the sandwich in the face of the kid behind the counter...who was probably a student trying to pay the incredibly overpriced tuition and costs associated with going to school in DC, so he can get a good job and live the American dream...which does not include dealing with outoftown assholes. And, the kid was probably from Wyoming or some other goddamn place. If they'd thrown the sandwich at Marion Barry, that might have made sense, cosmicly.

Through prayer and good dentition my teeth grew back...

Waiting here for everyman...although I'm wondering why not the 90s version...

This is something I'm looking forward to...

About the time of Born in the USA, I kinda lost most of my interest in Bruce Springsteen. The period where he was wandering around, trying different things really resulted in lost interest on my part. The Bruce steroids-Nautilus thing kind of pissed me off. Not sure why...a lot of his performances now are still better than most of the ones you're going to find other places, but the old Bruuuuucccceee mania is not there. I feel the way about a lot of groups that were wonderful and are now just better than the rest but can't quite show the magic.

So, when the Times announced that on November 16, a stack of material related to the Darkness at the Edge of Town album is going to be released, the AXE gets very excited. The Hobbits for some reason have turned off the link toy here, so the Times piece is at http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/back-to-the-badlands-springsteen-finds-more-music-on-edge-of-town/?ref=arts...and, I know what I'm going to do that day or about two weeks prior when I'll be on the Bruce Springsteen Live Nation Page pre-ordering the set with a re-mastered original, two additional CDs of material that didn't make it into the album, and three DVDs. Pre-order, and celebrate...along with a live DVD concert in Houston from 1978. When Bruce was a skinny kid guitarslinger with an incredibly tight band of rock and roll vagrants, a Telecaster, alot of attitude and a tremendous energy that made rock and roll possible, again...

Things get better before they get worse...

Seriously , Atticus Finch /Atticus Flinch? Dulcinea Dowd is really stretching the Dorothy Parker thing. However, she's still incisive and rapier-witted, as well as Irish and lovely. 

The president who is always talking about wanting to be perfectly clear is ever more opaque. The One, who owes his presidency to the intense feeling he stirred up, turns out to be a practical guy who can’t deal with intense feeling.

He ran as a man apart — Joe Biden was enlisted to folksy him up — and now he must deal with the fact that many see him as a man apart.

Too lofty to pay heed to the daily bump and grind of politics, Obama has failed to present himself as someone with the common touch. And to the extent that people don’t know him or don’t get him, he becomes easier to demonize.

Obama is the victim of the elevated expectations he so skillfully created in 2008.

He came as a redeemer and then — tied up in W.’s Gordian knots, dragged down by an economy leeched by wars and Wall Street charlatans — didn’t redeem. And nothing bums out a nation that blows with the wind like a self-appointed messiah who disappoints.

If we’re not the ones we’ve been waiting for, who are we?

I think the problem Obama faces is the problem of the ironic. He's the guy who sees the absurdity, and refused to act like it's OK to be stupid or to pander. No Bush drumming and dancing day for him -- no Indian feathered bonnet or cowboy hat. He's a skinny black guy from Chicago by way of Hawaii, Indonesia, Columbia and Harvard Law. He knows that he looks stupid with hats and he's willing to be funny, but not stupid. No fish-throwing in Seattle on his recent visit; he was in Pike Place market, but no salmon sailing for him.

The turkey pardoning last Thanksgiving said it all. He knew that it was silly, but he also knew he was supposed to do it. So, "some days you change the world, some days you pardon a turkey." At least, he hasn't pardoned a turkey like Scooter Libby yet. 

Dulcinea does miss the point, wondering  is so terribly misunderstood. There is a background level of racism that flows in this country -- and probably every ethnically divided country because, as Kristofferson put it 39 years ago, "Everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on/Who they can feel better than at any time they choose/Someone doin' something dirty decent folk can frown on/If you can't find nobody else, help yourself to me."

Well, In the case of this administration, their effort to impose rationality on the bread and circuses of this late Republic has made them the someone decent folk can frown on. They have already got it coming to them because they're black. And, he's got a funny name. And, his kids are smarter than most of our kids. And, their dog is hypo-allergenic. And, and, and...did I mention he's a Muslim?

Yeah. He got bitchslapped two years ago because he was attending a mainstream Black Church. I've listened to Reverend Wrights sermons, and read a few and he's as traditional as Billy Graham or Martin Luther King in his style of homiletics. He has a different perspective, but he's as Christian as they come. There is no difference between his message and that...

BLACK MAN:
And now... This weeks sermon is from our Beloved Reverend Cleophus James!
REV. BROWN:

And now people. And now people. When I woke up this morning I heard a disturbing sound. I said, when I woke up this mornin' I heard a disturbing sound! What I heard was a jingle-jangle of a thousand lost souls! I'm talkin' about the souls of mortal men and women, that departed from this life. Wait a minute! Though the lord take the souls, without them seein' 'em on the earth, seekin' the fine light! They will not find! Because it is too late!! Too late!! Yeah! Too late to find the light, they chose not to follow! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Don't be lost when the time comes! Dont be lost when the time comes! For the day of the lord cometh, as a thief in the night! AMEN! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Well Well Well!!

Somehow, the Christian who was slapped for listening to someone influenced by Liberation Theology and Martin Luther King has morphed into Obama the Muslim. Yeah. Franklin Graham, who bears more resemblance to Billy Sunday than Billy Graham, babbles some lunacy about Obama is a Muslim because his father was a Muslim because the religion passes through the male line, like Judaism passes through the female line. He then went outside, got upbehind the whore of Babylon and roade off on the beast with many heads leading the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...only instead of Famine, Pestilence, War and Death they're Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Rudolph. My father was a Republican -- does that mean I'm doomed to wear sansabelt style pants up around my armpits and vote for idiots?

President Obama is obviously not a Roman Dictator, yet in a way he reminds me of Caesar. We forget, because it doesn't fit our concept of the man or the times or the mores to steal a line from Cicero --O Tempora! O Mores!" -- but Caesar didn't want to kill people or take power to just take power. He wanted power so he could do things, so he could fix the shit that was all fucked up by the failure of the late Republic to function because of faction, greed, the influence of mystery cults and the disenfranchisement of the Roman people. Nothing worked...He didn't want to kill Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Pompey or Cato -- he wanted to be in charge but wanted to work together to find bi-partisan solutions. He wept at the deaths of Pompey and Cato. Ptolomey's first mistake was letting his eunuchs plan the murder of Pompey; his second was giving Caesar Pompey's head. Ultimately, of course, it worked out so well for him... 

We are blessed with a president who can think coherently, who can think in complete sentences and paragraphs, who can do the math. We are also blessed with a Democratic Republican form of government that protects the rights of the minority. We have recreated a structure that depends on people working in good faith to solve problems. Not for ambition, but for the common good. We're fucked.

Nothing there at all...

You know, about fifty seven years ago , a cold and sick man in the back seat of a Cadillac died; the driver, who was trying to  get the star to a New Year's Day show didn't realize his boss was dead until he stopped in a small town in West Virginia.  And yet, people are still affected by this-- At the time, he was bigger than Elvis would have been without television. His wife, Ms. Audrey was his Colonel Parker; his Lisa Marie did get dragged around as a sort of sacred totem or death mask by people like Webb Pierce and Little Jimmy Dickens until he found his own way. His grandson plays either speed metal or authentic hillbilly music. 

 Could you tell us, please, at which gas station Hank Williams was found dead?

The counter clerk didn’t know, which surprised me. After all, if you Google “Oak Hill Hank Williams,” you get a lot of hits. She asked a man who’d come in to buy cigarettes, but he wasn’t sure, either. A conversation developed. Finally, a woman came in who did know. Down the street, she said. Just across from the church.

She walked outside with us to point out the right direction. “Used to be Burdette’s Pure Oil,” she said. “You can’t miss it. There’s nothing there now. Nothing at all.”

Well, there are lots of concrete slabs lost out there on various lost highways. The universe had used him up, and he died of alcoholism, exhaustion, heart failure...loneliness and pain. Everybody who's strummed a dreadnought style guitar and tried to think country has played one or two of his songs, or at least thought about it.

Now, Rock and Roll has its own death cults and questions...How'd Jim Morrison really die? Was Brian Jones murdered? What was Sam Cooke doing with a hooker in a cheap hotel? Who killed Bobby Fuller ? We know how Hank and Elvis went...the universe had used them up and it was time. Hank at least died on the road, with the sad dignity of greatness and sad charm of a destructive drunk

...The Great Annual Southern Gothic Necrophilia Festival in Memphis has just winded down. People wander through the damn faux plantation all the while; in Montgomey , occasionally someone will bring a bottle of JW Dance whiskey or One-W Harper and pour some onto a grave.

I honestly think that without Hank Williams, rock and country lyrics would still be all about love and dove, June and moon, lost and tossed in the night. And, there is a place for that...but Hank Williams made it ok to think when writing lyrics, and to use a 12 bar blues progression in a country song.

If I were ever to start another band, and I probably won't, we'd have to do a lot of Hank Williams stuff and wear Nudie Suits, and have steel guitars, fiddle and a standup bass...

So, lots of people in Memphis in August; not a lot in Oak Hill, West Virginia in December. But there is a link between them...I'm pretty sure Elvis' momma and old Vernon liked to hear Elvis sing one of Hank's songs while the family sipped lemonade and thought about Mississippi...

Alex Rodriguez versus Hank Aaron

In addition to the pressures that Aaron faced in crashing a racial barrier as a black man chasing a white icon, he was also plagued by sciatic nerve problems, said Dusty Baker, but had the ability to “think away the pain and to condition himself like no other baseball player of his time.”

Baker, the Cincinnati Reds’ manager, was a protégé of Aaron’s and was in the Atlanta Braves’ on-deck circle when Aaron hit No. 715 off the Dodgers’ Al Downing in 1974. “Ralph Garr and I went to work out with Hank during the off-season, and we thought that meant playing a little basketball,” he said. “We saw him run, run, run with that medicine ball, play racquetball and tennis, eat his meals at the same time every day. “And then, nobody had concentration like he did, sitting there in the dugout, looking at the pitcher through the little hole in his cap to focus on the release point. Never saw anyone do that before Hank.”

Ever have sciatic nerve issues? Crusader AXE did...I used hypnosis to get through the pain. When it was acting up, legs just stopped working. How the hell do you play baseball like that?

Why am I even thinking about this? Baseball appeals in part because although the players are better conditioned and trained than ever before, they still look like normal human beings. Guys like Jamie Moyer are fascinating -- he's what, 75 and uses a walker to get to the mound every five days and throw 7 innings of quality ball? On a diet of milk, wheaties, and cookies? Then there are existential tragedies like Ken Griffey -- by being arguably the best player of his time while stuck on the concrete nightmare of the Kingdom, he sacrificed being statistically the best player of his time. The list of injuries just kept growing, to where he began to look like a one man emergency room. His departure from the Mariners this year was just sad...no bat speed, which means no legs. This from the guy who put the Mariners on the map by going from First to Home to win in 95. The Mariners exist in Seattle today as opposed to Tulsa or some goddamn place because of Ken Griffey Junior.

OK, then there's Alex Rodriguez . The smarmy Eddie Haskell of shortstops at Seattle and Texas, he morphed into EGOMAN by joining the Yankees, and despite throwing up great numbers, has been kind of a mystery. Well, actually not so much a mystery as a lone eagle. He's irritating -- Madonna? Really? Who's next, Miley Cyrus? Lady GAGA? How about an orgy with Lady GAGA, Elizabeth Hasselback, Candy Crowley and LeBron James, along with a manatee, on South Beach. Alex really should be playing for the Nets as far as the Zeitgeist goes...and then there's the whole steroids thing. 

The whole steroids thing. I think the easiest way to decide whether or not Bonds, Sosa, McGuire et al should be eligible for the Hall is simple...take a look at their stats before and after they started using performance enhancing drugs. For example, Barry Bonds was a great player with Pittsburgh and he was whippet thing and rangy. When he went bizzaro with his stats, so did his size...including his headsize. Seriously, the size of the skull does not increase with physical conditioning, especially for grown men who suddenly turn into Mr Universe clones in their 30s. Bonds would probably be a first or second year electee. McGuire, Sosa, Palmero -- probably not so much; before juice, Big Mac was on his way out, done at 30. Sosa had damn near no power until he found chemistry. Palmero was a doubles hitter who morphed via juice to being consistent home run guy. Roger Clemens, first year before we realized he juiced; second or third year now. Alex -- probably will deserve a first time selection. The HOF voters will reflect the fans, and penalize these guys and perhaps they should.

The lack of hype about Alex's 600 home run shows how silly this has become, makes the physical breakdown of Ken Griffey sadder, since Junior is known to have played clean during his best years...but really highlights Hank Aaron's accomplishment. In small market teams, during the death throes of Jim Crow, Aaron spent close to 30 years including his brief period in the Negro Leagues getting up, going to park and performing at the highest possible level. He was doing what he loved and getting paid for it -- he played extraordinarily well, and when he was done, he continued to live and perform as a man, baseball executive and human being at the highest level. Playing for small market teams -- Milwaukee in both leagues, Atlanta -- he didn't get the attention that Willie, Micky and the Duke got. Shame he didn't play for Boston, or Philadelphia or LA. But, he fit in where he played -- normal guy, getting up and going to the park, making a good living in small town America. Alex will probably pass him, barring injury...who cares about Bonds final numbers? Alex may pass Bonds numbers too -- but, for dignity, class, worth and honor, Hank Aaron remains at the top of the heap. Where he belongs.

Interesting and offpissing simultaneously...Oh death where is thy sting-a-ling, ding ding!

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.
Epictetus 

Too many people I know are sick or dying from various natural causes -- cancer, car accidents, suicide. As you get older, you begin to notice that if you were properly located, you could go to a lot of funerals. This gets old rapidly, by the way.

Now, I've been having problems sleeping and at 3AM this morning, Crusader AXE took two Tylenol PM and picked up a copy of Epictetus' Handbook. Epictetus is one of the great Stoic teachers, and some folks have called him --without irony -- the father of the self-help book. He didn't write anything down, but one of his students left us transcriptions and notes, as well as the handbook, which is kind of a Cliff Notes for 97AD. The new edition is actually quite readable, and took me about an hour to read. Epictetus had a large number of students, including a young guy named Marcus Aurelius who was then adopted by the Emperor and ultimately got to have his notes inspire a lot of other people. 

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.
Epictetus

Epictetus basically says that the route to happiness begins with understanding what you can control and what you can't control. It does no good to worry about what you can't control, or fret, or feel guilty. You can control yourself -- you can practice virtues that will assist you in dealing with the on charging reality. You can't change the reality, but you can change the way you interact with it. Ultimately, you control what you are by what you think. Worrying or whining doesn't help, so don't fucking do it. 

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are. -- Epictetus

OK, I doubt that the AXE musings on death and bullshit will ever inspire anyone. But, thinking about "Famous people with deadly diseases, Alex, for $200!" I'm thinking about Christopher Hitchens. I still like Hitchens. I think he's generally handled the zeitgeist really well, and whether he likes it or not, he's a bit of an icon. I suspect he likes it. Hitchens says that he's not a terribly brave man, but a middle aged man who allows himself to be waterboarded to make a point is driven fanatic; one who does it out of curiosity and a general of what the hell is a brave enough guy for me.

Hitchens has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer which has already metastasized to his right lung and his lymph nodes. He's on chemo, and has a somewhat contrarian view of the whole thing. Rather than the battle that folks talk of, he describes it as somewhat passive process. Well, perhaps it is, but I think the battle is one that is probably easier for some than for others. As the poster-boy for atheism in the early 21st Century, Hitch is fairly busy. However, the disease has slowed him down and made him reflective. However, like most polemicists who can actually write, he's pretty much a solipsist. And, right, wrong, agree or disagree, Christopher Hitchens is one well-writing motherfucker.

I've been told that someone with a serious condition can often recover -- although at 61, Hitchens points out that he has become a "finalist" in life's contest -- if they have goals. He admits to having things he wanted to do, like see his children married and write Kissinger's and Benny the Rat's obituaries. Well, everybody does need something to look forward to...Interestingly, in his article about Cancer and Me!, he notes that the day he got the news that he needed to see an oncologist, he had a book thing, an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a debate/discussion with Saliman Rushdie. I recall that Daily Show, and he looked like he always does, whether he's about to get beaten up by Hamas in Beirut, call Mother Teresa a bitch on Radio Vatican or complain about Katherine Van Der Huevel's bad breath. Stick around Chris...

Not boding well for the future...

I wish these two well, but between Momma Grizzly and the way of the world, I have my doubts about the whole thing. I'm amazed at the bit from the Cruella De Ville,Queen of Wasilla and her Champion, Lancelot of the Snow Machine talking about redemption. However, love is occasionally triumphant...just not normally. 

Slowly recovering from a bad case of "Goddamn Motherfuckers!!!" Overload

HL Mencken: Not a single bigwig came forward in the emergency, though the whole town knew what was afoot. Any one of a score of such bigwigs might have halted the crime, if only by threatening to denounce its perpetrators, but none spoke. So Williams was duly hanged, burned and mutilated.

It's occurred to Crusader AXE that the Defeatists is sort of becoming a music blog based on whatever I'm listening to or being haunted by at the moment. This is certainly not the intention but probably inevitable with a boomer writer who has as many guitars at present as he's had cars in his lifetime. But, that's not why I post a lot of videos or music -- I do that because I'm trying to make a point in a lot of cases, unless I am in fact writing about music. While my brothers only occasionally write these days, believing Twitter, Facebook and Onanism to be more contemporary, we're still pretty pissed off at the bottomfeeders and general assholes that haunt the Republic.

Mencken talked a lot of the "boobs" who make up the mass of the people. I find this quote from Wiki really illustrative of what I consider a realistic view...

[D]emocracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world – that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power – which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters – which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.

Obviously, he's calling out the equivalents of the Tea Party and the Republicans but he's also calling out the Democrats; deficit hawks and socialists; environmentalists and oil well drillers.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.  ~H.L. Mencken

Which, in an odd way, leads to my joy at the list of the US presidents published by Siena University in upstate New York and rank ordering them by "best to worst," voted on by a group of historians. OK, they rank FDR first -- makes a lot of sense. He followed someone who did nothing at best and at worst made things worse, despite his being a smart, compassionate and effective guy. As a human being and a statesman, Herbert Hoover was pretty impressive; as a president, he was a victim of the inability to see beyond his own convictions. The other Roosevelt came in second, which is interesting. While most Americans have an image of TR as the Bull Moose, the Rough Rider, the big stick guy, we forget that what he was primarily was an reformer--of the police, of government by implementing the Merit System, of industry, of business and industry. Third is Lincoln, which I probably differ with -- he should be first or second, but I can understand why he's not. His willingness to let the various diva-generals hang on and say silly damn things while doing nothing prolonged the war. The rest of the list of the top 10 are probably no more controversial although there is room for some quibbles. One interesting trend is that Eisenhower is on the list in the tenth spot -- he looks a lot better in retrospect, and did a lot that people forget. He didn't back Isreal, Britain and France in Suez; he led the building of the interstates; he got things done; he was prescient about the military industrial complex; and, he was about as normal a guy as you can find on the list.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H. L. Mencken

The worst presidents are a totally different kettle of fish. They either did nothing in the face of challenges -- Harding, Tyler, Pierce setting up their successors for a life in interesting times--  or went out of their ways to make things worse --Andrew Johnson and GW Bush -- Johnson by allowing the compromise with Jim Crow while undermining Lincoln's legacy while Bush was so horrible that I find the truest and most ironic judgment on the current voices of the conservative movement and the whole eight years of Dubya to be Karl Rove's bleat that Tea Party Nation misses Bush. While PJ O'Rourke isn't Mencken, he comes close some times, and this sums up the worsts and why...

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn.  The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.  ~P.J. O'Rourke

At this stage, piling on Bush is being touted by the right as being an unreasonable attempt to avoid accountability, and the alliteration in that clause just happened. I personally don't think so -- as it was difficult for Bush to get a blowjob from an intern after Clinton, it's difficult to run a country when you've got two losing wars and an economy that is tits up and now starting to stink. And, for how long did the Reagan administration blame Jimmy Carter, who ranks significantly higher than Bush? Still, it does seem at times like a futile endeavor...best expressed in musically terms.

New Supreme Court Theme Song

Irony abounds . Twenty-nine people get shot in Chicago, and the Supreme Court does away with most of the rights of the states and localities to regulate how the Second Amendment will be enforced in their borders, overturning a Chicago anti-carry law. Now, Crusader AXE likes guns, have owned a number of them, still has a 1911A1 Springfield Arms .45 around here somewhere...about three feet away in its case, where it belongs. But, there is a fucking time and place for these things, and shoved in your pants under a hoodie while wandering through a goddamn mall is probably not one of them. Of course, since I expect most of the twits who do to not have completed a NRA safety course, I can envision a lot of ball and dick assemblies being removed by cheap blingy handguns going off while bozo is trying to impress the local girls...however, before we all turn into crazy Alabama guys riding around yelling about people taking our yard signs and shooting over their heads, someone someplace needs to develop perspective. Not that that's likely to happen...