the defeatists!

Ultimate Existential Nonsense except he thinks both are trash except thwn they aren't!

The idea that there has to be an author of a joke is properly paranoiac: it means that there has to be an “Other of the Other,” of the anonymous symbolic order, as if the very unfathomable contingent generative power of language has to be personalized, located into an agent who controls it and secretly pulls the strings. This is why, from the theological perspective, God is the ultimate jokester. -- Slavoj Zizek, "The role of jokes in becoming-man of the apes, 2018, MIT Press. 

Been on a bit of a hiatus from righting and reading anything other than noir mysteries and Cthulhu...writing and thinking about the what's going on in the world is just to depressing. Maybe Trump will decide to stop the fires in the Amazon by nuking Brazil. Maybe he'll decide to issue bounties on dead migrants trying to "sneak into" the country. Maybe the next time he leaves the White House he will declare himself King and Captain Underpants simultaneously, and drop trou in front of the press, not remembering that he went commando that day...

Anyway, I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for the steaks to arrive and ignoring my wife while glancing at my smart phone -- which says a lot about me, her and the world in general, I guess, when I say my bi-weekly copy of the highlights from MIT Press. Glancing at the contents I thought, "I ought to read that, and I ought to read that, and...'5 Jokes from Slavoj Zizek?' Zizek wrote 5 jokes? And a book about them..." 

You see, I've been trying to read Zizek for years. I find him incredibly difficult to read...and yet, I continue to read his work. There are just aspects of it that make me want to get what the hell he's talking about and be able to explain it. I've listened to him speak, and it reminds me of the better profs I took philosophy from -- humor, subtlety, madness, commitment, a bit of gentleness and a lot of passion. Then, he gets involved with Kant for 200 pages about 2 pages about 15 or so words. This is why I find it hard to read him. Yet I keep reading.

 

That's academic philosophy in a nutshell. Crispin disagrees, as he should, being a tenured professor of philosophy at a school that tried to fire him for complaining about being plagiarized by an academic professor of philosophy at another university in a non-academic philosopher way. He thought, as any rational or "Irrational Man" would think, that his response was not directed at here as a threat but as a cri de coeur about the absurdity of modern academic publishing and reputations and all the rest. If you listen to that song, by Miranda Lambert or by Fred Eaglesmith you don't hear anger -- you hear fear, frustration, and despair. Of course, the other professor felt that this was threatening and degrading and racist and sexist and probably a threat to her own sexuality. Or something. Complained to her chair, who complained to Crispin's Dean who...well, it went on from there. Crispin is still working and still sending out tweets and facebook posts and still muttering under his breath. Actually, he probably agrees with me...

Face it. Zizek is a highly respected respected academic philosopher who gets away with this stuff because he's a highly respected academic philosopher in Europe, where people know not to take him literally, but seriously. Crispin operates in a world that is bureaucratic and bizarre and does it well for the most part. If Zizek came to spend a semester at Yuppie-Wannabes On the Brandywine with Crispin, they'd both end up in jail. I would definitely send them cake with blocks of C4 in them; and, they would probably eat the C4, being actual philosophers as well as academic philosophers, and having no idea what the hell it was anyway. 

 

 

No slight intended but...

 

Willie and Waylon and all are great examples of the craft of Texas songwriting, as are Lyle Lovett and Rodney Crowell and Robert Earle Keen but for me, Guy Clark is probably the most influential of the Texas Songwriters.

Everybody recorded his stuff and he never really got the credit. Most of his albums are classics; his performances are exceptional; and, he's an honest man who practices his craft daily. Townes Van Zandt may have been Steve Earle's hero, but Clark his mentor and safe haven. Clark spent years picking up the pieces of Townes' wreckage, getting him to shows, sessions and out of jails and hospitals while pondering the inevitable. 

 

Rodney Crowell started drinking coffee at Susanna and Guy's kitchen table while escaping from an abusive father and met Emmylou Harris there.

Rosanne Cash sat with Rodney, Steve and Emmy Lou Harris writing lyrics and trying licks with Guy. And, an old 2nd or 3rd hand Ovation Celebrity and "Desperadoes Waiting For a Train" got me back into guitar playing and through the mourning over the death of my dad.

 

 

I feel honored to have the opportunity to contribute to this one...

 

First heard Guy's writing here, although I didn't know it with this one. Like I said, everybody covered him! Now my dad loved Bobby Bare's version of New Cut Road, but I think this version by Emmylou is definitive..."Guy Clark isn't speaking to me..." was a great inside joke, since her band leader for the Hot Band backing this one was fellow Clark friend, Rodney Crowell. 

 

 

The life of Texas songwriter Guy Clark is certainly ripe for documentary treatment.  Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark will trace the life of the folk pioneer from his early Texas beginnings, through his historic career and up to present day.--American Song Writer, 4-20-2015

Mentioning Crowell, the lyrics for this one were provided by Guy and the song cited in his lifetime award for poetry by the Academy of Country Music a few years ago. 

 

The project is doing quite well through the Kick Starter Campaign and while it still has a way to go, it'll be worth it. Guy lost his muse, love and inspiration a couple of years ago when Susanna passed away from complications of Alzheimer's. After a relatively small stroke, he's settled back into his routine, but his health isn't great; getting this done has a sort of short event horizon. But, it is a story that I'd like to see and hear told. 

 

He's cut back on his touring because the logistics are just too tough. But, he still writes everyday, drinks a bit less whiskey and a lot less coffee, and has a group of devoted friends who help him stay the stubborn, graceful, forgiving and transcendent writer, singer and thinker who influenced the music, writing, thought and performance of so many people. Lyle Lovett says it well in one of the pieces in the Kick Starter -- "I wouldn't have a career without Guy Clark."

 

 

Salon and Free Will and Philosophy

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free. -- Ray and Saliers

When I turn to philosophy and pick up a new work, the technical stuff makes me think that perhaps the idea to burn the Great Library of Alexandria was not such a bad one after all. Langugae that serves only to drive the potential reader away deserves to be forgotten. Of course, doctoral disseratations don't succeed so much by provoking new thought as by providing variations on an accepted theme of bullshit. The great thinkers succeed in reaching us by doing other things that producing tomes suitable more for tombs that thought, realization and excited discussion.

Daniel Dennett is an interesting and provocative thinker; while I like his simile about human beings as "moist robots", he seems here to be edging away from that. The robot part takes us so far, and then there's an entirely different set of functions,problems and issues. Two things I liked here is the issue of intentionality -- free will requires philosophical intention, that is, conscienious direction and awareness and it requires the ability to recognize and prevent manipulation. The moral actor has to go into situations with eyes wide open and a poker face. The other, which I think is implied, is that the initial reaction to radically new perspectives seems to be to regard it as either naive or cynical, until you think about it.

My other thought is simple. I find Dennett's technical philosophy, the neuroscientist-philosopher stuff incomprehensible, but when he writes or speaks to communicate with actual living people, he's very good indeed. Is that a trend? Crispin's thought is much the same way, although since he doesn't babble about neurons and synapses and blood volume and all  the rest, he's more approachable. Sartre was the same way -- you can read "Being and Nothingness", or you can read "The Words" or "No Exit and three Plays" and  the first will drive you to distraction, solitary despair and  isolated absinthe sucking through a sugar cube; the others will engage, provoke conversastion and maybe...cause thought. 

Maybe even in Salon...it's a thought. 

 

 

Vignette explaining rock and roll to emo people...if people they are

Rock and Roll has come a long way from Pat Boone ripping off Little Richard...

 

There is this though --

Jerome Gee and his Happy Dancers... 

 

The original..B0bby Womack and the Valentinos...

 

 

Womack wrote this one for the Valentinos and got pissed when Murray the K gave it to this stupid white English band, until he got his first royalty check -- 

 

 

The Valentinos of course were from Philadelphia. Jerome Gee and His Happy Dancers were from Boston. Bobby Womack was from Detroit. And these guys were from some place in England...

 

 

This guy was from Philly, I think..

 

 

Cover song by some guy from Dearborn...Detroit...Duluth..one of those cold states.. 

 

 Got it?

 

Never saw Lynard Skyard...

Now for something completely different....

The Art of the Cover Band

The E-Street Band could, and probably should put out an album of covers. Tonight, we got the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love,” and the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” Instead of being distractions, they were highlights. -- Evan Schlansky, AMERICAN SONGWRITER, April 18, 2018

 

It's hard to think of something as silly as seeing someone as neglected by the critical public if they're members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But, there are two bands with their front men who are in fact neglected, at least in awareness, of their absolute mastery of the heart of Rock and Roll. Cover songs. I'm talking about Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Every musician in the worlds of Rock and Roll, Country, Bluegrass, Folk, Blues and on and on began doing this stuff because they wanted to sound like someone else, because they wanted to play something and affect people the same way other people they heard or saw or heard about did. It's really that simple.

I've joked that every boy who ever picked up a guitar in the 60s did so because they wanted to get girls. That's true to a point, but a lot of girls picked up guitars. It's more primal than that -- someone said something, sang something played something that resonated totally with you, and you just wanted to be able to recreate that and maybe get other people's attention, respect and love. Yeah, love. Music is about vanquishing demons and reaching out for  the other side, and I can't think of a better definition of love.

 

Again, we are always, at heart and on some primal level, 15 and two young to drive. We seek an escape and a way of transcending our mundane existence. I did it by writing in a cynically idealistic style and learning to play the guitar because I wanted to hit that emotion I grasped in listening to "Like a Rolling Stone." We all began -- pros, amateurs, weekend musicians and woodshedders -- trying to capture somebody else and subsume them. Along the way, interesting things happen. The comment has been made by numerous critics and historians and commentators that the Velvet Underground only sold about 68000 original recordings of their first album, but everyone who bought one started a band. In my experience, that's actually pretty close.

 So, Tom Petty and Heartbreakers wandered out of Gainesville, Florida and went out to California in the early 70s, calling themselves Mudcrutch. Got a contract and the band then went sideways and went back to Gainesville  to refit, recruit and recharge, staying away from the Cypress Lounge of course.. They went back to California, were labeled kind of punk-new wave but what they really were and are is the traditional, American Kosmic Music that Graham Parsons proclaimed with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Rock and Roll with country, blues, and R&B influences.

Of course, we need to remember, they began playing in somebody's garage, graduating as all great bands do to playing parties and then high school dances, and then bars. Bar Bands and High School bands don't get work because they do such great original stuff; they get gigs because they played stuff that was popular with the crowd. In Florida that would be Rock, Rhythm and Blues with a strong Country and Pop. 

 

The E-Street Band came up on the tough streets of Asbury Park New Jersey, beginning with a spark in Bruce Springsteen's eyes and the response from the grin of Steven Van Zandt, Little Steven of The Sopranos, Wicked Cool Records, Lillehammer and Lead Guitar with Bruce and the boys for 45 years. In fact, Steven is so busy that he has to occasionally have a substitute while he's being a TV star in Norway or scoring a James Gandolfini and that role is being filled or supplemented with Tom Morello, Harvard Poly Sci graduate, Rage Against the Machine Graduate and Political Activist. Interesting tidbit I overheard listening to Van Zandt's radio show on his XM Network, Underground Garage, is that Asbury Park banned Rock and Roll music in public during the 50s...and he chuckles.

 

Their bread and butter was New York and Philadelphia based Rock, R&Bs and the Bar Music Scene. You can't hear a chord from this band without hearing that sound. When Courtney Love chose not to scratch out Dave Grohl's eyes at Nirvana's induction at the Rock Hall, she then babbled that while she likes Bruce Springsteen, "saxophones don't have a place in Rock and Roll." That's kind of like saying banjos don't have a place in country music. Before electric basses were the standard, sax and the stand-up along with the drums were necessary to lay down rhythm. The Sax is a key part of R&B music; it's key in jazz. Heck, Mark Linsday of Paul Revere and the Raiders was recruited to do vocals and play SAX, and is a sought after session musician in New York and New Jersey for that reason.

There’s nothing like going to a live concert. It’s not like going to the bank. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Everybody’s in a great mood and there to have a good time. No one’s fighting with their significant other, no one looks bored or impatient. Everyone is focused and in the moment and smiling. Or, as was the case during last night’s acoustic show-closer “Thunder Road,” rocking out in their own private bliss and singing along. --Schlansky, 4-18-14

 

The piece in American Songwriter struck me because of the material mentioned by Evan Schlansky. I haven't heard a lot of people cover Satisfaction in a satisfactory way -- actually, nobody, except for teenage bands on stage at various dances in the 60s. The Stones don't even play it correctly on stage and haven't for years. It's one of the first songs in the garage rock logos, along with Louie Louie, and everybody learns it, usually incorrectly, early in their playing career. So, while I'd put even money on this one being staged, the little blonde with the Rolling Stone logo on her sign requesting Satisfaction is right in keeping with the history. I'm pretty sure Springsteen and the Salamaders or whatever he called his first band played this one. WE ALL PLAYED THIS ONE, just normally not well. Someday, someone will do it as a ballad, because it's as poignant and angry for a middle aged man as it was for a teenager in 1965. This captures it really well...and, it's really close to the original, if they'd done it with three guitars, piano, keyboards, drummer and sax.

 

I've never heard the Heartbreakers cover any Rolling Stones. Not sure why in some ways;  the Stones may be the Master "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World!" but they were a bar cover band doing rhythm and blues based largely on Chuck Berry and the Chicago music scene. I first heard this one, Carol,  on "Get Your Ya-Yas Out!" a masterpiece from the Stones 70-71 tour that was so overshadowed by Altmont. The Stones do an incredible job on it, as they did on their original "England's Newest Hitmakers, The Rolling Stones" in early 64. It's also the song that Chuck Berry tormented Keith with in Hail, Hail Rock and Roll. Richards is on the record repeatedly saying that Chuck Berry caused him more pain and agony than Mick Jagger ever thought of...but he also inducted Berry into the Hall of Fame, saying it was very hard to induct Berry because he'd stolen every lick Chuck wrote.   

 

This version was done a couple of years ago in Cologne. Petty's nasal draw really fits and reminds you of Chuck Berry and early rock and roll. Benmont Trench the band's keyboard player is an exceptional contributor here. Berry had a great pianist named Jimmie Johnson, and during the filming of "Hail, Hail.." Richards learned that Berry had screwed Johnson out of songwriter credit and royalties for his contributions. Johnson was the stereotypical illiterate bluesman who had a piano instead of a guitar. Richards did some things to help the guy out.  

 

In a cameo in "Hail, Hail..." Bruce tells the story of the night the E Street Band got to play backup for Berry. This was the dream gig for an established bar band, backing a musician who toured incessantly and played with whomever the promoters stuck in front of him. This is why a lot of videos lifted from TV performances of people like Eddie Cochran have the musician playing in front of a band of pimply faced parochial high school backups, or so it seems. Anyway, Bruce said it was an amazing experience,about the time of "Greetings from Asbury Park." When they arrived and set up, Chuck showed up just as the show was supposed to start, stuffing money into his pockets (Berry always demanded being paid in advance when he arrived, in cash!) and just nodded at the Band and said "Johnny B. Goode." That was how the show   went, he'd call out the song and expect them to play along for him. Usually not knowing the key, which could be a challenge. Berry has monstrous hands and primarily uses barre chords, and thus likes to play in some really strange keys. A#minor for example...for Roll Over Beethoven. So the E-Street Band was there, no idea what was coming next and no clue what key while he did his 50 minute set and duck walked off into the sunset.  Here they are with Berry, about 20 years later --and, about 20 years ago. 

 

The article mentions that the Bruce and the band did "Shout', by the Isley Brothers. The Heartbreakers have a pattern of doing cover songs as their encores, and Shout  works exceptionally well. I think it may be the southern bar scene, beach music flavor of the song. It could just be that it's a great Call and Response, driving party song, and really fits well as the band ramps the crowd up for a final good night. This performance is actually kind of raw, 1978, because it pre-dates the "Damn the Torpedoes" explosion of the band and its leader into the mainstream. But, it's a great example of an excellent bar band doing it's thing in front of a big crowd, having fun and dragging the audience in.  At it's best, transcendent and isn't that what we're all seeking?  

      

Meeting engagements tend to go badly, especially between history and tomorrow

The Map Isn’t the Terrain, but if You Can’t Look at the Terrain, Better Look at a Damn Map

Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Lee. The first day's fighting was so encouraging, and on the second day's fighting he came within an inch of doing it. And by that time Longstreet said Lee's blood was up, and Longstreet said when Lee's blood was up there was no stopping him... And that was that mistake he made, the mistake of all mistakes. Pickett's charge was an incredible mistake, and there was scarcely a trained soldier who didn't know it was a mistake at the time, except possibly Pickett himself, who was very happy he had a chance for glory. ...William Faulkner, in "Intruder in the Dust", said that for every southern boy, it's always within his reach to imagine it being one o'clock on an early July day in 1863, the guns are laid, the troops are lined up, the flags are out of their cases and ready to be unfurled, but it hasn't happened yet. And he can go back in his mind to the time before the war was going to be lost and he can always have that moment for himself…Shelby Foote

 

WikiMap -- Pickett's Charge

I just finished Allen C. Guelzo’s highly regarded book on Gettysburg, Gettysburg –The Last Invasion and from it relearned  some lessons that are worth considering today. I’ve been quiet on a number of issues because frankly, I’m not a journalist but a  critic and a commentator, and it’s embarrassing to be constantly overtaken by events. Best to shut about things like the emerging  Defense Structure or the Ukraine until you have something to say.

But Guelzo’s book, which is somewhat revisionist and with which I don’t agree in part, makes some really cogent points worth  considering as we try to understand what’s going on and as we consider what might happen next. Gettysburg is not something you  can see in isolation as a battle, or as a phenomenon or as an event. It’s part of the general unfolding of the United States. There’s a  great piece of dialogue cited in the book where a British Liaison officer comes on Longstreet after Pickett’s Charge and says  something to the effect of what a great day, what a great event, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, and Old Pete who was  sitting on the top of a fence, watching the debacle he had foreseen said, “The Devil You Wouldn’t! I would have liked to miss it very  much; we have attacked and been repulsed. Look there!” The British officer observes the field in the now fading smoke, sees the  men limping and straggling back; the wounded horses seeking their now dead riders; the litter bearers carrying away those lucky  enough to be found and evacuated; the psychologically overwhelmed and broken men who had gone forward expecting victory  and found this; the leaders, like Pickett staggering around, lost and heartbroken, and realized that it hadn’t actually been so great a  thing after all.

 
Guelzo spends a great deal of the text describing the search for a villain – who screwed up? Frankly, this was not a terribly new exercise; the North was actually fairly used to this drill, largely because the commanders of the Army of the Potomac had generally been so useless. Meade was only just appointed to command, and wasn’t all that interested in fighting at Gettysburg. Lee didn’t really want to fight at Gettysburg. It just kind of happened, and unfolded from there. Gettysburg needs to be understood not as planned campaign, since Lee’s campaign was intended to force the North to decide to sue for peace. His strategic goal was to bring the Army of the Potomac to battle on terrain favorable to him, with his Army intact and with the commanding terrain.

We forget that Lee was first and foremost an Army Engineer. He understood things like observation, fields of fire, cover and concealment better than most of his opponents and all of his own generals. If his forces had taken Culp’s Hill initially and then the ridges and Little Round Top and Big Round Top, things would have been different; quite possibly they wouldn’t have ended up fighting a battle there. However, Meade was also an engineer as was Hancock and most of the other Corps Commanders who had any business leading troops in battle. They saw the ground, the enemy and realized that if they could close and hold Culp’s, Seminary and Cemetery Ridge and as the battle unfolded, Little and Big Round Top, they’d beat Lee or force him to abandon the field of battle. Remember, Lee had to destroy the Army of the Potomac to accomplish his strategic aim; all Meade and the Army of the Potomac had to do to win was not lose. Normally, that is not the situation for the stronger force and certainly was not the way Lincoln saw it or the generals commanding until Meade. And, for political reasons, the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia was critical to the war effort, just not important.

Lee realized this, and tried to remain focused on it. Unfortunately, after Stonewall Jackson was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville, the other Generals in Lee’s Army either did not understand that or did not accept it. Longstreet seemed to have a feeling that the Army needed to survive, but could not see the overall big picture as well as Lee, and that was his tragedy. It made no difference as to what Longstreet did; he was powerless. Escape and get back to Virginia, and the war would drag on until the Confederacy was exhausted, worn down sooner or later. Longstreet had a marvelous gasp of the tactical situation, and a great understanding of the operational realities. However, using the Calculus of Battle, the failures of Day 2 following the misfortunes of Day 1, made him unable to see any solution.

Jeb Stuart gets a lot of blame for not being there to provide Lee with a better screen and better intelligence. That would have helped, but at some point Lee’s intent was to bring the Army of the Potomac to battle, and destroy it. Despite the general uselessness of the Generals Lincoln had appointed to that point, Gettysburg presented the best opportunity. If Meade consolidated his command and had more than a week to be in charge, the odds are the Union Army would have been operating on a firmer operational basis. At Gettysburg, they had the objective of fighting a defensive battle and holding the commanding and ominous terrain. With the entire Army united in command and control and without idiots like General Dan Sickles commanding  III Corps, it’s very possible that Lee might have faced a tougher opponent.

Stuart should not get off too easy. He was a hero to the south as a bold Cavalier, a noble knight; in modern war since the time of the Cavaliers, however, they generally loose. The Confederates had light cavalry, which is best for screening, scouting and harassing the enemy. Day 1 might have been a different battle if Stuart had been there, simply because cavalry would have met cavalry. However, the Union cavalry was better armed and commanded by a grittier and more down to earth General in John Buford who had fought Indians using similar tactics to those he used in the meeting engagement.

Day 1 deserves a better and more thorough examination. In the film Gettysburg, there is a lot of confidence and congratulations among the Union leadership because the quality of the “ground.” Gettysburg had good terrain if you had the right pieces of it; the union did. If they were unable to hold it, they had a planned battleground and realizing Lee’s objective was neither wagons or horses or shoes for his men but the destruction of the Army of the Potomac, Meade and staff already had a trap set down the Emmitsburg Road East South East at Pipe’s Creek. Fate and the commander of I Corps, General John Reynolds, had different ideas. Meade found himself in a Battle he intended in a place he didn’t want that did in fact give him most of what he wanted; Lee found himself in a battle he intended in a place he didn’t want but would make do with.

Lee’s time in Mexico and as a Cavalry Officer had been not periods of engineering but of reconnaissance, pursuit and aggression. He was probably most the aggressive General in his Army, with the exception of Stonewall Jackson. If I were to name the reason for the immensity of the defeat at Gettysburg, or select a villain, I would select the Confederate pickets who mistook Jackson and his aides for Northern Cavalry and fired on them without identifying them.

 But, Jackson was dead. The meeting engagement, which are usually pretty sloppy and deadly affairs, was a draw leaving the union in occupation of the key terrain. Due to problems of communications, coordination and staff work as well as logistics, the maneuver phase trying to take Culp’s Hill, flank Cemetery Ridge and occupy Little and Big Round Tops failed. So, the Army of Northern Virginia was left on day 3 to try a frontal attack, across an open plain with unseen obstacles that would slow, disrupt and canalize attacking soldiers into killing grounds. It didn’t help that Pickett’s soldiers were exhausted; it didn’t make it simpler that George Pickett was a bellicose idiot, lacking even the reptilian sense of self-preservation that Dan Sickles exhibited. It didn’t help that Longstreet who had the option to cancel the attack if the Confederate Artillery was seen to not be successful in driving the Union Forces off Cemetery Ridge. It also didn’t really matter – the Union Army was struck by the grandeur of the Confederate forces, their unity and dedication. The 19^th Century had a number of battles – the Charge of the Light Brigade for one with a similar although smaller result – where the comment “It’s magnificent but it’s not war!” was most appropriate but this one was probably the most obvious example. Gettysburg and Pickett's charge foreshadows the Somme to a frightening extent.

 

Several relevant learnings for our time are apparent here. First, the idea of the “ground.” Lee did not know what he was getting into in Pennsylvania. He hadn’t served there, didn’t know the ground and neither did most of his generals, although at least a couple had served at Carlyle Barracks, home today of Dickinson College and the Army War College. However, information didn’t flow well in the Army of Northern Virginia. There were a shortage of dependable maps for both sides, but the Army of the Potomac had a lot of Pennsylvania soldiers and had a better understanding of the terrain, the roads, the environment. Stuart would have done his chief a lot of good by dragging along some engineers to at least provide sketch maps had he been content to do what a Cavalry division should do in unknown territory – find and fix the enemy and report.

 

 

Next, after becoming used to Jackson and his ability to get his soldiers where they needed to be when they needed to be there, Lee was hamstrung by the inability of his generals to move their forces. Part of this was decreed by fate – his logistics was a very weak factor in his plan, and the Army had to advance into Pennsylvania and across it along a very wide front with a limited number of roads allowing them to link up as needed. One of the reasons for the exhaustion of Pickett’s division was that they had to march all night to get to the release point in the woods facing Cemetery ridge, arriving after twelve noon for an attack that was supposed to have happened closer to dawn.

There has been a great deal of discussion in other books and articles as to the reason for Lee’s indecision and failure to process information. He was a brilliant soldier with a lightning fast mind, but this battle was something else. There have been suggestions that he had a mild heart attack or a slight stroke sometime between day 1 and day 3. Various memoirists discuss his problems with diarrhea and headaches, and in the winter of 1862-63 after Fredericksburg he had suffered a mild heart attack. I suspect that he may have had a health incident; his health by this time was ruined and he piled work and stress on himself without mercy. However, he also saw what he needed to have happen possibly in front of him, and his soldiers hadn’t failed him before; how could they do so now. He saw what he wanted to see, there for the grasp. What could go wrong?

Well, the answer was the field between the woods and cemetery ridge. The difference was that neither McClellan nor Hooker nor Burnside was in command. George Meade may not be one of the great Captains of the Union Army – that probably would be the triumvirate of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan – but he was a competent general who had avoided getting in the way. So he did not panic.

 

It is my belief that Arnold’s Dover Beach captures the battle well despite being a predominantly daytime battle fought in the Pennsylvania summer – 'And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night... ' 

 

"it's a devil in disguise, that ain't no lie and I'm playing in a rock and roll band..."

 

Hey Drummer, Drummer can you give me that beat…

 

A couple of articles in the New York Times opinion section caught my attention this morning and are worth sharing. The first has to do with J.J. Cale who passed away this year after a career that from most points of view ended in obscurity. Which shows, I think, that most points of view are myopic or worse – but Cale wasn’t all that interested in most points of view.

JJ Cale was one of the Delaney and Bonnie and Friends generation of musicians from Oklahoma who wandered out to California, said why do I want to be here when I can be at home, and returned to Oklahoma to produce, direct, and record. He did wander back to California, but stayed out of the spotlight, letting his music speak for him in a quiet, controlled and mesmerizing kind of way, influencing people as diverse as Lynard Skynard, Eric Clapton, John Meyer and Grace Potter. There’s a Cale groove in some of Dylan’s work these days and earlier. He’s not going anywhere, except deeper into the American psyche through other players.

I came back home with a jewel missing out of my crown.
Let me inside, put my empty bags on the ground.
Open this door, come on I’m not messing around.
I can’t believe I’m standing here; you used to call me proud.
Well, believe me I’ll be gone by the time you get back from work;
I just left a few things I don’t want no one to get hurt.
Just give me back my hammer, give me back my nail,
give me back my jeans and my J.J. Cale,
give me back my box with the quarter-inch cable
And don’t forget my toothbrush and my table – Grace Potter

The Times article addressed the problem of Cale as to “why he never became a star.” It’s fairly simple, I think – he didn’t care to do the things needed in the way of promotion and self-aggrandizement that seem necessary. Cale was not a flash of fiery brilliance like Clapton with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers that resulted in instant cachet. He was a steady burn, influencing and exciting musicians and discerning audiences in a way that will outlast people who sold more records and made a lot more money.

The article tells a story of Cale’s invitation to be on American Bandstand. He said ok, got his band, climbed in the trucks and cars and drove from Oklahoma to LA. They got there and started to set-up, when the director came over and stopped them, telling them not to plug in their instruments because they were just going to play the record. Cale said something laconic like “Well we know how to play it, it will sound just like the record.” The director said something like, “No, you just need to lip synch it…” Cale said “I’m not going to do that,” and they started packing up the amps and the chords and the pedals and the instruments. Well, being a big corporation by this time, Dick Clark Productions panicked because he was supposed to be on the show and he wasn’t going to be on the show, and they called out the big gun, Mr. Clark. Clark raced downstairs from his offices and said, “J.J., your record will be number 1 after you play American Bandstand.” Cale politely said, “I don’t care about that,” and they drove off.

This illustrates in some ways that other examples might not the second article. The Times publishes articles weekly in a series called “The Stone” where contemporary philosophers reflect on issues of interest to them. This week’s piece by Texas Tech philosopher Costicas Bradatan, In Praise of Failure fits well with the story of JJ Cale.  Bradatan indicates that failure is intrinsic to the human experience and that without failure, we would not be fully human and be limited in not only what we become but actually cut off from a lot of what we are.

Bradatan begins by reflecting on the role of failure in philosophy and points out that the philosopher and by extension, the practice of philosophy knows failure “intimately. The history of Western philosophy at least is nothing but a long succession of failures, if productive and fascinating ones. Any major philosopher typically asserts herself by addressing the “failures,” “errors,” “fallacies” or “naiveties” of other philosophers, only to be, in turn, dismissed by others as yet another failure…Failure, it seems is what philosophy thrives on, what keeps it alive. As it were, philosophy succeeds only in so far as it fails.” He then discusses three reasons why failure is significant in our thought, work and lives.

First of all , he says that Failure allows us to see our existence in its naked condition. When we fail, either dramatically or incrementally, we see the possibility of our own contingence. We really don’t have to be here, and without out our presence this debacle wouldn’t have happened.  Contradicting Goethe who indicated that thinking being can’t reflect on the possibility of non-existence,” the experience of failure tells us that we really contingent on a lot of things –

Self-deceived as we are, we forget how close to not being we always are. The failure of, say, a plane engine could be more than enough to put an end to everything; even a falling rock or a car’s faulty brakes can do the job. And while it may not be always fatal, failure always carries with it a certain degree of existential threat.

Now, Sartre would respond that this is what makes existence nauseating, but Bradatan has a totally different perspective – while failure is the “eruption of nothingness into the midst of existence” we should see it as an indication that we are simply by existing a miracle. There is nothing pre-ordained about our presence. We are free to do that which we want in all areas because we really don’t have to be here at all.

In fact, Bradatan reflects that failure can be therapeutic – if we are honest with ourselves, we can see that we’re not the center of the universe, and that we’re just all bozos on this bus of existence. While he brackets the “most self-aware or enlightened” we are all if not poorly, sub-optimally adjusted to the reality we encounter every day. Failure might be a window into a different, more properly grounded future.

I find that somewhat optimistic. We are so overwhelmed with choice that the realization that what we’ve just done was a really bad idea doesn’t necessarily lead to us not doing that again. Education, awareness and technology allow us to keep making the same mistake again, blissfully assuming that the outcome will be different this time because, well, we’re different. We aren’t the problem – reality is. Our ability to ignore reality, to misunderstand it, to deny it gets us back into the mess we were originally crawling out of.

The next reason that he sees failure as philosophically significant is that “Our capacity to fail is essential to what we are.”  Our ability to create rests on there being holes in what could be that we fill with our efforts. Some succeed, some fail but that’s due to our nature as evolving, imperfect and incomplete creatures. We are necessary as a species in so far as there is a need for continued motion; if perfection is achieved, then we’re not really necessary anymore.  It’s in the gap between where we are – as individuals, as societies, as a species – and where we want to be and where we need to be that the possibility of the better exists. Steve Earle says it exceptionally well in his song, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” when he sings

Last night I dreamed I made it to the promised land

I was standing’ at the gate and I had the key in my hand

St Peter said, “Come on in Boy, you’re finally home”

I said “No thanks Pete, I’ll just be moving along.

Citing More’s Utopia as a reaction to what’s wrong as opposed to a blueprint for an ideal society, he goes on to say that the dreams of perfection are what keep us going. If we fail to seek something better, we will become victims of our own success. Should we achieve perfection and have nothing greater to strive for, well, as he says, “we may be something interesting but I am not sure we will have what to live for…virtually perfect and essentially dead.” Bradatan indicates that our ability to fail lies at the possibility of any achievement because if we couldn’t fail, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. Failure doesn’t just imply lack; it points to potential.

Finally, Bradatan says that “We are designed to fail.” This insight is really fundamental to the Western Philosophical and Religious tradition, although most of us might not initially see it that way. Our bodies, minds, energy and organs will all wear out someday. The essential question is not whether or not we’re going to die, but rather how to live with that in mind.  He uses the model of The Seventh Seal where Bergman’s Knight is faced with Death in the guise of a man and challenges Death to a chess match. Death has nothing to lose because he will inevitably win, but the Knight knows that too. He’s not concerned about victory, he’s concerned about how he is going to lose. He is politely and resolutely refusing to go quietly into the good night. As Bradatan says, “He not only turns failure into an art, but manages to make the art of failing an intimate part of the art of living.”

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

From The Poems of Dylan Thomas

Which leads me back to J.J.Cale’s work and impact. I know there are things that he would have wished to have done better, or differently or not at all. But I think in his approach to music and to success, his failure to be a star was his existential success. Given a choice between being George Michael or himself, he chose himself...who needs a star on the Hollywood Boulevard?

 

 

Orestes or Caligula...Sartre or Camus...Dylan or Dylan

 

I originally posted this over at Crispin's place and am putting it here in case somebody reads this site still. Crispin and I disagree about a number of things, people, trends and so on. I thought his advocacy of argyle underwear matching your socks was a bit off, and he has always mocked my preference for Gibson guitars over Silvertone instruments made and marketed by Sears in the 60s. Anyway, one of those things that we disagree on is Bob Dylan.Crispy admits he doesn't get Dylan and he doesn't like Dylan and he doesn't get people who like Dylan and he wishes Dylan would just go away and die. I have a different perspective. 

 

I'm a few years older than Crispin and I remember discovering him as a road to something else...he doesn't really want to be an anything to anybody, but he is still best summed up with his line in Don't Look Back. "They called me an anarchist, man...give the anarchist a cigarette..." 

The Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone” Interactive Video showcases a patented technology platform, created by the digital media company Interlude, which allows viewers to play an active role in the story of the music video. The experience begins when users press play and have the ability to surf 16 different “TV channels” within the video in real-time. These channels are comprised of American TV formats in which, no matter what channel you are on, the hosts and actors are all lip-syncing the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone" as the song continues to play seamlessly. No two people will engage with the video in the same way twice. The full interactive video can also be experienced on iPhones and iPads and is easily shared across social media platforms.

I get why Dylan makes people like Crispin crazy. At his base, Crispin is a very grounded type of thinker and human being. Fundamentally, Dylan calls into question the entire purpose of being grounded. This new official video of "Like a Rolling Stone" seems based in that. If you don't like the video you're looking at or are curious about other views, well, change the channel. But ultimately, it's all the same...ungrounded, full of angst, confusion and possibility. (Although Drew Carey lipsyncing along while doing The Price is Right is a shattering metaphor in some ways...and bizarre in others.) 

 

Dylan obviously didn't do this project  by himself. But, he's been pretty fierce about artistic control of his music and his vision. (The way Al Cooper's organ got into the original was based on Dylan's demand to turn up the organ, saying "I'll say who's a keyboard player" to an apologetic and slightly irritated producer.) So, he had a lot of control of the vision and I'm sure had to approve the execution. This is what Dylan is at his best -- challenging us to push through the doors of perception not to ecstasy but to acceptance and maybe a bit of tea and sympathy...he makes other musicians better, he makes other writers better and he makes other thinkers better. Him, he's still on the road, headed toward another choice, challengng us to feel the same but see it from some other point of view...

 

Things Bertrand Russell Got Right...

 

Although a pedantic and math-oriented analytic philosopher and bore, Bertrand Russell got a few things very right...

Nuclear Weapons

Free Love

Wittgenstein

And, most interstingly according to the Economist, Work. Russell wasn't afraid of hard work, he just didn't like it very much. Thought there were other better uses of time for all of mankind. And, the numbers seem to indicate that he was right...

A strange place full of dragons

Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, by Spartan law, we lie  -Herodotus

Also obedience in its highest form is not obedience to a constant and compulsory law, but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience to an issued command .... His name who leads the armies of Heaven is "Faithful and True"... and all deeds which are done in alliance with these armies ... are essentially deeds of faith, which therefore ... is at once the source and the substance of all known deed, rightly so called ... as set forth in the last word of the noblest group of words ever, so far as I know, uttered by simple man concerning his practice, being the final testimony of the leaders of a great practical nation:

 "Ō ksein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tēidekeimetha, tois keinōn rhēmasi peithomenoi." -- John Rushin 

Going through email and stuff this morning, I was looking at something on Linked In and instead of clicking through, I decided to read the link. It takes you to an article in an Australian Business News Journal, and frankly, I'm trying to figure out why we haven't seen it before. Recounting a speech by Lieutenant General John Kelly concerning the valor of two Marines, it should have received national attention at the time -- the attack, their valor and Kelly's speech should be shouted from a lot of podiums. Damn few heroes decide to be heroes -- they do their jobs and do what they have to do.  In some ways, Kelly's speech was an example of that sort of heroism -- the speech was given just four days after his son, Lieutenant Robert Kelly, USMC was killed in action. Kelly doesn't mention his son--the two young men he chose to highlight represent all who serve.

Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter

Two Marines from separate battalions, a Corporal and a Lance Corporal, are assigned to guard a checkpoint. Kelly describes it as only someone who's not only got the t-shirt but washed, ironed and starched it can:

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: “OK you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorised personnel or vehicles pass.” “You clear?” I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: “Yes Sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, “No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. 20-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.

Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

Now, to be clear, this kind of thing happens all around the world, everywhere American soldiers, sailors, Marines, Air Men and Coast Guardsman are stationed. Anybody else recall "I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved"? But, this is what that statement means -- everywhere, these young women and men are there, maybe not conscious of it, prepared to do the same thing. The vast, vast majority of us are not called to any sacrifice beyond inconvenience and loss of sleep. But, the reality is that the world is a strange place, full of dragons, and something we must be prepared to respond to.

Kelly was the US and Iraqi Force commander at the time: CINCWORLD, Iraqi Time. When he read the SITREP, he was struck by something that just didn't seem right. He began to dig a bit, calling the Regimental Commander to see what was the real story. The Regimental Commander agreed that there was more happening here than it seemed -- this is the sort of story that probably didn't even register on the national media radar. I can understand why it didn't...Jarheads and Doggies and Swabbies and Zoomies getting killed in Iraq was soooo 2004. Our national attention deficit disorder is both cause and effect of the problem -- and the national media is the victim as well as perpetrator. One of the reasons people became focused on the Vietnam was was that people in the field kept reporting it. The Military has learned how to control journalists now. Anyway, I suspect that it didn't make the President's Daily Intelligence briefing on April 22, 2008 although, given what we know about President Bush's briefing habits, he wouldn't have understood it anyway.

Kelly decided to take a look on the ground and discovered that there were no US witnesses, just Iraqi Forces who had also been there, all of whom survived. He spoke with several of these guys, and they described a bit of exceptional heroism --

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.” The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion.

All survived. Many were injured … some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”

What he didn’t know until then, he said, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion he said, “Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did.”

“No sane man.”

“They saved us all.”

Acts of exceptional valor and heroism aren't acts of sane men and women. They are acts of exceptional human beings and again, we are all called to that standard when we raise our hands  repeating the oath at enlistment or at commissioning. Interestingly, after he had written the summary and recommended then for the award of the Navy Cross, Kelly learned that one of the security cameras caught the entire thing. Here's the meat of his description

It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated...You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “… let no unauthorised personnel or vehicles pass.”...

The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread should width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty…into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.

What makes this piece particularly hard for me to read and respond to is simple: No act of valor or sacrifice is meaningless. But, to waste that act and sacrifice is to profane something sacred, to piss on the courage, honor, integrity and dedication of those who performed heroically. The greedy and power mad assisted by the the ignorant and the fools who got us into Iraq are beating the drums and ring those bells and shooting those pistols to paraphrase their patroness, St Sarah of Wasilla with the goal of getting us into another one. Now, at least McCain and Graham served, and Palin's on also served. But, the vast majority of the opinion makers and political powers have no idea  about what this means. Two Marines died; four sailors drowned; a plane went into a mountain side flying air support; a patrol of soldiers was hit by motors and wiped out. Ah, well, it's time to go ride the mountain bike, shoot some hoops, and  and complain about the Democrats, the Congress, the Media. Who cares about these guys? That's what they signed up for.

So all honor to the fallen; for the rest of us, we have a solemn duty to make certain it doesn't happen again without a lot of foot stamping, shouting and flag waiving by those of us who have earned the right, at least in part to do so. Those who have paid the full price for that right are no longer able to speak, but they depend on us to act for them.