the music of politics

So I was thinking tonight, while watching Kerry's acceptance speech, about how many of our country's problems we could have avoided if we had a requirement that our Commander in Chief be able to correctly pronounce the word "nuclear." Say what you like about Kerry, but at least he would never ask a question like "Is our children learning?"

That said, I am feeling something akin to battered spouse syndrome in this election:

"I know I said I'd give you health care before, baby, but this time I really mean it. I'll never lie to you again baby. I love you. I do. Don't give up on me. This time I really will respect you and your rights."

And did anyone notice the music playing when Kerry took the stage? That's right, Springsteen's "No Surrender." I suppose the idea was to emphasize the verse: "There's a war outside still raging. You say it ain't ours anymore to win." But of course, the refrain repeats over and over again "Well we made a promise we swore we'd always remember. No retreat, baby, no surrender. Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend. No retreat, baby, no surrender." So which is it—we can't win the war or we'll never retreat or surrender? What a perfect rallying cry for the candidate who wants to be understood, at once, as a decorated veteren and an antiwar protester.

Here's our political quiz for the day: What other presidential candidate used a Springsteen song in his election bid? Think "Born in the USA"...that's right Ronald Reagan. I admit I was having a sort of PTSD moment last night with the Springsteen in the background and all of that flag waving in the foreground. But at least Kerry (or his handlers) seems to have understood what the song is about, as opposed to Reagan whose inability to comprehend basic rock lyrics should have been a giant red flag. The man thought "Born in the USA" was an unproblematically patriotic song and the Beach Boys shouldn't play on the mall because they "attracted the wrong element."

You know, it's hard to believe it was twelve years ago already when I stood outside for three hours in Madison, Wisconsin waiting to see Bill Clinton on his campaign trail (when he finally arrived he actually admitted he was three hours late because he stopped for burgers in Milwaukee). The music playing when Clinton took the stage was Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now," on the face of it a good anthem for regime change:

Right here, right now
there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
watching the world wake up from history

The song, however, is really about the fall of the Berlin Wall, not necessarily the event Clinton would want to evoke.

How about a candidate that plays Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" or Leonard Cohen's "Democracy":

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Maybe then I could muster less ambivalent enthusiasm.

All of that said, I was going to write that I would vote for a trained seal if it was running opposite Bush, but then I realized, the seal would not, in fact, need to be trained to get my vote.

Meghan Daum

I guess her two books were pretty big, but I stumbled across her website, and I wanted to share it. Check out her take on L.A.

Don't you love this bumpersticker? Let's hear it for cafepress.com.

National Brotherhood Week

Okay, I know my blog is increasingly characterized by a "what the hell is wrong with people" tone, and for that I apologize, but seriously--what the hell is wrong with people? What's with the Republican hysterically homophobic approach to political commentary these days? Is it a byproduct of a party that has drifted so far from anything resembling the truth or even the pretense of acting in its constituents' best interests that the only strategy left is grade school name calling? "Never mind the economy, you're a homo?" "Never mind the occupation of Iraq, we just need to make sure those queers don't legalize their relationships?" Good lord. Let's all join together for a rousing take off on the old Tom Lehrer song.  Altogether now: "Everybody hates the queers."

the grammar of LA

So watching the news last night and the progression of our latest fires, it occurred to me that before I lived in LA I never called trees and brush (that is, vegetation) "fuel."
 
There is a particular grammar to LA. On the east coast or in the midwest, "smog" and "valet" are not verbs—as in "Are you going to valet your car?" or "I need to get my car smogged."
 
Before I moved here, one of my friends summed up the east coast/west coast cultural differences by saying that on the east coast they say "man" and on the west coast they say "dude." Since I have been here, I have developed a theory that American English is in the process of becoming a tonal language like Chinese. Two California teenagers can hold a 20 minute conversation in which the word "dude" stands in for about 50 other words depending on inflection and facial expression. "So he was like duuuude. And I was like DUDE!" 
 
All of which, to me, is positively charming compared to the latest from our Governor. "Girlie men"?! For god's sake. And the best that Nuñez can offer is "Certainly my mom and my sister aren't happy"?
 
On an unrelated note (except in that we are talking about grotesque politicians), check out this piece  on Bush. It's not new (from May) but is very well written—and by a conservative no less. I particularly like this bit:

"The cynical game these shape-shifters have been playing in the Middle East is too Byzantine to unravel in 1,000 pages of text. But the hypocrisy of the White House is palpable, and beggars belief. If there's one American who actually believes that Operation Iraqi Freedom was about democracy for the poor Iraqis, then you, my friend, are too dangerously stupid to be allowed near a voting booth."

Ten Oxherding Pictures

I am overdue for a meatier post, I know, but in the meantime, here is some zen verse. How can you not love this line: "This heaven is so vast no message can stain it."

Spent last weekend in northern Wisconsin. Perhaps more on that later. Snapped this a half block from the resort. I think it captures so much.

half mast

So I guess the deal is that the flags will be flown at half mast for 30 days to honor the Bonzo's bedtime. The misty eyed remembrances of my fellow Americans inspire something of a ptsd reaction in this citizen who lived through Reagan's presidency. I started college in 1984 and spent most of the 80s surrounded by aspiring Gordon Gekkos feeling like a leftist space alien dropped into some hostile territory. Ronnie's smiling countenance always struck me as more than a little similar to a "funny uncle," and his abject stupidity (anyone remember "trees cause pollution") was a source of great shame (though that was before W, who makes Reagan look like quite the whiz kid).

In any case, I offer the Voice's scathing piece as an antidote to our collective amnesia for the rest of you who have not yet been turned into pod people. The letters in response are pretty good reading as well.

More soon...

Virtual shotgun

So I have a friend in "the other Washington" (as we DC natives tend to think of it) who has been driving cab at night, and talking to him while he squires Puyallup's finest to and from taverns and casinos is like listening to reality TV with no picture. Conversations tend to be punctuated by statements like "Oh, the police are here. Can I call you back?" or "Hmm...I'm outside Mugs and Jugs, but I don't see my fare."

Can I just say much I do not miss getting loaded. Oy.

Today is Sunday and I am immensely grateful that it is a three-day weekend. In the true spirit of a person who relishes extremes I have gone from someone with no life whatsoever outside of school and waged work to a graduate who has booked every nanosecond of her life for the next three weeks. Thursday I go to Washington (where they invented coffee) to return Sunday. Monday my sister and her husband come here. They leave Wednesday. The next day I fly to Milwaukee (where they invented beer and motorcycles). Friday we fly to the Woods and Waters convention in the four-seater (a seat for me, one for Mark, one for Mindy, and one for Mindy's shoes). The week I return I speak in a meeting in Monrovia, have a dinner date with KD, and am going to a codger-rock punk show in Griffith Park (TSOL, the Dickies, DI, etc.). Yada yada yada...you get the picture. Middle ground? Oh, yeah, that's the spot you pass when moving from one extreme to the other. I am already anticipating the call to my sponsor on about June 20th to discuss my propensity to overbook myself.

As an aside, in explaining who Bob Mould is to a coworker this week, I ran across his blog. Something about the orange template must appeal to post-punk folks with a fondness for the nation's capitol.

Okay, that's all for now.

Reasons to move to Albuquerque

My best and oldest friend is moving to Albuquerque driven by the unending rain in Pittsburgh, a city second only to Seattle for rainy days per year. So this weekend she is going to a camp out and called to say, "We're hoping for rain because it might keep the locusts away." Yeah. There's a metaphor for you.

Axis of Eve

Let's hear it for protest panties!

Art Supplies of Mass Destruction

Be careful all you artists out there. This Counterpunch article lets you know what could happen if you need to call 911.

Michael tells me this was taken in Hungary, but were it not for the license plate, I could believe L.A. 

The pictures are appropos of nothing, really, except that they make me glad Bob does not have a horse. 

Not getting any younger

So we helped Bob pack yesterday afternoon/night, and now I sound like a bowl of rice krispies this morning. Every joint in my body is snap, crackling, and popping. I apparently slept the complete sleep of the dead--face down and immobile. Both of my arms fell asleep and when I woke up it was like someone had tied two heavy logs to my shoulders. It's hard to navigate the coffee when your arms are flopping around like over-sized sausages.

Went to a party in Griffith Park today for Pollyanne's birthday. Pictures of the pinata to follow. Let me say that LA is possibly the only place on earth that you would hear a goth decline a piece of fruit because she is watching her carbs. 

Beirut? Gaza? Nope: the Beverly Center. This from today's LA Times. Apparently many were upset their shopping was disrupted when LA's finest closed the mall to apprehend a suspect

The Arnold exhibit at the Hollywood wax museum. More reasons to love LA.

How you know you live in LA

Someone says "what weird weather" because it's overcast and the air is slightly damp.

I actually caught myself thinking this to myself this morning.

This is my letter to the world...

Having just completed a PhD and being unaccustomed to the notion of free time, I'm taking up blogging as a new project. Truly, I should have been documenting the progress toward the degree, which was epically absurd. The juju surrounding the dissertation was such that the document became known, to me, as "the Hope albatross."

Link of the day: the Voice's story on the $1000 omelet

Just in case you weren't sure that we really are in the decline of the American empire.