8.30.2005

Geeks in a Web

Another collection of pretty much entirely random links:

Here's what at first glance looks like a typical online photo collection of babes, and it can certainly be enjoyed as such. But this photographer is a bit more honest about his work methods and emphasizes his skill at retouching photos. His portfolio affords the opportunity to see Halle Barry, Destiny's Child, Alicia Keys and others before the photographer works his magic in the studio. Creepily fascinating, especially the way the breasts and buttocks of these women inflate in the retouching (heh) process.

When internet geeks like myself are not busy staring at retouched photos, we're busy obsessing over the exact date when that tape of Dr. Demento songs was recorded, and where our lives have gone since then. All hail the Internet Geek! For without Him (and it is always a "him," isn't it?) we would not be able to spend hours reviewing the lost hours spent listening to other geeks playing geeky records. Oh, internet! (For the record: I began recording Dr. D's weekly Funny Five on February 8, 1981.)

Speaking of geeks, who among us has not recognized that Tom Cruise, Mr. Sexy Hollywood Movie Star, is becoming more obsessively geeky about this whole Scientology thing by the minute? Of course, just as any political extremist will eventually become convinced of their own righteousness, so has Mr. Cruise become less willing to consider reasonable dialogue as a means of persuasion. Witness his turn to the Dark Side here. Unlimited Power!

Were it not for periodic reminders that this truly is a beautiful planet, one might abandon all hope and let the Geeks take over. Fortunately, we have this recent shot of Mt. McKinley, Alaska, taken from the International Space Station at a somewhat extreme angle, to remind us that some things are still worth walking away from the blog machine for.

I have a whole list of links I've been collecting over the last few days, but this should keep you busy for a while. I'm going to go watch a rerun of China Beach.

8.28.2005

Star Wars: A Musical Tribute

This manages to renew my faith not only in Star Wars but in cheesy classic-rock power ballads.

Watch. Feel the Force flow around you. And jam out.

Umunhum



Every so often, I’ll run across a news story like this, and I will immediately spend the next few hours Googling the words “Umunhum” and “Almaden,” absorbed in the discovery of other people’s words and pictures about a place where I once lived.

The words, although signifying the same place (Almaden AFS on Mt. Umunhum near New Almaden, California), hold very different meanings in my mind—“Almaden,” the designation for one of the worst episodes of my childhood, a dark place that birthed night terrors and murderous rages for the rest of my life, and “Umunhum,” the indifferent, mystic location high above the civilized world, a place populated by wild boars, Apollo capsules, UFOs, crazed albino families, forgotten hippies sheltered in immobile VW wagons buried deep in the back hills, pot farms, and lost pets.

“Almaden” is a place I can’t discuss, but “Umunhum” is a place of continual fascination for me, not least of all because it is a place I once lived that is dead, or dying; abandoned by all residents in 1980 and declared a public hazard due to its high concentrations of asbestos and lead paint; surrounded by intensely paranoid private property owners who swoop down on trespassers with threats of gun violence; a mountaintop capped with a sad, grey monolith visible for miles, crumbling beneath its own irrelevance and periodic earthquakes that further destabilize an already precarious collection of empty buildings.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of seeing buildings, streets, homes in which you once slept overgrown by trees and brush, weeds poking up through cracks in roads on which no one travels, paint (toxic paint, at that) flaking off the building that you once leaned against for support as you peered into the twilight sky for a glimpse of a moving star, a capsule filled with Americans and Soviets clasping gloved hands and sharing Tang in orbit above you.

I’ve been to ghost towns and experienced the eerie thrill of kicking dust on some ancient home, wondering if anyone might still live there as a means of escape from the rest of the world. I’ve even been to a ghost town named after a dead relative, a man whose name was so memorably unique that it only seemed obvious to use it for the town itself.

But I’m still relatively young, certainly not old enough to have seen cities from my past fall to dust. The first home I remember living in has since been destroyed, mowed down along with its surrounding orchards to make way for a fast-food outlet and a tire store, along with their requisite parking spaces. But the towns and cities I’ve lived in still exist and, as far as I can surmise, will always be there. Except Umunhum. Umunhum is gone.



Of course the mountain will always be there and I imagine there will always be people who find its relative inaccessibility comforting. But the place where I lived, the Air Force Station (too small to be a “base”), has become a curiosity for mountain bikers and hikers daring enough to bypass the multiple warnings and barbed gates that surround it.

“Umunhum” comes from a Native American language that, fittingly enough, is itself on its way toward extinction. The word translates roughly as “place of the hummingbirds,” and the sound of the word in the mouth mimics the vibrato of the tiny bird’s wings. I don’t recall ever seeing any hummingbirds while I lived there; perhaps they got out early, before the infusion of toxins into their environment, before the invasion of rotating radar antennas, screaming military brats, or rowdy parties at the Officer’s Club.

There are times when I wish I had gotten out early, or had never arrived at all. It was a place that nearly destroyed my family, not because of any inherent danger in the place itself (other than its unique way of making one feel small and exposed; a dozen or so families huddled against the side of a mountain waiting for missiles to show up on green screens in dark buildings). Nor is Umunhum entirely at fault for the person I became after having lived there, a person easily lost in non-existent worlds, who flinches at unexpected noises like a war veteran, and who will be forever haunted by the visions (real or imagined) outside his bedroom window at night.

But there are aspects of Umunhum that I can’t imagine not having in my life—the way my valley-dwelling friends would look up at the mountain in disbelief when I told them I lived there, the way I taught myself to read in a bus filled each day with screaming teenagers and hung-over GI’s, the way it felt to rely on a community of less than 100 people for everything you needed.

So these things remain. And then I find the pictures some biker has posted on his blog, and it’s like looking at your best friend lying in a hospital bed, head shaved, tubes in his throat and veins, waiting for a switch to be turned, the plug to be pulled.

One day I will go back there. I will climb the gates and dodge the freaks and if the government-built duplex I once lived in is still standing, I will burn the rotting fucker to the ground, and I will hope the winds are high that day so the flames catch and the other buildings burn and the children’s park where I read Peanuts collections and Oz books aloud burns and the carport where I played “Kick the Can” burns and the Officer’s Club burns and the mountain itself is consumed by all the loneliness and confusion and anger and disease that was left behind by the stupid, clueless fuckups who once lived there. And then instead of watching the place die a slow, forgotten death for the rest of my life, I will be able to say that I killed it and that it deserved to die at the hands of someone who wishes he could forget he ever lived in such a hopeless, beautiful wreck of a place.

There is a picture of a hummingbird burned into my back. Its wings are poised in flight and will never rest.

Dylan? Genius!

So I couldn't wait any longer, and the Literary Studies Beast within me tore into Oxford Professor of Poetry Christopher Ricks' latest explicating tome, Dylan's Visions of Sin (see last post). And, boy, am I glad I did!

Among the revelations in the introductory chapter were insights into this couplet from the Bobster's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue":

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence

One of the best rhymes, that. For all rhymes are a coincidence issuing in a new sense. It is a pure coincidence that sense rhymes with coincidence, and from this you gather something. Every rhyme issues a bet, and is a risk, something for gamblers--and a gambler is a better ("for gamblers, better use . . . ").

Granted, it is possible that all this is a mere coincidence, and that I am imagining things, rather than noticing how Dylan imagined things. We often have a simple test as to whether critical suggestions are far-fetched. If they hadn't occured to us, they are probably strained,
silly-clever . . . So although for my part I believe that the immediate succession "gamblers, better . . . " is Dylan's crisp playing with words, not my doing so, and although I like the idea that there may be some faint play in the word "sense," which in the American voicing is indistinguishable from the small-scale financial sense "cents," I didn't find myself persuaded when a friend suggested that all this money rolls and flows into "coincidence," which does after all start with c o i n, coin. Not persuaded partly, I admit, because I hadn't thought of it myself, but mostly because this is a song, not a poem on the page. On the page, you might see before your very eyes that coincidence spins a coin, but the sound of a song, the voicing of the word "coincidence," can't gather coin up into itself. Anyway Dylan uses his sense.

I can't wait for the discussion of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" coming up on page 440. "Everybody must get stoned!"

Can't write now. Must replay all Dylan's albums for further insights.

[NOTE TO SELF: The "block quote" feature on Blogger sucks ass.]

8.27.2005

Music Downloads of the Week

The Coral: "In the Morning"
I don't know how long it will take you, but I listened to this instantly catchy little number at least a half-dozen times before I actually started concentrating on the lyrics, which paint a somewhat grimmer picture than the jaunty music suggests. But I have to love any pop song that has the balls to lure you in with a guilt-inducing hook only to kick you in the stomach after you've become friends. If only Mariah Carey could do this as well.

Eugene McDaniels: "Jagger the Dagger"
An acid jazz reissue from 1971 that offers a scathing rebuke to Mick and the Boys (but mostly Mick) for their willingness to keep up the facade of rockin' out whilst members of their audience are being stabbed to death. For its part, this song is at least as disturbing as "Gimme Shelter" in the coolness of its lyrical delivery as the saxophone bleeds to death in the background.

Suba: "Sereia (Mermaid)"
This is Brazilian electronica. If you don't know what that is precisely, well, neither do I, really. Just trust me on this one.

Keith Anderson: "Podunk"
I don't know if this constitutes an endorsement, but this is just the sort of thing my parents would've had on the stereo 25 years ago at 2:00 in the morning as they spilled margarita mix on the carpet, tripped over the Lazy Susan while trying to dance with their friends, or, alternatively, beat the living shit out of one another while I tried to find more space in my ear canal into which to stuff my pillow. Removed from this context, the song is one of the better examples of the pure country-pop corn that people like Shania Twain are always trying to get on the radio. Best served while intoxicated.

Bomb the Bass with Sinead O'Connor: "Empire"
It's sometimes easy to forget that Sinead, for all her tiresome political ranting, has an absolutely gorgeous voice. In a song like this, where her voice is not necessarily the featured attraction, we are given the opportunity to be surprised by it once again ("Is that her?") while the beat erodes our conscious mind into something that resembles a shredded photograph of religious iconography, reflecting random dapples of light, but signifying nothing.

Eddie Murphy: "Boogie in Your Butt"
You probably haven't heard this anywhere in the last 20 years, and there's no very compelling reason why anyone should have to hear it again. There is some ironic fun to be had in hearing the famously homophobic comedian sing about the joy of placing "a little tiny man in your butt," but I can't make any persuasive argument that there's anything here for you other than the sophomoric pleasure of a song that lists objects to put into your butt to a relentlessly hokey disco beat. You must be outcho mind.


8.24.2005


Farewell, Admiral: Brock Peters 1927-2005 Posted by Picasa

Book Lists

I'm totally stealing this idea from my brother's blog, since he probably reads more books than I do. Or at least reads more interesting books.

So here's a list of the last few books I've read, the books I'm getting ready to read (whatever it means to "get ready" to read a book), and the books I'm reading now. For the benefit of your entertainment and my peace of mind, I'm excluding reference and dissertation-related books. This blog is supposed to be fun, after all.

So, then:

The Last Few Books I Read
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
(I picked this up in a Costco, of all places, for cheap. Hiaasen's like a less cynical and funnier Elmore Leonard, whose books I love. This one was pretty good by comparison.)

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands by Stephen King
(Now that he's finally completed the last volume, I've started reading the series from Book One.)

Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson
(This is both the funniest and the goddamn scariest novel I've read in some time.)

Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
(This book so wanted to be the next hip novel for disaffected slackers, but I think it sucked.)

Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
(I told my friend Micah while I was still reading this that it was the best book about America since The Great Gatsby. Now that I've finished it, I can wave my hyperbole proudly.)

Old School by Tobias Wolff
(This guy is a beautifully depressing writer.)

Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice
(A strange little novella based around the narrator's love of The Smiths.)

Unlikely by Jeffrey Brown
(Fucking hilarious graphic novel)

Books I'm Reading Now
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
(This book won the Pulitzer last year. The narrator is a dying preacher writing notes to his young son.)

Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life by Geoffrey O'Brien
(Essays about the author's encounters with popular music in his life. Chunkily poetic.)

Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
(The author has just started a new trilogy with the characters from this series about the leper Thomas Covenant and his delusional visits to The Land. I haven't read this series since it came out in paperback 20 years ago, but I think I liked it better back then.)

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
(Dug this out after I saw the movie recently.)

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
(See earlier blog entry)

Books I'm Planning to Read Soon
Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks
(A literary critic's appreciation of Dylan as poet.)

The Dream Life: Movies, Media and the Mythology of the Sixties by J. Hoberman
(I miss teaching Introduction to Film.)

Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order by Mark Crispin Miller
(from the author who brought you The Bush Dyslexicon; this will probably just raise my blood pressure to deadly extremes)

Book I Haven't Figured Out How to Read Yet
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
(Firstly, it's almost 1500 pages long. Secondly, it's more a collection of quotations than an actual book. Thirdly, most of the quotations are in Latin. Fourthly, it was written in the 1600s. Fifthly, after reading a page or two, I lose track of what Burton was talking about; on the other hand, I think he does, too. But his diversions and meanderings are funny and engaging, in a deranged kind of way.)

Stay tuned for more page-turning action each and every month here at Chazzbot!

8.23.2005


A New Language Posted by Picasa

Mix Tape for Moog

Robert Moog, the man who invented the electronic synthesizer, died on Sunday. His influence on popular music was profound and his instruments helped give birth to an entire generation of electronic music performers. A short list of essential Moog tunes should include these classics:

  • Donna Summer: "I Feel Love"
  • The Beatles: Abbey Road (including George's "Here Comes the Sun," Paul's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and John's gorgeous "Because.")
  • Stevie Wonder: Music of My Mind
  • Parliament: "Flash Light"
  • Wilco: "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart"
  • the collected recordings of Kraftwerk and Devo
  • Emerson, Lake & Palmer: "Lucky Man"
  • "The Conversation" from the climax of Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • the "voice" of R2D2

It's no exaggeration to say that without this man's work, the realms of pop, jazz, and even classical music would be much poorer today.

Freaky Links

All kinds of fun stuff out on the Web today. Let's take a look, shall we?

Powells, the independent bookstore out of Oregon, has posted a long, engaging interview with master fantasist Neil Gaiman, who has a new book coming out soon. It will be a comic novel, apparently, in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Thorne Smith, only with more trickster gods. The interview covers the new book, of course, but also delves into Gaiman's work on Sandman and the Marvel super-heroes circa 1602. If you haven't read his American Gods or any of the Sandman collections, you are missing out on some of the best fantasy works of the 20th century.

Gaiman also keeps a blog, which I've added to my recommended links.

The New York Times has a nice feature on Michael Brown, the scientist who just discovered an object larger than Pluto on the fringes on the solar system. He wants to name it after his favorite warrior princess, which is annoying a lot of other astronomers who want to keep the planetary names traditional. In any case, the object hasn't been confirmed as a planet yet, but the profile provides some insight into just how one finds new planets. Another nice feature of the story is how this astronomer's mother sends him little crystal globes everytime he discovers a new object. (He's found several, most of them slightly smaller than Pluto.)

Ever wondered what the safest way is to read a 1360 page book? The author of this forthcoming doorstop has provided a convenient slideshow to help you. (NOTE: Due to a link in today's New York Times, the author's site has exceeded its bandwidth or blown up or something. Anyway, the link's not working for me at the moment. But try again later, 'cause the slideshow is a hoot.)

Finally, this group is theorizing that the best way to get you to come to Jesus is to send you a free DVD of a crappy film made back in the early 80's. "I would say it is moderately good," says the crusader who came up with the grand scheme.

Hey, if people want to send me a free DVD that I probably won't watch, that's their business. My question: Why isn't someone sending out free DVDs of Fellini films? Mabye that would persuade people not to accept the Hollywood crap that the local megaplexes keep shoving down the throats of increasingly disgruntled movie-goers.

Back soon with my music downloads of the week. What do you do when there's no fresh Chazzbot, anyway? I guess you could always put in that Jesus DVD.

8.22.2005


Portrait of a Warrior Posted by Picasa

War: Offensive to the Utah Community

The ABC affiliate for Salt Lake City has rejected an advertisement that features Cindy Sheehan's questions about her son's death in Iraq. You can read a brief story and find a link to the ad here.

Last night, I happened to catch the KTVX evening newscast (it comes on after Desperate Housewives) and was rather appalled by how the news readers tried to dodge the issue. Their main concern seemed to be that Sheehan was calling Bush a liar. First of all, anyone who hasn't figured out that Bush will say anything he thinks will justify his pathetic leadership and boost his daily approval rating is living in pathological denial. Secondly, has there ever been a president who hasn't been called a liar at some point during their administration? Wasn't our last president brought up on charges for doing just that? Where's the moral outrage that media outlets like KTVX expended on Bill Clinton for getting a blow job and lying about it?

The KTVX news readers (it's insulting to think of them as any kind of journalists, but in this they're not much different than any other local news personality) also noted that "other stations" in the area had "accepted cash" to run Sheehan's ad. My God! A television station accepting cash for advertisements? Does the FCC know about this?

The news readers also tried to push the blame for the decision onto the station's business consultants rather than anyone who might actually be deemed worthy to work at the station. So KTVX apparently doesn't even have the balls to defend its own practices. By comparison, Sheehan comes off looking like Abe Lincoln waiting for Jefferson Davis to turn in his badge.

There is no mention of this story anywhere on the KTVX website, although the evening's lead story--a daring bust of a teenage rave--is featured prominently.

8.21.2005

This Week in Reconceptualizing the Universe

Couple of interesting findings this week:

A new study has determined that the Milky Way galaxy (home of all those great music magazines) has a shape that distinguishes it from most of those other poseur galaxies out there. Apparently, the center of the galaxy is composed of a bar-like structure filled with old stars (no, not like what you're thinking).

The Cassini probe, soon to do a close flyby of Titan, has discovered that the rings of Saturn have their own atmosphere. (Or would that be atmospheres?) Residents of Southern California are reportedly weighing the benefits of a longer commute.

And work on the new Death Star is coming along nicely.

This Month in Expensive British Music Magazines

So this weekend marked our latest monthly expedition to Las Vegas, with its non-coin-operated, digitalized, and franchise-dependent slot machines. I played a machine based on designs from the “Alien” series (does H.R. Giger see any money from this?), and there are other machines based on Star Wars, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, and Blondie (the comic-strip, not the band). I’m not sure how lucrative these machines are for the franchise-sustainers, but they are starting to make the casinos in Vegas look like a weird combination of video store and Sunday newspaper supplement.

Anyway, the real reason I feel the need to make the 3-hour drive to Sin City each month is to pick up a fresh supply of music magazines, most of them imported from the U.K., where they really know how to keep magazine junkies drawn out. I mean, just the sheer size of the rags put most of our American equivalents to shame (and we’re the ones with all the paper forests!). The average page count in the magazines I like ranges from 150 to 250, and, also unlike our American music rags, the Brits seem to not only take their music seriously (by not featuring cover stories on acts like Ashlee Simpson) but also seem to a have a wider pool of people who can actually write.

There are four British mags I pick up regularly or at least scan at the newsstand, each with their own appealing features.

Q is probably the most garish of the lot. If you can imagine USA Today being printed on slick paper after a printing press explosion, you’ve got a good idea of the page design for Q. The American magazine Blender is basically a carbon copy of Q, only the photo captions in Q are occasionally witty or even funny, whereas the captions in Blender read like the work of unpopular 5th-graders. The music coverage in both magazines leans toward the trendy and popular, and emphasizes songs over albums. Q is also overly fond of list-making and tacky photography, and its record reviews seem to be written under the assumption that your head is in a moving vehicle whenever you are reading.

All of this, of course, makes Q great fun, although one might find its charms more suited to the bathroom than the reading hall. It’s not something I feel like I have to pick up every month; the latest issue’s cover feature on Kurt Cobain (what, again?) is a case in point—I didn’t feel I was missing out on too much as I placed it back on the rack.

Uncut has a similarly obnoxious layout scheme, but its coverage of popular culture is both more extensive and intelligent than Q’s. In addition to music features, Uncut covers film and the occasional author, though it’s not above ranking things like Springsteen’s 100 greatest songs. The most reliably appealing feature of Uncut, at least as far as I’m concerned, is its regular cover-mounted CD, which is often compiled by musicians or bands or is organized around some central theme. One of the magazine’s recent CDs was a compilation of songs from the Chess label; this month’s compilation is actually a trio of discs, compiled by the members of R.E.M. Of course, if you want all three of the CD’s, you have to buy 3 copies of the magazine, but at just about $9 a copy, you are still getting a pretty fair value for a decent CD, assuming you’re not interested in reading the same magazine three times.

The cream of the British magazine crop, at least out of the crop that finds its way to the Tower Records store in Las Vegas, is Mojo. This magazine’s feature articles are almost always detailed, comprehensive, and readable. Mojo makes no apologies for highlighting the work of well-established musicians, and this plays to the strengths of the magazine’s well-informed and enthusiastic writers. This month’s feature on Bob Dylan, for example (and, yes, it’s a list of his greatest songs *sigh*), includes contributions from Greil Marcus (actually just an excerpt from his recent book on “Like a Rolling Stone,” but still), and Dave Marsh, a rare interview with the Man Himself (though Dylan has been more gregarious in the last year or so than at any other point in his career), and a detailed review of the latest release in the Bootleg Series. Mojo also features monthly CD compilations, which generally feature at least a couple of exclusive tracks. This month’s comp, for example, contains 7 exclusive tracks out of 15 (all covers of Dylan songs). Mojo is always worth picking up.

Finally, there is a relative newcomer to the scene: Word. Word, as you might guess from the title, started off as a literary-oriented magazine with occasional music features. Somewhere along the way, however, Word lost a lot of its emphasis on authors and books and became, as the cover declares, “The Quality Music Magazine.” I’m not sure why they didn’t change the title to entice linguistically-challenged music fans to the newsstand, but Word does have a lot of good writers on staff, though I don’t find it as consistently excellent as Mojo. Word has also taken to attaching CD compilations on its cover, though this is not a monthly feature. Word’s comps generally feature only new music, which isn’t a bad thing, but does give them less opportunity to be creative with their selections. This month’s cover story features Paul Weller, who seems to becoming increasingly comfortable in his role as the Parade Marshall for British Pop.

A few other magazines of note this month, though not of the British variety:

The September/October issue of Punk Planet features a long cover story on “The End of Radio,” and includes some good info on podcasting, microbroadcasting, and the rise in low-power community FM stations. The issue also contains an entertaining interview with comic artist Daniel Clowes.

Issue 22 of Stop Smiling (a magazine I discovered in Ohio) features a comprehensive oral history of the life and death of Hunter S. Thompson, including interviews with the executor of his literary estate, his wife, several of his editors, his publishers, and the incomparable Ralph Steadman. I have been greatly disappointed in how the media covered Thompson’s death, with the possible exception of Rolling Stone’s tribute issue, but this magazine goes a long way toward rectifying that dearth of respect.

Music fans should also be on the lookout for the new issue of The Oxford American, a fine magazine of Southern writing that has apparently been re-re-launched after numerous financial difficulties. The cover displays Elvis in all his hip-swinging glory (and wearing sneakers!) and the mag comes with a glorious 29-track CD of southern U.S. music. Each track on the CD is accompanied by an essay in the magazine by a range of excellent authors. Well worth looking for or ordering.

I also picked up some new CDs at the Tower store, but maybe I’ll tell you about those later.

8.19.2005

Uh, About That Whole Human Spaceflight Thing. . .

Is it just me, or has NASA suddenly become a big bunch of pussies? I mean, I'm down with the whole safety thing (especially after seeing two shuttles break into pieces), but is this how we got to the moon?

In the words of the late, great American astronaut, Alan Shepard: "Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle!"

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled planet-bound life of shoe-gazing.

Terror Films

So I get to teach this Honors course in the fall, right? Well, I'm not actually teaching the whole course. What's happening is that the college is re-initiating their Honors program after not having had one for a while. Since most of the programs at the college are two-year, the Honors program is not terribly specific. That is to say, there is no guiding theme for the course or even a course title. It's just "Honors."

The way it's going to work apparantly is that the course will offer its students the opportunity to sample different disciplines and modes of thinking while being challenged in that special Honors class kind of way and generally having their shit freaked. It's kind of like a semester-long academic buffet, or, to stretch the analogy painfully further, like an academic version of the dessert table at the Chuck Wagon.

Heh. So I will be sharing the course with three other instructors. Randy is going to start things off with a 4-week examination of Southern American writing. I think he's planning to have the students read Light in August, which should take care of any problems we have with the course being overloaded. (I keed.)

Then one of the arts professors will be teaching a few weeks on the physics of dance. I really have no idea what this will entail exactly, but it sounds kind of cool. Hopefully, this portion of the course will offer everyone an opportunity to practice their giggle-stifling skills, a valuable commodity in today's job market.

The third section of the course is being taught by someone I haven't met yet, so I'll have to get back with you on that one.

Then I wrap things up with my section on film. I was offered three weeks to do something bold and innovative and engaging. I thought about what I might do for several minutes, but the only thing I could come up with was something that involved effective comic-book adaptations.

Once I remembered that I was teaching an Honors course instead of operating the AV room at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi Con, I gave up on that idea (though I still think I could do a kick-ass version of it sometime). Fortunately, it wasn't too long afterwards that I saw Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds.

I had avoided seeing the film for a while after its initial release, mainly because I was becoming annoyed with Tom Cruise and his couch-jumping antics. Also, I wasn't sure the world needed another remake of a film I thought worked perfectly well in its initial incarnation (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, anyone?). But then I started wondering why Spielberg, who should be busy working on Indiana Jones IV, would bother digging up WOTW, out of all the films he could have chosen, for a 21st-century update.

But of course that was the whole point. The 21st-century has, so far, been a rather dismal era for the United States and its bold concepts of freedom, democracy, justice, and truth. Everything is, it seems, up for grabs or ripe for re-evaluation and/or bombing. This is also, of course, the scenario presented by the story of WOTW, except instead of Dick Cheney destroying everything in sight, including our nations' integrity, we have the Martians.

I'm not the first one to notice that WOTW has appeared at key moments in the history of imperialism. The novel was H.G. Wells' clever way of criticizing his country's domination of the globe in the late 1800's. The Orson Welles radio production appeared just as the U.S. was facing the prospect of yet another devastating global war (and managed to scare the bejesus out of everyone, as well). And the George Pal version of the 1950's coincided with the paranoia brought on by the Cold War. Spielberg is a sentimental idealist (just wait until you see the end of his version), but he's no fool, and his version of WOTW presents a grim portrait of a culture with absolutely no idea what to do after the shit hits the fan.

I could go on about this, and perhaps I will in a future post, but wouldn't it be fun to look at other films like WOTW that offer a cultural snapshot of terrorism and how people respond to it? I thought so, too, so my section of the Honors course will be dealing with films that, in one way or another, deal with terrorism.

Since I only have 3 weeks to play with, I have to limit my choices somewhat. WOTW is set to be released on DVD at the beginning of November (along with, I was happy to find out, a remastered edition of the George Pal version), so that goes on the list. I think I also want to play around with The Battle of Algiers, which was released in a nice Criterion edition not too long ago.

I'm not sure yet what my third choice will be. Hitchcock's Sabotage? Black Sunday? There are many choices. I've been thinking that The Birds might be perfect.

I might also have the kids read Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, which should make for lively discussions in Southern Utah, where they know all about religious extremists and their victims.

If anyone out there has a keen idea, please share. When I checked earlier today on registration, I found that a grand total of 4 students have registered for the course (which begins next week). Clearly, the teaching load is not going to be too taxing, so I really want to take those who are ballsy enough to register for the course on a good ride.

I'm tired now, but we'll pick this up later, huh?

8.17.2005


Happy Birthday, Micah! Posted by Picasa

A Poem for Micah and His Mighty Axe

AXE HANDLES

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with—"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's We Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature" - in the
Preface: "In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand."
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.

--Gary Snyder

8.16.2005

Are We There Yet?

Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev has set a new record for the most cumulative hours spent in orbit--748 days (a little more than 2 years).

Most scientists estimate that a round-trip human spaceflight to Mars would take at least 2 1/2 to 3 years. One of the key issues regarding such a mission is whether or not humans could physically and psychologically survive such a lengthy period in zero-G.

In the meantime, scientists are waiting to see how long it will take Krikalev to notice that he's not getting any closer to Mars. His reactions will form the basis of a new reality show for next fall.

While you're waiting for a human Mars mission to get underway, you might want to check out this cool alternate history novel by Stephen Baxter. The novel depicts a world in which President Kennedy survived an assassination attempt and the U.S. landed on Mars in the 1980's. The novel is based on actual plans presented to the Nixon administration to follow up the Apollo moon landings with an ambitious program of space exploration. Nixon killed the idea.

Still, I think most people alive today will see a human set foot on Mars within their lifetimes. At least, I hope so. Otherwise, I'm out $5000.

8.15.2005

Somethin, I Say, Somethin Is Screwy Here

So the shots below depict two young chickens with large glasses, each precocious in their own way, no doubt, but one has appeared in over a dozen Looney Toons shorts since about 1937, and the other is the latest attempt by a floundering entertainment empire to regain some of the audience it used to command through innovation and originality. I'm just sayin'.

Disney's Chicken Little . . . Posted by Picasa

. . . and Egghead Jr. from Looney Toons Posted by Picasa

Can You Hear That Thunder?

So if you're into this whole blog thing and you like to hear what people have to say about themselves in a semi-public format, you may want to check one or more of the links I've added to Chazzbot over there on the right. The most recent is from Australia, where Bruce, who posted a comment on Chazzbot a few days ago, files his Diary of a Dilettante. Intrigued by how the other half lives, I've visited the site a few times and found it to be a good example of how a blog doesn't need cute graphics or flashy links to convey a real human voice. Bruce is a good and rather witty writer and worth a read. My site counter tells me that Diary of a Dilettante emanates from Maribyrnong, Victoria, Australia.

Australia is on my short list of places to relocate to when the shit hits the fan in the U.S. (more on that in a future post), along with Newfoundland and the Yukon Territories. Actually, I guess New Zealand is higher up on the list, if only so I can see where Gandalf lived. Anyway, we were talking about Australia, yes?

It's entirely coincidental (and please excuse the lameness of this segue), but last night I was revisiting the music of Men at Work as part of my ongoing attempt to rid myself of my rather large and now somewhat antiquated collection of cassette tapes. Basically, I've been going through the tapes (I've managed to collect over 900 of them since I was a kid) and deciding what needs to go, what needs to be converted to CD, what I'm willing to replace, and what can never be duplicated.

Last weekend, I burned some of my Beatles vinyl to CD; namely A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale, along with some of the singles they made in between those albums. Remarkably, the Beatles churned out, during about a six month period in the latter half of 1964, those two albums, two or three singles, and a steady schedule of live appearances. Those two albums in particular contain, IMHO, some of the finest of the Beatles' early recordings, including such gems as "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," "Tell Me Why," "Any Time at All," "I'll Be Back," "I Feel Fine," "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black," etc. etc. I can't think of any other act that was both so prolific and so influential on popular music. No act will ever have the same impact on music and culture as the Beatles. Though I hear Insane Clown Posse might be in the running.

The other part of this weekend’s Festival of Burning involved Men at Work, a band once touted by some overworked music writers as Beatlesque. Of their albums, I have Business as Usual, which contains most of their best-known songs (“Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under”), on vinyl, and Cargo, their follow-up, on cassette (a cassette, now that I think about it, that probably originally belonged to my brother; in the early 80’s, I was too busy listening to Dr. Demento and my dad’s ELO albums to bother too much with anything more contemporary. And I certainly wouldn’t have been listening to anything my brother would have wanted to hear.).

I was rather surprised to hear how well Business as Usual holds up after 20 years. The songs are all catchy and memorable (with the possible exception of the final cut, “Down by the Sea,” which plods on for nearly seven minutes) and most of them feature Colin Hay’s distinctive vocals. In fact, several of the songs on the album are better, or at least as good, as the ones you already know.

Cargo doesn’t hold up quite as well, although it still contains some very lovely songs, especially “Overkill,” which is as good as any song I’ve heard since 1983, and better than most of them. Hay’s lyrics neatly capture both the fear of being alone and the dread that accompanies any mingling with the city’s inhabitants:

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation;
It’s time to walk the streets,
Smell the desperation.
At least there’s pretty lights,
And though there’s little variation,
It nullifies the night
From overkill.

When’s the last time you heard a word like “nullify” in a pop song? And Hay’s vocals are both gorgeous and haunting. An underplayed gem, that one.

Another engaging number is reminiscent of a lot of those patented 80’s-era songs of nuclear anxiety (you know, like “Two Tribes” or “1999”). “It’s a Mistake” is driven by a jaunty reggae-like pulse and, again, Hay’s disarming (sorry) vocals. Although the song references Ronald Reagan in its denunciation of short-sighted war hawks, it could easily be heard as a commentary on the current SNAFU in Iraq, with its boys “cockin’ up their guns” and the U.S. commanders declaring that they’ll “not fade out too soon / Not in this finest hour.”

Deciding that both of those albums were worthy of digital preservation, I also dug up some of the band’s 45’s and found another great track. The B-side of “Who Can It Be Now?” features a great little instrumental called “Anyone for Tennis” that, as far as I can tell, has never made it to CD, at least in the States. The song provides as much evidence as you might need of this band’s skills, with the notable exception of Hay’s vocals. Jerry Speiser’s snare keeps the band at a brisk pace throughout, even near the end when it sounds like someone brings in a kazoo. This is a song well worth looking up online. If I knew how to post MP3’s to the blog, this would be the first.

I was rather pleased to find that the music I liked as a kid is still worth listening to today. I can’t honestly say that nostalgia for my wasted youth doesn’t have a part to play in my assessments, but nostalgia only goes so far. On the other hand, I’m not very far along on this archeological project of mine, and who knows how I’ll feel about the next album I decide to dig up? (Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger looms on the horizon like a giant Chinese gong.) Anyway, if anyone’s in the market for some vintage 1980’s cassettes, you know how to reach me.

Before I sign off, a programming note. Tomorrow, I begin a week of academic indoctrination at the unfortunately named Dixie College, so I will probably start posting in the evenings. I can’t imagine that anyone who has read this far is terribly concerned about when my posts show up. It’s a bit of a conceit with this whole blog business that anyone notices you’re posting at all.

But if you find yourself wondering when my next post might show up, try giving me about a day’s lead time and you won’t even notice anything has changed.

Hopefully, that is. Uh, hello? Is this thing on?

A Home in the Country (pre-326) Posted by Picasa

8.14.2005

Terrorism Starts in the Home

So you're thinking of buying a home? Better read this first:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PROCEDURES FOR OPENING A NEW MORTGAGE LOAN ACCOUNT

To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities [Note how "terrorism" is given equal weight here with that other global scourge, "money laundering." I feel safer already knowing that Tony Soprano ranks right up there with Osama bin Laden.], Federal law requires all financial institutions [That's ALL financial institutions, now, not just the ones that practice domestic terrorism by artificially inflating the cost of utilities.] to obtain, verify and record information that identifies each person who opens a mortgage loan account.

What this means to you: When you open a mortgage loan account, we will ask for your name, address, date of birth, and other information [Note how this is kept vague enough to include pretty much anything. As any good Orwellian knows, no amount of information is too much.] that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents [Of course, these may soon be one and the same, if Homeland Security has its way.].

The information being requested and observed is for compliance with the requirements of Section 326 of the USA Patriot Act implementing customer identification and verification requirements. The information in no way will be used in making the credit decision on your completed application [But a Team will be on standby to observe, investigate, and possibly infiltrate your home. Be careful, Comrades! Secret Police are listening!]

Not worried yet? Several cities and townships across the United States are, including Huntington, NY, which decided that civil liberties were more important than paranoic attempts to monitor every citizen, and introduced a resolution to block the Patriot Act from being fully enacted.

Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have noted the affect Section 326 has had on the immigrant community. (Remember how the United States was intended to be a nation of immigrants? Unless, of course, you're a fan of unspoiled White communities. Right, Mr. Cheney?)

And if you're still not worried, or maybe not even in the market for a home, read up on how Section 326 affected this guy.

Meanwhile, gas prices are beginning to creep up over $3.00 a gallon, soldiers continue to die, and terrorists are still blowing shit up. But we have the power of Section 326 to help keep track of terrorists who may want to open a savings account or buy a home. Too bad it wasn't around back in the day for home-owning freaks like this guy or this guy. And maybe that's why Section 326 is, at last, so important. We seem to be pretty good at making our own terrorists right here at home, so why the hell should we let them buy one?

OK, gonna step away now and watch how many more hits I get from government servers. Let's be careful out there, huh?

Coming soon, by request: More writing about music.

8.13.2005


Hello Australia! Posted by Picasa

Clink, Clink, Another Link

So now that this blog thing has become a part of my life, I find myself intrigued by what everyone else out there is doing, particularly in areas that I have no familiarity with whatsoever. Along those lines, the Washington Post has a story about blogs written by soldiers in Iraq that's worth checking out. Links are included in the story. (You may have to register to read the article. Or better yet, go here for a sign-on name.)

A little less than a year from today, I was wandering the streets of Siena, Italy. Unfortunately I made the mistake of traveling with someone who was more interested in finding ticket outlets than looking at any of the city's art, architecture, piazzas, cathedrals, or any of the other points of interest I had read up on three months before leaving the States. (Bitter? Me?) But the New York Times has offered some assistance to frustrated Siena visitors by providing a good, long travel article with a slideshow. Almost as good as being there, or at least better than watching the city pass by through a bus window. Oy.

While looking up book reviews the other day, I found a site that not only offers links to other book review sites, but original reviews of its own. It's nowhere near being a comprehensive book review site ("There are currently 1463 books under review," sez the homepage), but it's a good place to start. You know, assuming you have time for that sort of thing.

Finally, I'm pleased to report that, in its first week of existence, Chazzbot has already had hits from every time zone in the continental U.S. and at least one from someone in Australia. Whether any of these visitors come back or not is anyone's guess, but I'll take what I can get.

Have You Seen Me?

So I'm a day late wishing a happy birthday to JonLee (his name is pronounced in a tone of Kryptonian reverence, like KalEl or JorEl), pictured below in all his photo-opportunity glory. The respectable man to the right in the photo is wondering if wants to admit knowing JonLee or, indeed, if he ever wants to be in a photo with him again.

Let JonLee's natal anniversary be a warning to all readers of this blog. Chazzbot is not above publishing photos like this on what would ordinarily be a happy occasion.

Anyway, happy birthday, pal. And be careful where you put that tongue, huh?

The Preacher & The Fool Posted by Picasa

8.12.2005

Music Picks of the Week

So not too long ago on these pages, I made some disparaging remarks about the Stones. Turns out their new single isn't so bad--maybe nothing we haven't heard before, but a good uptempo rocker just the same. I especially enjoy the salacious glee with which Mick pronounces the word "cocks" in the first stanza. The song's called "Rough Justice," and you can listen to it here. It's definitely the best thing I've heard from them since the Steel Wheels album, but we'll see how the rest of their new album shapes up.

The Monkees: "Zilch"
Speaking of outdated rockers, I was reminded of this little number (you can't really call it a song) while digging through some old Dr. Demento tapes. The Monkees' brand of manufactured pop never really did it for me, but each of their original albums has at least one novelty number that's worth hearing. This one's like a little tongue-twister game you might play while drunk. If you can imagine any of The Monkees drunk or drinking or, for that matter, spontaneous.

Fishbone: "Date Rape"
Another band that I never really got into is/was Sublime. They always seemed a little too annoyingly skateboard for me to listen to without imagining a group of punk-ass kids riding up and down my driveway and laughing at me. (Hmm . . . maybe too much information there.) Fortunately, that's why the music gods gave us tribute albums so I can hear bands I actually like perfoming songs I wouldn't otherwise be caught listening to. This is a good example from a new Sublime tribute album. The song follows a worthwhile narrative about some punk-ass getting what's coming to him. (How many punk-asses does that make in this blurb, anyway?) Plus, you get to hear Fishbone's teeth-rattling bass, which is always a treat.

Merle Haggard: "Carolyn"
This is an oldie from 1972, back when it was OK for country songs to feature string arrangements. I like how the singer turns things around on his listener in the last verse.

Charlie Wilson: "Charlie, Last Name Wilson"
I don't know when it happened exactly, but sometime in the last 18 months or so, a lot of R&B artists stopped writing actual songs and now just tell stories over a background beat. I've heard this most recently on that cycle of "bedroom closet" songs by R. Kelly. I don't know what ever happened to R&B songs with a rhyming couplet or two (see Mariah blurb below), but what do I know? Anyway, this guy Wilson does the same thing, but his "song" is actually funny. Plus he busts out some nice vocals near the end, as he tells this girl to come check out his big house. But mostly I like it because he sings our shared name repeatedly and it sounds cool.

Nortec Collective: "Tijuana Makes Me Happy"
This is the first time I've heard Tijuana referred to as "the happiest place on earth," but I mostly dig how this group samples traditional Mexican instruments to make something that sounds like Beck on tequila.

Mariah Carey: "We Belong Together"
Yeah, this has been around for awhile and is rapidly becoming obnoxious, like many of Mariah's other hits, but I can't get away from the part where she turns on the radio, hears Babyface, and realizes it's all too much for her right now. "This is too deep/too deep/I gotta change the station." Remember when you could expect that kind of thing from the radio? So props to Mariah (rhymes with "pariah," as Michael Stipe once pointed out) for keeping the faith in the Power of Radio. If only it would stop playing her songs all the time.

Jackie Greene: anything
My buddy Chris just discovered this guy on XM Radio. I saw him play in Toledo one night; kid was unbelievable--he seemed kind of shy in front of an audience, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he knew how to play. He did such a great set that I ran out to the foyer afterwards to buy one of his CDs, totally willing to miss the start of the next set. And the kid was already out there, signing copies for everyone who bought one. I played him on my radio show a few times after that. I've got his Gone Wanderin' album; my favorite track is "Down in the Valley Woe." If you like early Dylan or Bruce, or good bluesy guitar, you should check him out.

Note on the lack of links: I use MSN Music to find most of this stuff, mainly because it was already loaded into my laptop software (damn you, Gates!). But you can probably find most of this stuff anywhere. It's likely that this will become a, you know, weekly feature of the blog, so if you're really annoyed because I'm not providing you any links, just let me know.

Richard Feynman & the O-ring Posted by Picasa

Richard Feynman & My Aborted Career in Physics

So back in January of 1986, I was one part-time semester into my undergraduate program, a program that would eventually take me at least six more years to complete. I was majoring in journalism, for no better reason than I had been the editor of my high school newspaper and I didn't have any better ideas. The journalism class in the fall had not gone so well for me; I enjoyed the class and was even excited about entering this noble profession, but I had one thing working against me.

I hated talking to people.

No talking = no interviews = final project with no sources = final grade of C+. Doh!

Even after that experience, and having been told by my journalism professor that I couldn't expect many newspapers to be interested in a reporter who didn't do interviews, I still expected to finish the program and start writing sarcastic columns for some hometown hackrag. Surely, my innate writing talents would win over any disgruntled editor!

However, after fall semester's experience, I decided to take some time to regroup, fulfill some of my gen ed requirements, and make everyone think I knew what I was doing.

Then, at the end of January, I came home from classes one day to find that the Challenger had exploded after lift-off.

In the ensuing days and weeks after the accident, I came to regard the news media with a great deal of contempt. A lot of this had to do with the endless video loops of the explosion replayed over and over on television (this, I should note, was back in the days before CNN, and it was a Big Deal when the networks interrupted programming to show you endless video loops of seven people exploding). I was also rather annoyed by the media's harassment of NASA employees and the families of the astronauts, especially the parents of Christa McAuliffe. All this kind of thing had been par for the course for years in TV journalism--revisiting disasters and asking the survivors and mourners how it all felt--but this was the first time it had happened to people whose names I knew and who worked for an institution I practically worshipped.

So I decided to abandon any career as a journalist and dedicate my life to the spirit of exploration that the Challenger astronauts had demonstrated. But how to do this?

During spring semester of 1986, I was enrolled in an Introduction to Astronomy class (taught by Dr. Bradley Carroll , who, as it turns out, is now the chair of the department) to fulfill part of my science requirement. It was clear by the professor's demeanor in the days after the accident that he was as strongly affected by it as I had been, and I started to consider following his career path by majoring in physics.

There is a long story about the next year and a half as I gradually realized that as much as I loved the precision and reliability of physics (not only had one of the symbols of America's leadership in space exploration been rather violently destroyed, but my parents had also just divorced, so I was all about finding something on which I could rely), I couldn't do calculus to save my life, but I'll save that one for another post sometime. (It has a lot to do with why it took me over five years to get a bachelor's degree.)

Anyway, flushed with the enthusiasm of my new educational choice, I began devouring every comprehensible physics and astronomy text I could find. Having had a long interest in the subject anyway, it wasn't hard for me to get into some of the more theoretical texts. But I got the most satisfaction out of the texts and authors who tried to instill in their audience an appreciation for the beauty and wonder of the universe and the laws that govern it.

Carl Sagan, for obvious reasons, was one of my favorites. Richard Feynman quickly became another.

My fondness for Feynman didn't develop from reading his well-known lectures or from his work on the Manhattan Project or from his Nobel Prize, because I didn't know about any of that. Rather, my interest in Feynman blossomed from seeing him during the Rogers Commission hearings. At one point during the televised hearings, he took a piece of O-ring material and plunged it into the glass of ice water in front of him, thereby demonstrating, quite against NASA's assertions to the contrary, that the O-rings in the shuttle's solid rocket boosters were, in fact, susceptible to contractions in cold temperatures.

At that point, I started reading up on the guy.

The book for which he's probably best known among the general public is the first one I read and the one that made me wish I had met him. It 's not a science book in the strictest sense, but it provides a number of anecdotal episodes from Feynman's life that show how science informs everything we do. I recommend it to anyone. It's one of the few books I can honestly say changed my life, even if I never became a physicist. (I only need $200,000 to become an astronaut, though.)

Last night, I started reading a new book of his collected letters. It's engaging, hilarious, heartbreaking, and I've only read the first 35 pages. Makes me wish I could do calculus.

8.11.2005

The Future of Chazzbot Is Bright

So yesterday the web gave birth to the Glory That Is Chazzbot, right? That very night, at dinner, this is the message I get in my fortune cookie:

"YOU ENJOY PLAYING TO A CROWD"

I shite thee notte. How weird is that?

Oh, Panda Express. How do you make Chinese food that is both edible and prescient?

Sweet Neo Con

So Mick and the boys are back in the spotlight. Surprisingly enough, though, this time people seem to actually be talking about their music, rather than which one of them is going to be portraying a pirate, which one of them has married a teenager, or which one of them is still alive.

Specifically, the latest Stones buzz (heh) centers around a song to be featured on their upcoming album (leading exasperated music fans to cry, "Do we really need another Stones album?"). Here are some details from the Chicago Tribune:

The Rolling Stones are taking aim at elements of the American right with a new song on their upcoming album. The track, "Sweet Neo Con," boasts the line, "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of ..." Newsweek reports. "It is direct," Mick Jagger was quoted as saying, adding that bandmate Keith Richards was "a bit worried" about a backlash because the guitarist lives in the United States and Jagger does not. The song also includes the line: "It's liberty for all, democracy's our style/Unless you are against us, then it's prison without trial." "It is certainly very critical of certain policies of the [Bush] administration, but so what! Lots of people are critical," Jagger told TV's "Extra" on Wednesday. "Sweet Neo Con" is one of 16 tracks featured on the Stones' new album, "A Bigger Bang," which drops in the United States on Sept. 6.

And more from the NY Times:

Mick Jagger is giving the White House a bit of lip. Treading political terrain covered already by artists including Eminem, Green Day and Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones' new album includes a song railing against well-connected contractors and the war on terrorism. In the song, "Sweet Neo Con," Mr. Jagger sings, "How come you're so wrong / My sweet neo con? / Where's the money gone / In the Pentagon?" according to lyrics provided by a band representative. The rock band, still one of the most successful touring attractions in the business, has touched on political themes before, in such classics as "Street Fighting Man." But the new song, which also references Halliburton, the energy-services company that employed Dick Cheney before he became vice president, comes at a time when the nation's sharp political divisions have left the recording industry uncertain about how to handle sensitive topics. The Rolling Stones may not find out how fans respond to "Sweet Neo Con," from their forthcoming "A Bigger Bang" album, unless they perform it on tour. Virgin Records, the Stones' label, is not promoting the song to radio stations. The N.F.L. plans to broadcast some of a taped Stones' concert in the pregame show before the New England Patriots take on the Oakland Raiders on Sept. 8, but it will not be selecting "Sweet Neo Con," said Brian McCarthy of the N.F.L. "We're not asking them to throw passes or discuss politics," Mr. McCarthy said. "We can draw from an extensive list of songs." Fran Curtis, a spokeswoman for the band, said, "People can disagree and still be friends." (JEFF LEEDS)

Now, there are a lot of interesting things going on in these "reports," not the least of which is how the music industry has seemingly joined hands with professional sports for mutual promotion (albeit of a strictly apolitical and fully-clothed nature). But that's old news, no?

What I find particularly obnoxious is that line from the Times piece about how "the nation's sharp political divisions have left the recording industry uncertain about how to handle sensitive topics." Think about that phrase "sensitive topics" for a moment. What do you suppose the recording industry regards as a "sensitive topic"?

We already know how music conglomerates like Clear Channel incorporate politics into their business. And the history of other forms of music censorship range from the laughable to the fascistic. But we've apparently now entered an age where music executives fret over what topics might be too sensitive for their audience's ears. Presumably this list includes anything political and definitely anything sexual, which pretty much takes care of a large percentage of rock music made in the last 50 years.

When one recalls the most memorable songs of the 1960's, it's difficult to think of any that weren't political in some way. But how many songs can you think of in the post 9/11 era that you've heard on the radio that are?

I'm exaggerating a bit. But the dearth of political activism in popular music in one of the most politically divisive periods in our country's history strikes me as a bit troubling. Has music lost its ability to deliver a potent message? Have people stopped turning to popular music for anything other than background comfort? Or has the music industry taken steps to "protect" its audience from possibly being offended or, gods forbid, moved by what it hears? (Elvis Costello perhaps said it best: "The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel." That was back in the late 70s.)

The fact that news organizations are treating this new song by the Stones as something worth reporting seems to suggest that we might be surprised that a major rock group has anything interesting to say in its music. Granted, the Stones haven't really made any interesting music in the last 20 years or so. But these are also the guys who made the single most frightening war song I've ever heard on a classic rock station, so they've got some props. For his part, Jagger seems to be treating all the hype with his trademark insouciance, his ever-present smirk threatening to crack his weathered face. That's rock & roll, baby! But I can't help but think that "Sweet Neo Con" is little more than the musical equivalent of Jagger passing by Bush or Cheney in the Yacht Club and failing to slap his shoulder in greeting.

Anyway, there are some good anti-Iraq/anti-Bush songs out there, and any memorable playlist from this era should include the following (you can go find them on your own favorite music site):

  • Tom Waits: "The Day After Tomorrow"
  • Bruce Springsteen: "Devils and Dust"
  • The Nightwatchman: "No One Left"
  • Steve Earle: "The Revolution Starts Now"
  • The Decemberists: "16 Military Wives"
  • Sleater-Kinney: "Off with Your Head"
  • Morrissey: "America Is Not the World"
  • REM: "Final Straw"

This is only a partial list to be sure, but how many of these have you heard on the radio or elsewhere? Bruce got some press when his album was released, but the rest of these artists remain in perpetual radio limbo.

So let the Stones have their fun. If anyone is still looking to them for political inspiration, more power to them. Mick can remain above the fray, ensconced in his Caribbean tax shelter retreat.

And maybe, just maybe, some bold radio jockey will give their song a spin. But, more than likely, we'll just be hearing "Start Me Up" for the 22,546th time. Oh, radio.

8.10.2005

Fresh Suckness

So I had to use 2 Z's in my moniker since my kind host, Blogger, informed me that "chazbot" was already taken. Just remember when spelling or pronouncing "Chazzbot" that it contains the familiar representation of snoring we've all come to know and love via Charles Schulz and other masters of the comic strip/book.

Why Chazzbot? Surely you'll recognize the reference to 70's TV classic, Mork and Mindy? No? Among my other childhood vices, I used to tape record (you know, audio recording back in the days before VCRs?) the climactic moments of my favorite television shows. Especially Mork's weekly messages to his Orkian superior, Orson. Somewhere in a box in my closet there is a cassette of the endings to an entire season of Mork & Mindy episodes, along with the distant sounds of gunshots in the background. But I digress.

By the way, I don't know how to bury links within my text (UPDATE: I just figured this out, I think) or how to post photos of myself in my profile so you can periodically be reminded whose blog you're reading/mocking when you look to the right. But all this will come in time, unless I get bored with the whole endeavour (I have a pathetically short attention span which, I suppose, makes me a perfect blogger.)

So what can you expect on Chazzbot? Why would anyone want to read it?

I can promise regular interaction with popular culture. I can promise insufferable championing of human spaceflight. I can promise occasionally embarassing revelations about my friends and family. I can promise tedious defenses of unwatched (by you) television programs, unseen films, and unread comic books. I can promise overly-emotional postings about my neighbors. Yes, all this and more! Maybe even on a daily basis!

As for the second question, well, you're on your own there, cowboy. (And welcome, cowgirls!) But I hope you'll add me to your mental list of sites to look at when you find yourself sitting in front of a computer and you've already Googled yourself and the names of all your friends and ex-partners. And you still have coffee left in your cup.

No, really, it'll be great.

So it begins. Welcome, suckers, to Chazzbot.

King Charles Posted by Picasa