Inside and Out

I like this Feist cover right now better than the BeeGees' original classic. She makes the acheyness equal if not greater to the sweet sexiness. It feels as if she's going through something heartwrenching. Nice touch.

Apple Pie on Steroids

Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a surprisingly clever, nuanced look at steroids and American culture. The first time director, Chris Bell, comes from a family of short fatties, three brothers, raised on ‘80s action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and pro-wrestler’s like Hulk Hogan. The brothers funneled feelings of inadequacy into an enthusiasm for bodybuilding and, in the case of his two brothers, habitual use of anabolic steroids. The film is the Michael Moore playbook, w/ a little Morgan Spurlock thrown in, but it’s done w/ a light touch, by turns charming, funny, tirelessly journalistic, searching, poignant, never settling for pat conclusions and, for its expose on a subculture formerly alien to me, totally fascinating. In his first effort, at least, Bell betters Moore or Spurlock at drawing from his interviews, a cast ranging from gym rats to congressman and celebrities, an uncannily guileless candor. You won’t walk away from the film concluding anabolic steroids are a muscle massing wonder drug. Even if there is plenty of evidence to show that the dire health threats posed by steroid use are greatly exaggerated (OMG, my shrunken testicals!). And that’s because there is something unmistakably desperate and unhealthy about most of the users in the film. One guy, known for the biggest biceps in the world, who started taking steroids to achieve the kind of build that appealed to women, confides that he is now viewed by women as monstrous, but won’t quit. It’s who he is: a gnarly little guy with grotesquely big biceps. At another point, talking about the possibility of quitting steroids, the director’s brother, Mark, says “once I’ve benched 800 pounds I can’t go back to 700.” It’s an obsession. Bell’s other brother Mike, who reportedly died this past December from substance abuse complications, less than a year since the movie was released, confides that he was “born for greatness.” Anabolic steroids can be a drug incredibly effective at building muscle or the latest compulsion for the American Dream— muscle cars and lush babes— in pill form. But if using anabolic steroids is cheating then why aren’t other performance enhancers like Tiger Wood’s laser eye surgery, Carl Lewis’ “herbal supplements,” (Dock Ellis on acid!), classical musicians using beta blockers, cortisone shots (another steroid), amphetamines, caffeine, or all those hot dogs Babe Ruth consumed? One answer is because as performance enhancers go steroids are so damn effective. And so in the high money stakes of professional sports (I mean, really, what are the alternative salary prospects for your average pro athlete?) this is why they are such a big deal. The biggest fear behind the steroids menace in baseball would seem to be the pressure their effectiveness as a performance enhancer places on aspiring athletes, young people. In the movie, even a chronic user like Mark Bell, married with kids, coaching at a high school, doesn’t want his players to know he uses because he doesn’t think they should have to make the decision as to whether they want to use steroids until they are adults. It’s not the pro athlete on steroids that frightens or offends so much, but the steroid addicted suicidal teen or the aging gym rat at Gold’s Gym who lives in his van. It's someone you know. For the baseball fan or anyone interested in the steroids issue or American culture over the last few decades Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a must see.

Currently playing:LL Cool J "I Need My Radio"

MERSY MERSY ME

Another one of those peculiar subplots that keep popping up in the economic crisis.

As early as last fall I recall talk ab homeowners who were facing foreclosure but could not locate and talk to a bank or mortgage company or business entity of any kind holding their loan. They would try to talk to the organization to whom they sent their monthly mortgage payments but they were not the lender, and most bizarrely, could never tell the desperate homeowner who the lender was.

Part of this story, it turns out, involves a small company called MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. This small entity, only 44 employees, owned by big boys like Citigroup and Wells Fargo, holds 60 million mortgages on American homes, and has reportedly saved banks a billion dollars over the last decade by creating electronic records that have dramatically reduced the need for loan paperwork. That all sounds good but the screwy part is that MERS operates under an agreement of confidentiality w/in the mortgage backed securities industry. So, frequently, MERS has initiated foreclosure proceedings but won't divulge to borrowers the lenders they are foreclosing for.

On the face of it, something like MERS seems to be Obama’s favorite pet project for modernizing the health care system. Perhaps this story should give us pause. Securitization should not be such a problem in health care. But it’s already apparent that health care profiteers are going to fight tooth and nail to sabotage any public alternative to the HMOs. I wouldn’t put it past them to game any electronic records system for their ends.

At any rate, MERS is just another layer of confusion for stressed borrowers trying to hold onto their homes. Another layer is the 3,000 “servicing” firms that file mortgage loan records with MERS. These are the people you send your mortgage loan payments to, but they are not your lender either. If you talk to them, apparently, they will almost always claim that “investor guidelines” preclude the possibility of renegotiating a mortgage loan.

So, in the end, there is no longer a lender, just a borrower, a home loan, and some investors, who do not want to be identified, but who want to get paid.

Tracking Loans Through a Firm That Holds Millions

Currently playing:OMC "How Bizarre"

Iron and Wine "The Trapeze Swinger"

Samuel Beam, aka Iron and Wine, is one of the most hummable singer-songwriter's going. The yearning in his sound is velvety as an ardent lover. It's a mellifluous comibination of voice and melody, but he might as well be humming b/c I rarely connect w/ the words. This song is no exception. The words, in this case, don't annoy, although the title is obtuse at best. Most the lyrics never rise above the murmur of a babbling brook. (And this might be a good thing?) ("Fuck the man," brings a cheer live, but it doesn't sound right comin' from the folkie Barry White.)One line that pokes out in repetition here is, "Remember Me." If by "me" we can assume Beam is only trying to give voice to the melody,I will. I still return to his debut, The Creek Drank The Cradle, most, but he's good for a sweet tune now and then. Hear for yourself. BTW, is Beam the guy that started the beard revival?

Little Man With A Gun In His Hand

The Minutemen: D. Boon, Mike Watt, and DJ Bonebrake. From 1984, Washington DC, 9:30 Club.

Torture Porn in the U.S.A.

I’m a squeamish horror fan at best, preferring suspense to torture-porn, so I haven’t followed U.S. forays into torture since 9/11 as closely as one might, but this is a story that should not be missed. An assortment of security officials are sitting around a table in ’02 establishing policy. Hundreds of enemy combatants have been apprehended but no one knows what to do w/ them. After some talk, it’s decided that b/c they’re Muslim fundamentalists the only form of interrogation they will respond to is extreme terror. Some guy at the table knows somebody in a U.S. military unit that submits special operations military trainees to torture techniques they might face if captured. So, some legal documents are drawn up and authorized by Bush and Cheney, a manual is distributed, and interrogators start going to town on detainees w/ waterboarding, etc. Six years later NOTHING substantial comes out of these interrogations. And, after some recent investigation by some NY Times reporters, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, it turns out the torture techniques were long discredited relics used by communists during the Korean War. Evidence abounds that the techniques used rarely elicit truth but, in fact, tend to drive detainees to confabulate stories. The mix of hubris and extreme stupidity in this story is astounding. It’s like something right out of the Manchurian Candidate and yet not completely surprising when the ruling ethos of American leadership in crisis is more concerned w/ appearing to be doing something, anything, appearing to be men of action, rather than actually taking the time to do the right thing. It’d be funny if it wasn’t for the torture victims and the shameful human rights example this episode has presented to the rest of the world. Meaning, it's not very funny at all.

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into their Past Use

Tea Party for Kooks, Demogogues, and Right Wingers

I’m almost relieved to learn the Tax Day Tea Parties were organized by Fox News. Watching reports, listening to people’s complaints, checking out the anti- government spending signs, I'd hate to think this was a honest-to-goodness grassroots movement. But if the O Team’s bank plan doesn’t work this Astroturf happening might still grow organically into something more. (Even if it makes even less sense than O’s bank plan!) Obama is already lowering taxes for 95% of Americans, or so he’s said so upteen times, so the anti-tax angle makes no sense. And government spending and deficits, right now anyway, are NOT our problem. Sure, what the government is spending money on— bank bailouts instead of more stimulus (that creates jobs, redirects the economy to green manufacturing, cuts corporate profits out of health care costs, etc)— that would be worth raising a ruckus about but I didn’t see a sign or here a peep ab that. There is a crackpot conservatism afoot that behaves like the housewife continuing to make the bed and dust the day after Armageddon. Karl Rove, in the Wall Street Journal, suggested the other day that Teabaggers go back to Reagan basics, getting the word out about the value of tax cuts and lowering government spending to stimulate the economy. Uh, the jig is up on the supply side cant, guys. First, right, this isn’t the time to be raising taxes, but lowering government spending when consumers and businesses aren’t spending is just plain stupid. And, in general, smaller government, or stripping the government of its ability to officiate what bankers do with other people’s money, more specifically— the Reagan Revolution— is a big part of what brought about the current catastrophe. If, like me, you find your blood boils at the idiocy of this stuff, check the Robert Reich link below for the cool reasoning you need for family and that guy at the coffee shop (or the cute chick who takes pride in reading cue cards).

A Short Citizens Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day

Skinny Love: The Annotated Lyrics

Skinny Love
1. His love is skinny, skating on thin ice.
2. Her love is skinny, always close to giving out.
3. His beloved is skinny (and drinks too much); singularly, perhaps endearingly so.

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

(Hang in there, it’ll get better. Pour a little salt for luck, we’ll leave this dark place behind. (Or pour a little salt on the wound, as if our love never mattered.) Our protective veneer has been destroyed. I can’t stop looking at the wreckage.)

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order's tall

(I don’t want her pity but the thought of losing her frightens me.)

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

(He resorts to hectoring. Fine=okay, alright. She has trashed the relationship beyond repair. It’ll never be the same.)

Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split

(Nourish your love on my skinny chest; or she’s taken up with a lesbian with small breasts. I still want you even if I know I should split.)

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines

(Now you’re bitter. It’s not going your way. And now I'm getting fat eating my despair and cringing inside each time you speak.)

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

(What will happen to us? Who will love you, if not me? Which of us will fight for our love? Who will give up first?)

By Bon Iver
1. In French Bon=Good.
2. In Seattle Iver=Ivar’s Fish & Chips
3. So Bon Iver is a Good Fish.

The performance is singer-songwriterly minimal: a jangly old Silvertone guitar with an echoey metallic sound and Justin Vernon’s thin tenor. His tone is pleading except in the “I told you….” verses when he bites off the lines in exasperation. It’s one of those kinds of songs almost impossible not to sing along to, even when the lyrics strike you as obtuse. Like a James Taylor tune. So “Skinny Love” is Bon Iver’s “Fire and Rain.”

TV on Drugs

If you’ve been watching TV since b/f the late-90s I’m sure you’ve wondered at one time or another what unleashed all the advertising for drugs of the last decade. In 1997 lobbying by media companies (like Time-Warner) finessed some FDA rule changes by the handle of “Direct to the Consumer Advertising (DTC).” This opened TV to an avalanche of advertising dollars smothering consumers w/ medical fixes for everything from high cholesterol to depression. In the ‘90s drug companies were spending $55 million on DTC ads; by 2005 the number had skyrocketed to $7.5 billion. There is, apparently, credible evidence that as many as a third of consumers see an ad for a drug on TV and then talk to their doctor about it. Half of those end up w/ prescriptions. In short, a highly lucrative number of people who watch these ads believe them, even when the words addressing risks, read in a low-key rush, outnumber the sales pitch.

Harlots High and Low: A Foul Saga in The History of Network TV, By Alexander Cockburn

Suspicious Minds

“That bad music is played, is sung more often and more passionately than good, is why it has also gradually become more infused with men’s dreams and tears. Treat it therefore with respect. Its place, insignificant in the history of art, is immense in the sentimental history of social groups.” -Marcel Proust

No Fun in Adventureland

On its own, Adventureland is sweet if both implausible and predictable. But compared to Superbad, writer/director Greg Mottola’s previous outing, it’s surprisingly lackluster, to say the least. First, the implausible. James, our protagonist (Jesse Eisenberg doing his best Michael Cera), smokes pot, parties, has made it all the way through college, it’s 1987, and he is still a virgin? I got out of college in ’82 and I realize AIDs changed everything shortly thereafter but this much is hard for me to believe? The summer between high school and college, sure, but after four years of dorm life and various extra-curricular “experimentation,” the guy has not been laid once!? This incongruity isn’t helped by the fact that James’ early childhood friend, Frigo, still acts like he’s 13. I mean, you will assume that this must be the summer before starting college until forced to accept otherwise and the realization is vexing. Next up, the predictable. The frightened, sex-crazed coming of age tale needs some twists and turns; some character grist, family and/or relationship dysfunction. All the parents here are all tasteless, paralyzed by disappointment, and uncomprehending bores but never step out of the background. Likewise, Ryan Reynolds as an over-aged lothario, Mike, the mouth-piece for the macho biological imperative, is a boring caricature. The other Adventureland character roles (especially Joel as a pipe-smoking, Gogol-reading lifer at the fun park) are amusingly colorful and so the start is promising but outside some random anti-semitism there’s not much frisson; no homoeroticism, no kinky sex proclivities. The heart of the story with James’ brooding love interest, Em (Kristen Stewart), and the gum-popping bimbo, Lisa P, has thorny potential but its resolution is preposterously Hollywood. Which, alas, is also the sweet part. Turns out, again, love conquers all. Love is the ultimate high in this journey called life the movie confirms, despite all the evidence to the contrary along the way. Love is transformative, etc. (Or until outside forces intervene and/or internal resolve gives out once the camera stops, says the jaded single inside.) Truth is, even though when you haven’t yet it feels so, falling in love isn’t so hard. It’s sustaining love that’s hard. Not just staying together, riding out the rough stuff. But keeping alive that flame, or at least contact with the fuse, the possibility of fireworks. That achievement is a sweet cliché I’d stand up and cheer for but you have to start somewhere, I guess. Finally, I actually hurried to see the film mostly because I heard Yo La Tengo did the soundtrack. But outside an instrumental bit over the closing credits I’m pretty sure there’s no Yo La Tengo music in the film. Making matters worse, the soundtrack is a period-appropriate mix (lots of Lou Reed, Husker Du, “Rock Me Amadeus,” etc), but the music isn’t integrated into the action. As a bag of songs they’re fine but they don’t resonate cinematically the way songs do in a Wes Anderson or David Lynch or Scorsese film. Adventureland isn't offensive but it is a bit of a dud. Wait for that video night when you want to catch up on some youth flicks. Or, for sure, if you haven’t, by all means, see Superbad instead.

You! Me! Dancing!

Don’t mean to belabor my rock and roll lecture of the other day, which as an issue at this point in music history is hopefully quaint, if not still tired. (Became quaint and no longer tired back in 1992?) But, dang, if I didn’t have another rock and roll moment the other day. Went to see Welsh seven-piece Los Campesinos at Neumos Friday. (A peculiar thing ab the live performance is that despite the fact that I can probably count on one hand the number of live recordings I treasure seeing an act live can dispel in two or three songs questions that might linger for years on record.) Los Campesinos are a pop group, not a punk group. Punk, see, is their “idea” of rock and roll, captured best in lines like “don’t tell me to do the math” and “eyes wide open” and “I’m better off with artificial intelligence.” They’re more Belle & Sebastian than X Ray Spex. Think mid-90s Chumbawamba. If you’re a record geek think the kind of UK punk pop group that K Records would celebrate in the ‘80s: Flatmates, Pastels, Shop Assistants, Vaselines. Part of the Love Rock Revolution, or something like that. Most of Los Campesinos live set, though, was a not quite tuneful, but never tuneless, din. But in one song, the din purged in a long tension building intro, the disco ball twirling, a bouncy new wave beat propelled the crowd to uncontrollable urges. The singer guy, Gareth, in his best cockney yelp carrying on ab how he “can’t dance a single step” to girls, Ellen and Aleksandra, softly taunting “ooh ooh oohs,” until (despite themselves) they (or was that the audience?) were jumping up and down, shouting, soccer chant stylee, “You! Me! Dancing!” It was sublime. Like I said, a rock and roll moment. Don’t know what better to call it. And in six minutes worth the price of admission.

Oil Giants Party On

You know all those ads on TV in the past few months peddling the notion that the oil companies, Shell, BP, Chevron, etc. are way committed to developing a greener, more sustainable energy future for us all? From a piece in the NY Times today called, “Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead”:

In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.

Until businesses are charged (yup, that means taxed!) for the carbon dioxide emissions they generate there is little incentive for them to diversify. The “free market” is a free-for-all that leaves a mess for others to clean up. For the oil giants, it’s like they get all the door receipts for puttin’ on a big party but don’t have to pay for any of the clean up. There is still way too much profit to be made from oil to waste their time and money on anything else, whatever the consequences to the planet.

Ending Banker's Holiday: Greed and Stupidity

In a column last week, “Greed and Stupidity,” NY Times columnist David Brooks outlines the development of two narratives to the economic crisis. One, called the greed narrative, locates the crisis in the overreach of an investment banking Wall Street oligarchy elite, growing from 16% to 40% of corporate profits betw the ’80s and this decade, and extending its power into government. Brooks cites Simon Johnson as chief explicator of this narrative. The second, called the stupidity narrative, suggests the collapse was caused by an over-reliance on the diversifying trick of securitization (bundling and reselling loan assets) and inflexible mathematical models that ignore inevitability of historical shocks and the unexpected tendency of the internet to accentuate runs. Elaboration of this position is provided by Jerry Z. Muller from right-wing think-tank the American Enterprise Institute. The odd thing ab this supposed narrative split is that if you’re even casually familiar w/ the literature tracking the crisis you’ll note that the stupidity narrative is already part of the greed narrative. Brooks even admits that the reform measures for the financial markets proposed by both narratives are more or less the same, with one important exception. The greed narrative describes an insider, collusive, dysfunctional relationship betw Wall Street and Washington (Geintner, Summers, Bernanke, etc). To effectively recover from the current mess, Johnson argues that it is essential to sever the backroom ties betw Wall Street and Washington, nationalize and breakup and reorganize the banking system so that banks can no longer be too big to fail. Meaning, at least temporarily, a bigger government role. This is anathema to Brooks and conservatives raised on 25 years of Reagan Revolution free market BS, who, at this point, sound like flat-earthers. Even if we got into this crisis b/c of arrogant Wall Streeters who didn’t know what they were doing it’s those same people now in Washington serving up the weak sauce concerning the bonuses and sheisty accounting rules and black hole bailout plans. Brooks would have us believe that changing a few rules and recapitalizing (meaning: more taxpayer bailouts) will do the job. Even if Wall Street hubris has got us into this mess we should still fear even more Washington hubris, argues Brooks. All of which just seems like fodder to extend the dithering by the O Team and stem the tide of calls for breaking up the Wall Street lock on Washington. Meanwhile, job news is increasingly dreary; 663,000 jobs lost in March. Unemployment has reached 8.5%; the underemployed (that includes people w/ part-time jobs who’d rather be working full-time) is over 15%. News from the Washington state proposes huge cuts in public education. Everyone at work is bracing for layoff notices in May.

Rock and roll-- If I Can't Have You...?

The other day a classroom teacher neighbor asked me what I’d been playing loudly in my room b/f our meeting. “Gawd, was that Kelly Clarkson, Jack?” she inquired incredulously. It wasn’t. “It’s this Swedish pop singer Robyn,” I said, embarrassed. My dear work mate is a indie rock queen of idolatrous proportions. She’d heard Robyn or heard of her, I didn’t catch which, she responded w/out the tone of derision directed at Clarkson. Was the new tone of respect b/c she’s European, I wondered? Some cache unavailable to an American Idol grad, from Texas, no less? It was a small exchange that was ended by the arrival of everyone else for the meeting. But, as is often the case when something hits me wrong in conversation, I replay it over and over later, pondering what I coulda woulda shoulda said. These are a few notes to that effect.

I think I understand her general antipathy. As winner of American Idol’s first season Clarkson is the epitome of crass commercialism. She’s made at least one movie I stumbled on once and watched long enough to tell you it looked like an Old Navy commercial, an AI sponsor. Her weight fluctuates wildly, perhaps from periodic coke and pop tart binges, two other major AI sponsors. She appears on Oprah. Yeah, American Idol is one big fat schmaltzville, no doubt. I can’t sit through the show. Still, mining the golden oldies songbook is not such a terrible thing per se. The Rolling Stones’ “Time Is On My Side” is kind of schmaltzy, too. Once and awhile they do a Smokey Robinson or Dolly Parton proud. (Check out David Archuleta’s “Shop Around,” for instance.) I get how being too commercial can be like wearing too much makeup: it can mask over any humanness, leaving only a glossy caricature. But, really, Clarkson has humanness in abundance. She is more than AI schmaltz. One of the interesting aspects of her career has been her struggle to find her own voice apart from producers and industry flack. Like her weight she’s a little all over the place; messy. And what ab “Since U Have Been Gone,” really? A pop song so irresistible that indie stalwart Ted Leo had to cover it.

And as it happens, I have heard Clarkson’s latest, All I Ever Wanted, a couple times now. Truth is, so far it feels like it is less than the sum of its parts. There’s some edgy riffage ala “Since U Have Been Gone.” There’s Kelly’s ain’t-no-Mtn-high-enough voice stretching beyond the horizon. There’s angsty sentiments aplenty (“I Don’t Hook-Up” will get picked up by some for the title alone). There’s some Pat Benatar-esque toughness and some Abba-esque harmonies and some Stevie Nicks-ian ethereality. But it sounds like all the parts were recorded in separate takes and don’t gel when heard as a whole, not only betw songs but w/in a given song.

That’s after a couple of listens, anyway. But one song, “I Can’t Have You,” I adore, and I’ve been playing it semi-obsessively for a week. I love this song b/c it is what I will call rock and roll. What I mean by this is several things. Let me explain.

First, that it is danceable; it has a beat you can dance to. Not like disco (this is not an update of the great Yvonne Elliman/BeeGees song by the same name) or world beat, although both have more to do w/ rock and roll than most indie rock. The beat in “If I Can’t Have You,” and rock and roll, is steady, insistent, slightly forced. Anyone can pick it up, and no one is going to lose it, just as Chuck Berry would have it. Rock and Roll rhythms are like that: more pushy than seductive; more train-kept-a-rollin’ forward motion than funky polyrhythms. I’m not saying a rock and roll beat can’t be sexy but it doesn’t beat ar the bush; it’s enthusiastically blunt, no need for foreplay. The Beastie Boys first album is rock and roll. King Sunny Ade’s Synchro System, while great, is mostly something else.

Another thing ab rock and roll is that it has to have something rough ab it: gnarly guitar riffs, stomping beats, swaggering non-singerly voices, etc. Something rough and unpolished sounding. Examples abound, from Chuck’s “Around and Around” to Blondie’s “X Offender” to Biggie’s “Mo Money Mo Problems” to LCD Soundsystem’s “Tribulations” to The Shaky Hand’s (yeah, indie rockers can rock and roll, too) “We Are Young.” The reason for this is buried deep in rock and roll myth. The roughness is the sound of the democratic spirit at the heart of rock and roll. It’s what Pete Townshend was getting at once when he said rock and roll was playing your song, dancing in the rain, w/ a broken guitar. The genius of rock and roll is the inexplicable joy, the emotional grandeur, created by such simple, crude, humble means. Its expression might possess elements of the classic tragic hero (noble everyman faces confusing, trackless world) but I don’t want to go there right now. The important point it that its virtuosity is always circumscribed by an element of roughness. It sounds hifalutin but it is at least in part a very simple, physical, tactile thing. Rock and roll has to have that rough feel.

In Clarkson’s “If I Can’t Have You” roughness is in almost every part of the song. The brrr in Clarkson’s voice feels country in a song that is frantically citified. All the electronics are turned up to “11”; they sound purposefully distorted. The buzzing guitar-like opening riff is catchy. The heartracing keyboard fills in the chorus are thrilling. The production sounds like kids plugging in their Radio Shack synth and duct-taped 808 and rocking out like fiends. The sound reminds me some of Rihanna’s “Disturbia” and recent Britney Spears and might be part of some vogue (or should be!) production sound I am not familiar w/ but it is very rock and roll. Kelly Clarkson is not just a glossy commercial pinup in this song, anyway.

Finally, another thing about rock and roll is there’s rock and roll and then there’s great rock and roll. It’s not all the Clash. And not all the Clash is “great” rock and roll. And, BTW, the Clash were a commercial stunt from the gitgo. (And I’m not ab to try to define “great” any more than I’m gonna go into the cathartic tragedy stuff of RnR at the moment.) Still, while this combination of uptempo danceability and tactile roughness that I’m calling rock and roll is by no means the only sound or kind of music I like it’s been a touchstone since I can’t remember when. Sure, sometimes it’s only rock and roll, Frat house party music, Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” or Plastic Bertand’s “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” but I like it, indeed I do. The notion that all commercial music is a glossy inhuman shil is no more credible than my contention that too much indie rock is mopey misanthropic trustafarianism. Kelly Clarkson’s “If I Can’t Have You” rocks! You paid for your Vampire Weekend album too, no? But is “If I Can’t Have You” great rock and roll? Maybe. But whatever gets you through the night. (Or pumped up for meetings at work!)

Ending Banker's Holiday: Part Six

Totally unfuckingbelievable, really. It’s coming out more every day that over the last ten years arcane financial regulations have been bent, mutilated, or abandoned for the sake of “free market” interests in the investment banking industry. (To what end, we now know!) But now, after all the revelations of the last six months?! Yesterday the Financial Accounting Standards Board— Wall Street retirees and cronies, no doubt— changed a mark-to-market rule so that banks could now determine the value of their assets on their financial statements. The mark-to-market rule required that assets be valued at the price they are worth on the open market— in other words, what people would pay for them. But banks, upset that their assets are being undervalued by the current down market, have won the right to value their own assets according to what they believe they would be worth in more “normal” market times. Gawd, banks, reportedly, already have numerous ways in which to keeps assets and debts off their balance sheets altogether (for what good reasons I do not know) but now they need more ways to make up their own numbers?! This at a time when it is generally recognized (if poorly understood) that the banks were taking wildly leveraged risks, stretching their capital to debt ratios (that’s how much real money they keep ar in case some of their investments/debts go bad) way beyond sound financial practices. And this measure, of course, will only make it more difficult to hold bank risk-taking accountable. ‘Don’t worry,’ says Mr. Banker, ‘we’re capitalized w/ all these valuable assets over here’ (read: that nobody else wants right now but, hey, if we ever really need them to cover our debts taxpayers will pay our prices for them!). See today’s report in the NY Times. Note the subdued yet strained tone, especially in the quotes. Pay attention to it: it means we’ve been screwed again, folks.

(Banks Get New Leeway In Valuing Their Assets)

Funky Drummer

How to do the Purdie Shuffle:



Purdie Shuffle in Mashup:

End Banker's Holiday: Part Five

Like a wreck on the highway, I can’t look away. The budget in public education always involves minor cuts and the threats of bigger cuts but this was the most tense budget year since I started teaching. By now everyone knows someone who has been laid off or someone who had to keep working and put off retirement. Shanty towns are popping up, Seattle has their own Nicholsville, named after our reputably heartless mayor. There’s not much humor to squeeze out of this crisis. It makes me nervous, edgy. But there is a Pynchonesque novel of names like Glass Steagall and securitization and Black Scholes and credit default swaps and Brookley Born and derivatives and Ayn Rand and subprime mortgages all swirly w/ simple dreams and fathomless gall. Three early chapters follow. If you haven’t already, check them out.

The End, By Michael Lewis


The Reckoning, By Peter S. Goodman


The Quiet Coup, By Simon Johnson

Final Four

I entered the weekend w/ four of the Elite Eight and somehow still managed to not get one team into the Final Four. One of my poll picks, I mean. Truth is by the Sweet Sixteen I’ve usually picked up on underdog faves from the first two rounds. Come Saturday I wanted Villanova but had already picked Pittsburgh in my brackets. Now all I care is that the championship game be any combination other than NC-UConn. I just don’t like the script. Right, those two teams are deeper in talent than the competition. So go State and/or Villanova!

All-Tournament Team for First Four Rounds
Goron Suton C Michigan State
Blake Griffin F Oklahoma
Stanley Robinson F UConn
Levance Fields G Pittsburgh
AJ Price G UConn

Zombie Media at Obama Press Conference

If, like me, you found yourself shaking your head at the softball (or even downright head scratching) questions the media served up at Obama's latest press conference then check out Leslie Savan's response over at The Nation. Spot on. (Also, one of my favorites writing about pop culture.) When NBC's Chuck Todd asked what sacrifices Obama wanted the public to make to solve the economic crisis I had to scramble to find something to throw at the TV. Grrr.

(The Nation.)

Big Dogs and Underdogs in the Sweet Sixteen

The dance is on. The first weekend had its moments: 3 OTs, 12 games decided by 5 points or less. Unfortunately, in several nail biters my picks lost: UW, USC, Florida St, TEX. But, let’s face it, this Sweet Sixteen is predictable. So much so that this is the first time the top three seeds in each region have all made it to the third round. Even the lowest remaining seed, Purdue, won the Big 10 Tournament. This year’s tournament is a battle of the power conferences, the Big East leading the way w/ five teams still alive. The remaining field is studded w/ pillars of hall of fame coaches: Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, John Calipari. This is all good for marquee headlines, but what is the underdog loving sports fan to do w/ this bevy of heavyweights? Pull for Villanova and/or Missouri, I say. (I wish I could say the Zags, too, who put on the floor a team as talented as any, but seem to have this unerring penchant for stupid letdowns.) Consider Villanova Wildcats’ coach, Jay Wright. He is Mr. Pennsylvania, never having played or coached outside the state, built successful programs wherever and at whatever level he’s coached, and is something of a dandy w/ his tailored suits. Now all he needs is a National Championship. The Missouri Tigers coach, Mike Anderson, has been successful wherever he’s coached too, but soldiered for years as an assistant under Nolan Richardson, and has been challenged every step of the way for the style of play he coaches. Said style, full court presses, up and down craziness, is ab as exciting to behold as it gets. The Wildcats, too, play at breakneck speed, slashing and passing, w/ big athletes flying at the rim in waves. These two coaches and programs aren’t just deserving b/c they aren’t Duke or North Carolina or UConn, they play brands of basketball as aesthetically pleasing as any left in the field. But can they win; or specifically, and respectively, can they beat Duke and Memphis (an even more talented team than the Zags w/ a penchant for the stupid) this coming Thursday? Can the Wildcats take advantage of Duke’s inside game deficiencies and defend against Duke’s crisp passing? Can the Tigers turnover the Memphis guards and show more moxie down the stretch? They’re both longshots but I’m pulling for them.


All-Tournament Team (so far)
Blake Griffin F Oklahoma
Terrance Williams F Louisville
Cole Aldrich C Kansas
Sherron Collins G Kansas
AJ Price G UConn

Let the Show Begin: Bracketology for Dummies

Smart money always follows the seeding even though last year was the first year in history all the number one seeds made the Final Four. Me, I’m like a guy who goes to the race track only once a year and picks the ponies on superficial appearances or, in some cases, only reputations or even mascots. (Gotta love the Big Red!)This year everything feels up for grabs or perhaps back to usual. Frontrunners NC and UConn and Pitt all have uncertain injuries to crucial backcourt players. Okalahoma has had a question mark about them since Blake Griffin got his bell rung by Texas almost a month ago. Louisville would seem to be the only untarnished money pick, having won the Big East tournament and finished first in what is the toughest conference in the country, but they lost by thirty points in their first game this season. USC and Syracuse come barreling out of their conference tournaments but had mediocre seasons. Purdue ruled the Big Ten in a year most everyone admits was a down year for that conference. Villanova or Missouri or Gonzaga have as many athletes as anybody and could be “dark horse” picks. Arizona State has probably the most pro-ready player in the tournament in swingman James Hardin. Homies, UW have probably the worst draw in the field, facing the SEC Tourney winners, Mississippi State, in the first round, then Big Ten tourney winners, Purdue, for the Sweet Sixteen, and a dream rematch w/ the right coast Huskies of UConn, for the Elite Eight. Not likely! Then there are teams in the field led by Tom Izzo (Mich St) and Bill Self (Kan) and Mike Krzyzewski (Duke) and Rick Barnes (Tex), coaches who always seem to find a way to compete at the highest level. Which team will win? The one w/ smartest backcourt and a gang of leaping greyhounds in the frontcourt; the one w/ the most heart and guts and more then a little luck. All you have to do is win six games in a row. It’s March Madness, baby. It's one of the greatest shows on earth. At least on the weekend, turn off the news. Order a pizza. Don’t miss the overtime!

Ending Banker's Holiday: Part Four (It's Satan!)

I was surprised when I looked up the definition of a “bonus” on Princeton’s wordnet: “An additional payment (or other remuneration) to employees as means of increasing output." I always thought a bonus was a reward for increased output. Carl Crawford earns a million dollar bonus if he hits 25 homeruns and knocks in 100 runs this year. The bonus comes after the fact of the increased output. It’s based on performance. But Princeton’s definition seems to suggest you could write a “bonus” into an employee’s contract as a means to inspire them, in the hopes that the bonus will increase their output, or at least keep them employed.

This is what people don't understand about the 165 million dollars in bonuses paid out with tax payer money by the failing insurance giant AIG. As we learn today from CEO Edward Liddy, turns out there are “performance” bonuses and “retention” bonuses, the latter making up the biggest share of the AIG bonus pie, according to Liddy. Only problem w/ this account is that on it heels reports came out that many of the bonuses actually went to employees no longer working for the firm. So, there must be “severance” bonuses, too.

To most people it seems unconscionable that a business on the verge of bankruptcy since last summer, kept alive so far by 170 billion dollars of tax payer money, would be paying its employees anything beyond their basic salaries at all. What sort of output could warrant a bonus when a business is busy bankrupting the world economy!? But those people, the rising bubble of “populist” anger, don't understand. (There is something about these unbelievably unscrupulous circumstances that make the use of this term “populist” terribly condescending, as if to suggest that if public anger were not mere mob sentiment people might understand the legit purpose of these bonsuses to the the world of expert finance.)You give million dollar bonuses to keep people who screwed up your business so that they might fix it? You know, who better than the crook to suss the criminal mind?! So much for the efficiencies of private enterprise.

We have millions of people losing their jobs, losing their homes, and we’re giving economy-busting gamblers bonuses? What’s next, awards to companies whom lay off the most workers? bailouts to banks whom foreclose on the most homes? (Oops, we’re already doing this!) This is another one of those occasions where Obama’s cool hand (word awhile back had it O was beyond satire but his saunter and “be cool” demeanor begs for an SNL skit in times like these) is NOT up to the task. Talking ab a culture of greed and returning balance to the distribution of our economic spoils is fine and dandy on the stump. But this is a time for kicking ass and taking names.

It’s been argued that nationalizing zombie banks deemed too large to fail is un-American but when recipients of government support aren’t pulling in the same direction(obliviously stuffing their pockets, in fact) then bailouts are stupid or all too American. All too in favor of an American oligarchy elite, that is. Such bonuses on the public purse are unacceptable and should not be tolerated, obviously. If AIG would have had to file bankruptcy last fall instead of being bailed out by taxpayers, surely, no one would be getting any “bonuses” before debts were paid. Which means NEVER getting bonuses b/c if they could pay all their debts then they wouldn’t be bankrupt.

But righteous indignation won’t fix the problem, won’t prevent a collapse of this magnitude from happening again. Nor will the Obama Team’s vague generalities, I’m afraid. It’s as if the O Team has been instructed not to utter the words “derivatives” or “credit default swaps” or “hedge funds” in public lest they be asked to commit to rules that would fix the monstrous abuses wrought by these financial products. O talks a good game. But, again, there is a condescending disconnect emerging between his condemnations of greedy gamblers on Wall Street and a strained silence about any specifics that might curtail the public consequences of their conduct. What sense does it make to stimulate new investment b/f establishing new rules for investment? I mean, we want a recovery (more jobs) but not one based on another bubble bound to eventually collapse w/ such devastatng effects, right? Obama preaches patience but patience is no substitute for a concrete regulatory reform plan. And they’ve already announced they won’t even have such a plan ready for the G-20 Global Economic Summit that convenes this Friday in England, much to the chagrin of many of the other attending nations.

So the dithering continues. It’s as if the Obama Team still hoped to paper over this problem on Wall Street, wait on a recovery, and set the stage for the next bubble. Counting on the chicken-littles in the press and public to be proven wrong again. So the upswing in the stock markets last week spurred by more conciliatory utterances from Bernanke and Geigthner (promising to allow more off balance sheet accounting, most significantly) is a step in the right direction. Once an investment and job creation upswing gets going again people (populist sentiment) will forget ab regulatory reform, one would assume this reasoning goes. Meanwhile, Nightline is taping a show in Ballard on the existence of Satan in the excesses of Wall Street. See, when the public dithers in mystifying BS explanations for what's happening it’s mounting mob anger, when our Celebrity Pres dithers it’s cool leadership. But, really, condescending or pandering to the people isn't the leadership we need. I still want to believe but....

1491: A Walk In The Park

Just finished reading 1491, Charles C. Mann’s 2005 account of the pre-Columbian Americas. Pulling together all the latest historical research, including the many disputes and controversies, Mann intends his book as a collection of revelations dispelling myths perpetrated by our school history books about the Americas before European contact. Mann’s wind up is so big, and the beginning of the book so slow going, that you might give up before getting to the good stuff. What Mann calls “Holmsberg’s Mistake,” is the notion, repeated by many European settlers and anthropologists, based on contact with small, remote tribes, that pre-Columbian Americas was a land virtually “empty of mankind and its works,” a tabula rasa. In fact, pre-Columbian numbers of people in the Americas may have exceeded 100 million. An agricultural revolution based on the domestication of corn, beans, and squash spreading out from Central Mexico reached as far north as New England. Okay, I’ve heard this before. And it wasn’t so much the steel and horses and long-distance ships, the technological advantages, that enabled Europeans to subdue Indian populations upon contact but the devastating diseases that opened the way for colonists. As much as 20% of the world’s population was lost as the result of the smallpox and measles viruses unleashed by the Columbian contact with the Americas. I’ve heard this, too. But a slightly later agricultural revolution in South America in an area of Northern Peru known Norte Chico (a forerunner to the Inca), with monumental architecture and other trappings of civilization, was not based on agricultural food surpluses at all but a complex relationship between cotton cultivation and fishing. This may not sound like such a big deal but it does upset a formula sacrosanct in textbooks: i.e., the rise of civilizations was made possible by agricultural food surpluses of wheat (Fertile Crescent), rice (China), and corn (Mesoamerica). Where the beginning of writing in Sumer is based on accounting, in Mesoamerica the impulse towards writing was timekeeping and led to the creation of a complex system of calendars. There is evidence of the use of Zero by the Olmec long before Ptolemy. Perhaps most significantly, Mann drives home the point that the early Americas were not an Edenic wilderness. That they appeared so to early colonizers, vast plains of buffalo and tangles of impenetrable forest, was largely because of the imbalance caused by the diseases that preceded the colonial settlers. It looked that way because so many of the people who had shaped the land had died off. “Holmsberg’s Mistake” is manifested today by a purist strain of environmentalism that values only untouched wilderness and opposes or is uninterested in any other kind of land stewardship. But, in fact, the shorelines, forests, rivers of pre-Columbian Americas were widely shaped by human choice and action. So much so that to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, that inhabited the Amazon river basin before Columbus their homeland was not a rainforest but a patchwork of orchards.

Iraqi Hero Goes To Jail

"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi throws a shoe at President George W. Bush during a new conference in Iraq last December.

(Los Angeles Times)

It's Not Me, It's You!

B/f you rush out this weekend to Easy Street to buy the new Lily Allen, It's Not Me, It's You, b/c you were thinkin’ it’s ab time you check out something hep again and you learned from two big recent write-ups in The New York Times and the New Yorker that the acid tongued squirt is some dance-pop songsmith (and TV personality) from swinging London big on the sardonic (meaning she’s a sarcastic alcoholic— maybe like Ricky Gervais you hope, only sexier?!).

But what a soggy, sodden, sorry mess of a record, huh?! First, there’s no dance in this pop. (If this is the only dance-pop record you buy this year trade it in for the Robyn record now, I’m tellin’ ya!) The Caribbean lilt to her last record is gone. In its place is some goofy Brit dancehall melodrama reminiscent of Ian Dury or the Specials, a nice touch, but attached to rhythm tracks ab as exciting as the escalator at Target.

She’s good at a dis, or taking the piss, or whatever the kids call this sort of bitter satire these days. A “Fuck You” to the Bushies and to an Ex, who could be me when I’m feeling extra pitiful ab my life in relationship hell the last five years, hit the bull’s-eye. The abstinence only crowd ought use her stuff as a cautionary tale. Her first single, “The Fear,” mines the soul-depleting existential dilemma of the shopaholic celebrity. If you’re over 30 rolling your eyes and yawning is an involuntary reflex watching her sing it.

That Lilly does not give a fuck gives her wit a caustic edge but it sure doesn’t help the music. Fans won’t notice or blame it on her producer, The Bird and The Bee’s Greg Kurstin. Me, I’m ready to reconsider the Lily Allen vs. Katy Perry question.

Addendum: Revisiting this one after seeing X-gau make it his pick hit in his April Consumer Guide. I was extra hard on it b/c I expected a lot. Lily has her own thing. But lyrically and, especially, musically the record is lackluster. She's bored.

The Birth of the Cool

This is not what I’m supposed to be doing but alas anything to put off grading papers. A former student asks me for a mix of some “cool jazz,” so I’m rooting through my records asking myself what is “cool jazz” anyhow? Miles in the 1950s, right? West coast bebop? And what distinguishes cool from bop really, anyway? Cool is bop lite? If bop is a traffic jammed intersection, cool is a cruise down the boulevard; if bop is a hothouse of ideas, cool is a supper club martini. At its best cool jazz was swing scaled down to bop group size allowing musical ideas to breathe again. But it's more a mood than fresh set of ideas and probably, more than anything else, a precursor to drecky smooth jazz. So if I keep fussing w/ this mix much longer I’ll probably end up where I can’t stand listening to it. Besides, the student and I started talking ab music last year in the first place b/c he’s a hiphop head. He’s probably expecting some ‘60s soul-jazz, Lonnie Liston Smith and the like, the stuff more commonly sampled by Gang Starr, etc. Another day. For now, the birth of the cool sounds real good on a rainy night.

“Sometimes I’m Happy,” Lester Young
“Jeru,” Miles Davis
“Blues for Pablo,” Miles Davis and Gil Evans
“Figure 8,” Lennie Niehaus
“Crazy Rhythm,” Stan Getz
“Let’s Get Lost,” Chet Baker
“Foolish Things,” Lennie Tristano Quintet
“All The Things That You Are,” Paul Desmond
“Willow Weep For Me,” Zoot Sims
“Rainy Night,” Red Mitchell
“Linus and Lucy,” Vince Guaraldi Trio
“Soul Sauce,” Cal Tjader
“Take Five,” Dave Brubeck Quartet
“Martians Go Home,” Shorty Rogers
“American Haikus,” Jack Kerouac
“Las Cuevas De Mario,” Art Pepper
“My Foolish Heart,” Bill Evans

Ending Banker's Holiday: Part Three (A Rant!)

This morning on This Week this guy, George Stephanopoulos, asked those sitting ar a table, George Will, Paul Krugman, and economist Nouriel Roubini (aka Dr Doom b/c he prophesied the housing crisis 15 minutes b/f it happened)(and some lady from Business Week I don’t know), if there ought to be established something like the 9/11 Commission to learn from the current economic crisis. Everybody was non-committal to dismissive, Krugman saying sufficient discussions were already taking place. His slightly bashful dismissive was hard to read. Was he smirking about the wasteful, ineffectuality of the 9/11 Commission? Or does he really think there is nothing policy-wise to be learned from the current mess?

Soon enough the conversation veered towards a table response to this very desire to blame someone or something for our current problems. (Who needs a Commission?!) A consensus ar the table quickly emerged to make the point that 300 million people in America (and another 300 million in Europe, Krugman added) were all responsible for going on a “25 year credit spending spree,” saving little and spending beyond our means. Really? That’s the ultimate cause of the biggest global economic crash since the 1930s? We were all just maxing out our credit cards too much?

Now it’s not that I don’t think there shouldn’t be consequences for not paying your debts but didn’t congress already establish what many consider quite harsh, unforgiving bankruptcy laws in 2005? B/f the crash? And I’m not suggesting that people who took on mortgage debts they couldn’t pay shouldn’t be held responsible. But isn’t there a sense of proportion here we’re missing when pointing fingers at millions of working people for receiving 70 billion in subsidies while four or five banks will be lavished w/ up to 2.5 trillion? So why have people gone on a 25 year credit spending spree, anyway? Might it have anything to do w/ the fact that real working class wages have not risen since the 1970s?! (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Wouldn’t it be far more accurate to say that this crisis is the result of 25 years of supply side economics that were supposed to trickle down to the rest of us but never did; that this crisis is the result of 25 years of “free market” deregulation and predatory casino capitalism fed consumer pipe dreams and Scroogy anti-labor demagoguery; that this crisis is the result of a 25 year surge in income inequality of staggering numbers not seen since the Gilded Age? (The Height of Inequality)

And wouldn’t it be important that this be said so that we might not repeat this catastrophe again? So that we might not have the same self-serving assholes that led us into this mess continue in their machinations from positions of power? The length and depth of capitalist cyclical downslides were significantly longer and deeper (during the Gilded Age) before the Depression precisely because of the sweeping government interventions and social safety net measures established by the FDR’s New Deal. It wasn’t just a bunch of government bailouts of failed industries. Now in the biggest free-fall since the Great Depression are we going to forget that?!

I’ve read it suggested that this cover-up recovery is b/c the Wall Streeters gave more money to Obama’s campaign, reportedly 10 million plus (CounterPunch), than any other constituency. But Obama amassed the biggest campaign funding war chest in history. Over 700 million or something like that. Why would 10 measly million buy so much influence? Please let this be the media chatter drama of the moment, the left’s unreconstructed doomy fatalism, the last bleats of the Right’s dying free market fundamentalist ideology, and Obama’s careful, patient, measured steps to right the ship of state. B/c this growth model, Wall Streeters hustle a bubble like mad, then go on bonus junkets to the Caribbean, while Main Streeters take it on the chin, chewing on their own pride in austerity and sacrifice, can’t last. Eventually some angry, smart young people will rally a mob to tear the whole thing apart. And it’ll be fun while it lasted for those who hit the jackpot. But there will be hell to pay for the rest of us.

Ending the Banker's Holiday: Part Two

“Politics are hard to predict,” Lawrence Summers
(aka “The Professor,” Obama’s Chief Economic Advisor)

So the first attempt by the Obama team to address the banking crisis last Tuesday was a bust. It didn’t even please Wall Street, who at this point would seem to be the only constituency being given any serious consideration. I was hoping for better but, knowing what they had to offer, Summers and Geithner could not anticipate this political reaction?! The closest to an actual “plan” was barely distinguishable from ideas floated by Henry Paulson and the Bush team last fall. And still hung-up on the same question: what price should the public pay for the “bad” assets amassed by the banks?

“Markets are a great way to organize economic activity,
but they need adult supervision.” –Wall Street Journal

Most distressing is the contrast between the Obama team’s dithering and what is emerging from smart Economists as a few obvious needed steps to be taken:

1) Quit the charade to—what?— fit some myth of private ownership that has always been a gross distortion of American history anyway. Nationalize the banks, even if only for a temporary period. It is an insult to taxpayers to pour hundreds of billions of public money into the private banks black hole, from 450 billion (Krugman) to 2.5 trillion (Reich), without any means to exercise control over how the banks spend that money. On the one hand, 18 billion paid in bonuses to bank managers since the meltdown is small potatoes; on the other, it is indicative of the fact that these people do not operate in the world where the rest of us live, where people actually have to work for a living, and is a flagrant slap in the face to the public bailout. These are NOT people we can trust to make Wall Street work for Main Street, duh.

2) Many agree that a crucial tipping point in our current predicament was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. This Depression Era legislation set rules about the appropriate business of banks and established boundaries to avoid conflicts of interest in the financial sector. Its repeal— ratified by the Clinton-Rubin team, lest you’d like to blame all this on the Bushies—unleashed unsavory links between investment banks and junk money managers and fraudulent real estate mortgage companies. Prior to the repeal subprime mortgages constituted 5% of the real estate market; by 2006 the number had reached 30% (Wikipedia). Capitalism is by definition cyclical, alternating between bull runs and bear markets, but it’s the repeal of Glass-Steagall that has blown this most recent bubble to such gigantic, at this point still seemingly bottomless, toxic, world-wide proportions. (CounterPunch.)

3) The crux of this bubble trouble was the simple fact that Wall Streeters and their minions were making beaucoup dollars selling and reselling debt assets without any personal financial risk, without having to maintain any minimum of capital to debt ratio, let alone any responsibility for reporting these tenuous financial arrangements. The credit rating agencies whom should have cried foul failed miserably. Even though as early as ’03 Warren Buffett and a few other prominent members of the business community were calling unregulated derivatives markets “timebombs,” the Securities and Exchange Commission, our government watchdogs, did nothing. Perhaps the poor reception on Wall Street to the Obama team’s vague, tepid plan indicates that at this point even a majority of Wall Street has had enough of this insider’s game. How could we expect the Wall Street elite— including Geithner and Summers— to reform themselves? It’s time to clean house, closing the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, establishing new independent government oversight that will reestablish rules that reward hard work and honesty. Isn’t this what Obama promised he’d do anyway? (Baseline Scenario.)

Steps 1 and 2 seem inevitable if it wasn’t for the dithering. But can they be carried out substantively without step 3? None of this should be surprising after watching Obama select as his economic advisors, one after another, from the Clinton team. A group as responsible as anybody for setting the stage for the current debacle. And, still, I want to hang on to something in Obama’s rhetoric. The stuff necessary to finally ending this second Gilded Age out of the simple, sober recognition— breaking with the supply-side, trickle-down delusions of the Reagan Revolution— that a healthy middle class is the most important investment for long-term economic growth.

Quotable:

“Apparently, the president has a half-brother named George Obama, who lives in Kenya, and George Obama was arrested on Saturday for possession of marijuana. He was walking around the village telling people his brother was the president, so they assumed he was high and arrested him.” -Jimmy Kimmel

cloying sounds that make my teeth hurt

It’s probably Feist’s fault. Her silly enthusiasm is sexy. I liked “Mushaboom” as much as the next pop fan. But “1234” was the tipping point. Mentioned frequently in writing last year near the word “magical,” it triggers in me a mad impulse to destroy. And now it has incited a rash of cloying singer-songwriter tunes that make my teeth hurt.

It’s not the metrosexual hybrid mixes of acoustica and skipping electro-lite beats and moody synthesizer melodies. The only Death Cab For Cutie I can stand came in the Postal Service. It was that sublime 2003 record that alerted me to the uptapped alternative pop possibilities of mashing the sensitive side of indieland with some electronica. French popsters AIR (or Serge Gainsbourg?) pioneered this particular genre vibe mixing sweetly sardonic hooks and soundtrack drama and digital tempos in the late-90s.

Some of the recent problem appears to be a drift into organic singer-songwriter Puritanism combined with a kiddie pop fixation. Recent hits “New Soul,” by Yaim Nael and “Bruises,” by Chairlift, sport a naifness that is unbelievably grating. What makes Goldfrapp’s “Fly Me Away,” a tune certainly not lacking in silly love song sentiment, great is the glammy disco ball that spins overhead. Kick off those Birkenstocks, girls.

Better is Lily Allen’s balance of acid lyrics with the sweet melodies and smooth tempos. Or the dark qualms in Lykke Li’s shuffling ditties that echos outward like a splash on a still pond. The Bird and The Bee go for similar contrasts but only have artless slogans to offer for words. Kate Nash has wit but no swing. And, still, the doomy lush tendencies of Allen and Li can be tiring.

Madonna’s “Miles Away,” from an otherwise dreary album, is a worthy model. Too bad more young singers aren’t trying to copy Robyn. Making it something you can move to is always a good thing. Not that I don’t think there’s room for more roots or rock music flourishes in the indie electronica mashup but the recent run of nursery-rhyme cutesiness has gotta go.

To my sweetheart on Valentine’s Day—

Please stop dancing in my head
I have cried till I'm half dead
Please stop dancing in my head

Please stop dancing in my mind
I have cried till I'm half blind
Please stop dancing in my mind

Please stop dancing in my heart
I can't seem to make it art
Please stop dancing in my heart

Please stop dancing in my soul
I can't make it rock and roll
Please stop dancing in my soul

Please stop dancing in my sleep
I can't make it twang and beep
Please stop dancing in my sleep

Please stop dancing in my eyes
I can't make it pretty lies
Please stop dancing in my eyes

Please stop dancing in my blood,
ill wind blowing no one good
Please stop dancing in my blood

Please stop dancing in my life
I will never be your wife
Please stop dancing in my life.

By Stephin Merritt, The Magnetic Fields

Blossom Dearie was a Songbird

Blossom Dearie, who died on February 7 aged 82, was one of the great interpreters of American song in the post-war era. She did not like to be described as a jazz singer (although she grew up in a jazz milieu), nor as a supper-club singer (although she often entertained in supper clubs); a mixture of the two, she preferred to call herself "a songwriters' singer".

- Telegraph U.K.

(See NY Times Obit.)

dope, money, & baseball

Gawd, at least A-Rod has confessed. It's the lying, denials, the prevaricating that drives me most mad. The ass covering of the league through this whole debacle stinks, of course. And the mock outrage of the media— A-Fraud’s a cheater, No!!!— is just grating. Why can’t we all just agree that between ’94 and ’04 a lot a lot of players were juicing? Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, Giambi, Clemens, Boone, Brady ‘fucking’ Anderson, et cetera. (The Onion.) One hundred and four players tested positive in ’03. If they tested the whole league that means about 14% were found juicing. Let’s just add an asterisk to those years and offer everybody amnesty. Form some sort of independent truth commission to clear the deck: you can come forward w/ the truth and you’re forgiven; you don’t and evidence is found that you were using and you’re Pete Rosed. For me, it’s the dribs and drabs, the mini media event dramas that are killing the sport, turning it into something more like wrestling: will Clemens’ ‘roid rage get the best of him? will A-Rod ever make it to the Hall of Fame now?! It’s almost as if Selig thought this were a way to make baseball fans out of folks who watch Bad Girls and Court TV.

Mr. President: End Banker's Holiday

Okay, it looks like some kind of stimulus bill spending near a trillion dollars is going to be passed soon. This is necessary. Consumers have stopped consuming. (Or reduced consumption significantly.) Demand is down, so production slows, and jobs disappear. Government spending (as opposed tax cuts, BTW) is the surest way to stimulate demand and create jobs and so increase consumer spending and consumption.

But don't we need to consume less? Aside from the lost jobs, might not that be a good thing for environmental reasons? In the long run, yes; it's necessary. But better we make the adjustments to a more sustainable economy gradually or at least consciously, in big reform responses to shocks to the system like the current one. The miseries in terms of job loss and poverty visited upon the vulnerable by doing nothing ab the current crisis are not something I want to see. The press mentions the possibility of 10% unemployment w/ a shudder. I don't know how dire that'd be; I lived through 11% in the early '80s and I don't remember much looting and killing. But what would 20% (it was supposed to have reached 27% at the depth of the Depression, and unemployment statistics are notoriously known to be lowball)look like? Protests in the streets, to be sure. More crime and violence, undoubtably. Child hunger? Impoverished seniors? Increased homelessness. Etc.

We want to rebuild now, get people back to work and spending, w/ programs/projects that move us towards a sustainable, green economy. And government spending is the best way to get the job started. Right now, the only way.

What I don't get is how come in the partisan stimulus debate there has been virtually no discernable talk ab what's going to be done ab fixing the financial markets that started the collapse?

Last night all the talking heads, from both sides, were going on ab how "ordinary Americans" feel ab the stimulus package, desires for jobs and tax cuts, fears of big government and deficits, etc. Right, people want jobs and job security, they want to know that what they have is still going to be worth something tomorrow. But what's hanging over the stimulus debate is the fact that Wall Street, the very people who started this titanic mess, have already been given hundreds of billions of dollars w/out any accountability; w/out any indication that the bailout fixed anything; without any sense that the bankers get that their wreckless gambling w/ "other people's money" is "shameful," unacceptable.(See link.)People want to know that this is not the foxes guarding the hen house.

The right has for the moment gained traction w/ their own standby, accusing Obama's plan of fatcat Liberal spending. Under the circumstances the argument is beyond stupid, it's dangerous. But they've been able to do this largely, I think, b/c ordinary Americans don't get why banks are getting hundreds of billions of dollars w/ no strings attached while working people continue to lose their jobs and homes. Limiting CEO salaries seems like the right thing to do, apoligizing for nominating a guy who has been in bed w/ the industry he's supposed to bring under control, okay, but this is little more than defensive PR window dressing.

The first thing Franklin Roosevelt did during the Great Depression was shut down the banks and have them audited. Then he started the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which, basically, required banks to hold at all times some percentage of their deposits. This is widely understood as returning stability and trust in the banking system. Not coincientally the crux of the present catastrophe has a similar ring: "loan originators retain no residual risk for the loans they make, but collect substantial fees on loan issuance, which causes unchecked degradation of underwriting standards." (Wiki) Let people play w/ other people's money and they will eventually gamble it away. Obviously, we need some new rules, and credible, transparent, independent enforcement of those rules. But nothing substantial is being done.

Ordinary Americans may not understand tranches and CDO swaps but they know that the build up to the current economic catastrophe has been an insider's game. Obama's economic team is all insiders but he got elected, at least in part, b/c he promised to change the way the government does business in Washington, to uncouple the unhealthy relationship betw big business and politics. He has believers in ordinary Americans but he needs to convince Wall Street before he loses Main Street. Do so and old arguments ab liberal spending versus tax cuts, supposedly hanging up the stimulus bill will stop getting in the way.

R.I.P. Lux Interior

Lux Interior, of punkabilly originals The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition. Following is one of my favorite punk songs by The Cramps, "Human Fly." Feel free to stomp around while singing along. Lux would like that.



Well I'm a human fly
It's spelt F-L-Y
I say buzz ,buzz, buzz, and it's just because..
I'm a human fly and I don't know why
I got ninety six tears in my ninety six eyes.

I got a garbage brain, it's drivin' me insane
And I don't like your ride, so push that pesticide
And baby I won't care, 'cause baby I don't scare
'Cause I'm a reborn maggot using germ warfare. Rockin'
Zzzzz...

I'm a human fly
It's spelt F-L-Y
I say buzz, buzz, buzz, and it's just because..
I'm a unzipped fly, and I don't know why
And I don't know, but I say

Buzz...ride tonight
And I say buzz...rocket ride
And I say buzz...I don't know why
I don't know I just, don't know why.

Superbowl Sunday

Wow,two really, really good superbowls in a row. I'm going to have to revise my sense of Superbowl Sunday as one of those perennially over-hyped American holidays like New Year's Eve and Halloween. There were so many big plays. The Cardinals are ab to punch it in from the one and take the lead b/f the half and the Steelers return the turnover 100 yards for the score! And still Warner and the Cards recover for a heroic, two-touchdown 4th Quarter comeback (Fitzgerald is this amazing combination of craft and athleticism), only to be turned back by the Steelers, one last time, w/ barely over a minute to go. Rothlisberger's swashbuckling ability to stay alive to make a pass on the money, all day long, was ridiculous. And then that kind of catch by Santonio Holmes w/ less than a minute to go?! Great action.

There was this piece in the Sunday NY Times ab which of the big three sports can honestly lay claim to America's "national pastime": football wins all the polls and makes the most revenue, baseball sells the most tickets to games, and more Americans play basketball than either the other two. I'll stick w/ baseball. Still, how come football is the most militaristic and bureaucratic and macho violent of the big three pro sports but seems somehow to have the least crazy player salaries and drug problems and the most competetive parity?

And then there was the Bruce halftime show. The guy is a shadow of his former self musically; has been for almost thirty years. But in terms of sheer arena rock entertainment values, even if they are the same moves he's been doing for all these years, did he not raise the roof? At the very least, there was a showmanship bravado there that I cannot recall at all in any recent superbowl halftime performance, Tom Petty, Janet's left tit, whathaveyou.

Anyhow, a good day for some Americana. Must be the Obama factor!