Only In America

Representing Sound in Image: Alex Callenberger presents Aural Canvas at the Harvest Gallery

2011-02-12T08:16:00.001-08:00

Alex Callenberger is an area musician admired for his versatility; the California-born guitarist has offered his sensitive musicality and original playing to the Ann Kerstetter blues band, folk/ambient duo Black Marble, experimental trio Electric Volcano Experiment, rock band The Antique Babies, and a host of other projects whose music ranges from erudite jazz to abstract sound-collages. A uniquely artistic thinker, Callenberger does not limit himself only to music as he satisfies his compulsion to create, a trait evidenced by his current show at the Harvest Gallery and Print Shop on West 4th Street. Entitled "Aural Canvas", the gallery show includes a collection of paintings based on Callenberger's perception of sound and the relationship between sound and space, and includes an accompanying CD of ambient soundscapes and abstract compositions crafted through Callenberger's use of effects and atmospheric textures.
Callenberger describes his perception of sound as one of feeling rather than hearing; he says that after a brief time with scarlet fever as a child that left him with a forty percent hearing loss, his awareness of a door closing or a person entering a room is produced not by hearing the sound of the door but rather by feeling the vibrations, feeling the disturbance of air. A unique perception, yes, but one that Callenberger is quick to dismiss by emphasizing that all people experience sound differently, a paradox that intrigues Callenberger and shapes his understanding of music. The unnamed pieces included in the show's accompanying CD are rich with texture and atmosphere, but are engaging and evocative in a way that non-artistic ambiance is not. Callenberger employs broad washes of tone and substance crafted from layers of harmony and saturated guitar sounds, using these aural landscapes as backgrounds on which to place his unique, minimalist melodies, layering his parts and highlighting his melodies with a painter's care. When playing and composing, Callenberger thinks visually rather than narratively; he says that while some like to tell stories through their music, he prefers to paint pictures. On this recording, this approach leads to a set of music that can not only stand on its own as an artistic achievement but also seems an irremovable part of his exhibit so thoughtfully and brilliantly does he acomplish his immpossible task of representing the abstract concept of sound not only visually, but also through music, an aural medium.
The paintings on display at the Harvest Gallery are as evocative and intriguing as the dark, elegant music that accompanies them, displaying an abstract, minimalist aesthetic not dissimilar to Callenberger's understated guitar style, which relies on mood and musicality rather than flashiness or virtuosity. In his visual work, Callenberger employs a minimal use of color, crafting his images from simple blue and off-white on deep black backgrounds, managing to suggest the scientific iconography of sound without overtly employing it, transforming the familiar images of wave forms into powerful spirals and cascading curves that evoke a very real feeling of timbre and volume. Callenberger describes the process of creating his paintings as similar to the process of preparing his music for performance, a lifestyle of practice and self-preparation that slowly builds into the ability to navigate the relative chaos and randomness of spontaneous, real-time creation. Each painting was created not with the slow, meticulous strokes of a paintbrush but rather with the rapid, dizzying fragility of thin strands of paint falling from a stirrer held by a puppeteer's hand, Callenberger surrendering absolute control in favor of the excitement of controlling only the direction and concept of the work, responding to the details that emerge organically rather than planning and executing each brushstroke with a conductor's precision and severity. This act of real-time creation is of course similar to the musical task of improvisation, a skill that Callenberger has spent years cultivating. Callenberger paints like a musician, responding to the randomness of event and the influence of space and feeling in his work, relying on the preparation and practice of the improviser rather than the detailed planning of the architect. What emerges from this process are incredible works that are at once elegantly simple and impossibly complex, much like the abstract sound that Callenberger seeks to represent-- the tones that are experienced as simple and clear even as they dance and collide and navigate their environments with enormous complexity. One image in particular, of an off-white spiral on a black background that seems to diminish in intensity and volume as it travels from left to right (or, as Callenberger correctly points out, swell from quiet intersecting-circles to a triumphant, swirling climax if experienced oppositely), seems to represent the qualities of sound-- pure and pristine, but possessing a sense of movement and chaos experienced only subtly and perhaps never fully perceived by any but the waves that disrupt air and space to create tone and pitch and timbre. Representing this movement of sound, something that by nature exists only through the passage of time, in a static piece of visual art that exists not within time but within space, is a virtuosic act of both painting and music, an ability that speaks as much to Callenberger's innate understanding of sound as a musician as it does to his ability as a painter.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this project is the way in which Callenberger contrasts the chaos and randomness of sound as it interacts with time with the clear, precise nature of sound that allows it to be perceived, isolated, and identified so easily when it is experienced. This paradox is organically represented through the creative process employed by Callenberger in his music and his painting; it is represented in Callenberger's use of the spontaneous, drip-painting style that relies upon his reaction to the unexpected events of real time even as he achieves pure, clear images through his minimalist use of color, and is mirrored in his music as delay effects repeat his pure, simple phrases, layering musical statement upon statement to create a rising action of overlapping, repetitive sound, like the sonic collages of a city street or a nighttime forest. "Aural Canvas" is a tremendous artistic achievement both conceptually and aesthetically, and a rare opportunity to study the unique ways sound is perceived by a man who spends his artistic life feeling it, pursuing it, and shaping it.

The Williamsport Guardian: Black Marble's "The Devil's Canning Party"

2009-10-06T05:54:00.000-07:00

MANDATORY MENTION: As mentioned earlier, I write bi-monthly music reviews for a local independent newspaper, The Williamsport Guardian, typically reviewing several albums each column, as well as commenting on local musical performances and events. The newspaper itself is always well-written, attractive, and full of interesting insights-- AND free-- so be sure to grab a copy if you notice it some where.
I typically like to wait until the Guardian has their new issue out and posted online, but I've received a couple of requests for this review so I'm posting early. My article from the previous issue can be found on their website.

Duende in Williamsport’s Black Marble: The Intricate Artistry of “The Devil’s Canning Party”

Black Marble is a group of Williamsport musicians fascinated by the saturation of sound, and the atmospheric qualities of sound that emerge when sounds are layered and conflicting timbres contrasted. In their latest release, the stunning “The Devil’s Canning Party”, Black Marble continue their characteristic experiments with complex guitar sounds and detailed musical interaction, violinist Lena Yeagle’s majestic violin lines and sweeping vocals coupling with Callenberger’s understated guitar and authoritative baritone. Added to this characteristic sound, however, is the sensitive and astute rhythm drummer Steve Mitchell, who through his subtle rhythmic touches and restrained energy carefully compliments the lead duo’s sound while creating the propulsive dynamics of such songs as “The Waltz” and “The Devil’s Canning Party”, as well as the clever rhythmic playfulness of “Frozen” and “Slip”.

There is a distinctive sonic intimacy in the interaction between guitarist Callenberger and violinist Yeagle, a kind of delicate privacy the listener senses in their layered voices and mingling guitar-violin lines that allows a fragile poignancy to blossom in each piece. The artistry of their compositions is illuminated through the use of their opposite voices, as well as the opposing timbres of their respective instruments, creating a diversity of sound that, when paired with the rhythmic styling of Mitchell, contributes to a broader sonic spectrum than is normally expected in a small ensemble. This dynamic holds true in both acoustic settings and heavily saturated electronic ones, and the incredible range of Black Marble is quickly revealed over the course of the album, as a diversity of sound emerges that sets each piece apart from the others without sacrificing the unifying qualities of sonic contrast and brooding emotionality that solidify the album as a whole. From the earnest simplicity of the acoustic “We Stand” to the heavy looping and multilayered complexity of “Alone”, the music of Black Marble exudes an almost mystical emotionality, a transcendent fervor that allows it to be both complex and intellectual while maintaining the humanity necessary to connect deeply to the listener.

In guitarist Alex Callenberger’s playing is revealed a preoccupation with darkness and shadow, a nighttime soundscape of muted color and saturated sound against which the artful swatches of vibrancy he casts across its surface are made still more stunning. This is especially noteworthy in the poignant “Alone”, the only true solo guitar piece of the album. In a way characteristic of his playing, Callenberger builds layers of reverb-submerged sound, his understated motifs given weight by the careful accumulation of sonic debris made subtly persistent through the use of delay. In his heavy use of effects, Callenberger avoids the cerebral chirping of other technologically minded musicians, as well as refrains from creating the processed, scientific sound that is a crutch of so many 21st century guitarists. Rather, with his smorgasbord of pedals he adds a greater intellectual artistry to his playing, finding in heavily-echoed motifs the dexterity of a sculptor, subtly affecting and manipulating the quality of his tone and the intensity of his sound to shape broad sonic portraits as compelling as traditional songs and as transformative as full symphonies. This remarkable fullness, whether emerging from a single instrument in a solo piece or from the polyphonic interactions of the band as a whole, is the saturation of sound that so fascinates Black Marble, the quality that gives their music the heft and muscle of “The Waltz” and “Devil’s Canning Party” even while nurturing the quiet delicacy of the breathtaking “Frozen” or “Enamored Ocean”.

In a setting where many bands would resort to prog-rock pyrotechnics or mathematical esotericism, the members of Black Marble use their tremendous musical ability to craft intricate sonic constructions informed by the deep humanity of their creators. Avoiding the flashiness and meaningless meandering of similarly capable musicians, Black Marble prefers to paint pictures, thinking artistically rather than with the technical detachment of many bands that strive to be innovative. Black Marble needn’t try to be compelling unique. Their music, simply in striving to touch the listener, emerges as an idiom entirely its own, defiant of typical classification but reverent toward a history of music-making that forms the basis of the band’s explorations.

Black Marble, in the kind of ironic cultural juxtaposition made possible only by art, can be said to embody the Spanish concept of duende, the paradoxical optimistic darkness that is seen in the irrational, physical response to art. In their unblinking representation of darkness, the melancholy magnification of meaning that comes from the delicate interplay of their voices and the sonic fragility of their compositions, Black Marble embody this metaphysical concept of art, which, in the words of critic Brook Zern “dilates the mind's eye, so that the intensity becomes almost unendurable,” creating a “reality so heightened and exaggerated that it becomes unreal”. This element of duende, the quality that makes an irrational shudder of icy realization tap-dance down my spine upon hearing their music, that causes me to lose sense of time and reality as I react not intellectually but physically, gutturally, to the melancholy earnestness of their song, is the magic of Black Marble, and the natural innovation of their sound. Spanish poet and thinker Frederico García Lorca describes his concept of the elusive duende, maintaining that by its mere existence it is innovative, bringing to “old planes unknown feelings of freshness, with the quality of something newly created, like a miracle, and it produces an almost religious enthusiasm." This freshness, this miraculous religious enthusiasm that inspires so powerful a response to the transformative qualities of art, is the indescribable spark Black Marble have captured and deftly crafted in “The Devil’s Canning Party”, constructing a masterpiece that transcends the boundaries of traditional music and manages to be both cerebral and deeply human.

Egypt 2009

2009-04-02T20:01:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah. I just got back from Egypt. More to follow, if my schedule allows.

Freddie Hubbard: 1938-2008

2008-12-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, jazz lost one of it's last remaining icons, a saint of the solo and a martyr of music who devastatingly split his lip several years ago after decades of adventurous, virtuosic trumpet playing. Freddie Hubbard died in Los Angeles during the morning of December 29, 2008 after a long battle with heart disease . He was 70 years old.

Critic and Hubbard spokesman Don Lucoff: (CNN)
"Freddie Hubbard, in terms of the advent of modern jazz, the birth of bebop, was probably among the five greatest trumpet players that has ever lived ... He's really right up there with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Roy Eldridge, an innovator and great composer...The thing that set Freddie Hubbard apart was he played rapidly, he played soulfully, and he really set the pace for a lot of the trumpet players who have come after him in the last 20 or 30. years."

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis: (The Morning Call)
"He influenced all the trumpet players that came after him. Certainly I listened to him a lot. ... We all listened to him. He has a big sound and a great sense of rhythm and time, but really the hallmark of his playing is an exuberance. His playing is exuberant."

Tenor saxophonist Kenny Garret: (Detroit Free Press)
"What I like about the trumpet is that it's a powerful instrument. I always wanted my saxophone to have that power. Standing next to Freddie Hubbard and he'd go be-do WHEE -- I mean, that's power, so I had to work to get meat in my sound."

Author and critic Joachim Berendt: (The Jazz Book: From New Orleans to Rock and Free Jazz) "Hubbard is the most brilliant trumpeter of a generation of musicians who stand with one foot in 'tonal' jazz and with the other in the atonal camp."

Smooth-jazz trumpeter Chris Botti: (The Morning Call)
"I think that Freddie Hubbard probably is the greatest trumpet player ever — his sound and his phrasing and his approach to the instrument. His prowess on the instrument left him in a league of his own, like a Micheal Jordan or Tiger Woods in sports."

Trumpeter David Weiss of the New Jazz Composers Octet: (LA Times)
"[Hubbard] played faster, longer, higher and with more energy than any other trumpeter of his era."

This video demonstrates Hubbard's astounding ability, as well as his sensitivity and inventiveness as an improviser. His presence will be missed and his talent admired for as long as there are listeners seeking excellence and musicians seeking inspiration.

December 22: "A Change is Gonna Come"

2008-12-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

Sam Cooke's immortal "A Change is Gonna Come" was released 44 years ago yesterday. Not only does this song carry a poignant lyrical message of redemption and hope in the face of oppression, but Cooke's voice sweats and bleeds with feeling as he pushes each ragged syllable from his chest, and the simple melody and its delicate orchestration stand for me as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever recorded.

Critic and historian Peter Guralnick describes the song as "Sam's magnum opus", and says in his linear notes to Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend:

"[A Change is Gonna Come] cleary stemmed from a confluence of events: Sam's appreciation for (and envy of) Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"...; his conversations with student sit-in demonstrators in Durham, North Carolina; and his own arrest in October for trying to register at a segregated Shreveport motel. But nothing can fully explain the majesty or soaring eloquence of the song."

Said close friend and associate of Cooke's J.W Alexander:

"He was very excited, and when he finished it he explained it to me--his reason behind the lyrics. Like 'I don't what's up there beyond the sky'-- it's like somebody's talking about I want to go to heaven, really, but the who knows what's really up there? In other words, that's why you want justice on earth..."

The doubt in the existence of a divine justice and the feeling or urgency for human justice on earth, as is evident in this candid statement, is especially meaningful coming from Cooke, the son of a preacher and a deeply faithful man who began his career with the gospel group the Soul Stirrers. This song not only demonstrates Cooke's incredible songwriting skill and virtuosic singing ability, but also his faith in humanity, his trust in the energy and justice of his brothers as well as that of his God.

Below is an incredible version of "A Change is Gonna Come" from guitarist Bill Frisell and his trio, a moving performance and an apt testament to the power of Cooke's composition. Frisell plays the simple melody repeatedly, as a singer would, manipulating the notes in the same way Cooke manipulated the words. Be sure to watch to the end to witness Frisell's astounding melodic layering on his final chorus-- the effect is uncannily beautiful, like watching the explosions of dozens of fireworks as they burst into glorious light successively, creating a canvas of abstract color across a dark sky of mournful bass and gentle snare drum.

June 16, 2007 Rochester, N.Y.
Bill Frisell: guitar
with Tony Scherr: Bass,
Kenny Wollesen: Drums

I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like the river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

I go to the movie, and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me "Don't hang around"
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

Then I go to my brother and I say, "Brother, help me please"
But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees

There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

RIP Sam Cooke: 1934-1964

Charles Mingus Sextet (feat. Eric Dolphy): "Take the A Train"

2008-12-21T07:21:00.001-08:00

Just a cool video. This is Charles Mingus and his group performing the Strayhorn tune "Take the A Train", featuring Dolphy's distinctive bass clarinet and reed-rupturing volcanic breathing, as well as an impressive stride coup d'etat from pianist Jackie Byard.

Personnel: Charles Mingus: Bass
Eric Dolphy: Bass Clarinet
Clifford Jordan: Tenor Sax
Johnny Coles: Trumpet
Jackie Byard: Piano
Dannie Richmond: Drums

UPDATE:

Check this guy out too. This features Dolphy playing another of his slightly unconventional instruments, this time blowing some beautiful flute. Different personnel, unfortunately. Anybody know them? Unfortunately, as seems to be the method of YouTube jazz, this video prematurely evacuates as well. Anyway... enjoy.

Manuel Noriega: "CIA Dope Calypso"

2008-12-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 19th anniversary of the U.S invasion of Panama, during which "executive officer" Manuel Noriega was overthrown by the United States' "Operation Just Cause" and replaced by Guillermo Endara. In 1989, as seems to be our habit when we have a president named Bush, we invaded the nation of Panama, killing 325 civilians and loosing 24 U.S GI's. After his removal from power, General Noriega was indicted on eight charges of money laundering, racketeering, and drug trafficking and tried in U.S courts. He completed his U.S prison sentence in September of 2007, but remains detained in U.S custody more than year after the end of his sentence.

Manuel Noriega WORKED FOR THE CIA from the 1950's through the late 1980's, THIS RELATIONSHIP BECOMING CONTRACTUAL in 1967. This is the leader of a sovereign nation, a dictator ruling with the same totalitarianism of U.S-labeled-"terrorist" Fidel Castro, officially working for and receiving payment from a governmental agency of the United States of America, another sovereign nation, while in power. In fact, his official, paid affiliation with the U.S didn't end until February of 1988 when he was officially indicted on drug-related charges by the DEA.

Though published in January '72, some 11 years before Noriega's rise to power in Panama, I believe Mr. Allen Ginsberg's "CIA Dope Calypso" is especially appropriate today...

In nineteen hundred forty-five
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai Shek's army ran away
They're waiting there in Thailand today

Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way

First they stole from the Meo tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting opium to sell to The Man

Pushing junk in Bangkok today
Supported by the CIA

Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief's brain
He took it to town on the choo-choo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA

The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how

Chief of border customs paid By Central Intelligence's U.S. aid

The whole operation, newspapers say
Supported by the CIA

He got so sloppy and he peddled so loose
He busted himself and cooked his own goose
Took the reward for an opium load
Seizing his own haul which same he resold

Big time pusher for a decade turned grey
Working for the CIA

The whole operation fell in to chaos
Till U.S. intelligence came in to Laos
I'll tell you no lie I'm a true American
Our big pusher there was Phoumi Nosavan
All them Princes in a power play
But Phoumi was the man for the CIA

Touby Lyfong he worked for the French
A big fat man liked to dine & to wench
Prince of the Meos he grew black mud
Till opium flowed through the land like a flood

Communists came and chased the French away
So Touby took a job with the CIA

And his best friend General Vang Pao
Ran our Meo army like a sacred cow
Helicopter smugglers filled Long Cheng's bars
In Xieng Quang province on the Plain of Jars

It started in secret they were fighting yesterday
Clandestine secret army of the CIA

All through the Sixties the dope flew free
Through Tan Son Nhut Saigon to Marshall Ky
Air America followed through
Transporting comfiture for President Thieu

All these Dealers were decades and yesterday
The Indochinese mob of the U.S. CIA

Operation Haylift Officer William Colby
Saw Marshall Ky fly opium Mr. Mustard told me
Indochina desk he was Chief of Dirty Tricks
"Hitch-hiking" with dope pushers was how he got his fix

Subsidizing the traffickers to drive the Reds away
Till Colby was the head of the whole wide CIA

"Funny Friday" #1: The Showmanship of Dizzy Gillespie

2008-12-19T06:13:00.000-08:00

Let's call this the start of a new feature: every Friday, I'll post something that I find amusing or, at the very least, ironic and entertaining, and I'll ask my couple'la frequent commenters to do the same. Comment with some links, a video, a joke, whatever. As music, specifically jazz, is my number one interest, my little pieces o' funny are normally going to be jazz related. And today, I've got a little bit of Dizzy for your Friday morning.

I presume to think that the great Mr. Dizzy Gillespie needs no introduction, but, just in case...

From Wikipedia:

Together with Charlie Parker, [Dizzy Gillespie] was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in bebop, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of what early-jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks, and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening and frightening music by many listeners raised on older styles of jazz. He had an enormous impact on virtually every subsequent trumpeter, both by the example of his playing and as a mentor to younger musicians.

Dizzy had the unique ability to be proud and brilliant as well as comical. He was known as a teacher, a great theorist and intellectual who's willingness to mentor and instruct younger musicians stood out from the guarded and protective bebop scene. To see him as simply a clown would be to ignore his incredible musical accomplishments; to see him as a cynical, distant genius in the vein of Charlie Parker is to overlook the trait that has given him his longevity as a musician and performer, as well as endeared him to generations of jazz musicians and listeners.

First up, Dizzy imitates Satchmo, another brilliant and jovial man commonly misunderstood to be a simple jester. Hilarious impression. (Courtesy "Trumpet Kings".)

Next, Dizzy appears on The Muppet Show, and plays a fusion-type version of the immortal "St. Louis Blues". Normally fusion stuff isn't my thing, but something about seeing it played by fuzzy multi-colored puppets gives it the sense of novelty it deserves.

Enjoy!

~J

Jazz Review: Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris at Bucknell University

2008-12-06T20:07:00.001-08:00

This is a concert review written for a class I am taking at Bucknell University, taught by the incomparable Phil Haynes. It reviews a concert given by jazz masters Stefon Harris and Kenny Barron on campus; for those of you that do not know, the dazzling, international-caliber jazz performances that take place regularly at Bucknell are the University's and sleepy-Lewisburg's best kept secret. There is the often extraordinary "Janet Weis Cabaret Jazz" series (Of which the Stefon-Barron concert was a member) that takes place the last Wednesday of each month during the semester, and Haynes's always mind-blowing "Jazz at Bucknell" series (first Wednesday of each month) that has featured such innovators as Bill Carrothers, Robin Eubanks, Phil Markowitz and Jane Ira Bloom.

Because I couldn't find any acceptable footage of Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris playing together, I have posted two videos of them each playing separately with their own combos. Take the time to watch them all the way through; I am sure you won't regret it.

Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris
Bucknell University’s Natalie Davis Rooke Recital Hall, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
Janet Weis Cabaret Jazz Series: October 29, 2008, 8:00

The performance of piano institution Kenny Barron and the young vibraphone virtuoso Stefon Harris at Bucknell University was a startlingly impressive meeting of two jazz giants, a performance expansive in its enormous musical scope and dazzling in its astounding display of musicianship. Amidst the setting of explosive bebop and profound balladry a narrative emerged, a clear image of the passion and exuberance of the youthful Harris contrasting the calm stoicism of the elderly Barron, illustrated by their differing sounds and improvisational styles as well as by their radically different demeanors onstage. Harris is a player who, like the naive protagonist of a John Hughes film, can be said to wear his heart-on-his-sleeve, investing entirely in each grimace, each verbal utterance, and each dramatic and devastating movement of his body as he creates each note, moving in abrupt, violent lunges that contort his whole torso as he plays, perpetually darting from each end of the vibraphone and marimba onstage. His movements are like those of a boxer, a complex series of jabs, jerks and fakes given context by the impassioned twisting of his face and tightening of his eyelids as he pours every ounce of youthful romanticism into each stroke of his mallets, his strong voice echoing his improvisations in pleading, broken tones that quiver as he sings. Young romance incarnate, an all-consuming liquid passion that gushes from his every pore as his heart bleeds and his body aches, his passion Biblical in its desperation. Contrastingly, Barron is a reserved portrait of mature musicianship, playing with a quiet, collected passion only allowed to burst forth under the careful scrutiny and precise allowance of a rational musician. He is no less emotional, but infinitely more controlled, sacrificing the spontaneity and heartbreaking honestly of Harris for the suave sophistication and intellectual clarity of a seasoned musician who can rationalize as well as react. This obvious contrast was evident in this performance even in the way they interacted with the crowd, Barron preferring to deliver the obligatory thank-you’s and introductions with layers of gracious cool and an Ellingtonian dignity, while Harris preferred to amuse, speaking loudly and bombastically, cracking jokes and telling stories with the enthusiasm of a child, and when he felt the sopping streaks of his shirt after the energetic first number and looked to the motherly Janet Weis sitting in the first row, it was with a facetious boyish innocence that he cautiously asked to remove his jacket onstage.

The second tune of the evening, an excruciatingly heartfelt rendition of Sting’s slow waltz “Until...”, was a Harris contribution to the set, a tune he noticeably delighted in introducing with a humorous and candid tale of his own marriage and on which he played beautifully, building his melodic solo with the earthy murmur of the marimba and the shining metallic laughter of the vibraphone, his emotive lines drenched in the bittersweet meaning of his deliberate melodrama. Barron supported the young mallet virtuoso with his characteristic poise and grace, breathing a subtle maturity, a cautious skepticism into the reckless emotion that boiled from Harris’s mallets. If Harris was the youthful lover barring his fragile soul through his rippling melancholy melodies, Barron was the paternal safety net, the warm security of home and family that laid itself out in discrete layers of cushioned harmony below the young man’s soul-searching naiveté. Ultimately, it was Harris who lifted the song to its billowing climax, pushing against and prying at the simple atmospheric melody until it became the moving and transformative piece of music he made of it, but it was Barron who caught him as he collided with that delirious point of desperate creation, harnessing his passion in the midst of that intoxicating power and allowing him to gracefully deflate, laying him gently down with dense piano arpeggios that were simultaneously a grateful congratulation and a grandfatherly reassurance, a solid re-grounding of the dreaming artist in the coolheaded intellectualism and predictable inevitability of the tune. The effect was staggering, a breathtaking illustration of the familial dynamic of the duo, and a moment of musical honesty as profound as it was virtuosic.

The two performed a pleasingly neurotic interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t” as the evening’s encore, a tune that fell neatly into Barron’s legacy of intricate bebop pianism. The duo played with an air of relaxed humor and good-natured teasing that had been lost amid the meaningfulness of the evening, playing the typically Monk-ish head in an exaggeratedly careening fashion that made both men laugh onstage-- Harris with a loud excited giggle and Barron with a reserved smile and a few audible exhalations, both men looking across stage at one another with a shared mischief in their eyes. They soloed with similarly exaggerated quirkiness, Barron percussively striking the keyboard with a single pointed finger in Monk’s oddly charismatic way, and Harris waving his arms haphazardly and striking keys with the intervallic insanity of Monk’s most manic of improvisations. When the two traded fours at the end of the tune before the reentry of the head, it was with the same fiery competition of Rollins and Coltrane on “Tenor Madness”, Harris unraveling chaotic lines of athletic intensity as Barron effortlessly matched his speed and power with assertive sixteenth note runs brushed gracefully from the keys. “Economy of motion, kid,” he said wordlessly with his smile.

Before the playful bop competitiveness of Monk’s tune, however, Barron and Harris closed their intended set with the mournful “Requiem for Milt”, Harris’s achingly poignant epitaph for his idol Milt Jackson. Harris played this simple, understated melody with a dignity and solemnity not seen in the unself-conscious extraversion of the evening’s previous playing, allowing the calloused chime of the vibraphone to ring through the high-ceilinged hall, quivering in cold, metallic layers of grief-- the smooth, masculine sorrow of a dignified man. Barron accompanied with cautious, respectful distance, allowing Harris to maintain the solitary religiosity and personal revelation of the moment. For those few excruciating moments, the young musician stood alone in the center of the stage, head bowed and feet stationary for the first time of the evening, a thoroughly modern musician paying homage to his creative fathers.

The musical relationship between jazz masters Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris is one of intense mutual respect and affection, evidenced in the amusement and delight the elder shows in the exuberant energy of his young protégé, as well as the reverence with which the younger treats his mentor. Their shared performance that Wednesday evening was not one of struggle or of generational competition, but one of incredible sensitivity and musical brotherhood, a sonic snapshot of two extraordinary musicians creating, for a few nocturnal hours, their fleeting collage, their immaterial masterpiece of beautiful sound.

Brilliance

2008-12-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

Read it.

The Williamsport Guardian: B.B King and Cold War Kids

2008-12-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

MANDATORY MENTION: As mentioned earlier, I write bi-monthly music reviews for a local independent newspaper, The Williamsport Guardian, typically reviewing several albums each column, as well as commenting on local musical performances and events. Because I've been receiving a lot of requests for these reviews, and as far as I can tell they are not as yet published online, I've decided to begin posting them here. The newspaper itself is always well-written, attractive, and full of interesting insights-- AND free-- so be sure to grab a copy if you notice it some where.

B.B King: One Kind Favor

The new album from legendary bluesman B.B King, One Kind Favor, is a melancholy meditation on the inevitable arrival of death, a poignant statement of gratitude and uncertainty from the 83-year-old master of the blues. The “one kind favor” of the title is stated in the first track, supported by the slithering percussion and frank lyrics of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s own musing on mortality, in which King repeatedly pleads a reluctant lover to “see that my grave is kept clean”. King’s own guitar is conspicuously absent from the arrangement until a characteristically terse solo toward the end of the tune, only occasionally augmenting his lyrics with licks that seem weary and reluctant, even sickly, in their delivery. His power is again on display almost immediately, though, in “I Get So Weary”, a surprisingly upbeat song that seems to be more about the sorrows of old age than the absence of a spiteful lover.

The arrangements, overseen by producer T. Bone Burnet, are all characteristic of King’s style: large, open palettes featuring the energetic drive of a horn section and the open-ended murmurings of organ and piano. The piano in this case is played masterfully by New Orleans musician Dr. John, a clear devotee of King’s who is both reverent and complimentary in his accompaniment style. King delivers his characteristically reserved, emotive solos frequently throughout the disk, playing as eloquently on upbeat numbers as on slow, morose ones, and with an obvious sense of melancholy not as apparent in the youthful energy of his earlier work.

As is the prerogative of blues singers, King refers to the ambiguous “baby” throughout the album, often in a mournful or accusatory way, but always with a pleading sense of powerlessness. In the slow shuffle of the minor key “Get These Blues Of Me”, King begs an unnamed loved one not to be angry “because I’ve gone away”, and intones “I’m just so tired of worrying, I don’t know what to do”. And when he apologizes in his deep, brooding voice as his guitar roars beneath him, and confesses his fear at what is to come, one can’t help but feel that he is speaking to himself. And when he takes the voice of a deceased lover on the album’s final tune “Haunted House”, singing “I may be dead and gone/But I’ll always be by your side”, one can’t help but feel that he is speaking to us, assuring us of his continued gratitude and reminding us of the indelible footprint he has left modern music. One Kind Favor, though as upbeat and entertaining as any of B.B King’s recordings, is a meaningful artifact of one man’s fear in the face of death, and his wonder at the fragility of life.

Cold War Kids: Loyalty to Loyalty

Cold War Kids play a style of rock music characterized by blues-inflected vocals and a distinctly rural perspective on songwriting, creating loose, multi-sectional songs that seem to careen from one idea to the next in a guttural way full of energy, charisma, and surprising sensitivity. Lyrically, they paint bleak portraits of desperate characters, again taking a deliberately non-urban approach to hardship and poverty, a tactic that is refreshing in its honesty and unique in its insightfulness. Sonically, they seem less concerned with writing traditionally organized rock and roll songs than with shaping textures through their sparse instrumentation and use of ambient sounds, creating songs that are more similar to sonic snapshots than coherent, identifiable pieces of music. Coming from a group with less sincerity, these songs would seem amateurish rather than profound, but in this way Cold War Kids make music that is similar to “found art”, creating their “found” songs from sounds and stories that exist around them, and ultimately molding their environment into a work of art.

On their newest album, Loyalty to Loyalty, Cold War Kids continue this tradition, molding the sounds of blues, folk music, and gospel into a back-woods, truck-stop kind of rock that is beautifully eerie and constantly unsettling. In the atmospheric “Every Man I Fall For”, singer Nathan Willett murmurs quietly over a dark, sultry web of heavily-reverbed guitar and insistent drums, telling the story of a woman left broken by her attraction to danger (“Every man I fall for drinks his coffee black/’Love’ and ‘Hate’ are tattooed on his knuckles and my name is on his back”). Throughout the album, Cold War Kids reveal an intense fascination with the darkness of society and the animalism of humanity, but also a redeeming sense of compassion for the characters they portray. This juxtaposition of light and dark, despair and sensitivity, make Loyalty to Loyalty an intense, profound document of an effortlessly innovative band making rock music that is as vital as it is poetic.

The Williamsport Guardian: Jack and Ben Wright at Raytown

2008-12-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Williamsport Guardian: Kayo Dot and Erykah Badu

2008-12-01T05:37:00.000-08:00

MANDATORY MENTION: As mentioned earlier, I write bi-monthly music reviews for a local independent newspaper, The Williamsport Guardian, typically reviewing several albums each column, as well as commenting on local musical performances and events. Because I've been receiving a lot of requests for these reviews, and as far as I can tell they are not as yet published online, I've decided to begin posting them here. The newspaper itself is always well-written, attractive, and full of interesting insights-- AND free-- so be sure to grab a copy if you notice it some where.

Kayo Dot: Blue Lambency Downward (July 2008)

The intricate arrangements and avant-garde musicality of the incomparable Kayo Dot are beautifully evident in their latest release, the artfully innovative Blue Lambency Downward. The daring fragility and beautiful delicacy of their unconventional pieces, less songs then aural explorations, elaborate experiments in musical sound, give their work an awe-inspiring quality, an epic element that far from making their complex music dense or uninviting, creates a level of beauty that lures a listener in from the first seconds of seductive sound. When faced with these ornate sonic collages, genre seems an irrelevancy and classification an insult, as each piece swells to include aspects of rock, ambient music, free jazz, and classical music, functioning beautifully within each idiom before evolving again into something new.

The second song on this seven-song disk is the alternately tranquil and frenetic “Clelia Walking”, a six-minute barrage of musical styles that is constantly changing, morphing into contrasting musical ideas. It begins with contemplative electric guitar, made heavy by layers of reverb, then incorporates traces of free jazz with the uninterested mumblings of a saxophone before dissolving into a swirling section of distorted guitar and pulsating drums. The song goes on to include sections of calm violins and classical serenity, as well as further experiments with meandering saxophones and ornate guitar, each punctuated by startling segments of dissonant abstraction. This kind of daring innovation is present throughout the album, from the atmospheric uneasiness of the title track to the orchestral arrangement and sonic interplay of the final track, “Symmetrical Arizona”.

Kayo Dot’s latest album is an astounding musical achievement, a record working outside of confining musical styles and instead crafting an entirely unique sound. Chief composer Toby Driver’s decidedly unpolished voice appears regularly throughout the album, adding a vulnerable humanity to the seemingly godlike breadth of his compositions, demonstrating the people behind the innovation and the emotion behind the sonic virtuosity of his music.

Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part 1 (4th World War)

Erykah’s Badu’s silky, sarcastic voice has been compared to the tuneful sneer of jazz great Billie Holiday, and her vibrant, kinetic music has been classified as “neo-soul”. Blending influences as diverse as modern soul and acid-jazz with hip-hop and Egyptian chant, Badu and her team of producers build slow-moving, atmospheric grooves that span across songs and defy traditional verse-chorus classifications. Often these grooves are lulling and cathartic, open palettes for Badu’s vocals to settle into and spar with, but sometimes become repetitious and exhausting, as on the overwrought “Master Teacher.” Far outnumbering the occasional moments of banality, however, are beautiful moments of musical profundity which solidify the record’s message and demonstrate the talents of its creators.

One of the most profound moments of the album comes at the end of the contemplative “Me”, in which the glossy sheen of modern production is stripped away, leaving only Badu’s unadorned voice singing in unison with a single trumpet, her voice naked and tearful as it stumbles and falters, straining to keep up with the horn’s long, jazz-inflected phrases. Here, and throughout the album, Badu spins tales of innocence lost and childhoods wasted, mourning the lives spent wary and afraid in American ghettos and the deaths brushed off and forgotten by a calloused system of economic oppression. An anonymous male poet shouts angrily at the end of “Twinkle”, a seven minute indictment of urban violence and government ignorance, shouting desperately at the world around him, demanding that his listeners “get mad...and say ‘I’m a human being, dammit! My life has value!” His impassioned words, ornamented by quivering organ and molded by cavernous reverb, contrast sharply with the jubilant profanity and sounds of breaking glass that begin the tune, providing a aural snapshot, a sonic collage that, miraculously, doesn’t sound false or contrived.

The true genius of Badu lies in her courage, in her willingness to take lyrical and musical risks as she creates a broad, cinematic soundscape, a sonic illustration of black life in America-- an angry diatribe of disillusionment and alienation, but one recited with the reverence and sensitivity of a mature artist who can rationalize as well as react. As she proves throughout the record’s eleven songs, she is not out to display her vocal virtuosity as other soul divas have, but rather to craft profound, evocative songs and lyrical images, even diminishing her own vocal abilities when it is necessary to reveal the person underneath. Her readiness to remove the cushions surrounding her singing to reveal the imperfections of her voice is admirable, as is the unabashed candidness of her cultural lyrics. On New Amerykah Part 1, Badu again demonstrates her impressive vocal chops and lyrical sensibilities, as well as creates a continual groove, a seamless experience without gaps or silences, deftly representing the constant barrage of sound and imagery that assails her as a black, urban woman.

The Williamsport Guardian: Kaki King and The Raconteurs

2008-11-30T08:26:00.000-08:00

As mentioned earlier, I write bi-monthly music reviews for a local independent newspaper, The Williamsport Guardian, typically reviewing several albums each column, as well as commenting on local musical performances and events. Because I've been receiving a lot of requests for these reviews, and as far as I can tell they are not as yet published online, I've decided to begin posting them here. The newspaper itself is always well-written, attractive, and full of interesting insights-- AND free-- so be sure to grab a copy if you notice it some where. Anyway, here goes:

Kaki King: Dreaming of Revenge (May 2008)

Kaki King’s innovative approach to guitar playing—percussively striking the strings and body of the instrument as well as incorporating techniques typically associated with the electric guitar into her acoustic playing—is shadowed only by her innate melodic sensibility, allowing her to create music of staggering beauty while at the same time displaying her technical virtuosity. On her newest album, the dazzling Dreaming of Revenge, King explores areas of sonic experimentation only hinted at by her past endeavors, incorporating strings, electric guitar, and vocals into her largely acoustic music. Unexpectedly, from this experimentation emerges the most accessible album of King’s career, the dramatic strings and deft guitar playing joining to create music that defies typical industry classification, but remains uniquely melodic and approachable. Like her 2006 album, ...Until We Felt Red, Dreaming of Revenge sees less of King’s characteristically percussive acoustic guitar, and more of her virtuosic fingerstyle playing, employing the rich sounds of undistorted electric guitars in pieces such as the plaintive “Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be a Bad Person” and the atmospheric “Sad American”, sacrificing her typical displays of technical prowess for the more solemn illustrations of melodic motifs. Her technical virtuosity is represented, however, as throughout the album there are dazzling displays of instrumental inventiveness and technical skill, most notably in the excited “I Need a Girl Who Knows a Map”, a three-minute guitar opus that sees King revisiting her characteristic techniques of frenetic fingerstyle and percussive tapping, showcasing both the technical artistry of her playing and the inspiration of her compositions.

Though her shy, self-conscious voice has been present in her music since 2004’s Legs to Make Us Longer, King really emerges as a singer on this disk, lending her plaintive, wavering voice to several songs, including the more traditional acoustic ballad “Life Being What it Is”, a striking departure from her regular repertoire that finds King singing delicately over a bed of acoustic guitar, arpeggiating softly while occasional organ flourishes and slide lines highlight the fragility of the arrangement. King sings with the reluctance and insecurity of an untrained vocalist, her quavering, uncontrolled singing lending innocence and authenticity to her calm, confident guitar playing. On the melancholy “Saving Days in a Frozen Head”, King layers her voice in the same way she layers her guitars throughout the album, creating delicate harmonies that settle softly over her carefully orchestrated guitar.

Though revisiting some of the musical ideas she has explored in the past, Kaki King remains refreshingly original, combining influences as diverse as electronica, folk, and ambient music with virtuosic mastery of her instrument to create music that defies typical song structure and industry expectations. Dreaming of Revenge is a document of a master working within her art, making music that is astoundingly unique and compositionally innovative, but also entirely approachable and comprehensible, and with none of the usual esotericism of other avant-garde artists.

The Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely

Like their debut album Broken Boy Soldiers, the Raconteurs continue their campaign of garage rock revival on Consolers of the Lonely, again combining the pop sensibilities of Brendan Benson with the raw modern blues and off-color humor of Jack White. When coupled with the band’s explosive rhythm section, this odd pairing leads to the bombastic humor of “The Switch and the Spur”, an ironically dramatic ballad that employs mariachi trumpets and mournful piano, as well as to the sparse blues of “Top Yourself”, an impassioned Delta shuffle modernized through White’s scratchy distortion. The title track, a mismatched collection of conflicting riffs and opposing personalities, is deliberately careless in its composition, celebrating its indecisiveness with aggressive drums and heavily distorted guitar, the radically different voices of White and Benson playfully conversing with one another through conflicting melodies and skewed lyrics. The organ-dominated “Rich Kid Blues” sarcastically laments the unique plight of a man who’s never known hardship, cycling through energetic garage rock, Allman Brothers influenced improvisation, and weary blues. The adventurous ballad “Carolina Drama” is cinematic in its scope and daring in its musicality, as overdriven slide lines and dramatic organ surges complement the raw, sneering quality of White’s vocal before dissolving into the eerie sensitivity of the refrain, then intensifying as White continues his story of violence and revenge.

Although never taking themselves too seriously, the Raconteurs have again created a unique experiment in modern blues and early rock-and-roll, infusing their musical experimentation with swatches of humor and playfulness. Consolers of the Lonely is a bold step towards merging the musical traditions of an antique generation with the standards and conventions of contemporary music, modernizing the classic blues and rock-and-roll of a lost era through biting distortion, impressive musicianship, and the melodic sensibilities of pop music.

November 29: Billy Strayhorn and "Lush Life"

2008-11-27T06:16:00.001-08:00

It was 93 years ago today, on November 29, 1915, that great American composer, songwriter, and Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn was born in Hillsborough North Carolina. Gay, black, and brilliant in a society intolerant of all three, Strayhorn grew up alienated and dejected, discovering peace and comfort in his grandmother's piano and Victrola records. As an adult, even the world of music betrayed him, as his race proved an insurmountable barrier to his success in the white world of classical music. His rescue came in the form of the innovative virtuosity of pianists like Art Tatum and Errol Garner, and in the joyful, liberating sounds of orchestras like Fletcher Henderson's famed ensemble. He was especially enchanted by the suave sophistication of Duke Ellington and his orchestra, and after speaking with Ellington and sharing with him some of his music, the famed bandleader feel under the spell of the gifted young composer. This proved the start of a decades-long collaboration that would produce some of the most innovative and enduring music of the era, including the tune that would become as close to theme as the Ellington orchestra ever had: Strayhorn's own "Take the A Train". Strayhorn's reserved, quiet calm was the antithesis of Ellington's flamboyant cool; Strayhorn was shy and intellectual, homosexual and a loner, while Ellington was social and boisterous, a lady's man whose personal and professional relationships defined his life. But the men found an eerily perfect connection in the music they both loved, and the two geniuses shared an intense emotional love fed by their shared creativity and shared passion. Said Ellington of Strayhorn, "[He is] my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves are in his head, and his are in mine."

While still a teenager, and years before his tenure with Ellington, Strayhorn penned the heartbreaking ballad "Lush Life", a musically and lyrically sophisticated tune heartbreaking in its devastating honesty. Posted below is the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman version of the tune, a beautiful recording and poignant tribute to one of America's great geniuses. (The picture shown in the clip is largely irrelevant.)

"I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come what may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life...
From jazz and cocktails.

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distant gay traces
That used to be there; you could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day...
Twelve o'clock tales.

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness!
I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness
Of a great love for me.

Ah yes! I was wrong...
Again, I was wrong.

Life is lonely again,
And only last year everything seemed so sure.
Now life is awful again,
A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.
A week in paris will ease the bite of it,
All I care is to smile in spite of it.

I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I'll live a lush life in some small dive...
And there I'll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too..

Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I'll live a lush life in some small dive...
And there I'll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too.."

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a shining example of what Howard Zinn calls "American exceptionalism", a concept that states that by the sheer goodness of our nation all its deeds are acceptable and necessary, regardless as to how atrocious. This exceptionalism is the erroneous mindset that allows us to ignore our centuries-long history of genocide toward Native Americans and instead celebrate our fictitious "brotherhood and cooperation" with a national holiday, and in fact is the same belief that allows us to think that we will be "greeted as liberators" upon invading a sovereign nation. It is similar to the "divine right of kings" endorsed by monarchical Europe that similarly led to genocide and fearsome oppression. Howard Zinn describes "American exceptionalism" as it relates to Thanksgiving by recounting the events of the Plymouth settlers (whom American school kids learn incorrectly to call "Pilgrims") and the Pequot tribe (known similarly incorrectly as "Indians") just one year after the first Thanksgiving. From "The Power and the Glory", in the Boston Review:

The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 [one year after the first Thanksgiving] in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a 'city upon a hill.' Reagan embellished a little, calling it a 'shining city on a hill.'
The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians. Here's a description by William Bradford, an early settler, of Captain John Mason's attack on a Pequot village:
Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword, some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived that they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and the gave the praise thereof to God; who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.

November 27, 2008: 20 Years After Harvey Milk

2008-11-09T07:35:00.003-08:00

“If a bullet should go through my head, let that bullet go through every closet door.”

~Harvey Milk

"Without hope, not only gays, but those who are blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors-- the us-es. Without hope the us-es give up. I know that you can't live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope."

-Harvey Milk, 1978

Wikipedia: Harvey Milk
TIME 100 Heros: Harvey Milk

November 16: Seven years after Tommy Flanagan

2008-11-09T07:35:00.001-08:00

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the death of pianist Tommy Flanagan, a preeminent talent and true "jazz poet" who remained one of the most respected pianists in the world from the chaos and testosterone of the 1950's to the modern sounds and free improvisation of the 1990's. Throughout his career, Flanagan supported such singers as Tony Bennet and Ella Fitzgerald with grace and beauty, led his own series of piano trios and two-piano duets with subtle darkness and graceful soloing, and famously gaffed John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" when asked to sightread the tune's prohibitively complex changes on the record date. Performing extensively as a sideman and as a leader, Flanagan left an important mark on the jazz piano tradition, cooling off and calming down the frenetic bebop of Bud Powell while maintaining the elegant swing and sophisticated musicianship of Ellington and Tatum.

Says critic Peter Watrous of the pianist's influential style (New York Times, September 3, 1992):

Mr. Flanagan, a preternaturally graceful pianist and one of jazz's finest improvisers, arranges his material to extract the fullest meaning from accents, breaks, unison bass and piano lines and metrical changes.

And of a set from the pianist at Condon's in August of 1992, he says:

...the 62-year-old Mr. Flanagan showed why he is considered a dean of jazz piano. He has absorbed a lifetime of jazz's tools, and his soloing reveled in ease and relaxation, even at faster tempos. Underneath the veneer, something darker was occurring. Mr. Flanagan is a master at swing, and he would vary his approach, from legato phrases to a sharply attacked series of notes... he casually flicked off notes, then moved into a set of phrases that curled at the edges, like burning paper, and that drove the band on.

Critic Pete Kelly (Jelly, 1997) sums up the pianist's uniquely transformative quality, saying:

...the ideas flow, chorus after chorus, song after song. It’s like reading a good book. Each song has its own shape and logic, its own pace of unfolding, its distinctive tone and feeling. Flanagan is the jazz musician as raconteur, a virtuoso with wit and imagination, an intellectual who likes to entertain, a historian who tells great stories. Imagine Spaulding Gray with a piano.

And imagine this. Flanagan live in Germany in 1991, ten years before his death in 2001. Watch and listen:

Doc Mach and the Field Surgeons: "This is Not a Bomb"

2008-11-09T07:34:00.001-08:00

(To appear in The Williamsport Guardian, Fall-Winter 2008)

Doc Mach and the Field Surgeons: “This is Not a Bomb”
Album Release Show
Site B, October 25, 2008 w/ The Damage and Via Drive-Thru

Doc Mach and the Field Surgeons are a tremendous group of young musicians creating unabashedly innovative music in the Williamsport area. Their dense, multi-layered sound is characterized in part by the powerhouse drumming and rhythmic fearlessness of drummer Jeff Mach, the rock-steady pulse of bassist Joe Marchese, the lush and sensitive stylings of guitarist Deron Johnson, and, most obviously, the contrasting vocal styles of singers Josh Hines and Nico Salvatori. Hines sings with a trained voice that is alternately softly melodic and bombastically forceful, while Salvatori barks in an intense, authoritative shout that exudes youthful exuberance and righteous anger. The two singers blend their distinct voices artfully, creating a vocal sound larger than the style of one singer and more expansive than traditional vocal harmony, a deliberate sonic contrast that finds both singers weaving in and out of one another’s respective aural territories, creating an intricate tapestry of guttural roars and soaring melodicism.

This contrast between the primal and the elegant is a reoccurring theme throughout the band’s performances, as the graceful, sensitive playing of guitarist Deron Johnson locks with the solid heft and powerful momentum of the rhythm of section of Mach and Marchese. Jeff Mach is a drummer of both amazing intensity and intelligent musicianship, augmenting his solid, energetic rock style with a rare rhythmic intuition and complimenting the band’s musical unpredictability with abrupt dynamic changes and frequent, virtuosic fills that echo the rhythmic phrasing of Marchese and Salvatori. The power and energy he brings to the music have a profound effect on the other musicians, his playing lifting their own sonic constructions still higher as he violently urges the sound onward. Joe Marchese’s crisp basslines offer a steady pulse to the band’s constantly shifting music, providing an anchor for Mach’s rhythmic curiosity and lending Johnson’s melodic excursions a sense of grounding and rhythmic coherency. Marchese’s bass fills a similar role as would a second guitarist; far from simply doubling Johnson’s guitar lines, Marchese’s low-end rumble fills the sonic and harmonic space the guitar can not, adding an essential color to the band’s multi-layered sound.

Like Marchese, guitarist Deron Johnson plays artfully and melodically, avoiding the senselessly heavy distortion that is a crutch characteristic of other rock guitar players. Instead, he carefully cultivates his full, diverse tone, crafting a broad palette of moods and colors from a floor of effects, and when he solos, he solos not with the distorted scream of other guitarists but with a more evocative, cleaner tone: a lush, overdriven sound that cuts through the band’s dense arrangements in a much more effective manner than would a heavily distorted tone.

One of the most memorable moments of the album comes in the record’s adventurous closer, the eleven minute opus “From the Pulpit”, in which the layers of heavy guitar and waves of kinetic drumming abruptly fall away, leaving only Hines’s prayerful, fervent voice intoning wordlessly over a melancholy bed of soft piano and understated guitar. The tune progresses into a section in which Johnson plays alone, soloing over a sparse accompaniment created by loops, maintaining the delicacy and fragility of Hines’s harmonized song while adding a more obvious sense of urgent immediacy. Johnson plays with a warm, gentle tone that breaks and distorts as it sustains, crumbling and dissolving as it lingers over his own arpeggiated accompaniment-- a chillingly breathtaking soundscape of crumbling cities and cautious reverence that is as primal as it is sophisticated; the work of an artful and gifted musician. As this moment was recreated onstage, Johnson stepped forward while the rest of the band retreated slowly, Mach taking his sticks into one hand and exhaustedly leaning forward onto his snare drum, Marchese rested his weight on the sturdy frame of his bass as the singers slowly settled onto the drum riser, sitting cautiously as they caught their breath and brushed the hair from their faces. It was a lull in the performance, a portrait of the dignity and humanity of the band members as they rested briefly, a snapshot of incredible power sitting still and stationary. And when Mach reentered cautiously with a soft touch on the cymbals and Marchese followed solemnly, it was a graceful act of gratitude and congratulation, a demonstration of the band’s incredible capacity for poignancy as well as power.

This intricately illustrated conflict between urgent intensity and profound humanity is the nature of Doc Mach and the Field Surgeons, the rare quality that makes observing their concerts and absorbing their album such transformative experiences. Behind each athletic cymbal-stroke from Mach, each impassioned utterance from Salvatori, and each moment of collective artistry from the band as a whole, there is a deep and honest understanding of the purpose of each note, each lyric, and each song. In each performance, there is a deeply human connection to the power and meaning of music, a connection that is cultivated rather than smothered by the virtuosity of the performers.

Please support this great local band by purchasing their record “This is Not a Bomb”: 47 minutes of music for the cheap price of $5.00! To purchase the album please contact the band through www.myspace.com/docmach or at joeymarchese@gmail.com.

September 7th: 78 years of Sonny Rollins

2008-11-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

Friday marked the seventy-eighth year of life and music for one of the most enduring jazz legends of our time-- the versatile and supremely gifted tenorman Sonny Rollins, a musician whose evocative improvisations contain all the power of John Coltrane's enraged meanderings and all the heartbreaking sensitivity of Billie Holiday's tearful wail. Into his singularly melodic lines, Rollins infuses a unique style of playful exuberance, a buoyant, excitable method of playing that is as welcoming as it is evocative. Rollins' playing is childish in its enthusiasm but entirely mature in its execution, and one need only hear the deliberately stumbling, drunken playing on his slurred interpretation of "On Green Dolphin Street" to become aware of the tremendous humanity evident in his music. Said esteemed critic Stanley Crouch of the still living giant:

"Over and over, decade after decade, from the late seventies through the eighties and nineties, there he is, Sonny Rollins, the saxophone colossus, playing somewhere in the world, some afternoon or some eight o'clock somewhere, pursuing the combination of emotion, memory, thought, and aesthetic design with a command that allows him to achieve spontaneous grandiloquence. With its brass body, its pearl-button keys, its mouthpiece, and its cane reed, the horn becomes the vessel for the epic of Rollins' talent and the undimmed power and lore of his jazz ancestors."

______________________________________________________________

Though his perpetual presence on the international stage is expected today (something quite astounding considering his age), Rollins made jazz history in the late 1950's when, at the height of his career, he abruptly dropped out of sight, retreating off the stages and away from the clubs that had been his haunting grounds throughout his entire adult life. Said Rollins later,

"People have speculated that the competition from John Coltrane was what drove me from the scene, and then hearing Ornette on top of that.... But it was really just my usual effort to improve my playing-- that was the main thing. I was suddenly getting a lot of publicity and being hailed my the critics, which is fine, except I almost felt like they were setting me up, because I felt like I wasn't delivering."

Rollins retreated into the privacy offered by the shocking anonymity of New York City (at one point, he enrolled in music classes at the New School, finding that only one of his professors recognized his name). Rollins found the privacy he needed to practice in the beautiful solitude and cathedral-like echo of one of the bridges over Manhattan's East River, blowing endless choruses among the silver beams and walkways of his metal hall. Jazz lore has it that during the years spent on the bridge, Rollins worked only on phrasing-- blowing a single line repeatedly and incessantly for days, reinterpreting it thousands of times with the subtle rhythmic manipulation so characteristic of his style.

Rollins' anonymity would be cut short after only several years when, in 1961, critic Ralph Berton published a supposedly fictional story in Downbeat magazine. In this story Berton described he and his wife stumbling upon "expert, first-class jazz tenor sax" while crossing one of Manhattan's bridges. The man Berton described

"paced as he blew, turning this way and that, bent his knees and spread his feet, blowing always, usually a single phrase over and over, smoothing out a sequence of triplets, superimposing a cresendo, riding the pulse of a non-existent rhythm section."

New York's jazz fans were not fooled by Berton's ambiguous information and use of a pseudonym, and Rollins returned to the recording studio shortly afterward, releasing the aptly titled "The Bridge". And Sonny Rollins, the master himself, has graced us with his music for almost half a century since.

Barack Obama

2008-11-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

Today, I am one step closer to being proud of my country.

"America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.... Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description."
~Ralph Ellison
From Invisible Man
1953
___________________________________________________________________

I understand that this is not the time nor the place to voice my concerns about the American electoral system, nor to voice my support for the more intelligent, fair, and prudent policies of "radicals" like Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Ms. Rosa Clemete over the more moderate opinions of President-Elect Barack Obama. I understand that this is not the proper time because this is an astounding day for this nation and for the world, and that the man set to become the 44th president of these United States is a truly great and inspirational man.

It is not my intention to waste the time and computer space attempting to convince anyone of the greatness of out newest President-Elect, nor do I intend to expend any energy begging the fickle and often irrational people of this country to support the future of President-Elect Obama.

But I will say one thing.

America has now looked itself in the mirror and begun to scrape away the grime coating its glorious, multi-colored face. And this is something I will celebrate internally, with the utmost respect and reverence for the struggle of a nation remembering the shackles, the hoses, the dogs, the bullets, the shouting, the weeping, and the prayerful silence of a people repressed and maimed by the evils of the United States of America. For there are people who need not imagine the grief of a culture chained and mutilated by the devilish horrors of slavery. There are people who need not rely on the descriptions of others to feel the weight of a hundred pounds of water striking the chests and arms of a proud people at 300 hundred miles an hour. There are people who need not research the mourning of a broken race after American bullets shattered the lives of great men as they spoke from the pulpit and pedestal. And there are people who need not struggle to remember the power and dignity that comes from raising a fist in the frigid air of Chicago, the salty haze of San Francisco, the pavement-steam of Los Angeles, the saturated smoke of Philadelphia, or the angry cold of New York to declare "I am a human being. And my life has meaning!". These people feel the struggle every day as they breathe and eat and pray and fuck and laugh and cry and kiss their husbands and wives and children. This is my America. And I hope that soon I will have earned the trust and respect that my fathers have trampled upon, and I will be welcome to stand with my America and lift my pampered fist in the air as my mouth opens and my throat vibrates in song as I am introduced to something altogether foreign to me. Patriotism.

[UPDATE]
If I may be forgiven a moment of presumption and possible arrogance, I will say one more thing in an attempt to quiet the irrational and racist meanderings of the bitter minority still stinging from the loss of Senator John McCain. Consider this what my cowardice and weakness prevent me from saying in person.

The people of the United States of America did not vote for Senator Barack Obama simply because he is a black man. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their struggles and their hardships and their challenges. And because these struggles are, in fact, his own. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because he was a poor black child born to a white mother and an African father, and raised in a single parent home. He understands that struggle. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because his father was an immigrant. He understands that struggle. The people of this country voted for Barack Obama because he lifted himself out of poverty and transcended the stigma of his race to attend some of the finest schools in the world. He understands that struggle. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent his youth organizing in the poorest parts of one of America's poorest cities, working to help families overcome the hardships of American inner cities. He understands that struggle. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent years teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. He understands the act of teaching, and he understands the struggle of America's teachers. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he spent his time in the Illinois legislature and in the United States Senate leading with dignity and working to cross party lines for the people he represented. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their America, the America marred by a history of hate and oppression, the America in which poor black youth must struggle against the extreme hardship of their condition, the America in which people feel unsafe in their own homes and unwelcome in their own nation. The people of the United States of America voted for Barack Obama because he understands their America, their struggle. The color of his skin is merely evidence of his own struggle.

To say that a citizen of the United States of America, black of white, voted for Obama simply for the novelty of electing a black man, simply for some kind of quirky pleasure derived from observing the unusual, is to label a great man like the President-Elect a mere puppet, and the millions of voters who cast their ballot for him as mere puppeteers, clueless Americans meandering frivolously through this enormous decision. And that is nothing short of close-minded and naive.

It is, in fact, racist. In saying that the President-Elect earned his votes simply through the color of his skin, you have reduced Barack Obama to nothing more than an unthinking, inanimate symbol of his race, and robbed his accomplishments of their vitality and enormity. And that is the essence of American racism-- the robbery of meaning and importance based on racial heritage.

As promised...

2008-01-23T12:07:00.001-08:00

The Williamsport Guardian has updated their website, and so at least some of my reviews are now online. They appear online just as they did in the magazine, edited for clarity and length by the Guardian. As of right now, only the latest issue is up, but possibly the Guardian will put up the one previous to it soon. If you can, be sure to check out the Guardian for more reviews as they come. Thanks!

Review of Akron/Family's Love Is Simple
Interview with Akron/Family guitarist Seth Olinsky

Hiatus

2007-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

I realize that I was never terribly consistent in publishing these blog posts before, and lately I've been averaging about one a month, so I've decided to stop kidding myself and the few readers I've managed to retain. As of today, I'll be going on an indefinite hiatus. Now, frankly, will anything substantial really change? Of course not. I haven't been posting much lately, anyway. The only difference will be that now I won't feel guilty about it.

Quickly, though, I want to mention a couple things before I go. SteveG from Philosopher's Playground sent me an advance copy of Pink Floyd and Philosophy. A great read. Check it out. Also, I've started writing CD reviews for the Williamsport Guardian. I'll post a link as soon as some of those are online.

And as soon as Blogger fixes their image upload feature, I'll leave you with some Calvin and Hobbes.

Bye.

Armenian Genocide: Bush Recognizes the Genocide in 2000, Renounces Bill Now

2007-10-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't been this angry in a long time. I have recently stumbled upon a letter that George W. Bush drafted in 2000 while running for president, directly referring to the mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians in the beginning of the 20th century as "a genocidal campaign" and swearing "If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people." Needless to say, this letter, when coupled with recent events in Washington regarding the Armenian genocide, displays a level of blatant hypocrisy and opportunism even I didn't think possible of this administration. I DISCOVERED THIS LETTER ON THE WEB SITE OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR AMERICA (ANCA), AND AM AT A LOSS AS TO WHY I WAS UNABLE TO FIND ANY REFERENCE TO IT ON ANY OF THE NEWS SOURCES I HAVE SEEN, BOTH MAINSTREAM AND "LIBERAL". THIS INCLUDES FOX, CNN, MSNBC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORK POST, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, USA TODAY, TROUTHOUT.COM, AND COUNTLESS OTHERS. The letter, alongwith its accompanying press release, is reprinted in it's entirety at the bottom of this post, after a brief summary of the situation and of recent events.

On Wednesday, October 10th, President George W. Bush, along with his Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and his Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, publicly criticized the House Foreign Affairs Committee for working towards passing a non-binding resolution labeling the WWI-era slaughter of 1.5 Turkish Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire a genocide. Said Bush, "We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915, but this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings. Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror." The concern of the White House is that officially labeling the genocide as such would put strain on U.S relations with Turkey, and thereby jeopardize the United States military bases and air fueling stops that are located on Turkish soil. The White House maintains that these bases and other military establishments are essential to the continuation of the U.S war on terror, and intrinsic in maintaining United States involvement in the Iraqi and Afghani debacles (my words, not theirs obviously). Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said "The passage of this resolution at this time would indeed be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East." Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged that "About 70% of all air cargo going into Iraq comes or goes through Turkey." Currently the House's proposed non-binding resolution is still in committee, and even after the president's remarks drew away some of its Republican support, it currently has enough votes to pass if the Democrats decide to bring it to vote. The purpose of the proposed resolution is to put pressure on the White House, President Bush, and the rest of the Untied States government to formally identity the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.

It is not my interest to convince anyone that this resolution is completely appropriate, incredibly overdue, and more than necessary, and so I will not waste a great deal of time or space here attempting to do that. It is also not my interest to waste any time convincing anyone that what occurred in the early part of the twentieth century in what is now Armenia was a genocide. It was. I believe simply looking at the history will convince anyone of that. Between 1915 and 1917 the Ottoman Empire deliberately and consciously engaged in the active ethnic cleansing of Armenian men, women, and children, resulting in the illegal, immoral, and horrific deaths of 1.5 million people.

The passage of this resolution would take a long-overdue step toward an American condemnation of the Armenian genocide, a condemnation that would add the Untied States to a steadily growing list of countries to acknowledge the genocide and condemn it as such. An American condemnation would also put a great deal of pressure on the international community: both on other countries and on the United Nations, who have been amazingly un-active in reconciling the damage done by the ethnic cleansing. Proper United Nations support could go a very long way towards healing the emotional, social, and economic scars that still exist among ethnic Armenians. The incredible social and economic influence of the UN, as well as the similar power held by the United States as one of the world's dominating nations, could also go a long way towards alleviating much of the inhuman poverty that many ethnic Armenians continue to face as a direct result of the decades-old genocide.

However, as I stated above, it is not my interest to convince anyone who may be reading this of the powerful efficacy the passage of this bill could have. However, it is my interest to bring to their attention a letter that then-Governor George W. Bush drafted in 2000 to the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), as he was seeking support for his presidential campaign. The letter is addressed to Mr. Edgar Hagopian and Mr. Vasken Setrakian, two Armenian activists and members of ANCA. In the letter, George W. Bush refers to the mass killings as "a genocidal campaign" and pledges "If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people." The letter is re-printed in it's entirety below, immediately followed by the press release that ANCA released after receiving the letter. Both of these documents can be viewed at, and are reprinted from, ANCA's website, http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=3. It bears mentioning that this letter won George W. Bush the support of many Armenian-Americans and the unofficial support of ANCA. The letter is marked February 19, 2000, and the press release was issued on February 20, 2000. More than any record I've seen, this letter indicates the hypocrisy of this president and this administration, particularly regarding this, a massively important issue.

George W. Bush for President
February 19, 2000

Mr. Edgar Hagopian
Mr. Vasken Setrakian

Dear Edgar and Vasken,

Thank you for your inquiry to my campaign regarding issues of concern to Armenian Americans.

The twentieth century was marred by wars of unimaginable brutality, mass murder and genocide. History records that the Armenians were the first people of the last century to have endured these cruelties. The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity. If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people.

The Armenian diaspora and the emergence of an independent Republic of Armenia stand as a testament to the resiliency of the Armenian people. In this new century, the United States must actively support the independence of all the nations of the Caucasus by promising the peaceful settlement of regional disputes and the economic development of the region. American assistance to Armenia to encourage the development of democracy, the rule of law and a tolerant open society is vital. It has my full support.

I am encouraged by recent discussions between the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The United States should work actively to promote peace in the region and should be willing to serve as a mediator. But ultimately peace must be negotiated and sustained by the parties involved. Lasting peace can come only from agreements they judge to be in their best interests.

I appreciate the tremendous contribution of the Armenian community to the United States. The Armenian community has been and will continue to be a model of dedication to values of faith and family.

Sincerely,

[signed]
George W. Bush

(end of letter--J)

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release ~ 2000-02-20
Contact: Elizabeth Chouldjian ~ Tel: (202) 775-1918

GEORGE W. BUSH RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Republican Candidate Calls on Americans to Remember and Acknowledge "Facts and Lessons" of the "Genocidal Campaign" against the Armenians

Washington, DC -- In a powerfully worded letter to two of his leading Armenian American supporters, Republican presidential hopeful Texas Governor George Bush acknowledged the Armenian Genocide, called on Americans to join with him in remembering the crime committed against the Armenian people, and pledged as President to ensure that the United States properly recognizes this terrible atrocity, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Governor Bush's letter, addressed to Michigan community activist Edgar Hagopian and New York businessman Vasken Setrakian, who attended Harvard with the Governor, also called for continued U.S. aid to Armenia, encouraged a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, and praised the "tremendous contribution of the Armenian community to the United States."

"We welcome Governor Bush's principled stand on the Armenian Genocide and join with him in calling upon all Americans to acknowledge both the facts and lessons of this crime against humanity," said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "We would like, as well, to voice our community's gratitude to Vasken Setrakian and Edgar Hagopian, both of whom have done so much to share with Governor Bush the issues of pressing concern to our community. We appreciate their leadership and value their contribution to expanding the voice of Armenian Americans in the political process."

Governor Bush's rival for the Republican nomination, Arizona Senator John McCain, has yet to speak out on Armenian issues. He has remained silent, in particular, on the Armenian Genocide, despite having received an unprecedented number of postcards from Armenian Americans as part of the ANCA's million postcard campaign to leading presidential candidates - including Governor Bush, Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley.

The two hundred thousand postcards addressed to Sen. McCain ask him to explain his vote in 1990 against former Senator Bob Dole's Armenian Genocide resolution and, more recently, his 1999 vote to lift the Section 907 restrictions on U.S. aid to Azerbaijan, despite Azerbaijan's failure to lift its blockades of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh. (For more information on the ANCA postcard campaign, visit http://www.anca.org.)

In a September 1998 speech in the U.S. Senate, McCain attacked a Congressionally approved ten million dollar aid package to the American University of Armenia as an "objectionable program," and a "serious diversion of scarce resources otherwise needed for truly worthy programs." (For more information on this speech, visit http://mccain.senate.gov/frop99ap.htm.)

Provided below is the full text of Governor Bush's letter.

#####

I will attempt to continue to write about this and provide updates as I discover them, but I fear that if the media continues to be as silent as they are now about this issue, these updates will never come. Any information I haven't found or have missed, as well as any new information you may discover would be greatly appreciated.

Nazis Thrown Out of Knoxville by...Clowns?

2007-09-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, clowns. About three months ago, a crowd of about twenty racist skinheads, assembled under the banner of the VVN Vanguard Nazi/KKK organization, were driven off the streets of Knoxville by the humorous actions of the 100th ARA (Anti-Racist-Action) "clown block". Says Ashville Indymedia:

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running
in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which
[spelled] “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once
more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and
danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a
doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the
clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried
to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point
several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they
were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in
their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White
Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan
was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE
POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns
and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE
POWER! WIFE POWER!”

It was at this point that several observers reported
seeing several Klan members heads exploding in rage and they stopped trying to
explain to the clowns what they wanted.

The Nazis then dejectedly stalked off the streets, as the crowd of about 150 counter-protesters laughed and cheered, chanting "WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!" Then:

The clowns seeing how dejected and sad the Nazi’s looked began singing to cheer
them up.

“hey hey hey hey, ho ho ho ho—good bye, good bye” everyone sang
waving their arms in the air in unison.

Ha! Then, reportedly, anti-racist activists flooded the streets and marched through downtown Knoxville, waving banners, carrying signs, and chanting. Police escorted, and in fact led, them along main street, stopping traffic as the street gave way to an anti-racist parade. Cool, eh?

(All grammatical and spelling errors in the quoted text remained intact. Mainly because I was too lazy to correct them and too ignorant to properly indicate those corrections. So I copied and pasted. 21st century, eh?)

Tom Waits Performs "Heartattack and Vine"

2007-08-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think this is awesome?

Wizard Rock: Awwww, cute! They think it's music!

2007-07-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

I can understand Potter-mania to a point. After all, I'm the one who reluctantly admitted back in February that I would probably be up at midnight on the 21st of July to buy the new book. In fact, I can almost understand the costumes and the ridiculous candy, although I am still at a loss as to what kind of kind of person would a) go into public dressed as a wizard-in-training and b) deliberately pay for (not to mention consume) a candy made to taste like grass or vomit. I can even almost understand the hundreds of thousands of bookstores that will throw middle-of-the-night parties for bi-spectacled pre-teens and their parents in a couple of weeks. But this?! This just blows it all out of the water.

Apparently "wizard rock" is a thing. Apparently, people, some of whom are grown adults, as in the case of Harry and the Potters' Paul and Joe deGeorge (20 (!) and 28 (!!) respectively), feel that the world is in need of Harry Potter-themed indie rock. In fact, they even feel that it is their responsibility to announce to the world, through lame drum machines and tacky techno-loops, such bold pronouncements as "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock" and "Hagrid is Fun to Hug" (both of which are song titles of the aforementioned Harry and the Potters. These guys just must be the biggest geeks ever.) I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY? These two college and post-college age men seriously want to do this with their lives?! And they're not the only ones, either. Of course, after Harry and the Potters must come Draco and the Malfoys, which also consists of two college age brothers who have decided to devote this part of their lives to the strangest (read: geekiest) of musical projects, and after them you have a slew of wizard rock bands, with names as creative as The Whomping Willows, Ginny and the Heartbreakers, The Parselmouths, Dobby and the House Elves, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, Siriusly Black (oh, the wit! hahaha...!), Dumbledork (yes, "dork". now THAT's ironic...) the Hermione Crookshanks Experience, and (this one's the best) Huffle my Puffle. Also, in a classic incident of children mimicking adult behavior (or is it the other way around in this case? I'm not sure), the kids have jumped on board, too. Singer and guitar-player Darius started The Hungarian Horntails when he was just eight years-old, and has quickly risen to fame within the "sub-culture" (bah!) of wizard rock. (His debut album is available for purchase as we speak, entitled, I kid you not, "Burn Voldemort's Butt".) But unfortunately for global normalcy and customary maturity, people like Darius are in the minority among popular wizard rock bands. Most of these bands seem to be comprised of high school and college age Harry Potter fans. In fact, the so called "originator" of wizard rock was Drama, the nineteen-year-old singer of indie pop act Switchblade Kittens (which now popularly goes by the moniker "the Weird Sisters"), who famously wrote the song "Ode to Harry Potter" and posted it on her band's web site during the Christmas season of 2000. The song, which focuses on character Ginny Weasley's crush on Harry Potter (the most eloquent of the lyrics:"I can't help but blush when you're near me/But you just exclude me from your circle of three/I'm right in front of you but you don't see/You treat me like I'm a Colin Creevey." ), began the whole phenomenon of Harry Potter-themed indie rock (dubbed "wizard rock" by the press), which is showing no signs of slowing down.

And now if that wasn't nerd-y enough for you, check out this video of Harry and the Potters preforming "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock", a danceable anthem in which the brothers implore the audience to "stick it to the man" because "where I come from, the man is the guy that breaks into your house, kills your parents, and leaves a scar on your forehead". And apparently, "Voldemort hates dancing". Who new? (Oh, and if you decide that this just isn't enough for you, you can check out other Harry and the Potters tracks, like "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas", "The Wrath of Hermione", and "Stick it to Dolores", also available on YouTube.)

For more information concerning the "wizard rock phenomenon", you can visit these links. But be warned, depending on your personality and your threshold for the absurd, you may want to give these a miss. They have been known to make their readers laugh hysterically, scream in terror, or cry themselves to sleep at night. Enjoy!

http://www.salon.com/
http://www.forbes.com/

HILARITY! Ricky Garvais on Hitler, Nietzsche, and Nursery Rhymes

2007-06-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Golden Globe winning actor and comedian Ricky Gervais of hit BBC show "The Office" discusses the Holocaust ("Not a traditional subject for comedy, the Holocaust. I'll give you that."), Nietzsche, and the cryptic morals of nursery rhymes with extraordinary intelligence, dignity, and comedic timing. If you've got some time, definately take a couple minutes to buffer these videos to the end. You will not be disappointed. This is smart, irreverent comedy at it's best! Enjoy!

Hitler Speaks With Nietzsche (from "Politics" )

Interpreting "Humpty Dumpty"

Random Facts Meme

2007-06-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

So now that I've been tagged by not one, but two, different bloggers (Aspazia of Mad Melancholic Feminista and Larry Hamelin of The Barefoot Bum) , I guess I should finally participate in this meme.

First off, we have the rules:

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

And now my eight things:

The first five and a half years of my academic life (Kindergarten onward) were spent in the public school system. Then, I switched to Greenwood Friends School in the middle of my fifth grade year. Now, after three and a half years at Greenwood, I am once again enrolled in the public school system, as I will be starting public high school this fall.

I studied violin for three and a half years before quitting to focus on guitar a little more than a year ago, studying first with the string teachers at my public elementary school and then with Marcus Smolensky of Bucknell and Susquehanna Universities.

I live, and have lived for my entire live, in a house without any broadcasted television. No cable, no annoying rabbit ears, nothing.

Even though I have no cable, I actually very much enjoy several TV shows that I follow avidly through Netfilx, DVD boxed sets, iTunes subscriptions, and generous friends who tape things for me. Favorite shows include the Sopranos, the Office (BBC and NBC), Dirt, Friends, and (I'm blushing just revealing this) Grey's Anatomy. Also, my parents have a thing for bad British dramas, and they are constantly Netflix-ing shows like BallyKissAngel and Cracker.

I have NEVER cried at a movie. Never. My friends think I'm dead inside.

I can honestly say that there isn't any style of (secular) music I actually dislike, except maybe Country'n'Western (although Chuck Klosterman pretty much convinced me otherwise in his essay on the topic.)

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that I seem to have a thing for charismatic, gravely-voiced folk/roots singers. I consider myself a fan of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Daniel Lanois, and Chris Whitley, just to name a few. And Dr. John and Leo Kotke, but I'm not sure if they fall into the same category.

And finally, today, June 27, 2007, is my fourteenth birthday.

Now I've got to tag people. Ughh, I hate this part...

SteveG
M. LeBlanc
Dr. Violet Socks
Jeremy dePrisco
Madman In The Marketplace
QuakerDave
Tomas Nadlehoffer

Okay, my part of the meme has been fulfilled!

Hip-Hop and White America

2007-06-27T11:48:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about the Don Imus scandal lately. While I realize this is somewhat of a delayed reaction, it actually sort of fits a pattern in the way I experience news and politics, especially when this "news" or political intrigue has to do with popular culture or celebrity gossip. I normally find ways to ignore these delectable items of news (and so resist formulating opinions on them) while they are firmly in the limelight, but as soon as they have faded into the woodwork and disappeared from the Internet news headlines, I begin to reflect on these events I had somehow managed to ignore. So I have been thinking about the Don Imus scandal lately, and especially about the recent flurry of attention being given to racist and sexist lyrics in rap music. And the one thing I have reflected upon the most is the use of the word "nigger" in rap music and other forms of black American art and culture.

The use of the word "nigger" in predominately black hip-hop and rap music seems to be something that everyone has a strong opinion about, even to the point of making it a pseudo- political issue. I have never really had a problem with the common use of the word by black singers, musicians, rappers, and other black cultural figures, simply because much of the music and art that employs the word comes from a strong sense of hardship and persecution, whether from the back-breaking poverty of inner-city ghettos or at the hands of a bigoted, privileged white society. The word "nigger" is a direct symbol of this racist persecution and a reminder of black Americans' heritage of hardship, and the event of a persecuted group taking the very word that is a symbol of their persecution and turning it into something positive is not an unprecedented incident at all. The gay population of the eighties and nineties warped the derogatory term "queer", long used an an insult against gay and lesbian individuals, into a positive word of pride and encouragement, and the white, working-class, urban youth of '60's and '70's Europe twisted the insulting "punk" into a word that would define them and their culture for decades to come. To me, it seems only logical that a group as persecuted as black Americans would create some sort of culture from the decades of bigotry they have had to endure.

Unfortunately for my argument, though, it is hard to disagree with the fact that hip-hop has moved from the street corners and inner cities of black America into the dorm rooms, car stereos, and boomboxes of thousands of white, middle class youth. And it is apparent that many of these middle-class white youth have adopted the norms of black culture as their mantra, thus once again finding a way to incorporate the word "nigger", hurtful rather than empowering on their lips, into a white society cleansed of that kind of language by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. It is just this kind of paradox that led Don Imus to say the deplorable things he did, and just the same kind of paradox that allows rural, white America to idolize black rappers and comedians, while still displaying a frightening level of day-to-day racism and fear of minorities.

New(ish) CD: Tim Armstrong's A Poet's Life

2007-06-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

If this album had been recorded by anyone but Tim Armstrong, there's no way it would have been considered punk rock. Rather, it would have been considered what it is: one of the most important modern reggae albums to be released in years, and the CD on which the versatile Tim Armstrong comes full circle, from his early ska/reggae-inflected punk with underground legends Operation Ivy, to his work with the iconic street punk band Rancid, to his recent recordings with rap-punk outfit the Translators, and then back to this, his solo album, on which he combines elements of all these groups to create something more vital than much of what he has already accomplished. Armstrong reportedly released the record because "Rancid Punx have a streak...since 2000 [we] have released a new album every year", and for this, his first solo album, he chose to work with Los Angeles reggae unit the Aggrolites, a powerhouse of LA reggae musicians whose inspired music perfectly complements Armstrong's original compositions and artfully fleshes out his complex arrangements.

All the songs on this record were penned by Tim Armstrong, and lyrically they touch upon many of the same places Rancid and OP Ivy have in the past, such as the tales of jubilant debauchery in songs like the hip-hop-tinged "Oh No" ("There's gonna be lots of people getting high tonight/...I spend all my time chasing women around"), "Take This City" (Hittin' the city all night long/...Coming up, Work it up, Got a light?, Smoke it up, Zig-zag?, Roll it up."), and "Hold On" ("Fast women, cocaine and booze/The roughest of the roughest ain't got nothing to loose"). Rancid's lyrical influence is also very apparent in the stories of poverty and loneliness throughout the album, best exemplified in the brooding "Among the Dead"("It's California but it ain't sunny/And all my dreams came crashing down/I'm out on the streets, got no money/Got no band, ain't no one around"). However, Armstrong writes outside of his typical punk-rock lyrical mold on several songs, instead opting to write declarations of love and devotion, more common in reggae than punk rock. In the love-struck reggae number "Hold On", he sings as his chorus "I'm gonna hold on to you as long as I can/And if you choose to leave me girl, I'll understand/But I'm gonna hold on to you as long as I can", and in the anthemic "Translator" he takes the voice of a regretful lover, singing as his refrain "I only wanted what was best for you." There is also a surprising lack of political lyrics throughout this album, the most political of the songs being the catchy "Inner City Violence". Overall, Armstrong delivers his lyrics with calm and poise, and with little of the anger that was characteristic of former Armstrong vocalists Jesse Michaels and Lars Fredrickson.

The guitar-playing of Aggrolites members Jesse Wagner and Brian Dixon really shine on this disk, as they provide tasteful, melodic lead-lines as well as inspired rhythmic duets with organist Roger Rivas that serve to create liquid, kinetic musical texture underneath Armstrong's vocal. Their guitar playing is best used in calm reggae numbers like "Hold On" and "Translator", in which their melodic atmospheric playing serves to add new dimension to the songs. They are also allowed to shine as soloists in several places, giving their most memorable solos on the aforementioned "Hold On" and the jubilant reggae stomp "Take This City".

The first thing a listener hears when putting on this album is Armstrong's heavily reverb-ed voice demanding to know if we are "ready for this". After listening, I have to say yes. We've been ready for this for a long time, the record on which Tim Armstrong finally steps out of a band and displays his musical gifts on his own. Definitely find a way to get this album; it should be a pretty easy task since it is being offered for free download on Armstrong's Myspace page and on other services. Armstrong describes it as "our way of saying thanks, for all the support over the years."

iPod: "Pass me one of those?"

2007-06-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

I apologize that I have been so negligent in my blogging lately, and I confess that I didn't even realize how long it had been until I noticed the date of my last post. (Is it possible it's actually been over a month?) I have been busy during this absence, though, graduating (just from Greenwood, don't get excited), playing a lot of music, submitting a couple things for publication, and wrapping up a recording project I've working on. (If you're interested in hearing some of the stuff I recorded, and have some free time to spend waiting for the audio to buffer, you can check it out here.) And, above all else, over all musical endeavors and academic achievements, I got an iPod.

A couple of years ago, Chuck Klosterman wrote an interesting piece in Spin Magazine (November 2004) entitled Living In Stereo, essentially a glorified love letter to his broken iPod, complete with clip-art graphics and everything. His basic thesis: that the iPod, instead of isolating its users like the Sony Walkman, allows them to engage and interact with the outside world in new and revolutionary ways. Basically, the iPod allows anyone with a laptop and a 2GB Nano to create a personalized (and event specific) soundtrack to their lives. Constant music, all the time. (I guess it is worth it to mention here that he might actually have a point; I'm using mine to listen to the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" as I compose this post.) Maybe this is the reason you can tell so much about someone by the contents of their iPod. But regardless as to whether this is the reason or not, the fact remains that by looking through someone's iTunes library you are offered an informative and very private window into someone's life. For example, I got mine used from an anonymous PayPal user, and even though all the songs had been deleted, I still feel as if I have a pretty good idea of his or her musical tastes. The bass boost was pumped to a level that horribly distorted everything, even at very low volumes (think Rick James's bass tone), and the EQ was twisted into a mangled tonal jumble even Jay-Z wouldn't have approved of. And when I connected it to the computer, it informed me that the iPod's former owner had creatively named it KanyeLover07. Hip-hop listener? I'd think so.

But potential for music snooping and personality profiling aside, it is hard to argue with the fact that the iPod is one of the most innovative advances in popular technology since the internet. But there is another innovation that is overshadowed by the iPod, an innovation that almost singlehandedly ceased to make portable music players isolating machines and turned them into social devices. This innovation is the invention, and subsequent popularization, of the ear-bud headphone. It didn't take long for consumers to realize that hey, the speakers kind of suck, you can't push any volume whatsoever, and it's kind of uncomfortable to have a speaker actually shoved in your ear, but all that was overshadowed by the realization that with these headphones, not just one, but TWO people can listen simultaneously. And when you've been riding iPod-less to and from from school forty-five minutes each way for three years, this pleasant realization comes in handy. Just a quick smile, a flattering comment, and the hopeful "Pass me one of those?" started two years of sharing the wealth of music on the iPod of the person next to me. I guess the way music is experienced has come full circle, from social event, to private experience, to social event again. And that's thanks to the iPod. (Now who knows how to upgrade from 2GB for less than a hundred dollars?)

Bo Diddley Suffers a Stroke...

2007-05-19T09:22:00.001-07:00

...and, get this, he is hospitalized just twenty blocks away from where I am right now. He suffered a stroke last Sunday while preforming at a casino in Council Bluffs (just across the river from Omaha, about a fifteen minute drive from my Grandmother's if the traffic is good), and has since regained the ability to walk, but still isn't able to speak. And so, because of this, it is very possible that the Council Bluffs gig will end up being his last public performance, and so one of the last times anyone outside of his circle of friends will be able to see him or hear him play. And nobody seems to care!! Seriously, people are more excited about Shrek 3 coming out this weekend.

So, what do you think are the chances I'll be able to get my cousins to swing me by Creighton Medical Center sometime in the next couple of days?

In the area?

2007-05-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

Let It Be: A Theatrical History of the Beatles, the show I mentioned in an earlier post, is being performed tonight and tomorrow night at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport. I assure you, it will be a great show, and I think if you come you will really enjoy it. Doors open at 7:00, and the show is expected to run about two and a half hours with a brief intermission. Tickets are $10.00 each and are available at the door.

May-1-07: Marches for Immigration Reform

2007-05-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

I realize that just several posts ago I promised not to post any more video, but I fear I'm going to have to break that promise now. The footage in both of these videos is some of the most disturbing and troubling I've ever seen, so much so that even the Fox (FOX!) newscaster in the first video appears disgusted and indignant. I don't think I need to waste time and computer space trying to convince anyone of the blatant racism, chauvinism, and imperialistic behavior demonstrated by the police at these marches. I also don't think I need to elaborate on how profoundly troubling a precedent has been set by the fact that the police, in addition to targeting the peaceful protesters, also targeted the press reporting on the event, to the point of even using violent and physical crowd control tactics on journalists (this is also seen in Video 1).

And something that is even more troubling (and, in fact, infuriating) is the reaction of many of the countless people who have seen this footage and read these news stories. Ironically, much of the anger over these events seems to be targeted at the peaceful (predominately Hispanic) protesters, rather than at the police. Copied and pasted straight from the YouTube message board of this video:

"The cops can't beat you enough. The white folks don't understand anything ( bullshit). Poor minorities.Cry for yourself. You get everything handed to you, try and earn it,you pussies" (mark03063)

Maybe it's time to put strychnine or arsenic in all the imported Mexican pot and get rid of a few million problems here? (It5lee)

This next video (yeah, I know, two in one post) is a CNN prospective on this debacle. It has been added so that there are two mainstream news sources available, just for the sake of validation.

Hipster Christmas: The Birth of Quirky Christ

2007-05-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Thirty-eight years ago today, hipster messiah and quirky-er than thou film director Wes Anderson was born in Houston, Texas to two unsuspecting parents. Weird? Weird.

So you think he'll e-mail Sarah?

Iran: Policing Clothes and...erm...Bed-head

2007-04-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent crackdowns on hajib (clothing deemed "un-Islamic") now not only apply to such trivial matters as the color of a woman's headscarf or the shape of her clothing, but also to the much more dire problem of bed-head.

According to several recent news articles (another is linked above), American-ized hair-styles have become popular among Iranian young people, mostly men as, of course, many women still feel moved to wear (or are bullied into wearing) scarves that cover their heads. Says BBC News, "Some young boys in Iran sport very wild hair styles, using gel to make their long hair stand on end in a fashion not seen in other countries." And not to discredit BBC, but "not seen in other countries?!" Um...hello! What about this? Or this? Or even something as common and conventional (dare I say "normal"?) as this? It seems to me that deliberately messy hair is popular everywhere, and is not unique to Iran. If you still don't believe me, feel free to step outside and look around every once in a while.

And, surprisingly enough, it isn't Iran's psychopathic president leading this charge against the sin of messy hair, but the hairdressers themselves who are embracing these governmental crackdowns. (These are the same hairdressers who, incidentally, are reportedly no longer permitted to receive clients wearing ties in their businesses, as ties are a sign of Western influence.) Says Mohammad Eftekhari-Fard, the head of the barbers' association in Iranian capital Tehran, "Currently some salons use Western grooming methods to create styles that are in line with the European and American ones." He adds, "The union has repeatedly announced the restrictions against unconventional grooming when issuing permits to each of the barber shops. Hence barbers, knowing these rules, should not pursue the wrong methods." Ah! Barbers using hairspray and gel! What a crime against Iranian values!

To be honest, this reminds me to a certain extent of my first through third grade teachers, all of whom were (and continue to be) strong, commanding women who took upon themselves the personal crusade of making sure all the children arrived each morning with calm, combed, neat-looking hair. It even reminds me of my mother shoving hair-brushes into my hands whenever I wake up in the morning with my knotted, shoulder-length hair hanging loose over my eyes. And, as much as it can annoy me, I almost respect the totalitarian hair-care policies of mothers and elementary school teachers. But a sovereign nation? Come on.

This is another one of Iran's out-of-control youth who reportedly sport "very wild hair styles, using gel to make their long hair stand on end in a fashion not seen in other countries." Now if that's not a sin against Allah, I don't know what is!

These YouTubers are fickle folk, aren't they...?

2007-04-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

Sue me. Occasionally, I like to indulge my ego (actually it seems I've been doing that quite a lot lately...), and normally when I'm feeling ego-ish, I humor that egocentricity by going back and re-reading some of my past blog posts. I tell myself I do it to check for typos, or misspelled words, or other errors, but, in reality, that couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, it's just ridiculous, because a), I have not one, but TWO spell-checks working for anything I write on the blog (both Blogger's mediocre one and Firefox's alleluia-godsend one) and b) I really couldn't care less about the typos and writing errors. So I guess the only logical conclusion I can come to is this: I go over my past blog posts simply to selfishly gawk at what I've managed to create. Kind of like the idiot version of Michelangelo gazing upon the ugly, idiot cousin of David. And for some reason, this masturbatory ego-stroking always seems to occur on Sunday, the one day of the week I don't have anything better to do.

So that's what I was doing this morning when I discovered that all but one of the YouTube clips I've posted here have either been deleted or are no longer available. ALL! BUT! ONE! That's four out of five videos gone. Which really makes me angry because all of those four clips were pretty crucial to the post they were attached to, and the one left over is kind of frivolous and unnecessary. So I'm done posting video. Done. Forever.

(Or at least until I stumble upon some Police concert footage I just have to share...)

April 28: The Comedian, The Writer, and The Dictator

2007-04-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

What a day, eh? Today, April 28, marks the birthday of Saddam Hussein, the man responsible for the mass murder and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Kurdish civilians (and for ravaging an entire country in his decade long war with Iran), Harper Lee, the woman responsible for one of the greatest pieces of American literature ever written, and Jay Leno of the Tonight Show, the man responsible for funny things like this. And Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, that band that everyone's heard of but no one listens to. An eclectic list of characters, to say the least. What a day...

Favorite Posts: My Moment of Ego (sorry!)

2007-04-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

While I relize it is probably rather egotistical and self-aggrandizing to do this after not even thirty posts, I have decided to add a "Favorite Posts" list in the sidebar of the blog. Part of the reason is that I have heard more and more about people from the "real" world (as opposed to the blog one) Google-ing me, finding the blog, and then using it, which the best of intentions, to formulate opinions about my (academic) life. And this, frankly, kind of sucks, especially since I feel the quality of the blog posts have been going down as of late. This also comes at a time during which I am simultaneously leaving four years of private school for public high school and submitting more and more things for publication (oh, yeah, I do that...), knowing full well that the blog can potentially be discovered by both submission-readers and high school administrators. So I want to put what I think is my best work out front.

Another part of it is personal. I have come to realize (or at least would like to hope) that more people are finding the blog as a result of my increased traffic on other blogs. I also realize that many of these people will undoubtedly never see some of my earlier posts, which I tend to really like. (And, you'll notice, several of the indicated "favorite posts" are early posts, and have little or no comments. hmm...)

So those are the reasons for this embarrassing moment of egotistical behavior. I hope they made it easier to stomach this self-aggrandizement! (Oh, and one more thing, this post on the death penalty, while not one that I particularly like, has gotten the most positive response in the "real" world. Just thought I'd mention it.)

Now I'm done. Promise.

Riverbend: Up and Running Again!

2007-04-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, A deacon... (Subversive Christianity) wrote a small but meaningful piece expressing his worry over Riverbend, the Iraqi blogger responsible for Baghdad Burning, one of the most important and crucial blogs in the blogosphere right now. At the time of A deacon's post, Riverbend had not posted anything new for close to two months: a fact that, while it would seem almost normal for many American blogs, poses dire questions about the well-being of a blogger living in a war zone. Well I guess now A deacon, I, and everyone hoping (and, in the case of some, praying) for any word of Riverbend can breath a sigh of relief, for she posted something new yesterday evening. And what, of all things, does she announce in this new post? She reveals that she and her family have begun preparations to leave Iraq for a safer, but as yet uncertain, location. So let us all hope (or pray, if you are religious) that she and her family find somewhere safe to escape the state of constant fear and danger they have been living in for too long. And let us also hope, and do everything in our power to make sure, that this current administration comes to its senses soon and seeks a quick end to the civil war raging in Iraq. Damn your troop surge, damn your "Iraqi liberation". Allow Riverbend and her country to live in peace.

"...I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend..."

Happy Birthday, Deacon!!

2007-04-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, A deacon, by the grace of god over at Subversive Christianity celebrated his fifty-third birthday. The rest of us celebrated with him, remembering and commemorating his fifty-three years of devout faith, biting wit, and absolute love and compassion for everyone around him. So here's to fifty more, deacon! Keep bringing light, smiles and laughter to everyone in your life!

And about the picture: It was taken during a television interview the deacon gave, and, as can be seen, he is wearing a tattered T-shirt that bears the slogan "Alternative Energy: The answer is blowing in the wind". And just so's you know, everyone else in the TV spot wore ties. Amen, deacon!

Earth Day 07

2007-04-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that a large percentage of the people who will celebrate Earth Day today have lost sight of the purpose of the event. Yes, it is a day for picnics and hikes and "family-together-time"; it is a day during which it is appropriate to marvel at the natural world and renew you Sierra Club membership, but I think it is obvious that it is not a day for exclusively those things. It is, and always has been, a day for environmental activism and political pressuring, a day set aside in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a day when all nations and all people would rally for the greater good of the planet. This means marches, lobbying, and demonstrations. Not picnics or kindergarten greeting cards. Change. And it seems to me that we are in the most significant state of environmental emergency that the world has ever seen, and so more needing of change than we have ever been.

Not to say that nothing is being done. Quite the opposite, in fact. Of course things are being done; the global Step It Up demonstrations which advocate the reduction of carbon emissions were a huge success a little under a week ago, environmental issues are already becoming key issues in the upcoming presidential race, and even just looking at Google's home page today you encounter the image on the right. (Are those the polar ice caps melting? On Google?! Well would'cha look at that! Look at how as they melt, they miraculously form the logo of one of the largest, most influential companies on earth! Ironic, eh?) However, a simple Google search for Earth Day activism gleans disappointing results. Among the top hits is the Earth Day Clean Energy Demonstration in Nevada (Sierra Club) and the Laguna Beach Earth Day Celebration (yes, Laguna Beach, who knew?), but aside from those two events (which seem impossible to judge from their websites), it seems as though there is very little going on. But perhaps I'm wrong. In fact, please tell me I'm wrong.

Vonnegut and Sports Illustrated

2007-04-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

During the overwhelming surge of anecdotes, quotes, and amusing tales that came after Vonnegut's death, someone shared this one with me. It says everything there is to know about Vonnegut's wit, style, and attitude. Plus, as with anything concerning Vonnegut, it's funny.

As a young author, Vonnegut applied for a position at Sports Illustrated, which was a fairly new magazine at the time. As a priliminary assignment before his hire, he was told to write a caption for a randomly selected photo. The photograph this young Vonnegut was given turned out to be a picture of a horse that jumped a fence at the Aquaduct and ran from its owners. Disgusted with the project, he hurriedly wrote the caption, left it on the editor's desk, and left the magazine for good. The caption? "The horse jumped over the fucking fence."

Ah, how we miss him...

The Rolling Stones: Even the Horses are Baked

2007-04-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

So I guess somebody figured, hey, everybody else in the audience is going to be inebriated in some way, so why not the animals too?

According to CNN, officials in Belgrade, Serbia are planning to sedate about 300 horses so that they will not be disturbed by the Rolling Stones' complaints about satisfaction when the fifty-year-old band plays Belgrade's famed Hippodrome in July. The sedative used would be diazepam (Valium), a popular drug in Serbia, and one that was used during NATO's 1999 air strikes, during which much of the adult population of Serbia was using sedatives. And as could be expected, a Serbian animal rights group called ORCA is voicing concern over the sedation of these horses, saying, "Research has shown that noise and vibrations are the strongest causes of stress to animals. Surely our big city has enough open spaces where even 150,000 people can fit in. We think the Hippodrome should be left to horses."

ORCA has also said that, if they are unable to sway the concert organizers, they will contact the band directly. Lets just hope they don't reach Keith Richards, though. He might want some diazepam. And it's kind of twisted to envy a horse.

Uptown Music Collective: Spring Recital 2007!

2007-04-16T04:35:00.000-07:00

The Uptown Music Collective is "an independent school of music offering education in all styles, at all levels, to all people", which strives "to create an environment in which students feel free to express themselves musically, while also stressing the importance of self-discipline and mental focus."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: Yup, that's me. And yes, I was in the recital. I'm also involved in another show that's coming up, a full-scale, theatrical tribute to the Beatles' Let It Be. There will be more on that coming later.

Jim Morrison: Free the Lizard King?

2007-04-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

Remember the Doors? That band that started as just a few desperate California buskers but grew into the genius band that would re-define performance art and its place in popular culture? Remember the inspired organ-guitar intercourse of guitarist Robby Krieger and organist Ray Manzareck, the glimmering chords and flawless cresendos that filled in the holes in songs without making them overcrowded? The trance-inducing tom-cymbal dueling of drummer John Densmore, the "jungle drums" that created palpable musical tension within otherwise ordinary pop songs? The Doors were quite literally one of the best bands to come out of the clusterfuck that was the sixties, and most definitely one of the best bands to ever come out of America.

Now remember Jim Morrison? The charismatic singer and bad-boy heartthrob who, with his seductive baritone and defined features, at the same time re-interpretted Greek theater and re-defined what it meant to be a sex symbol? Remember his bouts of acid-induced genius, during which he wrote such unforgettable songs as "Light my Fire" and "The End"? Do you remember the absolute daze he would go into on stage, during which he would loose control and do and say things that were shocking and potentially illegal (like his infamous reference to Sophocles ' Oedipus the King in "The End")? And finally, do you remember the time that he was arrested at a Miami concert after removing his clothes, and then convicted of indecent exposure? Well, apparently, a TV producer from Florida (creatively named "Dave Diamond") is asking Gov. Charlie Christ for the posthumous pardon of Doors singer Jim Morrison, saying that he wants the Melbourne darling to be remembered as a revolutionary poet and singer, not a "rock and roll bad-boy with a rap sheet".

But the fact is, he was a "rock and roll bad-boy," and it was from that all his art stemmed, all his "revolutionary" songs and poetry. He wasn't just groundbreaking and unique because of the music he made or the words he wrote, but because of the way he lived. He was the embodiment of the sixties carefree Bohemian lifestyle, and that was what made his such a saint to the army of fans that admired his work. He lived in a way not expected, endorsed or even tolerated by his country and his elders, and that was the essence of Jim Morrison. And while a pardon might serve to up the ratings of Diamond Dave's TV show, it is completely unnecessary (and inconsistent with the message of Morrison's writing) for Jim Morrison's legacy to embraced in such a way by the state. And in fact, it would do nothing but tarnish the reputation of one of rock's greatest artists.

"Go ahead and light my fire. Throw me on the funeral pyre. We'll set the night in fire!!"

Urinetown! This is Urinetown!

2007-04-14T19:52:00.001-07:00

Just when I go and start getting all proud over Joseph, Bucknell goes and does this.

If someone at Bucknell has a fetish for absurdest theater (as I suspect they do), they certainly seem to be indulging it. Earlier this year, the Department of Theater and Dance put on a wonderful production of what may just be the strangest, most metaphorical play ever: The Firebugs. Written by Max Frisch in 1959 as a radio play, it was then adapted to the odd stage version that it is. The play takes place in a small city, panicked because of the recent wave of arsons, all committed by what the town has dubbed "firebugs". The plot centers around two loveable degenerates (both firebugs) named Schmitz and Eisenring who manage to infiltrate the estate of a wealthy buisnessman, Mr. Biedermann. The two (in a metaphor for the Nazi movement in Germany) proceed to prepare the house for demolition, not hiding what they are doing, but announcing it to the household. However, Beidermann and his manipulative wife Babbett refuse to believe the two, and so end up actually giving them the matches they use to burn down the house. Seem conventional enough? You haven't heard the half of it. Says Wikipedia, "The action is observed by a Greek-style chorus of 'firemen', and the increasingly surreal flavour culminates in a final scene when Biedermann and his wife Babette find themselves at the gates of hell. Here they once again meet Schmitz and Eisenring who turn out to be Beezlebum and the Devil respectively." (Just so you know, a friend of ours was terrific in the role of Eisenring/Satan.)

And now, for its annual musical, the University decided to put on an even stranger play (with an even worse title) called Urinetown. (From Wikipedia: "Urinetown the Musical is an award-winning satirical comedy musical, poking fun at local government, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and petty-minded, smalltown politics. Urinetown rejects musical theater convention. There are parodies of all-time successful Broadway shows including Les Miserables. In addition, the production satirizes its own significance. Last but not least, in reverse pantomime style, the unconventional plotline shatters audience expectations of a pleasant ending.") It is very, very strange. Very, very, very strange. But Bucknell did a great job, walking with ease through the eighteen-part harmonies (when everyone on stage was literally singing a different note) the complicated, dazzling tap-dancing ("What can we do to stop them, they have an army of tap-dancing cops!" screams an actor.), and the difficult and risky task of artfully staging such a self-satirical play without making it seem ridiculous.

Kinda makes Joseph look like a walk in the park...

Where Would We Be...Without "B.C"?

2007-04-14T06:09:00.002-07:00

Where would we be without B.C, that courageous and innovative comic strip that brought new meaning to the line, "That joke's so old, last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur"? Where would we be without the ants and dinosaurs and advice-givers drawn as if by a kindergartener? Without the drawings that are identical each panel to the next, the blocks of stone bearing messages always intercepted by some giant ant or cave-man, or the tiny, minuscule people way too small for even a comic strip frame? Where would we be? Well, we'd be stuck rolling our eyes at Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey, that's where we'd be.

And if for no other reason than that, it feels fit to remember Johnny Hart, the 76-year-old cartoonist who died last Saturday, having been doing the B.C comic strip for more than twenty years. And on top of that, it turns out he is partially responsible for that other god-awful comic, The Wizard of Id, which he founded with Brent Parker in the 1960's. And, apparently, he died in the most appropriate way for a cartoonist: literary collapsing at his sketchbook. Said his wife Bobby to CNN: "He had a stroke. He died at his story-board." Almost seems like something Gary Larson would have thought up, doesn't it?

And so somewhere in that parallel universe of cartoons and comics, little stone tablets are being cast to the waves, declaring a funeral for Johnny Hart. All of B.C will be there, and the Flintstones will undoubtedly be in attendance. The wimpy vikings of Hagar the Horrible will stand shoulder to shoulder with the pimply-faced teenagers of Zits, and Andy and his wife might even venture out together. All of the ugly, fat-stomached people of The Far Side will gather 'round in hushed silence ("Trouble brewing"), and even Dennis the Menace will bow his head in shame. Who knows, maybe somebody will even see Calvin and Hobbes.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

2007-04-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

For the small, 23-student Middle School I attend, much of this school year was spent preparing, rehearsing, and performing a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. You know, that Andrew Loyd Webber musical you loved as a kid but can't stand as a person, with all the repetitious, predictable music, the feeble "biblical" storyline, and the annoyingly juvenile lyrics? The one that some high school inevitably does each year (and each year you curse your stupidity at going to)? You know what I mean, the one that is probably responsible for more Broadway suicides each year than all other shows combined (minus that other god-awful Webber show, Cats)? Yeah, that one. We did that one.

And we rocked it. Alright, that might be an over statement. But we did do a good job, and led by the skillful and tireless hands of our two directors, we managed not to kill ourselves (or the audience) during the exhausting, frustrating hours of preparation and rehearsal. And we got standing ovations both nights, albeit if only after our parents, through example, began the difficult process of getting the crowd to stand (even the "Head of School", fancy Quaker word for "principal", didn't show the second night, and left early the first). But a crowd doesn't stand up for nothing. Okay, yes, it is something of a novelty to see a thirteen year-old-girl completely (COMPLETELY!) uninhibited as she chases a fourteen-year-old boy around onstage, swiveling her hips and beckoning with her arms, exaggerating her unique style of seduction entirely shamelessly. And it isn't everyday that you get to watch your fifteen-year-old son put on skin-tight pants, shake his leg and melt girls' hearts as Egyptian royalty. But it certainly isn't often that you get to see them do it well.

Not to say that the production (and subsequent recording) went off without a hitch. That's just not the way it works for middle school musicals, and especially not musicals in which, by sheer numbers, everyone is forced to participate, regardless as to interest or singing ability. While seducing Joseph on the second night, Potifar's wife took a tumble, landing with a deafening bang on the carpeted surface of the hollow, temporary stage. And when dancing, occasionally Joseph's brothers would stumble, trip, and just generally forget what they were doing.

But overall, we overcame our stress and sleep deprivation to put on a pretty awesome show, and again, thanks to the two directors; you guys were amazing. We rocked Joseph. And his multicolored coat. (Unfortunately, no pictures though. The blond girl in that one picture wasn't actually in this particular show, but she's awesome. So she's up here.)

And now we are rehearsing yet another musical, this time a larger, all-school show to be performed in a about a week. Why do we keep hitting ourselves with a hammer? Because it feels so good when we stop.

Snoop Dogg on Don Imus

2007-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

So who knew? Snoop Dogg, rapper, one-time pimp, blatant misogynist, chauvinist pig, and dick-head incarnate, is, in fact, an enlightening philosopher, gifted social critic, and champion of racial equality! Who knew? (Mouthafuckas!)

In response to the recent Don Imus incident, the rapper gave an outraged and indignant interview (and, to give him credit, it must be hard to even appear indignant when as constantly baked as he is), in which he said that sexist remarks in his songs and Imus's sexist statements are "completely different scenarios". This from a man who seems to prefer the words "bitches" and "hos" to well, any other words in the English language, and who infamously appeared at the MTV music awards with two barely dressed woman on leashes (and wearing pretty pink price tags).

But hey, it gets better. Just read what he said.

"(Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about hoes that's in the 'hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthafuckas say we are in the same league as him. Kick him off the air forever."

So whaddyaknow? Snoop Dogg is an eloquent, intelligent, compassionate human being after all. And he coaches football. (Apparently he doesn't keep the kids on leashes, though. He leaves that to Michael.)

(Quotes and info from here and here. Scary pictures from here.)

Two Kurts in Three Days: R.I.P Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

Most days, I ride to school in a cramped, loud, dust-caked van with a fifty-five-year-old bus driver named Frank. Frank is almost entirely bald, has a great sense of humor, and, much to the chagrin of the younger occupants of his van, likes to listen to oldies. And he listens in the worst way possible too: with the volume just barely audible so that it is loud enough to hear, but quiet enough to be less music than a constant underlying presence. This constant subliminal annoyance, when coupled with the piercing chattering and giggling from some of the younger students, serves to creates a situation that can, quite frankly, be miserable. And I sit closest to the radio, up front in the passenger's seat, so when Frank gets out of the van to slide the door open for another student (a luxury I do not have as the designated shotgun-rider; I have to open my own door), I take those brief seconds to quickly change the station to something, anything, other than oldies. This tends to turn Frank's bald spot red, which is probably the real reason I do it.

And just my luck, this morning I happened to flip to NPR (another potential annoyance) just as they reported Kurt Vonnegut's death and saw fit to remember him by reading aloud a couple of lines from Player Piano. And then Frank stepped back into the van, evaporating rain water rising from his head, and flipped the station back to Oldiez 93.3 ("We spell oliez with a Z!") just in time to hear the commentator admitting to buying the cliff notes for Slaughter House 5 in high school. Then Frank looked over at me (hiding a smile) and said, "My bus, my rules, my radio, buddy!"

And then when I got to school (and escaped Frank's glare), some of the first words said to me were from my English teacher (with whom I had planned to read another Vonnegut novel before the end of the year), who looked up at me and said, "Jonah, did you hear Kurt Vonnegut died?" So it only seems right to spend today's post honoring this wonderful author, hilarious cultural critic (how's about a memorial Comedist holiday, SteveG?), and ground-breaking story-teller.

And as can be told from my rambling prose above, any further mock-sentimentality or fractured story-telling on my part would only serve to belittle and offend Vonnegut's tremendous legacy. So I will end with a quote from A Man Without a Country, not his best book, but certainly his most confessional, and the one I have enjoyed the most.

" As a kid I was the youngest member of my family, and the youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an adult conversation. My sister was five years older than I was, my brother was nine years older than I was, and my parents were both talkers. So at the dinner table when I was very young, I was boring to all those other people. They did not want to hear the dumb childish news of my day. They wanted to talk about the really important stuff that happened in high school or maybe in college or at work. So the only way I could get into a conversation was to say something funny....
When I'm being funny I try not to offend. I don't think much of what I've done had been in really ghastly taste. I don't think I have embarrassed many people, or distressed them. The only shocks I use are an occasional obscene word. Some thing's aren't funny. I can't imagine a humorous book or skit about Auschwitz, for instance. And it's not possible for me to make a joke about the death of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King. Otherwise I can't think of any subject that I would steer away from, that I could do nothing with. Total catastrophes are terribly amusing, as Voltaire demonstrated. You know, the Lisbon earthquake is funny.
I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief."

April 5th: R.I.P Kurt Cobain

2007-04-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday marked the 13th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, and with it came a slew of blog-posts, vigils (yes seriously), and poorly written articles in oily-paged fan-zines (which, I'm sure, somewhere, are blotted with tears). Think what you want to about Kurt Cobain, say what you need about his heroin habit, his digestibility, his "banal" music, and his tattoos-and-piercings-heartthrob status. But it is undeniable that he took rock music away from the pretentious, misogynistic bands with bad hair, tight pants, and oversize libido (not to mention homo-erotic tendencies: wtf is up with those tight pants??) and brought it back to where rock music should be: in the hands of an entire world of youth who needed some sort of fulfillment, some sort of enlightenment, even if that fulfillment only comes from jumping on the bandwagon of the newest angst-y "culture." Somewhere in Nirvana's jagged power chords melodies and tangled, rumbling rhythm a legion of people found peace. And somewhere (don't ask me where) in Cobain's obtuse, nonsensical lyrics and cat-with-a-hairball vocal style, they found truth. And no one can take that away from them. And no one can take that away from me. And I don't think I need to waste time and computer space explaining how astronomical his influence on popular music has been. (Of course, I probably will (and probably just did)... But I'm sure this guy will end up doing it better. And this guy. And this guy.)

Oh, and by the way, he was murdered. (Yes, I'm one of those people. When you're through giggling and rolling your eyes, check out this link.)

Music as Torture at Guantanamo Bay

2007-03-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

So I picked up another magazine today, this time the December 06 issue of Spin Magazine. And having picked it up, I opened right to pg. 87, where I was greeted by the artsy-magazine trademark of the obligatory "compassionate collage" or, as in this case, the "bleeding-heart pencil drawing". Embedded in this drawing was the descriptive (albeit slightly obtuse) headline "WAR IS LOUD." The letters all capitals (digitally engineered to look like blocks of stone), and with sound waves radiating from them.

The article goes on to describe yet another horrendous torturing practice of the United States military: the blaring of loud music (at extremely dangerous and uncomfortable listening levels) at political prisoners and suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, many of whom , as devout practitioners of Islam, are religiously forbidden from listening to music at all. This harmfully loud music (most commonly rap and heavy metal) is also often the first direct contact these prisoners have with western culture, a culture that, if they don't detest, they profoundly fear. After all, it is those societies (and that culture) that is holding them for indefinite amounts of time without charges and subjecting them to torture and un-ethical (not to mention illegal) interrogation practices. A Guantanamo Bay officer interviewed in the Spin piece describes a time the guards blared Neil Diamond's America over the loudspeakers, saying, "It was to try to keep the prisoners agitated and to keep them from talking to one another. We wanted to prevent them from keeping each others' spirits up and emboldening one another to resist interrogation. It just about caused an all-out riot. Strict interpreters of Islam are forbidden from listening to music. The whole basically erupted."

Spin journalist David Peisner also interviewed a former detainee at Guantanamo, a young British Muslim called Shafiq Rasul who was arrested in 2001 along with two friends for suspected of terrorist activity (all three were later released). He describes being chained in a "stress position" to the floor of a minuscule booth. The booth was pitch black except for the blinding flashes of a strobe light, and the air-conditioning was cranked to almost freezing temperatures. Loud, menacing heavy metal was blaring. Says Spin "Rasul endured such 'interrogation sessions' every day, sometimes twice a day, for nearly three weeks. Often there was little or no interrogation taking place." Rasul describes being left in that pitch black booth for up to twelve hours with the heavy metal music blaring, and says "Even if you were shouting, the music was too loud--nobody would be able to hear you. You're there for hours and hours, and they're constantly playing the same music. All that builds up. You start hallucinating." Another interviewee, an Egypt-born Australian citizen by the name of Mamdouh Hahib, desribes being captured by Pakistani police in in October of 2001, then being transfered (supposedly by U.S agents) into Egyptian custody. In addition to electric shocks, beatings, and other traumatic interrogation techniques, he was also forced to endure dangerously loud music. He says, "What surprised me was that they used English [-language] music. They put headphones on me, then put on the music very loud." From Egypt, Hahib was transferred to Guantanamo, but was in such awful physicological shape that he doesn't remember his whole first year being held at Guantanamo. The most shameful episode of his story was yet to come, however. Says Spin "Hahib says his interrogators asked him about his treatment in Egypt, and after learning the things that troubled him the most (threats to family, loud music), they proceeded to apply them themselves." Hahib says of the traumatic incident, "They were trying to make me crazy. They try to take your mind from you. Even today, when I hear loud noise, I get disturbed." Hahib was released without charges from Guantanamo in January of 2005.

And it's certainly not only the prisoners who have expressed disgust with these interrogation tactics. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1977 that the use of harmfully loud music on prisoners is "degrading and inhuman." The Israeli Supreme Court decided eight years ago in 1999 that this practice "causes the suspect suffering. It does not fall within the scope of...a fair and effective interrogation." Amnesty International considers the use of drastically loud music torture, and even Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a retired brigadier general in the U.S army and a practicing psychiatrist, says that sonic bombardment is "really traumatizing to the brain. It will lead to anxiety and the kind of symptoms you get with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."

Among the artists whose music was (and probably continues to be) used for these barbaric torture practices are metal bands Drowning Pool, Metallica and R age Against the Machine. Rage Against the Machine?! As was mentioned in an earlier post, Rage Against the Machine made a name for themselves advocating leftist beliefs and educating music fans about American injustices and injustices across the world. Rightfully so, Tom Morello, RATM guitarist, PhD (in political science), and former class valedictorian at Harvard, is furious. He says, "The fact that our music has been co-opted in this barbaric way is really disgusting. That particular kid of interrogation has rightly been cited by Amnesty International as torture. If you're at all familiar with ideological teachings of the band and its support for human rights, that's really hard to stand." Now compare that with the bonehead remarks Steve Bennon, bassist of aggro-metal band Drowning Pool (for full effect, insert frat boy "duh...i dunno"s periodically at pauses between the sentences). "People assume we should be offended that somebody in the military thinks our song is annoying enough that, played over and over, it can physiologically break someone down. I take it as an honor to think that our song could perhaps be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that." But wait, wait, it gets better. He goes on to say, "If they detain these people and the worst thing that happens is they have to sit through a few hours of loud music--some kids in America pay for that. It doesn't seem all that bad to me." I can only imagine that that is similar to what is going on in an American soldier's head as he presses play.

Borat: Offended? Shocked? Good.

2007-03-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

Before any of my family had seen Borat, before Sacha Baron Cohen's ass had graced our television display (making us grateful we hadn't seen it on the big screen of a theater), there were several heated discussions about how "morally responsible" the film was, if or if not the film's dialouge was racist, and what it said about America that we had fully embraced Sacha Baron Cohen and Borat. They were involved discussions, with my father (and usually my mother) taking the side of many middle-aged parents, arguing about the film's ability to be easily misunderstood and the implied carelessness with which the film's message was conveyed. I took the side of Cohen and the legions of American fans cheering about his movie, saying that my parents weren't giving the viewers enough credit, that the film did, in fact, unearth hidden hypocrisy and bigotry in mainstream American society. But in hindsight, we weren't arguing about "ethical responibility" and "immoral carelessness," we were arguing about how we could reconcile Borat with our narrow, American idea of what political comedy should be: we were assigning the film a PC value, something that of course seems rediculous now as we hadn't even seen the film at the time. And I think many were guilty of this of this politically-correct mentality: my parents, critics, but, most of all, me. I didn't use these flash judgments to discredit or argue against the movie, but I did use them to pigeon-hole it, to clump it in a group with the pretentious, self indulgent (read: masturbatory) liberal cinema that is always trying to paint a frightening picture of America and American imperialism, but always fails miserably, creating movies that exist only to preach to the latte-drinking choir.

Borat doesn't try to do anything exept create a wonderfully hilarious movie with political undertones. It portrays a startling and terrifying picture of America simply by being there and observing the racist, misogynistic, heterosexist mentality of American culture. Cohen didn't write a script to show the worst in America, he just showed the worst in America; he discovered people who would good-naturedly admit to the desire to hang all homosexuals, college students who would proudly and laughingly describe the extent of their misogyny ("We f__k 'em here, f__ck 'em hard. And then we never call....They don't have my respect, that's why!"), and crowds that will cheer when Borat announces a desire to see "George Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi man, woman, and child". In fact, it almost seems hard to believe that it was Khasiktstan and not the U.S threatening to sue Cohen; we are the ones who should really be embarrassed.

Another thing that was discussed at great length during our household discussions was how funny and (here it comes again) "responsible" what we dubbed "humor of humiliation" truly was. We wondered about the humor in leading everyday people to humiliate themselves in front of a camera, and we wondered about the cruelty of Sacha Baron Cohen in doing so. Well wow, should we have waited until we'd seen the movie! Cohen (as Borat, of course) doesn't in fact humiliate people. Quite the contrary, in fact. He humiliates himself so as to see how other people react. He, after all, is the one who brings a trash bag of his own shit to a fancy southern dinner, he is the one that wrestles (flinch) naked with his grossly obese producer and then runs completely naked into an elevator and from there into a dinner party, and he, after all, is the one that seems close to tears when he is brutally booed off of the lawn by patriotic sports-fans when singing Khasikstan's national anthem (completely made up, by the way) at a rodeo. In fact, for most of the time, Borat simply stands around and talks (that statement is particularly appropriate if you have seen the films Borat-in-a-television-interview scene), often hilariously, with average people, begging then to spill their bigotry into his camera's lens. These people humiliate themselves, plain and simple. They don't need the help.
(The picture is of Ali G, one
of Cohen's past
characters. I know he's
not Borat, but I liked
the image.)

So are you offended by Borat? Are you shocked? You should be. It's a shocking movie. If you're not offended, you must be American.

(And now cue my fake Borat voice): M' name a' Jonah. A' hope y' enjoy m' blog. Ba'ba!

Thinking Blogger Award

2007-02-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

It seems once again I've been hit with an Internet meme, although this time it seems slightly more meaningful than the annoying adolescent fluff currently plaguing MySpace bulletins and YouTube message boards. Sometime earlier today, Aspazia of Mad Melancholic Feminista saw fit to choose me as the recipient of one of her five Thinking Blogger Awards, causing me to blush so furiously my computer screen fogged up (well, okay, not quite, but I was quite flattered). In keeping with my responsibility as a recipient, I will post my own five Thinking Blogger Awards below. But first, the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme, and

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

And for my Thinking Blogger Awards, I tried to showcase blogs that exemplified the best in blogging on all three of my favorite topics: music, film, and politics (or "life" as I so metaphysically put it above). However, upon re-evaluating, I decided that there are few blogs on music and film (that I know of) that actually make me think in deep, complex ways (there are even viewer that use capitals) and so I didn't feel comfortable adding any of them. However, my first pick listed below does combine all three of the aspects I mentioned.

MINDSPEAK.COM Blog: Jeremy dePrisco describes himself as a "composer, writer, technology hound", and, my favorite, "critic of what we've become". This eclectic list of personal descriptions does well to illustrate the eclectic content of his blog, which eloquently speaks of topics as diverse as sitar-playing, stomp-box construction, and the never ending battle between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Posts are relatively rare, but always worth the wait.

A Poetic Justice: I normally find blogs-in-verse rather hard to read and fairly tedious, but there's something about the ThePoetryMan's moving political poetry and intricate digital collages that makes this blog really speak to me.

Punk Ass Blog: This blog I discovered from Aspazia's Blogroll, and have found myself returning to it often for further tastes of its perfect blend of social-political rage and quick-witted satirical comedy. And who can't love a blog that consistently publishes posts that are at the same time uproariously funny and bitingly political?

Liberal Street Fighter: The first time I viewed this blog, the first thing I saw was a Calvin and Hobbes strip involving a certain figure sculpted out of snow. Then, I looked down and saw System of a Down's "Prison Song" listed as the author's No. 1 "beloved tune." Enough said. This blog rocks.

Baghdad Burning: I can only imagine that this blog by young Iraqi blogger Riverbend has already been given this award (multiple times, probably), but I just can't resist honoring her again. This moving, eloquent, wonderfully written blog offers a young Iraqi prospective on religious fundamentalism, the new Iraqi government, Bush, the U.S occupation, and everything that affects Riverbend's day to day live as a young woman in Baghdad. This is one of the blogs that really cemented my interest in blogging.

Thanks to everyone, especially Aspazia!

The Police Reunion!! (And a Little "Roxanne")

2007-02-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

As anyone who came in contact with me today will say, I spent most of the day humming this song in my high, painfully pinched Sting voice. Alright, I wasn’t humming. I was singing. Loudly, and in a voice I usually reserve for Cheap Trick. Anyway, I thought I would let you guys hear the song the way it is meant to be heard: sung in Sting’s “my-spandex-is-too-tight” whine and backed by Stuart Copeland’s frantic, energetic drumming and Andy Summers’s subtle, tasteful guitar work. And, of course, played from a broad, well-lit stage to a crowd of cheering Grammy viewers.

Unfortunately, they only played this one song, following the No. 1 rule in show buisness and leaving their audience wanting more. Mercifully (to those few music fans who, like me, somehow managed to miss the Grammys), a world tour is now in the works. Copeland reportedly said to Rolling Stone, “We’re going to come out and burn down the world. We’re going to enslave your children, rape and pillage across the world.” Let me join Rolling Stone in saying “Yes!”

The Unseen: Some Words on Punk

2007-02-26T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have a huge stack of magazines, most of them music journals or punk fanzines, that sit in a precariously balanced pile in my basement gathering dust. Occasionally, mostly when avoiding homework or procrastinating, I pick one up. However, rarely do I find anything interesting. Rarer still do I find something that genuinely impresses me, something that makes me nod and think "That's exactly what I believe!" This is one of those increasingly rare finds. And how appropriate that it should come in the form of an op-ed by Tripp, the bassist for Boston punk band the Unseen, who's music has often caused me to nod in the same way I did as I read his piece (if slightly more violently). This piece Tripp wrote addresses issues of conformity, homophobia, and the "punker-than-thou" mentality among modern punk fans: issues I have often contested in the calm, safe world of blogs and in the secure environment of online message boards. Tripp, however, lives his massage, sings about it, and tattoos his skin with it. And for this I congratulate him.

--The below was originally published on p.18 in AP (Alternative Press) #211, released in February of 2006--

EDITOR'S NOTE: Some people call punk an attitude, others swear it's a musical style; and a handful more, such as Boston street-punk road warriors THE UNSEEN, are too busy living it to worry about fitting into anyone's rulebook. And while you'd think it would be easy to go against the grain in a scene that was founded on just that idea, you've probably never had to deal with the sort of sniping and backbiting that these guys put up with every time they read their e-mail. This month, during a rare break from touring in support of the Unseen's late Hellcat album, State of Discontent, bassist Tripp issues a wakeup call.

"WTF: YOU GUYS USED TO RULE BUT YOU SUCK NOW. YOU'RE TURNING INTO EMO FAGS! QUIT RUINING PUNK ROCK..." This is a typical example of the hate mail we in the Unseen receive on a semi-regular basis. All the letters say essentially the same thing, and about 90 percent of them use the term "emo fags" or the more-to-the-point "faggot" (as well as a lot of really bad grammar), in their ranting. I'm not sharing this to evoke sympathy; I'm sharing it to prove a point about our subculture and its tendency to preach equality while turning a blind eye to homophobia.

As a member of a band for the past 12 or so years, I understand that every time you release something to the public you make yourself a target for abuse. I also know that my band has evolved over the years, both musically and in terms of how we look, and I'm well aware that this is going to rub some fans the wrong way. While I do expect backlash from some people, the excessive use of the word "faggot" in their complaints sickens me.

A majority of these e-mails are centered on reoccurring topics. People don't like the fact that we've signed to a bigger label or have made a few videos, and to a certain extent I understand their frustration. Some kids don't like the fact that we don't look the same today as we did 10 years ago. It's not Scott's fault he went bald and can no longer grow a Mohawk, or that I'm at a point in my life where I no longer fell it necessary to decorate every square inch of my clothing with the logos of 20-year-old bands. Sorry, kids, but people change.

While I don't fully understand this fashion-conscious mentality, I accept the fact that people find fault with us over it, and I still manage to sleep at night. What really sickens me is that these people accuse us of selling out their subculture and then use homophobic terminology to drive home their point. Call me whatever insult you can muster from you glue-addled teenage brain, but if you're going to blame us for ruining an entire subculture, please do so within the accepted language and social structures of your precious little "open-minded" scene. I mean, if you're so worried about the sanctity of your spiky-haired utopia, why do you sound like every other redneck, racist asshole who perpetuates the same fucked-up society you claim to oppose?

Like any other freethinking, mildly intelligent human being, I believe that being gay or lesbian is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle, it's no different than being born black, white, rich, poor, American, Iraqi and so on. And as punks, we all learned from our record collections that judging people on these traits alone is wrong, right? Why then, is one form of derogatory speech so openly accepted in our subculture, which claims to value personal freedom so much? How is it that sentences like 'I used to like them, but they're all emo fags now" can be typed hundreds of times without censorship in punk-rock message boards, but if someone were to say they don't like a band anymore because "they're all filthy Jews now" they'd (hopefully) be run out of their local scene?

Speaking out passionately against racism, sexism and classism while openly walking all over the personal rights of another minority isn't just stupid; it's detrimental to our movement and how others perceive us. If you want people to respect your views and yet you contradict yourself in the statements you make, it's no wonder the rest of the world doesn't take punk seriously when we try to voice an opinion beyond our love for getting wasted and hating the police.

Ignorance is a horrible part of human nature, and it will never go away. However unpleasant a thought this may be, I feel it's the truth, and I have come to terms with it. But what isn't a part of our collective damaged psyche is hypocrisy, which I find even more offensive then ignorance itself. The ignorant man is the one who acts appallingly, passes judgement on others different than himself, but through stupidity or upbringing doesn't seem to know any better. The hypocrite is a person who condemns the ignorant man while being to lazy to realize his self-righteousness is completely backward and just as offensive. Being too dumb or preconditioned to understand how your actions hurt others is one thing, but being capable of rational thought and preaching against the ills of exclusion, and then turning around and doing it yourself, is fucking inexcusable.

I am in no way implying that all punkers talk like this; in fact, I'm convinced that it's a small minority of people within our scene who go out of their way to call strangers "faggots" over the computer. Unfortunately, the anonymity the internet provides only helps these closeted bigots spread their filth without fear of reprisal, thus ensuring it's not going anywhere any time soon. But that doesn't mean we have to accept it.

Homophobic speech may be common in George Bush's America, but that doesn't mean it's not offensive or vile, and I would expect punks to be the first people to understand that. Forty-five years ago, the word "nigger" was used freely by people of all colors, and only through education, understanding and hard struggle did America learn to see the error of its ways. The same thing will be proven for other minorities of this country, from Muslims to homosexuals. In my opinion, you're either part of the solution or part of the problem, and I would expect our "socially-aware" subculture to act accordingly. Years ago, I would have said with unconditional resolve that I knew where most punks stand on civil rights issues; now it saddens me to say that I'm not so sure.

Wow, you read all the way to the end. You rock! I want to mention that all textual errors in the above piece have remained intact out of respect to the author.

Martin Scorsese: The Departed

2007-02-26T05:03:00.000-08:00

I think we can all agree that Martin Scorsese is responsible for three of the best gang films of all time. After explorations into the genre with 1972's Boxcar Bertha and 1973's tragically unrecognized Mean Streets, he released his first truly great crime masterpiece in 1990 with Goodfellas, the violent, profane portrait of mob informer Henry Hill. And after further explorations into his motifs of guilt/redemption and mock-machismo in films like the hyper-violent Casino (1995) and almost amusing Bringing Out the Dead (1999), he released 2000's Gangs of New York, a high-budget, high-risk film about Civil War era New York and the gang violence occurring in the Five Points. And now we have The Departed, a modern gang masterpiece chronicling the rise and fall of (fictional) Irish mob boss Jack Costello.

The Departed opens with Jack Nicholson (brilliant in the role of the deranged Costello) explaining, in a think Boston accent, his mantra to the audience. "Nobody's ever gonna give it to ya. You have to take it." And it is this philosophy, this belief, that the film follows to the letter. The film follows the story of two "rats", one of whom (Matt Damon) is a protege of Costello that has infiltrated the State Police Special Investigations Unit, and the other of whom (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a ex-police cadet and undercover agent raised poor and desperate in Boston who rises in the ranks of the local mob. On the surface, the stories are strictly parallel-- opposite stories of good and evil. But it is more complex than that. As we watch DiCaprio savagely beat and mutilate "Mafia guineas" from Rhode Island while at the same time observing Damon meeting his future finance, the lines between good and evil, law and crime, become blurred, until what the film is left with is a wonderful tension, a sense of overwhelming desperation that slowly overcomes both the characters of Damon and DiCaprio, until it ceases to matter what is right or what is wrong. It only matters that they survive.

As the film progresses, the stories of the two characters become more intertwined and less parallel. Damon's finance becomes first DiCaprio's shrink and then his lover, DiCaprio's only contact at police headquarters becomes an obstacle to Damon's work inside the organization, and finally, it becomes clear that they are really hunting each other. DiCaprio is assigned to find the rat in the Special Investigations Unit and Damon is assigned to find the rat in Jack Costello's crew. As the scenes become more climactic and the sets darker and more menacing, one profoundly frightening thing becomes clear. The two charecters are, in essence, searching for themselves. Just on opposite ends of the scale.

Tension is everywhere in this film. Whether during a profoundly terrifying scene in which mob-boss Nicholson confronts DiCaprio about the suspected informer or during Damon's first date with his finance, the sense of tension is beautifully conveyed in the the gifted camera work, in the screenplay, and in the actors' inspired portrayals of their characters. And it is this, this terrifying tension that sucks a viewer in until they feel the fear of the characters on screen. And it is this, this expression of pure, animal fear, that makes a gang movie. Not car chases, not gun-fights, not scenes of drug use and debauchery, but the subtle, constant feeling of fear. And in this, the film succeeds.

SERIOUSLY?!

2007-02-24T08:26:00.000-08:00

Which is more horrifying? To you? To America?

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

2007-02-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

Guillermo del Toro's latest film Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) has been heralded as the "new Lord of the Rings" and "a new masterpiece in fantasy." But to characterize it as such is not only to misrepresent the story, but also to miss the point of the film completely. What Pan's Labyrinth is is a masterpiece in modern magical realism, a story that neatly draws parallels between the real world and the magical, and then, as the story goes on, dissolves the barriers between the two worlds until they have, in the viewers' minds, become one and the same. The "real world" that exists in Pan's Labyrinth is Spain post-civil war, a time when bands of rebel guerrillas violently oppose the fascist regime of Fransisco Franco, resulting in bloodshed and even more tyrannical practices so as to cripple the rebel forces. The "magical world" that exists is a dazzling world psychologically inhabited by Ofelia, a young girl experiencing the horrors of war and retreating from them into a land of dream-like fantasy that at the same time envelops her, comforts her and shelters her from the horrors being committed by the Captain, her mother's fascist husband running an outpost ruthlessly hunting rebels in a rural area of Spain. The stories fight with one another for screen time over the course of the entire film, just as they fight for time in Ofelia's mind, and, as Ofelia retreats further into her dream-like world of fantasy, they begin to collide, effecting each other in magical, catastrophic ways. (Ofelia, incidentally, is played to absolute, tear-jerking perfection by then 11-year-old actress Ivana Baquero.)

And as is exemplified by such masterful authors as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario de Andrade, for a story to be effective in a magical realist setting, the two conflicting elements, magic and mundane, need to be reliant upon each other. They need to not only offer parallels between one another, but they need, in a very direct way, to add to their opposing element. One can not merely highlight the other: they need to both become part of one narrative so as to convey a complete storyline. And it is in this aspect of the story that del Toro truly shines. Lift the magical elements from the movie and you are left with nothing more than a one-dimensional, mildly thought-provoking film that half-heartedly struggles with the issues of tyranny and violence. And lift the realism from the magic, you are left with the shallow love child of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings that dosen't struggle with real world issues but neatly sidesteps them to create a mildly pointless story. However, when the stories are combined, the serve to create a film that is at the same time frightening and comforting, horrifying and amusing, and never shys away from offering a full portrait of the trauma of war on a child.

So Pan's Labyrinth is not the next Lord of the Rings, nor is it even a fantasy. It is a cinematic snapshot, a painting in film, of a wartorn nation and a young girl's interpretation of it. And it is beautiful.

(Plus, the special and cosmetic effects are amazing...)

9-11 Revisited: World Trade Center Building 7

2007-02-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, when surfing the Internet, there is something I find that falls into the "Holy F__k!" category of information. This is one of these things. If I were religious I'd pray on it, if I were important I'd speak about about it, but I'm not. So I'll blog it.

September 11, 2001 was a day immortalized when World Trade Center 1 and World Trade Center 2 fell due to a "series of coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by Islamic extremists." (Wikipedia) Of course, these two buildings were by no means the only ones effected, as burning rubble and debris showered down from the falling towers, initiating numerous smaller fires below.

All eight of the World Trade Center buildings were (and continue to be) arranged in a plaza, with WTCs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 forming a circular shape and WTC 7 sitting directly across the street. And at 5:20 PM EST, several hours after Towers 1 and 2 fell, WTC 7 collapsed, due to what was officially explained as a structure fire caused by falling debris.

However, as detailed by the below videos, it seems impossible that it was a mere structure fire that caused the building to fall. For one thing, never before and never since has a fire in a steel framed building like WTC 7 caused the total collapse of a building, (see video 1) and has certainly never caused a building to collapse in the manner that WTC 7 collapsed. As can be seen clearly in the below videos, WTC 7 collapsed straight down (as did the other trade centers, by the way), meaning that when it fell it landed entirely in its own footprint. For this to occur, every one of the load bearing members on the ground floor would have had to have failed at exactly the same time, suggesting the deliberate detonation of an explosive device. As can be seen in the bellow photographs, when a building collapses normally and only one of the load bearing members fails, the building tips or rotates on the initiating point, leading to a tilt or lean. What the collapse of WTC 7 indicates is a controlled demolition (See video 2).

"The photos [above] are of buildings collapsed by an earthquake. They show the typical result of a single load bearing member failure - the buildings are tipped over onto the initiating point." (The above photos and caption are copied and pasted directly from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc7.html. Visit their site for more images, videos, and information regarding the fall of World Trade Center 7.)

When a tall building in a densely populated area is collapsed, this demolition is triggered by an explosion in the center of the buildings basement. This creates a shock wave that rocks the entire building, and causes it to collapse directly downward, thus not effecting nearby buildings (See the below videos). As can be heard in Video 2, passersby reportedly heard a loud cracking sound "like thunder," and witnessed fire spreading through several lower floors of the building. Also, as can be seen in both the videos, think streamers of smoke, much like that that emits from a controlled explosion, rose up from the bottom of the building (see below photo). Scarier still, the roof of WTC 7 can be seen crumbling just before the collapse, indicating that a powerful shock wave from inside the building, and not falling debris, caused the building's fall.

"Half-way through Building 7's 6.5-second plunge, streamers suggestive of demolition charges emerged from the facade." (Photo and caption from http://www.wtc7.net/)

Said CNN's Dan Rather of the occurrence, "Amazing, incredible, pick your word. For the third time today, it’s reminiscent of those pictures we’ve all seen too much on television before, where a building was deliberately destroyed by well placed dynamite to knock it down.” (See video 2)

As should be obvious, terrorists could not have created this explosion, and so could not have initiated the building's collapse. A demolition of this size would require weeks, even months of preparation in a central, fairly visible section of a highly trafficked building. Needless to say, this implies profoundly frightening things as to the nature of what officials knew and didn't know prior to the terrorist attacks.

It has also been stated that it was Mayor Giulliani's storage of Diesel fuel in WTC 7 that led to the collapse, not a controlled explosive device. However, this scenario is unable to explain why it is that every single load bearing member on the ground floor failed simultaneously.

Most telling of the evidence, however, comes in the form of a brief (accidental?) statement from Larry Silverstein, the owner of the World Trade Centers at the time of the attack (NOTE: This statement can be heard about halfway through Video 2.) Silverstein speaks of how he chose to initiate the collapse because of the "risk of fire." If this is the case, why is it that Silverstein chose to collapse only WTC 7, the World Trade Center building farthest away from WTC 1 and 2? And why is it that the official explanation of the building's collapse is a structure fire?

Maybe Larry Silverstein has an answer. Says Silverstein "and I said...'maybe the smartest thing to do is, is pull it'...and they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse." Since the demolition of WTC 7, Silverstein's insurers are set to provide $861 million in financial reimbursement FOR JUST THAT SINGLE BUILDING. Silverstein's debt on the property less than half that, at $383 million. (http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/wtc7.html)

Please continue to learn about this subject by clicking on some of the links at the very bottom of this post. Also, if you know any further information, it will be greatly received. Thanks!

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

FOR MORE IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT--

http://www.wtc7.net/

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc7.html

http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/wtc7.html

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/attack/wtc7.html

http://www.rense.com/general47/pulled.htm

More information can be easily found through a simple Google Search. Thanks!

James Brown: Godfather of Soul, Forefather of Funk

2007-02-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

When music legend James Brown died on Christmas Day of 2006, former president Gerald Ford followed just two days after, allowing an interesting phenomenon to occur. On television, viewers were shown endless footage celebrating the legacy of Gerald Ford, while radio listeners were rewarded with almost constant music and talk celebrating the legacy of James Brown. And honestly, it was hard for me to feel that Gerald Ford had made any greater contributions to American society than Brown.

You can say what you want about Brown's abuse of women, his mistreatment of his bands, and his egotistical antics. You can say what you want about his family, his debauchery, and his adultery. But the fact remains that as a performer and musician, he paved the way for black artists to follow and provided intelligent, danceable songs of liberation and empowerment ("Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud", "The Payback") that became anthems of pride and comfort for young black communities all over the country. He invented funk by changing the focus of soul music from its melody to its rhythm, and mentored bassist Bootsy Collins who would go on to define funk with Parliment/Funkadelic. He layed the ground for hip-hop by providing easily sampled musical climaxes in such songs as "Please, Please, Please" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." And what all of these innovations did was allow a new kind of music to emerge. A kind of music that was black, poor and proud of it. And regardless as to whether that pride emerged as a slap-happy bass-line in a George Clinton song or in the beatboxing of a thousand black youth, it was there. And remains today in the hearts of young black people all over the nation, and on the Top 40 charts.

So R.I.P James Brown. You've earned it, no matter what people say.

This is James Brown's now legendary appearance on The T.A.M.I Show in 1964, where he brought his music to thousands of white television viewers, dancing and singing with such enthusiasm that the Rolling Stones were reportedly afraid to follow him!

The Death Penalty and the American Justice System

2007-02-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr, the 53-year-old North Dakota man who made history in 2001 for raping and killing a college student, was sentenced to death today, an event that led me to reflect on the death penalty and the American criminal justice system. As someone constantly trying to make sense of the world around me, there are few convictions that I am as steadfast in and as sure of as my opposition to the death penalty. Part of this comes from a rather libertarian standpoint; I feel that under no circumstances should the state have so much utter control over a person that they can decide whether he lives or dies.

I am also a firm believer in rehabilitation as the purpose of imprisonment. Unfortunately (while it is a popular opinion, and is officially an objective of the United States Prison System) this is not at all what prisons accomplish in reality. Repeat offenses are skyrocketing and reports of prisoner cruelty and hardship are abundant. And aside from the antique and outdated concept of parole, absolutely nothing is done on the part of the U.S government to ensure that released prisoners aren't going back to the state of extreme poverty that drove many of them to crime and gang involvement. Many prisoners are released into society with literally nothing more than several sets of clothes, a bus token and their parole papers, but are expected to live the life of a law-abiding citizen with none of the necessary social or economic tools. But the worst evidence of hypocrisy in the U.S Prison System comes in the form of its endorsement of the death penalty, which I feel is the total abandonment of the rehabilitation objective. What the death penalty does is label certain criminals as unable to benefit from any rehab; a court identifies certain defendants as different, more anti-social, uncorrectable, based on any number of variables, the least of which it seems, is the crime itself. How many prisoners on death row have encountered others doing much lesser sentences for similar crimes? It bears mentioning here that, while race is undeniably a large factor in criminal conviction and sentencing, since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976, a little more than half of those sentenced to death were white.

However, this is NOT the case in other areas of U.S incarceration. As of an official 2005 U.S study, black people (regardless of gender) were three times as likely to be in jail as Hispanic people, and were five times as likely to be incarcerated as white people. According to another 2005 survey, there were 4682 black inmates to each 100,000, while there were only 709 white inmates to each 100,000. Contrasted with the 1993 statistics of South Africa under apartheid this becomes even more frightening; there there were only 851 black prisoners per 100,000.

I am certainly not saying that this large discrepancy in race among prisoners is exclusively the fault of blatantly racist juries. It is true that many young black people live in inner cities in extreme poverty, and so turn to gang activities and other illegal practices so as earn money to cope with their poverty. It is also true however, race relations in the U.S being as they are, that many white people view black people, especially young men (Note: 11.9% of American black men ages 25-29 were incarcerated as of 2005) with certain amounts of fear and apprehension. Gangs come to mind, as to thoughts of drugs and gun violence when many white Americans see young black people, and popular television shows like Cops do nothing but reinforce these feelings. And is hard for me to believe that this common attitude, this common fear, whether subconscious not, does not come into play as juries are deciding their verdict.

Statistics from:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance.htm#cptrends

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/jails.htm

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

Harry Potter's End

2007-02-08T04:16:00.000-08:00

I used to love Harry Potter. And I mean love in the most literal way I can: for all of almost four years I though of, read, and spoke about nothing else. I was famous in my fourth grade class for having read all four of those thick, 800 page books sixteen times each, and I was crushed when a new girl could top that with her twenty-one reads. Of course, this inspired a fervor which led me to read them even more, to the exclusion of all else. At one point, in an effort to get me to read something, anything, except Harry Potter, my father threatened to take the books away, which led to multiple fights and countless tears until my mother intervened on my behalf.

Buy the time I was eight, I was living a full-blown Harry Potter lifestyle. I looked into to buying an owl on the Internet, I spent all of my allowance money on action figures, and I spent a Christmas giving a receiving nothing but Harry Potter-related gifts. I ordered the British editions of the books from a catalog I found in the library, and despite the fact that nothing more than the covers and a few select words were changed, I buried myself in them as if they were entirely new books, not coming out for days. I wrote my own Harry Potter short story, entitled creatively enough, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Fortress, and sent it to J.K Rowling, receiving a typed letter and fan club membership for my trouble. (I later framed that letter.) I referred to cups as goblets, I researched the Latin roots of all of Harry's charms, and I beat both the insanely difficult computer games twice. (I used to brag in the cafeteria about having found all of the dozen or so "Wizard Cards," hidden in the electronic crevices and passages of Hogwarts, enabling me to access hidden levels and privileges within the game. I was quite envied, if I do say so myself.)

I remember waiting anxiously for my eleventh birthday, certain that a brown parchment letter would arrive via owl, and even though I always knew it wouldn't, I cried anyway, despite my new found "maturity" and excitement at being a middle schooler. I remember that as soon as Internet roumers about the fifth book (still my favorite, by the way) began to surface, I was there, neglecting my typing in tech class to read any informative snippets of information I could find. And while none of it (seriously, NONE of it) turned out to be true, that didn't matter to me because as soon as I had that huge 861-page book in my hands (midnight the day it came out, of course) nothing else mattered. I entered a world beyond computers and keyboards, beyond classmates and teachers, and lived, for the eight-hours it took me to read that book, as a pupil at Hogwarts, learning magic, breaking rules and riding centaurs.

And now, J.K Rowling has announced that the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released in July, and I have no doubts that I will be among the people waiting in the middle of the night for 12:01, when I can open the book and begin to read, and pretend, for as long as I have that book open, that the world is a magical place.

Underground Music and the "R.E.M Method"

2007-02-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

In the world of underground music, a world dizzily and perpetually pursuing success, there is much talk about following the "R.E.M method." What the R.E.M method is is a series of rules and hints (legendary R.E.M, of course, illustrated them) that are the fountain of youth, the Philosopher's Stone of indie success. It is said (in hushed voices in smoking bars and sweaty clubs across the nation) that if these rules are closely followed, and the perfect equilibrium of underground cred and mainstream appeal is reached, any band can rise quickly to success. However, this method in reality is not as mythical and enlightening as it is in rumor. It is in fact rather vague and simplistic. Sign with an indie label backed by a major one to preserve underground cred but gain great distributing deals (deceive your fans, nice Mr. Stipe). Utilize the power ballad but call it something else. Never talk about your lyrics; make them vague and obtuse so as to be interpreted freely, adding a needed mystique to an indie artist while generating curiosity in mainstream press (or maybe it just takes focus of the music, who knows...)

Call me crazy, but these don't seem like pearls of wisdom or droplets of enlightenment. These seem like underhanded methods, ways to make very mainstream music but gain a very underground audience, an audience notorious for its purity. And frankly, I would seriously doubt that R.E.M used or would endorse these "methods." (Although frankly, in my opinion the power ballad nomenclature and lyrical weight observations are right on. I've never been a huge R.E.M fan...)

R.E.M gained mainstream success in the same way any band gains mainstream success, through a mixture of dumb luck, sheer ambition and sellable music. R.E.M's music was, at the time, what the record industry needed. The only "method" R.E.M employed was the ambition to get their music to someone influential within the record industry, an industry stuck in a rut and salivating over new, groundbreaking artists.

And therein lies the real R.E.M method. What underground artists lack today is the ambition to bring their music to the masses. In a culture so obsessed with selling-out, new, groundbreaking bands either are afraid to, or feel they can't, get their music to listening ears. And that's the problem. In a scene so obsessed with purity (this is punk, that's not, he's a sell-out, you're not, who's a poseur, who's not), bands are boxed in. Not only can they not seek out bigger audiences, bigger distro deals, and bigger labels, but they are also imprisoned in the kind of music they can make. Artists are afraid of experimentation, afraid to bring new sounds, new influences to their music for fear of being labeled "sell-outs." And music that is afraid of experimentation is music that is stagnant. The underground is no longer a scene for important, groundbreaking music. It is a scene of judgement and closedmindedness. And music can not flourish in that kind of environment.

What R.E.M did was not selling-out, nor was it offering their music up to be raped by a selfish record industry in return for success. It was rather carving a path into mainstream music without sacrificing the music or its message. It hijacked the mainstream by bringing radically new music to thousands of people without dulling it or making it more commercially acceptable. (Incidentally, there is a much better band called Anti-Flag doing a similar thing, leaving the punk label Fat Wreck Chords to sign with major label Columbia while maintaining their angry, politically charged message.)

In honor of my critique of underground music, I'm going to mention three bands I just discovered earlier today. Right under the dashboard in my (and yours too, probably) Blogger account, there are the pages of three bands. If you haven't checked them out, you really should (I've posted links below). They belong to something called "Cordless Records," which is a small record company affiliated with record giant Warner Bros that offers its artists the credibility and intimacy of an indie label but the weight and professionalism of a major one. (Remember that step in the R.E.M method? Maybe its on to something...) Anyway, these are three very unique, very gifted bands that have managed to carve out their own identities within their respective scenes.

Die Mannequin--http://diemannequin.blogspot.com/--is a melodic punk-metal band with a female singer and some interesting melodic/chordal structures.

Dangerous Muse--http://dangerousmuse.blogspot.com/--is a cool rock-powered electronica duo with an interesting rock/new wave sound. Kind of like underground favorites Kill Hannah.

Throw the Fight,--http://throwthefight.blogspot.com/-- the weakest of the three, is straight up Warped Tour post-hardcore with the obligatory annoying melodies and hackneyed guitar playing. Some awesome riffs though.

Thanks, and check out the music!

Election 2008 and Rage Against the Machine

2007-02-05T05:11:00.000-08:00

The presidential race is starting to rear its head early this year. Maybe this is due to some anticipation on the part of well-known Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Barrak Obama), who suddenly realize that, hey, if they can make it through the primaries and win the nomination, there is no way on earth that they can't win the White House. Or maybe people are just fed up with Bush's administration and so are getting their game on early this year, hoping that maybe, somehow, this will make the rest of his disastrous presidency go faster. Or maybe, this is just a step to change the nature of presidential politics by making them more akin to the rest of American life.

The American lifestyle is about convenience, and in keeping up with this culture of convenience, bad things are changed. Inconvenient, poorly received things are done away with, often instantly. Just click to navigate away from an offensive web page. Don't get up to change the channel, use your remote. Americans are used to having what they want when they want it, and, failing that, to at least not have something they don't want. And it is clear that a substantial majority of Americans do not want President Bush in the White House. What these presidential hopefuls are doing is catering to that American need. Whether in reality or just in appearance, they are speeding up the end of something Americans are sick of. And, failing that, they are assuring America that, yes, the end is near.

In honor of the approaching election, I have posted a little Rage Against the Machine. For those of you who don't know, RATM was one of the most politically charged bands to ever exist, and certainly the most radical band to win a Grammy (for their Album The Battle of Los Angeles, in 2000). Fronted by the radical, Che Guevara idolizing poet Zach de la Rocha, RATM created a unique blend of inner-city hip-hop and dissonant heavy metal which, along with their extreme leftist politics, gained them international attention. Their political message, while filled with incredible feelings of rage and desperation, was also often intelligent (the guitarist, Tom Morello, has a PhD in political science from Harvard and considers himself a Marxist) and inspired a wave of politically active bands that would follow.

The video I posted below is of the song Testify, which was popular during the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential election. The video, rather than show scenes of debauchery and beautiful dancing women, points out glaring similarities between the presidential nominees. Now, while realizing that the politics expressed might be a little reactionary and simplistic, the message that de la Rocha and his band mates were trying to express was exactly the correct one for the time, during which thousands of Americans felt cheated out of a proper election even before the election fraud that would follow. And, besides, it was not RATM's place to weave a message of balanced reporting and political subtlety. It was their place to express the anger felt by thousands of youth across the country. This song is from the Grammy-winning album The Battle of Los Angeles, released it 2000.

However, while I appreciate the video's power, if Gore does choose to run this time, he has my TOTAL support. (My thirteen-year-old, unactive, non-voting support...)

Sundance Film Festival: An Analysis & My Most Anticipated Films

2007-02-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

The Sundance Film Festival does odd things. For one thing, if feature length movies (narrative or documentary, it makes no difference) have publicly screened before, anywhere, at any place, they are not eligible for submission. What this does is ensure that every screening at Sundance is a world premiere, but what it also does is allow only the small fraction of movie viewers attending the festival to view these movies as they are released; the rest of us have to cross our fingers and wait until (if ever) the films are picked up by a major distributing organization. And, as in the case of many sort films (which can not have been released on DVD or VHS prior to their entry), some films are left on the proverbial cutting room floor. Having had their fifteen minutes of fame, they never gain a greater audience than at Sundance and so either fade to black and disappear or act as starting boards for aspiring directors and filmmakers to gain industry attention. (Of course, Sundance has valiantly remedied this problem by forging an alliance with iTunes, which allows movie fans to download most of these shorts online for relatively cheap prices--check out http://festival.sundance.org/-- and allows filmmakers to reach a radically larger audience than could be reached by handing out paper flyers at the Festival. This is another odd thing Sundance has done. Notice I never equated an "odd thing" with a "bad thing"...)

However, the fact remains that Sundance ensures that all of its features be of the "never-before-seen" variety, thus insuring that only the film fans, filmmakers, industry types, and journalists (ah...journalists!...huh...) attending the festival get a peek at these films as they are screened to an audience for the very first time. "Why?" might you ask. "Why are the premieres of these often remarkable new movies hoarded by Sundance (and, of course, most other high profile film festivals). "Why are they not screened at the filmmaker's pleasure and then entered into the competition?" The answer is a simple one, and, if you think hard about, not an entirely unwelcome one. The Sundance Film Festival (as well as Cannes and many, many other similar festivals) does not exist to serve the interests of the average movie goer. They exist for the army of critics and journalists that attend their screenings. Sundance, whether intentionally or not, has created the ultimate buzz machine, allowing independent films (albeit often high budget with all-star casts) to gain reviews, press exposure, and audience interest before even being released to the general public. And that, above any exorbitant budget, above any famous actor, is the great equalizer, the bridging of the divide between big budget Hollywood cinema and big-budget independent cinema. And, with this reality firmly in place, how long before they become one and the same?

Okay, I guess this is the second half of this blog, where I mention my most anticipated films. Of course, as is suggested by the word "anticipated," I have not seen these films personally, and everything I know about then has come from filmmaker profiles, film teasers, and other promotional tools on Sundance's website and on YouTube (ah, that inescapable buzz machine!). It is worth mentioning here that independent film by no means means low-budget films, and many of these Sundance films are in fact high budget and are acted in by relatively famous film actors. However, in terms of cinematic weight, I see no reason why these films, good by any standards, should be seen as any less groundbreaking and artistic because of their budget. They are Sundance films, after all...

Features (Dramatic)

Joshua: George Ratliff won incredible acclaim for his 2001 film "Hell House," a documentary about the hell house phenomenon: a church's graphic "haunted-house" type depiction (and terrifying "tour") of hell. Now he's back directing what appears to be an equally dark feature film about an immaculate New York family and their piano prodigy son Joshua, who, after the birth of his sister, begins to show dark, terrifying aspects of himself and his talents. The film, though set in the upper-class environments of Joshua's family's home, is shot with an eye to the frightening, with a jagged camera style and an attention toward shadows and night.

Weapons: Acclaimed director of "Bomb the System", a film about a graffiti artist in New York, Adam Bhala Lough returns behind the camera to direct Weapons, a new film about several "random" youth killings in a small town and the relationships between them. Lough continues working in his comfort zone of youth culture and young characters, but it should be interesting how the very urban mentality of his first film translates into the small town dynamics of his second.

Features (Documentary)

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet): Six years in the making, this urgent and intelligent film by first-time director Jason Kohn deals with the difficult subjects of poverty, corrupt politics, and the kidnapping industry in Brazil. These complex issues plaguing Brazil today are explored and examined through tracing the stories of individual people, a cue Kohn took from legendary filmmaker and mentor Errol Morris. These individual people happen to be a wealthy businessman, a plastic surgeon who aids mutilated kidnap victims, and a fabulously corrupt politician who relies on a frog farm for income, and Kohl's explorations with them lead to everything from an interview with an actual professional kidnapper to footage of children playing a kidnapping and violence in the street. One of the most acclaimed films at Sundance this year!

Banished: From about the end of the civil war to the Great Depression, there were several cities in America that forcibly and illegally banished their African-American neighbors, forcing them to leave their homes and flee. This is the story acclaimed documentary filmmaker Marco Williams tells by researching the events that occurred in three of these communities and by following the ancestors of those who were banished returning to try to reclaim their families' land. Marco Williams, an African-American man who has made films about Martin Luther King and hate crimes, fears nothing when armed with a camera, and interviews everybody from disgruntled black families trying to regain what is theirs to an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Shorts

Bomb: Ian Olds won critical acclaim for his 2006 documentary "Operation: Dreamland" about American soldiers in Iraq, and has returned with this artistic short film about a child's attitude toward his parents' drug and alcohol abuse. Shot on 35mm but with the stock pushed a stop and a half, Olds engineered the film to look like an old hand tinted photograph.

High Falls: Easily the most professional short in terms of cast and production value, this film by Andrew Zuckerman starring Maggie Gyllenhall and Peter Sarsgaard tells the story of a young married couple who each tell their best friend a burning secret about the other. This film is worth the view if only for the novelty value of watching a first time director directing such great stars, but hopefully Zuckerman will show a little more than novelty in his Sundance debut and prove himself an up-and-coming young director.

Master of Reality: In this short documentary, young filmmaker Matthew Killip tells of the 80's-90's phenomenon of backyard WWF wrestling, where suburban children would re-enact the fights of their heroes, sometimes with dire consequences. Weaving together home footage of his own fights from his childhood in a suburb of Dallas Texas, Killip paints a chilling but intelligent picture of coming of age in suburbia.

Controversial Pick (or What My Parents Shouldn't Read)

Teeth: Even in the world of independent cinema there is rarely a film that invites as many raised eyebrows and stifled giggles as this film by Mitchell Lichtenstein. This film modernizes the ancient vagina dentata myth that, according to Lichenstein, can be seen in countless ancient mythologies and folklores. The myth tells of a race of fearsome women with toothed vaginas that a hero often must overcome and...um...conquer. This film tells the story of Dawn, a high school student and member of the local chastity group, who learns of her...uhh...vaginal abnormality and has to create something...positive out of it. (eek!) How is that for a different kind of date movie?!