for April 17, 2008
The 'Gotcha' Debate
I just saw the ABC debate, in which four millionaires
who have top-notch health insurance talked for two
hours in prime time about everything except
health care reform. Or at least it seemed that way.
The short math is this: Hillary won the debate,
with Stephanopoulos coming in a close second,
Gibson third, and Obama fourth.
Thing is, Clinton has really grown to the point where
(now that she's losing) she finally seems like a
credible president. Too late. Too bad.
Obama seemed winded, weary, tired, on defense. The
Wright thing hurts him. The Ayers thing hurts him.
The flag lapel, Bittergate -- it all mounts up. Pretty
soon he looks pretty unelectable against McCain.
Gibson/Stephanopoulos seemed to be harder on Obama than on
Clinton, who they should've pursued on the sniper lie; the
question Steph should've asked but didn't is: what were
you confusing the Bosnia incident with?
The odd thing is that I began to think in mid-debate, gazing
at Obama, that he could very well become the most
unlikely general election winner in presidential history.
Reason I thought that is because they showed a clip
of McCain, who looked so old and creaky as he stumbled over
his words, and I felt that, with McCain's health problems, he
might become disabled by, say, a stroke, before
November and have to be replaced by his running mate,
probably Romney, who Obama could handily beat.
Just as Obama became a US Senator because of a
fluke -- remember how the main contender had to drop out
because of scandal, leaving the GOP to consider Mike Ditka as
a contender? -- so Obama could become president because
of the random nature of politics.
Anyway, Hillary has also become much more entertaining and got off
the best zingers of the night: Dick Cheney is the 4th branch
of government, this may be the first time a president
took us to war but refused to pay for it. I think that Crown
Royal has opened up whole new doors of perception for this
former Goldwater gal, who may yet be the nominee,
but probably won't.
-------------
If I were at NBC Entertainment, I'd immediately
start creating a new prime-time sitcom starring
Kristen Wiig (called "The Kristen Wiig Show" or
"The Kristen Wiig-Out!" or "Flip Your Wiig"
or something like that), in which the SNL
player would play a thirtysomething
nervous wreck in the style of some of the characters
she plays on SNL. It's becoming increasingly
obvious that in the constellation of stars
at SNL, she's outshining lots of 'em. (She nearly
brought down the house with her "just joking" bit
last week and with the "surprise party" sketch
from the previous week, and I'm still chuckling over
her Peter Pan; by the way, one of the magical things
about Penelope is the way she appears unexpectedly,
almost floatingly, in different parts of the master shot
throughout the sketch.) Just don't name it "The New
Adventures of the Old Kristen." Just joking.
---------
Wow, the Daily Digression seems to be setting
trends these days -- or at least it's preceding
the coverage agenda in some publications.
For example, The Digression has been talking for
weeks about Obama being the new Dukakis and/or
Stevenson (I called him "Adlai Dukakis" the
other day). Now, in Maureen Dowd's latest
column in the New York Times, she makes the same
comparison (though, truth be told, I don't think
she's a Daily Digression reader).
Also, I wrote an interesting line the day before
yesterday in one of my Digressions:
"One predicts the future, to the meager degree that one
can, by looking at the past, not at the future," I wrote.
Nice line (if I should say so myself!).
In today's Times, I hear an echo: "By looking into history,
we can see the future," the paper quotes some
guy saying in today's paper in a story about a Tibet
museum; I'd love to hear the interview tape on
that one; I may be wrong but I
bet it's one of those things where the reporter is
virtually putting the words in the source's mouth,
i.e., "Why does history matter? Is it because that's
how we see the future?")
There are other examples, too, both at The Times and
at other publications, but I don't have time to
detail it; I'm too busy coming up with the stuff
they'll echo in coming days.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- You know, I hear there are expensive journalism
schools that offer courses like: "How to Get Away with
Plagiarism in a Completely Legitimate Way by Slightly
Modifying an Idea or a Sentence, Putting the Words in
Someone Else's Mouth or Rushing Stolen Ideas From
Obscure Sources into Print Before the Originator
Does: 101." If they don't offer that course,
it's learned by some on the job.
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 16, 2008
Now More Than Ever, We Need an LBJ
Strong persuader.
It's about health care, stupid.
Because this has gone on too long. The impasse
feels permanent, and probably is.
In order to provide health insurance for the
48 million Americans without it, we need a president
who's an arm twister, a son-of-a-bitch,
someone who's gonna make threats and make good on
them, step on toes, be merciless -- and all in an
effective way.
We need an LBJ.
Remember Lyndon? He could be rude and coarse and a
bully, but he...got...it...done. He rammed major
civil rights legislation through the
Congress as president -- even if he had to make ugly
ultimatums about canceling that bridge project in your
district or had to get in your face as he thumped your
chest with his finger.
And his tactics are, frankly, the only way the
8 million uninsured kids in this country will
be able to see a doctor if they're sick. (I mean,
think of it: 47 million people. That's the entire
population of South Korea! The whole population of
England is only around 10 million more than that.)
Problem is, there is no LBJ, or anyone nearly as effective,
running for president this year.
Yeah, Hillary is feisty but more often merely mean (and sort
of weak), and she has already failed at pushing through
health care. Whatever her excuses, her legacy so far has
been one of ineffectiveness.
Obama is a strong persuader -- but it's discouraging and
telling that his golden oratory about health care has not
inspired the current Congress to pass a single payer plan
or anything close to it. One has to wonder whether he'd
fare any better as president.
John McCain sounds like someone who has been rich too
long to understand what a shrieking nightmare it is
not to have health insurance; perhaps if he
were forced to use only Clearasil to combat his next
bout of melanoma, or to use Listerine to treat his
root canal, he'd get it. (And don't tell me
about the deprivations of McCain's youth; that was
too many decades ago to be relevant today.)
The 44th president of the United States is not
likely to provide health care to the 47 million
uninsured, because there's just too much money in
the Health Care Industrial Complex. I mean, making
huge profits off of sick people is what the insurers
and Big Pharma do, which is why I'm surprised
there isn't more of a popular uprising
and revulsion about it.
It seems as if protest -- coupled with a sympathetic
president -- is the only way sick people are going
to get care in this country.
If activists would put aside relatively marginal issues
for a time to focus on the Big Kahuna, we might be able
to save lives. In other words, come down from your oaks
(once you've saved them), take your minds off gay marriage
and the WTO for a couple years, and unite and focus solely
on effective, extreme civil disobedience and protest
that target the health care moguls who are making money
off the sick. Find out where the CEOs of the top Pharm
companies and health insurance providers live, and then
organize big raucous protests in front of their mansions
relentlessly.
If we can't get an LBJ in the White House in January,
then the people themselves will have to become the
arm-twisters.
But I digress. Paul
[above photo from Life magazine]
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 15, 2008
I betcha Barack tries a cowboy hat next.
Yup, any day now I bet Obama's handlers
are gonna put him in a Stetson and have him
do a two-step to George Strait or maybe have him
croon some Toby Keith for YouTube consumption.
And he'd better do that or something like it quick,
because this race is quickly shaping into a contest
between Dwight Dole and Adlai Dukakis.
Unpopular truth be told, Barack was right when he
said people cling to religion and guns out of a sort of
bitterness or desperation. Yes, religion is the opiate
of the people (as you-know-who once put it),
the delusion of last resort for the hopeless. But
I don't expect that my own non-theistic views about
religion will become mainstream for another, oh, 400
years or so. Until the mysteries explained
away by science are accepted by people who haven't
studied science, which is to say most voters, religion
will continue to exert its irrational hold on the
electorate.
How do I know that's likely to be true? By seeing how
far we've grown in 2008 from the literalist
Christianity rampant 400 years ago, in 1608, and then
extrapolating that trajectory into the next 400 years.
And the trajectory of the centuries is clearly in the
opposite direction of religion, or at least in the
opposite direction of fundamentalism. (One predicts
the future, to the meager degree that one can, by
looking at the past, not at the future.)
But then, see, I can speak the truth because I ain't
running for anything. Barack is.
And if I were running for office, I wouldn't say what he
said in San Francisco last week; it suggests that he doesn't
have the level of circumspection required of a world
leader. It implies that he is more prone to say, as
president, that (for example) some of the people of
the Northwest Territories of Pakistan are backward in their
fundamentalist beliefs -- which may be true but is not
something you want to say if you're negotiating with the
new president of Pakistan.
It's funny: now that Americans have gotten to know him,
Barack seems less too-black and more too-Harvard to his
opponents (which is always what happens when you get to
know somebody from a different ethnic group; at some point,
they stop being Irish or Mexican or Jewish or African-American
and start being that snob or that dullard or that
artist or that really intuitive guy -- i.e., an individual).
In the end, in November, the central irony of the
2008 election may be that the first major black candidate
for president, Obama, spouting rich guy Harvardisms too
true for the campaign trail, was defeated because he was
too white.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 14, 2008
humor by paul iorio
Little-Known Popes in Papal History
Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the U.S. this week for
the first time since becoming pontiff in 2005, and he
is, of course, not the most famous pope in
Vatican history, though he's also not the most
obscure.
In fact, there have been many lesser-known popes
through the centuries, and now may be the time to
remember some of them. Here are ten:
POPE NAPOLEON THE 13TH
Mad Pope Napoleon the 13th's brief reign was marked by grandiose
plans and an obsession with Napoleon Bonaparte. He was deposed
when he tried to turn the Vatican into a nuclear power. (1952)
POPE LUCIFER
An experimental pope who advocated praying to the Devil and to
God in order to cover all bases. (431 A.D.)
POPE JESUS GOD THE SECOND
For all the arrogance of his name, Jesus God 2 actually turned
out to be somewhat humble and unassuming, noted mostly for his
punctuality. Was convinced the Old Testament had been penned by
a guy named Smith. (1564)
POPE MUHAMMAD THE FIRST
With the Ottomans threatening Western Europe, the Vatican
decided to throw Constantinople a bone by elevating a former
imam to the top spot. Muhammad the First, a lapsed Muslim who
fled Turkey and converted to Catholicism, fell from favor after
he proposed building minarets atop St. Peter’s Basilica. (1627)
POPE KEITH
A hippie pope known for his casual manner and affinity for
pop culture, he dispensed with Latin rites in favor of
"happenings." (Sept. 1974 to Sept. 1974)
POPE SASKATOON, GOVERNOR OF SASKATCHEWAN
As his expansive title suggests, Saskatoon might have been
a bit more preoccupied with claiming long-denied status
from the folks back home than with his duties as pope. (1910)
POPE LITERALIST THE 16TH
Took transubstantiation far more literally than most; after
a car accident, he insisted Vatican doctors give him a
blood transfusion using Chianti Classico instead of blood,
a fatal decision. Advocated medical care for the dead, who
he called the "as yet unrisen." (1960)
POPE JOHNNY THE FIRST
An American greaser of the 1950s -- and self-styled
"Method Pope” -- who rode a Harley to work. (1956)
POPE DIDDY
The first hip hop pope. Expanded the use of "signs of the Cross"
to include gang hand signs. (1998)
POPE RABBI GOLDSTEIN
Not officially a pope or a rabbi, and operating for a time
from a psychiatric facility in Antwerp, where he occasionally
broadcast a syndicated faith program called “This Week in Eternal
Damnation," he actually convinced several dozen people, mostly
Belgians, that he was the first Jewish pope. (1988)
But I digress. Paul
____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 8, 2008
Of all the cities in North America, I'd say
San Francisco is probably the last place
that one would want this year's Olympic torch to
pass through, unless you're looking for turbulence.
As everyone knows, San Francisco virtually
invented protest and demonstrations and civil
disobedience, I think. Or at least it perfected
dissent, raising it to a craft as a high as the
protesters on the Golden Gate bridge yesterday
morning.
The Chinese government is learning what the idiot
hijackers of United Flight 93 in 2001 also
quickly discovered: people in the Bay Area don't
acquiesce when it comes to tyranny and don't
take well to totalitarian types and will "place
their bodies on the gears of the machine"
to stop it from running altogether, if necessary,
to quote Mario Savio.
So it's as puzzling as a Puzzle Tree to see that
the powers-that-be are allowing The Torch to wend
its way through the streets of San Francisco tomorrow,
because there is no way that Free Tibet activists are
going to let that happen without incident. It's not
a question of whether there will be disruption on
Wednesday (or as the San Francisco Examiner once put
it, "Wensday"), but how much disruption there
will be.
* * *
Was listening to the "Moonlight" sonata the
other day and caught myself thinking,
this is almost as brilliant as "Street Spirit"
or "Lucky" (I bet Yorke/Greenwood's melodies
resonate into the far reaches of this century --
the part we won't be a part of -- and maybe
beyond. By the way, Radiohead headlines
a 3-day music fest in Golden Gate Park
in San Francisco in August, two years after
the band memorably premiered a dozen tracks
from its latest album, "In Rainbows," in
Berkeley and elsewhere.
* * *
NBC has an institutional memory that reminds
it that "Seinfeld" took a few years to find
its audience, and that may have played into the
its decision to renew "Friday Night Lights"
for a third season, starting in early '09 (after
a fall run on DirecTV).
By the way, I was re-watching Edward Burns's
amazing "The Brothers McMullen" the other night,
after not having seen it for many years, and
couldn't help but think of Coach Taylor's wife in
FNL every time Connie Britton, who plays Molly
McMullen, appeared on screen. It was Britton's film
debut, and it's easy to see her performance in
a whole new light, now that she's so identified
with "Friday Night Lights."
* * *
Wow, whatta setlist. Nearly half of the "Some Girls"
album, the cream of "Exile," rarity "As Tears Go By"
(not played in concert until the months preceding this
show), the underrated "She Was Hot" (from the not-underrated
"Undercover" album), and "Connection" from that treasure
trove of mini-gems, "Between the Buttons").
Can't wait to see "Shine a Light," Martin Scorsese's
Rolling Stones concert film docu. I'm told this is
the list:
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Shattered
She Was Hot
All Down the Line
Loving Cup
As Tears Go By
Some Girls
Just My Imagination
Faraway Eyes
Champagne & Reefer
Tumbling Dice
You Got the Silver
Connection
Sympathy for the Devil
Live With Me
Start Me Up
Brown Sugar
Satisfaction
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 6, 2008
Is The Impeachment of President McCain Now Inevitable?
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- March 19, 2010 -- The Impeach President McCain
movement has gained enough steam this week, on the 7th
anniversary of U.S. involvement in Iraq, that it's now
considered more likely than not that articles of
impeachment will be introduced by the House Judiciary
Committee early next month, insiders say.
A bi-partisan majority in the House now agree that
the president's secret bombing raid on the suburbs
south of Tehran last week was the last straw and
proof that McCain is out of control, as he conducts
an ever-escalating and expanding war in both Iraq
and now in Iran without so much as consulting Congress
(in his defense, which he'll soon have to tell Judiciary,
McCain says he can't afford to reveal American
strategy publicly, as that would be revealing it to
the enemy, too).
And all this comes a mere 16 months after McCain's
solid electoral win over Senator Hillary Clinton in '08.
Today, in 2010, the triumphant landscape of '08 seems
distant. McCain's political capital is all gone. His
job approval ratings in some polls are as low as 17%.
And his increasingly surly, defiant press conferences
tend to stoke the flames of the Impeach McCain crowd.
Like last week when he declared, "When it comes
to waging war, I listen to the generals, not to the
people. The people are militarily illiterate."
Dems immediately noted that President McCain was
speaking a few blocks from a D.C. neighborhood burned
down in the summer of '08 by rioters angered by the
denial of the nomination to Sen. Obama -- a neighborhood
still not rebuilt. (By the way, where is Obama now? His
"burn, baby, burn" remark during the riots, caught by a
sneaky reporter's hidden mic, has likely ended his
political career for good.)
One White House correspondent says McCain may
try to head off impeachment proceedings by declaring
early that he will not seek re-election in 2012, due to
the recurrence of his skin cancer (which he also
is being secretive about). But not even that
will save his political skin if the Mahdi Army
keeps slaughtering Americans at a clip not seen since Tet,
because the public has clearly lost its patience with
a war it thought was coming to a close nearly two years
ago. McCain's latest "surge" (he seems to be addicted to surges
these days) has only strengthened the hand of Prime Minister
Sadr.
Insiders say Vice President Romney has spoken privately
to friends about the possibility of having to assume the
presidency soon and appointing his own vice president
(he is reported to have already broached the subject with
Sen. Joe Lieberman, floating the idea of a possible
Romney/Lieberman unity team).
In any event, all this this makes Romney the clear
front-runner for the GOP nomination in '12, if only
because he's likely to be the incumbent by then. The
DNC, meanwhile, is reportedly feverishly trying to
convince Al Gore to run again, assuring him that
he would have a clear shot at the nomination and
that there would not be the fractious infighting
that doomed prospects for the Dems in '08.
The fact that pundits are already looking beyond the
McCain presidency to the '12 race is a sign that Chief
Justice Roberts may soon be swearing in the 45th president
of the United States. But if war policy doesn't
change dramatically, a 46th president may be taking
office shortly after that.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 1, 2008
One of the reasons John McCain supports American
involvement in Iraq may be that he's seriously
uninformed about that war. In fact, he seems to
have a shockingly casual, almost amateurish grasp
of the basic facts about the conflict and
its ancillary issues.
I mean, there was the press conference last week
at which McCain said:
.
"Well, it's common knowledge and has been reported
in the media that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and
is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq
from Iran. That's well known and it's unfortunate."
Though his traveling companion, Joe Lieberman,
immediately corrected him, McCain still revealed a
lack of fundamental knowledge about the currents and
cross-currents in the region.
The big fear among foreign policy experts has always
been, post-Saddam, that there might be an unholy Shiite
alliance between Tehran and Baghdad. Is McCain also
unaware that Saddam was an enemy of bin Laden's and
that Saddam (for his own reasons) didn't want al Qaeda
to gain a foothold in Iraq because he saw the group
as a competing power base? (If we had been shrewd, we
could have built on and exacerbated the natural
animosity between the two.) One wonders whether
McCain would have supported the war if he had
been more knowledgeable about the issues involved.
To his credit, though, McCain hasn't yet
called the Sunnis "gooks." (Lieberman might
have warned him off that one.)
* * *
Hillary Clinton keeps using that line about answering
the phone at 3 in the morning, but, as I recall, when
she and her husband were in the White House, the
president wasn't even available for phone calls
at three in the afternoon! (Remember Bill's "sexy time"
in the middle of a weekday, when he had guests like Lloyd
Bentsen waiting in the lobby?) Then again, President
Clinton gave us results (e.g., peace, prosperity), so
maybe a bit of mid-day fellatio is part of the recipe
for successful policy-making. Give
me what he's drinking (just not so literally!).
* * *
Odd that Time magazine chose to publish a ranting
letter from Jeremiah Wright complaining about
a story in The New York Times -- a full year
after Wright sent the letter to the New
York Times (which ran a fair and accurate story, by
the way).
You know, I can't see how Wright could be considered
a very credible source these days about much of
anything, now that his history of making crackpot
comments has come to light.
I mean, how much credence can you give a guy who says
that "the government lied about inventing the HIV
virus as a means of genocide against people of color"?
It's hard to fathom the unhinged mindset of somebody
who would say something like that.
Wright's remarks recall nothing so much as Gen. Ripper's
lunatic belief that the communists were putting fluoride in
America's water supply in "Dr. Strangelove."
Beware if Wright starts writing letters that
mention his "precious bodily fluids."
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 29, 2008
Lately I've been looking at the three main
contenders for president and wondering
whether candidates were always this flawed or
whether I was just too young to notice the
imperfections in previous decades.
One candidate, John McCain, has an explosive temper
and has openly used the ugly ethnic slur "chink" to
describe Asians (he was in prison when "All in the
Family" was in its prime, which means he missed a
big part of America's cultural education and
evolution).
Another hopeful, Hillary Clinton, talks about
landing under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia
in the 1990s. Earlier I was thinking the
same thing that one television pundit later voiced
on Friday night: was she confusing the Bosnia
incident with another event in which she
actually did come under fire? If not, then how
does she explain the fact that she fabricated
the incident?
Finally, we have Barack Obama, who stands by a
crazy pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who says lots of
really idiotic things.
Hey, Mike Gravel is starting to look nearly normal!
Elsewhere in politics, it was also recently revealed
that the former governor of New York whored until he
was caught, the new guv of New York slept around and did
cocaine, the former governor of New Jersey had threesomes,
the mayor of Detroit was caught having steamy extramarital
sex, McCain appears to have had a thing for that Vicki
Iseman woman, and so on and so on.
I'm starting to get the feeling that the whole world
is having a wild Dionysian bash but forgot to invite
me. As I sit here on a Friday night, watching the
AccuWeather forecast and sipping Yuban, I'm beginning
to suspect I've been thrown out of the gene pool by
whoever controls the guest list.
Anyway, back to the flaws of the White House hopefuls,
specifically Obama's response to the Rev. Wright
controversy (I wrote about Hillary's Snipergate
below, hence I'm not playing favorites).
Anyone who would say "the government lied about
inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide
against people of color," as Wright did, is
seriously and dangerously out of touch with
reality.
And anyone who has the temerity to say that the
U.S. brought the 9/11 attacks on itself (attacks
planned by bin Laden during the progressive Clinton
regime, when our military was actually siding with
Muslims and against Christians in a conflict in
the former Yugoslavia) is either stupid or
uninformed or both.
But what also bothers me is there were people
in the audience at his church applauding all
that crap.
Why didn't Barack Obama walk out in protest when
Wright started mouthing off like that? He should
know there are far higher values than loyalty in this
world. If Wright were a good friend of mine, I
would say, no friend of mine would be talking like
that, and I'd walk out in the middle of
his sermon and loudly tell people afterwards
that I strongly disagreed with what he said.
It's like sitting around with an old friend who
suddenly starts disparaging blacks and Jews; you
don't let it pass; you stop him right there and
make it clear that's not acceptable talk.
That's why Barack's speech on race was one
of his worst. It sounded so Adlai, so Taubman
building, so no-controlling-legal-authority.
What I didn't hear was genuine, visceral
revulsion at Wright's rants. I didn't see the
profile in courage of someone willing to take a
solitary, principled, "High Noon" stand and
walk out on both a friend who said the n-word
and the people who laughed when he said it.
The speech on race sounded like Obama's exit
interview -- just as Romney's hyped speech on
Mormonism felt like an exit. Don't get me wrong,
Barack will probably be the nominee, but it was
an exit speech in the sense that we all now
know -- and so does he, at least unconsciously -- that
he is not going to be elected president in
November. No way, no how. Clip this, save this,
put it on your frig, and tell me I'm wrong on
the morning of November 5th.
And don't tell me about all the national polls
that have him leading McCain by however many points;
instead show me one credible independent poll that
has Obama leading McCain in Florida. Or in Ohio.
Or even Wisconsin. Without those states,
he can't possibly win the electoral tally.
By the way, Wright: the murders of 9/11 were
done for religious reasons, which is to say for
irrational motives (see: the letter
of intent found in the luggage of Mohamed Atta,
full of a lot of religious mumbo jumbo about
the way and the light and the path and nonbelievers
and god and other such junk).
Later on, of course, months after the fact, bin
Laden ladled on political reasons for having
committed the 9/11 massacres, but only
when he discovered the attacks weren't playing
so well in the Muslim mainstream.
I wonder if there's a clip somewhere of Wright
screaming, "God damn bin Laden!," and of Barack
applauding when he said that.
But I digress. Paul
______________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 25-26, 2008
Intriguing but flawed story in today's
New York Times about East Germans escaping to freedom
during the Cold War by traveling to Bulgaria and
slipping across its border into Greece. The story
fails to note that Bulgaria is widely
and definitively known as having been among the
most -- if not the most -- totalitarian and brutal
of the Eastern Bloc nations (in fact, insiders used
to call it the 16th republic of the CCCP).
I'm surprised his editor allowed him to write it
without noting the country's overall Cold
War reputation. (Further, his story has the
unmistakable sound of a piece that a writer
writes when he subtly wants to even up a
score with another writer.)
It also quotes someone characterizing Bulgaria as
sunny and southern, which gives the wrong impression.
Yes, the small part of it that is near the Black Sea may be
a vacation spot, but that's not the bulk of Bulgaria, which
is mostly grey and drab and sober and insular and
super-provincial -- and not a lot of fun at all. And
any look at an atlas would tell you that it's
on the same latitude as New England (Sofia almost
never gets above 75 degrees, even in August).
As I've noted in this space before, I traveled through
Bulgaria (alone, by local train, as a
teenager in 1976) from its Serbian border to Sofia
through Plovdiv and to Edirne, which is the virtual
three-way intersection of Bulgaria, Turkey and
Greece (aka, Thrace).
And then I did it again in the reverse direction!
My impressions: it felt like a military state, as
opposed to a police state, which is what Yugoslavia
resembled. Its border with Serbia was a bit less
protected than the one at Edirne, a somewhat
scary checkpoint in that soliders rifled roughly
through passengers's luggage while wielding their
rifles and flashlights/spotlights in
intimidating ways.
In any event, it was sure easier to get into
Bulgaria from the Edirne checkpoint than it was
to get out. The border guards were far less uptight
(I didn't even have a double transit visa, required for
the return trip, but they bent the rules and sold me
one on the spot, enabling me to get back to Italy,
where I was studying at the time.)
As for the reverse journey from Bulgaria to Serbia,
through Dimitrovgrad, I mostly slept through it because
I'd become very sick on the train, probably because of
food poisoning at an Istanbul restaurant.
Frankly, I was more worried about returning through
Zagreb, where, days earlier, I'd been taken off
the train, stripped of my passport and briefly detained
by Yugoslavian cops (because I had an American passport).
In Bulgaria, I had no such personal encounter with the
authorities, though I had been taking notes and snapping
pictures at various points along the route, which might
have been considered provocative if they had caught me
doing it. In retrospect, I can see I was probably
simply lucky not to have had a run-in with the
Bulgarian border soldiers, who truly looked
and acted like serious motherfuckers.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 25, 2008
Stream of Hillary ("Can You Hear the Drums, Fernando?")
The snipers are out again tonight, shooting from the nearby
hills as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, reminding
me of that night in Memphis when I was with Rev. Martin
Luther King, who I first met at age six -- and I have seven
paid campaign workers who will back me up thoroughly on this,
because I did see King when I was 12 and was the only
Barry Goldwater supporter in the joint when he spoke -- and
by the way I misspoke about meeting King at 6, I've been
distracted by snipers lately, coming at me from different
directions, giving me the vapors, reminding me I've seen
some "hard places come down in smoke and ash" in my 50
years as U.S. Senator, and, yes, I have the scars to prove
it, because Bill First once had me in a death grip on the
Senate floor as Trent Lott sniped at me with what looked like
a Confederate-era pistol from an upper floor, and suddenly
I flashbacked to that night in Memphis when I was at
King's side, presciently advising Jesse Jackson to drop
out of the South Carolina primary, but I digress and
should note that, if anything, I have had too much
foreign policy experience, having taken the SeaDream Cruise
of the Caribbean during spring break in college, coming
within 200 miles of Cuba and its snipers, and I don't
want to cry, but I really sincerely -- and this comes
from the heart -- I sincerely hate to lose, particularly
to a one-term Senator from Illinois, who stands in contrast
to my 53 years of Congressional experience, if you include
the times in my youth when I would walk by the Capitol
building late at night, a dangerous neighborhood with
potential snipers on rooftops -- experience that should
count for something, as should my experience as the
right-hand of Rev. King, who I cradled in my arms
in '68 on the balcony of that motel in Memphis, which
is in a state that has 11 electoral votes that I might
win if I become the nominee, though it looks like Barack
has it wrapped, and if he does win the nomination, I'll offer
him the second spot on the ticket, and I'll say, "I want
you by my side Barack, in case of snipers and to hear
my remembrances of Dr. King" -- but I must cut this short,
because I think I hear Kalishnikovs in the nearby hills,
I can hear the drums, Fernando, I can still "recall the
frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande," or it might have
been the Danube, or maybe the East River on the way to Zabar's.
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 19, 2008
Today's Anti-War Protests in Berkeley, Calif.
A spirited group of protesters on Telegraph Avenue,
around 1:30pm today. [photo by Paul Iorio]
Five years after the start of the Iraq war, anti-war
demonstators took to the streets of cities across
America -- and Berkeley, Calif., the traditional
epicenter of protest, was no exception.
Here are a few photos I shot around a couple
hours ago in Berkeley.
Another shot of the Telegraph Avenue
protesters. [photo by Paul Iorio].
* *
A contingent of demonstrators on Shattuck
Avenue, after 2pm today. [photo by Paul Iorio]
--------------------
Now it emerges in a newly released audiotape that bin Laden's
delicate sensitivites are still offended by the little
cartoons that satirists in Europe published a couple
years ago. What a fragle flower this bin Laden
fellow is, no? People jump burning from the twin towers,
and bin is unmoved. But bin sees an episode of
Huckleberry Hound and he's in tears. Awww.
Well, bin, if ya liked the the Mohammed cartoons,
you're really gonna like my own cartoon series, "Bin Laden,
the Jihadist Pooch," which (much to my surprise) has
spread virally over the Internet since I posted the
series last October. Perhaps you've already seen the
cartoons. But if not, lemme take this opportunity to
reprint the best of the series right here and now.
Viddy well and enjoy!
Series by Paul Iorio.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 18-19, 2008
Race and the '08 Campaign
Well, the good news for the Dems is they're going
to win the White House -- in 2012. President McCain
will announce in late 2011 that he won't seek a second
term (because of health issues), leaving the field
open to Dems ravenous for a long-denied
victory.
So the Dems should set their sights on '12 and in the
meantime fix the holes in their nominating process
that perennially give rise to factional candidates who
simply can't cut it in the general election.
The Super Delegates invention was supposed to do just
that, but instead comes across as an imperious imposition
by national party insiders. Maybe Dems ought to
experiment with truly new ideas -- such as (off the top of
my head): having double primaries. What I mean is,
follow the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday and with
a mail-in New Hampshire primary on Thursday that pits
the two top contenders (who won Tuesday's vote) against
one another, with delegates going to the winner of
Thursday's vote, winner-take-all. (The other primary
states could do the same.) That way, whoever
progresses to front-runner status becomes front-runner
with a 50%-plus majority, not with, say, a 27% plurality.
The 27% plurality thing is what's keeping the Dems from
nominating an electable general election candidate.
The comparisons of Barack's juggernaut to Jesse Jackson's
presidential campaigns of the 1980s don't really obtain,
because Jackson was never as popular as Barack is now.
Rather Barack's candidacy is starting to resemble
George Wallace's run in '72, which Wallace probably
would've won, much to the extreme chagrin of party
regulars, if there hadn't been tragedy on the
campaign trail.
Meanwhile, the general election is taking on a
different shape altogether, looking increasingly like
Adlai versus Ike, circa '56 or '52 -- take your pick.
And Rev. Wright just finished cutting McCain's Halloween
scare ad for the swing states. The GOP now doesn't
have to find some obscure footage of Obama and Sharpton
embracing; it need only run Wright's "God Damn America!"
clip on a loop in the purple states on the weekend
before the general election.
In order to believe Obama will become our 44th president,
one must be convinced that he can win Florida and Ohio, or
at least Florida or Ohio, and I don't see how he could
win either. (If there is a credible poll that puts him
over McCain in either state, please send it to me at
pliorio@aol.com, because I've not seen it.)
Don't get me wrong, if Obama's the nominee, he will
likely win more states than Mondale or McGovern or
even George Wallace -- his electoral total will probably
be even bigger than Michael Dukakis's, though only
slightly.
You know, around a week or so ago, before Rev. Wright's
sermon came to light, I saw some elementary school
kids -- black kids -- cheerfully walking on a sidewalk
as a car passed with an Obama for President bumper
sticker on it, and for a moment I had a sort of heartwarming,
almost corny, but genuine thought: their first memories
of a presidential election will be this one, in which
an African-American candidate is the leading Democratic
contender for the nomination. They will not know a world,
first-hand, in which blacks are prima facie excluded from
the top job in the land.
But the glow of that thought lasted only until the
Rev. Wright incident, which reminded me there
is still sickness and infection on both sides of
the racial divide.
As testament to that, one of the biggest issues that
is not even being discussed in the campaign (because
it's too incendiary) is legal reform to correct the
injustices that we've recently seen against both blacks
(in Jena) and against whites (in the Crystal Mangum
defamation case).
The Jena case points to a need for tort reform that
somehow takes into account the overarching context of
a crime (a reform that should go beyond the existing
"mitigating factor" standard).
The Duke case points to a horrifying hole in our legal
system that should be remedied by de-politicizing the
position of D.A., creating a serious penalty for
intentional aggravated slander (though this one would be
tough to pull off without infringing on 1st amendment
rights), understanding how serious the crime of false
accusation can be, etc.
Duke and Jena should both be exposed to the
disinfectant of sunlight in this campaign, otherwise
the infection on both sides of the racial divide will
continue to fester, and we'll continue to hear the
hate talk of the Rev. Wrights and the Bill
Cunninghams.
--------------------------
Stray thought: Of all the women I've known who
have changed their last names since college or
high school, I can think of only a few who have
changed it completely, without even hyphenating it.
So is the tradition of name-changing now mostly
a thing of the Boratian past? If we elect Clinton, might
she decide to turn into President Rodham somewhere
down the line?
-----------
OK, time to break for lunch and have a hamburger. Yes,
I've heard about how risky beef is this days, but frankly
a certain burger looks so good right about now I could eat
it all day, E. coli or not!
But I digress. Paul
______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 10, 2008
Alan Dershowitz said it best, in Byron Pitts'
excellent report (does Pitts ever do anything but
excellent reports?) on "The CBS Evening News":
in most countries, what Eliot Spitzer did would
not even be illegal. Spitzer was about to have sex
(again) with an adult woman behind closed doors,
which is really his own personal business and not
ours (unlike Larry Craig, who was planning to
have sex in a public restroom with someone who
could have been underage, for all he knew). Sure,
there's an element of hypocrisy in both cases,
but that's not a hanging offense. I've always
thought we'd be a better nation if we had the
prostitution laws of Holland (and the health care
system of Canada!), but for now America is stuck
with its Puritanism and sexual provincialism, which
I hope doesn't claim another victim in Spitzer, who
should remain in Albany.
Still, it's becoming an unmistakable pattern:
politicians and others who codemn sexual deviance the
loudest are often those who are involved in such
activities themselves.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 9, 2008
I'm told Scarlett Johansson has recorded an
album of Tom Waits covers, "Anywhere I Lay
My Head," which'll be out in May and oughta
be interesting. Haven't heard it yet, but it's
amazing what -- at only age 23 -- she's already
accomplished in movies. She also appears
in will.i.am's pro-Obama video, "Yes, We Can,"
directed nicely by Jesse Dylan (son of
you-know-who). Great to see that Jesse has
become a successful film director, by the way;
I've only seen him in person once -- albeit,
in a very memorable setting, on a boat on which
ZZ Top was performing for a few dozen people or so
on the 4th of July in 1986. We were docked in
New York harbor, and I remember walking to a
side of the boat to take a look at the Statue of
Liberty, sidling next to a couple. "Doesn't she
make you weak in the knees?," said the woman to
her friend, referring to the Statue. And when
she turned her head I saw it was Martha Quinn,
the pioneering MTV VJ who I think every
twentysomething guy had a crush on in 1986. With
her was a guy who looked like a charismatic rock
star but who I didn't recognize; later I was told
he was Jesse Dylan. But I didn't get to meet him.
* * *
There may be some talented editors at HarperCollins
but I've never met one, though I have come in contact
with some exceedingly dim editors there.
Now comes word from The New York Times that
HarperCollins is publishing a new book by James
Frey -- you know, the guy who made stuff up in
a non-fiction book, abused the trust of his
editors and readers, etc.
Doesn't surprise me. A couple years back, I had
dealings with HarperCollins and saw first-hand how
profoundly stupid some of their decisions were.
I was writing a biography of Richard Pryor and interviewed
a source, corroborated by other info, who said Pryor
had done, uh, xyz some decades ago. An editor at
HarperCollins, through my agent, said
great, write it up as a sample chapter about Pryor
doing xyz. So I did. When the editor received it, he
suddenly pretended to be shocked -- shocked -- that I
had written that Pryor had done xyz. I told the dolt,
that's what you requested and that's what my info
was, so that's what I wrote. (Did he want me to
cover-up the info I'd uncovered?)
Well, he didn't really have a comeback for that. What
probably happened is that a top boss at the company
read the xyz thing and was shocked, and so my
editor suddenly had to appear shocked, too, even though he
had requested exactly that material.
Anyway, people wonder why people don't read anymore,
but I don't wonder. There's far, far more enduring value and
artistry in a single episode of "Friday Night Lights" or "The
Sopranos" than in most
XXX
ADD CONTENT HERE
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for November 6, 2007
To help everyone get through the writer's strike
(the Daily Digression is in solidarity with the
writers, by the way), here are some vintage
television-related DVDs you might enjoy.
THE DICK CAVETT SHOW: RAY CHARLES COLLECTION
Whenever I watch a DVD of Dick Cavett interviewing someone,
I am reminded that I'll never be as great an interviewer as
Cavett. Not that I'm a slouch as an interviewer (I've conducted
thousands of Q&As over the decades, always come up with
my own questions (based on my own research and spontaneous
thinking), and have had my share of scoops). But Cavett
is -- what's the word for it? -- better than I am.
And there are a copious number of DVDs out there to
prove it. I've already written about his "Comic Legends"
DVD series (see Daily Digression below, August 19 and July 30),
and "Volume One"'s interview with Groucho Marx is
truly must-see TV.
Less well-known is the "Ray Charles Collection,"
which compiles a couple Charles interviews and
performances -- and a Charles/Cavett duet!
The interviews are as revealing as any Charles Q&A out
there; at one point, in a lengthy segment discussing his
blindness, Cavett asks whether Charles would choose to be
sighted again if he could. Astonishingly, Charles says, no,
he'd rather remain blind, because he's used to it (though
he would like to regain his sight for just one day to
satisfy his curiosity about how things look).
Well worth checking out.
* * *
THE MONKEES
With all the impressive talent involved in "The Monkees"
TV series of 1966 and 1967 (Paul Mazursky, Bob Rafelson,
Boyce and Hart, etc.), it's surprising the series isn't
a lot funnier, though it is surprisingly funny at
times -- and probably funnier than you remember it
being in its initial run, if you're old enough to
remember it at all. Very variable quality. More
frenetic than funny. The first season is a lot fresher
and the songs are better, particularly in the fall
of 1966, before the band's energy was
dissipated by arguments with The Suits.
The series has been compared to the Marx Brothers's
films, and there is some truth to that, but only if
you're comparing "The Monkees" to "Animal Crackers" and
not to "Horse Feathers" or "Duck Soup."
* * *
THE COMPLETE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL: OUTTAKE PERFORMANCES
Pennebaker's movie of the concert you've probably
already seen, so the find here is disc three, which includes
lots of outtakes from the fest. Because the Mamas
and the Papas didn't give many concerts in its lifetime,
the footage here is fascinating and valuable, if not
always musically amazing. What emerges is that Cass
Elliot had the potential to dominate the band and probably
would have become a one-name icon like Cher or
Madonna or Liza if she hadn't died at age 32. I always
saw John Phillips as, among other things, a vocal
choreographer who designed marvelously layered arrangements
for his songs in the studio; the question (for me, at least)
has always been whether they could replicate their
studio work live, and "Monday Monday," performed
here, shows they could, at least to some extent (what
an unlikely number one, by the way).
Other notable outtakes: footage of a teen-aged
Laura Nyro, shy and somewhat stage-frightened, playing
one of her first gigs. And very enjoyable to see
The Association, not exactly my favorite band of the era,
bring "Along Comes Mary" vividly to life.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for November 3, 2007
Now that the infamous touch-screen voting
machine has become as discredited as the
Edsel (more so, actually), the folks at
the Berkeley (Calif.) Art Museum are displaying
a possible alternative replacement. Created
by artist Jonathon Keats, it's called The OuijaVote
machine, a balloting system based on the
famous, mystical Ouija board of yore!
Whatever you might think about this satirical
seance-based system, one thing's for sure: it
couldn't possibly be worse than the touch-screen!
(And my own Ouija Board tells me it's endorsed by
no less than Sylvia Plath.)
The OuijaVote Electronic Balloting System, now on display at the Berkeley (Calif.) Art Museum. (photo by Paul Iorio.)
The OuijaVote Machine's voting instructions. (photo by Paul Iorio.)
The OuijaVote installation was only one of the notable
works at the museum when I visited last Thursday,
which was also opening day of a display of dozens of
ultraviolent anti-war prints by Goya, all dating from
his late period, when he was deaf, pushing 70 and
coming up with darker, bolder stuff.
Meanwhile, upstairs at the museum, an impressive choral
group performed, its singing resounding beautifully
throughout the place. BAM almost never fails
to come up with something inspiring each time out.
One print of Goya's series "Los desastres de la guerra" ("The Disasters of War"), an exhibition that opened last Thursday at BAM. (photo by Paul Iorio.)
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 31 to November 2, 2007
Hillary was mostly terrific in last night's
debate; she was in top shape and sounded
ready to k.o. Rudy or Mitt Foley or whoever
the GOP nominee is. More and more, it looks like
her train is bound for glory, if it doesn't get
derailed in Des Moines first.
I really did miss Mike Gravel last night, and,
frankly, felt a little sad that they wouldn't
allow him to join in any reindeer games during this
holiday mudslingin' season. He really used to
liven up the room, didn't he? So, last night,
the kook gavel was passed from Gravel to Kucinich,
who confirmed that, yes, he once had
a touching moment in which he watched a UFO sail
over the skies above Case Western's dormitories
(or something) one night.
Dennis, don't get me wrong, you will make a terrific
HHS secretary under Clinton44 (you really will!),
implementing whatever aspects of the Clinton health
plan she's able to get through the new Congress/lobbyists.
Never mind that deep into 2011, people will still be
flocking to Tijuana and Toronto to buy their
prescription pills at half price. Never mind that
the number of uninsured Americans will not
significantly drop, even deep in Clinton44's
second term in, say, 2015. (And there will
inevitably be a cover of Time magazine in 2013
that says something like, "20 Years After
Hillary's First Campaign for Universal Health
Care, Why So Little Progress?," written
by staffers who are covered by a terrific
health plan.)
Never mind all that. This UFO thing is beneath your
powers of reasoning. Figure it out: the law of
probability says, yes, there is life out there (there
are just too many combinations of planets and stars
for that not to be the case). But even the most advanced
form of life could not possibly exceed the speed limit
of the universe, which is the speed of light. And that
means that they can't travel the overwhelming distance
it would take to get here. Otherwise, we
surely would have had explicit visitors by now.
Ultimately, distance is the irreducible truth,
the ruling metaphor of all things great and small.
Distance, is, of course, everywhere.
Distance is ithe stuff of time itself, which is,
after all, merely the distance between manufactured events
(that's what a second and an hour are).
Example. When a firecracker explodes, is
that one event or a vast series of events?
Prima facie, it looks like one very brief and
very violent event.
But suppose I filmed the exploding firecracker
and then screened the film of the explosion at
such a slow speed that it took 75 years to view
the whole thing. The exploding of the firecracker
would unfold so slowly that the first five
years of the film would cover merely the initial
stages of the blast. We would see every element of
the explosion as a very distinct and separate event;
one piece of the firecracker's paper would come hurtling
toward the camera in ultra-slow mo, a journey that would
take maybe two years to complete. And then another piece
of the explosive would come hurtling toward us, with its
own unique force, shape and energy.
If we were to watch the whole 75-year film, if that were
even possible, we would come away with the absolute
belief that the explosion of the firecracker was far
from one brief moment, but rather an uncountable series of
discrete events, each as unique as a snowflake or a
fingerprint, all separated by the distance of
other events (aka, time).
Those who see the split second explosion as one event
(rather than as a 75-year series of events) would also
see the first part of the explosion and the last part as
the same thing.
When you apply that perception to the 75-year film of the
exploding firecracker (as opposed to the split-second film
of the same event), the implications are staggering. If the
split-second movie of the explosion is one event, then
couldn't you reasonably conclude that the slow-mo version
of the explosion -- the 75-year movie -- is also one event?
You could argue that the beginning of the firecracker film was
of-a-piece (quite literally) with and inextricably linked to the
final event that happens 75-years later; you could conclude
the first piece of erupting firecracker is really the same event
as the final shred falling to the ground -- but we're just
seeing it with lots of distance in between.
Similarly, when you drop an apple from a tower, you have
already determined how that event will end; the ending of
that event is contained in the beginning of it. In fact,
one could argue that the action itself is one event; in
other words, the dropping of the apple and the
splatting of the apple on the ground are of-a-piece
and so bound together that they qualify as one action.
An analogy. A human life lasts around 75 years. But
suppose we were to film an entire human life, put the
whole 75-year span on film, and then play the film back
in ultra-fast motion, so that it lasted only as long
as a firecracker explosion. If one saw only the
firecracker explosion version of that 75-year life,
one would say that the person's life, from birth to death,
through marriage and maturity, was as much one event as
a simple firecracker blast. But if we were to increase
the distance between events and slow the film
down to a 75-year running time, we would see in
excruciating detail all the individual parts that
comprise what could otherwise be seen as a mere blip.
In the split-second version of the film
of a 75-year life, birth is the same thing as
youth and maturity and death -- it's as much one event
as the dropping/splatting of the apple from the tower is.
The only thing that makes birth and death separate events
is distance; remove the distance by "speeding up the
film" and you have only one event.
Another analogy: look at a flock of birds flying in an arrow
formation. Seen from a distance, they look like one
arrow-shaped object; there is no distance between the birds.
Seen up close, they look like discrete birds. But you could
perceive the flying flock as one arrow-shaped organism (just
as we look at a human body and see a distinct entity called
a human body; yet we could easily put the body under a
microscope and see its atomic and molecular structure
and conclude that it's a collection of separate objects
that merely look like one entity because the atoms and
molecules are, if you will, flying in formation, just
as the "separate" birds of a flying flock are).
Distance is also the ruling metaphor in more subjective
realms, like human relationships. Both literally and
figuratively, one person can never fully become or
inhabit another person; the closest we can come to
traversing the distance between one person and another
is by having sex, during which one person is literally
inside of another person and, at least briefly,
blood and other bodily fluids are shared. The birth of a
child is also a radical collapsing of distance between two
individuals. Even so, it's not possible for two
people to become one; there is always some level of distance
that prevents one person from becoming the mind or
consciousness of another or even entering
the mind or consciousness of another.
So there is untraversable distance on a micro level, just
as there is untraversable distance on a macro level, where
the universal speed limit of the speed of light seems to be
both a core truth and a universal metaphor.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Bravo to Bill Maher for personally 86ing some
9/11 conspiracy-theory hecklers from his audience
the other day. I sometimes wonder what sort of
mental defect, resulting from either physiological
damage to brain tissue or from a naturally low
intelligence quotient, causes 9/11 conspiracy nuts
to think that all or part of the World Trade Center
was brought down by the U.S. government. I
mean -- sheesh! -- the government hasn't
even been able to take down the Deutsche Bank
building more than six years after it was damaged
in the attacks.
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 27, 2007
Martin Scorsese's documentary on the Rolling
Stones, "Shine a Light," won't be released until
April, but the main question I have now is: how much
footage of the near-legendary Beacon Theater shows
of 2006 will it include? And will there be a soundtrack
album?
The Beacon shows -- on Oct. 29 (for Bill
Clinton's birthday) and Nov. 1, 2006 --
have become almost mythic -- and not just
because of the guest performers (Jack White,
Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera, etc.) but also
because of the gourmet setlists.
Look for yourself -- here are the lists for
both nights (courtesy rollingstones.net), which
provide clues about what to expect
from the Scorsese pic:
Beacon Theater, Oct. 29, 2006
Start Me Up
Shattered
She Was Hot
All Down The Line
Loving Cup (with Jack White)
As Tears Go By
I'm Free
Undercover of the Night
Just My Imagination
Shine A Light
Champagne and Reefer (with Buddy Guy)
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
Little T& A
Sympathy For The Devil
Live With Me (with Christina Aguilera)
Paint It Black
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Satisfaction (encore)
-------
And here's the Beacon setlist for November 1, 2006:
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Shattered
She Was Hot
All Down The Line
Loving Cup (with Jack White)
As Tears Go By
I'm Free
Some Girls
Just My Imagination
Far Away Eyes
Champagne & Reefer (with Buddy Guy)
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
Connection
Sympathy For The Devil
Live With Me (with Christina Aguilera)
Honky Tonk Women
Start Me Up
Brown Sugar (encore)
Satisfaction (encore)
--------
Some sets, eh? Live rarities include "As Tears Go By,"
"Far Away Eyes," "Undercover of the Night," "Some Girls,"
"She Was Hot" and "You Got the Silver."
But as great as those setlists are, they don't quite
equal the song selection for the Stones's July 11, 2003,
concert at the Olympic Theater in Paris, a performance
captured on disc four of "Four Flicks," the four-DVD
set documenting the Stones's 2002/03 tour.
On that disc, the band gives nuanced performances of
rarely-played (or never-before played) gems like "Hand of Fate,"
"Respectable," "Before they Make Me Run," "Dance (Part 1),"
"Neighbors" and "No Expectations," among others.
To me, that's the real thrill of recent Stones shows I've
seen or heard: the obscurities. Because I've already
heard the Big Hits that close every Stones show -- Gimme/
Flash/Satisfaction/Sugar -- so many times that they've
become predictable.
The joy is surprises like "All Down the Line"
and "Connection" and "She Was Hot" and "Dead Flowers"
and "You Got the Silver" (all performed in '05/'06 but
missing, by the way, from "The Biggest Bang," the
other 4-DVD Stones concert set, released last summer).
Seeing the Stones up close in such an intimate setting
on the Paris disc reveals:
-- Jagger is an endlessly inventive and resourceful dancer,
always trying new moves
-- Richards's fingers are often playing very ordinary
chords but he somehow makes them sound extraordinary and
evocative
-- Jagger is surprisingly fluent in French
-- even without doing a break or solo, Watts's drumming
is virtually a lead instrument sometimes
-- Ron Wood chain-smokes an alarming number of cigarettes
while performing
-- Jagger's personality is almost the opposite of Richards'
-- Wyman isn't as missed as Bobby Keys would be if Keys weren't
there
-- I'm probably one of the very few Stones fans
who truly misses Nicky Hopkins. Don't get me wrong, Chuck
Leavell is brilliant, but Hopkins added an ingredient I miss.
(Maybe I feel that way because, when I was a teenager, I
thoroughly enjoyed Hopkins's solo album, "The Tin Man Was a
Dreamer," and used to listen to it all the time; if you can
find a copy, listen to "Waiting for the Band to Come," which
still holds up.)
-- Why does the band neglect nuggets from the underrated
Dirty Work? ("Hold Back," "Fight," "Had it With You" and
the title track would all sound terrific live.)
If you haven't yet seen disc four of "Four Flicks,"
check it out. The Beacon concert footage in "Shine a Light"
will probably be measured against it.
But I digress. Paul
[above photo of the Rolling Stones from the "Four Flicks" DVD booklet;
photographer unidentified.]
P.S. -- Letterman told a funny one the other night.
"Al Gore was in a bar the other night shouting,
'Anyone want a Nobel piece of ass?!'"
(I'm paraphrasing.)
---------
Saw a bumper sticker on a car in the Rockridge section of Oakland, Calif.,
the other day: "Stewart/Colbert '08."
---------
IN THE HECK-OF-A-JOB DEPT.: In today's San Francisco
Chronicle, a critic writes about hearing
Bruce Springsteen performing "Thunder Road" in Oakland
on Thursday night. Only problem is, gee wiz, Springsteen
didn't play "Thunder Road" at that concert or at his other
show in Oakland. In fact, the news is that Bruce has
virtually dropped the once ubiquitous
"Thunder Road" from setlists on this tour (he's
only played it once on this go 'round so far, in Chicago).
But let's give the crit the benefit of the doubt; Springsteen
could have played it if he had chosen to.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 14, 2007
Hillary's lead in the polls may be widening but it's
not deepening. Hard-core Democrats I've spoken with,
men and women, have approximately zero enthusiasm for her
candidacy. And she irritates even feminist friends of mine.
Bad sign.
That also means she's too susceptible to having a Muskie
Moment in the snow that destroys her candidacy. She almost
had a Muskie Moment in Iowa last Sunday, when that
"double agent" asked her a question that was off script.
There's bound to be one in the coming months,
once things get tougher and when there really are plants
and hecklers in the crowd.
Lots of Democrats think Al Gore is a far safer bet, but
there would have to be an appropriate entry point for
him to get in the race, and that precipitating event
(say, Hillary having a Muskie Moment) would have to
happen between now and early November '07, the filing
deadline for the New Hampshire primary.
But if I were Gore, I'd be thinking, why go
double or nothing at this point? It's funny, or
not so funny, historically, how people who urge you to
run aren't there when it's time to vote.
Take 1979, for example. I remember so many
Democrats urging Ted Kennedy to run for the
nomination against President Carter. But
when Kennedy finally did so, where were all
his supporters in the 24 primaries that he
lost?
Then again, a late entry by Gore might more closely
resemble Robert Kennedy's candidacy, which didn't
get started until March of '68, after he'd already
missed competing in New Hampshire. But that didn't
stop him from becoming the Democratic front runner
by the end of the primary season.
More recently, Fred Thompson had been snoozing on
the couch through most of '07 until Republicans,
smelling defeat in '08, urged him to fix some
hot coffee and get to work. Now he looks as likely as
anyone to become the GOP nominee.
Same thing could happen with Gore, who isn't nearly
as rusty as Thompson. Then again, he could end
up like this year's Ted Kennedy, if he chooses to
run.
But one thing's for sure: this may be Gore's
last best shot at the presidency, because there
will probably be an incumbent in 2012. He's
on an interstate highway right now and has to
take either the 2008 exit or wait till 2016
for another one.
There is, of course, a different dynamic with Gore
than with the two Kennedy brothers and with Thompson.
There is a lot of natural affection for Gore, partly
because he was robbed of the presidency yet
endured that defeat with grace and strength,
always looking forward, always reinventing himself.
I also think there's a sense in this country
that the early 2000s was one of the absolute
worst periods in American history (the
period between 9/11 and the defeat of Kerry
in '04). The installation of a president who hadn't
won the popular vote, the attacks of 9/11,
the ugly aftermath of that tragedy, the economic
downturn and dotcom bust, the unnecessary Iraq war:
all that has come to define an awful era
everyone just wants to bury.
And the election of Al Gore as president
in '08 might just right some of those wrongs
and undo the multiple injustices that happened
in the early part of this decade, some of
the public seems to be thinking.
And that dynamic may be more powerful than the
idea of electing America's first female president,
which is sort of an empty dream when you really look
at it, considering that other nations have already had
female leaders who have shown themselves to be
either just as corrupt (Benazir Bhutto) or just as
ordinary (Golda Meir) as the male leaders that
preceded them.
In gender politics, we have to understand that
the things some women mistake for gender
inequality are also very unfair to men, too;
that the common element in venality and
abusiveness is leverage not gender;
that as soon as some women get into positions of
leverage they become just as venal and wrongheaded
as men (and engage in sexual harassment every
bit as much, oh, yes, they do!); that researchers
trying to determine whether there is wage
inequality should contrast the subset
of men who have to unilaterally take off a month
or so every few years for health reasons to the
subset of women who have to take time off for
health reasons; that a feminist agenda could better
be served by a man than by a woman in some
cases (male candidate Barack Obama, for example,
would better represent women's interests than would
female candidate Liddy Dole, just as white candidate
Bill Clinton is a better representative of
African-American political interests
than African-American Clarence Thomas).
And the Ivy League stereotypes should also be
avoided when assessing Hillary. Everybody jokes
about how seemingly stupid our current president
is, yet he has both Harvard and Yale credentials.
How does everybody reconcile that?
On the one hand, the public says Bush is not so
smart; on the other hand, the public gives instant
credibility to a candidate because of the designer
label of his or her alma mater.
Let's get this clear and straight: dozens
of Harvard and Yale professors, probably Nobel and
Pulitzer winners among them, said, "Yes, my
student George W. Bush is smart enough to pass
academic muster, and he deserves a prestigious
degree." W's nouns and verbs may not have agreed,
but the Ivy profs did when it came to W. (The real
scandal here appears to be the shockingly lax
standards of some professors at the Ivy level, who
sometimes look increasingly like George Plimpton's
memorably phony character in the film "Good Will
Hunting.")
Whenever someone says a particular person is smart,
people should respond with, "Smart in what way?" Albert
Einstein was a physics genius but he wasn't able to
paint as brilliantly as Picasso. Picasso was
an artistic genius, but he probably knew nothing
about physics.
Not one of the truly major songwriters of
the rock era -- Dylan, Lennon, McCartney,
Townshend, etc. -- ever spent a day as
an Ivy League student.
Think about that for a moment. Over the past
50 years, the dorms of Harvard and Yale
and Princeton have been packed with students
who want to be rock stars and who have
had plenty of money and intelligence and
connections. Yet not one of those students, in
all those decades, has ever written a song that
competes with the best songs of Dylan,
Lennon, McCartney, etc. Not one. (But I digress.)
Abraham Lincoln, America's greatest president -- and
greatest writer among presidents -- hardly had any formal
schooling, much less Ivy League schooling.
And Martin Luther King Jr. was a political genius but
never attended a top-tier university.
What the Ivy League tends to produce -- by the gross -- is
the sort of corporate senior vp or executive vp type who
essentially runs the company at the behest of a chronically
vacationing, rich CEO who started the company on daddy's
dime. That's the biz model that Ivy League grads fall into
on a regular basis.
And Hillary and Romney both appear to be that sort of
stand-in -- the competent but not visionary exec who
will carry out someone else's agenda.
The real innovators in any field always seem to come
far beyond the Ivy, defying academic and gender
stereotypes. Maybe we should be thinking further
outside the box to find our leaders -- to, say, Springsteen
(Ocean County Community College drop-out) for the U.S.
Senate or Maureen Dowd (Catholic University grad) for
president (and I don't even agree with her much
of the time).
not an Ivy League grad...
-----------------------------
not an Ivy League grad...
------
Ivy grad...
--------
i am woman, hear me roar...
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Picasso from all-art.org; pic of Harris from cbc.ca;
photo of England from msnbc.com; pic of Lincoln from Lincoln Museum site]
__________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 11, 2007
When Jerry Garcia died at age 53 -- that's 53 -- in
1995, his death left a vast void in the world of live
rock 'n' roll. Never mind that Garcia had long
been in decline -- there were widespread reports that
Garcia would be playing onstage with the Grateful Dead
and had to be reminded in mid-jam what song he was playing,
which is virtually the way he'd been parodied by
the punks all those years before.
But fans still hungered for the Grateful Dead concert
experience -- the whole experience, not just the show,
but the experience of the whirling fans, the rolling
fields of tie-dye, the 49-minute jams that would ebb
and flow, but mostly ebb, the smoke dome over the
crowd, the audience members who seemed to see a
Dead show as a way to be creative themselves, as they
"danced beneath the diamond skies with one hand waving
free" or sketched pictures or wrote in a notebook as
the group played -- a free zone for four or seven hours,
a uniquely American form of pure freedom.
A String Cheese Incident fan proudly displays his home-made poster (2007).
The void left by Garcia's death was quickly filled
by Phish and the jam band movement of the Nineties, which
had already been filling that void to a lesser degree
since the early 1990s.
For the record, I was the first journalist anywhere to
have documented Phish; in January 1989, I conducted the
very first taped interview with Trey Anastasio, and I
was even the first person to tell him about a new
group called Widespread Panic, another jam band with
whom Phish would later tour and collaborate. (It's
on my tape of the '89 interview, my first and only
Q&A with Anastasio, which was ultimately
published by a weekly newspaper; it's now posted
at paulliorio.blogspot.com. By the way, the Phish
photo above was mailed to me by Phish's Mike Gordon
in March 1988.)
Phish, of course, would go on to break the Dead's
concert box office records -- and many all-time box
office records, as well. And they'd give lots of
concerts where fans danced expressively to jams
that went where ever whenever, a la the Dead.
And the jam bands multiplied -- from Widespread
Panic to the Disco Biscuits to Railroad Earth -- each
adding its own element to the genre.
Adding a violin and bluegrass to jambandism was The
String Cheese Incident, which recently disbanded after
playing several farewell gigs a few months ago. I heard
part of one of the band's final shows, July 22, 2007,
at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif. (in the
hills above the theatre), where the group played a bit
of reggae, several long rock jams and -- of
course -- "I Know You Rider," a song that seems to
be in the DNA of jam bands everywhere, which got it
from the Dead, who had memorably combined the song with
"China Cat Sunflower" to create a classic seque of the
hippie era.
Even more memorable than String Cheese's music was the
crowd at the show, which took out sketch pads to draw, sold
original posters in the hills, smoked a lot of stuff,
danced -- and hula hooped like nobody's business.
I mean, there were dozens of fans -- male and female -- with
multi-colored hula hoops, gyrating energetically to the
music. There were hula hoopers everywhere. On one car,
there was even a bumper sticker of a hula hooper
(see picture below).
A hula hoop bumper sticker on a car outside a String Cheese
Incident show (2007).
And after awhile I remember thinking: maybe these String
Cheese hula hoopers have the right spirit, maybe everybody
should shake it while they can when they're young,
because, when you get to be middle aged like me, there
will come a time when you can't shake it at all.
So as I watched fans hula hoop in the sunlight with
big smiles on their faces to the sounds of "I Know You Rider,"
I thought...maybe they're on to something. (Not that you're
gonna catch me picking up a hoop anytime soon!)
The String Cheese Incident's final Berkeley gigs
amounted to a sort of two-day jam band fest that
included performances by the Disco Biscuits, Sound Tribe
Sector 9, Hot Buttered Rum and Railroad Earth. The crowd
milling in the hills looked like they had stepped right
out of 1972, and the cars in the lot included a surprising
number with Oregon plates (the band would follow this
show with three dates in Oregon, where it has a big fan
base).
Jam band fans draw and write as the String Cheese
Incident plays one of its final gigs (in Berkeley, July
22, 2007).
Some weeks later, at the same venue, the Grateful Dead
Nation reassembled again to hear an actual member of
the Dead, bassist Phil Lesh, fronting Phil Lesh & Friends,
as he faithfully re-created the concert sound of his former
band for a few hours. Again, the Dead Nation came out in
droves, with sixtysomething granola types mixing with
latter-day hippies wearing Dead lyrics on their t-shirts.
At the Phil Lesh show in Berkeley, fans wore Grateful Dead lyrics
on their t-shirts (Sept. 23, 2007).
The power of the Dead's enduring appeal could be felt as
recently as last Friday night (October 5), in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park, when Jeff Tweedy of Wilco took the
stage for a memorable acoustic set. Wilco and Tweedy are,
of course, not jambanders, but there was a telling moment
late in his show when Tweedy sang one of his own
lyrics -- "Playing Kiss covers" -- and playfully started
substituting other bands's names for Kiss. First, he
replaced Kiss with Romeo Void and then with Steel Pole
Bath Tub and then with the Jefferson Airplane.
But it was only when Tweedy sang the line "Grateful Dead
covers" that the crowd roared with unanimous approval.
Jeff Tweedy, performing in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2007.
But I digress. Paul
[all photos above by Paul Iorio --
except the picture of Phish up top.]
P.S. -- A few loose tv notes: Jimmy Vivino is doing a nice
job filling in as bandlander on "Late Night" (he even
played "Another Nail" the other night!); Chevy Chase's segment
was easily the funniest part of last week's SNL (it would be
great to see him appear regularly on Update); while most tv
outlets used an obvious music clip to accompany their stories
about Radiohead's new album, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco
smartly ran a clip of the great "Street Spirit," which shows
someone there knows the band's work well.
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 10, 2007
Nostalgic for the gridlock of the Nineties?
A typical newspaper headline about it from nine
years ago (Oct. 11, 1998). Lately, many are thinking
a Pres. Gore would fare better than a Clinton44.
A Subway-Series or an Opry-Series?
Today's column by Maureen Dowd in the Times was
quite perceptive, picking up on something I'd
noticed, too: Hillary is surprisingly thin-skinned
and prone to occasional paranoid thinking, when she's
not fully scripted by her handlers.
Dowd's column noted that Hillary "sounded defensive
and paranoid" responding to a question in Iowa last
Sunday about one of her Senate votes.
As Dowd wrote, Hillary "lost her cool" answering the
question (about her controversial vote to effectively
designate the Revolutionary Guard of Iran a terrorist
group). And Hillary said she'd been asked the same
question three times recently and implied it was a
query planted by the opposition. (If Clinton had truly
been asked the question three times, then she should
have had no trouble answering it.)
Of course, all of this resembles her "vast
right-wing conspiracy" comment of the 1990s
and shows that, when the pressure is on, she
tends to appear a bit paranoid.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have been
stepping up efforts to nominate ABC (Anyone
But Clinton) and to persuade Al Gore to
run again. A group called Draftgore (at draftgore.com)
has taken out a full page Gore-for-President ad in
The Times and has otherwise been urging Gore to run.
A month ago, such an effort might have seemed futile.
Today a Gore candidacy still seems highly unlikely.
But now that Fred Thompson has shown that it's still
not too late to enter the race and become the front-runner,
Gore might want to reconsider. The general is now looking
less like a subway-series (Rudy v. Hillary) and more
like something else, perhaps even an Opry-series
(Thompson v. Gore).
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 8, 2007
Ain't That American Music
Opening Day of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest
John Mellencamp playing "Pink Houses" in
Golden Gate Park last Friday (Oct. 5. 2007).
Photo by Paul Iorio.
John Mellencamp, backed by T Bone Burnett and his
ace band, played a rousing "Pink Houses" to a small
crowd in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco last Friday
afternoon, as part of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
festival, a sprawling, three-day, multi-genre series of
concerts.
Because there was virtually no advertising for the
free event, an annual gift to music fans by philanthropist
Warren Hellman, relatively few people attended the opening
day show, so I was able to casually stroll up to the
front row area on this perfect fall day and watch
Mellencamp, several feet away, belt out his signature
song -- which was sort of like watching the
Stones play "Tumbling Dice" at a backyard party.
(The crowds would grow substantially for the
subsequent days's events.)
Mellencamp played a few songs, including a striking
new original called "Jena."
"This is a song about Jena, Louisiana," said Mellencamp
from the stage. "I'm not indicting anybody or the people
down there, I'm just saying this is what happened down
there."
And then he launched into the rocker, which sounded
like a "Scarecrow"-era track. "Ohh, Jena, take your
nooses down," sang Mellencamp, who starts a
major concert tour later this fall.
Mellencamp, the biggest name to play this year's
three-day fest, performed during a set by T Bone Burnett,
who was also in fine form. (Burnett opened with Buddy
Holly's "Rave On" and kicked up some major rhythmic
dust on other tunes; singer Neko Case was also impressive.)
And then things took an even more amazing turn when
Jeff Tweedy of Wilco came on stage for a generous solo
acoustic set, playing a couple dozen songs, ranging from
Wilco gems like "Passenger Side," "Don't Forget the
Flowers" and the new "Sky Blue Sky" to a wonderful version
of Uncle Tupelo's "New Madrid" (from the overlooked
roots masterpiece "Anodyne") and several songs
associated with Woody Guthrie.
Those who missed this gig missed one of the best folk
sets by anybody in this area in recent memory. Period.
(And any reporter paid to cover the fest who didn't
cover the Tweedy set should be fired.)
Loose, tight, funny, serious and inspired,
Tweedy constantly played off the energy of the
crowd.
"Hope you weren't in the mood for some bluegrass
-- 'cause I ain't got none," Tweedy began.
At one point, a fan yelled "turn it up," and Tweedy drolly
responded:
"We're gonna turn it down. That's what it's
all about. As the show wears on, we're gonna get quieter and
quieter and quieter. Until we all just drift off to sleep."
Tweedy even turned a lone heckler into a running joke;
it started when some burn-out in the audience began
shouting (the drunk probably mistook this gathering for
that music fest of has-beens in Golden Gate Park last
month, which celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Summer of
Love and featured the bassist of Blue Cheer re-uniting
with the drummer of the Electric Flag, I think).
"Is there a really drunk guy over there?," asked Tweedy. "He
should be passed out soon." The audience laughed.
Near the end of the show, after playing "California Stars,"
always a crowd favorite, Tweedy was jazzed as he looked out
over the crowd, which had now grown considerably.
"I think I might just stay up and play some more," he
said. "Traditionally, this might be a spot where you
go off...and see if anybody wants you to come back. But I
don't want to risk that. I'm having too much fun."
Tweedy noticed the sun had finally set, so he took
off his sunglasses. "I guess the sun's not in my eyes
anymore," he said, removing his shades. "Holy shit, there's
a lot of people out there!"
He lit into "Pecan Pie" and followed it with "A Shot
in the Arm" (belting out the memorable "something in my
veins/bloodier than blood").
On "The Thanks I Get," the audience started
spontaneously singing counterpoint on the "We can make
it better" part -- without any prompting from Tweedy.
And this was a 2007 song available only via Internet
download! The singalong caught Tweedy by surprise:
"Wow! I don't know if we can make it better! Audience
participation without begging and pleading? It doesn't
get any better than that!"
On "Heavy Metal Drummer," he played with the audience
further, revising his line "playing Kiss covers" by substituting
the names of various San Francisco bands.
"Playing Romeo Void covers," he sang, then talking to the
audience: "Why is that the first band that came to my mind from
San Francisco?"
"Playing Steel Pole Bath Tub covers," he sang, the crowd
enjoying the joke.
"Quicksilver Messenger Service covers," he sang, noting:
"Your band names are all too long here!"
"Jefferson Airplane covers," he sang.
"OK -- Grateful Dead covers," he crooned, and the crowd
roared.
Coming back for the final encores, the energy onstage and
off was electric. Pointing at the orange aftermath of a sunset,
he said: "It's so pretty. Look back there. It's so pretty.
I love it so bad."
But I digress. Paul
John Mellencamp performing with Neko Case, Oct. 5, 2007.
--------------------------
Mellencamp and T Burnett & Friends, on the festival's opening afternoon.
______________________________________
Mellencamp performing with T Bone Burnett & Friends.
______________________________________
John Mellencamp, Oct. 5, 2007.
__________________________________
Mellencamp performing.
__________________________________
Jeff Tweedy playing a solo acoustic set, Oct. 5, 2007.
__________________________________
T Bone Burnett performing, Oct. 5, 2007.
______________________________
The real star of the festival, philanthropist Warren Hellman, who
spends millions of dollars of his own money each year to present
three days of free concerts by first-rank performers.
[all photos above by Paul Iorio.]
P.S. -- Joining my two cartoon characters
-- Coulter-the-god-fearing-pooch
and bin-Laden-the-jihadist-pooch -- is
Cindy-Sheehan-the-conspiracy-theory-pooch,
making a quick cameo here:
_________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 5, 2007
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 4, 2007
It's obvious now, if it wasn't before, that health
insurance for all Americans isn't coming now or anytime
soon, and a President Hillary probably won't change that
fact, because if she becomes president, she'll run up
against the same political culture of legalized bribery
she was unable to overcome in 1993, and the
proof of that is she's unable to push through an
override of Bush's heartless veto of the
health-insurance-for-children-bill in the U.S Senate.
She keeps saying she has learned from the failures
of '93 and has the scars to show for it, yet she's
not demonstrating that growth curve or leadership in
her current job, she's not showing how she can
persuade the opposition to join her side or
how to twist arms to bring them along.
Hey, if you're good at this stuff, Hillary, show us now,
show us how you can use your special talents as a pol
to bring about an override of Bush's veto, show us the
Hillary magic that would make you an irresistible candidate.
Because this is serious stuff; people are dying
and are in pain at this hour in the U.S. because they can't
afford the sort of health care that's virtually free of charge
in Toronto and Vancouver.
No, we don't need triangulation and we don't need decorum
anymore; we need an LBJ who is going to bully -- yes,
bully -- colleagues into passing a universal health care
bill. And we need harsh civil disobedience by activists.
'Cause the current way ain't working and ain't likely to
work, even if Hillary becomes president.
It's only when one gets to be middle-aged that one
realizes how callous and cut-throat the American approach
to health-care is. And it helps me to understand why there's
such violence in America. The callousness of a nation that
says "die-if-you're-sick (unless you're rich)" is merely
mirroring the violence of the common mugger. The
private and public sectors in America don't care whether
we live or die or suffer in pain, and that attitude bleeds
into every facet of American life (or perhaps it's a symptom
of the same systemic disease). It breeds a posture that
says "why should I care about my fellow man more than he
cares about me?" and "you don't care about me, so I don't
care about you."
Yeah, it's no wonder there's so much violent crime
in America; the criminals are just imitating the
government.
But I digress. Paul
---------------------------------
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
extra! for October 3, 2007
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end
of the trial involving Allen Ginsberg's Howl,
I'm presenting my own Howl-o-Matic, which allows
anyone to create brand new lines for the poem. Here it
is in two parts:
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Great to see Madonna, the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp,
Leonard Cohen, Afrika Bambaataa, etc. nominated for the Rock
'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
But my only question, and the one question on the
lips of (I would estimate) at least a half dozens fans,
is: when is The World's Most Dangerous Band (pictured below)
going to be inducted?
The World's Most Dangerous Band: too "dangerous" for induction?
(I wouldn't want to run into these guys in an alley.)
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 3, 2007
Today I'm introducing a new original cartoon
character -- Ann Coulter, the God-Fearing Pooch --
to go along with my previous cartoon series
(bin Laden the Jihadist Pooch). I felt my dog
bin Laden needed a like-minded companion in this
space, so I'm giving him Coulter.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
extra! for October 1, 2007
I wrote about some of the new songs on the upcoming
Radiohead album, "In Rainbows," in my March 9, 2007,
column (see below), so I won't go on at length here
about the new release, which is being self-released
by the band in very novel ways on October 10 and
(around) December 3rd.
Essentially, the band is virtually giving
away a download of the first ten songs on the
album set (you can pay whatever you want at
inrainbows.com, starting on 10/10).
But only fully-paying customers will get the
truly primo stuff, located on a second CD in the
boxed set, which is slated for release in December.
There you'll find two new bona fide Radiohead
classics, "Down is the New Up" and "Four Minute
Warning," the best of the new songs previewed on
tour last year.
To be sure, I've heard most -- not all -- of the
new songs, which means there are a few I haven't
yet heard that may well turn out to be the next
"Paranoid Android" or "Lucky," for all I know. My
assessment is based on bootlegs of the new stuff
from two Radiohead shows that I heard in June of last
year.
Based on those tapes, "In Rainbows" may be even
better than "Hail to the Thief," which was an
excellent CD. And as I said, I betcha fans are
gonna be knocked out by the last song on the
second CD, "Four Minute Warning," which is sort of
like the group's "Let It Be," and "Down is the New Up,"
among others.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 1, 2007
But I digress. Paul
[all cartoons by Paul Iorio.]
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 30, 2007
Time was when the American left was united against
the religious right. Back in the 1980s, I spent
many hours interviewing leftists from
Abbie Hoffman to Frank Zappa, who talked about how
the religious right was trying to censor them and
targeting their work and rolling back free speech
and other liberties.
And in '89, when the focus shifted from the religious
right of America to the religious right of Islam, with
the fatwa against novelist Salman Rushdie, the left
caught on quickly and saw that the militants were of-a-piece
with the book burners in the Bible belt, and they quickly
came to Rushdie's defense.
But today, part of the American left is far less
resolute about taking on the religious right of
Islam, and it's probably the biggest
single mistake some Dems are making -- and it may be why
the Hillary v. Rudy contest, if it happens, may be a
Kerryesque defeat for Hill.
Some background. The real reason Kerry lost in '04 is
this: the psychology of the electorate, post-9/11, has
been that the U.S. is a household with a bad roach problem,
so, honey, buy the extra-strength Raid, even if it costs an
extra buck, even if it's carcinogenic, even if it makes the
family pooch a bit sick.
The perception in '04 was that Bush would spray for al Qaeda
with the strong stuff, and, sure, that might cause collateral
damage in the form of a dead pet or two, but -- c'est le guerre -- at
least the roaches would be gone.
But the reality is that Bush has had over six years to catch
bin Laden and hasn't done so. The reality is also that Bush
has been inexplicably tougher on a neo-secularist like
Saddam Hussein than on the god-fearing Islamist
(and former Reagan ally) bin Laden.
The fatal flaw of the national Democrats in the Oughties,
when the history is written, is that they failed to make
the bin Laden issue their issue, they failed to
capitalize on the fact that this was a case of
the religious right of America coddling and being
otherwise soft on the religious right of Islam, and
that the Democrats could have been consistent by
vehemently battling Osama the same way they had
fought religious rightists of America in the past.
If only the left would see David Duke/Charles Manson
every time they see bin Laden, they'd take a genuinely
tougher stand and win more elections.
Remember: the '04 election was both close and not
close -- close in the sense that Kerry lost by only one
state (Ohio) and not close because he almost lost a Dem
sure shot, Wisconsin (it was 49.8 to 49.4).
And this time, Hillary won't have the benefit of a third party
candidate draining votes from the GOP, which enabled Bill
Clinton to win in '92 and Hubert Humphrey to almost win
in '68 (everyone always says '68 was a close one, but it
really wasn't; if you combine the totals of right-wing
candidates Nixon and Wallace, you'll see Hubert was buried
in a 57/43 landslide).
And it doesn't help when bin Laden releases a video
every election eve with a de facto endorsement
of the Democrats, thereby swinging key swing votes
to the GOP and causing the Dem candidate to go
quail-shooting in Michigan or tobacco chewing in
Arkansas or something to overcompensate and to show
some hard-line bona fides.
Hillary should head off that pattern by making
speeches that make sure bin Laden will never
misrecognize her as an ally.
And Hillary should make it clear that
Giuliani ain't the extra-strength Raid, that Rudy
wants to spray for roaches in the foyer when
the roaches are actually in the kitchen. Yeah,
he was a marvelous operations guy on 9/11 (there's
no way to swift-boat that), but he has no foreign
policy wisdom and backs a war in Iraq that saps
our ability to take on al Qaeda.
Let's be real: if you were bin Laden,
hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, would
you rather have extra American troops looking
for you in Waziristan or would you rather
have those same troops diverted to Takrit
and Najaf, thousands of miles away?
If I were Osama, I'd be privately rooting for Rudy.
Yeah, I would like the whole 9/11 thing to be
over -- really over -- but I'd also like a personal fortune
of a billion dollars, and I know neither is likely to occur
anytime soon. We're now like a nation sick of the chemo
and -- dammit! -- we're walking out of the hospital before
treatment is done, recurrence or not. Harsh truth be told,
9/11 ain't over till bin Laden's over, and until he's over, 9/11
hasn't even happened yet, because the next one, which
promises to be a doozy, is surely on its way, and when that
happens, many will claim to have written this.
* * *
Did you hear "Night" come roaring out of collective
generational memory on "Today" Friday and see Silvio
and the Boss harmonize on that soaring final bit
("but to-night, you're gonna break on through to
the inside...")? Sumpin' else, huh? And, by the way,
let's be real, that Lautenberg seat is likely to open
up soon after he wins a new term (the man's eightysomething,
for crissakes!), and I bet you-know-who could win it.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 25 - 27, 2007
But I digress. Paul
[all cartoons by Paul Iorio]
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 24, 2007
Phil Lesh and Friends performed in Berkeley yesterday
afternoon, offering a faithful and sometimes vivid
re-creation of the Dead sound from a band that -- hard
to believe -- included only one original member of the
Dead, bassist Lesh. The unpredictability of the
setlist added excitement; it was enjoyable to hear
a deep catalog track like "Candyman" come rumbling
to life during the second set, and the Beatles's "Why
Don't We Do It in the Road" was quite a surprise, though
I was hoping for Lesh's own "Pride of Cucamonga"
and "Unbroken Chain," both not played at this show
(which I heard from the hills near the Greek Theatre).
* * *
"Don't wait for the translation, Mr. Ahmadinejad:
do you renounce the fatwa against Sir Salman Rushdie,
and if not, why not?," should be but one of the
questions asked when the president of Iran appears at
Columbia University today.
And students wouldn't have a chance to ask him
such questions if he weren't appearing at the
university, which is precisely why it's important
that he does, as CU president Lee Bollinger
rightly notes.
I'd like to see Columbia take it a step further,
putting Ahmadinejad and Sir Salman together on the same
stage for a one-hour conversation. Wouldn't it be
something if one question was so brilliant
that it actually caused Ahmadinejad, even
privately, to rethink some of his more hateful
positions?
* * *
Fred Thompson, when he's not wearing his make-up and
reading from a script for "Law and Order," is proving
to be a less formidable candidate than he initially
seemed before he announced his candidacy. At this stage
in the campaign, which is likely to change several times
before primary voting begins, Thompson is starting to
look more like Giuliani's southern strategy in the
general.
* * *
Check out the latest Shouts & Murmurs, "O.J. Simpson
and Alan Greenspan Discuss the Writer's Craft,"
one of Andy Borowitz's funniest pieces.
But I digress. Paul
------------------------------------
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 21, 2007
This Is About More Than Jena
PARTYGOER: "Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna
march in New Jersey, you know?"
ISAAC DAVIS: "We should go there,
get some guys together. Get some
bricks and baseball bats
and explain things to 'em."
PARTYGOER: There was this devastating
satirical piece on that in the Times.
ISAAC DAVIS: Well, a satirical piece in the
Times is one thing, but bricks get right to the
point.
PARTYGOER: But biting satire
is better that physical force.
ISAAC DAVIS: No, physical force is
better with Nazis.
-- From Woody Allen's "Manhattan."
When I was going to high school in the southeast, if some guy
had used a racial slur against one of my African-American
friends, I would have wanted to kick his ass -- and I'm
one of the least violent guys you're ever likely to meet.
I wouldn't have put up with racism against
my friends for an instant. (Actually, knowing me, I
probably would have responded with some sort of slicing
one-liner that would've transferred the anger back to the
racist. Then again, there comes a time when a quip is
insufficient, as the above quote from Woody Allen's
"Manhattan" notes.)
But a funny thing happened in the Deep South, or at least
my part of the Deep South, in the 1970s: because of busing,
because of integration, everyone at my high school got along,
by and large. The southern sons and daughters of bigoted
parents suddenly had pals who were African-American, and we
all hung out around town and never heard a racial slur,
not even once (at least not when I was around). And my
mom and dad also always made sure that every friend I
brought to the house back then was welcome and made to feel
welcome, whether he or she was from Kenya or Capri,
Jamaica or Alabama.
And when I look back on it, I realize with a smile:
integration worked. It really did. It brought people together.
It made everybody less provincial. And it's surely no
coincidence that, by the mid-Seventies, we saw the riots
end and the burning of cities stop. (The Rodney King riots
were an anomaly.)
But now forty-plus years of progress in matters of race
are being rolled back -- and the decision by the Supreme
Court on June 28 to resegregate America just breaks my heart.
Because I know what that decision will mean on an everyday
level. And it doesn't take a Cassandra to sense what's
coming next.
Now that the Supreme Court has brought us back to 1962
in terms of racial policy, that can only mean one thing:
the riots of '67 and '68 can't be far away.
As I wrote in this column on June 29:
"Get ready in coming years for a return to more extreme
racial alienation, more extreme income disparity between blacks
and whites and -- by the next decade -- a return to the sorts of
race riots that we saw in the 1960s. Which will then force us
to relearn the lessons that we've since forgotten: that separate
is inherently unequal, and integration is the only remedy for
that inequality."
The intense passion of the protesters in Jena is a sure sign
that this is about more than just Jena. But for starters,
let's see to it that the white students who hung those
nooses are expelled for making race-based death threats
and that the charges against the Jena Six are reduced, due
to the mitigating provocation stemming from the overall
context in which the assaults occurred. As I said,
I can't help but think that, as a 17-year-old, I, too,
might have wanted to unleash a can of proverbial whoop ass on
those racists myself.
But I digress. Paul
--------------------------------------------------------
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 18, 2007
I've attended lots of political protests over the
decades, both here and abroad, but I've never in my
entire life inhaled tear gas -- except once: in
Gainesville, Florida, where I briefly lived in the 1970s
while earning an undergraduate degree in philosophy.
It happened thirty years ago as students were just
peacefully milling around after a Halloween ball;
without warning, the local cops dispersed everyone
by filling the air with tear gas.
So it came as no surprise to me see Andrew Meyer, who
probably has a future as a Berkeley resident, tasered and
roughed up by the University of Florida police, who
interrupted him in the middle of a conversation with
Sen. John Kerry the other night.
For those who might not know, Gainesville is an
exceedingly progressive oasis in the middle of what
used to be the Jim Crow southeast, but the local cops
are mostly -- how to put this? -- rednecks who think
the first amendment and other constitutional protections
are some sort of abstract theory with no practical
application. As Sen. Kerry told a reporter: "I have
never had a dialog interrupted like that in 37 years,
at any event."
When it comes to handling protesters and dealing with
erupting emergencies, the University of Florida cops
should try to emulate the San Francisco police force,
which may well be the best police department in the nation.
As a reporter, I've been up in buildings occupied by
protesters and at vast raucous rallies in San Francisco
and have seen how effectively and intelligently the S.F.
cops handle such situations in most instances. (And as a
victim of crime, I've also seen them save a life -- my own!)
The Gainesville police and the University of Florida
cops would do well to study the tactics and strategies
used by their colleagues in San Francisco.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 17, 2007
two new original cartoons by Paul Iorio...
---------------------
But I digress. Paul
[cartoons above by Paul Iorio.]
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 14, 2007
Loose Thoughts Following Bush's Presidential Address
Former Sen. George McGovern, a World War II vet, once
memorably said that he opposed the Vietnam War, not
all wars. Pacificism merely means the other guy's violence
prevails.
Like McGovern, I oppose some wars, but not all war. I oppose
the Iraq war but wholeheartedly backed the Afghanistan one.
Those who spout platitudes like "war doesn't solve anything"
are just spouting platitudes. Yes, war should be avoided at
almost all costs, but -- hmm, let's see -- war stopped slavery
in the United States, war stopped Adolf Hitler in Germany,
war stopped bin Laden's proxy government in Afghanistan.
Sometimes you have to counter-intuitively light a backfire
to stop the main fire, you have to inject a little smallpox
to get rid of smallpox (which is where guys like Howard Zinn
and Noam Chomsky, who were once wise in their younger days
but not in their post-9/11 older years, make big mistakes
in judgment, not understanding such a central paradox; but
then we all get old).
With regard to the Afghanistan war, I side with Sen. John
Kerry, another vet, who not only supported that conflict
but said we should have gotten in sooner (why on earth did
we wait till October '01, giving bin Laden a chance to
escape?!) and should have stayed longer to bomb Tora Bora.
And let me state categorically, as a staunch opponent of
the Iraq war, that I will never vote for any candidate
who opposed the Afghanistan war, because such an
opposition shows a fatal lapse in judgment. I mean, what
did the anti-Afghanistan war activists suggest we do in
the weeks after 9/11? Serve bin Laden a subpoena in the
neverlands of Tora Bora? And what if his protectors had
started shooting? Then we're shooting back, right?
Well, hey, that's precisely what war is!)
So "war doesn't solve anything" is one of those
platitudes -- like "love conquers all" and "I am
the way and the light" -- that really, when you
examine it, isn't very wise or true and doesn't
make a whole lot of practical sense.
And let's hope that we don't let the national trauma
of the Iraq conflict cloud our collective judgment so
that we don't see that the next war, if there is one,
may be a very necessary one. A patient
traumatized by surgery may be overly reluctant to
have even urgent surgery in the future.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 13, 2007
People's Park Two?
A placard at the ongoing protest in
the oak grove in Berkeley, Calif.
(photo by Paul Iorio)
Berkeley, California. Activists protest the development
of university-owned land. The University of California
steps in and erects a perimeter fence around the disputed
property, escalating tensions between the two sides.
Of course, I'm describing the legendary People's Park
protest of the spring of 1969, right?
Wrong. Try September 2007, the present day.
Several blocks northeast of People's Park, on
university land near a sports stadium,
the University of California wants to pave over
some old-growth oaks to develop an athletic
center, and protesters have been living in
trees since last December to stop that
from happening.
Two weeks ago, in an eerie echo of the
People's Park dispute, officials
fenced in the oak grove -- and the protesters --
in an early morning maneuver (much as the
university erected a fence around People's Park in
the 4am hour on May 15, 1969). And as before, the
partition has only heightened tensions between the
two sides. The main difference seems to be that
the 2007 fence is 10 ft. tall and the one in
1969 rose 8 feet.
There is little chance, however, that the oak grove
dispute will escalate into the sorts of bloody riots
that erupted in May 1969 over People's Park, though, at
the time of this writing, the fate of the oaks -- and
of the protesters -- is still very much up in the air.
Stay tuned.
As this sign at the oak grove shows,
the current dispute in Berkeley has become a
hub of generalized protest against various other
targets (e.g., the Bush administration,
the Iraq war), just as the '69 confrontation
bled into anti-Vietnam war activism.
(photo by Paul Iorio)
-------------
Here's one of the tree-sitters
(photo by Paul Iorio)
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- As a resident of Berkeley who was robbed at
gunpoint two years ago, I would much rather see the
police get tough -- I mean, really tough -- with
local muggers and violent thugs rather than
with eco activists in trees.
[all photos above shot by Paul Iorio on January
24, 2007.]
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 10, 2007
I've long felt that September 11th of each
year should be informally regarded as a day
of remembrance in America, and workers should
have the option of taking the day off.
In that spirit, there will be no Daily
Digression tomorrow. Instead, let me share
a few original photos I shot in the eighties
and nineties of a part of New York City
I used to love a lot.
I shot this pic in 1984 through a sculpture in the World Trade Center plaza.
----
The twin towers as a backdrop to a speech by Bill Clinton; I snapped this photo on August 1, 1994, at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.
----
An early nineties photo that I shot from across the Hudson.
------
The twin towers, as seen from a hill in Hoboken, N.J.; I shot this in the 1980s.
-----
Another shot I snapped from inside a nearby sculpture.
------
I shot this one from a boat on the Hudson (early nineties).
P.S. -- Lyrics of my new song, "I Shot Osama bin Laden," will
be posted later today on my music website at www.pauliorio.blogspot.com.
[All six of the above photos of the twin towers shot by Paul Iorio.]
______________________________________
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 7, 2007
Regarding the bin Laden video:
Osama, don't try to dig what we all say, as Pete
Townshend once put it. Don't go trying to connect with
what American progressives are writing. Your
true cultural and political soulmates are backward religious
fanatics like Ann Coulter and James Dobson.
And trying to pose like Karl Marx is a real laugh -- you've
got tens of millions of bucks, fought the Soviets when you
should've sided with them and come from a family of major
capitalists. Groucho Marx is more like it (or would be, if
there wasn't such tragedy involved).
I really do hope bin Laden dies before the 6th anniversary
of 9/11.
By the way, are we gonna hear an apology or some sort
of mea culpa from Cindy Sheehan and her fellow delusional
9/11 conspiracy theorists, now that bin Laden has, once
again, owned up to the 9/11 attacks? Or is she just too
wacko to know how to properly assess facts and evidence?
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Bin Laden's newly darkened beard may just be the
result of filthiness rather than dye.
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 6, 2007
Is there any fool who still believes the slogan
"If it's Mattel, it's swell" anymore?
Or the Bush banner "Mission Accomplished"? Or any number
of other lies that are regularly told by business
and government on a regular basis?
Some do believe such stuff, but usually only when they
haven't heard The Other Side of the Story, which you,
after all, have to make an effort to seek out -- and
it's so much easier, isn't it, to accept received and
passed-along information without scrutinizing it.
It's the old cliche of "never let the facts get in the
way of a good story," and it's become a central flaw in
all facets of American life today. It's the reason so
many journalists and politicians made the mistake of
supporting the invasion of Iraq in '03. It's the
reason lots of otherwise intelligent people supported
the wrongful prosecution of the Duke lacrosse players.
And it's the reason that, come later this month, when
Gen. David Petraeus presents his report on progress
in Iraq -- probably predictably concluding, with
propagandistically cautious language,
that the surge shows signs of working -- most
people will believe him. Of course, some will
reflexively not believe him, because they're
conditioned to think that anything coming from the
government is spin. Both sides need to check out
The Other Side of the Story to see what's really true.
But I'm not really sure that the former waitresses
and car dealers and clerks who constitute much of the
U.S. House of Representatives are up to the task
of true critical, skeptical thinking.
Regarding Iraq: I recently watched the uncut version of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s appearance in 1967 on
"The Merv Griffin Show," in which he talked at length about his
opposition to the Vietnam War. And it's truly astonishing
footage, if only because almost everything Rev. King
said on that show about the Vietnam War could easily apply
today to American involvement in Iraq (e.g., that the U.S.
is involving itself in someone else's civil war, that the
"enemy" is not monolithic, that an escalation or surge is
not the solution, etc.). In fact, it might be interesting to
get a transcript of his remarks and replace the word Vietnam
with the word Iraq.
And by the way, what also emerges from that interview
is how truly brilliant and unflappable and dignified
and poetic Martin Luther King was. Truly Lincolnesque.
(And modest, too; he insisted that his father
was the number one pastor at their church in Atlanta,
and he himself was merely his number two.) As revered as he is
today, he's still underrated (and, frankly, I couldn't
help but think that, in a perfect world, he should have
been the Democratic nominee for president in 1968).
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for September 1, 2007
Regarding the Senator Craig scandal:
Making a sexual pass is not a sin. And making a
sexual pass to a perfect stranger is not wrong,
either (every married couple began, at some point,
as a couple of complete strangers; some of them
end that way, too!).
But making a sexual pass to an anonymous person (who may
or may not be some underaged kid who is just trying to
unload his bladder) in order to have an anonymous quickie
in a public place is both wrong and a colossal misjudgment.
Add the setting -- a toilet, for crissakes! -- and you
definitely have aberrant and predatory conduct that a U.S.
Senator should not be engaging in.
If he were, say, a 25-year-old, neophyte mayor of Boise,
his behavior would be excusable, forgivable, understandable,
particularly if it later turned out to be only an isolated
incident; but this guy is a 62-year-old repeat
offender who, at the very least, should have been fully aware
of the landmines (in the form of undercover vice officers) on
the landscape of public sex.
It's also different than the situation regarding Sen. Vitter,
who evidently patronized prostitutes. How is it different?
First, Vitter would have been able to determine
whether the prostitute was underage or not (I'm assuming a
scenario in which the suspicions about him are true). Second,
any sex with a prostitute would have taken place in a private
room, not in a public restroom where everyone entering
(including parents with children) would've been privy to
the groans and moans of an aging United States senator. Big
difference.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- By the way, yesterday's editorial in The New
York Times was astute in noting that it's likely that
Sen. Vitter, a Republican, will get to keep his seat because
a Democratic governor would be the person who'd appoint
his replacement -- and the GOP wouldn't have it (Craig's
replacement will be named by a fellow Republican). That
may be the case, but that still doesn't negate the
other, very valid reasons why Craig, not Vitt, has had
to resign, and why the former's transgressions are more
serious than the latter's (reasons noted above).
P.S.: By the way, great to see Senator Tim Johnson back
on Capitol Hill after his hemorrhage -- I must admit
I love Johnson for getting back in the game. Yeah, his
speech may be slightly impaired, but the only ones
in the Senate who are showing impaired judgment these days
are those who haven't had a hemorrhage or a stroke
(e.g., Senators Craig, Vitt, Stevens, etc.).
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 30, 2007
The Washington Post is a great newspaper, no doubt about it,
and I'm proud to have written and reported for it in the
past. But the paper's decision not to run a Berkeley Breathed
cartoon because it might be offensive to Muslims is pure cowardice.
Let's put it in plain English: the reason some papers won't
satirize Islam is because they're afraid militants will throw
a violent temper tantrum.
The new rule at some papers (and let's codify it for
the stylebooks) is: don't poke fun at anyone who might
throw a violent fit. Of course, it's still ok to satirize
those who don't get violent in a disagreement.
Whether you're the American Nazi Party or Earth First,
the message is clear: the way to control press coverage
of your group is to object to the coverage with violence.
And then editors will throw up their hands and say
ok ok you win.
The new rule also says: It's all right to tell jokes about
any other religious or philosophical group, even though
they may be just as offended as Muslim
extremists -- so long as those other groups express their
disagreement in a more civilized way. But as soon as those
other groups start getting physical, they're off limits to
satirists, too.
Well, not on my watch. My satire has always skewered all
faiths and beliefs equally, and posted here is a vintage
example. (By the way, if anyone is offended by the following
story in any way, I would like to say, with deepest
sincerity, you need to develop a sense of humor about yourself.
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DETAILS MAGAZINE]
Choosing My Religion
Converting to the World's Great (And Not-So-Great) Religions -- All of Them
By Paul Iorio
If everything were to go wrong, it's somewhat comforting to know
organized religion would take you in -- no matter who you are or what you've
done or what you really believe.
But first you must convert. What religion is best for you? Which one
offers a sensible plan for eternity, no-fault redemption, praying that gets
results, easy admission to heaven, and a moral contract that's non-binding?
To answer these questions, I set out one morning to convert to the world's
great (and not-so-great) religions. Within hours, I grew certain of only one
thing: becoming holy was not the best way to expand my sexual options,
since many faiths prohibit even the most mundane erotic activities. Islam, for
example, forbids masturbation.
"It's a sin," says Abdul Hai of the Islamic Center in Chicago.
"You can't even masturbate with your wife?," I ask.
"How come you do masturbating with your wife?," says Hai.
"Mutual masturbation -- that would be okay, right?," I ask.
"I don't think so," says Hai.
So for those who sometimes feel sex is too private to do in front of
another person, Islam is clearly not the way to go.
Muslims also bar lechery. "Even if you gaze at the face of a woman out of
lust, it is forbidden," says Muhammed Salem Agwa, an imam at the Islamic
Cultural Center in New York. (Sunnis and Shiites largely agree on such
lifestyle issues.)
I then tried the Mormons. First thing I found was they take marriage very
seriously. Not only do they nix sex before marriage, they believe in marriage
after death. This, of course, raises the question of whether one can file for
divorce in eternity.
"As far as getting a divorce in the eternities, I don't think so," says an
elder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. "If you lasted until the eternities
with your marriage, it's pretty much going to last forever."
"But if you do get a divorce in eternity, do you split the soul 50:50?," I
ask.
"Good question," he says. "I never thought of that. I'll have to think about
it."
Judaism actually regulates the penis itself; circumcision is recommended
for converts. (For the uninitiated, adult circumcision is usually performed
under a local anesthetic and requires several stitches you know where.)
Next, I checked out the best ways of getting to heaven. For
Catholics, I found the password to heaven is a simple, "I'm sorry." Evidently,
the deal for Catholics is this: Commit any sin during the week, confess on
Sunday, and you're pardoned, no matter what the offense.
Catholics can even envision forgiveness for Adolf Hitler. "If at the end,
Hitler had been truly sorry for the things he had done, then the possibility of
forgiveness is there in a theoretical sense," says Father Kevin Madigan of the
Blessed Sacrament Church in Manhattan.
"Is there any point of evil beyond which you say, 'No amount of
repentance will redeem you?,'" I ask.
"No," says Father Madigan.
Catholics aren't the only ones with a loose forgiveness policy. Listen to
Pentecostal pastor Donald Lee of the Healing Stream Deliverance Church in
New York: "One of the people we're affiliated with is Son of Sam," he says,
sounding a bit like Dan Aykroyd's E. Buzz Miller character on the original
"Saturday Night Live." "We've prayed with him a number of times, and he's
really strong now in the Lord."
"That seems way over the top," I say. "If Son of Sam doesn't go to hell,
then who does?"
"He doesn't go to hell because he's totally repented. In this case, he really
meant business with God," says Lee.
"What sins won't you excuse?," I ask.
"When you experience the power of God and then you blaspheme it, you
mock it," Lee explains.
Other religions have their own quirky, irredeemable acts. What sin do
Lutherans consider unforgivable?
"To die in unbelief," says Dale Hansen, the pastor at St. Luke's Lutheran
Church in Manhattan.
"But then if I believe before I die, I'm forgiven my previous unbelief?," I
ask.
"That's right," says Hansen.
With this much forgiveness going around, heaven must be mighty
crowded, right? Not according to Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim heaven
has a tight guest list of exactly 144,000. Apparently, admission depends on
who you know. Each apostle gets to bring along 12,000 guests, says Elder
Eugene Dykes of Kingdom Hall in Columbia, South Carolina.
Despite stiff competition for admission to heaven, one can still have a shot
by following as many religious rules as possible. Among them are the Ten
Commandments, which raise complex ethical questions. For instance, would
I be considered unholy if I break the First Commandment by believing Al
Green is God?
"Oh, no, no, no," says Adriano Hernandez of the Broadway Seventh-Day
Adventist Church in Manhattan.
"Al Green is a great guy, but he's not the supreme being of the universe,"
notes Glenn Evans of the Singles' Ministry of the First Baptist Church of
Dallas, Texas.
"Believing Al Green is God means you're going to become a total servant
of Al Green," says Father Madigan, "and whenever he calls you on the phone
and wants you to do something, you're going to do that. I don't understand
how you can worship Al Green as a god."
"I think you're pulling my leg here," says the very smart Leslie Merlin of
Brick Presbyterian Church in New York.
If the Ten Commandments are strict, just think of Judaism, with its
additional 613 commandments. How do you know if you're violating, say,
commandment 537? "It's hard," admits Rabbi Jacob Spiegel of the First
Roumanian American Congregation. "We don't expect you to."
Most orders of Judaism don't expect adherence to their dietary laws. One
commandment forbids Jews to consume meat and any milk product at the
same meal, which rules out something as innocent as coffee with milk after a
burger. But Rabbi Simcha Weinberg of the Lincoln Square Synagogue slyly
reveals a loophole: "You could have the coffee first."
Islam's food restrictions are so strict it's a wonder someone hasn't
marketed them as a diet plan yet. Among the regulations, most devotees must
fast from dawn to dusk for one month a year. Does that mean not even a Slim
Fast or a megavitamin? "You cannot even take a drop of water once you start
fasting," Abdul Hai says sternly.
Praying is a good way to get your side of the story across to God. And
God reportedly understands every prayer in every tongue -- including
tongues.
Pastor Donald Lee demonstrates his fluency in tongues: "When the spirit
comes into you, you'll be speaking in tongues -- cora ba shinda da ba sa --
like that. Like right now -- kara sheek a ra da ba da sheev ba ra sa. When I
pray in tongues -- cora da shotta -- it gives the Holy Spirit a chance to dig
deep."
But don't try imitating Pastor Lee, which of course I know you're dying to
do. "You could imitate me, but it wouldn't be by the Holy Spirit," he says.
"It would just be mechanical."
Islam requires Muslims to take comfort in prayer five times a day and to
turn toward Mecca when doing so. "Suppose I turn toward San Francisco," I
say. "Does that negate my prayer?"
"You can have a compass and you keep it with you," responds
Muhammed Salem Agwa.
Because I didn't have my compass with me, I decided to try another
religion. What about Christian Science? At the very least, it's a super way to
save on healthcare. I checked out a service in Greenwich Village.
The congregation, looking like people who wash their hair with bar soap,
sings Hymn 31, a four-four ditty with catchy lyrics like: "What chased the
clouds away? Twas love, whose finger traced aloud a bow of promise on the
cloud."
Then it's open-mike time at the church, and a Christian Scientist with a
comb-over shaped like a gerrymandered congressional district says, "I have a
healing to share." Though the Scientists believe faith can cure any ailment,
this service was causing me sudden nausea. I left for the Hare Krishna house
on Second Avenue.
Approaching the Krishna center, I expected a lot of shaved heads and
chanters in neon orange robes. Instead, I found an almost irreverent
get-together of twentysomethings vaguely resembling Billy Bragg and
Sinead O'Connor.
I investigated the Krishnas further. Which Vishnu god gives me the best
return on my worship? "Kirshna," says Akunthita Dasi of the International
Society for Krishna Consciousness in Chicago.
Must my cremated ashes be scattered on the Ganges River, or will the
Hackensack or Potomac do? "We just throw ashes in the lake here," says
Chakra Pani of the Temple of Understanding near Limestone, West Virginia.
Seeking something more earthly, I tried an Orthodox Jewish Minchah
service at Congregation Talmud Torah Adereth El in Manhattan. In a tight
basement with bars on the windows, men wearing hats turned the pages of
the Torah backward and spoke Yiddish in an emphatic fast-motion ritual. I made
a contribution and quickly left.
Equally daunting was a Catholic Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New
York. Inside, worshipers repeated "I shall not fear" as a cop patrolled the
north aisle and an usher prodded me with a long-armed collection basket.
Then everybody shook hands with one another on cue and filed out to the
sound of a barely audible organ.
A nearby Buddhist meditation service was a breath of fresh incense -- at
first. But then someone told me I was meditating incorrectly and needed
formal instruction. (In Zenspeak, I didn't know what I wasn't doing.)
My head was spinning in a spiritual vortex. I wondered: could I
simultaneously shave my head, get circumcised, genuflect, speak in tongues,
pray with a compass, and stop masturbating? It may be worth trying. It
would certainly improve my chances of getting to heaven.
[From Details magazine, October 1994.]
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 26, 2007
Last Night's Show by The Beastie Boys
It was 20 years ago almost to the day that I saw my
first concert by The Beastie Boys, on a double bill
with Run DMC at MSG in NYC (see review posted below),
and the difference between that gig and the one I
heard last night in Berkeley is, obviously, substantial.
In other words, they're still evolving, even this late in
the game.
Sure, they threw in a few eighties classics from "Licensed to Ill"
and "Paul's Boutique" last night (it was particularly
great to hear "Shake Your Rump-ah" come alive live)
but the show was more about the future, as they
continue to transform into multi-genre innovators,
with always-fresh takes on punk and prog and jazz and
disco and funk and, of course, hip hop, and
lots of styles in between.
New stuff like "Electric Worm," from their latest CD,
the all-instrumental "The Mix-Up," was just as
enjoyable as classics like "Brass Monkey" and encore
"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and "Paul Revere," which had
the audience (and fans in the hills, where I was)
singing almost every word.
One of the highlights of the night was 2004's "An Open
Letter to NYC," probably the best song about post-9/11
New York to date, with lyrics like: "Dear New York, I
know a lot has changed/two towers down but you're still
in the game."
A sidenote: too many performers at the Greek in Berkeley
greet the audience with "Hello, San Francisco," which
to Berkeleyans is sorta like someone saying, "Hello, Cincinnati."
So kudos to the Beastie Boys for getting it right and being
knowing about the local landscape ("Thank you very much for
having us here in Berkeley and the whole Bay Area" was their
first of many references to the area). Then again, the group
is now part San Franciscan, what with the addition of SF's
own Mix Master Mike, whose turntable wizardry was on abundant
display last night.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 25, 2007
Last Night's Wilco Concert
The Wilco resurgence continued apace with a show
last night in Berkeley, Calif., where the band
played most of its new album, "Sky Blue Sky," its
best CD in years, along with more than a dozen older
songs by the group. It even reached back to its '95
debut, "A.M.," for "Too Far Apart," a concert
rarity, though the real thrills came
near the finale with the
infectious "California Stars" and
the out-of-sight "Outtasite (Outta Mind),"
the best song of the night (though this
comes from someone who thinks "Being
There," not "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel,"
is the band's peak -- and from
someone who heard the gig from
the hills above the
Greek Theatre!). Of the new
ones, stand-outs included the gorgeous
"Either Way," the soulful "Side With the
Seeds" and "You Are My Face."
Singer-songwriter Richard Swift opened with some
impressive material; one song in particular -- I'm
trying to find out the title (it may be called
"Half Lit") -- is one of the most haunting new folk songs
I've heard in a long time. Well worth checking out.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Jeff Tweedy by Jim Cooper, from theage.com.au.]
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 24, 2007
I started loving Grace Paley's work around January
1976 and don't plan to stop until my blood starts evaporating,
which, as her stories have always pointed out, could happen
anytime between right now and a few decades from right now.
I was particularly in awe of Paley's stories in "Enormous
Changes at the Last Minute," which,
unfortunately, I haven't
owned since I wore out my previous
paperback edition a few years ago.
She was always brilliant at revealing the
vast emotional landscape in small, ordinary,
everyday moments, and could pack far, far
more in 700 perfectly-chosen words than most
writers could in 700 flabby pages.
I remember seeing her read her work in Manhattan in '81 or
'82 -- if I'm not mistaken, she was on a double bill at
the 92nd St. Y with the late, great Donald Barthelme, who was
so funny that night. Shortly afterwards, I wrote a song,
"Eloise," based on verse that appeared in one of her stories,
and it went like this:
"Eloise is like the bees/Eloise buzz like the bees does
Eloise is like the bees/Eloise buzz like the bees does
Eloise buzz like the bees does"
Yesterday, sadly, there was an enormous change at the last
minute for Paley -- her final one. But in reality she's brand
new every day, to everyone who reads her stories.
Paul.
[photo of Paley above from Ms Magazine -- photographer unknown.]
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 19, 2007
Ah, the golden era of progressivism, back when America
still had its two-front teeth (l) and its bite (r).(Photo
by Paul Iorio.)
There seems to be an inevitability to Hillary's
nomination, and it may already be a fait accompli, but...not
so fast.
Sure, she has a big lead in the national polls, although
the one question pollsters are apparently not asking is:
are you likely to vote in the presidential primaries?
And that's key. Hillary's people say they support her when
approached by a pollster who comes to them with questions.
But let's face it: her backers aren't charged or enthusiastic or
motivated -- they're not true believers, so they're likely to
find an excuse to stay at home if there's, say, a blizzard in
Nashua on primary day.
But Barack's people -- virtually every one of 'em -- will show
up on election day. I saw with my own eyes a woman attached
to an oxygen tank attending a massive rally for Obama in
Oakland, Calif., last March 17 (see Daily Digression for March 18,
below). The guy in front of me waiting in line for nearly
two hours to get into that Obama rally used a crutch to walk
and to stand. People who have no disposable income contribute
money to Obama's campaign. And all that tells me that, come
primary day, over 100% of Obama's supporters will vote, while
maybe 75% of Hillary's backers will.
It's the Gene McCarthy syndrome. Before the New Hampshire
primary in '68, McCarthy was written off by party bosses who saw
LBJ's lead in the polls as insurmountable. But what their polling
failed to detect was that all of McCarthy's backers
were motivated to vote, while only some of Lyndon's were.
The result was an astonishingly strong and unexpected second
place finish for McCarthy -- and the beginning of the
end for LBJ.
Barack is already leading in Iowa, albeit by a thread. But add
the wind chill factor of true believerism among his supporters,
and he may actually be leading by a substantial margin.
When there is any passion for Hillary, it's usually because
supporters see her as a way to return to what now looks like a
golden progressive era, to the days of Clinton the First, when
everybody had a job and the small entrepreneur could flourish and
America still had its two front teeth and the Supreme Court was
still in the hands of the good guys and we weren't stuck in the
quicksand of Iraq.
Conversely, what is probably dampening enthusiasm for Hillary is
the same memory: people also recall the gridlock of the Clinton
years and how the administration mostly failed to put through the
progressive agenda -- even with the help of a Democratic
Congress -- and how slow the process of triangulation was.
Al Gore, of course, would benefit even more from the Golden Glow
of the Clinton era, if he were to run, and it now looks like he won't,
though don't be so sure; Fred Thompson's late entry might change
the whole chemistry of the campaign. And if Thompson were to catapult
to the lead, that might signal to Gore that, hey, the water's fine
for latecomers.
A resemblance to Obama?
-------------------------------------------
An addition to my DVD round-up of July 30; I finally got
to see all of the first volume of "The Dick Cavett Show: Comic
Legends" DVD the other day, and it's even better than the
other three discs.
Check out Cavett's extremely funny interview with Groucho Marx
(September 5, 1969):
GROUCHO: "This show is going to be a big hit because you're
on at 10 o'clock at night..."
CAVETT: "I'm on at 9 central time."
GROUCHO: [pause] "Well, I - I wouldn't go that far."
---------------------------
GROUCHO: "They've raised the price of everything. So if you're gonna
get your legs sawed off, it used to cost maybe 85 dollars -- it'd
be about a hundred and forty now."
CAVETT: "It's hardly worth it, is it?"
GROUCHO: "No, it's hardly worth it. For two hundred dollars
I'd seriously consider it."
---------------------------------
GROUCHO: "[A female fan] invited me up to her room but I didn't
want to go. She was an old bag. She was around 24."
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Watching this morning's Democratic presidential
debate, I couldn't help but look at all the candidates at
their podiums and think: this looks like the next Democratic
administration, starring Hillary as president, Barack as veep,
and first-term cabinet members Biden, Dodd, Edwards and Kucinich
(meanwhile, Richardson, who seems increasingly befuddled, like
a guy with a dangerously high cholesterol level, should probably
take some time off for a check-up, as should Gravel).
________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 15, 2007
Lively discussion about OJ Simpson's book on this
morning's "Today" show with Denise Brown and the
publisher of OJ's book. It's good to see someone
raising her voice, loud and clear, in condemnation of
Simpson. Because, frankly, you'd be surprised that OJ
has his supporters, or tacit supporters. And among
them is apparently Michelle Caruso of The New York Daily News,
who was yelling with equal volume in SUPPORT of
Simpson in a courtroom in 1997 (see Daily Digression below,
August 8, 2007). She objected so much to my question to OJ
in 1997 ("Have you had any luck finding the real killer?")
that she attacked me out of the blue and has been doing
so ever since. Glad I can give a biased journalist heartburn.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 13, 2007
Brilliant article in Sunday's Times about Ingmar Bergman
by Woody Allen. In fact, it's the best feature the
paper has run all year, by far, though I have to strongly
disagree with one point he made, and that is that
Allen says he himself is not a genius. To which
I say: if Allen is not a genius among film makers,
then who is? The title of Greatest Living
Writer/Director really does apply only to Allen and
and around five others (in a tie). (Also, terrific
piece by Martin Scorsese on Michelangelo Antonioni in
the same issue of the The Times.)
----------------------------
Remembering Merv Griffin
I had a one-on-one lunch with Merv Griffin
on his yacht in Marina del Rey, Calif., back in June 1998,
and appreciated how kind and forthcoming he was to me, a lowly
reporter writing a story for the San Francisco Chronicle at
the time.
I'll try to post the unpublished parts of the interview
at some point, but for now, a few observations: Griffin really
had a way of making everyone around him feel like a winner -- and
he was always interested in the new tv star on the horizon.
And you could tell he really loved the friendship of
Nancy Reagan (when the phone rang on the boat, he
said, "That's probably her right now").
And, yes, you could also detect a little bit of
good-natured rivalry with Johnny Carson, who had
a neighboring boat in the Marina that he pointed
out to me. He'll be remembered well.
UPDATE:
OK, I found unpublished outtakes from
my 1998 interview with Griffin, and here are some
excerpts:
ON GAME SHOWS: "Many of the games I produced were the
results of games I played in my childhood and then developed
them into tv shows, never thinking they'd become what they
became."
ON ORSON WELLES: "I think I have a tape saying he didn't
think 'Citizen Kane' was that good..."
ON ANDY WARHOL: "Warhol came on the show and one minute
before the show said, 'I will not talk.' And I said,
'What're you gonna do?' And he said, 'I'll nod.' And
it was a very funny show."
ON JOHN LENNON: "We became friends. We went out
to a couple discos but...it created
such a riot that I just finally said, "I've got to
go home, John."
ON PETER O'TOOLE: "He got furious with me on the air
and wouldn't answer. He'd say, 'yes, no.' That was
his first appearance on tv -- he was out promoting
'Lawrence of Arabia.'"
ON BILL CLINTON: "Great guy to talk to, so much fun. The
kind of guy you want to hang out with, but you can't, because
he's the president."
ON JOHNNY CARSON: "We were on opposite each other for two and
a half years. He won. There was no way he couldn't win; he had
more stations, he had the years of doing it all."
At another point, Griffin showed me Carson's yacht and said:
"Carson's boat is right over there. He travels a lot -- a lot.
He goes to Africa a lot. He goes to Russia. He's learned to
speak Russian, he speaks impeccable Russian."
ON THE VIETNAM WAR: "I was horrified by it. I was the first
to book a protester against it on my show."
ON MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: "Loved him. The most peaceful man I've
ever met. You get mesmerized talking to him. I guess because of
his eyes. He was so honest."
ON JERRY SEINFELD: "I love Jerry Seinfeld. I just scream
at that show."
Here's a collage I made of headlines I found while doing
pre-interview research on Griffin.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 12, 2007
Browsing through some old issues of the late, great Spy
magazine, for which I used to write and report, I happened
on a piece that shows how much braver some of the press
used to be back in the day, particularly regarding Muslim
militants.
Here's an example, by James H. Fischer, who memorably
"interviewed" the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in Spy's June
1989 issue (note the drawing of Muhammad in the
upper right hand corner). That sort of fearless
satire seems to be in low supply these days.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 8, 2007
The Untold Story About Coverage of O.J. Simpson
Ten years ago, OJ Simpson had to give up his Heisman trophy
as part of the civil settlement in his double murder
case, and I covered it for Reuters, though the interesting
thing about the story was that much of the press played
extreme softball with Simpson. I was shocked, frankly, that
there was almost no aggressive questioning of the guy, even
though everyone had access to him in the Santa Monica courthouse.
In fact, some reporters and cops were actually playing air
football with Simpson!
And after I asked him a tough question -- "Hey, OJ, have you had
any luck finding the real killers?" -- Simpson, who didn't
like my question much, became openly mocking: "Nobody
likes me, everybody hates me," Simpson said in a sing-song
voice in the corridor, after I was persistent with my questions.
Within minutes, a cop said that reporters couldn't
talk to Simpson, but the judge overruled the officer around an hour
later and said we could talk to him. So I asked him again,
"Hey OJ, have you had any luck finding the killers of your wife."
And I must say that except for a couple first-class reporters from
Court TV and a couple others, I was the only one asking
hard questions of Simpson, and that seemed to irritate
both cops and a few reporters at the scene (some of whom
were asking "tough" questions like: "OJ, do you feel you're
being harassed?").
I came up with the question spontaneously as I watched the timidity
of particular reporters toward Simpson, and it's a fair question, if you
think about it.
Then, out of the blue, as I sat quietly in the courtroom, one
cop (who had been playing air football with Simpson) started
giving me a rough time and -- equally out of the blue -- a
so-called reporter (she identified herself as Michelle Caruso
of the New York Daily News) started to play tag team
with the cop, yelling and screaming in the courtroom at me
(about my shirt, oddly, a really nice $75 conservative
shirt -- among other things) a pro pos of nothing.
I had had absolutely no prior contact with this so-called
reporter, and didn't even know her name until she told me it
(and I didn't even answer her, despite her efforts to
turn the event into an episode of "Jerry Springer").
And yet here she was screaming for no reason whatsoever
as I sat quietly.
Caruso showed no such aggressiveness in trying to interview
OJ Simpson, mind you. She was very meek when it came to him,
who she was paid to cover. But she had the rude over-familiarity
of a hick when it came to dealing with others in the courthouse,
as if she was straight out of Mayberry, RFD.
Caruso, who came to work that day with big-hair that looked like
it had been butchered by Simpson himself, shut up only when I
showed her that my cassette tape recorder was running -- which
shows that she knew her rant couldn't stand up to scrutiny.
Note to Caruso's editor at the Daily News: you should fire
Michelle Caruso right now, even after all these years, because
behavior like that is likely to be repeated by her (if it
hasn't been already).
So ten years later, as Simpson makes the rounds of golf courses,
one wonders whether he would have been serving time if certain
reporters and cops had been a bit more aggressive toward the
right people.
O.J. Simpson signs autographs for fans in
August 1997 outside the Santa Monica Courthouse
(photo by Paul Iorio).
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Lemme guess how Caruso's probably trying
to spin the situation now that this blog his gotten
around. She's probably saying that there was a rush
of reporters trying to reach Simpson at one point in
the courthouse and -- lemme guess again -- she's
probably trying to make it look like I was part of that
stampede, when she knows full well I was being stampeded
from behind, too.
In other words, I was being pushed from behind in that
rush toward Simpson!
In any event, she didn't bring any of that up in her rant.
But I'm guessing that she has probably tacked that on to her
explanation in the years since.
P.S. (again) -- By the way, there's tv footage somewhere, I'm sure,
of a press conference from that day, but that press conference
happened after the events I'm describing. And I'm probably in
the footage, too, because I was positioned behind O.J. (nodding at
one point at a colleague who was trying to get my attention
off-camera).
UPDATE: Just found my notes and tapes from that day, and here
are excerpts:
Caruso's metldown happened at around 2:15 that day. At a seat
behind me, she said: "You're from Reuters" and I said, "yes."
And she said, in a nasty way: "Who's your boss, who hired you?
I know all the guys there." From notes: "I didn't answer her
because she appeared hostile."
And then Caruso continued on her rant that stopped only when
she saw my tape recorder was running.
I also noted: "Cops very buddy buddy with OJ."
______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 5, 2007
Beyond the Kos Debate: Obama, Pakistan and Killing bin Laden
If there is a python in your garden, and you have
a chance to kill it, but you vacillate and
let it go, and that python later comes into a birthday
party you're throwing for small children and bites
three kids, and one of them later dies, then you
have blood on your hands because you didn't kill
or capture the python when you could have.
And if that python then slithers away after biting
three kids, and crosses through your fence into a
neighbor's yard, then, of course, you should
climb that fence into your neighbor's yard, without
first asking your neighbor's permission, to kill
the snake on his property (assuming, of course,
you have the equipment to kill or capture it at
the ready).
And if your neighbor objects, and angrily asks what
you're doing in his yard killing an animal, and your
neighbor is a religious fundamentalist who takes
thou-shalt-not-kill a bit too literally, then you
would have to explain to him that his front yard is
inextricably linked to your front yard and that
you were in hot pursuit of a killer. (Admittedly,
you would also have to patch up the relationship later
on and smooth things down the road so that your neighbor
understands that killing the python, on his property
or not, was doing the neighborhood a big favor.)
Obviously, the python in this allegory refers to Osama
bin Laden and the neighbor to Pakistan (which,
incidentally, has a fence that's so simple and porous,
particularly around Waziristan, that I could have left
it out of the allegory altogether). And it
illustrates the truth of Barack Obama's
recent controversial comments on Pakistan.
To recap: last week, at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, Obama said: ''There are terrorists
holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans.
They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake
to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda
leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable
intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and
President Musharraf won't act, we will.''
And he was also right when he later said: "Nobody
believes we can negotiate with bin Laden." In my view,
you would no more negotiate with bin Laden than you
would with a rapist who is in the middle of raping someone.
I'm a huge fan of Diplomacy First in almost all other
foreign policy situations and an opponent of the death
penalty, but I also strongly believe that the U.S.
should kill bin Laden, not just capture him. We
already know he's guilty of mass murder -- he's
already confessed to the 9/11 slaughter -- and
anything he's likely to say in the dock at the
Hague would be bullshit, disinformation, at best.
Also, bin Laden is a mobilizing force, mostly for
those brainwashed by the madrasas, and his death
would leave no one at the top of al Qaeda who is
nearly as effective (history is full of examples
of how movements, both noble and evil, disintegrate
when the main leader is killed or imprisoned).
Me, I have a bottle of wine all picked out
for the day bin Laden dies and, when he does,
I plan to play Bob Dylan's "Masters of War,"
which goes like this: "And I hope that you die/
And your death'll come soon/I will follow your casket/
In the pale afternoon/And I'll watch while
you're lowered/Down to your deathbed/
And I'll stand over your grave/
'Til I'm sure that you're dead."
But I digress.
Getting back to the subject: Hillary is
trying to make it look like Obama
doesn't have a lot of foreign policy experience,
when in fact what he does have is something
more valuable: foreign policy wisdom.
I mean, get a load of the mess that people with foreign
policy experience have made of the world stage.
All of Hillary's experience -- uh, she was the wife
of someone who had a job in the 1990s -- led her to
vote for war authorization, a mistake that a lot of
seasoned pros made at the time. (Even so,
I'm still seriously considering voting for Hillary
in the California primary in February, though I
may not. Frankly, she lacks the natural instincts
of a politician -- remember, she is part of Hugh
Rodham's gene pool, not Bill Clinton's; she doesn't
have his genetic material in her, unless she has
swallowed some, which is highly unlikely. And her
unlikeability level, which rivals Bob Dole's or
Gray Davis's, may make her unelectable. In fact,
now that I've become more familiar with Hillary,
I can fully understand how Monica
probably looked like heaven on earth to you-know-who
by contrast!)
Look, I'm a huge admirer of Bill Clinton, but even he, after
eight years of policy experience as president, told the
nation before the 2003 Iraq war, don't worry, this war
won't take long, Saddam will be a pushover.
Not to mention Bush's crowd, with about 20,000 years
of foreign affairs and war experience between them,
who got us mired in this Iraq mess to begin with.
So much for the value of foreign policy experience!
Perhaps what we need is fresh thinking about Iraq and
al Qaeda from someone who's not so close to the
conventional wisdom and hand-me-down theories.
The so-called experts -- who also didn't
anticipate the 9/11 attacks -- have failed us
miserably.
It's sort of like the company CEO who is paid $20
million a year and is running the company into the
ground; there's an excellent chance you could put
a rank amateur in the same position with better
results (as the joke goes, give me just a million
and I'll run the company into the ground).
My theory is that Obama's remarks are causing controversy
because his rivals see for the first time that...he could
win the presidency.
Oh, I know he's trailing in the national polls but other
indicators say he could become our next president. First,
there's his astonishing lead in fundraising. Yeah,
Howard Dean had fundraising prowess, too, but this
this is waay beyond Dean.
Second, the latest Washington Post/ABC poll shows Obama
leading in Iowa, though barely -- 27 to 26 to 26 percent
over both Clinton and Edwards, who has virtually
established residence there.
Coming out of the gate in January, Obama is likely to go
two-for-two before the Christmas lights are down, first
with the non-binding primary in D.C. (1/8)
and then with the Iowa caucus (1/14), giving him momentum
for the New Hampshire primary (1/22), if not the Nevada
caucus (1/19). No doubt, the Florida primary (1/29) might
be a tough slough for Obama, though he's showing surprising
strength along that centrist stretch dubbed the I-4 corridor.
The nomination will, in all likelihood, be wrapped up for
someone by February 5, SuperDuper Tuesday, which looks to
be a two-way split (Obama in Illinois, Hillary in
New York, California a toss-up, with smaller states
peeling off evenly for both Obama and Clinton).
In other words, what we're seeing with that Iowa
poll -- 27 for Obama and 26 for Clinton) -- may be
repeated in many states, with hairline victories for
Obama in lots of contests, many of them winner-take-all.
Right wing pundits are crunching the numbers and probably
privately sweating as they realize Obama could win -- and
that's perhaps why Barack is drawing so much fire these
days. Conservative columnist David Brooks is an inadvertent
barometer of Obama's chances of winning the White House;
several months ago, on "The NewsHour," back when Obama
looked like the McGovern of '08, Brooks was praising Obama
to the skies: oh, you Dems should really nominate that
Obama guy, he's really smart and talented, Brooks
essentially said. Read: why don't you Dems nominate
that guy who has absolutely no chance of winning.
But now Brooks has changed his tune considerably, harshly
criticizing Obama on foreign policy. Read: holy shit, Obama
now has a real chance of winning!
Even Mitt Romney has attacked Obama on Pakistan as if Obama
were already the Democratic nominee. (By the way, what a
gift for memorable language this Romney fellow has -- here's
his comment to a reporter: "I do not concur in the
words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours...I
don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to
draw more friends to our effort.")
But getting back to Obama's position on Pakistan: let's get
to the core of the issue, and the core is that Pakistan (and
therefore India) must be denuclearized, and we
must provide both nations with substantial incentives so
that they agree to get rid of their nukes.
Let me explain my reasoning.
1. If we were to find bin Laden in Waziristan, we might
hesitate to go after him unilaterally because it might
enrage Islamic extremists in Pakistan who might
then overthrow Musharraf's regime.
2. The main reason we're afraid of losing Musharraf is
because he might be replaced by a Taliban leader who would
then have control of Pakistan's nukes. That
is a large part of what has been making us so timid
about finding bin Laden east of Tora Bora.
Possible solution: if we could somehow find a way to
denuclearize Pakistan (and, again, India), then most of
the danger (and anxiety) about the possible overthrowing of
Musharraf would dissipate. It would, after all, be of less
consequence if the Taliban took over a Pakistan that didn't
have nuclear weapons. Mind you, it would still be an
awful prospect, but not necessarily a grave one.
If Pakistan didn't have nukes, we'd feel freer about doing
whatever is necessary to kill the python that has
slithered into our neighbor's yard.
But I digress. Paul
[montage of campaign buttons above by Paul Iorio]
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for August 3, 2007
On Thursday, we lost a journalistic
hero, Chauncey Bailey, the 57-year-old
editor of The Oakland Post newspaper,
to assassination. At the time of his
murder, he was working on an investigative
piece on the Your Black Muslim Bakery
in Oakland, Calif., and
that was what got him killed by an
employee of the Bakery, according to
investigators.
Hats off to the law enforcement agencies that
carried out the pre-dawn raid on the Bakery on
Friday, using just the right amount of
force to arrest suspects in the case.
A situation that could have turned into a near-Branch
Davidian disaster came to a peaceful
resolution because it was handled with
surgical precision. Those in charge of planning
and carrying out the arrests at the Bakery
should be promoted.
But I digress. Paul
[above photo of Chauncey Bailey from spokesmanreview.com; photographer unknown.]
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 31, 2007
a scene from Ingmar Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly"Sad to hear about the passing of Ingmar Bergman,
though glad he lived to almost 90, a lifespan
nearly as old as cinema itself. No doubt, he was
one of the two or three greatest auteurs, and my
personal favorites from his oeuvre are "Persona,"
"Wild Strawberries" and "The Seventh Seal," though
I keep returning to "Fanny and Alexander" more than
the others. One Bergman gem that's often overlooked
and underrated is "Through a Glass Darkly," which shows
madness as a quiet, haunting terror.
In the end, in the ultimate chess match, both Bergman and
collaborator Sven Nykvist were able to put off The
Inevitable Checkmate for as long as any human being can.
_________________
I've always had the feeling that if Michelangelo
Antonioni hadn't been a film maker, he would've
been a post-expressionist painter, because that's
the sensibility he brought to cinema. In fact, he
seemed to see film as an almost purely visual
medium, and the best example of that was the
dazzling end of "Zabriskie Point," which was
virtually one expressionist painting after
another, if you were to still each frame. I was
always waiting for Antonioni to take his aesthetic
to the next level and make a two-hour film that was
purely painterly visuals, with no plot, no story.
But when he mixed his abstractions with an urgent
story line, he gave us "Blow-Up," one of the most
enigmatic films ever made (and so ahead of its time
that there was actually a cameo by Jimmy Page,
no less -- in 1966!).
I mourn the passing of Antonioni, but living to 94 was
a sweet bit of luck.
a scene from "Blow-Up"------------------------------
P.S. -- By the way, on a completely different subject: I recently
received a Roland Digital Workstation as a birthday gift but,
unfortunately, all CDs that I record through it are erroneously
labeled (in the "CD Info" box) as "Artist: PapaJustify."
What that means or who that is, I have no idea!
Does anyone out there know how I can fix that so that
the "CD Info" box lists the proper name of the CD?
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 30, 2007
I've recently watched and re-watched a bunch of DVD's, and here are
some notes:
SYRIANA -- Clooney turns a corner here with his acting,
but for all the urgency of the plot, the film doesn't build
consistent or cumulative cinematic tension. The script sounds
like it was written from the research down to the action
rather than vice versa, as if the writer was trying hard
to fit academic research into natural, vivid dialogue.
Still, an admirable work, even if the plot is one of
the film's top secret elements; I've yet to find a
critic or fan who can describe the story clearly and
confidently, and in that respect it resembles a lot
of noir (does anyone know what's really happening
in "Out of the Past"?). Sure, there's probably someone
out there who has already seen "Syriana" 75 times and
can explain how everything fits together perfectly, but
I'm only on my third viewing, so I'll have to get
back to you.
* * *
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK: A first rate flick,
no question about it, with performances by Jeff Daniels
and Robert Downey, Jr. and George Clooney himself that
are credible and poignant and very real. And David
Strathairn becomes Murrow so convincingly that I now
picture Straithairn rather than Murrow when I think
of Murrow. And that drunken-looking actor who plays
Joe McCarthy -- oh, that is McCarthy. Hmmm. An
inspired touch. Clooney is an excellent director
who should be helming more films from now on.
* * *
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: And so The Gibson has come up
with an extended persecution fantasy, a religious cartoon
about Jesus The Christ, and it's a cartoon because nobody
could possibly endure even the first set of physical beatings,
much less the fifth or sixth, without either dying or
lapsing into unconsciousness. And it's a cartoon without
much imagination, because all The Gibson can envision is a
sustained two-hour assault. After the 7th or 9th beating,
I started wondering: doesn't this The Christ guy know
anybody in high places who could intercede on his behalf?
Sheesh!
* * *
ED SULLIVAN PRESENTS THE BEATLES: The four episodes on
which the Beatles performed live on "The Ed Sullivan
Show," complete with commercials from the original
broadcasts. The band performed nine songs on three
shows in February 1964 (playing several tunes more than once),
and then returned to the program some 19 months later,
much changed and already looking sort of "Rubber Soul"ish,
to perform another five. But that ain't all of the fun.
There are commercials that are inadvertently funny
("Aeroshave: Keeps Drenching Your Beard") and others
that will turn you into a militant feminist. And the
cultural divide -- pre-Beatles versus post -- is most
evident in the second show, from Miami, in which an
overheated Sullivan -- apparently trying to placate the
large part of his audience that was offended by the
Fab Four on the previous show -- brought on some throwback
acts and even cracked "communists!" when there were audio
problems. What's amazing is how modern the Beatles
seem, even today, and particularly in contrast to some of
the more reactionary performers on the show. By the time of
the 1965 gig, the Beatles had already tried LSD and were
in the middle of the "Rubber Soul" sessions, so Sullivan's
"you are fine ambassadors" schtict, which was ok in '64,
already seemed quaint, ancient, inappropriate.
* * *
THE DICK CAVETT SHOW: COMIC LEGENDS: Four discs of Cavett
interviewing comic icons on his late-night ABC show of the
early 1970s. Disc 2 features a very funny Woody Allen
promoting his new movie "Bananas" (Oct. 20, 1971); another
puts Mel Brooks, Rex Reed and the jarringly ill-tempered
star of "Zabriskie Point," Mark Frechette, together on the
eve of the Oscars (April 6, 1970); and Bill Cosby appears
on Nov. 10, 1971, looking a bit like Groucho Marx and sounding
as funny as I've ever heard him (and it breaks your heart
to hear him talk about his son, who he obviously loved so
much, in light of the tragedy that followed decades later).
Disc 3 has real sparks, too, particularly when Groucho Marx
proposes marriage to Truman Capote (May 25, 1971).
* * *
CHARLIE CHAPLIN'S FEATURE FILMS: I recently re-watched all
of Chaplin's major feature films, and the eye-opener was
"Modern Times," his funniest film by a mile -- and even
better than "The Gold Rush," which Chaplin himself considered
his best. His food-eating machine, the precursor to Allen's
"Execucisor," is one of the funniest cinematic inventions ever.
And though he made silents well into the talkies era, his
films somehow seem more modern than contemporaneous flicks by
the Marx Brothers.
* * *
THE MARX BROTHERS'S FILMS: And I also recently re-watched
all of the Marx Brothers's major features, and their top film,
without question, is "Duck Soup," one of the greatest comedies
ever made. Amazing what they could do when working with a primo
director (Leo McCarey, credited with inventing Laurel and Hardy).
"Night at the Opera" doesn't come close (in fact, I'd rank
"Horse Feathers," which first landed them on the cover of
Time magazine, as their second best). You can also see how
Allen is clearly the closest we have to a successor to both
Groucho and Chaplin (Fielding Mellish must be related by
blood to Rufus T. Firefly). By the way, could the Ramones
have been inspired by "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It," from
"Horse Feathers," in coming up with their own "I'm Against It"?
Also, straight-man Zeppo is funnier than you think, if you
watch closely.
* * *
MILLION DOLLAR BABY: Even better on second viewing. The movie
is almost sadder in the first half, when we watch the Hilary
Swank character in poverty, than in the second. And it kills
me the way she looks at her beloved speed bag as if it were a
juicy porterhouse.
* * *
ZOOLANDER: Surprisingly funny.
* * *
THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN: Surprisingly unfunny. Smart
concept, though.
* * *
MIAMI VICE: Excellent popcorn action flick. Seductive vision
of the Caribbean as a place where you can boat into Havana for
lunch from the Keys.
* * *
ABOUT SCHMIDT: Repeated viewing shows it's one of the best
films of the Oughties -- and Alexander Payne's career high
("Sideways" is way overrated; why is there is no joyful sense
of wining in a movie about wining?). Every one of "Schmidt"'s
deleted scenes is worth watching, even if I can see why Payne
deleted them. And there is no better recent evocation of
middle-aged middle America on film than the "Ahoy!" sequence.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 27, 2007
I've adored Patti Smith and her poetry and music since I was a
teenager, ever since I heard her sing, "My sins, my own/they
belong to me." And one of the great things about her is
she continues to grow, this time through an album of cover songs,
"Twelve," in which she makes the songs of others thoroughly
her own.
This morning on CBS's "The Morning Show," broadcasting from
Cleveland, Smith was in good humor and fine form, performing
(among other things) Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule
the World" in a way that made me hear the song anew. And, best
of all, she also drolly slipped in a reference to "This is
Spinal Tap" ("Hello, Cleveland!"). She's on tour now, and here's
hoping she includes a Bay Area show.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 23, 2007
Notes on the Duuude Debate!
he was askin' the questions
The format of presenting questions
through videos simply didn't work
at today's CNN/YouTube Democratic
presidential debate. Too self-conscious,
too focused on the questioners and on
the process of questioning
rather than on the candidates.
This debate should forever be known as the "Duuuude Debate"
because many questioners sounded a bit like Spicoli in
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (above), as they'd ask knowingly
inarticulate questions along the lines of "Duude, how r u
gonna go 'bout changin' things?" And then the candidate,
of course, would answer like a pre-recorded tape.
The debate also sometimes sounded like the famous
interchange between Travis Bickle and Sen. Charles Palantine
in a cab in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."
Look, I love lively, but this was the wrong kind of lively.
Remember: being "creative" is never the goal; being effectively
creative is always the goal.
Fresh questions that don't provoke fresh answers are virtually useless
in a debate or an interview.
A few other observations:
-- Edwards, you had your day in '04, the people
did not choose ya, you're at 12% in the latest
major national poll, and yeah I know you think
you're gonna pull a Kerry-style resurrection
in Des Moines in January, and you probably have your
"comeback kid" speech all planned for
after the caucus, but I'll let you in on
a secret: the electricity is gone, the thrill
has shifted to Obama, the momentum to Hillary, and
you will not be nominee.
-- Hillary's tone and approach have vastly improved
so that she now sounds forceful instead
of shrill. Keep it up.
-- Obama seems to be trying a more naturalistic and
conversational style, and it works nicely.
-- Biden is strong but he ain't catchin' on.
-- Gravel continues to do his Howard Beale imitation.
-- Hey, at least a jack-ass like Nancy Grace didn't moderate!
-- And the dark horse of the night: Chuck Hagel.
Clinton/Hagel...what a concept.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- You want an unconventional or "creative" idea for
the next debate? Make a hard rule: candidates cannot
say anything they've already said in a public speech or
during a previous debate. And make sure that happens
by asking candidates questions on completely unpredictable
topics: the difference between chess and checkers,
could D-Day have been better handled with greater
reliance on air power, could you speak two sentences
in a foreign language, etc.
And then the best question of them all: announce over
the p.a. speakers, in all seriousness, that there
has been a bomb threat to the auditorium at which
the debate is being held and all the candidates
most evacuate immediately (this would only be feasible
if there were no audience at the event). And then
we could really see, in real time, which candidates
handle the crisis best and which don't.
Then, and only then, could we get a real measure of
each candidates's intelligence level and ability to
think on his or her feet and ability to think in novel
ways, instead of just creating a forum at which we can
see how well they repeat lines and zingers they've memorized.
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 23, 2007
A couple passings to note:
I never got to meet Doug Marlette, who died a couple weeks
ago at age 57, but came to know his work during the period when
I contributed a few pieces to New York Newsday when he was
at New York Newsday. I've always admired his cartoons, particularly
his courage in taking on religious issues (and he had a lotta heart;
see above cartoon).
And on the Bay Area landscape, it was also quite a shock to
learn that KGO anchor Pete Wilson died, at 62, during routine
hip replacement surgery a few days ago. He was a surprisingly
effective broadcaster, who made cantankerous seem downright
amiable; most recently he had been paired for the 6pm newscast
with rising star Carolyn Johnson (see Daily Digression for
February 24), and it was a classic match-up: Wilson was like
black coffee, no sugar, and Johnson is like some deeply
irresistible cappuccino. Terrific contrast (though I must say
I almost never agreed with Wilson's commentary).
My condolences to the loved ones and colleagues of both Marlette and
Wilson.
Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 21, 2007
How the Iraq War Will Really End
It doesn't take a lot of foresight to see what
the next chess moves will probably be in
foreign policy.
As I noted in my column of July 9 (see below), Musharraf
will likely be deposed, either legitimately or
through assassination, in the next several months
and will be replaced by someone with Taliban
sympathies, who will then, of course, have control
of the Pakistan's nuclear arsneal.
Depending on how belligerent the new regime is,
we will probably, with a multi-national force that
this time includes India, Britain and a few others,
have to use air strikes to try to
remove the new government, while piggybacking on
the Taliban's natural domestic adversaries in
ground operations -- and we'd have to
do it while the regime is still fragile,
before it becomes entrenched.
Problem is, from the moment of the coup,
any new government would be exceptionally
difficult to displace, because it would be
an insta-nuclear power. So we'd have
to intervene while the coup is ongoing.
Eventually, we'd have to rapidly redeploy troops
out of Iraq to the India-Pakistan and the
Afghanistan-Pakistan borders. And with our Pakistan
intervention now pre-empting news about the low grade
civil war in Iraq, people would soon wonder: we could
have done this all along, we could've been out of Iraq
long ago!
There we were, wringing out hands, pulling all-nighters,
getting ulcers about how to solve the unsolvable war in
Iraq, and suddenly, as quick as a nuclear flash, we're out,
and nobody is paying attention anymore to the 17 dead
from a truckbomb in Kirkuk or 23 injured in the Green
Zone.
Because the stakes would be exponentially higher
in Pakistan after a coup, what with the possibility
of millions dying from, say, a nuclear strike
on Mumbai.
News about Iraq would suddenly be consigned to page A17,
and the front pages of almost every newspaper would be
solely devoted to the Pakistan conflict. And we'd see that
even though we're no longer in Iraq, al-Maliki still keeps
a tenuous hold on power, and there is still a steady but
unspectacular stream of blood in the streets everyday.
An analogy: ever notice that whenever there's a Katrina or 9/11
level catastrophe, the front pages of newspapers report no other
news? Yet if that big event had not happened, there would be maybe
a dozen urgent front page stories that everybody is taking very
seriously.
I always wonder during a Big Story: where does all the displaced
news goes when it rains catastrophe?
And that will probably be the same situation with news about
Iraq after Pakistan eclipses it. People will forget that
several months earlier everyone was saying how we'd
be in Iraq forever. And here we are suddenly out,
and there's not a whole lot more violence in
Iraq than there was when we were there.
So it's possible that the Iraq war will end when we
redeploy to Pakistan. And if that happens, we'll be
saying things like: it's astonishing now to think that
it was always in our power to load up the boats and planes
and leave Iraq. And we'll think: it turns out there
was no obstacle to withdrawal -- except overthinking.
And even if al-Maliki is overthrown by a Baathist after such an
abrupt U.S. departure, the new regime in Baghdad would be
weak and harmless (and nukeless, too). Iraq, as we discovered
after we invaded it in '03, posed no threat to us at all;
it was broke and broken by years of sanctions and isolation
-- and that was before the war, which has further degraded the
country's infrastructure and military. Even if Saddam's allies
were to re-take power, we could control the new regime the
way we should have handled Saddam: with sanctions and
occasional air strikes.
Meanwhile, a coup in Pakistan would draw in many factions and
nations in the region in unpredictable ways -- factions ranging
from K-and-L militants to Hindus and others at odds with the
Taliban (who might become our de facto surrogates in battle,
a la the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in '01).
And "multi-lateralism" this time might mean relying on
Pratibha Patil more than Gordon Brown, with the
first flashpoint being Kashmir, all politics
being local, after all.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 16, 2007
Prince -- and Sly and the Family Stone -- Live at
Radio City Music Hall? Dream On.
Just got around to reading the marvelous story in
Vanity Fair by David Kamp about Sly Stone, who
memorably says of his mohawk: "Most of it is growing
under the skin."
Meanwhile, Sly Stone and his trumpet player from the
Family Stone (among others) played for fifteen
minutes in San Jose earlier this month, and all reports
call it disappointing.
Here's an idea. Prince and a reunited Sly and the Family
Stone team up for a brief North American tour at venues
like Radio City Music Hall (with both sharing Larry Graham!).
My guess is -- and I haven't investigated this -- is that
Sly played that B-list venue in San Jose on a bill with
has-beens in a show promoted by a novice because major
promoters and venues wouldn't take a chance on his not
showing up for the gig.
But if he were to tour with Prince, Prince could simply
play a longer set if Sly didn't show (and what fan would
feel cheated by a concert in which Prince played longer?).
Just a thought.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 9, 2007
Sunday's New York Times editorial calling for U.S. withdrawal
from Iraq was bold -- and also correct, now that we've seen
the trajectory of the administration's strategy.
What are the worst case scenarios for withdrawal? Here
are my thoughts:
1) The Baathists retake power.
At this point, having the Baathists or another Sunni
faction back in power wouldn't be worse than having
a Shi'a leader allied with Iran.
* * *
2) Rwanda-like genocide breaks out.
If there is genocide, we could control it with targeted
airstrikes and by arming the victims -- but our intervention
would have to come at the invitation of the victims.
* * *
3) A leader affiliated with al-Qaeda takes over.
Before we withdraw, we would make it clear to the world
community that that is the one thing that would trigger our
unilateral re-engagement in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq should be
treated like the nazi party in Germany after '45: verboten.
But if it were to take power there, the regime would likely
be weak and besieged, and we could probably take it out
with air power.
Bush can give an address to the nation without losing face by
saying the following:
"My fellow Americans, four-and-a-half years ago we
set out to depose Saddam Hussein. We accomplished
that, tried him, executed him, and we have helped
to establish a new regime in Iraq. Now it is up to
the Iraqis to take it from here. If the Iraqis
choose al-Maliki, they will have al-Maliki. If they
choose civil war, they will have civil war. We Americans
chose civil war for ourselves in the 19th century,
and no foreign power interceded and said we couldn't
work out our differences that way. And we should
learn that lesson from history. So I'm proud to say
that we have fulfilled our missions and obligations
in Iraq and will now begin our redeployment."
Meanwhile, our anxiety should be centered on Pakistan, not Iraq.
Iraq is soo '03. Pakistan may soon become soo '08.
Just last week there was yet another assassination attempt on
Musharraf. How long do you think it will be before one of the
assassins succeeds?
And if Musharraf is assassinated, and we should all hope
he isn't, but if he is, Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal would
likely fall into the hands of the Taliban and its al Qaeda
buddies. And that is more horrifying and unacceptable than
anything currently happening in North Korea, Iran or Iraq.
A Taliban-run Pakistan with nukes is only one simple chess move away.
And it would be hard to see how the U.S. could avoid some
level of involvement in Pakistan if that were to happen.
It's like that scene in the movie "Jaws": everybody on the
crowded beach mistakenly thinks they see a shark in the open ocean,
and there is a stampede and panic as everyone frantically swims
to shore. Then, as things calm, a lone voice shouts, "The pond,
the pond," warning everyone the shark is actually in the more
remote pond, which nobody had been paying much attention to.
And that seems to be what's happening now: everyone's looking at
Iraq and nobody is watching Pakistan, where the real danger lies.
------------------------------
Cindy Sheehan does not belong anywhere near the U.S. House of
Representatives but rather under the care of a psychiatrist who
specializes in delusional thought disorders. Or at least
she acts that way.
Her opinions on the tragedy of 9/11 -- she's mentally impaired
enough to have called it a "controlled demolition" -- put her
in the same league as people who believe the moonwalks
were staged and that the holocaust was a fabrication. In
other words, she's a nut.
And further, she's not even a San Francisco resident yet she's
considering a House seat in that district. My advice to her:
go back to Vallejo. Or, better yet, to Crawford.
If I didn't know better, I'd think she's a shrill Bush plant
posing as an anti-war protester with the intention of
embarrassing the Democrats (how's that for a Cindy-like
conspiracy theory?).
* * *
Notes on the continuing lay-offs at the San Francisco Chronicle:
They're firing some good journalists -- so why are they keeping
plagiarist Ed Guthmann and fraud David Wiegand? Probable reason
they haven't fired Guthmann/Wiegand yet: they know too much. They
know that several Chron editors and reporters have screwed up as
badly as they have (and worse), and management fears they might
spill the beans if they're sacked. (Proof of their transgressions at
www.resumesidenotes.blogspot.com.)
To those who are laid off at the SF Chronicle and have an unresolved
complaint about editorial malfeasance there and want to blow
the whistle, here's some advice:
1) Don't bring up your complaint to Chron management after
you leave. They may merely try to find a way to turn the
accusation back on you -- and don't think
they're above tampering with evidence in order to save their
jobs.
2) Blow the whistle to a media reporter outside the company.
3) Remember: when the Chron investigates itself, it tends
to give itself a clean bill of health.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 8, 2007
My impressions of the LiveEarth concerts (or rather,
the parts I saw on TV and online):
-- The Foo Fighters turned in the
best performance that I saw, with
a particularly strong "Times Like
These," which Dave Grohl dedicated
to Al Gore.
-- Gore himself was in good humor; "I'm 59 years old -- that's the
new 58, you know," he told Ann Curry on the NBC broadcast of
concert excerpts.
-- Shakira is almost illegally hot.
-- Surprisingly compelling performance by Alicia Keys (now I
understand why she ended up with pop's highest honor: being
mentioned in a Bob Dylan song!).
-- Madonna is still an exciting performer.
-- Glad to see that Marty DiBurghi showed up to intro "the most
punctual band on Earth," Spinal Tap.
-- The Beastie Boys, entertaining as usual.
-- Buying some Compact Fluorescents is on my to-do list today.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Dave Grohl from spin.com.]
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 5, 2007
Duck Soup Diplomacy
The escalation of the Iraq war reminds me
of the famous joke in the Marx Brothers'
movie "Duck Soup."
"I'm willing to do anything to prevent this
war," says the Sylvanian ambassador.
"It's too late," replies Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho
Marx), the new leader of Freedonia. "I've
already paid a month's rent on the battlefield."
Which sort of sums up the situation in Washington; the
Congress, with a mandate from voters to stop the war
asap, tries to stop the war asap but finds the
administration has already authorized a "surge."
Meanwhile, in Iraq, there is the nauseating possibility
of an unholy alliance between Iran and whatever Shi'a regime
ultimately takes hold for the long-term in Baghdad. In
ten years, the two countries might well become Shi'a East
and Shi'a West and we'll be pining for the long-ago
good o'l days of Saddam Hussein, who, for all his
considerable flaws, could at least be counted on to
shun most Islamic conservatives.
And Ahmadinejad and Khamenei aren't getting any more
progressive either. A recent human rights report from
Amnesty International is packed with examples of unspeakable
torture and oppression in Iran (including the execution
and torture of children under 18, eye-gouging as a formal
punishment, etc.).
And some of the punishment is for minor offenses. Just this
week a court in Iran sentenced a woman to around three years
in prison and ten lashes for merely going to a political rally.
Maybe it's Ahmadinejad who is actually Rufus T. Firefly.
Firefly, after all, was a hardliner ("give him ten years
in Leavenworth and eleven years in Twelveworth") who, upon
taking charge of Freedonia, laid down the law: "These are
the laws of my administration; no one's allowed to smoke or
tell a dirty joke, and whistling is forbidden....If chewing
gum is chewed, the chewer is pursued...If any pleasure is
exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited."
Ahmadinejad may look a bit slow and stupid but don't
let that throw you. As Firefly said of Chicolini: "Gentlemen,
he may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, but don't
let that fool you: he really is an idiot."
I'm starting to think that everything you need to know about foreign
policy can be learned by watching "Duck Soup."
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- While I'm on the subject of vintage flicks, I was
watching Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" the other night
and marveling at the courage it took to make the film in
pre-war, isolationist America.
And it got me to thinking that perhaps now is the time for
Hollywood to make a similarly brave satire about Osama
bin Laden. After all, he's a de facto dictator, a stateless
despot, the one who forces us to remove our shoes at airports,
the one who has redesigned the Manhattan skyline, the one
who (with others) tells us which editorial cartoons we can
and cannot publish, the one who has decimated our airline
industry, and on and on.
It's time satirists took him on on the big screen. And let's
hope that a fear of bomb threats at theaters that might
show such a film won't deter film makers from making such a film.
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 3, 2007
No, it doesn't surprise me to see Mohammed Asha and
Bilal Abdulla, two physicians, in the ranks of the
jidhadists. They fit the profile, or one of the profiles.
Lots of jidhadists have been rich or affluent
Islamic right wingers. Even the mujahideen of
Afghanistan in the 1980s, fighting what both Reagan and his
ally bin Laden called the "godless Soviets," were essentially
the reactionary plantation owners of the region.
And bin Laden himself is wealthier than most of
us will ever be (and he made most of his money the
American way: he inherited it).
Islamic militant movements have always been partly
populated by rich kid fanatics.
The root of jihadism, give or take an Adam Gadahn,
is early indoctrination. At ages 4, 5 and 6, in the madrasa
schools and like institutions, children are brainwashed
and hardwired to learn only one thing: the Koran is the
absolute truth and anyone who doesn't believe what they
believe should die.
That's quite a singular syllabus for elementary school kids.
After such an early miseducation, such a person is not
just intellectually damaged but becomes a ticking time
bomb, wired to explode against non-believers later in life.
Hence, a person could have a Ph.D. from Harvard and Princeton
and still not be educated -- if the education doesn't
take or if the person resists the education. As an analogy,
a kid could wear braces on his teeth for years and still not
have straight teeth if he doesn't wear his retainer or resists
the orthodontist's advice.
If someone graduates from Harvard but still believes in, say,
voodoo, then you can reasonably conclude that that Harvard grad
is not an educated person (unless, of course, he or she
approaches voodoo from a fresh, original angle that is
not merely faith-based). In fact, I wouldn't need to
know anything else about his background to dismiss
his credentials.
Asha and Abdulla were well trained, but their education
was probably overruled by early religious indoctrination,
which they likely hadn't been able to shake as adults.
Jihadism will not be defeated until the madrasa is.
School kids in Pakistan and elsewhere must be taught
philosophical points of view other than just the Koran.
My education in America and in Europe included studying the Old
Testament, Nietzsche, Kierkengaard -- and the Koran, among much
else, as well as visits to both the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle in
Istanbul (where Mohammed's hair and teeth are on display) and
to the Vatican (not to mention the cave in Crete where Zeus was
supposedly born). In other words, my education included all
points of view. The fundamentalist Muslim's education does
not include any but its own, and that fosters absolutism that
leads to jihadist violence.
Asha's stated reason for wanting to kill innocent people
was: "after you insulted our prophet, we shall not forgive
you" -- apparently referring to the Jyllands-Posten's courageous
publication of cartoons of Mohammed.
To which I say: boo hoo. Let me get this straight:
the delicate sensitivities of this would-be murderer were
so offended by a little cartoon that he decided
to kill a bunch of strangers.
You have the right to be offended -- nobody is denying you
that. But you don't have the right to get violent because
you're offended.
What guys like Asha also don't understand is they don't own
Mohammed. To me, he is a figure from history, not a religious
icon, and I reserve the right to write about him any way I
choose. (By the way, here is the Jyllands-Posten drawing that so
offended Asha and his fellow fundamentalists:)
I heard some imbecile on ABC's "Nightline"
last night say that militants didn't
fly planes into the World Trade Center
for no reason. That's like saying that
Charles Manson or Seung-Hui Cho didn't
murder all those good people for no reason.
They had a "reason" but they had no good reason.
What that person doesn't get is that the hijackers's "reasons" were
delusional (they actually thought they were going to be met in
paradise by virgins) and their militancy was the result of
an early indoctrination that they couldn't overcome in adulthood.
Eradicating Islamic militancy starts with eradicating the
early brainwashing that takes place at the madrasa.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Investigators should start looking into the work record of
doctors Asha and Abdullah to see whether there were any suspicious
deaths of patients in their care at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in
Paisley. If they were willing to kill outside their hospitals,
they were probably willing to kill inside, too.
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 1, 2007
"We're gonna rip 'em up and light up the
night," Alison Krauss sang last night in
Berkeley, Calif., and she and
Union Station did just that, lighting
up the Bay Area (or at least the Greek Theatre!) with a
marvelous set of folk, bluegrass and country. Highlights
included "Oh, Atlanta," "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"
and encore "When You Say Nothing At All."
And Union Station dobroist Jerry Douglas turned Duane
Allman's "Little Martha" into a thing of real beauty
(or a thing of greater beauty than it already was).
I'd love to hear him cover Cowboy's "Please Be With Me."
Douglas, the solo performer, first came to my attention
when he opened for Paul Simon last year at the Greek (same
venue as this show). That same weekend, he also played
at one of the best regular pop music festivals around: the
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park.
For the uninitiated, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest is
an annual three-day concert in the park that features
dozens and dozens of amazing performers in many genres
(not just bluegrass) -- and it's completely free of charge!
And it's free solely because the festival's founder and mastermind,
Warren Hellman (known as St. Warren around San Fran!), funds
it -- with no strings attached.
Because of Hellman, Golden Gate Park turns into a musical
feast on the first weekend of October every year; walk to the left
and see Hot Tuna; walk to the right and see Richard Thompson;
two blocks over there is Iris Dement.
The star of last year's Strictly Bluegrass was, without question,
Elvis Costello, who performed on all three days (his Coward Brothers
show with T Bone Burnett was a classic).
This year's Strictly Bluegrass is scheduled for October 5, 6 and 7,
and let's hope Costello plays the fest again (and can somebody
persuade him and Nick Lowe to do an acoustic set?). Other humble
suggestions: Marti Jones and Don Dixon would be perfect for the
festival (and so would Marshall Crenshaw).
_______________________________
Sen. Patrick Leahy confirmed to Tim Russert this morning
that, yes, he's going to appear in the next Batman movie, "The Dark
Knight," scheduled for release next year. (Hope he routs the bad
guys, as he does in real life.)
Meanwhile, I'd like to see his Vermont colleague, Sen. Bernie
Sanders, formally release a CD of his folk music, which is
pretty lively stuff, by the way (I did a story on his folk album
in 1989 when he was still mayor of Burlington, and I remember
enjoying some of it).
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Alison Krauss from yottamusic.com; photographer unknown.]
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 30, 2007
Rosie The Riveting
Rosie O'Donnell appeared in Berkeley, Calif.,
last night, as part of the Cyndi Lauper/
Erasure/Deborah Harry concert
(dubbed the "True Colors" tour),
and did she ever unload on Donald Trump and Larry King.
"[Trump] went crazy," Rosie began. "You know, I basically
said, 'Pay no attention to the man behind the combover.'
And he went on every show in the free world, you know.
He was on 'Sesame Street': [she imitates Trump's gruff tone]
'She's fat and she's gay.' 'Home Shopping Club':
[gruff tone again] 'Fat and gay, she's gay and fat.
She's a fat gay, fat gay, gay fat, fat gay.' And he's
got that little mouth that looks like an anus. You ever
notice?"
The audience exploded with laughter and applause. But Rosie
wasn't near finished.
"[Trump] was on 'Larry King,'" she continued. "And let me
just say: Larry King...is turning into an amphibian before our
very eyes....He's anorexic first of all. He's so thin that
those suspenders are hanging on the bones of his shoulders,
you know. He looks like a human Pez dispenser. Think about
that. If you pulled his head back, the Pez would drop right
out of his mouth. And then he should eat it because, basically,
the guy looks hungry."
Again, the crowd ate it up.
Rosie's appearance was part of a night of music, comedy (a
very funny Margaret Cho) and political activism in
support of a variety of gay-rights issues.
Lauper headlined, performing an enjoyable set of new songs,
oldies and re-made oldies (most notably a re-worked "She Bop"
that seems to have been influenced by Radiohead's
"There There").
Preceding her was Erasure, who drew intense crowd response.
But then, Erasure fans have always been unusually fanatical.
As a magazine reporter, I covered Erasure from the moment their
debut album, "Wonderland," was released. Writing in the March
29, 1986, issue of the music trade magazine Cash Box, shortly
after the release of its debut album, I praised "Wonderland"
and wrote: "Reserve one of the top ten chart slots, please."
Of course, it would take years before Erasure hit the top
ten in America (acceptance in the U.K. came more quickly),
though it always had an uncommonly intense cult following.
When I saw the band perform on May 15, 1987, at the Ritz
in New York City, I wrote in my review for Cash Box, in
the May 30, 1987, issue: "It looked as if Eric Clapton
or Sting were playing here May 15, judging from the
long lines outside and the sardined throngs inside
the club. But onstage was Erasure...performing the
first of two sold-out shows in support of its recently
released second album, 'The Circus.'"
I remember leaving that '87 show and seeing a crowd that
was completely electric and jazzed (I saw one guy jump
on top of a car and pump his fists as if he had just been
liberated from a prison).
Two decades later, Erasure's audence is just as adoring as
it was in the 1980s. By applause-o-meter standards, they
were cheered at least as loudly as anyone else on the bill,
according to my perch in the hills above the Greek Theatre.
Also on the bill was the Dresden Dolls, who played
"Coin Operated Boy," which sounds like a new wave hit
from the heyday of Stiff. They also performed what was
probably the most inspired musical piece of the night, a cover
of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" that ingeniously transcribed
the guitar parts for piano and turned it into a work of
unexpected delicacy.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Rosie O'Donnell from New York magazine; photographer unknown.]
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 29, 2007
The Real Swing Vote in Yesterday's Supreme Court Decision
Everybody is saying Justice Anthony Kennedy
was the swing vote in yesterday's awful decision
by the U.S. Supreme Court to resegregate
America. But the real swing vote was actually...Ralph
Nader, and I'm gonna take this moment right now to rub
it in and to say I-told-ya-so.
Because I remember those discussions in the fall of 2000
with Nader supporters who said it doesn't matter who is
elected president, it's tweedle-dee versus tweedle-dum,
yada yada yada. And I remember telling them, but
the Supreme Court hangs in the balance; you may not
agree with Al Gore on everything but at least he will
preserve the progressivism of the Court. And I remember
that they didn't listen to me.
In 2000, Nader supporters apparently had had too
much cake after eight years of Bill Clinton,
had started to take progressive policies and court
decisions for granted and couldn't imagine a time
of drought for liberals.
So they voted Nader, when they could've swung the election
to Gore, who'd just now be finishing his second term,
and we can see the result: a Court that is rolling
back nearly every major judicial advance of the past 50 years.
Yes, we are returning to the early Fifties and will now be
relearning, the hard way, why we came to our progressive
policies about integration and abortion in the first place.
Get ready in coming years for a return to more extreme
racial alienation, more extreme income disparity between blacks
and whites and -- by the next decade -- a return to the sorts of
race riots that we saw in the 1960s. Which will then force us
to relearn the lessons that we've since forgotten: that separate
is inherently unequal, and integration is the only remedy for
that inequality.
Chief Justice John Roberts has turned out to be almost as
hard right wing as Scalia or Thomas. In his confirmation hearings,
he said he'd respect bedrock precedent like Brown and Roe.
He hasn't. He implied he'd be a moderate swing vote in the
manner of Sandra Day O'Connor. He hasn't been.
Roberts, with a winning Reaganesque style and a quip for
every occasion, charmed his way through the Congressional
confirmation hearings in 2005. "Take my civil liberties, please,"
Roberts essentially joked, and the Senate club of
millionaires laughed and passed around the jelly beans as
they made him Chief Justice. Pundits talked about how
important it was to get along with colleagues, as if that
was the highest good.
Three lessons:
1) Nice is not enough in a nominee.
2) If 87-year-old John Paul Stevens retires before a Democratic
president can be elected, Congress should filibuster every Bush
Court nominee until late January 2009.
3) If Ralph Nader dares to appear in any electoral
contest again, even if he's just running for the city council,
voters should organize a boycott of any company
that contributes to his campaign.
Me, I'm considering buying a Corvair.
____________________________________
I've only seen clips of Michael Moore's "Sicko" on
YouTube and elsewhere so far, but what I've seen
hits the bullseye. I'm also reading reviews of
"Sicko" by film critics who are well-insured and affluent. Is
that a conflict-of-interest? Maybe newspapers should hire
uninsured freelancers to review it in order to provide
balance.
_______________________________
Nice interview with Paul Simon on "Charlie Rose" last night,
which reminded me that I should have included Simon in my
column of June 7th when I noted songwriters of the rock era who
ranked with Porter, Berlin and the Gershwins.
By the way, the big surprise of Simon's "Surprise" tour
last year was how some of the songs from his latest
album came alive in concert, particularly "Outrageous"
and "Father and Daughter." But what really knocked me
and lots of others out was the deep catalogue
"The Only Living Boy in New York"; until I heard him perform
it in Berkeley last year, I'd never realized, or had forgotten,
what a terrific song that is, with one of the great bridges
of folk-rock ("Half of the time we're gone but we don't know
where").
______________________________________
I once worked with a senior newspaper editor
in San Francisco who, well, let's put it this way:
he was good enough, he was smart enough, and doggone
it, people liked him!
Yes, he was a Stuart Smalley, one of those iyamwhatiyam
types, bursting with platitudes and always just
one inch short of saying iknowyouarebutwhatami (and he was
not originally from San Francisco, by the way, but from
the sticks).
Still smarting from some long-ago wedgie, he sits in
front of the mirror in late middle-age for his
Affirmation, practicing what he'll say to his bosses
when they inevitably decide to lay him off, which is that he's
good enough, he's smart enough -- well, you get the picture.
The sort of mediocrity who actually loves Charles Nelson Reilly,
puppet shows and mime, and calls Mozart's "Don Giovanni"
"Don Juan."
But I digress.
No doubt about it, Al Franken created an immediately recognizable
American archetype in Smalley, but his latest project is very
serious business. As everyone knows, Franken is running for the
U.S. Senate from Minnesota, in a race that may well determine the
balance of power on the Hill next year. And as things stand
now, he is probably the Democrats' best hope to unseat
Norm Coleman.
Democrats who underestimate Franken and are thinking of
defecting to attorney Mike Ciresi should remember that
Franken has a secret weapon that the other candidates don't:
the ability to win debates. Though Franken is currently polling
20 points behind Coleman (so is Ciresi), I bet the polls even-up
after the first debate.
And then Minnesota voters will see that Franken is good enough,
he's smart enough and -- well, you get the point.
__________________________________________
satire
Secretly recorded steamy bedroom conversation between secret
lovers Ann Coulter and Osama bin Laden
COULTER: Oh, bin, I love fundamentalist wood.
BIN LADEN: I disrobe only for god-fearing women like you.
COULTER: Do it, bin, like a believer! Hijack me.
BIN LADEN: Your body, so unlike the infidels'.
COULTER: Your cock is so unlike an atheist's.
BIN LADEN: My penis may be small, but it's a
faithful believer's penis.
COULTER: Bin, your beard is so wet and gooey from going down
on me.
BIN LADEN: You taste like a woman of faith.
COULTER: I like a penis that leans to the right.
BIN LADEN: Hard right!
[And they both laugh heartily!]
More hot chat from That Fundamentalist Duo in future columns.
But I digress. Paul
[picture of Ralph Nader by unknown photographer]
______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 24, 2007
Norah Jones and M. Ward did a fun duet of John Fogerty's
"Green River" on Saturday night in Berkeley, Calif. (I didn't
have time to hear the whole show, unfortunately). Jones got
lots of applause for her new protest song, "My Dear Country,"
particularly the line, "There is nothing as scary as election
day." Live, "Sinkin' Soon" was the most musically engaging
of the songs from her latest album, "Not Too Late," released
earlier this year. And her stage patter was surprisingly
droll: "I can't whistle," she confessed after "Little Room."
"I can whistle inhaling. But it's weird; you just keep
exhaling!"
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 23, 2007
The latest pop phenom to erupt from MySpace into the music biz
proper is So-Cal's Colbie Caillat,
a 21-year-old singer-songwriter
whose MySpace page has become so
popular that she's now
signed with Universal Republic,
which will release her debut album, "Coco,"
next month.
Caillat performed in Berkeley last night at the Greek Theatre
(I heard her in the hills above the theatre), backed by
a four-piece band and playing seven songs. The catchiest
was "Bubbly," the original that got everyone interested
in her in the first place. Elsewhere, she mixed folk and
soul and pop and even tried some reggae ("Tied Down"), coming
across as both genuine and genuinely surprised at her
sudden success (she was the opening act for the Goo Goo Dolls,
who I couldn't stay to hear).
Maybe the founders of MySpace should consider founding
a label of their own, recording only artists who've posted
MP3's on MySpace.
------------------------------
Congrats to Barry Bonds for number 749! Seven more, and he'll
break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record.
And if he breaks the record, he should he given the same
level of respect and adulation that Aaron and
Babe Ruth were accorded when they topped the field.
As I said in my column of June 14th (in a line that has since
been repeated by others who have not properly attributed
it to me): Should Babe Ruth's home run record have an asterisk
next to it noting that he played baseball in an era of unfair
competition that excluded African-American players?
Should The Beatles have their Grammy rescinded because
they composed parts of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band" on pot and other drugs?
Of course not. And it is essentially the same thing.
In response, someone might say: well, marijuana does not necssarily
enhance one's composing ability.
To which I'd say: well, steroids don't guarantee that someone
will hit home runs, either. There are a lot of mediocre batters
who have done steroids and have not excelled on the diamond.
In fact, I could inject steroids from now until the new year
and would probably not hit any or many home runs, if I were put
in a Giants uniform. (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument,
that Bonds did in fact intentionally use 'roids, a charge he has
denied.)
So I don't quite see eye-to-eye with the two S.F. Chronicle
reporters who piled plodding detail onto plodding detail in the
service of an insignificant story that should never have been prominently
reported to begin with. Someone should've reminded them that Bonds
is an entertainer, not a cabinet official, and they weren't starring
in "All the President's Men."
But that doesn't surprise me; I worked with editors at the Chron,
and some of 'em were talented but some of 'em missed the ball by
feet, not inches, in terms of editing and reporting.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Colbie Caillat from MySpace.]
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 20, 2007
Cannot confirm the authenticity of these photos, but here they are:
bin Laden, in a recent disguise.___________________________
a rare shot of the 9/11 hijackers at an al Qaeda training camp.______________________________
mohammed has come back to life, sporting a new look
_________________________________________________
Bravo to Britain for giving a Knighthood to novelist
Salman Rushde, who richly deserves every honor
he's received. And all those people
from the 12th century who object
should get used to addressing him as
Sir Salman Rushdie. (Meanwhile,
Pakistan's Ijaz ul-Haq, with his out-of-line
response, provides the world with a vivid glimpse
of idiocy in its purest form.)
Live from the 12th century, it's Ijaz ul-Haq (The-One-With-the-Asymmetrical-Mustache!)
By the way, last night I tried a little experiment
to see whether I could use author William
Burroughs's so-called cut-up method to
combine passages from both The Koran
and The Old Testament into one poem. I
took The Koran's "The Holy Prophet" and
randomly mixed it with the Old Testament's
"Book of Malachi" and then edited the result.
The result of the fusion is this poem, comprised
solely of text from The Koran and The Old Testament,
which I've titled:
Randomly Combining The Koran and The Old Testament
I will corrupt your seed
Your breast will become straighted by it
Because they say, why hasn't a treasure been sent down upon him
Most surely he is exulting, boasting
The law of truth was in his mouth
This is nothing but clear magic
And if we make him taste a favor after distress has afflicted him
He will certainly say, "The evils are gone"
Spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts
Warner, the curse of Allah is on the unjust
The punishment shall be doubled for them
Oh ye priests, this commandment is for you
-----------------------------
MEMO
To: All those covering Prince William, Prince Harry and the late Diane
Spencer
Please let me know what notable novel, poem, article, song, film,
sculpture, painting, photograph, political cause or business innovation
that any of the three has been primarily responsible for.
If you can't, then why are you covering them?
-------------------------
The 21 year old drinking age is in the news again,
which reminds me of a joke that circulated in my
dorm when I was an 18 year old college student.
It went like this:
Q: Guess what the drinking age is in the U.S.?
A: 21!
And everyone would always roar with laughter!
----------------------------
I'm a big admirer of ABC's George Stephanopoulos, though I
have to take issue with his statement on "World News"
the other night that American voters won't accept an
atheist candidate for national office. That may have
been the way it used to be, but we're entering an era
in which we're seeing the rise of a new generation of
Asian-American politicians, particularly in the western states,
who come from proud traditions that include Hinduism,
Buddhism, non-theistic spiritualism and non-traditional
spiritualism. And it's easy to imagine, say, a popular mayor of
San Francisco, who happens to be Asian-American and
non-theistic (in a city that is already almost half
Asian-American and counting), running for president
in the future.
In other words, the United States is finally starting to
resemble the rest of the world, which for the most part
doesn't accept theism.
My guess is that, by mid-century, being theistic or non-theistic
will not matter much in politics. It will become
a distinction as quaint and old-fashioned
as such terms as "pagan" and "heathen" are now.
Ten years ago, pundits would have said
that evidence of prior cocaine use would have
stopped a candidacy. But candidate Bush handled
such questions by saying, essentially, "none of your
business" -- and it worked. A similar response would
also probably work in answering questions about religion.
And I think the trend is moving sharply away from theism
as people become better educated and less rural -- and
also because, frankly, people are really getting
turned off by all the religious killers out there
(e.g., Mohamed Atta, Eric Rudolph, etc.). Those who look
to religion for moral guidance are beginning to see
that the holy rollers are among the least moral in our
number.
But I digress. Paul.
[pictures of Rushdie, "Mohammed," "bin Laden," and ul-Haq by unknown photographer.]
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 18, 2007
The next presidential debate -- the so-called YouTube/CNN debate --
will happen next month in South Carolina, and there's a good
chance the Democrats will, again, be asked whether
the confederate flag should fly on the statehouse grounds
in Columbia.
At the last presidential debate in South Carolina, almost all
the Democratic candidates answered with a resounding
take-the-flag-down -- and for good reason. The stars and
bars is a racist symbol, a relic of a shameful past.
The ongoing dispute about the flying of the confederate flag
is really just a symptom of a larger national fracture.
Let's face it, there are still some crackers who,
as unbelievable as it might seem, in their heart of hearts
secretly believe that the southeast had the right to own slaves
and that the federal government had no business telling them
otherwise.
Someone needs to go over there and tell 'em what time it is, as
the saying goes.
Such people have no grasp of the extreme human rights violation
that slavery was. And they have a view of labor that is not
just pre-union but virtually feudal.
I spent part of my youth in the southeast, after having been
born and partly schooled in Maine, and one thing that really offended
me was the disrespect of some rural southeasterners toward
Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president. And even today, there
still seems to be an unspoken regional animosity toward Lincoln.
The hidden "thinking" behind confederate flag supporters is
that their 19th century ancestors fought and died for the
confederate cause and therefore they feel they have to stick
up for the wrongheaded policies of their long-dead relatives.
To which I say: you ought to own up to the fact that your
distant relatives's support of slavery was a big flaw.
They may have been admirable in other ways, but their backing
of the confederacy was completely reprehensible. And they may
even have been courageous in battle -- but, alas, in the service
of a very flawed cause. Confederate sympathizers
are essentially immigrants who have not yet
assimilated into the American mainstream (the southeastern
accent is almost a linguistic secession).
There are middle-aged Germans today who say they love
their fathers but hate the fact that they fought for
the Third Reich in the 1940s. And that's exactly what the
ancestors of the confederacy should do today: admit, at
least to themselves, that their 19th century relatives,
whatever their virtues, were dead wrong about slavery.
Meanwhile, the next GOP presidential debate occurs in September
in Florida, which incidentally has a state flag that looks
way too much like the ol' stars-and-bars. Perhaps someone
should ask the candidates whether they think the Florida
flag should be redesigned to look a little less medieval.
* * *
NBC's Ron Mott should not be covering the case of the falsely
accused Duke students; he has shown bias from the beginning
of his reportage on the case all the way until this morning
on the "Today" show, when he narrated yet another slanted piece
(I usually don't do tutoring, Ron, but if you'd like, I
could walk you through your "Today" video piece and
show you exactly where you're showing bias).
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 14, 2007
I'm not moved in the least by Mike Nifong's tears,
because he's just playing to the cameras so he
can keep his law license. Disbarring Nifong
should be just the beginning of the penalty phase;
civil suits should follow. And the victims
should look into the legal feasibility of stripping
Nifong of his pension, which should be divided
amongst the three falsely accused.
Media coverage of the Nifong resignation has ranged
from the great (Charles Gibson's "World News") to
the abysmal (namely, Ron Mott's awful report
for "The NBC Nightly News," which showed Nifong in such a
sympathetic light at times that you'd think Mott (or someone
at NBC) worked for Nifong's PR firm; and Mott's cutaways from
Nifong to the falsely accused victims always seemed to show
the victims at their least endearing or most unattractive;
that's called propaganda, Ron -- and Brian
Williams knows a lot better than that).
--------------------------
Genarlow Wilson should be released from prison now
(see column item below). Finally, protesters are
mobilizing to have Wilson freed from prison,
where he remains because of the backward thinking
of Georgia's Attorney General, Thurbert Baker,
who appears well on his way to becoming the
Michael Nifong of state AGs. My suggestion to
demonstrators: I hear Baker has a place up on
Stone Mountain, so maybe that's where you should
stage your protests.
This is Thurbert Baker, the guy keeping Genarlow Wilson in prison. The best place to protest his decision is outside Baker's Stone Mountain house, where this elected official can hear what his constituents think about this case.
Genarlow Wilson, an innocent man who should be freed from prison._____________________________________
-- How refreshing to see Paul McCartney mandolin-ing his way
back to the top of the charts with his new album, "Memory
Almost Full," his strongest work in years. A couple of the
songs rank with the best songs released this year
(along with Conor Oberst's "Four Winds" and The Arcade Fire's
"Intervention" and Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good"
and the Shins's "Phantom Limb" and and those new Oakley
Hall songs that I don't know the names of yet!). [By the way,
The Arcade Fire takes great pains to introduce itself
as The Arcade Fire, not Arcade Fire, and if you
really think about it, there's a substantial difference;
you wouldn't say, "I saw Rolling Stones" -- you'd say,
"I saw The Rolling Stones." See the official website:
http://www.mergerecords.com/band.php?band_id=98.]
McCartney's solo stuff has been perennially underrated (hey,
"Another Day" was always a better song than "How Do You Sleep,"
by the way), but those who take the time to listen to his
post-Beatles oeuvre will find some unexpected gems that few
seem to know about (e.g., "Little Willow," "Wanderlust,"
"The Backseat of My Car," etc.). In fact, what an anthology
that would make: the best of McCartney's deep-catalogue solo
material.
By the way, check out the nice piece by Ben Ratliff in
tomorrow's (Friday's) New York Times about McCartney's
surprise gig at the Highline Ballroom in New York. Poignantly,
Macca mentioned John Lennon (who he met for the first time
50 years ago next month) and sang his homage to him
"Here Today," from the "Tug of War" album. To quote The Times:
“It’s good to play that song in the town John loved,” [McCartney]
said.
And I, and lots of others, share his profound sadness about the
absence of Lennon, who should still be around, who should still
be playing gigs, dropping "If I Fell" as an encore at MSG or
bringing McCartney onstage for "A Day in the Life" (can you imagine
what Lennon's solo shows would have been like?), or maybe rejoining
McCartney for a new group of collaborative songs. But all that
possibility was wiped out by a supreme stroke of tragic
bad luck (if Lennon had been caught in one of midtown's
notorious traffic jams that night, he might still be
around; life is that random; then again, that same
randomness also made his freakish level of success and
genius possible).
And New York was Lennon's town when he lived in it, or at least
the upper west side was. I lived on the upper west side, a few
blocks from Lennon's place, when he lived there, and there were
always stories by neighbors and shopkeepers of sightings on
West 72nd St., though I never saw or met him.
I remember one night on the upper west side that was
more memorable than the others. It was a Monday, and I
stepped out of my apartment on West 74th at around
10:40 p.m. for a late night cup of coffee before bed.
By the time I'd walked to the coffee shop, the women
behind the counter were talking frantically, and one
of them blurted out to me, "Someone shot John Lennon."
And I said something like, "Aw, c'mon," thinking she
was joking. And then another woman said, "John Lennon just
died at the Dakota."
It was just before 11pm on December 8, 1980,
and I suddenly forgot all about getting coffee and ran
frantically down Broadway toward 72nd street and then
started running non-stop toward Central Park West. And as I
got closer and closer, I could see the crowd at the end
of the street growing bigger and bigger. When I arrived --
it was around 11:10 -- someone said Yoko Ono had already
gone to Roosevelt Hospital, and the police were blocking the
crime scene, and people with tears and boomboxes started
playing Beatles songs and Lennon songs, and I stayed for
awhile, but I had to be at work at 9 the next morning. So
I walked home just before 1am, turned on WNEW, where DJ
Vin Scelsa was helping everyone through the night with Lennon
music and talk, went to bed and cried as if a favorite relative
had been killed. It was one of the saddest nights of my life up
to that point, though I'd never met Lennon.
[photo of Lennon's glasses from John-Lennon.net; unknown photographer]
__________________________________
-- Has anyone on YouTube compiled a tape of all those
chubby guys in "The Sopranos" hugging and kissing each other,
as they do several times in each episode? It's almost like
a tic. There must be at least four hundred instances in
the series.
__________________________________
-- Should Babe Ruth's home run record have an asterisk
next to it noting that he played baseball in an era of
unfair competition that excluded African-American players?
____________________________
-- Disbarring Michael Nifong is a wonderful idea, but why
hasn't the actual accuser, Crystal Mangum, been prosecuted
for filing a false police report and for whatever
other charge can be thrown at her? (If Paris Hilton had
falsely accused innocent guys of assault, she'd deserve
eight years in prison; but Paris should never have
been jailed for the slight offense she's now in jail
for, by the way.) But the legal system
remains more imperfect than it should be in the U.S.
(even the U.S. Supreme Court acts in an amateurish fashion
at times -- witness the Bush v. Gore case of '00).
_________________________________
All Politics is Loco
I once admired British prime minister Tony Blair, mostly before
the Iraq war, but his recent comments about the press are out
of line (he said the media is "a feral best, tearing people
and reputations to bits").
Before you get all pious, Tony, keep in mind that no member of
the press ever sent a teenager to Iraq to be quite literally torn
to bits by bombs and shells in an unnecessary war.
But I digress. Paul
[above pictures of Baker and Wilson by unknown photographers.]
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 12, 2007
The Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, Calif., almost
always has some new work that's memorable, and
the recent "fer-ma-ta" exhibit was no exception,
particularly the novel photos of Joe McKay.
The idea behind McKay's photos is that streetlights
and streetlight ornaments can look just like Hollywood's
version of UFOs -- if you erase the poles that they're
attached to. And that seems to be what McKay does in
photos like "UFO No. 3" (2007), which show how everyday
parking lot/street objects can actually look like
otherworldly phenomena. After seeing his pics, it's
hard to see a streetscape the same way. Check out
his work.
* * *
I think it's so great that Genarlow Wilson has been
ordered released from prison for having had sex when
he was 17 years old (though he still remains in jail
as backward officials in Georgia appeal the release).
I'm a savvy guy about the law, no doubt about it,
but let me be completely frank: I didn't
even know it was against the law for a 17 year-old
to have sex with someone in his general age group
in America. Apparently, the puritanical impulse
is this country is far worse than I thought --
almost sharia-law like.
Let me state, without any regret whatsoever, and
in open defiance of the witch hunters out there, that
when I was 17 I had consensual sex with females my age
and slightly older, and we enjoyed it plenty. In fact,
I don't regret a moment of it and wouldn't have done
it any other way. It was a lot of fun. [Keep in mind
that I was 17 in the 1970s when deadly std's weren't
an issue.]
I hope Wilson is released yesterday.
* * *
Does anyone write about food with as much wit and color as The New
York Times's Frank Bruni? His latest gem is in tomorrow's (Wednesday's)
Times, and it starts like this: "I’m not sure it’s possible to behave
with much dignity around seven glistening pounds of pork butt, but
on a recent night at Momofuku Ssam Bar, five friends and I weren’t
even encouraged to try." Terrific stuff.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 11, 2007
Meadow's Great Parallel Parking Finale
The non-ending ending of "The Sopranos"
was a great idea, the more I think
of it, a welcome slap in the face
to the many mediocre novelists
and readers who approach stories
with a formulaic check list (a
story must have 1) narrative arc,
2) resolution) as if fiction were
some sort of mathematical
equation, which it ain't.
I think smart people who write all
the time start to get sick of
bourgeois literary convention (he said with a flourish),
and I must admit I get bored with most stories that end
with "the butler did it" or "the last ten minutes will leave
you breathless" or those countless whodunits in which the
gun in scene one goes off in scene ten blah blah blah (but
I don't want to give away the ending). Pleeeaase. It's
as if David Chase is saying, "You want fireworks? I gave
you fireworks in the previous 85 episodes."
* * *
To all the good and honest journalists being laid off at
the San Francisco Chronicle: just keep in mind that while
your careers have ended, the careers of a flagrant plagiarist
(Ed Guthmann) and an outright fraud (David Wiegand) continue
at the paper. Which says a lot about why the Chron is going
down the toilet as fast as a flush. At the Chronicle, the
rules against plagiarism clearly do not apply to those for
whom management has a sweet spot. How touching.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 7, 2007
The Season of McCartney
Paul McCartney and the far lesser known Paul Iorio (at an event I was covering as a magazine writer).
Paul McCartney is, once again, ubiquitous, as his new
album, "Memory Almost Full," is released, and as
the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of The Beatles'
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
I was getting in the spirit, too, the other day,
listening to the alternate version of "Hey Jude"
on the "Anthology" CD, and thinking it may be the
Beatles' greatest song and that McCartney may well
be the greatest songwriter of the 20th century.
And then I thought, who's the competition? Cole Porter?
Hey, I love Porter, but his best song was "I've Got You
Under My Skin" or maybe "You're the Top," and would anyone
seriously say those songs are better than "Hey Jude"?
Was George Gershwin a greater songwriter? Aside from
"Rhapsody in Blue" and his other classical work, what pop
song of the Gershwin brothers can stand alongside
"Hey Jude" or "Yesterday" or "Golden Slumbers" or any
number of other McCartney or Lennon/McCartney gems?
Irving Berlin? That's a tough call. In the rock era,
Bob Dylan may surpass McCartney as a lyricist, but not as
a melodist.
No, McCartney is greater than we're admitting in 2007,
and we're already admitting to a lot of praise.
And I feel lucky to have actually met the man, back
in August 1986, when I was in my twenties and was a
staff writer for the music trade magazine Cash Box
and had already lived in Manhattan for nearly a decade.
I was in my office on West 58th in Manhattan when
Capitol called to invite me and my Cash Box colleague
to come to Radio City Music Hall to meet McCartney --
in an hour or two! Needless to say, we dropped
everything and walked the fifties to Radio City
asap.
At first, McCartney was at a distance in the Radio City lobby,
and I figured I wouldn't get to meet him. But then he made a
beeline directly through the lobby to where I was standing
(not necessarily because I was standing there, of course),
and I momentarily felt a bit like Ralph Kramden (hummana-hummana),
but managed to say happy to meet you and to ask him a
couple questions before the crowd swarmed and congratulated
him on everything from "Press to Play" to his narration of
a Buddy Holly documentary.
Many years later, in the fall of 2000, on a hilltop in San
Francisco, I talked with the actor Woody Harrelson about
meeting McCartney. And we both wondered together for a time
about whether McCartney knew -- really knew -- how much
people truly love some of his songs. I still wonder.
[personal note to magazine colleague: "carbon paper!"]
But I digress. Paul
[Photo credits: photograph of me and Paul McCartney taken by unknown photographer at Radio City Music Hall in New York in August 1986.]
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 3, 2007
Today's Republican Debate
So lemme get this straight. When the Democrats first proposed
social security, the Republicans called it socialism and opposed
it and were eventually proved wrong in their opposition.
When the Democrats first proposed Medicare, the Republicans called
it socialism and opposed it and were eventually proved wrong in
their opposition. And now, with this history of discredited
reactionary politics as their heritage, the new crop of GOP
candidates calls universal health care "socialism."
Or at least Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney did in today's
debate in New Hampshire. Which is a sure sign that the
single payer health plan is exactly the right course for America.
Giuliani and Romney will, of course, eventually come around --
perhaps in the year 2037 or so!
That's why they call progressives "progressive" -- because
they get to the right answer before conservatives do.
For now, the GOP is spouting the same ol' cliches, stuff
like "anything the government takes over gets worse not better,"
to paraphrase Romney.
Do they really think the private sector should be entrusted
with implementing health care policy? Are they referring to the
same private sector that gave us Enron and Drexel and Anderson and
Imclone and WorldCom and Global Crossing and countless other
corporate examples of malfeasance and greed? Are they joking or
are they merely badly informed?
And Giuliani says that single payer will make health care more
expensive. Then how come that's not the case in Canada, which has
a single payer policy? What does it say when U.S. citizens
have to go to Canada to get affordable health care?
But let the GOP go on this way. And let them continue backing the
Iraq war, too, and igoring the will of the American people as expressed
at the polls in November 2006. Because if they keep this up, they're
gonna see a blue nation rising come November 2008.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 4, 2007
If my sources are correct, the final episode of "The Sopranos"
will be a shocker. Here's what I hear: someone plants a bomb
with a timer in Tony's car. And guess who borrows the car for a
spin? More to come, as soon as I can confirm it.
* * *
Frank Zappa on Presidential Politics
After hearing The Arcade Fire's concert Saturday night, for some
reason I felt the urge to sift through some of my archival
audiotapes of my one-on-one interviews with the late Frank Zappa,
who was generous enough with his time to call me every now and
then in the 1980s. Sometimes we'd put the interviews on tape.
In one of our conversations, from February 1988, Zappa talked about
the upcoming presidential election, and his words are still resonant
today. After saying he thought Mario Cuomo was "the only guy with a
brain big enough for the job" of president, he went on to talk about
the qualities he looked for in a candidate:
"The guy I want to see in the White House is a guy who can think
on his feet, who doesn't need a speechwriter, who knows his shit,
who has the strength and the stamina and the personal conviction
to do stuff, without worrying about whether or not it's going to play in
Iowa or going to play in New Hampshire or whether he's going to
look like Mr. Perfect Little Man."
"And until we can get beyond the Perfect Little Man syndrome --
you know, you don't want a Perfect Little Man in the White House.
You want a motherfucker in there!"
* * *
So it turns out my advance information about the plotline of last
night's episode of "The Sorpanos" was almost completely correct. Still
no firm word on how the last episode will play out.
But in the meantime, here are....
Things That Haven't Been Mentioned About "The Sopranos"
"The Sopranos" has so captured the zeitgeist of the Oughties
that we may be looking at a presidential campaign that pits
Tony Soprano against Carmela, in the guise of Fred Thompson versus
Hillary Clinton, and the series also symbolically captures the
late stages of baby boomer power in business and
government perfectly, as aging ex-hippies and others feel
increasingly like Tony and the Crew, forced to do things they
feel bad about (like firing that guy who didn't deserve it
or fighting unjust wars), and as the show hurtles to its finish
like Pie-o-My on a tear, it begins to look like the fourth season
was the one with the most inspired energy and carbonation and fizz,
what with the certifiably insane, ultra-homicidal antics of Ralph
Cifarretto, who really should have been allowed to live in
order to invigorate future episodes, though the
first season is a close second, and the second was, let's
face it, a bit of a dog, and any list of the best
episodes (excluding the sixth season, which is in
progress) has to include "Pine Barrens" and
"College" and "University" and "Whoever Did This" and
"Whitecaps" (Edie Falco's high note) and
"Long Term Parking" (Steve van Zandt's high note),
though I can't help but think that it was a bad decision
to emphasize A.J. and Janice over Meadow, because series
creator David Chase could have had
Meadow graduate from college and then come back to
her hometown as a political reformer or
journalistic crusader, pitting her directly against
the interests and values of her dad and his
people, which would have meant more Meadow and less
Janice, who tended to slow things down
as she became a sort of unconvincing Melfi to
Bobby Bacala, and the series is sort
of like drinking Remy from a flask in a Lincoln
Towncar, as opposed to sipping Chianti in a garden
a la "The Godfather," and the aphorisms are also not
quite worthy of Francis Coppola/Mario Puzo (a
typical saying like "indecision is worse than a bad
decision" isn't really as wise or true as, say,
"The Godfather"'s "keep your friends close, keep your
enemies closer"), though "Sorpanos" led the trend
in television toward applying the aesthetics and
techniques and sensibilities of great film auteurs to tv
shows, which made it a sort of weekly version of a
Martin Scorsese film (just as Larry David's
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a bit like a weekly version
of a Woody Allen picture), and though the series
started in 1999, it can trace its roots back to
1990's "Goodfellas," particularly the scene in which
the Ray Liotta character comes to a peaceful suburban
community and brutally beats some guy who is washing
his car, which sort of invented the mob-meets-the-Jersey-'burbs
landscape of "Sopranos," but now television has almost beat
feature films at their own game, with movie after
movie trying for that "Sopranos" effect and so many major
films not measuring up to even a single episode of the
series, but now that the series is ending, there may be a
public appetite for a reverse-angle "Sopranos," done from
the POV of the victims of mobsters, because people
who have run into such thugs in real life know they're
not a lot of fun, not much like lovable
Tony, and their assaults are not accompanied by a
Ronettes soundtrack, and in parts of New Jersey,
sociopaths like Tony have sort of permeated the soil and polluted
the air and become the mayors and corrupt
local officials who cause honest people real grief
(in certain parts of Jersey, "Sorpanos" DVDs are
filed under "documentary," I hear), which
is why I've always thought that a great series
finale would go like this: Tony Soprano runs for mayor
and wins and finds himself completely at
home in that element in Jersey, finally legit in an
illegit way, even covered glowingly (by reporters who
are either naive or corrupt) in great newspapers
that are otherwise courageous in places like Pakistan and
Iraq -- the ultimate "I was cured alright" ending.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 3, 2007
The Winner of Today's Presidential Debate Was...
Al Gore!
No, Gore didn't participate but it wasn't hard to
imagine him dwarfing everyone else present.
Yeah, Obama gave some terrific seemingly-spontaneous
answers about immigration (very smart
of him to bring up the TB case coming in
from Canada). But I'm getting sort of tired
of him playing prophet by saying he was against
the Iraq war before the war, when the truth is
he wasn't in Congress when the authorization
vote came up. I mean, Hillary Clinton and
John Edwards also might have been bravely anti-war
had they not been in the Senate during the moment of
truth.
The true foreign policy prophets of this decade are
those who both opposed the Iraq war before the
Iraq war AND supported the war in
Afghanistan before the war in Afghanistan. One question
Wolf Blizter didn't ask Obama today: Was he for the
Afghanistan war before the Afghanistan war?
That said, Obama's response on bin Laden was terrific,
advocating a decisive and lethal response if the military
had bin Laden in its crosshairs; Kucinich's answer was
awful (in short, he'd be willing to allow bin Laden to
live so that he could plot the mass murder of more Americans).
Elsewhere, Hillary was very strong on health care, going after
the true villains, the pharmaceutical and insurance
companies (though she shouldn't keep repeating that bit
about having "scars to show from" her health care activism).
Joe Biden was very wise and smart about Iran and Darfur and
on foreign policy in general and he will
make a brilliant secretary of state under President Gore.
And Dennis Kucinich was convincing and passionate about the
single payer bill (HR 676) that he's trying to get the
House to pass (and he'll make a marvelous HHS secretary
under President Gore).
Meanwhile, Bill Richardson was off and should consider
withdrawing from the race. (What was Richardson thinking
when he cited "getting rid of junk food in schools" as part
of his health plan? People are dying because they can't afford
meds, Bill, and you trivialize the tragedy with a comment like that.)
Mike Gravel should definitely stay in the race, but only because
he's the most entertaining of the lot. Gravel should also
seriously think about getting a scan to see whether he's
had a stroke that he might be unaware of, because he sounds
increasingly like that nut in the movie "Network."
Ask some Democrats the following question -- If you could snap
your fingers and appoint anyone president, who would it be? --
and many would say "Obama." But ask them another question -- If you
could snap your fingers and appoint anyone the Democratic nominee
for president? -- the answer is less certain.
Because the last question requires naming a candidate who can win
in the general in a nation split evenly between red and blue.
And, let's be real, Obama can't. Too liberal.
And let's look at the electoral map, particularly the swing states.
Gore could probably win not only Florida and Ohio, but Iowa and even
Missouri (and maybe even purple states like New Mexico and Montana), no
matter who the GOP nominates.
On the other hand, I can't imagine Obama winning any of those
six -- and I bet he'd have a hard time picking up Democratic
sureshots like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Even New Jersey might
be out of his range. Obama is the sort of guy who'll attract
record crowds at rallies in Green Bay on the day before the election
but would ultimately end up losing Wisconsin by 53 to 47 percent. And
in Florida, he'd rack up totals in Dade but lose it on the I-4 corridor.
Hillary would have a better but not a good chance, which is why
some Dems are privately hoping Michael Bloomberg becomes the
Ross Perot of '08, the third party candidate who siphons votes
from the GOP. I mean, Bill Clinton knows all too well that he
likely would've lost in '92 had it not been for Perot, and he knows
Hillary is not strong enough to overcome the electoral math he
wasn't able to overcome in '92.
As I wrote in this column in April (see below), the Dems's best and
maybe only hope of winning the White House is a Gore/Obama ticket.
At the time, almost nobody talked about such a pairing. But
now, a lot of pundits and politicos and party insiders are saying
the same thing.
* * * *
exclusive
Arcade Fire Ends Tour With Rarity -- and Win Butler is Almost Busted
The Arcade Fire ended its latest North
American tour last night in Berkeley, Calif.,
with a magical set that included rarity
"Headlights Look Like Diamonds," which
the band hasn't played in years, showing an almost angry
intensity that hadn't been there the night before.
Perhaps the reason for that intensity was the fact that frontman
Win Butler had almost been arrested earlier in the day, or so he
said last night. Seven songs into the set, Butler gave this account
of what happened (which I was lucky enough to have caught on my tape
recorder!):
"In Berkeley today I came as close as I've ever been to being
arrested. [applause] I'd like to say I was protesting
the war in Iraq or something but I was just pleading my case to
be able to play basketball at the Berkeley gym...And so one thing
led to another and he was kind of an asshole and then so we started
yelling a little bit. And this police officer came. She called
for fucking back-up. And before I knew it, I was being escorted out
by, like, four cops. It was like serious shit. They took down my
information. I don't know what you people do around here, but
they're serious. Anyway, so, since we can't stop the war, let's at
least boycott Berkeley athletic facilities."
The crowd applauded wildly and the band immediately launched into
"Intervention."
[More on the concert later!]
But I digress. Paul
the above photo of Al Gore is by Paul Iorio; the photo of
The Arcade Fire was shot by an unknown photographer at
at an unknown show.
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 30, 2007
"And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain..."
The secret of what happens in the last two episodes of "The Sopranos"
is more closely guarded than a nuclear code, it seems, but the word is
that in this Sunday's show, "Blue Comet," the penultimate episode,
Silvio gets whacked at the Bing and Bobby Bacala also makes his final
exit, while A.J. busts his ankle. But don't tell anybody I told ya!
(Besides, in all seriousness, it's absolutely impossible to verify
plot details coming from various sources, though don't rule out the
F.B.I. playing a big role in the series finale, "Made in America."
And some seem to think, as outrageous as it sounds, Tony might
-- get this -- flip in the final reel. Again, no way to definitively
confirm any of this.)
But I digress. Paul
[picture of James Gandolfini by unknown photographer.]
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 24, 2007
Advice for Aspiring Journalists in the Graduating Class of 2007
1. If you don't come from money, you'll probably have
to start your career as a clerk. And you'll have to
watch the unfair spectacle of lesser talents (whose parents
are wealthy) ascend to plum editorial positions right out of
the box.
2. You can be brilliant at your job and work at it 'round
the clock, but the promotion will often go to the
son or nephew of the boss. Nepotism generally trumps talent.
3. Whistleblowers do not usually end up on the cover of Time
magazine as heroes. If you whistleblow about your own company,
chances are you will be smeared by your bosses, fired for a
trumped up cause and then blacklisted in your industry.
4. Even if you expose something as egregiously evil as a
murder linked to your company's corrupt practices, you will
be surprised at how few of your esteemed colleagues will
stand by you in your investigation -- even after your findings
are proved to be completely correct!
5. If you investigate the bad guys as a freelancer, and
you are injured by the bad guys while doing your
reporting, your company will not pay your
medical expenses -- and neither will the government.
Your injuries will continue to worsen with the years.
6. Beware: the idea you pitch may be stolen by the
publication you're pitching it to.
7. Plagiarism is the third rail of journalism is what they
teach you in college. But the reality is that awful plagiarists
get away with it at major newspapers all the time because
they are either rich, famous or well-connected within their
own newspapers (see my column below for examples of that).
8. You'll know your work is great and is connecting with
readers when 1) your colleagues try to claim credit for
parts of it that they had nothing to do with; 2) other
writers start imitating it.
9. Of course, if they have to unfairly promote the boss's
son over you, then they will also have to cover themselves
by saying your work is not so great. Answer them with:
compared to whose work among your staffers? If it's
not-so-great, then how come everyone is imitating it?
And how come everyone is trying to claim credit
for it?
10. At the job interview, assume your boss is asking the dumbest
possible question, not the smartest possible question. (Example:
at the job interview when I was hired at the San Francisco Chronicle,
the editor asked me a question about a movie that I was an
absolute expert on: Roman Polanski's "Chinatown." He asked what
was the name of the family in the movie modeled after a real life
L.A. family. Wrongly thinking he was asking a brilliant
question about one of the more obscure characters, I stammered
for around half a minute before realizing he was actually asking
an obvious question about the movie's main character.)
11. The key to success: come from a rich family.
12. There are exceptions to each one of these truths that
some will cite in order to discredit them altogether.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 23, 2007
Today's New York Times reports that ABC's "World News" with
Charles Gibson has now become the dominant nightly newscast,
topping both Brian Williams' "NBC Nightly News" and "The CBS
Evening News" with Katie Couric.
Which doesn't surprise me at all. In 2002, I did some deep research
into how the morning news anchors at the major networks handled
the ultimate breaking news story: the minutes between the crash
of the first hijacked airplane and the second one on September 11,
2001. At the time, I knew almost nothing about Charles Gibson,
then co-anchor of "Good Morning America," which was on the air at
the time the planes rammed into the twin towers. But the more I
watched and re-watched the footage from that morning over and over
again, studying in detail the responses of each anchor, the more I
realized that Gibson was a massively talented television journalist
-- and the only anchor or correspondent that morning to have sized
up the situation correctly while the tragedy was unfolding.
My own report was ultimately published by The Toronto Star in
January 2003, and for those who missed it at the time, here it is:
The Immediate TV Coverage of the First Two Crashes on 9/11
(The Live Coverage Viewers Missed)
By Paul Iorio
By now, everyone has seen virtually every inch of television coverage of
the September 11th attacks around nine hundred and eleven times. It
sometimes seems as if every scrap of 9/11 footage ever shot -- whether taken
upside down near Ground Zero or from faraway Rockaway -- has already
been aired more frequently than the Zapruder film.
But most TV viewers never got to see the most riveting 9/11 television
coverage of all: the raw live footage of the seventeen minutes between the
first plane crash at 8:46 and the second at 9:03 am, as seen on the morning
news shows.
In New York, television programming was largely knocked off the air by
the toppling of transmission antennae atop the Trade Center. And on the west
coast, almost everyone was asleep during the attacks, waking only in time to
see the first tower collapse.
So for those who missed it -- almost everybody -- there's now a website
library that has compiled streaming video of all major U.S. television news
programs from that morning, shown in real-time with ads intact -- plus a
generous sampling from overseas media outlets. (The site is run by a non-
profit online TV library called The Television Archive and can be accessed at
http://client.alexa.com/tvarchive/html. Its American network feeds are from
Washington, D.C., affiliates; MSNBC and the cable Fox News Channel are
not included in the archive.) [Note: the website has since been deleted.]
The coverage from 8:30-to-9:30-am is among the most engrossing ever
broadcast -- and some of the most inadvertently telling, too, since it clearly
reveals who among the anchors and correspondents got it right and who blew
it, who could think on their feet and who couldn't, as the ultimate breaking
news story unfolded.
There are surprises. For example, Charles Gibson, co-anchor of ABC's
"Good Morning America," did an unexpectedly fine job of covering the
moment when the second plane hit and was the only anchor on the three
major networks to immediately speak up and tell us what had happened.
Others, like Bryant Gumbel, the now-departed anchor of CBS's "The Morning
Show," contributed astonishingly awful reportage.
The first to break the news to America was CNN, which cut into an
advertisement at 8:49, three minutes after the first crash, with a live picture of
the burning north tower and the words: "This just in. You are looking at
obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center
and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into
one of the towers."
"Good Morning America" arrived second, at 8:51, with Diane Sawyer
saying, "We want to tell you what we know as we know it. But we just got a
report in that there's been some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center."
(And within a couple minutes, ABC correspondent Don Dahler was providing
terrific first-hand reportage via cellphone from near Ground Zero.)
Matt Lauer of NBC's "Today" would have been third, coming a half
minute after "GMA," had he not dropped the ball. At 8:51, Lauer broke away
from an interview to announce that there was breaking news but didn't say
what the news was. "I have to interrupt you right now," Lauer told his guest,
the author of a biography on billionaire Howard Hughes. "We're going to go
live right now and show you a picture of the World Trade Center, where I
understand -- Do we have it? No, we do not." He then cut to 90 seconds of
ads before Katie Couric returned to the airwaves to report what had
happened.
But the real test of anchor mettle came at the moment when the second
plane hit at 9:03. "GMA"'s Gibson took control forcefully and calmly within
two seconds of the second collision, describing events in a brisk and firm
manner, explaining what was occurring in the live footage, and rattling off
facts from memory, while showing genuine emotion ("Oh, this is terrifying,
awful"), as a wilting Diane Sawyer murmured, "Oh my god, oh my god."
Gibson was so alert that he actually broke the news of the second collision
to his correspondent at the scene, who didn't see the plane hit. And within
twenty seconds, Gibson, the first on any network to mention the Trade Center
terrorist attack of '93, was speaking plain truth before his colleagues did: "So
this looks like some sort of a concerted effort to attack the World Trade
Center that is underway." That statement may seem cautious in hindsight, but
at the time was as far as any anchor had gone on the air.
On "Today," Couric and Lauer were upstaged a bit by a sometimes
excellent witness, Elliot Walker, a Today producer who happened to be
walking near the towers when the first plane hit. Walker was already being
interviewed by the anchors when the second plane crashed, and she
spontaneously stepped into the lead role during the ten seconds after the
impact, describing exactly what had happened, while Couric and Lauer, who
had presumably seen the same thing on the TV monitor, were silent (in
contrast to the talkative Gibson on ABC).
By all rights, every network should have been on equal footing at 9:03,
with live cameras fixed on the twin towers at the moment of impact. Still,
"The Morning Show" and CNN's "Live This Morning," which had shifted to
feeds from local New York stations, failed miserably in this crucial part of the
reportage, their anchors seemingly confused about what was obvious to
reporters on other networks. One ludicrous affiliate correspondent, picked up
on CNN, cluelessly floated the idea that the two collisions might have been
the result of "faulty navigating equipment."
CNN fared better when its own newspeople returned to the airwaves, in
time to report the Pentagon hit and the south tower collapse, which Aaron
Brown covered from a visually dramatic outdoor setting some thirty blocks
from Ground Zero, with the burning towers as a backdrop (a visual that has
since been seen in CNN promos).
Meanwhile, Gumbel proved he couldn't see the finger in front of his face
on this clear Manhattan morning, while also expressing little sense of horror
about what was unfolding ("wow" and "it's a terrible scene" were the closest
he came).
Gumbel, who seemingly had to be told about the second crash by an
amateur witness ("You saw a plane?," he asked a witness, incredulously),
interviewed several observers who all told him the second plane had
obviously been flown deliberately into the tower. Yet he kept asking each
source the same dim question: "Why do you say it was deliberate?," a
question he asked no fewer than four times between 9:03 and 9:12, while
repeating such phrases as vantage point and re-racking the [video] tape. (By
contrast, Lauer suggested it was something deliberate at 9:05; Gibson had
already done so at 9:03. Gumbel didn't come around until about 9:19.) This,
from the distinguished news division of Dan Rather and Ed Bradley.
If Gumbel seemed to somehow miss the crash of the second plane, he
was the only anchor who thought he saw non-existent third and fourth jets
approach the burning towers at 9:41. "Hold it, hold it!," said a near-panicky
Gumbel to his guest. "Two jets right now, approaching the World Trade
Center! We're watching! Hold on! [pause] I'm sorry, no...we can't tell
whether it was a plane or a 'copter."
Gumbel, who inexplicably wasn't joined by any CBS News correspondent
until Jim Stewart appeared at 9:15, did hit one high note, at 8:57, when he
interviewed a doorman at the Marriott World Trade Center, the hotel that
used to be between the two towers. The doorman began like a cocky New
Yorker ("How ya doin'?") but his voice started cracking unexpectedly as he
poignantly described the trauma he had just seen: a man on fire outside the
hotel.
"I heard a guy screaming," said the doorman, seeming on the verge of
tears. "And when I looked over, there was this guy that was on fire. So I just
kind of like ran over and I tried to, like, put the fire out on him. And he was,
he was, like, screaming. I told him to roll, roll, and he said he can't. And
another man came over with his bag and kind of like put the flames out on
him."
"Today" also had raw and revealing moments. At one point, Couric read a
Reuters report that opened a horrifying window on the hell that was taking
place on the upper floors of the towers: "A person who answered the phone
on the trading floor at interdealer-broker Cantor Fitzgerald, located near the
top of the World Trade Center, said, 'Were blanking dying,' when asked what
was happening, and hung up. There was screaming and yelling in the
background, and a follow-up call was not answered."
Several anchors and witnesses made observations that now seem
perceptive and even prescient in retrospect. Couric was more correct than
she knew when she noted (at 9:37) the possibility that another attack might be
in the offing at any moment; one minute after she voiced that concern, the
Pentagon was attacked. (And thanks to a quick and well-placed Jim
Miklaszewski, Today scooped everyone on the Washington crash.)
CBS's Stewart was the first to mention Osama bin Laden on the air (at
9:16). ABC's John Miller understood faster than anyone else that there was
virtually no way people trapped on the upper floors of the towers could be
rescued, because of the heavy smoke. Lauer was the first to note the
terrorists's high level of coordination and planning. Dahler, who heard the
first plane hit, correctly dismissed the early widespread notion that the aircraft
had been a small prop plane.
There were also moments of bad information. For instance, Sawyer tried
to put something of a happy-ending on the tragedy at 9:07 by stating, "There's
a small hope that the fire may have gone out from the first site" (Dahler
quickly extinguished that false hope). And Couric read a report, later
repeated by Lauer, that claimed a small commuter plane had hit the north
tower.
The tone of the anchors shifted -- almost uniformly -- as the hour
progressed, from denial and confusion to horror, with disbelief throughout.
After the first attack, everyone on the air seemed to take solace in the
possibility that it might have been a simple accident by a pilot who had lost
control of his plane and wrecked in an unlucky spot. But after the second
attack, it was self-evident to virtually everyone that there was no innocent
explanation for what was happening.
The 8:30 hour is also fascinating because it shows the 9/11 era
arriving as abruptly and violently as the edge of a hurricane after the placid
eye of the storm. "[It's]...a beautiful fall morning," Couric noted before the
tragedy. "A beautiful day here," said "GMA" weatherman Tony Perkins.
"...It's kind of quiet around the country [weather-wise]...it's too quiet, said an
inadvertently prescient Mark McEwen on "This Morning."
After the attacks, the weather was mentioned only in relation to the fact
that the collisions couldn't have possibly been weather-related.
All told, there were no lost tempers, no crying, no real panicking on the
air. There was also no single dazzling journalistic feat that might have
elevated one news team far above the others (something on the order of
scoring a cellphone interview with a passenger on one of the hijacked jets).
That said, the best coverage clearly came from ABC (because of Gibson)
and NBC (partly due to Miklaszewski), with almost everyone else way
behind.
[From The Toronto Star, January 4, 2003.]
----------------------------------------------
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 22, 2007
The New Yorker magazine website, December 15, 2006 (and for several days afterward).
Proof That Everyone Makes Mistakes
I think a lot of people agree that there is no
greater publication on the planet than The New Yorker.
While there is no such thing as perfection in journalism,
TNY, under editor David Remnick, the Mozart of non-fiction,
comes very close.
So I was astonished last December when I came upon that
extreme rarity: a glaring New Yorker factual error!
The mistake was posted on The New Yorker's website on
December 15, 2006, and remained on the site for several
days before someone caught and corrected it. I snapped
this picture of it, posted above (which should make everyone
feel better about their own imperfections!).
* * *
Time was when the discriminatory practices of the Mormon
Church were brought out in the sunlight without fear or
favor by the news media. The New York Times had a marvelous
piece about what some consider to be the bigotry of the
Mormons and about the Romney family's refusal to condemn it.
Only thing is, that article ran on -- let's see -- December 28, 1965,
which is back when the press regularly and openly took the
Mormon church to task for its racist theology.
In fact, "racist theology" was the phrase used in an
article in the Washington Post about the Mormon church --
on, uh, September 26, 1967.
In the current round of articles about the Mormons and
the candidacy of Mitt Romney, the press is downright
timid about calling certain Mormon practices and beliefs
exactly what they are -- racist and sexist. The church won't
allow women into the priesthood. Well, that's sexist.
And the church used to bar blacks from the priesthood, and
that was racist. Why aren't certain major media organizations
taking Mitt Romney to task and asking him whether he
renounces the sexist and racist policies of his church?
Perhaps because there appears to be a bias at some
publications for organized religion.
By the way, has anyone noticed how The New York Times has become
blatantly biased in favor of organized religion in the last
few years? The Times's new emphasis on religion resembles
nothing so much as...the 19th century version of the New York Times.
Whata throwback. Faith-based journalism. You get the sense a
top editor there is a bit of a holy roller. Editors at the Times
should understand that references to religious phenomena that don't
include proper citation (e.g., according to the Old Testament,
etc.) are highly offensive to the many who don't accept any
religious framework at all. It should be in the paper's stylebook.
* * *
From all reports, Michael Moore's "Sicko" seems on track to be
the major documentary of 2007 -- and the most worthy, given its
subject: the horror and shame of the American health care system,
which is going to claim many thousands of casualties this year
because people can't afford treatment.
Truth is, in all probability, there will be no change in the
health care system even if Hillary Clinton is elected president
and Democrats take full control of Congress. After all,
in 1993, a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress
couldn't pass a single-payer plan. So why should we expect
anything will be different in 2009 under even the best electoral
scenario?
No, as long as the rich continue to make obscene profits off
of sick people (and as long as they contribute those profits to the
campaigns of political candidates), there will be no change. And the
uninsured will continue to have their lifespans needlessly reduced
by years and decades.
My suggestion to activists is: instead of rioting and protesting
at WTO conferences, stage relentless protests outside the homes
and mansions of the heads of the top ten pharmaceutical companies.
Find out where the top executives at Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, J&J,
Glaxo, etc. live, and then demonstrate outside the homes they bought
by overcharging sick people. And escalate to civil disobedience, if
necessary.
That may be the only way we can show how serious we are about having
a single-payer health plan that covers all men, women and children in
the U.S. The government has truly failed us on this one and
will probably continue to do so no matter who is elected in 2008.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 19, 2007
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York seems to be one of
the only major public officials in the nation with the guts to take
on the gun lobby. His undercover expose of Virginia gun-sellers might
actually save some lives in the future and may even lead to a
tightening of gun control (or at least an enforcement of the existing
laws!) there and elsewhere. Along with Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston,
he's also leading a vast coalition of mayors in what now amounts to
the main national movement to stop the next Virginia Tech massacre.
And the Virginians who think it's none of Bloomberg's
business are dead wrong; if your smokestack is polluting my air, then
your smokestack is my business.
Maybe a Bloomberg for president candidacy is not such a bad
idea after all. I had him wrongly pegged as a sort of Steve Forbes,
but Forbes never had this sort of political courage.
* * *
My Own Contemporaneous Memory of "Sgt. Pepper's," Which is Turning 40
OK, first off, I was only 9, going on ten, when The Beatles's
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released, so I
and my friends were really more concerned at the time with
whether The Monkees were about to overtake The Beatles and what
the new Herman's Hermits single was going to be, though I do
remember that on or around the time of the June 1 release
there was a big to-do about the album on NBC's "Today" show,
which meant the grown-ups were now paying attention, and it
sort of felt as if a major symphony had just been released, or as
if the adults were saying to the teacher
come-look-at-what-junior-created-because-this-time-it-may-
actually-be-worth-something, though I also vividly recall that
the marvelous AM radio stations that had been playing "Yellow
Submarine" and "Penny Lane" and "I Hear a Symphony" and all
those brilliant singles of 1966 were now sort of cool to this
new Beatles album, and I remember one radio AM DJ playing a "Pepper's"
track and remarking afterwards that he wished the Beatles would
go back to making the more straightforward singles of the old days,
because the "Pepper's" material just wasn't any fun to him, a
sentiment echoed all over the place, though as a kid I liked it
more and more as I listened to it, especially as I grew older
and turned from 10 to 11 and 12, at which point "Abbey Road"
had supplanted "Pepper's" on my turntable, though
before that happened, my contemporaneous memory of
June 1967 is that "She's Leaving Home" was too depressing and
"Within You Without You" was a bore, and I much preferred "There's
a Kind of Hush" as a 10 year old (the Stones were for older kids
who had already sprouted hair on their faces), though I grew to love
the whole album and now think that "A Day In the Life" may
be the Beatles greatest collaboration, even if I can't help but
think it should be credited to Lennon/McCartney/Martin,
after George Martin, who supplied the dazzling connective
tissue between Lennon and McCartney's two songs, or their two song
fragments, because you see, John and Paul hadn't really
written a complete song until Martin joined the two fragments, but,
wow, is that a fun song to play on the acoustic guitar, by the way,
give it a try, but I must admit the one "Pepper's" song I go back
to all the time in my adulthood is "Fixing a Hole," mostly because
of its fabulous middle eight ("But it really doesn't matter..."), a
supremely inspired bit from McCartney, much better than "Getting
Better," which is sorta mean, and I love how the energy level
builds beautifully on what used to be called Side Two, a hint of
the medley to come at the end of "Abbey Road," and Lennon
was right about "Sgt. Pepper's" when he said it really
didn't have a unified theme the way, say, "Tommy"
does, that it was really just another batch of breathtaking
Beatles songs without an overarching structure, though the
reprise at the end makes the album feel unified when it's
actually not, but that's no knock on the album at all,
because I'm always suspicious of conscious themes and deliberate unity,
I've always preferred "Who's Next" to "Quadrophenia," and I'd
rather have the unity of a work arise organically and present
itself intuitively rather than be imposed on the album by
design, after all, there's no "theme" to "Blonde on Blonde" or
"Blood on the Tracks" or "Exile on Main Street" or "Rubber Soul,"
yet those albums are unified in a way that cannot be explained or
that you cannot put your finger on, which is the most effective
and satisfying form of musical unity, and which is why the less
calculated design of "Abbey Road" makes it, not "Sgt. Peppers,"
the Beatles's greatest album.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Friday, May 18, 2007
A DAILY DIGRESSION NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Mitt's 'Macaca' Moment?
"Ma'm, there's no media back here, please," said
someone guarding a private area where former governor Mitt Romney
was schmoozing with Ann Coulter and others at the
Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 in
Washington, D.C.
But someone sneaked in an unauthorized camera anyway
and caught what might be Mitt's own "Macaca" moment,
as well as some revealing footage of Romney and Coulter
massaging each others's conservatism in a backstage area.
The video has since been posted on YouTube but
not yet covered by the media.
The video starts off innocently enough, as Coulter
looks at Romney adoringly and says: "You have
great answers on everything, the Reagan position on
abortion."
At another point, she says, "You know, a photo of you and
me together is going to be famous when you do something
I don't like and I viciously attack you."
"Never, that will never happen, never will happen," Romney
says.
Moments later, Coulter falls into her fundamentalist
bomb-throwing mode. "No, they don't understand, we hate liberal atheists,"
Coulter says. "You can't get these sectarian wars going with us.
We're all Christians."
And Romney responds with: "There're no Sunni or Shia here."
One could imagine the outrage if Romney had said, "There
are no Jews or Muslims here," a virtually identical remark.
Romney's comment arguably has an ugly resonance, given
the segregationist history of the Mormon church, which he has
always been deeply involved in. And it raises questions about
whether Romney is tolerant of other religions.
The fact that he chose to respond with "There're no Sunni
or Shia here" (rather than with a more neutral "Yes,
we're all united" or "No insurgents here!") seems to suggest
an neo-segregationist mindset.
Surely, his defenders would probably say that he was
just joking around.
Then again, former Sen. George Allen was also just
kidding around when he used the word "Macaca" last year, a remark
that seriously damaged his candidacy. Don Imus was also just
joking. And Sen. Joe Biden certainly didn't intend anything
derisive when he called Sen. Barack Obama "clean" in an
interview that caused him lots of political grief. One
could contend that the quote by Romney is at least as offensive.
Plus, the quote feeds into the perception that Romney
supports what some consider to be the racist and sexist theology of
the Mormon Church, which excluded blacks from the priesthood
until 1978 and still bars women from being ordained priests today.
Romney, who was president of Boston's Mormon churches for
several years in the 1990s, has been criticized for his church's
policy of discrimination against women. His father, the late
George Romney, a governor of Michigan in the 1960s and also
a devout Mormon, was similarly criticized during his
own presidential campaign, "accused of adhering to a
'racist faith' that holds up the promise of a
'segregated heaven,'" according to an article published
in The Washington Post on September 26,
1967. The Romney family can trace its Mormon heritage
to the 19th century and to ancestors
who practiced polygamy, according a story that ran in
the New York Times on December 28, 1965.
The 2007 CPAC event, which featured speeches by Romney
("I invited all the Massachusetts conservatives to come
hear me today, and I'm glad to report that they're both here,"
went his Reaganesque speech), Coulter and numerous other
right-wingers, took place at the Omni Shoreham
Hotel in Washington, D.C., from March 1st to 3rd.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 15, 2007
And so the Corleone family took the stage in South
Carolina last night for the second Republican presidential debate,
with Sen. John McCain as Michael Corleone, the cool
headed battle-tested vet; former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as
Sonny the hothead, and Rep. Ron Paul as weak and feckless Fredo.
There was even an I-paid-for-this-microphone-esque moment,
and it belonged to Giuliani, understandably outraged that Ron Paul had
the absurd gall to say we were attacked on 9/11 because we had bombed
Iraq.
For the record, and for Ron Paul's education: in the
luggage of the hijackers was a letter, first revealed by Bob Woodward of
The Washington Post back in '01, that stands as the de facto
letter-of-intent of the hijackers; it mentioned nothing about
politics and cited only religious motives for the mass murder
they were about to commit. (It was several weeks later,
after bin Laden realized that the 9/11 attacks weren't playing
as well as he thought they would in Islam, that he released a
Cho-like video in which he ladled on a few hastily
articulated political justifications for the massacre (you
Americans killed lots of people at Antietam, didn't you?, was the tone
of his video, as I recall).
Thing is, for all of Giuliani's virtues, he remains an
operations guy, not a policymaker. Oh, yeah, he was a shower o' gold
on 9/11, no doubt about it, the guy you'd follow to shelter
in a nuke attack. But his ideas on policy are not just wrong
(see: his speech at the Republican national convention in 2004)
but dangerously amateurish.
Still, Giuliani helped his cause tonight, no doubt, but so did
McCain, with his wise and restrained opposition to the
torture of terror suspects.
Meanwhile, Rep. Paul should consider resigning not just
from the presidential race but from the U.S. House of Representatives
and political life altogether.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 14, 2007
On Romney and Faith
The United States has finally accumulated enough history
and tradition to have entered into a period of dynastic politics, in
which established families (such as the Bushes and Clintons)
take turns reigning for extended periods. The latest dynastic
politician to hit the national stage is Mitt Romney, and nothing
in last night's fascinating profile of him on "60 Minutes"
has changed my view that he may well become the Republican
candidate for president next year (see The Daily Digression,
April 27, 2007).
But Romney didn't entirely put to rest unsettling issues
related to his active participation in the Mormon church, which ABC's
George Stephanopoulos also questioned him about in a brave interview
last February.
"Your faith, if I understand it correctly, it teaches
that Jesus will return, probably to the United States, and reign on
earth for 1,000 years," noted Stephanopoulos in that interview.
Which suggests another question: put plainly, should
we elect candidates who hold kooky, irrational beliefs?
Should we elect a president who believes in voodoo or
who believes in ESP or who believes that aliens in UFOs actually
assassinated President Kennedy in 1963? Or who believes that a dead
man will come back to life and live for at least another millennium?
What do such eccentric beliefs say about a candidate's
judgment, about a person's ability to distinguish fantasy from reality,
about a candidate's ability to assess fact-based evidence?
Doesn't religious literalism have an insidiously
corrosive effect on a person's judgment and reasoning, since it lowers
the bar for the evidence required for someone to believe something is
true? If your standard of proof is the-Bible-told-me-so, aren't you
more likely to apply a similar lax standard of proof when, say,
determining whether Saddam once tried to buy yellowcake? If a
Christian Scientist who believes in prayer over medicine were to be
elected president, might he or she try to solve other crises
-- e.g., a terrorist attack, a devastating hurricane -- solely
through prayer?
In my view, these are the questions that make faith
a legitimate and necessary point of candidate scrutiny. And any
politician who objects to such hard questions about his faith,
or has a problem with the establishment clause, should consider
leaving politics for a more compatible forum: the church.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 8, 2007
The Coarsening of Pop Culture
The condemnation of offensive content in rap music and
in all the arts just keeps getting louder and more widespread, now
that Jesse Jackson and hip hop mogul Russell Simmons have joined
the chorus.
And it is true that examples of vulgar material
abound. The stuff I found recently, just browsing in public
libraries, is shockingly depraved, and here are excerpts from the
worst offenders:
Mozart's "Don Giovanni"
from Da Ponte's libretto of the aria "Madamina, il catalogo e questo..."
LEPORELLO: "In France he boned 91 hoes,
in Germany he took on a thousand-three mo'"
* * *
Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment"
RASKOLNIKOV: "Chopped that lady with an ax/
How she feelin' now, I didn't ask."
* * *
Shakespeare's "King Lear"
REGAN: "Plucked out the snitch's eyes for good/
Let him sniff his way on back to the 'hood."
* * *
Aristophanes' "Lysistrata"
KINESIAS: "My bitch ain't puttin' out no mo'/
Till we stop this muthafuckin' war"
* * *
The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley"
"Hang your head, Dooley/
We gonna put a cap up yo' ass."
* * *
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
CAESAR: "Yo Brutus, thanks for all the help/
If I come back to life, I gonna make you yell"
* * *
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"
"Killed that cracker, put him in the floor/
Don't wanna hear his heart beat like befo'"
* * *
Cellini's "The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini"
"I stabbed that man with all the gold chains/
Blood shot out like a water main"
* * *
Dante's "Inferno"
"Bitch, I put you in a circle of hell/
Frozen alive in the wishing well"
* * *
Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner"
"The bombs that we blew off up in the air/
Made sure Crips colors was stayin' there"
* * *
Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"
"Homie Jake, he ain't get no wood/
Can't satisfy his lady like he should"
* * *
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 7, 2007
Iraq and "Moby Dick"
If Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" were released today,
critics would call it an obvious allegory about the Iraq war and
the monomaniacal hunt for Saddam Hussein.
As someone who opposed the Iraq war from the start, I
always thought we should have turned our harpoons toward bin Laden,
not toward Saddam.
And now the Iraq debate is mired in the clutter of
detail. Yellowcake. 16 words. Slam dunk.
But a true understanding of how the Iraq mess evolved
requires only a very clear memory of the past five years or so.
Flashback to October 2001. Big debate in the U.S. about
whether we should go to war with Afghanistan (a war I backed wholeheartedly).
Lots of analysts on news shows saying we'd be bogged down for a generation
in Afghanistan, just look at what happened to the Soviets in the 1980s.
Turns out they were wrong. Kabul was a pushover, and we
were able to rid the world of a truly uncivilized and violent regime.
Americans everywhere were emboldened by that victory. This is easy, we
thought.
So Bush and many others thought, hmm, maybe we could
do the same thing in Iraq and be done with pesky Saddam within a matter
of weeks. I remember that even President Clinton took to the airwaves
saying an Iraq war wouldn't take long at all.
Other progressives saw the war as an opportunity to get rid
of a chronic human rights abuser. And the Congressional Dems who had just
finished opposing the successful Afghanistan war didn't want to be caught
on the wrong side this time, so they voted for authorization of war in
Iraq.
Let's be frank: everyone was too drunk on the Afghanistan
victory to remember that Iraq was exponentially larger and more complex
than Afghanistan and that there'd be an awful civil war if we ever took
out the central government in Baghdad (as Cheney himself warned in the
1990s on "Meet The Press" and elsewhere).
But in 2003, all such doubts were dismissed as the
same sort of static that had preceded the Afghanistan war in '01.
And the administration was hyping the war beyond the
facts (just as Nixon and LBJ had done with Vietnam). There were the
16 words of January '03: Saddam was trying to rustle up some uranium
for a nuke. Except it wasn't true.
But many wanted war anyway, whether Saddam was trying to
go nuclear or not. And many wanted peace anyway, whether Saddam was trying
to go nuclear or not. It's not like the administration hyped it and
everyone said: that clinches it, Iraq is trying for WMDs, so let's go to
war now. No, those who were unconvinced about using force against Saddam
remained unconvinced, WMDs or not.
After all, when have WMDs ever been a tripwire
for war? Kim Jong Il has a lot more than yellowcake and we're not
talking war. Ahmadinejad's nuclear program is far more advanced than
Saddam's ever was, and we're not even sending in inspectors.
As I've written before, the only real solution to the
Iraq war was to not have gotten in to begin with. If we pull out
immediately now, there will almost certainly be genocide. And suppose
there is genocide on the level of the bloodshed in Darfur today or in
Rwanda in '94? Suppose we withdraw and a half million Shiites are
murdered by Sunnis? Wouldn't we then have a humanitarian obligation to
redeploy our troops back to Iraq in order to stop the bloodshed (in
much the same way activists are now urging us to intercede in Darfur)?
We have to stop the war and start the partitioning of
Iraq now; that way we can withdraw in a way that insures
that we won't have to get back in again.
Meanwhile, we're all making the same mistake we made
in 2003: we're spending way too much time on Iraq when our foreign
policy focus should be solely on the real danger: Osama bin Laden, who has
now been free to plan his next attack for over 2,000 days.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 6, 2007
Remembering Zep -- on the 34th Anniversary
Thirty-four years ago yesterday, I and my friends
saw Led Zeppelin perform a notable gig in pop culture history.
At that concert, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida
(my hometown through most of the 1970s), Zep attracted more paying fans
than had ever attended a show by a single act in the U.S., surpassing the
previous record set by the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965. (Zeppelin
drew 56,800 fans, the Beatles 55,000. For the record, there were other
bands on the bill at Shea, though it was effectively a solo show.)
In rock culture lore, Tampa Stadium is where Led Zeppelin
officially dethroned the Beatles on May 5, 1973.
Was the 1973 Tampa Stadium gig a great Zeppelin performance?
Some of it was. Guitarist Jimmy Page was in rare form and the rest of
the band sounded jazzed about having broken the Beatles's
record. But Plant was hoarse, a fairly substantial drawback.
I attended the show as a 15-year-old high school student,
arriving at the Stadium with friends well before the Saturday night
concert began. After showing our five-dollar advance tickets (six
on the day of the show), we took a place on the field, around a
third of the way to the stage.
Zeppelin took the stage after 8pm, with the introduction:
"Ladies and gentlemen, what more can I say? Led Zeppelin!" Fans screamed
as if they were on fire.
Robert Plant stepped to the mike. "Looks like we've
done something nobody's done before," he said, referring to the box office
record. "And that's fantastic."
Jimmy Page struck a practice chord. John
Bonham played a drum roll. Feedback filled the air. Then Bonham pounded
out the intro to "Rock and Roll."
As Plant started singing, it became obvious he was
straining to hit the high notes (due to some sort of cold), which was
disappointing.
But Page more than made up for it, fluidly riffing
through a stunning twenty-minute opener that included "Celebration
Day," "Black Dog," "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "Misty Mountain Hop"
in quick succession.
Just before "Misty Mountain," Plant chatted to the crowd
again. "Anyone make the Orlando gig we did last time?," he asked.
Fans cheered.
"This is the second gig we've done since we've been back
to the States and uh..." Plant seemed speechless for a moment.
"And I can't believe it!"
But the lovey-dovey mood evaporated a bit after "Since
I've Been Loving You," when front row fans began getting out of
control, pushing against barriers and forcing Plant to play
security guard.
"Listen, listen," Plant said to the unruly crowd. "May
I ask you, as we've achieved something between us that's never been
done before, if we could just cool it on these barriers here because
otherwise there're gonna be a lot of people who might get [hurt],"
Plant told the crowd. "So if you have respect for the person who's
standing next to you, which is really what it's all about, then
possibly we can act more gently."
"We don't want problems, do we?," Plant asked. The crowd
cheered.
Several songs later, after "The Rain Song," it became
clear the crowd was now getting seriously out of control. Plant got
testy.
"We want this to be a really joyous occasion," he says.
"And I'm going to tell you this, because three people have been taken to the
hospital, and if you keep pushing on that barrier, there're going to be
stacks and stacks of people going. So for goodness sakes...can we
move back just a little bit because it's the only way. If you can't do
that, then you can't really live with your brother. Just for this evening
anyway."
"Can you cooperate?!," asked Plant, a bit exasperated.
There was tepid applause. "It's a shame to talk about things like
cooperation when there're so many of us. Anyway you people sitting
up the sides are doing a great job. [fans cheer] But these poor
people are being pushed by somebody. So cool it. That's not very
nice."
Plant also took the opportunity to publicly diss Miami.
For some unknown reason, the band was apparently still sore about a 1970
gig in Miami Beach that stands as the last time Zep played in
that area.
"We played the Convention Center in Miami, which was
really bad," said Plant to the crowd, just before introducing
"Dazed and Confused." "The gig was good, but there
were some men walking around all the time making such a silly
scene." He didn't elaborate.
The crowd problems seemed to dissipate after a few more
songs. By the time the group roared into "Whole Lotta Love," near the
end of the almost three-hour set, Plant shouted, "We've got 57,000
people here and we're gonna boogie!,” segueing into “Let That
Boy Boogie Woogie.” The crowd went nuts.
Unfortunately, I had to be home by around 11pm,
which meant missing encores "The Ocean" and "Communication
Breakdown."
The highlight of the night, judging from a tape of the
show and from memory, was "Over the Hills and Far Away," if only because
of Page's incendiary solo, which was quite unlike his solos in
other live versions of the song. That alone is worth searching the
Internet for a bootleg CD of the show.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- All quotes in the above report come verbatim from my tape of
the concert.
________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Cinco de Mayo
Last Night's Bright Eyes/Oakley Hall Show
"The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Koran's mute/
If you burn them all together you get close to the truth,"
sang Conor Oberst last night at Bright Eyes's terrific but
too-short show in Berkeley, Calif.
That song, "Four Winds," from Bright Eyes's new
"Cassadaga" album, has been out for only a few weeks, but it sounds
like one of the best new songs I've heard from anyone this year -- and
certainly the most audacious. The band did most of the new
album, which features some of Oberst's best lyrics ever. His
war poem "No One Would Riot for Less" hushed the place:
"He says, help me out/hell is coming/Could you do it
now?/hell is here."
Opening acts Gillian Welch (she joined Bright Eyes
for a marvelous "Look at Miss Ohio") and Jim James were enjoyable, but
the act that really took me by surprise was the first on the bill:
Oakley Hall.
Oakley Hall is a relatively unknown Brooklyn band
that will almost certainly not be relatively unknown for long.
Judging from the Berkeley gig, they have vast potential to become
A Next Big Thang. They might have an "Anodyne" or even a "Murmur"
in them, and vocalist Rachel Cox is very winning and charming (though
I didn't have a good view of her or the band; I heard the whole concert
from the hills). At last night's show, in a half hour, they played six
songs, and every one of 'em hit the bullseye. The band's next album,
"I'll Follow You," will be released in August.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- OK, OK, for all you setlist obsessives out there, here's
last night's Bright Eyes list:
Clairaudients
Hot Knives
Middleman
The First Day of My Life
Four Winds
Make a Plan to Love Me
Classic Cars
No One Would Riot for Less
Cleanse Song
I Believe in Symmetry
All the Best (by John Prine)
Happy Birthday
Look at Miss Ohio
At the Bottom of Everything
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 1, 2007
While visiting Istanbul alone as a teenager in the 1970s, I
asked some Turkish hippie selling cassette audiotapes in an
underground bazaar what Turkish rocker he liked most. He
didn't hesitate.
"Cem Karaca," he said furtively but proudly, looking
cautiously around him, as if the very mention of his name could land him
in prison. He then sold me Karaca's latest, "Nem Kaldi," his
third album, which I grew to enjoy and proceeded to listen to
for decades.
For Turkey, Karaca's music was audacious, a combination of
hard rock and folk rock and Anatolian music, along with subversive
lyrics, all of which earned Karaca condemnation by right wing
Turks who accused him of treason. Hence, it was no surprise when,
in 1980, the government issued an arrest warrant for Karaca that sent
him into exile for most of that decade (he was charged, essentially,
with writing lyrics that incited revolution).
Aside from the much better known Plastic People of the
Universe (of the former Czechoslavakia), Karaca -- along with
Francesco Guccini, the Bob Dylan of Italy -- represented the most
radical mainstream (non-English language) rock to have come out
of greater Europe in the 1970s.
But where the Plastic People were resisting a now-defunct
communism, Karaka was struggling against reactionaries who are
still very much in power today: conservative Islamists.
On my visit to Istanbul, I saw first-hand how Islamic
totalitarians were as oppressive as communists ever were. On that
1976 trip, I traveled alone by local train behind the Iron
Curtain -- into Bulgaria, the most totalitarian of the Eastern
Bloc nations -- and then into Islam. By far, there was less freedom
on an everyday basis in Islam (even secular Islam) than there was
behind the Iron Curtain. (I could write several pages of anecdotes,
but that's not the subject of this column.)
So it was encouraging to see hundreds of thousands of
progressives taking to the streets of Istanbul the other day to protest
their prime minister's nomination of an Islamist (Abdullah Gul) for
president. And today, the secularists scored a big victory
when Turkey's Supreme Court nullified the Parliamentary vote
that would've put Gul in office.
Somehow I get the feeling that if Cem Karaca were still
alive, he'd be joining the protesters in celebrating their victory today.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 29, 2007
Which of the Candidates Saw 9/11 Coming?
Presidential candidates with hindsight are as plentiful
as gravel, those with foresight as scarce as gold. As the
election season heats up -- and as we approach the sixth
anniversary of 9/11, with bin Laden still roaming and
plotting freely -- voters can't help but ask: which of
the current presidential contenders saw the attacks of
9/11 coming and warned us about the danger?
According to my own research, only one had such
foresight: Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
Listen to Biden on June 21, 2000, speaking on the floor
of the U.S. Senate: "We all know about Pakistan, the gateway to Afghanistan
for Osama bin Laden and his buddies. Can anybody think of a better place
to beef up border security, so that terrorists can be apprehended as they
go to and from those Afghan training camps?"
Again, that was Biden in the year 2000, over a year before
bin Laden committed mass murder on U.S. soil. And Biden had the
danger sized up perfectly -- before the fact.
To be sure, Biden wasn't alone in ringing the alarm but
he almost was (and I should note that my research is limited to candidates
who were U.S. Senators and Representatives before or during 9/11).
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also sounded an early alarm
about the Taliban. "The Taliban in their activities...there [in Afghanistan]
have placed them outside the circle of civilized human behavior," said
Pelosi, on June 13, 2001.
On the other hand, Rep. Dennis Kucinich turns up
in the Congressional Record as one of the least prescient and
least perceptive members of Congress in sensing the al Qaeda threat
before 9/11.
Get this: fifteen months before the 9/11 attacks,
Kucinich put into the Congressional Record a Los Angeles Times column
that opined that peace was a-happenin' all over the world and that the
threat of terrorism was largely on the decline ("even the Taliban
leadership in Afghanistan is now said to be uneasy with the Osama bin
Laden gang of terrorists," said the thoroughly un-prescient column
that Kucinich put into the CR).
Other members and former members of Congress also had
foresight -- among them, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Frank Pallone
of New Jersey -- but none are among the current presidential hopefuls.
Senators Edwards and McCain were apparently silent in the Senate about
the al Qaeda threat (as was Sen. Clinton in her first eight months
or so in office in '01).
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- By the way, one wonders what it was about the pre-9/11 Taliban
that attracted a profoundly misguided guy like John Walker Lindh. Was
Lindh attracted to the fact that the Taliban was blowing up sacred
Buddhist statuary or that it was forcing Hindus to wear yellow stars in
public in Kabul? Here's an idea: don't release Lindh until Mullah Omar
is dead (or until Lindh couldn't possibly reconnect, upon release, with
the Taliban racists who he bonded with as a teen)
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 27, 2007
The winner of last night's presidential debate was without a
doubt Sen. Hillary Clinton and the loser was without a doubt Sen. Barack
Obama. And it really all came down to one question from NBC's Brian
Williams about what their first responses would be if there was a new
terrorist attack.
Obama gave one of the worst debate responses since
Howard Dean in '04. (Remember when Dean, sounding a bit like Gen.
Turgidson talking about an obviously insane Gen. Ripper in
"Dr Strangelove," said we had to wait for all the facts to come
in before condemning bin Laden?) Obama acted as if the
hypothetical terror attack on two American cities would be an
opportunity for some sort of academic think-tanking about
infrastructure.
Sen. Clinton sounded like the only grown-up in the room,
saying we should quickly retailate against the attacker and whatever
government was backing the attacker, once we had definitively
determined who had hit us. And she almost never strayed from important
issues -- like health care, health care and health care -- and seemed
genuine, sympathetic, appealing, even presidential (very different
from her previous strident and scolding persona).
For the very first time, I can truly see the presidential
seal on her podium.
It is way too early to make a prediction about the 2008
race, but lemme venture into the minefield anyway. Here's a possible
scenario: The Democratic ticket is Clinton/Edwards (Obama sulks
after a Gene McCarthy-like defeat and declines the number two spot,
which Hillary doesn't really want him for anyway, since he's
too liberal for a national candidacy). The Republican ticket is
Romney/McCain, after Giuliani self-destructs in the primaries, having
been forced to spend all his time on defense about his marital history
and nefarious dealings as mayor. (McCain is simply too old and -- more
important -- appears too old to be president; his shot was in '00.)
So there you have it: Clinton/Edwards versus Romney/McCain
in November '08 (a prediction that may seem laughable -- or maybe not -- a
year from now).
* * *
Bravo to Richard Gere for kissing actress Shilpa Shetty
in such a fun and flamboyant and passionate way. If I were Gere, I would
no more apologize to the reactionaries of India for kissing publicly then
I would to American Seventh-day Adventists for dancing.
To all the wonderful cultural liberals in India: you
should organize public kiss-ins throughout India to protest the
conservative prohibition in your country.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 24, 2007
Some overreaching journalists are suggesting
that Cho was imitating the movie "Oldboy" in the still
photos that he sent in his multi-media package to NBC News.
Only problem with that theory is that there is absolutely no
evidence that Cho had ever seen the movie "Oldboy." Unless he
otherwise referred to that film in his writings (and keep in mind
that he tended to write about things that influenced him), I don't
think he was making any cinematic allusion at all. And it's hard
to see how he might have been influenced by a movie he
had never seen. The connection seems to be based only
on some sort of loose ethnic stereotype (i.e., Cho
was Korean-American and the movie was South Korean,
which is sort of like assuming I'm a big fan of
Fellini's "Roma" because I have an Italian last name).
The Cho photos show extremely generic and very common
attack poses that resemble scenes from countless
cop and action movies (if you want to read too much into them,
maybe the pose with the gun to his head was from Martin
Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," for crissakes; and the "Oldboy"
pose is similar to a shot near the beginning of Chaplin's
"Modern Times").
There is absolutely no doubt, however, that Cho was
extremely influenced by and apparently obsessed with the rock
band Guns 'n' Roses, specifically the lyrics of
the group's song "Mr. Brownstone," which actually turn up in
Cho's writings. In fact, I've written a story about the Cho/GNR
connection, which is in the upcoming issue of The Boston Phoenix (it's
on the web now at http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid38425.aspx).
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 21, 2007
Read my latest story, about the connection between the Virginia Tech
murderer and the lyrics of Guns 'n' Roses, in The Boston Phoenix at:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid38425.aspx
___________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 19, 2007
The media is as busy as Victoria Station talking about
the airing of the Cho videotapes, and I have to say that I strongly
agree with the decision by NBC News to broadcast
the videos and pictures. It's important for
everyone to examine the mental illness of a guy like Cho,
without filter, in order to better understand the kind
of extreme madness that created this extreme tragedy.
The more we know, the better we're equipped to prevent
such an event in the future. (Those who think that
it will only spur copycats have an untenable position;
perhaps they think we should blot out all coverage of
the Virginia Tech massacre in order to deter imitators.)
If we don't see explicit, disturbing pictures of a
melanoma, how will we recognize it when it shows up in the future?
Keep in mind that the news media regularly airs
videos from the worst mass murderer in American history, Osama
bin Laden, who killed around 100 times as many people, in a
couple hours in 2001, as Cho did last Monday. The enormity of
the VTech crime incidentally points up the enormity of the 9/11
murders; for every person Cho shot dead, bin Laden killed 100.
(By the way, I bet that Islamic militants are fully aware of
the VTech massacre and are now thinking along those lines for
a future attack.)
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 18, 2007
Every few years we go through the same pattern in the
U.S.: there is an awful mass murder, everyone agrees the
massacre could've been avoided if there had been tougher gun laws,
and then we hit the snooze alarm. Several years later, there
is yet another unspeakable shooting, everyone agrees there should
be stricter gun control, and then we hit the snooze alarm again.
This time, following the tragic killings at Virginia
Tech, we will no doubt hit the snooze alarm once again.
Oh, there will inevitably be Senate hearings and high-minded
editorials in major papers, but that will all come to naught.
Because the gun lobby and the NRA are simply too influential.
Again, we will pursue all the wrong avenues. We will
focus on campus lockdown procedures when we should be focusing on
gun control. We will focus on monitoring creative writing
classes when we should be focusing on gun control. (Sidenote:
kudos to professor Lucinda Roy for picking up on the fact that
Cho was a sicko. I just finished reading Cho's "plays" -- which
are really more like skits -- and it's clear he's not only
mentally ill, but a lousy writer, too. His main literary
influence seemed to be the Guns 'n' Roses's album "Appetite for
Destruction" (that's probably where he got his pseudonym "Ismael
Ax," which sounds a bit like Axl Rose, GNR's frontman). And
you don't have to be a psychiatrist to see that he acted like someone
livid about having been molested by someone older when he was
younger. If I had been in Lucinda Roy's place,
I would have talked to campus security about
"testing" the guy through undercover officers
(in other words, have an undercover cop provoke
him and see whether he gets violent or not).
That said, I really hope this doesn't give some
mediocre creative writing teacher the excuse to
put some brilliant kid who is influenced by Dostoyevsky
or Bret Easton Ellis under police scrutiny. Not every
teacher is as perceptive as Lucinda Roy. I bet there's
going to me a temporary epidemic of teachers/editors
saying that a certain person's story made them feel
uncomfortable, when in fact they merely disagreed
with its point of view or didn't get it. It
reminds me of the old tale about musician Tom Petty,
who reportedly sent a note to executives suggesting
that the title of his next album be "You're Going to
Get It"; an overcautious exec reportedly took it as
a threat.
Truth is, on a personal level as a writer, I would never
have produced such pushing-the-envelope pieces
as "Choosing My Religion" for Details or "Streaming
Katie's Consciousness" for The Chicago Tribune or
"It's Not So Smart To Be Smart Anymore" for Spy
magazine (as I recall, other writers were stealing
bits of that one as fast as they could type!)
if I hadn't also been coming up with other stories
that didn't see print because they were a bit
too over-the-top for mainstream consumption.
Anyway, back to the main issue. I even heard a
not-so-bright suggestion on the Today show that if
all the students had been armed, this shooting might have
been avoided. Why is that wrongheaded? Because you have to look
at what works. It's very simple: in countries where gun laws
are strict, this sort of massacre never happens. So we need to
do what they do. If people who drink X don't get cancer, then
we need to drink X. Before we hit the snooze alarm again.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I'm a big fan of Sen. Harry Reid, except when he
criticizes LBJ's arm-twisting of legislators. Truth is,
if LBJ hadn't insisted on ramming through certain
bills, we might still have limited racial
segregation today. The lack of LBJ-like tactics
is the reason we can't get a gun control bill
or single payer health care legislation
through Congress with an override margin.
_______________________________
Thanks to "JLD" of Utah for his thoughtful comment on my column today.
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 15, 2007
My heart goes out to the victims of today's massacre at
Virginia Tech. As someone who was violently robbed at gunpoint nearly
two years ago, I can testify to the fact that you don't have to be
shot or physically injured to suffer injury from an act of gun violence.
I'm certain the toll of the truly wounded is much higher than will ever be
reported.
* * *
Pop Culture Too Coarse? Try Mozart.
In the wake of the Don Imus contoversy, there has been
widespread condemnation of offensive content in rap music and in all
the arts. Examples of vulgar material are abundant:
-- In the words of one piece of music, a guy brags about someone who
has had casual sex with 91 women in one country and a thousand-three
in another.
-- In another work, a drama, someone is held down in a chair while his body
parts are sadistically cut out.
-- And then there's the best-selling book about a psycho ax murderer
that is ubiquitous in most school libraries.
Disgusting examples of the coarsening of pop culture? I've
just described Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Shakespeare's "King Lear"
and Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."
One wonders whether the people calling for censorship of
rap have ever heard of "Don Giovanni" or read a translation of DaPonte's
libretto. Parts of it do indeed have the braggadoccio of sexist rap (to
paraphrase Leporello's rap in "Madamina, il catalogo e questo":
"In France, he boned 91 hos, in Germany he took on a
thousand-three mo'").
How many polite school principals would put Dostoyevsky's
"Crime and Punishment" in classrooms if it were titled
"Psycho Ax Killer," which is what it's about? And are most
schoolteachers even aware that parts of "King Lear" are as gruesome
and violent as anything in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs"?
You can avoid seeing what happens to Gloucester by
simply not reading "Lear," just as you can avoid hearing shocking
rap lyrics by switching to Lite FM. And I personally avoided experiencing
any of Don Imus's programs for decades by tuning into NPR in
the morning instead.
Fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, who condemn
so-called lax moral standards in pop culture (what a cliche that has
become!), forget one thing: nobody is forcing them to listen to
Snoop Dogg or Howard Stern or Madonna. If 36 Mafia offends
your Muslim or Christian or Jewish sensibilities, turn it off
and go listen to religious music of your choosing.
Whether censorship comes from the king of your country
or from a stateless militant group outside your nation, it's still
censorship. And the religious totalitarians's use of asymmetrical
warfare makes them as intimidating as a government with an army.
Such was the case with the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989
when Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" was taken off bookshelves at
stores intimidated by fundamentalists. The government of the
U.S. did not ban the book at those shops; the Muslim militants did.
So it scarcely matters, in a sense, whether the suppression
of free speech comes from the government or from a militant group
using asyemmtrical means. The practical result is the same: the
quashing of free speech.
The Muslim militants who violently objected to the Mohammed
cartoons are like the dictator who wants to control the press,
and they are worthy of the same level of open defiance.
And that's why it was important for the Jyllands-Posten and
others to publish the so-called Mohammed cartoons. After all, Mohammed may
be a religious figure to the religious, but he's a figure from history to
me, and I reserve the right, as a writer, to portray historic figures
from Jesus to Napoleon any way I please.
If you want to treat Mohammed as a religious icon, you can.
And if I want to portray him as a figure from history, I will. How come
my framework includes you, but yours doesn't include me?
Late night comedians and the rest of us should be able to
make jokes about both Mormon polygamy and the fact that, say, Mohammed
had twelve wives. It's not reasonable to contend that we can
satirize all religions except Islam.
Fundamentalists of all faiths have to be weaned away
from absolutism, which is the cause of almost all the war and
terrorism today. And, yes, fundamentalists should develop a sense
of humor about their religions, which after all are really
pretty funny if you try to take them literally. (People rising
from the dead? A guy with 12 wives? You can't be serious.)
And we shouldn't try to make the book burners (or bin Laden,
for that matter) seem as if they're intellectuals with complex reasoning
behind their actions. Remember, they embrace a literalist reading
of the Koran, and that's the salient fact about them, so there
couldn't possibly be intellectual value in what they believe, no
matter who they've studied under or what they've read. There are
some confused people in America who see the beards and sandals
of jihadists and mistake them for existentialist philosophers.
(They love to say stuff like "he was educated in Paris." Oh, really?
What school in Paris? There are a lot of lousy schools in Paris.)
No, would-be censors like the militants who were burning
books and music and movies in Islamabad last week might best be described
as Muslim rednecks who most closely resemble the sunbelt rednecks in America
that burned all those Beatles albums in the mid-sixties. Both share a
literal belief in their respective religions.
As I said, defiance is the only correct response to
totalitarianism, and we should express ourselves without regard to
whether absolutists are offended or not. Society should not adjust to
the psychotic but vice versa.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- A non-absolutist is like me: I think I'm right
about my secular view of, say, Mohammed, but I recognize the
fact (and tolerate) that you also think you're right about your
religious view of Mohammed.
On the other hand, an absolutist thinks he's right about
his own religious view of Mohammed, but he insists that
everyone share his view and that there be no dissenting opinions.
That's the difference.
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 13, 2007
It's an interesting spectacle to watch certain neo-racist white
people in the media overcorrect for their own neo-racism by giving podium to
a liar and discredited source like Al Sharpton.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 12, 2007
Oh, I hear the silence, I hear that wonderful
Al Sharpton-less silence. I no longer hear Sharpton doing his loudmouth
thing on tv about the Crystal Gail Mangum defamation case. No,
he's mighty quiet right about now about all of her lies.
But the downside of that wonderful Al
Sharpton-less silence is that I don't hear him
apologizing, as he should, for promoting her
grotesque fabrications. And I also don't hear
him defending her, as he would if he still
believed Mangum's bullshit. Of course, he still
hasn't gotten around to an apology for supporting
the lies of Tawana Brawley nearly two decades ago, so he's got a
backlog of dishonesty to sift through. He's busy.
The Crystal Gail Mangum defamation case is over,
but it ain't over.
The people who were right from the start should be
rewarded. The people who were wrong should be penalized.
Those who should get a promotion and a raise: CBS's
Byron Pitts, The New York Times's Peter Applebome, Duke's James
Coleman, those who worked with the late Ed Bradley on his "60 Minutes"
report on the Duke case, author Kurt Andersen, many others.
Those who should be demoted or fired: NBC's Ron Mott,
genuine idiot Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, Michael Nifong, the Duke faculty
members who reflexively backed Mangum, editors who claimed it wasn't
relevant to bring up the fact that Mangum lied about once stealing a taxi
cab and driving it drunk as cops chased her, Wilson and Glater of the Times,
many others.
As for Crystal Gail Mangum herself: as I stated
yesterday, she should be charged with perjury, filing a false police report,
public drunkenness, and whatever other laws she broke.
For the record: my own earliest mention of the Duke case
was published, in The Chicago Tribune, almost exactly a year ago, on
April 25, 2006, when I satirized those in the media who bought Mangum's
dubious accusations. Writing in the voice of a Katie Couric who was
panicking over the fact that she might have been lied to by Mangum, I wrote
in The Chicago Tribune: "I really hope that Duke lacrosse scandal doesn't
turn into the next Jennifer Wilbanks disaster -- did I use the word
'alleged' enough? I'll have to rerack the tapes."
I think we all oughta re-rack the tapes now, and see who's
to bless and who's to blame.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 11, 2007
On my birth certificate, my name is officially Paul Lockett
Iorio, Lockett being the family name on my mother's British side
of the family, Iorio being the name on my dad's Italian side. If
customs in the U.S. were different, I might have grown up as
Paul Lockett instead of Paul Iorio. Though I'm proud of both
names, both come with a different set of cultural stereotypes.
So imagine if I had won some sort of writing award last week
that somehow came to the attention of Don Imus, and Imus had
made some trite, ethnically ignorant, supposedly funny remark
like, "Whoaa, they're giving prizes to the mafia now -- I
wonder where he left the horse's head to get that award."
A joke that wouldn't be told if my name were Paul Lockett.
A joke that wouldn't be told by anyone who knew that the
Italian side of my family is mostly scholarly, far more
familiar with Capote than Capone. A joke that robs a person
of his individuality and identity before millions of people.
So my heart goes out to the Rutgers basketball team players
who had their identities distorted and reduced to a cliche by
some old guy in a cowboy hat last week.
Still, if Imus's joke had been on me, I know I would have had a
sense of humor about it and would have rolled with the joke.
After all, everybody gets skewered in free-speech America, and
you have to have thick skin and a fine appreciation of the
fact that your-joke-about-me permits my-joke-about-you.
And, context IS everything when it comes to making
audacious remarks. Remember, Lenny Bruce used the same word that Michael
Richards used in his own routine -- and virtually as many times, too -- but
Bruce got away with saying "nigger" (even among African Americans) because
he was funny and meaningful and progressive; Richards was merely spouting
angrily and hatefully (as Paul Rodriguez said, "I was waiting for the joke").
Anyway, I think Imus should use this opportunity to
retire; after all, he sounds old, he's resorting to cliches
instead of fresh perceptions and doesn't know where the lines on
the highway are anymore. He's had his run, and now it's time for
someone new.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly Mr. Politically Correct
(just read past editions of this column and articles on my home
page). And I admire Bill Maher and others who know there's a way
to be outrageous and there's a way not to. Mick Jagger, for
example, knew how to write an over-the-top audacious lyric like
"Brown Sugar" without ever really offending anyone; but if a dim
band like, say, Great White, had tried to write up the same idea,
it would likely be way out-of-line and deeply offensive.
As Bob Dylan once put it, "To live outside the law you must be
honest." Those who want to thrill everybody by racing in the
opposing lane of traffic (and getting away with it) have to have
a keen sense of where the lines on the highway are drawn to
begin with.
The best insight I've read about the Imus affair comes
from Alessandra Stanley in today's New York Times: "Mr. Imus wants to be
both a shock jock and Charlie Rose," she wrote, "and the two roles
inevitably collide." Exactly. If he didn't have so much gravitas as a
serious interviewer, he'd still have his job.
* * *
Glad to see that the late Ed Bradley's excellent report on
the dubious charges against Duke University lacrosse players won a
Peabody Award last week.
Also glad that it looks like charges will be dropped against
the Duke Three later today. Still, my questions are these:
Why did it take so long to drop charges that were so
obviously false?
Isn't the real story of the Duke Three case about a flaw
in the American legal system that allowed such a case to go forward for
so long?
Why haven't charges yet been brought against the accuser,
Crystal Gail Mangum, for filing a false police report, perjury, public
drunkenness, etc.?
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 9, 2007
Forget Gallup and Harris; YouTube May Be the Only Political
Poll That Really Matters
There are lots of political polls tracking the popularity of the
2008 presidential hopefuls, but the only one that may count
in terms of measuring pure buzz is not really a poll at all
It's YouTube, which is also,
inadvertently, a telling gauge of the
relative popularity of politicians and other
phenomena, a measure of who's making the biggest noise right
here, right now.
An analysis of viewership of political videos offered through
YouTube reveals some fascinating results. For example, Sen.
Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are the front-runners in
YouTube hits, with the intensity of interest going to Obama.
The candidacies of former Senators John Edwards and John
McCain are generating little heat on the website.
And Sen. Chris Dodd's YouTube ratings are
abysmal, while former vice president
Al Gore's are encouraging.
The value of YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/)
as a poll lies in the fact that it shows how many times people
have viewed a particular video that is offered through its site.
So if you were to put, say, Hillary Clinton's name in YouTube's
search engine, you'd see not only a list
of Hillary-related videos but information about the
number of times each has been watched. It measures
the passion and obsessiveness (or lack thereof) of
political supporters in their private Internet interactions
in a way that polls by Gallup and Roper and Quinnipiac don't
(though, to be sure, the YouTube audience probably skews
younger than the overall voting population).
And that's also what seems to make YouTube a better
measure of buzz than, say, Google, because YouTube's
gauge is more particularized. In other words, if you were
to type "Hillary Clinton" into the Google search engine,
you'd get nearly four million undifferentiated hits -- but not
all of those search results would be about Sen. Clinton.
Google, as indispensable as it is, doesn't note how
many times a specific site has been viewed.
YouTube does. We can see that more than a million people
have watched Sen. Clinton sing "The Star-Spangled Banner"
off-key on the main website featuring that clip. And almost
three million have viewed the "Vote Different" video, a mash-up
of the famous Apple Computer ad of the 1980s that now
shows Hillary as Goliath. (That video, as is the case with
most YouTube clips, is posted in several places on the website,
making it difficult to determine its exact total viewership.
For the purposes of this Daily Digression, I'm citing only the most
viewed posting of a specific video.)
But the million-plus views of her national anthem clip don't
really speak to her popularity, since there's a tendency for
YouTube ratings to be the highest for videos that are either humorous
or embarrassing to a candidate.
Hence, the clip of Donald Trump fondling the breasts of former
New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is dressed in drag, is the
highest-rated Giuliani-related site (over 221,000 hits). And
Al Gore's biggest video is also a funny one, a humorous cartoon
from the makers of "Furturama" called "A Terrifying Message From
Al Gore" (over a million and a half hits, almost as many as the
Michael Richards-at-the-Laugh-Factory clip).
Common sense suggests that those watching the funny clips or the
gotcha-videos about a candidate are not necessarily fans of that
politician. Rather, a politician's real supporters probably tend
toward authorized videos or policy speeches -- clips that are of
interest to the true believers only, for the most part, and are
pretty much a bore to the general public.
For example, Obama's leading authorized campaign clips,
"Meet Barack Obama" and "My Plans for 2008," have a
relatively large audience (109,170 and 175,113 hits,
respectively), as do some of Clinton's ( "Hillary on Oil Profits"
has had 269,689 viewers, though "Hillary Clinton Announces Run for
President" gets a paltry 23,709 hits).
Al Gore, who has said he is not running for president, also has
high ratings for authorized campaign and wonk videos; his recent
testimony before Congress has received 58,257 hits in its first week,
though his other clips don't have as many viewers.
Edwards's ratings are variable, as are former Gov. Mitt
Romney's; an Edwards "exclusive to YouTube" has had over
118,000 hits, though his press conference about his wife's
cancer has had only 13,093 views (and his speech for a
local politician in North Carolina has had only 368 views).
Meanwhile, a Romney for President ad has had just 29,059 hits,
though a clip from his debate in the 1994 Massachusetts U.S.
Senate race, in which he takes liberal stands on abortion and
gay rights, has been watched 94,613 times.
McCain's most-watched video is one in which he appears to
nod off during a State of the Union speech by President Bush
(235,123 hits); but ratings for his policy speeches are in the
cellar (1,980 hits for McCain speaking about Gitmo; 1,835 viewers
for McCain talking about war veterans; and a dreadful 795
hits for McCain's ad for Congressional candidate Martha Rainville).
Sen. Joe Biden seems to generate hits only when he messes up; his
controversial comments about Indians have had over 24,000 viewers
and his infamous remarks about Obama have had over 15,000 hits.
But viewership of his policy videos is shockingly low; Biden's
speech on global warming had 506 viewers and his comments on Iraq
drew 2,190 hits, which is almost at Mike Gravel-level lows (Gravel's
speech on Iraq has had 2,113 hits, while a video piece about the
"censorship" of Mike Gravel had only 920 views).
Former Sen. Fred Thompson, increasingly mentioned as a possible
candidate, could use some help with his YouTube numbers; though
one of his appearances on Fox News drew 18,672 views, his video on
campaign reform had exactly zero hits.
Candidates Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter
had viewership that was mostly in the low hundreds, though there are
notable exceptions like Brownback's speech on stem cell research
(over 9,000 hits), Hunter's talk on the so-called Border Fence with
Mexico (over 6,000 views) and Dodd's appearance on Don
Imus's show about the steamy novel written by Sen. Jim
Webb (over 343,000 hits).
Only a few of these videos approach the status of such
YouTube blockbusters as OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" music video, which
has had a phenomenal 14 million hits on just one website (an estimated 21
million views in all).
But I digress. Paul
[above photos of Edwards and Obama by Paul Iorio, 2007.]
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 7, 2007
The Muslim rednecks burning books and music and movies in
Islamabad remind me of the sunbelt rednecks in America who burned all those
Beatles albums in the mid-sixties. No difference. Though most
American progressives see the resemblance, I wonder why the rest don't
(or won't).
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 4, 2007
Imagine if there had been a Correspondents' dinner in 1954 at
which Edward R. Murrow was swing dancing with Sen. Joseph McCarthy,
while jokingly pointing his finger at McCarthy and saying, "You witch
hunter, you!"
Or a dinner in early 1974 in which Dan Rather did the bump
with H.R. Haldeman.
Well, that's sorta what it looked like at the recent
event where NBC Entertainment's David Gregory was part of MC Rove's
performance in Washington.
To be sure, Rove is no McCarthy or Haldeman(and Gregory
is no Murrow) -- but the principle is the same. You watch the performance
and wonder: is he the same NBC reporter who asks (supposedly) aggressive
questions to administration officials? Isn't he the same guy who always
seems to be sparring like a petulant adolescent with one Bushie or
another? Or is all that just an act to bolster his standing?
It's interesting that when he subs for Matt Lauer on
"Today," you really notice the absence of Lauer, whose star power is
underrated. I remember covering the Oscar parties one year for a
newspaper and seeing each movie star and film maker enter the party in
front of fans across the street. As each would enter, fans would shriek to
varying degrees. One of the biggest screams of the night from the
crowd was not for a film star but for Lauer, when he made his entrance.
* * *
NEW CIRQUE SHOW A-COMIN'
I've only attended one Cirque de Soleil performance in my life,
on the afternoon of January 9, 2000, in Irvine, California, which I saw
because I was writing about the troupe for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Anyway, I have to say I wasn't overly wowed by
Cirque at the time. After the show, I sat down under the Irvine big top
with Cirque's Roch Jertis and others, but still came away feeling that
the performance was like too much ice cream, losing its pleasure after
the 32nd amazing feat or so. (I also remember the performers appeared to
be flinging objects into the audience from the aisles -- there was a
hostile vibe to "Dralion.")
But the premiere last year of their blockbuster "Love,"
structured around the music of the Beatles, won over even Cirque
detractors, who were glad the troupe finally seemed to be abandoning
some of its pretentious obscurantism.
Well, guess what? The 'ol pretentious obscurantism is
baaaaccck! It's been announced that this holiday season, in New York,
Cirque will present what it calls "a new creation" titled "A Winter Tale"
or "Winter's Tale" -- it's hard to tell what the title is from their website,
which also offers this description of the so-called plot:
"...When the snow doesn't arrive, [a boy] embarks on a quest with three companions...to find the snow and bring it back where it belongs. The adventurers journey to an imaginary Arctic...When at last the sun returns, they fly home on the wings of a giant crane and unleash an epic snowstorm."
So lemme get this straight: it ain't snowing in a boy's
hometown, so the kid takes off to the Arctic to find some of the white
stuff. (Couldn't he have just gone to Buffalo? Am I not supposed to ask
such questions?) Then the sun comes out, so he boards a crane (a crane?)
to bring snow to his town.
Cirque really oughta stick with The Beatles.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 3, 2007
ELEVEN QUESTIONS ALMOST NOBODY ASKS
If the U.S. Capitol building had been destroyed on 9/11, it would have almost certainly been rebuilt as it was. Why is the World Trade Center not being rebuilt as it was?
If the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has no significant religious content, as its supporters claim, then why include it?
If athletes can be stripped of their records because of steroid use, should writers and artists be stripped of their awards if they are found to have created their work on drugs or booze?
If Michael Jackson's alleged crimes are serious enough to warrant a 20-year prison sentence in California, how come such creepy offenses are virtually legal in Baja California (and in many other countries)?
Why does almost nobody ask where Mullah Omar is?
Why isn't President Bush referred to as Bush, Jr., and his father as Bush, Sr.?
Why do reporters ask sources who didn't anticipate the 9/11 attacks to speculate about the probability of future terrorist attacks?
Why do American liberals seem to react more strongly against religious rightists who burn books than they do against Islamic rightists who assassinate authors?
Why have American conservatives been spending more time on providing health care for the brain damaged and the comatose than for the uninsured?
Why doesn't anyone advocate expanding Megan's Law to include dangerous recidivists like murderers, chronic DUI offenders and serious non-sexual assaulters?
Where is Osama bin Laden?
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 30, 2007
On Stanley Kubrick
A lot of people don't get the aesthetic of extreme clarity of
artists and writers like Stanley Kubrick and Donald Barthelme and
the Ramones and others who make radical use of deliberate repetition for
effect (a style that can be nicely applied to journalism, too, by
the way). I was sort of surprised when I wrote for a particular
Bay Area newspaper and found that some editors and writers there
actually thought that element was a flaw in Kubrick's films
(and they were ones to talk -- many of them wrote schlock!).
I remember one editor railing against a beautifully minimalist
and deliberately repetitive passage in one of his movies -- and I
realized that a lot of his brilliance was going way over the
heads of her and others.
Kubrick, perhaps the greatest film director America has
produced, has now been dead for eight years. That means
there are now people who not only don't get his work, but
there's a new generation that doesn't even know his work.
After all, there hasn't been a new Kubrick picture since
the director's death in March 1999, so there are now some
teenagers who have no contemporaneous memory of a first-run
Kubrick flick. It's unfortunate that, to some, the first impression
of him might come from the recently released "Color Me
Kubrick," a feature film starring John Malkovich as a
con-man who once pretended to be Kubrick.
If you've never seen a Kubrick film -- well, it's
obvious which ones you should watch. But if you've
already seen all his films countless times and still
want a fresh experience, my suggestion is try "Barry
Lyndon" and stay with it. It seems as if so many
people have dropped out of that film mid-way because
its first forty minutes are too slow, but those who
watch it to the end are rewarded with a riveting last
half -- and a hefty dose of extreme clarity.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 29, 2007
The Death of Hip Hop
I didn't see my first rap concert until 1980, when I stopped by
the Peppermint Lounge in New York to watch the Treacherous Three,
one of the pioneers of hip hop, play to a lot of empty chairs.
I remember thinking how futuristic and fresh rap sounded, and only
then reached back to buy a copy of the Sugarhill Gang's 1979
breakthrough, "Rapper's Delight."
By 1980, hip hop was already around five years old, though
still years away from mainstream acceptance. I and my friends didn't
really fall in love with rap until 1982's "The Message" by Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five, which -- at least in NYC -- was massive,
even bigger than "Thriller" in some circles.
And I don't mean just the single "The Message" but the album
"The Message," particularly the deeply fun funk of "She's Fresh"
and "It's Nasty." It goes without saying that the title track is
one of rap's great achievements, sort of like hip hop's "A Hard
Rain's A-Gonna Fall" -- and the main reason for the group's
induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame several weeks ago.
It wasn't until later in the 1980s, at the Cat Club in NY, that
I finally got to see Melle Mel perform "The Message" -- backed by
the same rhythm section, Doug Wimbish and Keith Leblance, who played
on the album -- at a show that turned everybody into a dancer. Rap
was no longer playing to empty chairs.
Twenty-five years later, rap is now so ubiquitous that I wouldn't
be surprised if there are already Muzak versions of LL Cool J's
"I Need Love" playing in dentist offices. (Even the cute penguins in the
movie "Happy Feet" sing a sweet rendition of "The Message.")
Proof of its assimilation into even the most conservative
precincts of America is last night's correspondents dinner,
in which none other than Karl Rove actually performed a rap.
Dancing a bit like the Jeff Daniels character in the movie
"Something Wild" (when Daniels rocks out to the Feelies'
version of "Fame"), Rove was good-natured -- and he clearly amused
the crowd, though his performance, really, meant only one thing:
Rap is dead.
No, I don't care how much creative vitality is still left in
the genre. When something becomes that mainstream,
its dangerous pioneering spark must be gone.
So, on this day, March 29, 2007, I mourn the passing of hip hop
-- born 1975, died 2007.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 26, 2007
Whenever I visit my hometown of the 1970s, there is always someone
from the past who compares himself-as-a-middle-aged-professional-today
to me-when-I-was-a-scruffy-15-year-old, as opposed to
comparing me now to him now.
Truth is, I don't know anyone I grew up with in my general
age group -- not even those who have since become respectable and
successful in middle age -- who doesn't have a skeleton, great or small,
in the closet from his or her teenage years. (This, of course, does not
apply to any of my current old friends or any friend that was once near
and dear, who are and have always been virtuous and beyond reproach!)
In the old days, skeletons of almost any sort would derail
a political candidacy, but that era appears to be, thankfully, long gone.
One of the more refreshing aspects of the 2008 campaign is that
Barack Obama's candidacy has apparently not been hurt by his admission
that he used marijuana and cocaine in his youth.
That's a measure of how far we've evolved since 1987, when
the revelation of mere marijuana smoking ended the Supreme Court
nomination of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Douglas Ginsburg --
or since 1984, when an extra-marital affair destroyed the
presidential aspirations of Gary Hart.
As recently as 1992, the public wasn't sure whether
Bill Clinton would overcome the "didn't inhale" controversy or the
Gennifer Flowers scandal, but he prevailed (and fabulously). And the
reason probably has less to do with the cliche of "nobody's perfect" than
with the fact that standards of behavior constantly shift; one
generation's peccadillo is another's normalcy.
By the 2000 election, candidate George W. Bush was able to
deflect questions of alcohol and substance abuse in his past with a
simple, "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible."
And today we have candidates -- like Rudy Giuliani -- for
whom you'd need a complicated org chart to keep track of all the
lovers and wives.
So it's no wonder Obama's confession has barely caused a ripple
among the public and the press. It's as if voters have finally accepted
the traumatic truth that they will always be forced to choose a president
from a personnel pool that includes (the horror!) only flawed human beings.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 25, 2007
Let me interrupt everything here for a moment with a bulletin,
with breaking news. You'd better sit down for this one, because
it's a shocker:
Thousands of people are going to die this year in the U.S.
because they can't afford health insurance.
And here's another bit of breaking news:
Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and almost certainly
plotting his next attack on the U.S.
OK, now everybody can get back to opposing the Iraq
war or supporting the Iraq war or supporting the troops but not the
war or supporting the authorization for the war but not the war per se
or whatever. It's obvious now that the only real solution to the Iraq
war was to not have gotten in to begin with.
And so now we're diverted, just as I thought we'd be in '03,
by a war that isn't doing anybody any good.
If it weren't for the Iraq war, the House of Represntatives
might be passing super-urgent legislation, such as:
HR 101: The health care system that works so well in Canada
-- we want the same thing here now. Period.
and
HR 102: Resolved: the U.S. will kill or capture Osama
bin Laden by the end of 2007. Military funding will be prioritized
accordingly.
What a lot of people don't realize is that 9/11 wasn't an
event from the past -- it's an event that has yet to happen. The next
9/11 promises to be a real doozy, and it's probably scheduled for
around 2009 (remember, the time between the first World Trade Center
attack in 1993 and the second one in 2001 was eight years).
And what if it's a dirty bomb attack on New York or
downtown Boston or downtown San Francisco? Or on all three? Imagine
a radiation spill in North Beach in San Fran that would require the
dismantling and the disposal of such beloved buildings as City Lights
and Zoetrope (a recent issue of TNY had a riveting report on the impact
a dirty bomb might have).
After 9/11, we all decried the "poverty of imagination"
that stopped us from anticipating the attacks. We seem to be making the
same mistake again.
As for Iraq, we should handle it through either
partition or coalition. In other words, either split the place into
three autonomous republics (and prohibit an al Qaeda presidential candidate
for the Sunni third) or bring the Sunnis into a meaningful power-sharing
arrangement with al-Maliki -- an arrangement that could effectively
counter-balance the power of the Mahdi Army.
The autonomous republics (not provinces) would then operate
under the aegis of a federalized Baghdad for the purpose of equitably
distributing oil revenues nationwide.
And let's stop talking about Iraq as if we're there to
win or lose. The only U.S. ambition should be to get out of there ASAP
-- but without sparking genocide and a humanitarian catastrophe. The
factional violence will stop only when we substantially re-enfranchise the
Sunnis who we disenfranchised in 2003.
* * *
It's been over six years since the U.S. was embarrassed by the
Floridians who denied Al Gore a proper recount in the 2000
election. And that's still on the minds of a lot of Dems as '08 approaches
and the pickings look slim in terms of candidates. As I hiked the hills
east of San Francisco the other week, I saw a bumper sticker that makes
sense the more I think of it: Gore/Obama '08.
But I digress. Paul.
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 22, 2007
Don't you just love these guys? They blacklist you and
then say, "Hey, he's not working, so we can't hire him!"
That's how Zero Mostel, blacklisted in Hollywood
for most of the 1950s, must have felt when he showed his
film resume to studio moguls in the early 1960s. He
probably had a tough time explaining the gap between
1951's "The Model and the Marriage Broker" and 1961's
"Waiting for Godot" (or maybe not, come to think of it).
Thankfully the involuntary lay-off didn't exclude him from
landing a starring role in 1968's "The Producers" (or "...Forum..."
before that), which I recently saw again after hearing that
the musical version of the movie will end its Broadway run
on April 22 after six years at the St. James.
As has been widely reported, taking its place at that
theater this fall will be yet another Mel Brooks project:
Brooks's musical adaptation of "Young Frankenstein," his
1974 film.
And so the trend of making Broadway musicals out of feature
films continues.
While I'm digressing, here's an idea for a musical that
producers have not yet brought to The Great White Way:
"Robert Altman's Nashville: The Musical." Perhaps
with T-Bone Burnett as musical director.
Think about it. The musical would come readymade with a
marvelous and underrated batch of songs ("It Don't Worry Me,"
"Dues," "200 Years," etc.) and lots of colorful characters.
Many of the film's memorable scenes are already performances
on stage by singer-songwriters and country musicians. And the
sprawling dramatic action between the separate sets of
characters could easily be handled onstage by spotlighting --
i.e., by having the acton between, say, Barbara Jean and her
husband take place stage left, then shifting the spotlight
to stage right, where scenes involving Haven Hamilton happen.
Anyway, I'm sort of surprised someone hasn't thought of
this yet, given the number of unlikely musical adapations that have
been staged over the years.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 18, 2007
Obamamania Arrives in Oakland -- And May Be Unstoppable
I have attended lots of presidential campaign speeches,
dating all the way back to 1964 (when my dad put me, a 7-year-old,
on his shoulders so I could glimpse Hubert Humphrey stumping for LBJ),
but I have never ever seen the level of electricity and excitement
generated by Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Oakland, California,
yesterday afternoon.
To say he was greeted like a rock star would be to
understate the case; I have to search back in memory many years to
think of a rock show that created this sort of adult intensity
(perhaps Springsteen in '78).
Almost everyone waiting to attend the rally was smiling
-- even though they had to wait for more than an hour in a line that
seemed to stretch all the way to Sacramento. The only time
I'd ever seen such mass smiling was at a Grateful Dead
concert in 1987. It was almost as if political springtime
was blooming in fast motion on this sunny
St. Patrick's Day, like that great moment in the
documentary "The War Room" when the Grateful Dead's
"Scarlet Begonias" rang out as Bill Clinton's
campaign shifted permanently into high gear.
This is, after all, the last spring before voters
go to the polls in most of the presidential
primaries (the Iowa caucus is only slightly
more than nine months away).
At the Oakland rally, a woman attached to
her oxygen tank was in the crowd. Pamphlets and
buttons and bumper stickers and ideas
were exchanged everywhere like pollen. Strangers talked
to strangers as if they were old pals. The guy in line in
front of me, Michael, on a crutch, was convinced Obama was
the new JFK. His friend, Carter, handed me an Obama
campaign button that showed the candidate looking a bit
like, well, JFK.
The crowd was around 12,000 strong but sounded like
triple that. Once I had filed into the outdoor rally, getting a
glimpse of him reminded me of trying to get a look at
Led Zeppelin in 1973 at a stadium concert: almost impossible.
It wasn't until around 20 minutes into his speech that
I saw him for the first time. He looked dapper, trim,
youthful -- even Kennedyesque.
And when he condemned the Iraq war and mentioned the
Walter Reed scanadal, the response was almost
Beatlesque.
Seeing Obama-mania first-hand tells me he could be
unstoppable. I may be wrong, but I can't imagine that
Hillary's supporters are nearly as enthusiastic about
their own candidate.
As for John Edwards, I was at his speech in Berkeley
two weeks ago, and the crowd was exponentially
smaller and less intense; most attendees seemed
to be there to see a figure from the past, not a
current contender, and diversity was sorely missing (you
could literally count the number of African-Americans at
the Edwards rally on one hand). And the Edwards crowd
seemed more hostile, too.
The only point of comparison that comes close to the
Obamamania at this speech was a Jesse Jackson for president rally
I attended in Manhattan in 1988 that packed the Upper West Side.
But that was not really like this. In '88, people wanted to
glimpse an historical (and an historic) icon, it seemed; yesterday,
people acted as if Obama was the future.
No other rally I've seen has been as intense: not
Bill Clinton in Jersey City in '95 (or in San Fran in '06), not
McGovern in '72 (which felt like a college lecture), not Jerry Brown
in Union Square in NY in '92, certainly not Mondale in '84. And I
betcha Hillary's seemingly ghostwritten and somehow off-key speeches
don't generate Obama's kind of steam.
A few days ago, I wrote that Obama was the Paul Tsongas
of '08. But after this rally I've changed my mind. He's more
like the Tiger Woods of the '08 campaign. And he seems to
be an unstoppable force, like Bill Clinton after he became
"the comeback kid" in the snows of New Hampsire in '92. For the
first time, I'm thinking Obama might well become the Democratic
nominee for president of the United States in 2008.
* * * *
Speaking of Obama: interesting story on him in yesterday's
New York Times by Jennifer Steinhauer. But I found it sort of
peculiar that classmates didn't consider him particularly smart
in his schooldays.
"He was clearly bright but there are people in our class that
are nuclear physicists," says one source in her story.
Hmmm. It always seems there's a source that says something
like, "he was no rocket scientist." Shouldn't that cliche be retired?
I mean, frankly, I wouldn't want want a nuclear physicist or a rocket
scientist running the U.S. (unless his name is Einstein, and there
was only one). People shouldn't confuse technical intelligence with the
sort of big picture smarts required to run a country like the U.S.
It's like that old line about Michael Dukakis; he could speak
many languages but couldn't communicate in any of them. Obama
may not be a "nuclear physicist" but he can communicate, and you can't
teach what he can do.
Also, this puzzling line from the story: "...power is asserted and
social relativity established in Los Angeles by the car you drive, and
in New York by the college you attended...."
Huh? That's a new one to me. (I wonder what
Woody Allen would think of that line.) Some of the people I knew
in the arts (when I lived in and around Manhattan for almost
two decades) never even attended college and yet were among
the most powerful and prestigious people in their fields.
Post-college accomplishment is what rules the roost in NY and LA
(remember, Robert Evans never drove a car in L.A. when he was making
all those great features). Steinhauer must be thinking of Boston.
* * *
Kudos to the Mary Brogan Museum in Tallahassee, Florida,
for displaying John Sims's artwork "The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate
Flag." (There is another use for the Confederate flag, but that's only
when you run out of Charmin.) Those who like Sims' work might also like
this wonderful new song I just heard on WFMU called "Kill The Klansmen"
by the Sun City Girls. Check it out.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for The Ides of March, 2007
Bin Laden has been on the loose for 2,010 days now. That's
2,010 days he's had to plan his next act of mass murder.
If anybody is reading this in far eastern Afghanistan or
far western Pakistan, where bin Laden is presumed to be
hiding: would you please get this guy? Do the world a favor.
* * *
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 14, 2007
Bravo to Rep. Pete Stark for his endorsement of atheism,
but frankly I think many of his colleagues share his
opinion in private. I mean, to be honest, I don't think I
know hardly anyone who believes all that religious junk anymore
(Ann Coulter and bin Laden and their kind seem to be
among the last hold-outs of fundamentalism). And the best
polls have shown that most of the people on the planet are
either atheists or virtually atheists.
And atheism has long been mainstream. The up-front atheism
or near-atheism of entertainers and artists such as
George Carlin, Woody Allen and Bill Maher
has long been embraced by mainstream audiences.
And saying that you can't reject religion without
having completely read the New Testament or the Torah or the
Koran is nonsense; almost all religions have supernatural
elements, and that alone rules out their credibility
prima facie.
It's like saying you can't dismiss voodoo
without knowing about the divine principle of Nana Buluku.
Further, anyone who has to consult page 204 of some book to
know whether something is moral or immoral has either no innate sense
of morality or a crippled innate sense of morality. I don't
need to consult a book to know that killing Adolf Hitler in 1944
would've been a highly moral and correct action that might have
saved countless lives; yet killing under most circumstances is
an immoral act. Problem with Moses is that his commandments have
no nuance and are simplistically absolutist, so they have no
practical value in complex situations.
* * *
By the way, I want to mention that I just saw a scene from
the upcoming Sandra Bullock flick "Premonition" that
looks very much like it ripped off the idea behind my song
"Pretty Women at the Funeral." In the scene, Bullock's character
confronts an unfamiliar pretty woman (played by Amber Valleta) at
the funeral of her husband, asking her why she's there at the
funeral (implying, of course, that Valleta had had an affair
or relationship with her late husband, which turns out to be the case).
That scene is exactly what happens in the lyrics of
my song (the script even uses language from the lyric).
This apparent theft of intellectual property is not cool
and possibly actionable. Keep in mind that my song "Pretty Women
at the Funeral" was copyrighted in 2005 (see lyrics at
www.pauliorio.blogspot.com).
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 9, 2007
Radiohead's Next Album
I try not to write about music anymore,
because I self-released a debut album last year that has
(to my surprise!) been added to radio playlists in three
nations, so I try to avoid any appearance of conflict of
interest in my journalism.
But last night, I relistened to my bootleg tapes of
Radiohead's two shows in Berkeley, California, last
year, in which the band debuted a dozen new songs
that have still yet to be released, and I was just too
impressed not to blog about it. Months of listening
reveals that the best of the bunch is the
sublimely resolute "Four Minute Warning," while
"Down is the New Up" is enormously catchy and
"Videotape" poignant. And "House of Cards" was
already being greeted as a favorite by the
audience last June.
(By the way, somebody should've filmed the first night
in Berkeley because, as others have noted, the vivid multi-colored
stage lighting was captured by the heavy fog in the hills and
forests outside the Greek Theater (where I was); strolling
through the dyed fog (as Greenwood played his extraterrestrial riffs
and Yorke sang his otherworldly melodies), I felt as if I'd
stepped into a sci-fi flick (when is someone going
to use "Climbing Up the Walls" in one?).
Also, the live version of "Paranoid Android" on my tape
proves beyond a doubt that that's one of the most powerful
songs of the rock era, a piece of awesome beauty. Imagine the
"rain down" part transcribed for solo cello or viola -- it would
sound like deep mourning itself.
I also couldn't help but think how absolutely awesome
it would sound if Christine Aquilera were to cover
"Paranoid Android." (How about an entire album of
Aquilera singing Radiohead?)
If Radiohead ever gets around to recording the new album,
they should consider cutting it live, because every live
version on my tape surpasses the studio version. Not since
the Beatles has dissonance been so danceable; and (to
paraphrase xgau) rarely has sadness sounded so
pretty.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 7, 2007
Blasphemous Satire
Interviewing Osama bin Laden
Traveling through Tora Bora the other day, I decided to
stop by Osama bin Laden's cave for a quick chat on the eve of his
50th birthday. Osama welcomed me in, popped open a Red Bull and
plopped down on a bean bag chair.
I soon noticed bin Laden was not in his usual robe and
turban, but was wearing a Star of David and a yarmulke. A copy of the
Torah and Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" were on his coffee
table. I knew this would be no ordinary interview.
LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE CHANGED. ARE YOU THROUGH WITH TERRORISM?
OSAMA BIN LADEN: Yeah, the terrorism thing wasn't
panning out anymore. Everything we tried didn't work. For example,
we had a couple jihadists aboard a JetBlue flight last month, but
it was delayed for so long that even the hijackers stomped off the
plane in disgust!
WHAT CAUSED YOU TO BECOME A JEW?
BIN LADEN: It started when I was reading Rushdie's
"Satanic Verses" in my cave. Loved the story of Mahound. And Gibreel
was so sly. So that got me thinking about leaving the faith, and I
considered Hinduism and even Scientology before settling on Judaism.
YOU ACTUALLY LIKED RUSHDIE'S NOVEL?
BIN LADEN: I didn't expect to like it but it grew on me.
And I even enjoyed the bit about Mohammed's 12 wives. I, too, once had
sex with a prostitute named that way and, frankly, it
increased the eroticism. But the turning point was when I realized
those verses might be satanic after all. Sheesh!
SO YOU'RE ACTUALLY RENOUNCING ISLAM?
BIN LADEN: Yep. No turning back now. There were other issues,
too. Allah never answered my prayers. I prayed for a Kalashnikov.
Nada. I prayed for victory over the infidel. Nada.
WHY JUDAISM?
BIN LADEN: I confess I was touched by a rabbi I was
holding hostage, a cantor who sang so beautifully that I decided not to slit
his throat after a couple verses of "My Heart Will Go On." He was brought
to me by Adam Gadahn.
THAT ORANGE COUNTY GUY WITH THE FAKE ACCENT?
BIN LADEN: Yeah. We used to privately call him The High
Imam of the Great Mall of Milpitas.
WAS THERE A TIPPING POINT?
BIN LADEN: Well, I started reading the Torah -- or the
Tawrat, as I used to call it -- and realized it was a lot like the Koran.
I mean, it almost seemed like a case of copyright infringement, if you
ask me. But I was drawn to all those commandments -- they sort of gave me
structure during a mid-life crisis.
WHAT DO YOUR AL QAEDA COMRADES THINK ABOUT ALL THIS?
BIN LADEN: They're cool with it. In fact, I saw
Ayman al-Zawahiri chuckling over a copy of "Satanic Verses" I gave to him.
Ayman likes Rushdie, too! But I think the real tipping point for all of
us was the JetBlue thing. Seven hours on the tarmac. And not even a
meal -- just peanuts. It just became too hard to be a jihadist.
* * *
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 5, 2007
Hillary: Conscience of a Former Conservative
Reporting on Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech in Selma on Sunday,
The New York Times's Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny noted that she
appeared to be engaging in a bit of revisionist personal history.
According to The Times:
"Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, recalled going with her church youth minister
as a teenager in 1963 to hear Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in
Chicago. Yet, in her autobiography and elsewhere, Mrs. Clinton has
described growing up Republican and being a “Goldwater Girl” in 1964
— in other words, a supporter of the presidential candidacy of Barry
Goldwater, who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act."
If Hillary did attend the speech by Rev. King in
1963, then how come she apparently had not brought up that fact until
last Sunday? Are we to believe that, for decades, she had been sitting
on a fond and valuable remembrance of seeing the Rev. King first-hand as
a teenager but had not written or spoken about it to anyone in public?
I think reporters who have access to Sen. Clinton should
follow-up on Healy and Zeleny's excellent reportage and ask: Did she
really attend the speech? What did Rev. King say that day? How did
she feel as a white supporter of Barry Goldwater in an audience full
of civil rights activists? Was she pro-Goldwater in terms of foreign
policy but not on civil rights, or vice versa?
What exactly was it about Goldwater's policies that
appealed to her back then, and does she still admire him today? Was
Rev. King's speech the event that got her thinking about becoming a
Democrat? What was Rev. King like on that day? Can she corroborate
her claim that she attended the speech? Did she take photos?
On the other hand, if she wasn't at the speech, that would
not be a minor infraction in terms of personal integrity; if someone in
another profession -- say, a journalist -- publicly claimed to have
attended an event that he hadn't actually attended, he would likely
be drummed out of the business.
And it would also not be a minor point in terms of
political context, given the fact that brave people fought for civil
rights at the time, risking their lives and their bodies, while Sen.
Goldwater and his kind tried to stop their progress. Indeed, it's easy
to take a dangerous stand once the danger has abated.
Remember, a President Goldwater would almost certainly
have not provided the back-up support -- a federalized national guard and
thousands of troops -- required for the success of the subsequent civil
rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to Montgomery on
March 25, 1965.
On Sunday in Selma, perhaps Sen. Clinton should have
spoken of her authentic personal journey from the wrong side of history
to the right side, how she once was lost and now she's found. Maybe she
should have admitted how wrong she was in the 1960s to have supported
Goldwater, and how right she is now.
But then that points up Sen. Clinton's fatal flaw: she
seems to have a hard time admitting when she's wrong -- and that extends
to her current failure to repudiate her 2002 vote to authorize the war
in Iraq.
Yesterday afternoon, former Sen. John Edwards,
campaigning for president in Berkeley, California, at a rally I
attended, had no such problem admitting his mistake: "I voted for
this war," Edwards said plainly. "I was wrong to vote for this war."
Sen. Clinton has not done the same. And she has
also not been very clear about which side she was really on when bones
were being broken on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.
* * *
By the way, shouldn't the Edmund Pettus Bridge be
re-named The John Lewis Bridge or The Freedom Bridge or The Martin
Luther King Jr. Bridge in honor of those who sacrificed so much on
March 7, 1965? Pettus, after all, was a Confederate brigadier general
who killed people in a war that tried to keep African-Americans
enslaved. Why implicitly honor a guy like Pettus?
* * *
Sounds like Ann Coulter is slurring her words again.
Probably drunk on religious fanaticism again. Always beware of
religious right-wingers like Coulter and bin Laden,
who I hear have had two sons together:
Mohamed Atta and Eric Rudolph.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 3, 2007
The Powers-That-Be Say:
Plagiarism is Now OK -- If You're Rich, Famous or Well-Connected
Time was when plagiarism was said to be the
third rail of journalism: touch it and your career is dead.
The industry was always merciless and unforgiving
even to first-time offenders, shaming them in
various media columns and firing them on the
spot.
But how times have changed! It's now
2007 and the powers-that-be say that plagiarism is ok
-- if you're rich, famous or well-connected, that is.
For example: the other day, I turned on
"The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," one of
my favorite news programs. To be sure, Lehrer
is about as good as it gets when it comes
to broadcast journalism (and so are Elizabeth
Farnsworth, Judy Woodruff and most of the
the others). But what was plagiarist Doris
Kearns Goodwin doing on the show as a panelist?
Goodwin, you might remember,
was almost drummed out of the biz in 2002 after
it was revealed that she ripped off dozens of
pages from Lynne McTaggart's book "The
Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys."
She touched the third rail -- hell,
she had intimate relations with
the third rail -- and yet she still
appears on one of the best tv news
programs around.
Later that same day, I read my local
newspaper -- the San Francisco
Chronicle -- and saw a story by yet
another plagiarist who got away with it,
Edward Guthmann (who incidentally
is not famous but is well-connected at
his own paper, having been there for decades).
In a 2005 article, Guthmann plagiarized
parts of a 2003 story that appeared in
The New Yorker magazine, and his public
excuse was something like the usual
he-forgot-to-put-quotes-around-it defense.
Yet the guy still collects a weekly paycheck
from the paper (a scandal in itself, considering that far more
honest and far more brilliant freelancers can't even pay their
bills. Of course, you can expect no better from some in
the Chronicle features department, considering that one of its main
editors, David Wiegand, has engaged in provable fraud (the proof is
on this website: http://resumesidenotes.blogspot.com).
And it wouldn't exactly be accurate to say that this
was Guthmann's first offense. In 1999, he apparently
ripped off one of the key insights in my
own Los Angeles Times story on "Chinatown"
and rushed it into print in the San Francisco
Chronicle, where I was once a
staff writer, days before mine ran (my
story had been in the L.A. Times
computer for weeks, and the circumstantial
evidence shows it had been leaked to
Guthmann).
It's worth noting that in the 25 years since the
movie's release, no critic had made the insight
I made about the movie. And then in the same
week in 1999, two writers made the same point
in print, and mine was demonstrably first. The
circumstantial evidence alone is damning for Guthmann,
particularly in light of his latest transgressions.
My 1999 story on "Chinatown" was also
ripped off more extensively in a 2000 book by publisher
John Wiley & Sons, "The Film Director: Updated
for Today's Filmmaker, the Classic Practical
Reference to Motion Picture and Television
Techniques, Second Edition," by Richard L. Bare.
The book has a section on the movie "Chinatown" that includes
at least eight instances in which Bare uses material from my Los
Angeles Times story, "Sleuthing 'Chinatown'" (July 8, 1999), without
specifically citing it.
At the end of his book, Bare mentions my story in a generalized
bibliography (not in specific endnotes). He doesn't cite my piece within
the text and doesn't mention the places in his book where he used my
material.
As I mentioned, there are at least eight instances in which Bare
quotes, paraphrases or otherwise uses information from my story without
properly crediting me. (I've included eight juxtaposed examples below.)
The reader clearly gets the impression that Bare himself unearthed
the material in the "Chinatown" section of the book, when in
fact I came up with the hard-to-find information (info that was available
to me only because I had scored a rare interview with Polanski).
And you can also see how Bare cynically and slightly
modifies several of my passages, though his alterations make it no
less a case of theft, since his text closely tracks and parallels
my own while stealing my core reportage.
It's worth noting that people are fired in journalism
every year for lesser cases of plagiarism. So I can't help but
think this case was kept quiet because John Wiley & Co. has lots
of friends in the biz.
After all, why side with me? Wiley might get you a book
deal down the road.
By the way, you betcha I contacted Wiley a couple years
ago to express my displeasure and to ask them to compensate
me for their theft of my work. After all, their theft of my
work potentially cost me money, since it reduced the value
of my Polanski story in an anthology I was submitting
to publishers. As might be expected, Wiley arrogantly
defended their plagiarism, and I've long since dropped
the issue. But the record should be corrected and the
public should know what kind of company Wiley is.
Here are the eight main examples of the book’s plagiarism of my story:
EXAMPLE#1:
MY STORY: Today, Towne says "Polanski was right about the end"....Towne now says that
Polanski is "virtually...the only director I would willingly work for as a writer."
THE BARE BOOK: Today, Towne admits he was wrong about the ending and adds that he
would gladly work with Roman Polanski again."
-----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #2:
MY STORY: "A pivotal eight-week writing session [followed] in which Polanski and
Towne dismantled Towne's script and then painstakingly rebuilt it piece by piece."
THE BARE BOOK: "During an eight-week-long session held before shooting began, the
writer and director tore apart Towne's original script and reshaped it into the final draft that
Polanski shot..."
-------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #3:
MY STORY: The most substantial disagreement was about the ending of the film, in which Towne wanted Cross to be killed by Evelyn. Polanski insisted on a more disturbing finale....With the backing of Evans, Polanski eventually won the battle over the ending.
THE BARE BOOK: The biggest fight that the writer and the director had seemed to be over the ending. Towne wanted a happier one, while Polanski insisted on a tragic conclusion. Polanski won out, with Evans in his corner.
------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #4:
MY STORY: Their writing workday would begin around 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning and
would last until around 7 or 8 in the evening -- and was usually followed by a night of hard partying.
THE BARE BOOK: Polanski and Towne would spend eight to ten hours a day writing,
rewriting and haggling. At night, they would go out and party...
------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #5:
MY STORY: "'We took the script and broke it down into one-sentence summations of each
scene,'" Towne says. "Then we took a scissors and cut those little scenes...and pasted them on the door of his house where we were working. And the game was to shift those things around until we got them in an order that worked."
THE BARE BOOK: Polanski would roll up his sleeves and encapsulate each scene onto a
card, tacking them in a row on the wall. Then he would begin to shift the cards, rearranging the sequence of events until he felt he had a shootable story line.
-----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #6:
MY STORY: Polanski says he never once thought during the making of the movie that it
would become a classic.
THE BARE BOOK: Neither [Polanski nor Towne] had the slightest inkling their creation
would become a classic of film noir.
----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #7:
MY STORY: ...Most Paramount executives openly predicted the film would fail.
THE BARE BOOK: No one at Paramount was betting that the picture would earn its cost
back.
----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #8:
MY STORY: Four years earlier, his wife, Sharon Tate...was sadistically murdered by
members of Charles Manson's gang. [Please note that the relation in time of the film to the Manson murders had not been brought up in print before my article, as far as I know.]
BARE'S BOOK: Roman Polanski, four years after his wife was murdered by the infamous
Manson family, was summoned by producer Robert Evans to direct "Chinatown."
* * *
One of the many problems with plagiarism,
besides the obvious ethical issues, is that it hurts
the smaller entrepreneurs of journalism. For example, if an
insight by an unknown blogger is ripped off by, say, Time
magazine, that insight forever belongs to Time magazine
in the public mind. (It doesn't work the other way around;
if an insight by Time magazine is stolen by, say, an unknown
blogger, most readers will immediately assume the blogger got
it from Time, because Time is better distributed.)
Adding insult to injury, if the unknown
journalist comes up with a scoop and is
then ripped off by Time, the blogger
can no longer try to publish his own piece
without people wrongly thinking he stole it
from the magazine.
So it was hard the other day to pick up a
newspaper and see the byline of a plagiarist
and then turn on the tv and see yet another
plagiarist. It was hard to see where fairness
is located out there.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 1, 2007
John McCain and David Letterman Talk
It was June 1975, and I was a teenager standing
with a couple friends at the end of a long,
deserted pier on Tampa Bay in Florida. In the
distance, a smiling middle-aged man started walking
the long, hot walk toward the three of us, and
as he came closer it became obvious he
was walking the span just to see us, even
though none of us knew him. When he
finally came to the far end of the pier, he
reached out his hand to me and said, "Hi,
my name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm
running for president of the United States."
And then he hung out with us and made
small talk about the boats in the bay.
True story.
It shows how Carter won in '76, even
though he was a long-shot at
the time: he probably shook every
hand in America to win the presidency,
and no voter -- not even a nobody teenager
like me (I wasn't even old enough to vote yet)
-- was unimportant to him.
It also shows how early the '76 campaign
season began (Carter had announced his
candidacy months earlier, in '74) and how a
candidate who ranked in the single-digits in
the polls came from behind to beat the favorites
of the national party.
In the polls at that time, Carter was where, say,
dark horses like Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson
are today: nowhere. At the end of a long, deserted
pier, politically speaking.
Watching Sen. John McCain on "The Late Show with
David Letternman" last night made me think that
the conventional political wisdom will surely be
upended several times before the first primary
votes are cast in 10 months or so.
Elections as unpredictable as this one recall nothing so
much as the overly familiar lyrics of a Bob Dylan
song: "Don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in
spin/And there's no tellin' who that it's
namin'/For the loser now will be later to
win."
Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani may be
the front-runners for the GOP nomination now,
but they may be old news by January.
Watching McCain on Letterman last night, I was surprised by
how creaky he seemed, how much slower his reaction time
was than it had been, how much he resembled a revered
former president more than a vital candidate. Against a
vigorous Rudy, he'll likely look like a retiree.
Remember, Republicans have to veer right in
the primaries and toward the center in the general (while
Dems have to veer left in the primaries and toward
the center in the general) -- and that tends to favor the
nomination of a Republican who is tight with the religious
right -- neither McCain nor Giuliani. As in '76,
maybe we should be looking at the guy polling
in the single digits
Somehow I get the feeling that a voter at the end of
a long pier somewhere is being approached by a
a man who sticks out his hand and says, "Hi, I'm
Duncan Hunter and I'm running for president of the
United States."
* * *
Well, folks, your trusty freelance writer
tried one last time yesterday to land
the ultimate "get" -- an interview with
author J.D. Salinger, who never talks to
the press. I finally reached his wife
(I had tried her number once before, a
couple years ago, but didn't know whether
I had unearthed the right number or not).
Well, yesterday afternoon, I found I did
have the right number, but she was in
no mood to talk. "I don't think I
really want to talk with you," she said.
So I said thanks for your time and
goodbye. Perhaps she and her husband
had seen my web-exclusive feature
about Salinger and not liked it.
For those who want to read the story,
it's on this website.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Wednesday, February 28,2007
A Confederacy of Dunces?
Slavery was finally, belatedly condemned by the state of
Virginia a few days ago, though vestiges of the old
Confederacy still linger today in mainstream
American politics. Last fall's promotion to Senate
Minority Whip of Trent Lott, who resigned his
leadership role in 2002 after praising the late
Senator Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat
presidential candidacy of 1948, was yet another
reminder that there are some on Capitol Hill
who are still sympathetic to Jim Crow and the
Confederacy -- and many more who seem that way.
The alarming thing about Lott’s remarks on
Thurmond in '02 is they’re not very far from
alarming remarks by other U.S. Senators that
praise or appear to praise former segregationists
and Confederates.
In fact, the new Minority Leader of the Senate,
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spoke glowingly
in 1997 about Thurmond's presidential candidacy in
remarks that are quite close to those that caused
Lott to lose his post in '02 (see the
quote below).
My own search of the Congressional Record shows
that several Senators have taken the floor in recent
years to praise (or quote in a positive context)
both Thurmond and Robert E. Lee, the most famous
Confederate general of the U.S. Civil War.
In fact, the Senate can sometimes seem like a
Robert E. Lee (and Strom Thurmond) fan club. Here
are some samples from the Congressional Record:
"My dad and my granddad talked about the [1948]
election for a little while, and all I remember for sure
is that they said Strom Thurmond was a fine man,
they were going to vote for him for President of the
United States."
-- Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, on June 3, 1997, in a
Senate tribute to Thurmond
"In the end, what Douglas Southall Freeman said of
Robert Lee four decades ago might also be said of
Senator Thurmond today. ‘He [is] one of a small
company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency
to be explained, no enigma to be solved.”
-- John Ashcroft, then a Senator from Missouri,
June 3, 1997, in a Senate tribute to
former Sen. Strom Thurmond.
"My senior Senator [Thurmond] is the epitome of
Robert E. Lee's comment that the most sublime
word in the English language is duty.”
-- former Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-SC, May 21, 1997,
speaking about Thurmond becoming the
longest-serving Senator in the history of the Senate.
"The national history [educational] standards were more
interested in those who were politically correct. The
standards slighted or ignored many central figures in U.S.
history, particularly white males. To name a few,
Robert E. Lee was left out, Thomas Edison and the
Wright brothers were left out, Paul Revere was left out,
so we could have many, many references to the
Ku Klux Klan, so we could have references to
heroes from other continents."
-- Ashcroft, as Senator, November 6, 1997, speaking
about national education testing standards.
"I have thought about Senator Russell's reference to
Robert E. Lee when he quoted Lee as saying,
`Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.'
That has been my credo."
-- Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WVA, July 27, 1995, during
a tribute in which he was praised
for having cast 14,000 votes in his career.
"It is said, in the old Confederate Army, that they
didn't give medals. So the single honor was to be
mentioned in Robert E. Lee's communiques to
Richmond. Having the distinguished Senator from
West Virginia [Byrd] say something about me and to
pronounce me a honest man I take in the same way
that any private in Hood's brigade would have taken
in the mention of their name in one of those communiques."
-- Former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Tex, November 15, 2002,
referring to a compliment paid to him by Sen. Byrd
during discussion of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
"Snatching the initiative to turn the tide of battle,
Lt. Gen. James A. Longstreet, under the command of
Gen. Robert E. Lee, forced back Union forces directed
by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in an advance known as
`Longstreet's Flank Attack.' Mr. President, this legislation
will allow the Park Service to acquire this stretch of land,
which will serve to complete Wilderness Battlefield."
-- Sen. John Warner, R-Va, May 4, 1999, speaking
admiringly of the Confederate military while arguing
for government acquisition of a Civil War battlefield.
"And here we have a man like [former Arkansas Senator]
David Pryor, who has all the qualities that Robert E. Lee
described, and more: tenacious, determined on what he
believes, intellect, the character to stick with his ideas in
a totally honest way, and vision about where the country
ought to be heading. These are remarkable traits to be
wrapped up in one man, and rare and unusual in the U.S.
Congress.”
-- Former Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-AR, September 24, 1996,
in a tribute to former Sen. David Pryor.
"When asked by a mother what advice he could give her
for the rearing of her infant son, General Robert E. Lee,
then President of Washington and Lee, replied, ‘Madam,
teach him to deny himself.’"
-- Former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, entered this eulogy
by the president of a Baptist university into the
Congressional Record, April 29, 1996.
* * *
Anyway, now that the ol' Confederacy is
in an apologizin' mood, perhaps they
can start redesignin' some of the
state flags that incorporate the
Confederate banner.
* * *
What I'm reading today: nice
editorial in today's New York
Times on issues related to the
Establishment Clause. And, on
a far different subject, check
out Frank Bruni's witty review
of Robert's, which proves that
great loins are where you find
them!
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Tuesday, February 27, 2007
In a hundred years, history students
will be asked, "What U.S. president
finally became president a full eight
years after winning his first
presidential election?"
And the answer will be, of course,
the 44th president of the U.S.,
President Gore, who served from
January 2009 until January 2013.
But first Gore has to beat Rudy
Giuliani, the (at this point)
probable GOP candidate -- and
Gore may be the only Dem who
can do it. Barack
versus Rudy would be a 61%
blow-out for the GOP, a
Dukakis/Bush landslide that
would give Barack, the
Paul Tsongas of campaign '08,
10 states at best.
Hillary v. Rudy, replicating the U.S.
Senate contest that almost
happened back in 2000, would
still result in President Rudy, but by
a closer margin. Why? The anti-war Dems
would siphon off the votes required for
a Hillary win, just as they did to Hubert
Humphrey in 1968.
How soon Dems forget the main lesson
of '68: a party divided against itself
cannot stand against a united GOP.
Hillary sort of resembles the Humphrey
that was unwilling to break with LBJ
over the war until it was too late (in her
case, she inexplicably refuses to say she
blew the Iraq authorization vote).
The anti-war Dems, already turning out
to heckle her when she campaigns,
are rightly wondering why they should
vote for someone who made the same
mistake Bush made on Iraq. Voters don't
want hindsight in a leader, they want
foresight, and Gore had that in opposing
the Iraq war from the start while Hillary
didn't.
In any case, Gore appears to be running.
The latest signs, on display at the Oscars
last night, are these:
First, anticipating that he'll be running against
Italian-American Giuliani next year, he
appears with a highly respected star
who has an Italian-American last name,
Leonardo DiCaprio.
Second, Gore's public image was slyly
repaired at the Oscars by no less than
George Clooney, who publicly debunked
Gore's main perceived flaw: that he's
too stiff.
Gore, too stiff?, Clooney essentially said.
No, he's bad, he's Wildman Gore these days.
Oh yeah, he was quaffing a few with me and
Nicholson backstage, so believe me, he's
too much of a bad-ass to run for such a
goody two shoes office as prez of the USA,
know what I mean?
So, yeah, Gore may be runnin'.
(By the way, check out David Reminick's
terrific Comment on Gore in the new issue
of The New Yorker; it may be Remnick's best
editorial in years.)
Also, here are some faux
secret slogans of the current crop
of candidates:
Kucinich for President in 1968
Barack Obama at Bonnaroo in 2008
Hillary for President -- of Barnard College
Brownback for President of Oz '08
John McCain for President in 1956
Giuliani for President in '01
Dukakis '08: If Vilsack Can Try, So Can I
Bill Richardson/Wen Ho Lee '08
Dodd/Imus '08
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Monday, February 26, 2007.
Thoughts on the Oscars. Ellen DeGeneres
made the show seem like daytime tv. At
times, I thought it was 3:30 on a weekday
afternoon and that she was about to give a
Frigidaire to someone in the audience.
Yes, she is charming but she's
-- how to put this? -- not funny.
And the ratings don't lie: Ellen's
version of the Oscars "delivered the
third-lowest viewer tally in at least
15 years," according to today's Los
Angeles Times.
Bring back Jon Stewart! Even better,
bring back Steve Martin!
Like everyone else, I loved Martin Scorsese's
belated win but thought Clint Eastwood's
"Letters From Iwo Jima" was far better than
"The Departed." And who knew Eastwood knew
Italian so fluently? And Steven Spielberg was
such a winning presence last night (and a good
sport, too, taking that photo).
Other notes: Helen Mirren is overrated.
Also, anybody notice how obviously calculated
(and, frankly, phony) her "I give you the Queen"
soundbite came off, especially if you saw her entire
speech? Further, I didn't quite catch her drift: she
thrusts forward the statuette and says, "I give
you the Queen." Is the (nominally male) statuette
supposed to be the Queen? Was she introducing a clip
from the film? Is everyone too cowed by her "Dame"
status to ask such questions? One small step for man...
Kate Winslet is underrated (didn't
she look like love itself last night?). Meryl Streep
has rarely looked more attractive in recent years
(and she provided the night's funniest moment
with just one look). "Letters from Iwo Jima"
should've won best pic -- and will probably
resonate down the decades better
than "Departed."
With regard to "The Queen," I saw half of it on a red-eye
and then turned it off to listen to Bob Dylan's brilliant
"Modern Times." Frankly, I really don't care about
British royalty, unless Shakespeare is writin' about it.
What do The Royals do all day to earn their
millions, anyway? These are not really people of
accomplishment, now, are they? Diane Spencer, last
I heard, was driving drunk (or having her driver
drive drunk) through big city streets on a
Saturday night at a high speed, endangering
innocent people. (Oh, I know: her defense is
she was running from a man with a camera. Not a
man with a gun but a man with a camera. Think about
that one.)
[Note: I'm sure the previous graf will probably
offend those who admired Diana, but think of it
this way: suppose your son or daughter or mother
or father had been in Paris on the night of the
crash and had been killed by the princess's car.
How would you then feel about Diana's behavior?
Is drunken driving at high speeds
ok if it's done by someone you like?]
But the real winner of the night was Al Gore.
It's now obvious, or should be: Gore is the
only Dem who can beat Rudy next year (Hillary
comes off like a scold, alienating even her
closest supporters; Dems would be far better
off nominating Nancy Pelosi for president);
Sen. Obama would not be able to withstand GOP
attack ads -- not in swing states like Ohio
or Florida, which he'd have to win to
become president).
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Sunday, February 25, 2007
Lights Out for Network TV's Best Series?
NBC insists the show will go on, at least for now,
for "Friday Night Lights," which many consider
network TV's best dramatic series -- despite
the fact that the series has usually landed
in third or fourth place in whatever time slot it has
occupied since its debut last October.
Though the network is clearly not
talking about ending "FNL," and though the show
may yet be saved in the long run, a hard look at the
ratings suggests that only a miracle on the order
of a hail Mary pass could possibly stop its eventual
cancellation.
Despite its recent relocation to a less
competitive time slot, Wednesdays at 8pm, the
program continues to tank. In its previous time,
Tuesdays at 8pm, its failure was partly blamed on
the fact that it was up against ABC's runaway hit
"Dancing with the Stars." Now there is no such
competitor, which makes it all the more likely the
show might not enjoy another full season on the air.
So why aren't viewers watching "Friday
Night Lights"?
A few theories. "FNL" is one of those artful
depictions of the red state quotidian (created
by sophisticated blue state producers) that
seems to play better in blue states than
in red ones.
Hardcore red staters -- say,
churchgoing NASCAR Republicans -- apparently
don't want artful when it comes to
television viewing. They seem to want shows
like "WWE Friday Night SmackDown!" wrestling.
And they don't want to come home from a hard
day shoveling this or loading that to watch
a subtle drama about teenagers.
It's like a cat looking in
the mirror: it doesn't recognize
itself no matter how clear the image. Likewise,
red-staters probably don't see themselves
in "Friday Nights Lights." After all, this
is a program in which the quarterback for the Dillon
Panthers, Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), actually
talks to a classmate about Jackson Pollock in one
episode. Such atypicality is admirable -- but
is a TV viewer in a Don Garlits t-shirt going
to get it?
The show seems to be caught between demographics:
it's too smart for most mainstream red state
sports fans, but the football theme is not
exactly smart enough for the blue staters (even
though the show is about a lot more than football).
And it also seems to fall between
audiences in terms of age, as it's a show
mostly about teenagers, but its sensibility
is very adult,
It's sort of like the plight of a
critically acclaimed show of the mid-1990s,
"My So-Called Life," starring Claire Danes,
which was canceled after a short run. The
ratings problem with that series about teenagers
(also created by smart adults) appeared to be
that grown ups didn't want to see a
drama about teens, and teens didn't want to see
a drama that was so adult (again, the cat didn't
recognize itself in the mirror).
And for all its artfulness, the series
isn't perfect in the way, say, most episodes
of "The Sopranos" are. Promising plotlines
are not always pursued (whatever happened
to the scandal about Ray "Voodoo" Tatom's
eligibility, for example? Or what about the
fallout from Tyra Collette's affair with
that Los Angeles businessman?).
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 23, 2007
A couple passings to note:
I never got to meet Doug Marlette, who died a couple weeks
ago at age 57, but came to know his work during the period when
I contributed a few pieces to New York Newsday when he was
at New York Newsday. I've always admired his cartoons, particularly
his courage in taking on religious issues (and he had a lotta heart;
see above cartoon).
And on the Bay Area landscape, it was also quite a shock to
learn that KGO anchor Pete Wilson died, at 62, during routine
hip replacement surgery a few days ago. He was a surprisingly
effective broadcaster, who made cantankerous seem downright
amiable; most recently he had been paired for the 6pm newscast
with rising star Carolyn Johnson (see Daily Digression for
February 24), and it was a classic match-up: Wilson was like
black coffee, no sugar, and Johnson is like some deeply
irresistible cappuccino. Terrific contrast (though I must say
I almost never agreed with Wilson's commentary).
My condolences to the loved ones and colleagues of both Marlette and
Wilson.
Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 21, 2007
How the Iraq War Will Really End
It doesn't take a lot of foresight to see what
the next chess moves will probably be in
foreign policy.
As I noted in my column of July 9 (see below), Musharraf
will likely be deposed, either legitimately or
through assassination, in the next several months
and will be replaced by someone with Taliban
sympathies, who will then, of course, have control
of the Pakistan's nuclear arsneal.
Depending on how belligerent the new regime is,
we will probably, with a multi-national force that
this time includes India, Britain and a few others,
have to use air strikes to try to
remove the new government, while piggybacking on
the Taliban's natural domestic adversaries in
ground operations -- and we'd have to
do it while the regime is still fragile,
before it becomes entrenched.
Problem is, from the moment of the coup,
any new government would be exceptionally
difficult to displace, because it would be
an insta-nuclear power. So we'd have
to intervene while the coup is ongoing.
Eventually, we'd have to rapidly redeploy troops
out of Iraq to the India-Pakistan and the
Afghanistan-Pakistan borders. And with our Pakistan
intervention now pre-empting news about the low grade
civil war in Iraq, people would soon wonder: we could
have done this all along, we could've been out of Iraq
long ago!
There we were, wringing out hands, pulling all-nighters,
getting ulcers about how to solve the unsolvable war in
Iraq, and suddenly, as quick as a nuclear flash, we're out,
and nobody is paying attention anymore to the 17 dead
from a truckbomb in Kirkuk or 23 injured in the Green
Zone.
Because the stakes would be exponentially higher
in Pakistan after a coup, what with the possibility
of millions dying from, say, a nuclear strike
on Mumbai.
News about Iraq would suddenly be consigned to page A17,
and the front pages of almost every newspaper would be
solely devoted to the Pakistan conflict. And we'd see that
even though we're no longer in Iraq, al-Maliki still keeps
a tenuous hold on power, and there is still a steady but
unspectacular stream of blood in the streets everyday.
An analogy: ever notice that whenever there's a Katrina or 9/11
level catastrophe, the front pages of newspapers report no other
news? Yet if that big event had not happened, there would be maybe
a dozen urgent front page stories that everybody is taking very
seriously.
I always wonder during a Big Story: where does all the displaced
news goes when it rains catastrophe?
And that will probably be the same situation with news about
Iraq after Pakistan eclipses it. People will forget that
several months earlier everyone was saying how we'd
be in Iraq forever. And here we are suddenly out,
and there's not a whole lot more violence in
Iraq than there was when we were there.
So it's possible that the Iraq war will end when we
redeploy to Pakistan. And if that happens, we'll be
saying things like: it's astonishing now to think that
it was always in our power to load up the boats and planes
and leave Iraq. And we'll think: it turns out there
was no obstacle to withdrawal -- except overthinking.
And even if al-Maliki is overthrown by a Baathist after such an
abrupt U.S. departure, the new regime in Baghdad would be
weak and harmless (and nukeless, too). Iraq, as we discovered
after we invaded it in '03, posed no threat to us at all;
it was broke and broken by years of sanctions and isolation
-- and that was before the war, which has further degraded the
country's infrastructure and military. Even if Saddam's allies
were to re-take power, we could control the new regime the
way we should have handled Saddam: with sanctions and
occasional air strikes.
Meanwhile, a coup in Pakistan would draw in many factions and
nations in the region in unpredictable ways -- factions ranging
from K-and-L militants to Hindus and others at odds with the
Taliban (who might become our de facto surrogates in battle,
a la the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in '01).
And "multi-lateralism" this time might mean relying on
Pratibha Patil more than Gordon Brown, with the
first flashpoint being Kashmir, all politics
being local, after all.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 16, 2007
Prince -- and Sly and the Family Stone -- Live at
Radio City Music Hall? Dream On.
Just got around to reading the marvelous story in
Vanity Fair by David Kamp about Sly Stone, who
memorably says of his mohawk: "Most of it is growing
under the skin."
Meanwhile, Sly Stone and his trumpet player from the
Family Stone (among others) played for fifteen
minutes in San Jose earlier this month, and all reports
call it disappointing.
Here's an idea. Prince and a reunited Sly and the Family
Stone team up for a brief North American tour at venues
like Radio City Music Hall (with both sharing Larry Graham!).
My guess is -- and I haven't investigated this -- is that
Sly played that B-list venue in San Jose on a bill with
has-beens in a show promoted by a novice because major
promoters and venues wouldn't take a chance on his not
showing up for the gig.
But if he were to tour with Prince, Prince could simply
play a longer set if Sly didn't show (and what fan would
feel cheated by a concert in which Prince played longer?).
Just a thought.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 9, 2007
Sunday's New York Times editorial calling for U.S. withdrawal
from Iraq was bold -- and also correct, now that we've seen
the trajectory of the administration's strategy.
What are the worst case scenarios for withdrawal? Here
are my thoughts:
1) The Baathists retake power.
At this point, having the Baathists or another Sunni
faction back in power wouldn't be worse than having
a Shi'a leader allied with Iran.
* * *
2) Rwanda-like genocide breaks out.
If there is genocide, we could control it with targeted
airstrikes and by arming the victims -- but our intervention
would have to come at the invitation of the victims.
* * *
3) A leader affiliated with al-Qaeda takes over.
Before we withdraw, we would make it clear to the world
community that that is the one thing that would trigger our
unilateral re-engagement in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq should be
treated like the nazi party in Germany after '45: verboten.
But if it were to take power there, the regime would likely
be weak and besieged, and we could probably take it out
with air power.
Bush can give an address to the nation without losing face by
saying the following:
"My fellow Americans, four-and-a-half years ago we
set out to depose Saddam Hussein. We accomplished
that, tried him, executed him, and we have helped
to establish a new regime in Iraq. Now it is up to
the Iraqis to take it from here. If the Iraqis
choose al-Maliki, they will have al-Maliki. If they
choose civil war, they will have civil war. We Americans
chose civil war for ourselves in the 19th century,
and no foreign power interceded and said we couldn't
work out our differences that way. And we should
learn that lesson from history. So I'm proud to say
that we have fulfilled our missions and obligations
in Iraq and will now begin our redeployment."
Meanwhile, our anxiety should be centered on Pakistan, not Iraq.
Iraq is soo '03. Pakistan may soon become soo '08.
Just last week there was yet another assassination attempt on
Musharraf. How long do you think it will be before one of the
assassins succeeds?
And if Musharraf is assassinated, and we should all hope
he isn't, but if he is, Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal would
likely fall into the hands of the Taliban and its al Qaeda
buddies. And that is more horrifying and unacceptable than
anything currently happening in North Korea, Iran or Iraq.
A Taliban-run Pakistan with nukes is only one simple chess move away.
And it would be hard to see how the U.S. could avoid some
level of involvement in Pakistan if that were to happen.
It's like that scene in the movie "Jaws": everybody on the
crowded beach mistakenly thinks they see a shark in the open ocean,
and there is a stampede and panic as everyone frantically swims
to shore. Then, as things calm, a lone voice shouts, "The pond,
the pond," warning everyone the shark is actually in the more
remote pond, which nobody had been paying much attention to.
And that seems to be what's happening now: everyone's looking at
Iraq and nobody is watching Pakistan, where the real danger lies.
------------------------------
Cindy Sheehan does not belong anywhere near the U.S. House of
Representatives but rather under the care of a psychiatrist who
specializes in delusional thought disorders. Or at least
she acts that way.
Her opinions on the tragedy of 9/11 -- she's mentally impaired
enough to have called it a "controlled demolition" -- put her
in the same league as people who believe the moonwalks
were staged and that the holocaust was a fabrication. In
other words, she's a nut.
And further, she's not even a San Francisco resident yet she's
considering a House seat in that district. My advice to her:
go back to Vallejo. Or, better yet, to Crawford.
If I didn't know better, I'd think she's a shrill Bush plant
posing as an anti-war protester with the intention of
embarrassing the Democrats (how's that for a Cindy-like
conspiracy theory?).
* * *
Notes on the continuing lay-offs at the San Francisco Chronicle:
They're firing some good journalists -- so why are they keeping
plagiarist Ed Guthmann and fraud David Wiegand? Probable reason
they haven't fired Guthmann/Wiegand yet: they know too much. They
know that several Chron editors and reporters have screwed up as
badly as they have (and worse), and management fears they might
spill the beans if they're sacked. (Proof of their transgressions at
www.resumesidenotes.blogspot.com.)
To those who are laid off at the SF Chronicle and have an unresolved
complaint about editorial malfeasance there and want to blow
the whistle, here's some advice:
1) Don't bring up your complaint to Chron management after
you leave. They may merely try to find a way to turn the
accusation back on you -- and don't think
they're above tampering with evidence in order to save their
jobs.
2) Blow the whistle to a media reporter outside the company.
3) Remember: when the Chron investigates itself, it tends
to give itself a clean bill of health.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 8, 2007
My impressions of the LiveEarth concerts (or rather,
the parts I saw on TV and online):
-- The Foo Fighters turned in the
best performance that I saw, with
a particularly strong "Times Like
These," which Dave Grohl dedicated
to Al Gore.
-- Gore himself was in good humor; "I'm 59 years old -- that's the
new 58, you know," he told Ann Curry on the NBC broadcast of
concert excerpts.
-- Shakira is almost illegally hot.
-- Surprisingly compelling performance by Alicia Keys (now I
understand why she ended up with pop's highest honor: being
mentioned in a Bob Dylan song!).
-- Madonna is still an exciting performer.
-- Glad to see that Marty DiBurghi showed up to intro "the most
punctual band on Earth," Spinal Tap.
-- The Beastie Boys, entertaining as usual.
-- Buying some Compact Fluorescents is on my to-do list today.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Dave Grohl from spin.com.]
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 5, 2007
Duck Soup Diplomacy
The escalation of the Iraq war reminds me
of the famous joke in the Marx Brothers'
movie "Duck Soup."
"I'm willing to do anything to prevent this
war," says the Sylvanian ambassador.
"It's too late," replies Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho
Marx), the new leader of Freedonia. "I've
already paid a month's rent on the battlefield."
Which sort of sums up the situation in Washington; the
Congress, with a mandate from voters to stop the war
asap, tries to stop the war asap but finds the
administration has already authorized a "surge."
Meanwhile, in Iraq, there is the nauseating possibility
of an unholy alliance between Iran and whatever Shi'a regime
ultimately takes hold for the long-term in Baghdad. In
ten years, the two countries might well become Shi'a East
and Shi'a West and we'll be pining for the long-ago
good o'l days of Saddam Hussein, who, for all his
considerable flaws, could at least be counted on to
shun most Islamic conservatives.
And Ahmadinejad and Khamenei aren't getting any more
progressive either. A recent human rights report from
Amnesty International is packed with examples of unspeakable
torture and oppression in Iran (including the execution
and torture of children under 18, eye-gouging as a formal
punishment, etc.).
And some of the punishment is for minor offenses. Just this
week a court in Iran sentenced a woman to around three years
in prison and ten lashes for merely going to a political rally.
Maybe it's Ahmadinejad who is actually Rufus T. Firefly.
Firefly, after all, was a hardliner ("give him ten years
in Leavenworth and eleven years in Twelveworth") who, upon
taking charge of Freedonia, laid down the law: "These are
the laws of my administration; no one's allowed to smoke or
tell a dirty joke, and whistling is forbidden....If chewing
gum is chewed, the chewer is pursued...If any pleasure is
exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited."
Ahmadinejad may look a bit slow and stupid but don't
let that throw you. As Firefly said of Chicolini: "Gentlemen,
he may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, but don't
let that fool you: he really is an idiot."
I'm starting to think that everything you need to know about foreign
policy can be learned by watching "Duck Soup."
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- While I'm on the subject of vintage flicks, I was
watching Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" the other night
and marveling at the courage it took to make the film in
pre-war, isolationist America.
And it got me to thinking that perhaps now is the time for
Hollywood to make a similarly brave satire about Osama
bin Laden. After all, he's a de facto dictator, a stateless
despot, the one who forces us to remove our shoes at airports,
the one who has redesigned the Manhattan skyline, the one
who (with others) tells us which editorial cartoons we can
and cannot publish, the one who has decimated our airline
industry, and on and on.
It's time satirists took him on on the big screen. And let's
hope that a fear of bomb threats at theaters that might
show such a film won't deter film makers from making such a film.
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 3, 2007
No, it doesn't surprise me to see Mohammed Asha and
Bilal Abdulla, two physicians, in the ranks of the
jidhadists. They fit the profile, or one of the profiles.
Lots of jidhadists have been rich or affluent
Islamic right wingers. Even the mujahideen of
Afghanistan in the 1980s, fighting what both Reagan and his
ally bin Laden called the "godless Soviets," were essentially
the reactionary plantation owners of the region.
And bin Laden himself is wealthier than most of
us will ever be (and he made most of his money the
American way: he inherited it).
Islamic militant movements have always been partly
populated by rich kid fanatics.
The root of jihadism, give or take an Adam Gadahn,
is early indoctrination. At ages 4, 5 and 6, in the madrasa
schools and like institutions, children are brainwashed
and hardwired to learn only one thing: the Koran is the
absolute truth and anyone who doesn't believe what they
believe should die.
That's quite a singular syllabus for elementary school kids.
After such an early miseducation, such a person is not
just intellectually damaged but becomes a ticking time
bomb, wired to explode against non-believers later in life.
Hence, a person could have a Ph.D. from Harvard and Princeton
and still not be educated -- if the education doesn't
take or if the person resists the education. As an analogy,
a kid could wear braces on his teeth for years and still not
have straight teeth if he doesn't wear his retainer or resists
the orthodontist's advice.
If someone graduates from Harvard but still believes in, say,
voodoo, then you can reasonably conclude that that Harvard grad
is not an educated person (unless, of course, he or she
approaches voodoo from a fresh, original angle that is
not merely faith-based). In fact, I wouldn't need to
know anything else about his background to dismiss
his credentials.
Asha and Abdulla were well trained, but their education
was probably overruled by early religious indoctrination,
which they likely hadn't been able to shake as adults.
Jihadism will not be defeated until the madrasa is.
School kids in Pakistan and elsewhere must be taught
philosophical points of view other than just the Koran.
My education in America and in Europe included studying the Old
Testament, Nietzsche, Kierkengaard -- and the Koran, among much
else, as well as visits to both the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle in
Istanbul (where Mohammed's hair and teeth are on display) and
to the Vatican (not to mention the cave in Crete where Zeus was
supposedly born). In other words, my education included all
points of view. The fundamentalist Muslim's education does
not include any but its own, and that fosters absolutism that
leads to jihadist violence.
Asha's stated reason for wanting to kill innocent people
was: "after you insulted our prophet, we shall not forgive
you" -- apparently referring to the Jyllands-Posten's courageous
publication of cartoons of Mohammed.
To which I say: boo hoo. Let me get this straight:
the delicate sensitivities of this would-be murderer were
so offended by a little cartoon that he decided
to kill a bunch of strangers.
You have the right to be offended -- nobody is denying you
that. But you don't have the right to get violent because
you're offended.
What guys like Asha also don't understand is they don't own
Mohammed. To me, he is a figure from history, not a religious
icon, and I reserve the right to write about him any way I
choose. (By the way, here is the Jyllands-Posten drawing that so
offended Asha and his fellow fundamentalists:)
I heard some imbecile on ABC's "Nightline"
last night say that militants didn't
fly planes into the World Trade Center
for no reason. That's like saying that
Charles Manson or Seung-Hui Cho didn't
murder all those good people for no reason.
They had a "reason" but they had no good reason.
What that person doesn't get is that the hijackers's "reasons" were
delusional (they actually thought they were going to be met in
paradise by virgins) and their militancy was the result of
an early indoctrination that they couldn't overcome in adulthood.
Eradicating Islamic militancy starts with eradicating the
early brainwashing that takes place at the madrasa.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Investigators should start looking into the work record of
doctors Asha and Abdullah to see whether there were any suspicious
deaths of patients in their care at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in
Paisley. If they were willing to kill outside their hospitals,
they were probably willing to kill inside, too.
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 1, 2007
"We're gonna rip 'em up and light up the
night," Alison Krauss sang last night in
Berkeley, Calif., and she and
Union Station did just that, lighting
up the Bay Area (or at least the Greek Theatre!) with a
marvelous set of folk, bluegrass and country. Highlights
included "Oh, Atlanta," "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow"
and encore "When You Say Nothing At All."
And Union Station dobroist Jerry Douglas turned Duane
Allman's "Little Martha" into a thing of real beauty
(or a thing of greater beauty than it already was).
I'd love to hear him cover Cowboy's "Please Be With Me."
Douglas, the solo performer, first came to my attention
when he opened for Paul Simon last year at the Greek (same
venue as this show). That same weekend, he also played
at one of the best regular pop music festivals around: the
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park.
For the uninitiated, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest is
an annual three-day concert in the park that features
dozens and dozens of amazing performers in many genres
(not just bluegrass) -- and it's completely free of charge!
And it's free solely because the festival's founder and mastermind,
Warren Hellman (known as St. Warren around San Fran!), funds
it -- with no strings attached.
Because of Hellman, Golden Gate Park turns into a musical
feast on the first weekend of October every year; walk to the left
and see Hot Tuna; walk to the right and see Richard Thompson;
two blocks over there is Iris Dement.
The star of last year's Strictly Bluegrass was, without question,
Elvis Costello, who performed on all three days (his Coward Brothers
show with T Bone Burnett was a classic).
This year's Strictly Bluegrass is scheduled for October 5, 6 and 7,
and let's hope Costello plays the fest again (and can somebody
persuade him and Nick Lowe to do an acoustic set?). Other humble
suggestions: Marti Jones and Don Dixon would be perfect for the
festival (and so would Marshall Crenshaw).
_______________________________
Sen. Patrick Leahy confirmed to Tim Russert this morning
that, yes, he's going to appear in the next Batman movie, "The Dark
Knight," scheduled for release next year. (Hope he routs the bad
guys, as he does in real life.)
Meanwhile, I'd like to see his Vermont colleague, Sen. Bernie
Sanders, formally release a CD of his folk music, which is
pretty lively stuff, by the way (I did a story on his folk album
in 1989 when he was still mayor of Burlington, and I remember
enjoying some of it).
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Alison Krauss from yottamusic.com; photographer unknown.]
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 30, 2007
Rosie The Riveting
Rosie O'Donnell appeared in Berkeley, Calif.,
last night, as part of the Cyndi Lauper/
Erasure/Deborah Harry concert
(dubbed the "True Colors" tour),
and did she ever unload on Donald Trump and Larry King.
"[Trump] went crazy," Rosie began. "You know, I basically
said, 'Pay no attention to the man behind the combover.'
And he went on every show in the free world, you know.
He was on 'Sesame Street': [she imitates Trump's gruff tone]
'She's fat and she's gay.' 'Home Shopping Club':
[gruff tone again] 'Fat and gay, she's gay and fat.
She's a fat gay, fat gay, gay fat, fat gay.' And he's
got that little mouth that looks like an anus. You ever
notice?"
The audience exploded with laughter and applause. But Rosie
wasn't near finished.
"[Trump] was on 'Larry King,'" she continued. "And let me
just say: Larry King...is turning into an amphibian before our
very eyes....He's anorexic first of all. He's so thin that
those suspenders are hanging on the bones of his shoulders,
you know. He looks like a human Pez dispenser. Think about
that. If you pulled his head back, the Pez would drop right
out of his mouth. And then he should eat it because, basically,
the guy looks hungry."
Again, the crowd ate it up.
Rosie's appearance was part of a night of music, comedy (a
very funny Margaret Cho) and political activism in
support of a variety of gay-rights issues.
Lauper headlined, performing an enjoyable set of new songs,
oldies and re-made oldies (most notably a re-worked "She Bop"
that seems to have been influenced by Radiohead's
"There There").
Preceding her was Erasure, who drew intense crowd response.
But then, Erasure fans have always been unusually fanatical.
As a magazine reporter, I covered Erasure from the moment their
debut album, "Wonderland," was released. Writing in the March
29, 1986, issue of the music trade magazine Cash Box, shortly
after the release of its debut album, I praised "Wonderland"
and wrote: "Reserve one of the top ten chart slots, please."
Of course, it would take years before Erasure hit the top
ten in America (acceptance in the U.K. came more quickly),
though it always had an uncommonly intense cult following.
When I saw the band perform on May 15, 1987, at the Ritz
in New York City, I wrote in my review for Cash Box, in
the May 30, 1987, issue: "It looked as if Eric Clapton
or Sting were playing here May 15, judging from the
long lines outside and the sardined throngs inside
the club. But onstage was Erasure...performing the
first of two sold-out shows in support of its recently
released second album, 'The Circus.'"
I remember leaving that '87 show and seeing a crowd that
was completely electric and jazzed (I saw one guy jump
on top of a car and pump his fists as if he had just been
liberated from a prison).
Two decades later, Erasure's audence is just as adoring as
it was in the 1980s. By applause-o-meter standards, they
were cheered at least as loudly as anyone else on the bill,
according to my perch in the hills above the Greek Theatre.
Also on the bill was the Dresden Dolls, who played
"Coin Operated Boy," which sounds like a new wave hit
from the heyday of Stiff. They also performed what was
probably the most inspired musical piece of the night, a cover
of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" that ingeniously transcribed
the guitar parts for piano and turned it into a work of
unexpected delicacy.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Rosie O'Donnell from New York magazine; photographer unknown.]
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 29, 2007
The Real Swing Vote in Yesterday's Supreme Court Decision
Everybody is saying Justice Anthony Kennedy
was the swing vote in yesterday's awful decision
by the U.S. Supreme Court to resegregate
America. But the real swing vote was actually...Ralph
Nader, and I'm gonna take this moment right now to rub
it in and to say I-told-ya-so.
Because I remember those discussions in the fall of 2000
with Nader supporters who said it doesn't matter who is
elected president, it's tweedle-dee versus tweedle-dum,
yada yada yada. And I remember telling them, but
the Supreme Court hangs in the balance; you may not
agree with Al Gore on everything but at least he will
preserve the progressivism of the Court. And I remember
that they didn't listen to me.
In 2000, Nader supporters apparently had had too
much cake after eight years of Bill Clinton,
had started to take progressive policies and court
decisions for granted and couldn't imagine a time
of drought for liberals.
So they voted Nader, when they could've swung the election
to Gore, who'd just now be finishing his second term,
and we can see the result: a Court that is rolling
back nearly every major judicial advance of the past 50 years.
Yes, we are returning to the early Fifties and will now be
relearning, the hard way, why we came to our progressive
policies about integration and abortion in the first place.
Get ready in coming years for a return to more extreme
racial alienation, more extreme income disparity between blacks
and whites and -- by the next decade -- a return to the sorts of
race riots that we saw in the 1960s. Which will then force us
to relearn the lessons that we've since forgotten: that separate
is inherently unequal, and integration is the only remedy for
that inequality.
Chief Justice John Roberts has turned out to be almost as
hard right wing as Scalia or Thomas. In his confirmation hearings,
he said he'd respect bedrock precedent like Brown and Roe.
He hasn't. He implied he'd be a moderate swing vote in the
manner of Sandra Day O'Connor. He hasn't been.
Roberts, with a winning Reaganesque style and a quip for
every occasion, charmed his way through the Congressional
confirmation hearings in 2005. "Take my civil liberties, please,"
Roberts essentially joked, and the Senate club of
millionaires laughed and passed around the jelly beans as
they made him Chief Justice. Pundits talked about how
important it was to get along with colleagues, as if that
was the highest good.
Three lessons:
1) Nice is not enough in a nominee.
2) If 87-year-old John Paul Stevens retires before a Democratic
president can be elected, Congress should filibuster every Bush
Court nominee until late January 2009.
3) If Ralph Nader dares to appear in any electoral
contest again, even if he's just running for the city council,
voters should organize a boycott of any company
that contributes to his campaign.
Me, I'm considering buying a Corvair.
____________________________________
I've only seen clips of Michael Moore's "Sicko" on
YouTube and elsewhere so far, but what I've seen
hits the bullseye. I'm also reading reviews of
"Sicko" by film critics who are well-insured and affluent. Is
that a conflict-of-interest? Maybe newspapers should hire
uninsured freelancers to review it in order to provide
balance.
_______________________________
Nice interview with Paul Simon on "Charlie Rose" last night,
which reminded me that I should have included Simon in my
column of June 7th when I noted songwriters of the rock era who
ranked with Porter, Berlin and the Gershwins.
By the way, the big surprise of Simon's "Surprise" tour
last year was how some of the songs from his latest
album came alive in concert, particularly "Outrageous"
and "Father and Daughter." But what really knocked me
and lots of others out was the deep catalogue
"The Only Living Boy in New York"; until I heard him perform
it in Berkeley last year, I'd never realized, or had forgotten,
what a terrific song that is, with one of the great bridges
of folk-rock ("Half of the time we're gone but we don't know
where").
______________________________________
I once worked with a senior newspaper editor
in San Francisco who, well, let's put it this way:
he was good enough, he was smart enough, and doggone
it, people liked him!
Yes, he was a Stuart Smalley, one of those iyamwhatiyam
types, bursting with platitudes and always just
one inch short of saying iknowyouarebutwhatami (and he was
not originally from San Francisco, by the way, but from
the sticks).
Still smarting from some long-ago wedgie, he sits in
front of the mirror in late middle-age for his
Affirmation, practicing what he'll say to his bosses
when they inevitably decide to lay him off, which is that he's
good enough, he's smart enough -- well, you get the picture.
The sort of mediocrity who actually loves Charles Nelson Reilly,
puppet shows and mime, and calls Mozart's "Don Giovanni"
"Don Juan."
But I digress.
No doubt about it, Al Franken created an immediately recognizable
American archetype in Smalley, but his latest project is very
serious business. As everyone knows, Franken is running for the
U.S. Senate from Minnesota, in a race that may well determine the
balance of power on the Hill next year. And as things stand
now, he is probably the Democrats' best hope to unseat
Norm Coleman.
Democrats who underestimate Franken and are thinking of
defecting to attorney Mike Ciresi should remember that
Franken has a secret weapon that the other candidates don't:
the ability to win debates. Though Franken is currently polling
20 points behind Coleman (so is Ciresi), I bet the polls even-up
after the first debate.
And then Minnesota voters will see that Franken is good enough,
he's smart enough and -- well, you get the point.
__________________________________________
satire
Secretly recorded steamy bedroom conversation between secret
lovers Ann Coulter and Osama bin Laden
COULTER: Oh, bin, I love fundamentalist wood.
BIN LADEN: I disrobe only for god-fearing women like you.
COULTER: Do it, bin, like a believer! Hijack me.
BIN LADEN: Your body, so unlike the infidels'.
COULTER: Your cock is so unlike an atheist's.
BIN LADEN: My penis may be small, but it's a
faithful believer's penis.
COULTER: Bin, your beard is so wet and gooey from going down
on me.
BIN LADEN: You taste like a woman of faith.
COULTER: I like a penis that leans to the right.
BIN LADEN: Hard right!
[And they both laugh heartily!]
More hot chat from That Fundamentalist Duo in future columns.
But I digress. Paul
[picture of Ralph Nader by unknown photographer]
______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 24, 2007
Norah Jones and M. Ward did a fun duet of John Fogerty's
"Green River" on Saturday night in Berkeley, Calif. (I didn't
have time to hear the whole show, unfortunately). Jones got
lots of applause for her new protest song, "My Dear Country,"
particularly the line, "There is nothing as scary as election
day." Live, "Sinkin' Soon" was the most musically engaging
of the songs from her latest album, "Not Too Late," released
earlier this year. And her stage patter was surprisingly
droll: "I can't whistle," she confessed after "Little Room."
"I can whistle inhaling. But it's weird; you just keep
exhaling!"
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 23, 2007
The latest pop phenom to erupt from MySpace into the music biz
proper is So-Cal's Colbie Caillat,
a 21-year-old singer-songwriter
whose MySpace page has become so
popular that she's now
signed with Universal Republic,
which will release her debut album, "Coco,"
next month.
Caillat performed in Berkeley last night at the Greek Theatre
(I heard her in the hills above the theatre), backed by
a four-piece band and playing seven songs. The catchiest
was "Bubbly," the original that got everyone interested
in her in the first place. Elsewhere, she mixed folk and
soul and pop and even tried some reggae ("Tied Down"), coming
across as both genuine and genuinely surprised at her
sudden success (she was the opening act for the Goo Goo Dolls,
who I couldn't stay to hear).
Maybe the founders of MySpace should consider founding
a label of their own, recording only artists who've posted
MP3's on MySpace.
------------------------------
Congrats to Barry Bonds for number 749! Seven more, and he'll
break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record.
And if he breaks the record, he should he given the same
level of respect and adulation that Aaron and
Babe Ruth were accorded when they topped the field.
As I said in my column of June 14th (in a line that has since
been repeated by others who have not properly attributed
it to me): Should Babe Ruth's home run record have an asterisk
next to it noting that he played baseball in an era of unfair
competition that excluded African-American players?
Should The Beatles have their Grammy rescinded because
they composed parts of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band" on pot and other drugs?
Of course not. And it is essentially the same thing.
In response, someone might say: well, marijuana does not necssarily
enhance one's composing ability.
To which I'd say: well, steroids don't guarantee that someone
will hit home runs, either. There are a lot of mediocre batters
who have done steroids and have not excelled on the diamond.
In fact, I could inject steroids from now until the new year
and would probably not hit any or many home runs, if I were put
in a Giants uniform. (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument,
that Bonds did in fact intentionally use 'roids, a charge he has
denied.)
So I don't quite see eye-to-eye with the two S.F. Chronicle
reporters who piled plodding detail onto plodding detail in the
service of an insignificant story that should never have been prominently
reported to begin with. Someone should've reminded them that Bonds
is an entertainer, not a cabinet official, and they weren't starring
in "All the President's Men."
But that doesn't surprise me; I worked with editors at the Chron,
and some of 'em were talented but some of 'em missed the ball by
feet, not inches, in terms of editing and reporting.
But I digress. Paul
[photo of Colbie Caillat from MySpace.]
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 20, 2007
Cannot confirm the authenticity of these photos, but here they are:
bin Laden, in a recent disguise.___________________________
a rare shot of the 9/11 hijackers at an al Qaeda training camp.______________________________
mohammed has come back to life, sporting a new look
_________________________________________________
Bravo to Britain for giving a Knighthood to novelist
Salman Rushde, who richly deserves every honor
he's received. And all those people
from the 12th century who object
should get used to addressing him as
Sir Salman Rushdie. (Meanwhile,
Pakistan's Ijaz ul-Haq, with his out-of-line
response, provides the world with a vivid glimpse
of idiocy in its purest form.)
Live from the 12th century, it's Ijaz ul-Haq (The-One-With-the-Asymmetrical-Mustache!)
By the way, last night I tried a little experiment
to see whether I could use author William
Burroughs's so-called cut-up method to
combine passages from both The Koran
and The Old Testament into one poem. I
took The Koran's "The Holy Prophet" and
randomly mixed it with the Old Testament's
"Book of Malachi" and then edited the result.
The result of the fusion is this poem, comprised
solely of text from The Koran and The Old Testament,
which I've titled:
Randomly Combining The Koran and The Old Testament
I will corrupt your seed
Your breast will become straighted by it
Because they say, why hasn't a treasure been sent down upon him
Most surely he is exulting, boasting
The law of truth was in his mouth
This is nothing but clear magic
And if we make him taste a favor after distress has afflicted him
He will certainly say, "The evils are gone"
Spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts
Warner, the curse of Allah is on the unjust
The punishment shall be doubled for them
Oh ye priests, this commandment is for you
-----------------------------
MEMO
To: All those covering Prince William, Prince Harry and the late Diane
Spencer
Please let me know what notable novel, poem, article, song, film,
sculpture, painting, photograph, political cause or business innovation
that any of the three has been primarily responsible for.
If you can't, then why are you covering them?
-------------------------
The 21 year old drinking age is in the news again,
which reminds me of a joke that circulated in my
dorm when I was an 18 year old college student.
It went like this:
Q: Guess what the drinking age is in the U.S.?
A: 21!
And everyone would always roar with laughter!
----------------------------
I'm a big admirer of ABC's George Stephanopoulos, though I
have to take issue with his statement on "World News"
the other night that American voters won't accept an
atheist candidate for national office. That may have
been the way it used to be, but we're entering an era
in which we're seeing the rise of a new generation of
Asian-American politicians, particularly in the western states,
who come from proud traditions that include Hinduism,
Buddhism, non-theistic spiritualism and non-traditional
spiritualism. And it's easy to imagine, say, a popular mayor of
San Francisco, who happens to be Asian-American and
non-theistic (in a city that is already almost half
Asian-American and counting), running for president
in the future.
In other words, the United States is finally starting to
resemble the rest of the world, which for the most part
doesn't accept theism.
My guess is that, by mid-century, being theistic or non-theistic
will not matter much in politics. It will become
a distinction as quaint and old-fashioned
as such terms as "pagan" and "heathen" are now.
Ten years ago, pundits would have said
that evidence of prior cocaine use would have
stopped a candidacy. But candidate Bush handled
such questions by saying, essentially, "none of your
business" -- and it worked. A similar response would
also probably work in answering questions about religion.
And I think the trend is moving sharply away from theism
as people become better educated and less rural -- and
also because, frankly, people are really getting
turned off by all the religious killers out there
(e.g., Mohamed Atta, Eric Rudolph, etc.). Those who look
to religion for moral guidance are beginning to see
that the holy rollers are among the least moral in our
number.
But I digress. Paul.
[pictures of Rushdie, "Mohammed," "bin Laden," and ul-Haq by unknown photographer.]
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 18, 2007
The next presidential debate -- the so-called YouTube/CNN debate --
will happen next month in South Carolina, and there's a good
chance the Democrats will, again, be asked whether
the confederate flag should fly on the statehouse grounds
in Columbia.
At the last presidential debate in South Carolina, almost all
the Democratic candidates answered with a resounding
take-the-flag-down -- and for good reason. The stars and
bars is a racist symbol, a relic of a shameful past.
The ongoing dispute about the flying of the confederate flag
is really just a symptom of a larger national fracture.
Let's face it, there are still some crackers who,
as unbelievable as it might seem, in their heart of hearts
secretly believe that the southeast had the right to own slaves
and that the federal government had no business telling them
otherwise.
Someone needs to go over there and tell 'em what time it is, as
the saying goes.
Such people have no grasp of the extreme human rights violation
that slavery was. And they have a view of labor that is not
just pre-union but virtually feudal.
I spent part of my youth in the southeast, after having been
born and partly schooled in Maine, and one thing that really offended
me was the disrespect of some rural southeasterners toward
Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president. And even today, there
still seems to be an unspoken regional animosity toward Lincoln.
The hidden "thinking" behind confederate flag supporters is
that their 19th century ancestors fought and died for the
confederate cause and therefore they feel they have to stick
up for the wrongheaded policies of their long-dead relatives.
To which I say: you ought to own up to the fact that your
distant relatives's support of slavery was a big flaw.
They may have been admirable in other ways, but their backing
of the confederacy was completely reprehensible. And they may
even have been courageous in battle -- but, alas, in the service
of a very flawed cause. Confederate sympathizers
are essentially immigrants who have not yet
assimilated into the American mainstream (the southeastern
accent is almost a linguistic secession).
There are middle-aged Germans today who say they love
their fathers but hate the fact that they fought for
the Third Reich in the 1940s. And that's exactly what the
ancestors of the confederacy should do today: admit, at
least to themselves, that their 19th century relatives,
whatever their virtues, were dead wrong about slavery.
Meanwhile, the next GOP presidential debate occurs in September
in Florida, which incidentally has a state flag that looks
way too much like the ol' stars-and-bars. Perhaps someone
should ask the candidates whether they think the Florida
flag should be redesigned to look a little less medieval.
* * *
NBC's Ron Mott should not be covering the case of the falsely
accused Duke students; he has shown bias from the beginning
of his reportage on the case all the way until this morning
on the "Today" show, when he narrated yet another slanted piece
(I usually don't do tutoring, Ron, but if you'd like, I
could walk you through your "Today" video piece and
show you exactly where you're showing bias).
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 14, 2007
I'm not moved in the least by Mike Nifong's tears,
because he's just playing to the cameras so he
can keep his law license. Disbarring Nifong
should be just the beginning of the penalty phase;
civil suits should follow. And the victims
should look into the legal feasibility of stripping
Nifong of his pension, which should be divided
amongst the three falsely accused.
Media coverage of the Nifong resignation has ranged
from the great (Charles Gibson's "World News") to
the abysmal (namely, Ron Mott's awful report
for "The NBC Nightly News," which showed Nifong in such a
sympathetic light at times that you'd think Mott (or someone
at NBC) worked for Nifong's PR firm; and Mott's cutaways from
Nifong to the falsely accused victims always seemed to show
the victims at their least endearing or most unattractive;
that's called propaganda, Ron -- and Brian
Williams knows a lot better than that).
--------------------------
Genarlow Wilson should be released from prison now
(see column item below). Finally, protesters are
mobilizing to have Wilson freed from prison,
where he remains because of the backward thinking
of Georgia's Attorney General, Thurbert Baker,
who appears well on his way to becoming the
Michael Nifong of state AGs. My suggestion to
demonstrators: I hear Baker has a place up on
Stone Mountain, so maybe that's where you should
stage your protests.
This is Thurbert Baker, the guy keeping Genarlow Wilson in prison. The best place to protest his decision is outside Baker's Stone Mountain house, where this elected official can hear what his constituents think about this case.
Genarlow Wilson, an innocent man who should be freed from prison._____________________________________
-- How refreshing to see Paul McCartney mandolin-ing his way
back to the top of the charts with his new album, "Memory
Almost Full," his strongest work in years. A couple of the
songs rank with the best songs released this year
(along with Conor Oberst's "Four Winds" and The Arcade Fire's
"Intervention" and Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good"
and the Shins's "Phantom Limb" and and those new Oakley
Hall songs that I don't know the names of yet!). [By the way,
The Arcade Fire takes great pains to introduce itself
as The Arcade Fire, not Arcade Fire, and if you
really think about it, there's a substantial difference;
you wouldn't say, "I saw Rolling Stones" -- you'd say,
"I saw The Rolling Stones." See the official website:
http://www.mergerecords.com/band.php?band_id=98.]
McCartney's solo stuff has been perennially underrated (hey,
"Another Day" was always a better song than "How Do You Sleep,"
by the way), but those who take the time to listen to his
post-Beatles oeuvre will find some unexpected gems that few
seem to know about (e.g., "Little Willow," "Wanderlust,"
"The Backseat of My Car," etc.). In fact, what an anthology
that would make: the best of McCartney's deep-catalogue solo
material.
By the way, check out the nice piece by Ben Ratliff in
tomorrow's (Friday's) New York Times about McCartney's
surprise gig at the Highline Ballroom in New York. Poignantly,
Macca mentioned John Lennon (who he met for the first time
50 years ago next month) and sang his homage to him
"Here Today," from the "Tug of War" album. To quote The Times:
“It’s good to play that song in the town John loved,” [McCartney]
said.
And I, and lots of others, share his profound sadness about the
absence of Lennon, who should still be around, who should still
be playing gigs, dropping "If I Fell" as an encore at MSG or
bringing McCartney onstage for "A Day in the Life" (can you imagine
what Lennon's solo shows would have been like?), or maybe rejoining
McCartney for a new group of collaborative songs. But all that
possibility was wiped out by a supreme stroke of tragic
bad luck (if Lennon had been caught in one of midtown's
notorious traffic jams that night, he might still be
around; life is that random; then again, that same
randomness also made his freakish level of success and
genius possible).
And New York was Lennon's town when he lived in it, or at least
the upper west side was. I lived on the upper west side, a few
blocks from Lennon's place, when he lived there, and there were
always stories by neighbors and shopkeepers of sightings on
West 72nd St., though I never saw or met him.
I remember one night on the upper west side that was
more memorable than the others. It was a Monday, and I
stepped out of my apartment on West 74th at around
10:40 p.m. for a late night cup of coffee before bed.
By the time I'd walked to the coffee shop, the women
behind the counter were talking frantically, and one
of them blurted out to me, "Someone shot John Lennon."
And I said something like, "Aw, c'mon," thinking she
was joking. And then another woman said, "John Lennon just
died at the Dakota."
It was just before 11pm on December 8, 1980,
and I suddenly forgot all about getting coffee and ran
frantically down Broadway toward 72nd street and then
started running non-stop toward Central Park West. And as I
got closer and closer, I could see the crowd at the end
of the street growing bigger and bigger. When I arrived --
it was around 11:10 -- someone said Yoko Ono had already
gone to Roosevelt Hospital, and the police were blocking the
crime scene, and people with tears and boomboxes started
playing Beatles songs and Lennon songs, and I stayed for
awhile, but I had to be at work at 9 the next morning. So
I walked home just before 1am, turned on WNEW, where DJ
Vin Scelsa was helping everyone through the night with Lennon
music and talk, went to bed and cried as if a favorite relative
had been killed. It was one of the saddest nights of my life up
to that point, though I'd never met Lennon.
[photo of Lennon's glasses from John-Lennon.net; unknown photographer]
__________________________________
-- Has anyone on YouTube compiled a tape of all those
chubby guys in "The Sopranos" hugging and kissing each other,
as they do several times in each episode? It's almost like
a tic. There must be at least four hundred instances in
the series.
__________________________________
-- Should Babe Ruth's home run record have an asterisk
next to it noting that he played baseball in an era of
unfair competition that excluded African-American players?
____________________________
-- Disbarring Michael Nifong is a wonderful idea, but why
hasn't the actual accuser, Crystal Mangum, been prosecuted
for filing a false police report and for whatever
other charge can be thrown at her? (If Paris Hilton had
falsely accused innocent guys of assault, she'd deserve
eight years in prison; but Paris should never have
been jailed for the slight offense she's now in jail
for, by the way.) But the legal system
remains more imperfect than it should be in the U.S.
(even the U.S. Supreme Court acts in an amateurish fashion
at times -- witness the Bush v. Gore case of '00).
_________________________________
All Politics is Loco
I once admired British prime minister Tony Blair, mostly before
the Iraq war, but his recent comments about the press are out
of line (he said the media is "a feral best, tearing people
and reputations to bits").
Before you get all pious, Tony, keep in mind that no member of
the press ever sent a teenager to Iraq to be quite literally torn
to bits by bombs and shells in an unnecessary war.
But I digress. Paul
[above pictures of Baker and Wilson by unknown photographers.]
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 12, 2007
The Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, Calif., almost
always has some new work that's memorable, and
the recent "fer-ma-ta" exhibit was no exception,
particularly the novel photos of Joe McKay.
The idea behind McKay's photos is that streetlights
and streetlight ornaments can look just like Hollywood's
version of UFOs -- if you erase the poles that they're
attached to. And that seems to be what McKay does in
photos like "UFO No. 3" (2007), which show how everyday
parking lot/street objects can actually look like
otherworldly phenomena. After seeing his pics, it's
hard to see a streetscape the same way. Check out
his work.
* * *
I think it's so great that Genarlow Wilson has been
ordered released from prison for having had sex when
he was 17 years old (though he still remains in jail
as backward officials in Georgia appeal the release).
I'm a savvy guy about the law, no doubt about it,
but let me be completely frank: I didn't
even know it was against the law for a 17 year-old
to have sex with someone in his general age group
in America. Apparently, the puritanical impulse
is this country is far worse than I thought --
almost sharia-law like.
Let me state, without any regret whatsoever, and
in open defiance of the witch hunters out there, that
when I was 17 I had consensual sex with females my age
and slightly older, and we enjoyed it plenty. In fact,
I don't regret a moment of it and wouldn't have done
it any other way. It was a lot of fun. [Keep in mind
that I was 17 in the 1970s when deadly std's weren't
an issue.]
I hope Wilson is released yesterday.
* * *
Does anyone write about food with as much wit and color as The New
York Times's Frank Bruni? His latest gem is in tomorrow's (Wednesday's)
Times, and it starts like this: "I’m not sure it’s possible to behave
with much dignity around seven glistening pounds of pork butt, but
on a recent night at Momofuku Ssam Bar, five friends and I weren’t
even encouraged to try." Terrific stuff.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 11, 2007
Meadow's Great Parallel Parking Finale
The non-ending ending of "The Sopranos"
was a great idea, the more I think
of it, a welcome slap in the face
to the many mediocre novelists
and readers who approach stories
with a formulaic check list (a
story must have 1) narrative arc,
2) resolution) as if fiction were
some sort of mathematical
equation, which it ain't.
I think smart people who write all
the time start to get sick of
bourgeois literary convention (he said with a flourish),
and I must admit I get bored with most stories that end
with "the butler did it" or "the last ten minutes will leave
you breathless" or those countless whodunits in which the
gun in scene one goes off in scene ten blah blah blah (but
I don't want to give away the ending). Pleeeaase. It's
as if David Chase is saying, "You want fireworks? I gave
you fireworks in the previous 85 episodes."
* * *
To all the good and honest journalists being laid off at
the San Francisco Chronicle: just keep in mind that while
your careers have ended, the careers of a flagrant plagiarist
(Ed Guthmann) and an outright fraud (David Wiegand) continue
at the paper. Which says a lot about why the Chron is going
down the toilet as fast as a flush. At the Chronicle, the
rules against plagiarism clearly do not apply to those for
whom management has a sweet spot. How touching.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 7, 2007
The Season of McCartney
Paul McCartney and the far lesser known Paul Iorio (at an event I was covering as a magazine writer).
Paul McCartney is, once again, ubiquitous, as his new
album, "Memory Almost Full," is released, and as
the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of The Beatles'
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
I was getting in the spirit, too, the other day,
listening to the alternate version of "Hey Jude"
on the "Anthology" CD, and thinking it may be the
Beatles' greatest song and that McCartney may well
be the greatest songwriter of the 20th century.
And then I thought, who's the competition? Cole Porter?
Hey, I love Porter, but his best song was "I've Got You
Under My Skin" or maybe "You're the Top," and would anyone
seriously say those songs are better than "Hey Jude"?
Was George Gershwin a greater songwriter? Aside from
"Rhapsody in Blue" and his other classical work, what pop
song of the Gershwin brothers can stand alongside
"Hey Jude" or "Yesterday" or "Golden Slumbers" or any
number of other McCartney or Lennon/McCartney gems?
Irving Berlin? That's a tough call. In the rock era,
Bob Dylan may surpass McCartney as a lyricist, but not as
a melodist.
No, McCartney is greater than we're admitting in 2007,
and we're already admitting to a lot of praise.
And I feel lucky to have actually met the man, back
in August 1986, when I was in my twenties and was a
staff writer for the music trade magazine Cash Box
and had already lived in Manhattan for nearly a decade.
I was in my office on West 58th in Manhattan when
Capitol called to invite me and my Cash Box colleague
to come to Radio City Music Hall to meet McCartney --
in an hour or two! Needless to say, we dropped
everything and walked the fifties to Radio City
asap.
At first, McCartney was at a distance in the Radio City lobby,
and I figured I wouldn't get to meet him. But then he made a
beeline directly through the lobby to where I was standing
(not necessarily because I was standing there, of course),
and I momentarily felt a bit like Ralph Kramden (hummana-hummana),
but managed to say happy to meet you and to ask him a
couple questions before the crowd swarmed and congratulated
him on everything from "Press to Play" to his narration of
a Buddy Holly documentary.
Many years later, in the fall of 2000, on a hilltop in San
Francisco, I talked with the actor Woody Harrelson about
meeting McCartney. And we both wondered together for a time
about whether McCartney knew -- really knew -- how much
people truly love some of his songs. I still wonder.
[personal note to magazine colleague: "carbon paper!"]
But I digress. Paul
[Photo credits: photograph of me and Paul McCartney taken by unknown photographer at Radio City Music Hall in New York in August 1986.]
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 3, 2007
Today's Republican Debate
So lemme get this straight. When the Democrats first proposed
social security, the Republicans called it socialism and opposed
it and were eventually proved wrong in their opposition.
When the Democrats first proposed Medicare, the Republicans called
it socialism and opposed it and were eventually proved wrong in
their opposition. And now, with this history of discredited
reactionary politics as their heritage, the new crop of GOP
candidates calls universal health care "socialism."
Or at least Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney did in today's
debate in New Hampshire. Which is a sure sign that the
single payer health plan is exactly the right course for America.
Giuliani and Romney will, of course, eventually come around --
perhaps in the year 2037 or so!
That's why they call progressives "progressive" -- because
they get to the right answer before conservatives do.
For now, the GOP is spouting the same ol' cliches, stuff
like "anything the government takes over gets worse not better,"
to paraphrase Romney.
Do they really think the private sector should be entrusted
with implementing health care policy? Are they referring to the
same private sector that gave us Enron and Drexel and Anderson and
Imclone and WorldCom and Global Crossing and countless other
corporate examples of malfeasance and greed? Are they joking or
are they merely badly informed?
And Giuliani says that single payer will make health care more
expensive. Then how come that's not the case in Canada, which has
a single payer policy? What does it say when U.S. citizens
have to go to Canada to get affordable health care?
But let the GOP go on this way. And let them continue backing the
Iraq war, too, and igoring the will of the American people as expressed
at the polls in November 2006. Because if they keep this up, they're
gonna see a blue nation rising come November 2008.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 4, 2007
If my sources are correct, the final episode of "The Sopranos"
will be a shocker. Here's what I hear: someone plants a bomb
with a timer in Tony's car. And guess who borrows the car for a
spin? More to come, as soon as I can confirm it.
* * *
Frank Zappa on Presidential Politics
After hearing The Arcade Fire's concert Saturday night, for some
reason I felt the urge to sift through some of my archival
audiotapes of my one-on-one interviews with the late Frank Zappa,
who was generous enough with his time to call me every now and
then in the 1980s. Sometimes we'd put the interviews on tape.
In one of our conversations, from February 1988, Zappa talked about
the upcoming presidential election, and his words are still resonant
today. After saying he thought Mario Cuomo was "the only guy with a
brain big enough for the job" of president, he went on to talk about
the qualities he looked for in a candidate:
"The guy I want to see in the White House is a guy who can think
on his feet, who doesn't need a speechwriter, who knows his shit,
who has the strength and the stamina and the personal conviction
to do stuff, without worrying about whether or not it's going to play in
Iowa or going to play in New Hampshire or whether he's going to
look like Mr. Perfect Little Man."
"And until we can get beyond the Perfect Little Man syndrome --
you know, you don't want a Perfect Little Man in the White House.
You want a motherfucker in there!"
* * *
So it turns out my advance information about the plotline of last
night's episode of "The Sorpanos" was almost completely correct. Still
no firm word on how the last episode will play out.
But in the meantime, here are....
Things That Haven't Been Mentioned About "The Sopranos"
"The Sopranos" has so captured the zeitgeist of the Oughties
that we may be looking at a presidential campaign that pits
Tony Soprano against Carmela, in the guise of Fred Thompson versus
Hillary Clinton, and the series also symbolically captures the
late stages of baby boomer power in business and
government perfectly, as aging ex-hippies and others feel
increasingly like Tony and the Crew, forced to do things they
feel bad about (like firing that guy who didn't deserve it
or fighting unjust wars), and as the show hurtles to its finish
like Pie-o-My on a tear, it begins to look like the fourth season
was the one with the most inspired energy and carbonation and fizz,
what with the certifiably insane, ultra-homicidal antics of Ralph
Cifarretto, who really should have been allowed to live in
order to invigorate future episodes, though the
first season is a close second, and the second was, let's
face it, a bit of a dog, and any list of the best
episodes (excluding the sixth season, which is in
progress) has to include "Pine Barrens" and
"College" and "University" and "Whoever Did This" and
"Whitecaps" (Edie Falco's high note) and
"Long Term Parking" (Steve van Zandt's high note),
though I can't help but think that it was a bad decision
to emphasize A.J. and Janice over Meadow, because series
creator David Chase could have had
Meadow graduate from college and then come back to
her hometown as a political reformer or
journalistic crusader, pitting her directly against
the interests and values of her dad and his
people, which would have meant more Meadow and less
Janice, who tended to slow things down
as she became a sort of unconvincing Melfi to
Bobby Bacala, and the series is sort
of like drinking Remy from a flask in a Lincoln
Towncar, as opposed to sipping Chianti in a garden
a la "The Godfather," and the aphorisms are also not
quite worthy of Francis Coppola/Mario Puzo (a
typical saying like "indecision is worse than a bad
decision" isn't really as wise or true as, say,
"The Godfather"'s "keep your friends close, keep your
enemies closer"), though "Sorpanos" led the trend
in television toward applying the aesthetics and
techniques and sensibilities of great film auteurs to tv
shows, which made it a sort of weekly version of a
Martin Scorsese film (just as Larry David's
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a bit like a weekly version
of a Woody Allen picture), and though the series
started in 1999, it can trace its roots back to
1990's "Goodfellas," particularly the scene in which
the Ray Liotta character comes to a peaceful suburban
community and brutally beats some guy who is washing
his car, which sort of invented the mob-meets-the-Jersey-'burbs
landscape of "Sopranos," but now television has almost beat
feature films at their own game, with movie after
movie trying for that "Sopranos" effect and so many major
films not measuring up to even a single episode of the
series, but now that the series is ending, there may be a
public appetite for a reverse-angle "Sopranos," done from
the POV of the victims of mobsters, because people
who have run into such thugs in real life know they're
not a lot of fun, not much like lovable
Tony, and their assaults are not accompanied by a
Ronettes soundtrack, and in parts of New Jersey,
sociopaths like Tony have sort of permeated the soil and polluted
the air and become the mayors and corrupt
local officials who cause honest people real grief
(in certain parts of Jersey, "Sorpanos" DVDs are
filed under "documentary," I hear), which
is why I've always thought that a great series
finale would go like this: Tony Soprano runs for mayor
and wins and finds himself completely at
home in that element in Jersey, finally legit in an
illegit way, even covered glowingly (by reporters who
are either naive or corrupt) in great newspapers
that are otherwise courageous in places like Pakistan and
Iraq -- the ultimate "I was cured alright" ending.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 3, 2007
The Winner of Today's Presidential Debate Was...
Al Gore!
No, Gore didn't participate but it wasn't hard to
imagine him dwarfing everyone else present.
Yeah, Obama gave some terrific seemingly-spontaneous
answers about immigration (very smart
of him to bring up the TB case coming in
from Canada). But I'm getting sort of tired
of him playing prophet by saying he was against
the Iraq war before the war, when the truth is
he wasn't in Congress when the authorization
vote came up. I mean, Hillary Clinton and
John Edwards also might have been bravely anti-war
had they not been in the Senate during the moment of
truth.
The true foreign policy prophets of this decade are
those who both opposed the Iraq war before the
Iraq war AND supported the war in
Afghanistan before the war in Afghanistan. One question
Wolf Blizter didn't ask Obama today: Was he for the
Afghanistan war before the Afghanistan war?
That said, Obama's response on bin Laden was terrific,
advocating a decisive and lethal response if the military
had bin Laden in its crosshairs; Kucinich's answer was
awful (in short, he'd be willing to allow bin Laden to
live so that he could plot the mass murder of more Americans).
Elsewhere, Hillary was very strong on health care, going after
the true villains, the pharmaceutical and insurance
companies (though she shouldn't keep repeating that bit
about having "scars to show from" her health care activism).
Joe Biden was very wise and smart about Iran and Darfur and
on foreign policy in general and he will
make a brilliant secretary of state under President Gore.
And Dennis Kucinich was convincing and passionate about the
single payer bill (HR 676) that he's trying to get the
House to pass (and he'll make a marvelous HHS secretary
under President Gore).
Meanwhile, Bill Richardson was off and should consider
withdrawing from the race. (What was Richardson thinking
when he cited "getting rid of junk food in schools" as part
of his health plan? People are dying because they can't afford
meds, Bill, and you trivialize the tragedy with a comment like that.)
Mike Gravel should definitely stay in the race, but only because
he's the most entertaining of the lot. Gravel should also
seriously think about getting a scan to see whether he's
had a stroke that he might be unaware of, because he sounds
increasingly like that nut in the movie "Network."
Ask some Democrats the following question -- If you could snap
your fingers and appoint anyone president, who would it be? --
and many would say "Obama." But ask them another question -- If you
could snap your fingers and appoint anyone the Democratic nominee
for president? -- the answer is less certain.
Because the last question requires naming a candidate who can win
in the general in a nation split evenly between red and blue.
And, let's be real, Obama can't. Too liberal.
And let's look at the electoral map, particularly the swing states.
Gore could probably win not only Florida and Ohio, but Iowa and even
Missouri (and maybe even purple states like New Mexico and Montana), no
matter who the GOP nominates.
On the other hand, I can't imagine Obama winning any of those
six -- and I bet he'd have a hard time picking up Democratic
sureshots like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Even New Jersey might
be out of his range. Obama is the sort of guy who'll attract
record crowds at rallies in Green Bay on the day before the election
but would ultimately end up losing Wisconsin by 53 to 47 percent. And
in Florida, he'd rack up totals in Dade but lose it on the I-4 corridor.
Hillary would have a better but not a good chance, which is why
some Dems are privately hoping Michael Bloomberg becomes the
Ross Perot of '08, the third party candidate who siphons votes
from the GOP. I mean, Bill Clinton knows all too well that he
likely would've lost in '92 had it not been for Perot, and he knows
Hillary is not strong enough to overcome the electoral math he
wasn't able to overcome in '92.
As I wrote in this column in April (see below), the Dems's best and
maybe only hope of winning the White House is a Gore/Obama ticket.
At the time, almost nobody talked about such a pairing. But
now, a lot of pundits and politicos and party insiders are saying
the same thing.
* * * *
exclusive
Arcade Fire Ends Tour With Rarity -- and Win Butler is Almost Busted
The Arcade Fire ended its latest North
American tour last night in Berkeley, Calif.,
with a magical set that included rarity
"Headlights Look Like Diamonds," which
the band hasn't played in years, showing an almost angry
intensity that hadn't been there the night before.
Perhaps the reason for that intensity was the fact that frontman
Win Butler had almost been arrested earlier in the day, or so he
said last night. Seven songs into the set, Butler gave this account
of what happened (which I was lucky enough to have caught on my tape
recorder!):
"In Berkeley today I came as close as I've ever been to being
arrested. [applause] I'd like to say I was protesting
the war in Iraq or something but I was just pleading my case to
be able to play basketball at the Berkeley gym...And so one thing
led to another and he was kind of an asshole and then so we started
yelling a little bit. And this police officer came. She called
for fucking back-up. And before I knew it, I was being escorted out
by, like, four cops. It was like serious shit. They took down my
information. I don't know what you people do around here, but
they're serious. Anyway, so, since we can't stop the war, let's at
least boycott Berkeley athletic facilities."
The crowd applauded wildly and the band immediately launched into
"Intervention."
[More on the concert later!]
But I digress. Paul
the above photo of Al Gore is by Paul Iorio; the photo of
The Arcade Fire was shot by an unknown photographer at
at an unknown show.
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 30, 2007
"And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain..."
The secret of what happens in the last two episodes of "The Sopranos"
is more closely guarded than a nuclear code, it seems, but the word is
that in this Sunday's show, "Blue Comet," the penultimate episode,
Silvio gets whacked at the Bing and Bobby Bacala also makes his final
exit, while A.J. busts his ankle. But don't tell anybody I told ya!
(Besides, in all seriousness, it's absolutely impossible to verify
plot details coming from various sources, though don't rule out the
F.B.I. playing a big role in the series finale, "Made in America."
And some seem to think, as outrageous as it sounds, Tony might
-- get this -- flip in the final reel. Again, no way to definitively
confirm any of this.)
But I digress. Paul
[picture of James Gandolfini by unknown photographer.]
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 24, 2007
Advice for Aspiring Journalists in the Graduating Class of 2007
1. If you don't come from money, you'll probably have
to start your career as a clerk. And you'll have to
watch the unfair spectacle of lesser talents (whose parents
are wealthy) ascend to plum editorial positions right out of
the box.
2. You can be brilliant at your job and work at it 'round
the clock, but the promotion will often go to the
son or nephew of the boss. Nepotism generally trumps talent.
3. Whistleblowers do not usually end up on the cover of Time
magazine as heroes. If you whistleblow about your own company,
chances are you will be smeared by your bosses, fired for a
trumped up cause and then blacklisted in your industry.
4. Even if you expose something as egregiously evil as a
murder linked to your company's corrupt practices, you will
be surprised at how few of your esteemed colleagues will
stand by you in your investigation -- even after your findings
are proved to be completely correct!
5. If you investigate the bad guys as a freelancer, and
you are injured by the bad guys while doing your
reporting, your company will not pay your
medical expenses -- and neither will the government.
Your injuries will continue to worsen with the years.
6. Beware: the idea you pitch may be stolen by the
publication you're pitching it to.
7. Plagiarism is the third rail of journalism is what they
teach you in college. But the reality is that awful plagiarists
get away with it at major newspapers all the time because
they are either rich, famous or well-connected within their
own newspapers (see my column below for examples of that).
8. You'll know your work is great and is connecting with
readers when 1) your colleagues try to claim credit for
parts of it that they had nothing to do with; 2) other
writers start imitating it.
9. Of course, if they have to unfairly promote the boss's
son over you, then they will also have to cover themselves
by saying your work is not so great. Answer them with:
compared to whose work among your staffers? If it's
not-so-great, then how come everyone is imitating it?
And how come everyone is trying to claim credit
for it?
10. At the job interview, assume your boss is asking the dumbest
possible question, not the smartest possible question. (Example:
at the job interview when I was hired at the San Francisco Chronicle,
the editor asked me a question about a movie that I was an
absolute expert on: Roman Polanski's "Chinatown." He asked what
was the name of the family in the movie modeled after a real life
L.A. family. Wrongly thinking he was asking a brilliant
question about one of the more obscure characters, I stammered
for around half a minute before realizing he was actually asking
an obvious question about the movie's main character.)
11. The key to success: come from a rich family.
12. There are exceptions to each one of these truths that
some will cite in order to discredit them altogether.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 23, 2007
Today's New York Times reports that ABC's "World News" with
Charles Gibson has now become the dominant nightly newscast,
topping both Brian Williams' "NBC Nightly News" and "The CBS
Evening News" with Katie Couric.
Which doesn't surprise me at all. In 2002, I did some deep research
into how the morning news anchors at the major networks handled
the ultimate breaking news story: the minutes between the crash
of the first hijacked airplane and the second one on September 11,
2001. At the time, I knew almost nothing about Charles Gibson,
then co-anchor of "Good Morning America," which was on the air at
the time the planes rammed into the twin towers. But the more I
watched and re-watched the footage from that morning over and over
again, studying in detail the responses of each anchor, the more I
realized that Gibson was a massively talented television journalist
-- and the only anchor or correspondent that morning to have sized
up the situation correctly while the tragedy was unfolding.
My own report was ultimately published by The Toronto Star in
January 2003, and for those who missed it at the time, here it is:
The Immediate TV Coverage of the First Two Crashes on 9/11
(The Live Coverage Viewers Missed)
By Paul Iorio
By now, everyone has seen virtually every inch of television coverage of
the September 11th attacks around nine hundred and eleven times. It
sometimes seems as if every scrap of 9/11 footage ever shot -- whether taken
upside down near Ground Zero or from faraway Rockaway -- has already
been aired more frequently than the Zapruder film.
But most TV viewers never got to see the most riveting 9/11 television
coverage of all: the raw live footage of the seventeen minutes between the
first plane crash at 8:46 and the second at 9:03 am, as seen on the morning
news shows.
In New York, television programming was largely knocked off the air by
the toppling of transmission antennae atop the Trade Center. And on the west
coast, almost everyone was asleep during the attacks, waking only in time to
see the first tower collapse.
So for those who missed it -- almost everybody -- there's now a website
library that has compiled streaming video of all major U.S. television news
programs from that morning, shown in real-time with ads intact -- plus a
generous sampling from overseas media outlets. (The site is run by a non-
profit online TV library called The Television Archive and can be accessed at
http://client.alexa.com/tvarchive/html. Its American network feeds are from
Washington, D.C., affiliates; MSNBC and the cable Fox News Channel are
not included in the archive.) [Note: the website has since been deleted.]
The coverage from 8:30-to-9:30-am is among the most engrossing ever
broadcast -- and some of the most inadvertently telling, too, since it clearly
reveals who among the anchors and correspondents got it right and who blew
it, who could think on their feet and who couldn't, as the ultimate breaking
news story unfolded.
There are surprises. For example, Charles Gibson, co-anchor of ABC's
"Good Morning America," did an unexpectedly fine job of covering the
moment when the second plane hit and was the only anchor on the three
major networks to immediately speak up and tell us what had happened.
Others, like Bryant Gumbel, the now-departed anchor of CBS's "The Morning
Show," contributed astonishingly awful reportage.
The first to break the news to America was CNN, which cut into an
advertisement at 8:49, three minutes after the first crash, with a live picture of
the burning north tower and the words: "This just in. You are looking at
obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center
and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into
one of the towers."
"Good Morning America" arrived second, at 8:51, with Diane Sawyer
saying, "We want to tell you what we know as we know it. But we just got a
report in that there's been some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center."
(And within a couple minutes, ABC correspondent Don Dahler was providing
terrific first-hand reportage via cellphone from near Ground Zero.)
Matt Lauer of NBC's "Today" would have been third, coming a half
minute after "GMA," had he not dropped the ball. At 8:51, Lauer broke away
from an interview to announce that there was breaking news but didn't say
what the news was. "I have to interrupt you right now," Lauer told his guest,
the author of a biography on billionaire Howard Hughes. "We're going to go
live right now and show you a picture of the World Trade Center, where I
understand -- Do we have it? No, we do not." He then cut to 90 seconds of
ads before Katie Couric returned to the airwaves to report what had
happened.
But the real test of anchor mettle came at the moment when the second
plane hit at 9:03. "GMA"'s Gibson took control forcefully and calmly within
two seconds of the second collision, describing events in a brisk and firm
manner, explaining what was occurring in the live footage, and rattling off
facts from memory, while showing genuine emotion ("Oh, this is terrifying,
awful"), as a wilting Diane Sawyer murmured, "Oh my god, oh my god."
Gibson was so alert that he actually broke the news of the second collision
to his correspondent at the scene, who didn't see the plane hit. And within
twenty seconds, Gibson, the first on any network to mention the Trade Center
terrorist attack of '93, was speaking plain truth before his colleagues did: "So
this looks like some sort of a concerted effort to attack the World Trade
Center that is underway." That statement may seem cautious in hindsight, but
at the time was as far as any anchor had gone on the air.
On "Today," Couric and Lauer were upstaged a bit by a sometimes
excellent witness, Elliot Walker, a Today producer who happened to be
walking near the towers when the first plane hit. Walker was already being
interviewed by the anchors when the second plane crashed, and she
spontaneously stepped into the lead role during the ten seconds after the
impact, describing exactly what had happened, while Couric and Lauer, who
had presumably seen the same thing on the TV monitor, were silent (in
contrast to the talkative Gibson on ABC).
By all rights, every network should have been on equal footing at 9:03,
with live cameras fixed on the twin towers at the moment of impact. Still,
"The Morning Show" and CNN's "Live This Morning," which had shifted to
feeds from local New York stations, failed miserably in this crucial part of the
reportage, their anchors seemingly confused about what was obvious to
reporters on other networks. One ludicrous affiliate correspondent, picked up
on CNN, cluelessly floated the idea that the two collisions might have been
the result of "faulty navigating equipment."
CNN fared better when its own newspeople returned to the airwaves, in
time to report the Pentagon hit and the south tower collapse, which Aaron
Brown covered from a visually dramatic outdoor setting some thirty blocks
from Ground Zero, with the burning towers as a backdrop (a visual that has
since been seen in CNN promos).
Meanwhile, Gumbel proved he couldn't see the finger in front of his face
on this clear Manhattan morning, while also expressing little sense of horror
about what was unfolding ("wow" and "it's a terrible scene" were the closest
he came).
Gumbel, who seemingly had to be told about the second crash by an
amateur witness ("You saw a plane?," he asked a witness, incredulously),
interviewed several observers who all told him the second plane had
obviously been flown deliberately into the tower. Yet he kept asking each
source the same dim question: "Why do you say it was deliberate?," a
question he asked no fewer than four times between 9:03 and 9:12, while
repeating such phrases as vantage point and re-racking the [video] tape. (By
contrast, Lauer suggested it was something deliberate at 9:05; Gibson had
already done so at 9:03. Gumbel didn't come around until about 9:19.) This,
from the distinguished news division of Dan Rather and Ed Bradley.
If Gumbel seemed to somehow miss the crash of the second plane, he
was the only anchor who thought he saw non-existent third and fourth jets
approach the burning towers at 9:41. "Hold it, hold it!," said a near-panicky
Gumbel to his guest. "Two jets right now, approaching the World Trade
Center! We're watching! Hold on! [pause] I'm sorry, no...we can't tell
whether it was a plane or a 'copter."
Gumbel, who inexplicably wasn't joined by any CBS News correspondent
until Jim Stewart appeared at 9:15, did hit one high note, at 8:57, when he
interviewed a doorman at the Marriott World Trade Center, the hotel that
used to be between the two towers. The doorman began like a cocky New
Yorker ("How ya doin'?") but his voice started cracking unexpectedly as he
poignantly described the trauma he had just seen: a man on fire outside the
hotel.
"I heard a guy screaming," said the doorman, seeming on the verge of
tears. "And when I looked over, there was this guy that was on fire. So I just
kind of like ran over and I tried to, like, put the fire out on him. And he was,
he was, like, screaming. I told him to roll, roll, and he said he can't. And
another man came over with his bag and kind of like put the flames out on
him."
"Today" also had raw and revealing moments. At one point, Couric read a
Reuters report that opened a horrifying window on the hell that was taking
place on the upper floors of the towers: "A person who answered the phone
on the trading floor at interdealer-broker Cantor Fitzgerald, located near the
top of the World Trade Center, said, 'Were blanking dying,' when asked what
was happening, and hung up. There was screaming and yelling in the
background, and a follow-up call was not answered."
Several anchors and witnesses made observations that now seem
perceptive and even prescient in retrospect. Couric was more correct than
she knew when she noted (at 9:37) the possibility that another attack might be
in the offing at any moment; one minute after she voiced that concern, the
Pentagon was attacked. (And thanks to a quick and well-placed Jim
Miklaszewski, Today scooped everyone on the Washington crash.)
CBS's Stewart was the first to mention Osama bin Laden on the air (at
9:16). ABC's John Miller understood faster than anyone else that there was
virtually no way people trapped on the upper floors of the towers could be
rescued, because of the heavy smoke. Lauer was the first to note the
terrorists's high level of coordination and planning. Dahler, who heard the
first plane hit, correctly dismissed the early widespread notion that the aircraft
had been a small prop plane.
There were also moments of bad information. For instance, Sawyer tried
to put something of a happy-ending on the tragedy at 9:07 by stating, "There's
a small hope that the fire may have gone out from the first site" (Dahler
quickly extinguished that false hope). And Couric read a report, later
repeated by Lauer, that claimed a small commuter plane had hit the north
tower.
The tone of the anchors shifted -- almost uniformly -- as the hour
progressed, from denial and confusion to horror, with disbelief throughout.
After the first attack, everyone on the air seemed to take solace in the
possibility that it might have been a simple accident by a pilot who had lost
control of his plane and wrecked in an unlucky spot. But after the second
attack, it was self-evident to virtually everyone that there was no innocent
explanation for what was happening.
The 8:30 hour is also fascinating because it shows the 9/11 era
arriving as abruptly and violently as the edge of a hurricane after the placid
eye of the storm. "[It's]...a beautiful fall morning," Couric noted before the
tragedy. "A beautiful day here," said "GMA" weatherman Tony Perkins.
"...It's kind of quiet around the country [weather-wise]...it's too quiet, said an
inadvertently prescient Mark McEwen on "This Morning."
After the attacks, the weather was mentioned only in relation to the fact
that the collisions couldn't have possibly been weather-related.
All told, there were no lost tempers, no crying, no real panicking on the
air. There was also no single dazzling journalistic feat that might have
elevated one news team far above the others (something on the order of
scoring a cellphone interview with a passenger on one of the hijacked jets).
That said, the best coverage clearly came from ABC (because of Gibson)
and NBC (partly due to Miklaszewski), with almost everyone else way
behind.
[From The Toronto Star, January 4, 2003.]
----------------------------------------------
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 22, 2007
The New Yorker magazine website, December 15, 2006 (and for several days afterward).
Proof That Everyone Makes Mistakes
I think a lot of people agree that there is no
greater publication on the planet than The New Yorker.
While there is no such thing as perfection in journalism,
TNY, under editor David Remnick, the Mozart of non-fiction,
comes very close.
So I was astonished last December when I came upon that
extreme rarity: a glaring New Yorker factual error!
The mistake was posted on The New Yorker's website on
December 15, 2006, and remained on the site for several
days before someone caught and corrected it. I snapped
this picture of it, posted above (which should make everyone
feel better about their own imperfections!).
* * *
Time was when the discriminatory practices of the Mormon
Church were brought out in the sunlight without fear or
favor by the news media. The New York Times had a marvelous
piece about what some consider to be the bigotry of the
Mormons and about the Romney family's refusal to condemn it.
Only thing is, that article ran on -- let's see -- December 28, 1965,
which is back when the press regularly and openly took the
Mormon church to task for its racist theology.
In fact, "racist theology" was the phrase used in an
article in the Washington Post about the Mormon church --
on, uh, September 26, 1967.
In the current round of articles about the Mormons and
the candidacy of Mitt Romney, the press is downright
timid about calling certain Mormon practices and beliefs
exactly what they are -- racist and sexist. The church won't
allow women into the priesthood. Well, that's sexist.
And the church used to bar blacks from the priesthood, and
that was racist. Why aren't certain major media organizations
taking Mitt Romney to task and asking him whether he
renounces the sexist and racist policies of his church?
Perhaps because there appears to be a bias at some
publications for organized religion.
By the way, has anyone noticed how The New York Times has become
blatantly biased in favor of organized religion in the last
few years? The Times's new emphasis on religion resembles
nothing so much as...the 19th century version of the New York Times.
Whata throwback. Faith-based journalism. You get the sense a
top editor there is a bit of a holy roller. Editors at the Times
should understand that references to religious phenomena that don't
include proper citation (e.g., according to the Old Testament,
etc.) are highly offensive to the many who don't accept any
religious framework at all. It should be in the paper's stylebook.
* * *
From all reports, Michael Moore's "Sicko" seems on track to be
the major documentary of 2007 -- and the most worthy, given its
subject: the horror and shame of the American health care system,
which is going to claim many thousands of casualties this year
because people can't afford treatment.
Truth is, in all probability, there will be no change in the
health care system even if Hillary Clinton is elected president
and Democrats take full control of Congress. After all,
in 1993, a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress
couldn't pass a single-payer plan. So why should we expect
anything will be different in 2009 under even the best electoral
scenario?
No, as long as the rich continue to make obscene profits off
of sick people (and as long as they contribute those profits to the
campaigns of political candidates), there will be no change. And the
uninsured will continue to have their lifespans needlessly reduced
by years and decades.
My suggestion to activists is: instead of rioting and protesting
at WTO conferences, stage relentless protests outside the homes
and mansions of the heads of the top ten pharmaceutical companies.
Find out where the top executives at Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, J&J,
Glaxo, etc. live, and then demonstrate outside the homes they bought
by overcharging sick people. And escalate to civil disobedience, if
necessary.
That may be the only way we can show how serious we are about having
a single-payer health plan that covers all men, women and children in
the U.S. The government has truly failed us on this one and
will probably continue to do so no matter who is elected in 2008.
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 19, 2007
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York seems to be one of
the only major public officials in the nation with the guts to take
on the gun lobby. His undercover expose of Virginia gun-sellers might
actually save some lives in the future and may even lead to a
tightening of gun control (or at least an enforcement of the existing
laws!) there and elsewhere. Along with Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston,
he's also leading a vast coalition of mayors in what now amounts to
the main national movement to stop the next Virginia Tech massacre.
And the Virginians who think it's none of Bloomberg's
business are dead wrong; if your smokestack is polluting my air, then
your smokestack is my business.
Maybe a Bloomberg for president candidacy is not such a bad
idea after all. I had him wrongly pegged as a sort of Steve Forbes,
but Forbes never had this sort of political courage.
* * *
My Own Contemporaneous Memory of "Sgt. Pepper's," Which is Turning 40
OK, first off, I was only 9, going on ten, when The Beatles's
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released, so I
and my friends were really more concerned at the time with
whether The Monkees were about to overtake The Beatles and what
the new Herman's Hermits single was going to be, though I do
remember that on or around the time of the June 1 release
there was a big to-do about the album on NBC's "Today" show,
which meant the grown-ups were now paying attention, and it
sort of felt as if a major symphony had just been released, or as
if the adults were saying to the teacher
come-look-at-what-junior-created-because-this-time-it-may-
actually-be-worth-something, though I also vividly recall that
the marvelous AM radio stations that had been playing "Yellow
Submarine" and "Penny Lane" and "I Hear a Symphony" and all
those brilliant singles of 1966 were now sort of cool to this
new Beatles album, and I remember one radio AM DJ playing a "Pepper's"
track and remarking afterwards that he wished the Beatles would
go back to making the more straightforward singles of the old days,
because the "Pepper's" material just wasn't any fun to him, a
sentiment echoed all over the place, though as a kid I liked it
more and more as I listened to it, especially as I grew older
and turned from 10 to 11 and 12, at which point "Abbey Road"
had supplanted "Pepper's" on my turntable, though
before that happened, my contemporaneous memory of
June 1967 is that "She's Leaving Home" was too depressing and
"Within You Without You" was a bore, and I much preferred "There's
a Kind of Hush" as a 10 year old (the Stones were for older kids
who had already sprouted hair on their faces), though I grew to love
the whole album and now think that "A Day In the Life" may
be the Beatles greatest collaboration, even if I can't help but
think it should be credited to Lennon/McCartney/Martin,
after George Martin, who supplied the dazzling connective
tissue between Lennon and McCartney's two songs, or their two song
fragments, because you see, John and Paul hadn't really
written a complete song until Martin joined the two fragments, but,
wow, is that a fun song to play on the acoustic guitar, by the way,
give it a try, but I must admit the one "Pepper's" song I go back
to all the time in my adulthood is "Fixing a Hole," mostly because
of its fabulous middle eight ("But it really doesn't matter..."), a
supremely inspired bit from McCartney, much better than "Getting
Better," which is sorta mean, and I love how the energy level
builds beautifully on what used to be called Side Two, a hint of
the medley to come at the end of "Abbey Road," and Lennon
was right about "Sgt. Pepper's" when he said it really
didn't have a unified theme the way, say, "Tommy"
does, that it was really just another batch of breathtaking
Beatles songs without an overarching structure, though the
reprise at the end makes the album feel unified when it's
actually not, but that's no knock on the album at all,
because I'm always suspicious of conscious themes and deliberate unity,
I've always preferred "Who's Next" to "Quadrophenia," and I'd
rather have the unity of a work arise organically and present
itself intuitively rather than be imposed on the album by
design, after all, there's no "theme" to "Blonde on Blonde" or
"Blood on the Tracks" or "Exile on Main Street" or "Rubber Soul,"
yet those albums are unified in a way that cannot be explained or
that you cannot put your finger on, which is the most effective
and satisfying form of musical unity, and which is why the less
calculated design of "Abbey Road" makes it, not "Sgt. Peppers,"
the Beatles's greatest album.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Friday, May 18, 2007
A DAILY DIGRESSION NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Mitt's 'Macaca' Moment?
"Ma'm, there's no media back here, please," said
someone guarding a private area where former governor Mitt Romney
was schmoozing with Ann Coulter and others at the
Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 in
Washington, D.C.
But someone sneaked in an unauthorized camera anyway
and caught what might be Mitt's own "Macaca" moment,
as well as some revealing footage of Romney and Coulter
massaging each others's conservatism in a backstage area.
The video has since been posted on YouTube but
not yet covered by the media.
The video starts off innocently enough, as Coulter
looks at Romney adoringly and says: "You have
great answers on everything, the Reagan position on
abortion."
At another point, she says, "You know, a photo of you and
me together is going to be famous when you do something
I don't like and I viciously attack you."
"Never, that will never happen, never will happen," Romney
says.
Moments later, Coulter falls into her fundamentalist
bomb-throwing mode. "No, they don't understand, we hate liberal atheists,"
Coulter says. "You can't get these sectarian wars going with us.
We're all Christians."
And Romney responds with: "There're no Sunni or Shia here."
One could imagine the outrage if Romney had said, "There
are no Jews or Muslims here," a virtually identical remark.
Romney's comment arguably has an ugly resonance, given
the segregationist history of the Mormon church, which he has
always been deeply involved in. And it raises questions about
whether Romney is tolerant of other religions.
The fact that he chose to respond with "There're no Sunni
or Shia here" (rather than with a more neutral "Yes,
we're all united" or "No insurgents here!") seems to suggest
an neo-segregationist mindset.
Surely, his defenders would probably say that he was
just joking around.
Then again, former Sen. George Allen was also just
kidding around when he used the word "Macaca" last year, a remark
that seriously damaged his candidacy. Don Imus was also just
joking. And Sen. Joe Biden certainly didn't intend anything
derisive when he called Sen. Barack Obama "clean" in an
interview that caused him lots of political grief. One
could contend that the quote by Romney is at least as offensive.
Plus, the quote feeds into the perception that Romney
supports what some consider to be the racist and sexist theology of
the Mormon Church, which excluded blacks from the priesthood
until 1978 and still bars women from being ordained priests today.
Romney, who was president of Boston's Mormon churches for
several years in the 1990s, has been criticized for his church's
policy of discrimination against women. His father, the late
George Romney, a governor of Michigan in the 1960s and also
a devout Mormon, was similarly criticized during his
own presidential campaign, "accused of adhering to a
'racist faith' that holds up the promise of a
'segregated heaven,'" according to an article published
in The Washington Post on September 26,
1967. The Romney family can trace its Mormon heritage
to the 19th century and to ancestors
who practiced polygamy, according a story that ran in
the New York Times on December 28, 1965.
The 2007 CPAC event, which featured speeches by Romney
("I invited all the Massachusetts conservatives to come
hear me today, and I'm glad to report that they're both here,"
went his Reaganesque speech), Coulter and numerous other
right-wingers, took place at the Omni Shoreham
Hotel in Washington, D.C., from March 1st to 3rd.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 15, 2007
And so the Corleone family took the stage in South
Carolina last night for the second Republican presidential debate,
with Sen. John McCain as Michael Corleone, the cool
headed battle-tested vet; former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as
Sonny the hothead, and Rep. Ron Paul as weak and feckless Fredo.
There was even an I-paid-for-this-microphone-esque moment,
and it belonged to Giuliani, understandably outraged that Ron Paul had
the absurd gall to say we were attacked on 9/11 because we had bombed
Iraq.
For the record, and for Ron Paul's education: in the
luggage of the hijackers was a letter, first revealed by Bob Woodward of
The Washington Post back in '01, that stands as the de facto
letter-of-intent of the hijackers; it mentioned nothing about
politics and cited only religious motives for the mass murder
they were about to commit. (It was several weeks later,
after bin Laden realized that the 9/11 attacks weren't playing
as well as he thought they would in Islam, that he released a
Cho-like video in which he ladled on a few hastily
articulated political justifications for the massacre (you
Americans killed lots of people at Antietam, didn't you?, was the tone
of his video, as I recall).
Thing is, for all of Giuliani's virtues, he remains an
operations guy, not a policymaker. Oh, yeah, he was a shower o' gold
on 9/11, no doubt about it, the guy you'd follow to shelter
in a nuke attack. But his ideas on policy are not just wrong
(see: his speech at the Republican national convention in 2004)
but dangerously amateurish.
Still, Giuliani helped his cause tonight, no doubt, but so did
McCain, with his wise and restrained opposition to the
torture of terror suspects.
Meanwhile, Rep. Paul should consider resigning not just
from the presidential race but from the U.S. House of Representatives
and political life altogether.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 14, 2007
On Romney and Faith
The United States has finally accumulated enough history
and tradition to have entered into a period of dynastic politics, in
which established families (such as the Bushes and Clintons)
take turns reigning for extended periods. The latest dynastic
politician to hit the national stage is Mitt Romney, and nothing
in last night's fascinating profile of him on "60 Minutes"
has changed my view that he may well become the Republican
candidate for president next year (see The Daily Digression,
April 27, 2007).
But Romney didn't entirely put to rest unsettling issues
related to his active participation in the Mormon church, which ABC's
George Stephanopoulos also questioned him about in a brave interview
last February.
"Your faith, if I understand it correctly, it teaches
that Jesus will return, probably to the United States, and reign on
earth for 1,000 years," noted Stephanopoulos in that interview.
Which suggests another question: put plainly, should
we elect candidates who hold kooky, irrational beliefs?
Should we elect a president who believes in voodoo or
who believes in ESP or who believes that aliens in UFOs actually
assassinated President Kennedy in 1963? Or who believes that a dead
man will come back to life and live for at least another millennium?
What do such eccentric beliefs say about a candidate's
judgment, about a person's ability to distinguish fantasy from reality,
about a candidate's ability to assess fact-based evidence?
Doesn't religious literalism have an insidiously
corrosive effect on a person's judgment and reasoning, since it lowers
the bar for the evidence required for someone to believe something is
true? If your standard of proof is the-Bible-told-me-so, aren't you
more likely to apply a similar lax standard of proof when, say,
determining whether Saddam once tried to buy yellowcake? If a
Christian Scientist who believes in prayer over medicine were to be
elected president, might he or she try to solve other crises
-- e.g., a terrorist attack, a devastating hurricane -- solely
through prayer?
In my view, these are the questions that make faith
a legitimate and necessary point of candidate scrutiny. And any
politician who objects to such hard questions about his faith,
or has a problem with the establishment clause, should consider
leaving politics for a more compatible forum: the church.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 8, 2007
The Coarsening of Pop Culture
The condemnation of offensive content in rap music and
in all the arts just keeps getting louder and more widespread, now
that Jesse Jackson and hip hop mogul Russell Simmons have joined
the chorus.
And it is true that examples of vulgar material
abound. The stuff I found recently, just browsing in public
libraries, is shockingly depraved, and here are excerpts from the
worst offenders:
Mozart's "Don Giovanni"
from Da Ponte's libretto of the aria "Madamina, il catalogo e questo..."
LEPORELLO: "In France he boned 91 hoes,
in Germany he took on a thousand-three mo'"
* * *
Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment"
RASKOLNIKOV: "Chopped that lady with an ax/
How she feelin' now, I didn't ask."
* * *
Shakespeare's "King Lear"
REGAN: "Plucked out the snitch's eyes for good/
Let him sniff his way on back to the 'hood."
* * *
Aristophanes' "Lysistrata"
KINESIAS: "My bitch ain't puttin' out no mo'/
Till we stop this muthafuckin' war"
* * *
The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley"
"Hang your head, Dooley/
We gonna put a cap up yo' ass."
* * *
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
CAESAR: "Yo Brutus, thanks for all the help/
If I come back to life, I gonna make you yell"
* * *
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"
"Killed that cracker, put him in the floor/
Don't wanna hear his heart beat like befo'"
* * *
Cellini's "The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini"
"I stabbed that man with all the gold chains/
Blood shot out like a water main"
* * *
Dante's "Inferno"
"Bitch, I put you in a circle of hell/
Frozen alive in the wishing well"
* * *
Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner"
"The bombs that we blew off up in the air/
Made sure Crips colors was stayin' there"
* * *
Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"
"Homie Jake, he ain't get no wood/
Can't satisfy his lady like he should"
* * *
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 7, 2007
Iraq and "Moby Dick"
If Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" were released today,
critics would call it an obvious allegory about the Iraq war and
the monomaniacal hunt for Saddam Hussein.
As someone who opposed the Iraq war from the start, I
always thought we should have turned our harpoons toward bin Laden,
not toward Saddam.
And now the Iraq debate is mired in the clutter of
detail. Yellowcake. 16 words. Slam dunk.
But a true understanding of how the Iraq mess evolved
requires only a very clear memory of the past five years or so.
Flashback to October 2001. Big debate in the U.S. about
whether we should go to war with Afghanistan (a war I backed wholeheartedly).
Lots of analysts on news shows saying we'd be bogged down for a generation
in Afghanistan, just look at what happened to the Soviets in the 1980s.
Turns out they were wrong. Kabul was a pushover, and we
were able to rid the world of a truly uncivilized and violent regime.
Americans everywhere were emboldened by that victory. This is easy, we
thought.
So Bush and many others thought, hmm, maybe we could
do the same thing in Iraq and be done with pesky Saddam within a matter
of weeks. I remember that even President Clinton took to the airwaves
saying an Iraq war wouldn't take long at all.
Other progressives saw the war as an opportunity to get rid
of a chronic human rights abuser. And the Congressional Dems who had just
finished opposing the successful Afghanistan war didn't want to be caught
on the wrong side this time, so they voted for authorization of war in
Iraq.
Let's be frank: everyone was too drunk on the Afghanistan
victory to remember that Iraq was exponentially larger and more complex
than Afghanistan and that there'd be an awful civil war if we ever took
out the central government in Baghdad (as Cheney himself warned in the
1990s on "Meet The Press" and elsewhere).
But in 2003, all such doubts were dismissed as the
same sort of static that had preceded the Afghanistan war in '01.
And the administration was hyping the war beyond the
facts (just as Nixon and LBJ had done with Vietnam). There were the
16 words of January '03: Saddam was trying to rustle up some uranium
for a nuke. Except it wasn't true.
But many wanted war anyway, whether Saddam was trying to
go nuclear or not. And many wanted peace anyway, whether Saddam was trying
to go nuclear or not. It's not like the administration hyped it and
everyone said: that clinches it, Iraq is trying for WMDs, so let's go to
war now. No, those who were unconvinced about using force against Saddam
remained unconvinced, WMDs or not.
After all, when have WMDs ever been a tripwire
for war? Kim Jong Il has a lot more than yellowcake and we're not
talking war. Ahmadinejad's nuclear program is far more advanced than
Saddam's ever was, and we're not even sending in inspectors.
As I've written before, the only real solution to the
Iraq war was to not have gotten in to begin with. If we pull out
immediately now, there will almost certainly be genocide. And suppose
there is genocide on the level of the bloodshed in Darfur today or in
Rwanda in '94? Suppose we withdraw and a half million Shiites are
murdered by Sunnis? Wouldn't we then have a humanitarian obligation to
redeploy our troops back to Iraq in order to stop the bloodshed (in
much the same way activists are now urging us to intercede in Darfur)?
We have to stop the war and start the partitioning of
Iraq now; that way we can withdraw in a way that insures
that we won't have to get back in again.
Meanwhile, we're all making the same mistake we made
in 2003: we're spending way too much time on Iraq when our foreign
policy focus should be solely on the real danger: Osama bin Laden, who has
now been free to plan his next attack for over 2,000 days.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 6, 2007
Remembering Zep -- on the 34th Anniversary
Thirty-four years ago yesterday, I and my friends
saw Led Zeppelin perform a notable gig in pop culture history.
At that concert, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida
(my hometown through most of the 1970s), Zep attracted more paying fans
than had ever attended a show by a single act in the U.S., surpassing the
previous record set by the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965. (Zeppelin
drew 56,800 fans, the Beatles 55,000. For the record, there were other
bands on the bill at Shea, though it was effectively a solo show.)
In rock culture lore, Tampa Stadium is where Led Zeppelin
officially dethroned the Beatles on May 5, 1973.
Was the 1973 Tampa Stadium gig a great Zeppelin performance?
Some of it was. Guitarist Jimmy Page was in rare form and the rest of
the band sounded jazzed about having broken the Beatles's
record. But Plant was hoarse, a fairly substantial drawback.
I attended the show as a 15-year-old high school student,
arriving at the Stadium with friends well before the Saturday night
concert began. After showing our five-dollar advance tickets (six
on the day of the show), we took a place on the field, around a
third of the way to the stage.
Zeppelin took the stage after 8pm, with the introduction:
"Ladies and gentlemen, what more can I say? Led Zeppelin!" Fans screamed
as if they were on fire.
Robert Plant stepped to the mike. "Looks like we've
done something nobody's done before," he said, referring to the box office
record. "And that's fantastic."
Jimmy Page struck a practice chord. John
Bonham played a drum roll. Feedback filled the air. Then Bonham pounded
out the intro to "Rock and Roll."
As Plant started singing, it became obvious he was
straining to hit the high notes (due to some sort of cold), which was
disappointing.
But Page more than made up for it, fluidly riffing
through a stunning twenty-minute opener that included "Celebration
Day," "Black Dog," "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "Misty Mountain Hop"
in quick succession.
Just before "Misty Mountain," Plant chatted to the crowd
again. "Anyone make the Orlando gig we did last time?," he asked.
Fans cheered.
"This is the second gig we've done since we've been back
to the States and uh..." Plant seemed speechless for a moment.
"And I can't believe it!"
But the lovey-dovey mood evaporated a bit after "Since
I've Been Loving You," when front row fans began getting out of
control, pushing against barriers and forcing Plant to play
security guard.
"Listen, listen," Plant said to the unruly crowd. "May
I ask you, as we've achieved something between us that's never been
done before, if we could just cool it on these barriers here because
otherwise there're gonna be a lot of people who might get [hurt],"
Plant told the crowd. "So if you have respect for the person who's
standing next to you, which is really what it's all about, then
possibly we can act more gently."
"We don't want problems, do we?," Plant asked. The crowd
cheered.
Several songs later, after "The Rain Song," it became
clear the crowd was now getting seriously out of control. Plant got
testy.
"We want this to be a really joyous occasion," he says.
"And I'm going to tell you this, because three people have been taken to the
hospital, and if you keep pushing on that barrier, there're going to be
stacks and stacks of people going. So for goodness sakes...can we
move back just a little bit because it's the only way. If you can't do
that, then you can't really live with your brother. Just for this evening
anyway."
"Can you cooperate?!," asked Plant, a bit exasperated.
There was tepid applause. "It's a shame to talk about things like
cooperation when there're so many of us. Anyway you people sitting
up the sides are doing a great job. [fans cheer] But these poor
people are being pushed by somebody. So cool it. That's not very
nice."
Plant also took the opportunity to publicly diss Miami.
For some unknown reason, the band was apparently still sore about a 1970
gig in Miami Beach that stands as the last time Zep played in
that area.
"We played the Convention Center in Miami, which was
really bad," said Plant to the crowd, just before introducing
"Dazed and Confused." "The gig was good, but there
were some men walking around all the time making such a silly
scene." He didn't elaborate.
The crowd problems seemed to dissipate after a few more
songs. By the time the group roared into "Whole Lotta Love," near the
end of the almost three-hour set, Plant shouted, "We've got 57,000
people here and we're gonna boogie!,” segueing into “Let That
Boy Boogie Woogie.” The crowd went nuts.
Unfortunately, I had to be home by around 11pm,
which meant missing encores "The Ocean" and "Communication
Breakdown."
The highlight of the night, judging from a tape of the
show and from memory, was "Over the Hills and Far Away," if only because
of Page's incendiary solo, which was quite unlike his solos in
other live versions of the song. That alone is worth searching the
Internet for a bootleg CD of the show.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- All quotes in the above report come verbatim from my tape of
the concert.
________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Cinco de Mayo
Last Night's Bright Eyes/Oakley Hall Show
"The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Koran's mute/
If you burn them all together you get close to the truth,"
sang Conor Oberst last night at Bright Eyes's terrific but
too-short show in Berkeley, Calif.
That song, "Four Winds," from Bright Eyes's new
"Cassadaga" album, has been out for only a few weeks, but it sounds
like one of the best new songs I've heard from anyone this year -- and
certainly the most audacious. The band did most of the new
album, which features some of Oberst's best lyrics ever. His
war poem "No One Would Riot for Less" hushed the place:
"He says, help me out/hell is coming/Could you do it
now?/hell is here."
Opening acts Gillian Welch (she joined Bright Eyes
for a marvelous "Look at Miss Ohio") and Jim James were enjoyable, but
the act that really took me by surprise was the first on the bill:
Oakley Hall.
Oakley Hall is a relatively unknown Brooklyn band
that will almost certainly not be relatively unknown for long.
Judging from the Berkeley gig, they have vast potential to become
A Next Big Thang. They might have an "Anodyne" or even a "Murmur"
in them, and vocalist Rachel Cox is very winning and charming (though
I didn't have a good view of her or the band; I heard the whole concert
from the hills). At last night's show, in a half hour, they played six
songs, and every one of 'em hit the bullseye. The band's next album,
"I'll Follow You," will be released in August.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- OK, OK, for all you setlist obsessives out there, here's
last night's Bright Eyes list:
Clairaudients
Hot Knives
Middleman
The First Day of My Life
Four Winds
Make a Plan to Love Me
Classic Cars
No One Would Riot for Less
Cleanse Song
I Believe in Symmetry
All the Best (by John Prine)
Happy Birthday
Look at Miss Ohio
At the Bottom of Everything
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 1, 2007
While visiting Istanbul alone as a teenager in the 1970s, I
asked some Turkish hippie selling cassette audiotapes in an
underground bazaar what Turkish rocker he liked most. He
didn't hesitate.
"Cem Karaca," he said furtively but proudly, looking
cautiously around him, as if the very mention of his name could land him
in prison. He then sold me Karaca's latest, "Nem Kaldi," his
third album, which I grew to enjoy and proceeded to listen to
for decades.
For Turkey, Karaca's music was audacious, a combination of
hard rock and folk rock and Anatolian music, along with subversive
lyrics, all of which earned Karaca condemnation by right wing
Turks who accused him of treason. Hence, it was no surprise when,
in 1980, the government issued an arrest warrant for Karaca that sent
him into exile for most of that decade (he was charged, essentially,
with writing lyrics that incited revolution).
Aside from the much better known Plastic People of the
Universe (of the former Czechoslavakia), Karaca -- along with
Francesco Guccini, the Bob Dylan of Italy -- represented the most
radical mainstream (non-English language) rock to have come out
of greater Europe in the 1970s.
But where the Plastic People were resisting a now-defunct
communism, Karaka was struggling against reactionaries who are
still very much in power today: conservative Islamists.
On my visit to Istanbul, I saw first-hand how Islamic
totalitarians were as oppressive as communists ever were. On that
1976 trip, I traveled alone by local train behind the Iron
Curtain -- into Bulgaria, the most totalitarian of the Eastern
Bloc nations -- and then into Islam. By far, there was less freedom
on an everyday basis in Islam (even secular Islam) than there was
behind the Iron Curtain. (I could write several pages of anecdotes,
but that's not the subject of this column.)
So it was encouraging to see hundreds of thousands of
progressives taking to the streets of Istanbul the other day to protest
their prime minister's nomination of an Islamist (Abdullah Gul) for
president. And today, the secularists scored a big victory
when Turkey's Supreme Court nullified the Parliamentary vote
that would've put Gul in office.
Somehow I get the feeling that if Cem Karaca were still
alive, he'd be joining the protesters in celebrating their victory today.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 29, 2007
Which of the Candidates Saw 9/11 Coming?
Presidential candidates with hindsight are as plentiful
as gravel, those with foresight as scarce as gold. As the
election season heats up -- and as we approach the sixth
anniversary of 9/11, with bin Laden still roaming and
plotting freely -- voters can't help but ask: which of
the current presidential contenders saw the attacks of
9/11 coming and warned us about the danger?
According to my own research, only one had such
foresight: Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
Listen to Biden on June 21, 2000, speaking on the floor
of the U.S. Senate: "We all know about Pakistan, the gateway to Afghanistan
for Osama bin Laden and his buddies. Can anybody think of a better place
to beef up border security, so that terrorists can be apprehended as they
go to and from those Afghan training camps?"
Again, that was Biden in the year 2000, over a year before
bin Laden committed mass murder on U.S. soil. And Biden had the
danger sized up perfectly -- before the fact.
To be sure, Biden wasn't alone in ringing the alarm but
he almost was (and I should note that my research is limited to candidates
who were U.S. Senators and Representatives before or during 9/11).
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also sounded an early alarm
about the Taliban. "The Taliban in their activities...there [in Afghanistan]
have placed them outside the circle of civilized human behavior," said
Pelosi, on June 13, 2001.
On the other hand, Rep. Dennis Kucinich turns up
in the Congressional Record as one of the least prescient and
least perceptive members of Congress in sensing the al Qaeda threat
before 9/11.
Get this: fifteen months before the 9/11 attacks,
Kucinich put into the Congressional Record a Los Angeles Times column
that opined that peace was a-happenin' all over the world and that the
threat of terrorism was largely on the decline ("even the Taliban
leadership in Afghanistan is now said to be uneasy with the Osama bin
Laden gang of terrorists," said the thoroughly un-prescient column
that Kucinich put into the CR).
Other members and former members of Congress also had
foresight -- among them, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Frank Pallone
of New Jersey -- but none are among the current presidential hopefuls.
Senators Edwards and McCain were apparently silent in the Senate about
the al Qaeda threat (as was Sen. Clinton in her first eight months
or so in office in '01).
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- By the way, one wonders what it was about the pre-9/11 Taliban
that attracted a profoundly misguided guy like John Walker Lindh. Was
Lindh attracted to the fact that the Taliban was blowing up sacred
Buddhist statuary or that it was forcing Hindus to wear yellow stars in
public in Kabul? Here's an idea: don't release Lindh until Mullah Omar
is dead (or until Lindh couldn't possibly reconnect, upon release, with
the Taliban racists who he bonded with as a teen)
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 27, 2007
The winner of last night's presidential debate was without a
doubt Sen. Hillary Clinton and the loser was without a doubt Sen. Barack
Obama. And it really all came down to one question from NBC's Brian
Williams about what their first responses would be if there was a new
terrorist attack.
Obama gave one of the worst debate responses since
Howard Dean in '04. (Remember when Dean, sounding a bit like Gen.
Turgidson talking about an obviously insane Gen. Ripper in
"Dr Strangelove," said we had to wait for all the facts to come
in before condemning bin Laden?) Obama acted as if the
hypothetical terror attack on two American cities would be an
opportunity for some sort of academic think-tanking about
infrastructure.
Sen. Clinton sounded like the only grown-up in the room,
saying we should quickly retailate against the attacker and whatever
government was backing the attacker, once we had definitively
determined who had hit us. And she almost never strayed from important
issues -- like health care, health care and health care -- and seemed
genuine, sympathetic, appealing, even presidential (very different
from her previous strident and scolding persona).
For the very first time, I can truly see the presidential
seal on her podium.
It is way too early to make a prediction about the 2008
race, but lemme venture into the minefield anyway. Here's a possible
scenario: The Democratic ticket is Clinton/Edwards (Obama sulks
after a Gene McCarthy-like defeat and declines the number two spot,
which Hillary doesn't really want him for anyway, since he's
too liberal for a national candidacy). The Republican ticket is
Romney/McCain, after Giuliani self-destructs in the primaries, having
been forced to spend all his time on defense about his marital history
and nefarious dealings as mayor. (McCain is simply too old and -- more
important -- appears too old to be president; his shot was in '00.)
So there you have it: Clinton/Edwards versus Romney/McCain
in November '08 (a prediction that may seem laughable -- or maybe not -- a
year from now).
* * *
Bravo to Richard Gere for kissing actress Shilpa Shetty
in such a fun and flamboyant and passionate way. If I were Gere, I would
no more apologize to the reactionaries of India for kissing publicly then
I would to American Seventh-day Adventists for dancing.
To all the wonderful cultural liberals in India: you
should organize public kiss-ins throughout India to protest the
conservative prohibition in your country.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 24, 2007
Some overreaching journalists are suggesting
that Cho was imitating the movie "Oldboy" in the still
photos that he sent in his multi-media package to NBC News.
Only problem with that theory is that there is absolutely no
evidence that Cho had ever seen the movie "Oldboy." Unless he
otherwise referred to that film in his writings (and keep in mind
that he tended to write about things that influenced him), I don't
think he was making any cinematic allusion at all. And it's hard
to see how he might have been influenced by a movie he
had never seen. The connection seems to be based only
on some sort of loose ethnic stereotype (i.e., Cho
was Korean-American and the movie was South Korean,
which is sort of like assuming I'm a big fan of
Fellini's "Roma" because I have an Italian last name).
The Cho photos show extremely generic and very common
attack poses that resemble scenes from countless
cop and action movies (if you want to read too much into them,
maybe the pose with the gun to his head was from Martin
Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," for crissakes; and the "Oldboy"
pose is similar to a shot near the beginning of Chaplin's
"Modern Times").
There is absolutely no doubt, however, that Cho was
extremely influenced by and apparently obsessed with the rock
band Guns 'n' Roses, specifically the lyrics of
the group's song "Mr. Brownstone," which actually turn up in
Cho's writings. In fact, I've written a story about the Cho/GNR
connection, which is in the upcoming issue of The Boston Phoenix (it's
on the web now at http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid38425.aspx).
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 21, 2007
Read my latest story, about the connection between the Virginia Tech
murderer and the lyrics of Guns 'n' Roses, in The Boston Phoenix at:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid38425.aspx
___________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 19, 2007
The media is as busy as Victoria Station talking about
the airing of the Cho videotapes, and I have to say that I strongly
agree with the decision by NBC News to broadcast
the videos and pictures. It's important for
everyone to examine the mental illness of a guy like Cho,
without filter, in order to better understand the kind
of extreme madness that created this extreme tragedy.
The more we know, the better we're equipped to prevent
such an event in the future. (Those who think that
it will only spur copycats have an untenable position;
perhaps they think we should blot out all coverage of
the Virginia Tech massacre in order to deter imitators.)
If we don't see explicit, disturbing pictures of a
melanoma, how will we recognize it when it shows up in the future?
Keep in mind that the news media regularly airs
videos from the worst mass murderer in American history, Osama
bin Laden, who killed around 100 times as many people, in a
couple hours in 2001, as Cho did last Monday. The enormity of
the VTech crime incidentally points up the enormity of the 9/11
murders; for every person Cho shot dead, bin Laden killed 100.
(By the way, I bet that Islamic militants are fully aware of
the VTech massacre and are now thinking along those lines for
a future attack.)
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 18, 2007
Every few years we go through the same pattern in the
U.S.: there is an awful mass murder, everyone agrees the
massacre could've been avoided if there had been tougher gun laws,
and then we hit the snooze alarm. Several years later, there
is yet another unspeakable shooting, everyone agrees there should
be stricter gun control, and then we hit the snooze alarm again.
This time, following the tragic killings at Virginia
Tech, we will no doubt hit the snooze alarm once again.
Oh, there will inevitably be Senate hearings and high-minded
editorials in major papers, but that will all come to naught.
Because the gun lobby and the NRA are simply too influential.
Again, we will pursue all the wrong avenues. We will
focus on campus lockdown procedures when we should be focusing on
gun control. We will focus on monitoring creative writing
classes when we should be focusing on gun control. (Sidenote:
kudos to professor Lucinda Roy for picking up on the fact that
Cho was a sicko. I just finished reading Cho's "plays" -- which
are really more like skits -- and it's clear he's not only
mentally ill, but a lousy writer, too. His main literary
influence seemed to be the Guns 'n' Roses's album "Appetite for
Destruction" (that's probably where he got his pseudonym "Ismael
Ax," which sounds a bit like Axl Rose, GNR's frontman). And
you don't have to be a psychiatrist to see that he acted like someone
livid about having been molested by someone older when he was
younger. If I had been in Lucinda Roy's place,
I would have talked to campus security about
"testing" the guy through undercover officers
(in other words, have an undercover cop provoke
him and see whether he gets violent or not).
That said, I really hope this doesn't give some
mediocre creative writing teacher the excuse to
put some brilliant kid who is influenced by Dostoyevsky
or Bret Easton Ellis under police scrutiny. Not every
teacher is as perceptive as Lucinda Roy. I bet there's
going to me a temporary epidemic of teachers/editors
saying that a certain person's story made them feel
uncomfortable, when in fact they merely disagreed
with its point of view or didn't get it. It
reminds me of the old tale about musician Tom Petty,
who reportedly sent a note to executives suggesting
that the title of his next album be "You're Going to
Get It"; an overcautious exec reportedly took it as
a threat.
Truth is, on a personal level as a writer, I would never
have produced such pushing-the-envelope pieces
as "Choosing My Religion" for Details or "Streaming
Katie's Consciousness" for The Chicago Tribune or
"It's Not So Smart To Be Smart Anymore" for Spy
magazine (as I recall, other writers were stealing
bits of that one as fast as they could type!)
if I hadn't also been coming up with other stories
that didn't see print because they were a bit
too over-the-top for mainstream consumption.
Anyway, back to the main issue. I even heard a
not-so-bright suggestion on the Today show that if
all the students had been armed, this shooting might have
been avoided. Why is that wrongheaded? Because you have to look
at what works. It's very simple: in countries where gun laws
are strict, this sort of massacre never happens. So we need to
do what they do. If people who drink X don't get cancer, then
we need to drink X. Before we hit the snooze alarm again.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I'm a big fan of Sen. Harry Reid, except when he
criticizes LBJ's arm-twisting of legislators. Truth is,
if LBJ hadn't insisted on ramming through certain
bills, we might still have limited racial
segregation today. The lack of LBJ-like tactics
is the reason we can't get a gun control bill
or single payer health care legislation
through Congress with an override margin.
_______________________________
Thanks to "JLD" of Utah for his thoughtful comment on my column today.
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 15, 2007
My heart goes out to the victims of today's massacre at
Virginia Tech. As someone who was violently robbed at gunpoint nearly
two years ago, I can testify to the fact that you don't have to be
shot or physically injured to suffer injury from an act of gun violence.
I'm certain the toll of the truly wounded is much higher than will ever be
reported.
* * *
Pop Culture Too Coarse? Try Mozart.
In the wake of the Don Imus contoversy, there has been
widespread condemnation of offensive content in rap music and in all
the arts. Examples of vulgar material are abundant:
-- In the words of one piece of music, a guy brags about someone who
has had casual sex with 91 women in one country and a thousand-three
in another.
-- In another work, a drama, someone is held down in a chair while his body
parts are sadistically cut out.
-- And then there's the best-selling book about a psycho ax murderer
that is ubiquitous in most school libraries.
Disgusting examples of the coarsening of pop culture? I've
just described Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Shakespeare's "King Lear"
and Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."
One wonders whether the people calling for censorship of
rap have ever heard of "Don Giovanni" or read a translation of DaPonte's
libretto. Parts of it do indeed have the braggadoccio of sexist rap (to
paraphrase Leporello's rap in "Madamina, il catalogo e questo":
"In France, he boned 91 hos, in Germany he took on a
thousand-three mo'").
How many polite school principals would put Dostoyevsky's
"Crime and Punishment" in classrooms if it were titled
"Psycho Ax Killer," which is what it's about? And are most
schoolteachers even aware that parts of "King Lear" are as gruesome
and violent as anything in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs"?
You can avoid seeing what happens to Gloucester by
simply not reading "Lear," just as you can avoid hearing shocking
rap lyrics by switching to Lite FM. And I personally avoided experiencing
any of Don Imus's programs for decades by tuning into NPR in
the morning instead.
Fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, who condemn
so-called lax moral standards in pop culture (what a cliche that has
become!), forget one thing: nobody is forcing them to listen to
Snoop Dogg or Howard Stern or Madonna. If 36 Mafia offends
your Muslim or Christian or Jewish sensibilities, turn it off
and go listen to religious music of your choosing.
Whether censorship comes from the king of your country
or from a stateless militant group outside your nation, it's still
censorship. And the religious totalitarians's use of asymmetrical
warfare makes them as intimidating as a government with an army.
Such was the case with the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989
when Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" was taken off bookshelves at
stores intimidated by fundamentalists. The government of the
U.S. did not ban the book at those shops; the Muslim militants did.
So it scarcely matters, in a sense, whether the suppression
of free speech comes from the government or from a militant group
using asyemmtrical means. The practical result is the same: the
quashing of free speech.
The Muslim militants who violently objected to the Mohammed
cartoons are like the dictator who wants to control the press,
and they are worthy of the same level of open defiance.
And that's why it was important for the Jyllands-Posten and
others to publish the so-called Mohammed cartoons. After all, Mohammed may
be a religious figure to the religious, but he's a figure from history to
me, and I reserve the right, as a writer, to portray historic figures
from Jesus to Napoleon any way I please.
If you want to treat Mohammed as a religious icon, you can.
And if I want to portray him as a figure from history, I will. How come
my framework includes you, but yours doesn't include me?
Late night comedians and the rest of us should be able to
make jokes about both Mormon polygamy and the fact that, say, Mohammed
had twelve wives. It's not reasonable to contend that we can
satirize all religions except Islam.
Fundamentalists of all faiths have to be weaned away
from absolutism, which is the cause of almost all the war and
terrorism today. And, yes, fundamentalists should develop a sense
of humor about their religions, which after all are really
pretty funny if you try to take them literally. (People rising
from the dead? A guy with 12 wives? You can't be serious.)
And we shouldn't try to make the book burners (or bin Laden,
for that matter) seem as if they're intellectuals with complex reasoning
behind their actions. Remember, they embrace a literalist reading
of the Koran, and that's the salient fact about them, so there
couldn't possibly be intellectual value in what they believe, no
matter who they've studied under or what they've read. There are
some confused people in America who see the beards and sandals
of jihadists and mistake them for existentialist philosophers.
(They love to say stuff like "he was educated in Paris." Oh, really?
What school in Paris? There are a lot of lousy schools in Paris.)
No, would-be censors like the militants who were burning
books and music and movies in Islamabad last week might best be described
as Muslim rednecks who most closely resemble the sunbelt rednecks in America
that burned all those Beatles albums in the mid-sixties. Both share a
literal belief in their respective religions.
As I said, defiance is the only correct response to
totalitarianism, and we should express ourselves without regard to
whether absolutists are offended or not. Society should not adjust to
the psychotic but vice versa.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- A non-absolutist is like me: I think I'm right
about my secular view of, say, Mohammed, but I recognize the
fact (and tolerate) that you also think you're right about your
religious view of Mohammed.
On the other hand, an absolutist thinks he's right about
his own religious view of Mohammed, but he insists that
everyone share his view and that there be no dissenting opinions.
That's the difference.
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 13, 2007
It's an interesting spectacle to watch certain neo-racist white
people in the media overcorrect for their own neo-racism by giving podium to
a liar and discredited source like Al Sharpton.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 12, 2007
Oh, I hear the silence, I hear that wonderful
Al Sharpton-less silence. I no longer hear Sharpton doing his loudmouth
thing on tv about the Crystal Gail Mangum defamation case. No,
he's mighty quiet right about now about all of her lies.
But the downside of that wonderful Al
Sharpton-less silence is that I don't hear him
apologizing, as he should, for promoting her
grotesque fabrications. And I also don't hear
him defending her, as he would if he still
believed Mangum's bullshit. Of course, he still
hasn't gotten around to an apology for supporting
the lies of Tawana Brawley nearly two decades ago, so he's got a
backlog of dishonesty to sift through. He's busy.
The Crystal Gail Mangum defamation case is over,
but it ain't over.
The people who were right from the start should be
rewarded. The people who were wrong should be penalized.
Those who should get a promotion and a raise: CBS's
Byron Pitts, The New York Times's Peter Applebome, Duke's James
Coleman, those who worked with the late Ed Bradley on his "60 Minutes"
report on the Duke case, author Kurt Andersen, many others.
Those who should be demoted or fired: NBC's Ron Mott,
genuine idiot Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, Michael Nifong, the Duke faculty
members who reflexively backed Mangum, editors who claimed it wasn't
relevant to bring up the fact that Mangum lied about once stealing a taxi
cab and driving it drunk as cops chased her, Wilson and Glater of the Times,
many others.
As for Crystal Gail Mangum herself: as I stated
yesterday, she should be charged with perjury, filing a false police report,
public drunkenness, and whatever other laws she broke.
For the record: my own earliest mention of the Duke case
was published, in The Chicago Tribune, almost exactly a year ago, on
April 25, 2006, when I satirized those in the media who bought Mangum's
dubious accusations. Writing in the voice of a Katie Couric who was
panicking over the fact that she might have been lied to by Mangum, I wrote
in The Chicago Tribune: "I really hope that Duke lacrosse scandal doesn't
turn into the next Jennifer Wilbanks disaster -- did I use the word
'alleged' enough? I'll have to rerack the tapes."
I think we all oughta re-rack the tapes now, and see who's
to bless and who's to blame.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 11, 2007
On my birth certificate, my name is officially Paul Lockett
Iorio, Lockett being the family name on my mother's British side
of the family, Iorio being the name on my dad's Italian side. If
customs in the U.S. were different, I might have grown up as
Paul Lockett instead of Paul Iorio. Though I'm proud of both
names, both come with a different set of cultural stereotypes.
So imagine if I had won some sort of writing award last week
that somehow came to the attention of Don Imus, and Imus had
made some trite, ethnically ignorant, supposedly funny remark
like, "Whoaa, they're giving prizes to the mafia now -- I
wonder where he left the horse's head to get that award."
A joke that wouldn't be told if my name were Paul Lockett.
A joke that wouldn't be told by anyone who knew that the
Italian side of my family is mostly scholarly, far more
familiar with Capote than Capone. A joke that robs a person
of his individuality and identity before millions of people.
So my heart goes out to the Rutgers basketball team players
who had their identities distorted and reduced to a cliche by
some old guy in a cowboy hat last week.
Still, if Imus's joke had been on me, I know I would have had a
sense of humor about it and would have rolled with the joke.
After all, everybody gets skewered in free-speech America, and
you have to have thick skin and a fine appreciation of the
fact that your-joke-about-me permits my-joke-about-you.
And, context IS everything when it comes to making
audacious remarks. Remember, Lenny Bruce used the same word that Michael
Richards used in his own routine -- and virtually as many times, too -- but
Bruce got away with saying "nigger" (even among African Americans) because
he was funny and meaningful and progressive; Richards was merely spouting
angrily and hatefully (as Paul Rodriguez said, "I was waiting for the joke").
Anyway, I think Imus should use this opportunity to
retire; after all, he sounds old, he's resorting to cliches
instead of fresh perceptions and doesn't know where the lines on
the highway are anymore. He's had his run, and now it's time for
someone new.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly Mr. Politically Correct
(just read past editions of this column and articles on my home
page). And I admire Bill Maher and others who know there's a way
to be outrageous and there's a way not to. Mick Jagger, for
example, knew how to write an over-the-top audacious lyric like
"Brown Sugar" without ever really offending anyone; but if a dim
band like, say, Great White, had tried to write up the same idea,
it would likely be way out-of-line and deeply offensive.
As Bob Dylan once put it, "To live outside the law you must be
honest." Those who want to thrill everybody by racing in the
opposing lane of traffic (and getting away with it) have to have
a keen sense of where the lines on the highway are drawn to
begin with.
The best insight I've read about the Imus affair comes
from Alessandra Stanley in today's New York Times: "Mr. Imus wants to be
both a shock jock and Charlie Rose," she wrote, "and the two roles
inevitably collide." Exactly. If he didn't have so much gravitas as a
serious interviewer, he'd still have his job.
* * *
Glad to see that the late Ed Bradley's excellent report on
the dubious charges against Duke University lacrosse players won a
Peabody Award last week.
Also glad that it looks like charges will be dropped against
the Duke Three later today. Still, my questions are these:
Why did it take so long to drop charges that were so
obviously false?
Isn't the real story of the Duke Three case about a flaw
in the American legal system that allowed such a case to go forward for
so long?
Why haven't charges yet been brought against the accuser,
Crystal Gail Mangum, for filing a false police report, perjury, public
drunkenness, etc.?
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 9, 2007
Forget Gallup and Harris; YouTube May Be the Only Political
Poll That Really Matters
There are lots of political polls tracking the popularity of the
2008 presidential hopefuls, but the only one that may count
in terms of measuring pure buzz is not really a poll at all
It's YouTube, which is also,
inadvertently, a telling gauge of the
relative popularity of politicians and other
phenomena, a measure of who's making the biggest noise right
here, right now.
An analysis of viewership of political videos offered through
YouTube reveals some fascinating results. For example, Sen.
Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are the front-runners in
YouTube hits, with the intensity of interest going to Obama.
The candidacies of former Senators John Edwards and John
McCain are generating little heat on the website.
And Sen. Chris Dodd's YouTube ratings are
abysmal, while former vice president
Al Gore's are encouraging.
The value of YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/)
as a poll lies in the fact that it shows how many times people
have viewed a particular video that is offered through its site.
So if you were to put, say, Hillary Clinton's name in YouTube's
search engine, you'd see not only a list
of Hillary-related videos but information about the
number of times each has been watched. It measures
the passion and obsessiveness (or lack thereof) of
political supporters in their private Internet interactions
in a way that polls by Gallup and Roper and Quinnipiac don't
(though, to be sure, the YouTube audience probably skews
younger than the overall voting population).
And that's also what seems to make YouTube a better
measure of buzz than, say, Google, because YouTube's
gauge is more particularized. In other words, if you were
to type "Hillary Clinton" into the Google search engine,
you'd get nearly four million undifferentiated hits -- but not
all of those search results would be about Sen. Clinton.
Google, as indispensable as it is, doesn't note how
many times a specific site has been viewed.
YouTube does. We can see that more than a million people
have watched Sen. Clinton sing "The Star-Spangled Banner"
off-key on the main website featuring that clip. And almost
three million have viewed the "Vote Different" video, a mash-up
of the famous Apple Computer ad of the 1980s that now
shows Hillary as Goliath. (That video, as is the case with
most YouTube clips, is posted in several places on the website,
making it difficult to determine its exact total viewership.
For the purposes of this Daily Digression, I'm citing only the most
viewed posting of a specific video.)
But the million-plus views of her national anthem clip don't
really speak to her popularity, since there's a tendency for
YouTube ratings to be the highest for videos that are either humorous
or embarrassing to a candidate.
Hence, the clip of Donald Trump fondling the breasts of former
New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is dressed in drag, is the
highest-rated Giuliani-related site (over 221,000 hits). And
Al Gore's biggest video is also a funny one, a humorous cartoon
from the makers of "Furturama" called "A Terrifying Message From
Al Gore" (over a million and a half hits, almost as many as the
Michael Richards-at-the-Laugh-Factory clip).
Common sense suggests that those watching the funny clips or the
gotcha-videos about a candidate are not necessarily fans of that
politician. Rather, a politician's real supporters probably tend
toward authorized videos or policy speeches -- clips that are of
interest to the true believers only, for the most part, and are
pretty much a bore to the general public.
For example, Obama's leading authorized campaign clips,
"Meet Barack Obama" and "My Plans for 2008," have a
relatively large audience (109,170 and 175,113 hits,
respectively), as do some of Clinton's ( "Hillary on Oil Profits"
has had 269,689 viewers, though "Hillary Clinton Announces Run for
President" gets a paltry 23,709 hits).
Al Gore, who has said he is not running for president, also has
high ratings for authorized campaign and wonk videos; his recent
testimony before Congress has received 58,257 hits in its first week,
though his other clips don't have as many viewers.
Edwards's ratings are variable, as are former Gov. Mitt
Romney's; an Edwards "exclusive to YouTube" has had over
118,000 hits, though his press conference about his wife's
cancer has had only 13,093 views (and his speech for a
local politician in North Carolina has had only 368 views).
Meanwhile, a Romney for President ad has had just 29,059 hits,
though a clip from his debate in the 1994 Massachusetts U.S.
Senate race, in which he takes liberal stands on abortion and
gay rights, has been watched 94,613 times.
McCain's most-watched video is one in which he appears to
nod off during a State of the Union speech by President Bush
(235,123 hits); but ratings for his policy speeches are in the
cellar (1,980 hits for McCain speaking about Gitmo; 1,835 viewers
for McCain talking about war veterans; and a dreadful 795
hits for McCain's ad for Congressional candidate Martha Rainville).
Sen. Joe Biden seems to generate hits only when he messes up; his
controversial comments about Indians have had over 24,000 viewers
and his infamous remarks about Obama have had over 15,000 hits.
But viewership of his policy videos is shockingly low; Biden's
speech on global warming had 506 viewers and his comments on Iraq
drew 2,190 hits, which is almost at Mike Gravel-level lows (Gravel's
speech on Iraq has had 2,113 hits, while a video piece about the
"censorship" of Mike Gravel had only 920 views).
Former Sen. Fred Thompson, increasingly mentioned as a possible
candidate, could use some help with his YouTube numbers; though
one of his appearances on Fox News drew 18,672 views, his video on
campaign reform had exactly zero hits.
Candidates Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter
had viewership that was mostly in the low hundreds, though there are
notable exceptions like Brownback's speech on stem cell research
(over 9,000 hits), Hunter's talk on the so-called Border Fence with
Mexico (over 6,000 views) and Dodd's appearance on Don
Imus's show about the steamy novel written by Sen. Jim
Webb (over 343,000 hits).
Only a few of these videos approach the status of such
YouTube blockbusters as OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" music video, which
has had a phenomenal 14 million hits on just one website (an estimated 21
million views in all).
But I digress. Paul
[above photos of Edwards and Obama by Paul Iorio, 2007.]
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 7, 2007
The Muslim rednecks burning books and music and movies in
Islamabad remind me of the sunbelt rednecks in America who burned all those
Beatles albums in the mid-sixties. No difference. Though most
American progressives see the resemblance, I wonder why the rest don't
(or won't).
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 4, 2007
Imagine if there had been a Correspondents' dinner in 1954 at
which Edward R. Murrow was swing dancing with Sen. Joseph McCarthy,
while jokingly pointing his finger at McCarthy and saying, "You witch
hunter, you!"
Or a dinner in early 1974 in which Dan Rather did the bump
with H.R. Haldeman.
Well, that's sorta what it looked like at the recent
event where NBC Entertainment's David Gregory was part of MC Rove's
performance in Washington.
To be sure, Rove is no McCarthy or Haldeman(and Gregory
is no Murrow) -- but the principle is the same. You watch the performance
and wonder: is he the same NBC reporter who asks (supposedly) aggressive
questions to administration officials? Isn't he the same guy who always
seems to be sparring like a petulant adolescent with one Bushie or
another? Or is all that just an act to bolster his standing?
It's interesting that when he subs for Matt Lauer on
"Today," you really notice the absence of Lauer, whose star power is
underrated. I remember covering the Oscar parties one year for a
newspaper and seeing each movie star and film maker enter the party in
front of fans across the street. As each would enter, fans would shriek to
varying degrees. One of the biggest screams of the night from the
crowd was not for a film star but for Lauer, when he made his entrance.
* * *
NEW CIRQUE SHOW A-COMIN'
I've only attended one Cirque de Soleil performance in my life,
on the afternoon of January 9, 2000, in Irvine, California, which I saw
because I was writing about the troupe for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Anyway, I have to say I wasn't overly wowed by
Cirque at the time. After the show, I sat down under the Irvine big top
with Cirque's Roch Jertis and others, but still came away feeling that
the performance was like too much ice cream, losing its pleasure after
the 32nd amazing feat or so. (I also remember the performers appeared to
be flinging objects into the audience from the aisles -- there was a
hostile vibe to "Dralion.")
But the premiere last year of their blockbuster "Love,"
structured around the music of the Beatles, won over even Cirque
detractors, who were glad the troupe finally seemed to be abandoning
some of its pretentious obscurantism.
Well, guess what? The 'ol pretentious obscurantism is
baaaaccck! It's been announced that this holiday season, in New York,
Cirque will present what it calls "a new creation" titled "A Winter Tale"
or "Winter's Tale" -- it's hard to tell what the title is from their website,
which also offers this description of the so-called plot:
"...When the snow doesn't arrive, [a boy] embarks on a quest with three companions...to find the snow and bring it back where it belongs. The adventurers journey to an imaginary Arctic...When at last the sun returns, they fly home on the wings of a giant crane and unleash an epic snowstorm."
So lemme get this straight: it ain't snowing in a boy's
hometown, so the kid takes off to the Arctic to find some of the white
stuff. (Couldn't he have just gone to Buffalo? Am I not supposed to ask
such questions?) Then the sun comes out, so he boards a crane (a crane?)
to bring snow to his town.
Cirque really oughta stick with The Beatles.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 3, 2007
ELEVEN QUESTIONS ALMOST NOBODY ASKS
If the U.S. Capitol building had been destroyed on 9/11, it would have almost certainly been rebuilt as it was. Why is the World Trade Center not being rebuilt as it was?
If the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has no significant religious content, as its supporters claim, then why include it?
If athletes can be stripped of their records because of steroid use, should writers and artists be stripped of their awards if they are found to have created their work on drugs or booze?
If Michael Jackson's alleged crimes are serious enough to warrant a 20-year prison sentence in California, how come such creepy offenses are virtually legal in Baja California (and in many other countries)?
Why does almost nobody ask where Mullah Omar is?
Why isn't President Bush referred to as Bush, Jr., and his father as Bush, Sr.?
Why do reporters ask sources who didn't anticipate the 9/11 attacks to speculate about the probability of future terrorist attacks?
Why do American liberals seem to react more strongly against religious rightists who burn books than they do against Islamic rightists who assassinate authors?
Why have American conservatives been spending more time on providing health care for the brain damaged and the comatose than for the uninsured?
Why doesn't anyone advocate expanding Megan's Law to include dangerous recidivists like murderers, chronic DUI offenders and serious non-sexual assaulters?
Where is Osama bin Laden?
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 30, 2007
On Stanley Kubrick
A lot of people don't get the aesthetic of extreme clarity of
artists and writers like Stanley Kubrick and Donald Barthelme and
the Ramones and others who make radical use of deliberate repetition for
effect (a style that can be nicely applied to journalism, too, by
the way). I was sort of surprised when I wrote for a particular
Bay Area newspaper and found that some editors and writers there
actually thought that element was a flaw in Kubrick's films
(and they were ones to talk -- many of them wrote schlock!).
I remember one editor railing against a beautifully minimalist
and deliberately repetitive passage in one of his movies -- and I
realized that a lot of his brilliance was going way over the
heads of her and others.
Kubrick, perhaps the greatest film director America has
produced, has now been dead for eight years. That means
there are now people who not only don't get his work, but
there's a new generation that doesn't even know his work.
After all, there hasn't been a new Kubrick picture since
the director's death in March 1999, so there are now some
teenagers who have no contemporaneous memory of a first-run
Kubrick flick. It's unfortunate that, to some, the first impression
of him might come from the recently released "Color Me
Kubrick," a feature film starring John Malkovich as a
con-man who once pretended to be Kubrick.
If you've never seen a Kubrick film -- well, it's
obvious which ones you should watch. But if you've
already seen all his films countless times and still
want a fresh experience, my suggestion is try "Barry
Lyndon" and stay with it. It seems as if so many
people have dropped out of that film mid-way because
its first forty minutes are too slow, but those who
watch it to the end are rewarded with a riveting last
half -- and a hefty dose of extreme clarity.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 29, 2007
The Death of Hip Hop
I didn't see my first rap concert until 1980, when I stopped by
the Peppermint Lounge in New York to watch the Treacherous Three,
one of the pioneers of hip hop, play to a lot of empty chairs.
I remember thinking how futuristic and fresh rap sounded, and only
then reached back to buy a copy of the Sugarhill Gang's 1979
breakthrough, "Rapper's Delight."
By 1980, hip hop was already around five years old, though
still years away from mainstream acceptance. I and my friends didn't
really fall in love with rap until 1982's "The Message" by Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five, which -- at least in NYC -- was massive,
even bigger than "Thriller" in some circles.
And I don't mean just the single "The Message" but the album
"The Message," particularly the deeply fun funk of "She's Fresh"
and "It's Nasty." It goes without saying that the title track is
one of rap's great achievements, sort of like hip hop's "A Hard
Rain's A-Gonna Fall" -- and the main reason for the group's
induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame several weeks ago.
It wasn't until later in the 1980s, at the Cat Club in NY, that
I finally got to see Melle Mel perform "The Message" -- backed by
the same rhythm section, Doug Wimbish and Keith Leblance, who played
on the album -- at a show that turned everybody into a dancer. Rap
was no longer playing to empty chairs.
Twenty-five years later, rap is now so ubiquitous that I wouldn't
be surprised if there are already Muzak versions of LL Cool J's
"I Need Love" playing in dentist offices. (Even the cute penguins in the
movie "Happy Feet" sing a sweet rendition of "The Message.")
Proof of its assimilation into even the most conservative
precincts of America is last night's correspondents dinner,
in which none other than Karl Rove actually performed a rap.
Dancing a bit like the Jeff Daniels character in the movie
"Something Wild" (when Daniels rocks out to the Feelies'
version of "Fame"), Rove was good-natured -- and he clearly amused
the crowd, though his performance, really, meant only one thing:
Rap is dead.
No, I don't care how much creative vitality is still left in
the genre. When something becomes that mainstream,
its dangerous pioneering spark must be gone.
So, on this day, March 29, 2007, I mourn the passing of hip hop
-- born 1975, died 2007.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 26, 2007
Whenever I visit my hometown of the 1970s, there is always someone
from the past who compares himself-as-a-middle-aged-professional-today
to me-when-I-was-a-scruffy-15-year-old, as opposed to
comparing me now to him now.
Truth is, I don't know anyone I grew up with in my general
age group -- not even those who have since become respectable and
successful in middle age -- who doesn't have a skeleton, great or small,
in the closet from his or her teenage years. (This, of course, does not
apply to any of my current old friends or any friend that was once near
and dear, who are and have always been virtuous and beyond reproach!)
In the old days, skeletons of almost any sort would derail
a political candidacy, but that era appears to be, thankfully, long gone.
One of the more refreshing aspects of the 2008 campaign is that
Barack Obama's candidacy has apparently not been hurt by his admission
that he used marijuana and cocaine in his youth.
That's a measure of how far we've evolved since 1987, when
the revelation of mere marijuana smoking ended the Supreme Court
nomination of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Douglas Ginsburg --
or since 1984, when an extra-marital affair destroyed the
presidential aspirations of Gary Hart.
As recently as 1992, the public wasn't sure whether
Bill Clinton would overcome the "didn't inhale" controversy or the
Gennifer Flowers scandal, but he prevailed (and fabulously). And the
reason probably has less to do with the cliche of "nobody's perfect" than
with the fact that standards of behavior constantly shift; one
generation's peccadillo is another's normalcy.
By the 2000 election, candidate George W. Bush was able to
deflect questions of alcohol and substance abuse in his past with a
simple, "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible."
And today we have candidates -- like Rudy Giuliani -- for
whom you'd need a complicated org chart to keep track of all the
lovers and wives.
So it's no wonder Obama's confession has barely caused a ripple
among the public and the press. It's as if voters have finally accepted
the traumatic truth that they will always be forced to choose a president
from a personnel pool that includes (the horror!) only flawed human beings.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 25, 2007
Let me interrupt everything here for a moment with a bulletin,
with breaking news. You'd better sit down for this one, because
it's a shocker:
Thousands of people are going to die this year in the U.S.
because they can't afford health insurance.
And here's another bit of breaking news:
Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and almost certainly
plotting his next attack on the U.S.
OK, now everybody can get back to opposing the Iraq
war or supporting the Iraq war or supporting the troops but not the
war or supporting the authorization for the war but not the war per se
or whatever. It's obvious now that the only real solution to the Iraq
war was to not have gotten in to begin with.
And so now we're diverted, just as I thought we'd be in '03,
by a war that isn't doing anybody any good.
If it weren't for the Iraq war, the House of Represntatives
might be passing super-urgent legislation, such as:
HR 101: The health care system that works so well in Canada
-- we want the same thing here now. Period.
and
HR 102: Resolved: the U.S. will kill or capture Osama
bin Laden by the end of 2007. Military funding will be prioritized
accordingly.
What a lot of people don't realize is that 9/11 wasn't an
event from the past -- it's an event that has yet to happen. The next
9/11 promises to be a real doozy, and it's probably scheduled for
around 2009 (remember, the time between the first World Trade Center
attack in 1993 and the second one in 2001 was eight years).
And what if it's a dirty bomb attack on New York or
downtown Boston or downtown San Francisco? Or on all three? Imagine
a radiation spill in North Beach in San Fran that would require the
dismantling and the disposal of such beloved buildings as City Lights
and Zoetrope (a recent issue of TNY had a riveting report on the impact
a dirty bomb might have).
After 9/11, we all decried the "poverty of imagination"
that stopped us from anticipating the attacks. We seem to be making the
same mistake again.
As for Iraq, we should handle it through either
partition or coalition. In other words, either split the place into
three autonomous republics (and prohibit an al Qaeda presidential candidate
for the Sunni third) or bring the Sunnis into a meaningful power-sharing
arrangement with al-Maliki -- an arrangement that could effectively
counter-balance the power of the Mahdi Army.
The autonomous republics (not provinces) would then operate
under the aegis of a federalized Baghdad for the purpose of equitably
distributing oil revenues nationwide.
And let's stop talking about Iraq as if we're there to
win or lose. The only U.S. ambition should be to get out of there ASAP
-- but without sparking genocide and a humanitarian catastrophe. The
factional violence will stop only when we substantially re-enfranchise the
Sunnis who we disenfranchised in 2003.
* * *
It's been over six years since the U.S. was embarrassed by the
Floridians who denied Al Gore a proper recount in the 2000
election. And that's still on the minds of a lot of Dems as '08 approaches
and the pickings look slim in terms of candidates. As I hiked the hills
east of San Francisco the other week, I saw a bumper sticker that makes
sense the more I think of it: Gore/Obama '08.
But I digress. Paul.
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 22, 2007
Don't you just love these guys? They blacklist you and
then say, "Hey, he's not working, so we can't hire him!"
That's how Zero Mostel, blacklisted in Hollywood
for most of the 1950s, must have felt when he showed his
film resume to studio moguls in the early 1960s. He
probably had a tough time explaining the gap between
1951's "The Model and the Marriage Broker" and 1961's
"Waiting for Godot" (or maybe not, come to think of it).
Thankfully the involuntary lay-off didn't exclude him from
landing a starring role in 1968's "The Producers" (or "...Forum..."
before that), which I recently saw again after hearing that
the musical version of the movie will end its Broadway run
on April 22 after six years at the St. James.
As has been widely reported, taking its place at that
theater this fall will be yet another Mel Brooks project:
Brooks's musical adaptation of "Young Frankenstein," his
1974 film.
And so the trend of making Broadway musicals out of feature
films continues.
While I'm digressing, here's an idea for a musical that
producers have not yet brought to The Great White Way:
"Robert Altman's Nashville: The Musical." Perhaps
with T-Bone Burnett as musical director.
Think about it. The musical would come readymade with a
marvelous and underrated batch of songs ("It Don't Worry Me,"
"Dues," "200 Years," etc.) and lots of colorful characters.
Many of the film's memorable scenes are already performances
on stage by singer-songwriters and country musicians. And the
sprawling dramatic action between the separate sets of
characters could easily be handled onstage by spotlighting --
i.e., by having the acton between, say, Barbara Jean and her
husband take place stage left, then shifting the spotlight
to stage right, where scenes involving Haven Hamilton happen.
Anyway, I'm sort of surprised someone hasn't thought of
this yet, given the number of unlikely musical adapations that have
been staged over the years.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 18, 2007
Obamamania Arrives in Oakland -- And May Be Unstoppable
I have attended lots of presidential campaign speeches,
dating all the way back to 1964 (when my dad put me, a 7-year-old,
on his shoulders so I could glimpse Hubert Humphrey stumping for LBJ),
but I have never ever seen the level of electricity and excitement
generated by Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Oakland, California,
yesterday afternoon.
To say he was greeted like a rock star would be to
understate the case; I have to search back in memory many years to
think of a rock show that created this sort of adult intensity
(perhaps Springsteen in '78).
Almost everyone waiting to attend the rally was smiling
-- even though they had to wait for more than an hour in a line that
seemed to stretch all the way to Sacramento. The only time
I'd ever seen such mass smiling was at a Grateful Dead
concert in 1987. It was almost as if political springtime
was blooming in fast motion on this sunny
St. Patrick's Day, like that great moment in the
documentary "The War Room" when the Grateful Dead's
"Scarlet Begonias" rang out as Bill Clinton's
campaign shifted permanently into high gear.
This is, after all, the last spring before voters
go to the polls in most of the presidential
primaries (the Iowa caucus is only slightly
more than nine months away).
At the Oakland rally, a woman attached to
her oxygen tank was in the crowd. Pamphlets and
buttons and bumper stickers and ideas
were exchanged everywhere like pollen. Strangers talked
to strangers as if they were old pals. The guy in line in
front of me, Michael, on a crutch, was convinced Obama was
the new JFK. His friend, Carter, handed me an Obama
campaign button that showed the candidate looking a bit
like, well, JFK.
The crowd was around 12,000 strong but sounded like
triple that. Once I had filed into the outdoor rally, getting a
glimpse of him reminded me of trying to get a look at
Led Zeppelin in 1973 at a stadium concert: almost impossible.
It wasn't until around 20 minutes into his speech that
I saw him for the first time. He looked dapper, trim,
youthful -- even Kennedyesque.
And when he condemned the Iraq war and mentioned the
Walter Reed scanadal, the response was almost
Beatlesque.
Seeing Obama-mania first-hand tells me he could be
unstoppable. I may be wrong, but I can't imagine that
Hillary's supporters are nearly as enthusiastic about
their own candidate.
As for John Edwards, I was at his speech in Berkeley
two weeks ago, and the crowd was exponentially
smaller and less intense; most attendees seemed
to be there to see a figure from the past, not a
current contender, and diversity was sorely missing (you
could literally count the number of African-Americans at
the Edwards rally on one hand). And the Edwards crowd
seemed more hostile, too.
The only point of comparison that comes close to the
Obamamania at this speech was a Jesse Jackson for president rally
I attended in Manhattan in 1988 that packed the Upper West Side.
But that was not really like this. In '88, people wanted to
glimpse an historical (and an historic) icon, it seemed; yesterday,
people acted as if Obama was the future.
No other rally I've seen has been as intense: not
Bill Clinton in Jersey City in '95 (or in San Fran in '06), not
McGovern in '72 (which felt like a college lecture), not Jerry Brown
in Union Square in NY in '92, certainly not Mondale in '84. And I
betcha Hillary's seemingly ghostwritten and somehow off-key speeches
don't generate Obama's kind of steam.
A few days ago, I wrote that Obama was the Paul Tsongas
of '08. But after this rally I've changed my mind. He's more
like the Tiger Woods of the '08 campaign. And he seems to
be an unstoppable force, like Bill Clinton after he became
"the comeback kid" in the snows of New Hampsire in '92. For the
first time, I'm thinking Obama might well become the Democratic
nominee for president of the United States in 2008.
* * * *
Speaking of Obama: interesting story on him in yesterday's
New York Times by Jennifer Steinhauer. But I found it sort of
peculiar that classmates didn't consider him particularly smart
in his schooldays.
"He was clearly bright but there are people in our class that
are nuclear physicists," says one source in her story.
Hmmm. It always seems there's a source that says something
like, "he was no rocket scientist." Shouldn't that cliche be retired?
I mean, frankly, I wouldn't want want a nuclear physicist or a rocket
scientist running the U.S. (unless his name is Einstein, and there
was only one). People shouldn't confuse technical intelligence with the
sort of big picture smarts required to run a country like the U.S.
It's like that old line about Michael Dukakis; he could speak
many languages but couldn't communicate in any of them. Obama
may not be a "nuclear physicist" but he can communicate, and you can't
teach what he can do.
Also, this puzzling line from the story: "...power is asserted and
social relativity established in Los Angeles by the car you drive, and
in New York by the college you attended...."
Huh? That's a new one to me. (I wonder what
Woody Allen would think of that line.) Some of the people I knew
in the arts (when I lived in and around Manhattan for almost
two decades) never even attended college and yet were among
the most powerful and prestigious people in their fields.
Post-college accomplishment is what rules the roost in NY and LA
(remember, Robert Evans never drove a car in L.A. when he was making
all those great features). Steinhauer must be thinking of Boston.
* * *
Kudos to the Mary Brogan Museum in Tallahassee, Florida,
for displaying John Sims's artwork "The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate
Flag." (There is another use for the Confederate flag, but that's only
when you run out of Charmin.) Those who like Sims' work might also like
this wonderful new song I just heard on WFMU called "Kill The Klansmen"
by the Sun City Girls. Check it out.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for The Ides of March, 2007
Bin Laden has been on the loose for 2,010 days now. That's
2,010 days he's had to plan his next act of mass murder.
If anybody is reading this in far eastern Afghanistan or
far western Pakistan, where bin Laden is presumed to be
hiding: would you please get this guy? Do the world a favor.
* * *
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 14, 2007
Bravo to Rep. Pete Stark for his endorsement of atheism,
but frankly I think many of his colleagues share his
opinion in private. I mean, to be honest, I don't think I
know hardly anyone who believes all that religious junk anymore
(Ann Coulter and bin Laden and their kind seem to be
among the last hold-outs of fundamentalism). And the best
polls have shown that most of the people on the planet are
either atheists or virtually atheists.
And atheism has long been mainstream. The up-front atheism
or near-atheism of entertainers and artists such as
George Carlin, Woody Allen and Bill Maher
has long been embraced by mainstream audiences.
And saying that you can't reject religion without
having completely read the New Testament or the Torah or the
Koran is nonsense; almost all religions have supernatural
elements, and that alone rules out their credibility
prima facie.
It's like saying you can't dismiss voodoo
without knowing about the divine principle of Nana Buluku.
Further, anyone who has to consult page 204 of some book to
know whether something is moral or immoral has either no innate sense
of morality or a crippled innate sense of morality. I don't
need to consult a book to know that killing Adolf Hitler in 1944
would've been a highly moral and correct action that might have
saved countless lives; yet killing under most circumstances is
an immoral act. Problem with Moses is that his commandments have
no nuance and are simplistically absolutist, so they have no
practical value in complex situations.
* * *
By the way, I want to mention that I just saw a scene from
the upcoming Sandra Bullock flick "Premonition" that
looks very much like it ripped off the idea behind my song
"Pretty Women at the Funeral." In the scene, Bullock's character
confronts an unfamiliar pretty woman (played by Amber Valleta) at
the funeral of her husband, asking her why she's there at the
funeral (implying, of course, that Valleta had had an affair
or relationship with her late husband, which turns out to be the case).
That scene is exactly what happens in the lyrics of
my song (the script even uses language from the lyric).
This apparent theft of intellectual property is not cool
and possibly actionable. Keep in mind that my song "Pretty Women
at the Funeral" was copyrighted in 2005 (see lyrics at
www.pauliorio.blogspot.com).
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 9, 2007
Radiohead's Next Album
I try not to write about music anymore,
because I self-released a debut album last year that has
(to my surprise!) been added to radio playlists in three
nations, so I try to avoid any appearance of conflict of
interest in my journalism.
But last night, I relistened to my bootleg tapes of
Radiohead's two shows in Berkeley, California, last
year, in which the band debuted a dozen new songs
that have still yet to be released, and I was just too
impressed not to blog about it. Months of listening
reveals that the best of the bunch is the
sublimely resolute "Four Minute Warning," while
"Down is the New Up" is enormously catchy and
"Videotape" poignant. And "House of Cards" was
already being greeted as a favorite by the
audience last June.
(By the way, somebody should've filmed the first night
in Berkeley because, as others have noted, the vivid multi-colored
stage lighting was captured by the heavy fog in the hills and
forests outside the Greek Theater (where I was); strolling
through the dyed fog (as Greenwood played his extraterrestrial riffs
and Yorke sang his otherworldly melodies), I felt as if I'd
stepped into a sci-fi flick (when is someone going
to use "Climbing Up the Walls" in one?).
Also, the live version of "Paranoid Android" on my tape
proves beyond a doubt that that's one of the most powerful
songs of the rock era, a piece of awesome beauty. Imagine the
"rain down" part transcribed for solo cello or viola -- it would
sound like deep mourning itself.
I also couldn't help but think how absolutely awesome
it would sound if Christine Aquilera were to cover
"Paranoid Android." (How about an entire album of
Aquilera singing Radiohead?)
If Radiohead ever gets around to recording the new album,
they should consider cutting it live, because every live
version on my tape surpasses the studio version. Not since
the Beatles has dissonance been so danceable; and (to
paraphrase xgau) rarely has sadness sounded so
pretty.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 7, 2007
Blasphemous Satire
Interviewing Osama bin Laden
Traveling through Tora Bora the other day, I decided to
stop by Osama bin Laden's cave for a quick chat on the eve of his
50th birthday. Osama welcomed me in, popped open a Red Bull and
plopped down on a bean bag chair.
I soon noticed bin Laden was not in his usual robe and
turban, but was wearing a Star of David and a yarmulke. A copy of the
Torah and Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" were on his coffee
table. I knew this would be no ordinary interview.
LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE CHANGED. ARE YOU THROUGH WITH TERRORISM?
OSAMA BIN LADEN: Yeah, the terrorism thing wasn't
panning out anymore. Everything we tried didn't work. For example,
we had a couple jihadists aboard a JetBlue flight last month, but
it was delayed for so long that even the hijackers stomped off the
plane in disgust!
WHAT CAUSED YOU TO BECOME A JEW?
BIN LADEN: It started when I was reading Rushdie's
"Satanic Verses" in my cave. Loved the story of Mahound. And Gibreel
was so sly. So that got me thinking about leaving the faith, and I
considered Hinduism and even Scientology before settling on Judaism.
YOU ACTUALLY LIKED RUSHDIE'S NOVEL?
BIN LADEN: I didn't expect to like it but it grew on me.
And I even enjoyed the bit about Mohammed's 12 wives. I, too, once had
sex with a prostitute named that way and, frankly, it
increased the eroticism. But the turning point was when I realized
those verses might be satanic after all. Sheesh!
SO YOU'RE ACTUALLY RENOUNCING ISLAM?
BIN LADEN: Yep. No turning back now. There were other issues,
too. Allah never answered my prayers. I prayed for a Kalashnikov.
Nada. I prayed for victory over the infidel. Nada.
WHY JUDAISM?
BIN LADEN: I confess I was touched by a rabbi I was
holding hostage, a cantor who sang so beautifully that I decided not to slit
his throat after a couple verses of "My Heart Will Go On." He was brought
to me by Adam Gadahn.
THAT ORANGE COUNTY GUY WITH THE FAKE ACCENT?
BIN LADEN: Yeah. We used to privately call him The High
Imam of the Great Mall of Milpitas.
WAS THERE A TIPPING POINT?
BIN LADEN: Well, I started reading the Torah -- or the
Tawrat, as I used to call it -- and realized it was a lot like the Koran.
I mean, it almost seemed like a case of copyright infringement, if you
ask me. But I was drawn to all those commandments -- they sort of gave me
structure during a mid-life crisis.
WHAT DO YOUR AL QAEDA COMRADES THINK ABOUT ALL THIS?
BIN LADEN: They're cool with it. In fact, I saw
Ayman al-Zawahiri chuckling over a copy of "Satanic Verses" I gave to him.
Ayman likes Rushdie, too! But I think the real tipping point for all of
us was the JetBlue thing. Seven hours on the tarmac. And not even a
meal -- just peanuts. It just became too hard to be a jihadist.
* * *
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 5, 2007
Hillary: Conscience of a Former Conservative
Reporting on Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech in Selma on Sunday,
The New York Times's Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny noted that she
appeared to be engaging in a bit of revisionist personal history.
According to The Times:
"Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, recalled going with her church youth minister
as a teenager in 1963 to hear Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in
Chicago. Yet, in her autobiography and elsewhere, Mrs. Clinton has
described growing up Republican and being a “Goldwater Girl” in 1964
— in other words, a supporter of the presidential candidacy of Barry
Goldwater, who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act."
If Hillary did attend the speech by Rev. King in
1963, then how come she apparently had not brought up that fact until
last Sunday? Are we to believe that, for decades, she had been sitting
on a fond and valuable remembrance of seeing the Rev. King first-hand as
a teenager but had not written or spoken about it to anyone in public?
I think reporters who have access to Sen. Clinton should
follow-up on Healy and Zeleny's excellent reportage and ask: Did she
really attend the speech? What did Rev. King say that day? How did
she feel as a white supporter of Barry Goldwater in an audience full
of civil rights activists? Was she pro-Goldwater in terms of foreign
policy but not on civil rights, or vice versa?
What exactly was it about Goldwater's policies that
appealed to her back then, and does she still admire him today? Was
Rev. King's speech the event that got her thinking about becoming a
Democrat? What was Rev. King like on that day? Can she corroborate
her claim that she attended the speech? Did she take photos?
On the other hand, if she wasn't at the speech, that would
not be a minor infraction in terms of personal integrity; if someone in
another profession -- say, a journalist -- publicly claimed to have
attended an event that he hadn't actually attended, he would likely
be drummed out of the business.
And it would also not be a minor point in terms of
political context, given the fact that brave people fought for civil
rights at the time, risking their lives and their bodies, while Sen.
Goldwater and his kind tried to stop their progress. Indeed, it's easy
to take a dangerous stand once the danger has abated.
Remember, a President Goldwater would almost certainly
have not provided the back-up support -- a federalized national guard and
thousands of troops -- required for the success of the subsequent civil
rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to Montgomery on
March 25, 1965.
On Sunday in Selma, perhaps Sen. Clinton should have
spoken of her authentic personal journey from the wrong side of history
to the right side, how she once was lost and now she's found. Maybe she
should have admitted how wrong she was in the 1960s to have supported
Goldwater, and how right she is now.
But then that points up Sen. Clinton's fatal flaw: she
seems to have a hard time admitting when she's wrong -- and that extends
to her current failure to repudiate her 2002 vote to authorize the war
in Iraq.
Yesterday afternoon, former Sen. John Edwards,
campaigning for president in Berkeley, California, at a rally I
attended, had no such problem admitting his mistake: "I voted for
this war," Edwards said plainly. "I was wrong to vote for this war."
Sen. Clinton has not done the same. And she has
also not been very clear about which side she was really on when bones
were being broken on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.
* * *
By the way, shouldn't the Edmund Pettus Bridge be
re-named The John Lewis Bridge or The Freedom Bridge or The Martin
Luther King Jr. Bridge in honor of those who sacrificed so much on
March 7, 1965? Pettus, after all, was a Confederate brigadier general
who killed people in a war that tried to keep African-Americans
enslaved. Why implicitly honor a guy like Pettus?
* * *
Sounds like Ann Coulter is slurring her words again.
Probably drunk on religious fanaticism again. Always beware of
religious right-wingers like Coulter and bin Laden,
who I hear have had two sons together:
Mohamed Atta and Eric Rudolph.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 3, 2007
The Powers-That-Be Say:
Plagiarism is Now OK -- If You're Rich, Famous or Well-Connected
Time was when plagiarism was said to be the
third rail of journalism: touch it and your career is dead.
The industry was always merciless and unforgiving
even to first-time offenders, shaming them in
various media columns and firing them on the
spot.
But how times have changed! It's now
2007 and the powers-that-be say that plagiarism is ok
-- if you're rich, famous or well-connected, that is.
For example: the other day, I turned on
"The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," one of
my favorite news programs. To be sure, Lehrer
is about as good as it gets when it comes
to broadcast journalism (and so are Elizabeth
Farnsworth, Judy Woodruff and most of the
the others). But what was plagiarist Doris
Kearns Goodwin doing on the show as a panelist?
Goodwin, you might remember,
was almost drummed out of the biz in 2002 after
it was revealed that she ripped off dozens of
pages from Lynne McTaggart's book "The
Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys."
She touched the third rail -- hell,
she had intimate relations with
the third rail -- and yet she still
appears on one of the best tv news
programs around.
Later that same day, I read my local
newspaper -- the San Francisco
Chronicle -- and saw a story by yet
another plagiarist who got away with it,
Edward Guthmann (who incidentally
is not famous but is well-connected at
his own paper, having been there for decades).
In a 2005 article, Guthmann plagiarized
parts of a 2003 story that appeared in
The New Yorker magazine, and his public
excuse was something like the usual
he-forgot-to-put-quotes-around-it defense.
Yet the guy still collects a weekly paycheck
from the paper (a scandal in itself, considering that far more
honest and far more brilliant freelancers can't even pay their
bills. Of course, you can expect no better from some in
the Chronicle features department, considering that one of its main
editors, David Wiegand, has engaged in provable fraud (the proof is
on this website: http://resumesidenotes.blogspot.com).
And it wouldn't exactly be accurate to say that this
was Guthmann's first offense. In 1999, he apparently
ripped off one of the key insights in my
own Los Angeles Times story on "Chinatown"
and rushed it into print in the San Francisco
Chronicle, where I was once a
staff writer, days before mine ran (my
story had been in the L.A. Times
computer for weeks, and the circumstantial
evidence shows it had been leaked to
Guthmann).
It's worth noting that in the 25 years since the
movie's release, no critic had made the insight
I made about the movie. And then in the same
week in 1999, two writers made the same point
in print, and mine was demonstrably first. The
circumstantial evidence alone is damning for Guthmann,
particularly in light of his latest transgressions.
My 1999 story on "Chinatown" was also
ripped off more extensively in a 2000 book by publisher
John Wiley & Sons, "The Film Director: Updated
for Today's Filmmaker, the Classic Practical
Reference to Motion Picture and Television
Techniques, Second Edition," by Richard L. Bare.
The book has a section on the movie "Chinatown" that includes
at least eight instances in which Bare uses material from my Los
Angeles Times story, "Sleuthing 'Chinatown'" (July 8, 1999), without
specifically citing it.
At the end of his book, Bare mentions my story in a generalized
bibliography (not in specific endnotes). He doesn't cite my piece within
the text and doesn't mention the places in his book where he used my
material.
As I mentioned, there are at least eight instances in which Bare
quotes, paraphrases or otherwise uses information from my story without
properly crediting me. (I've included eight juxtaposed examples below.)
The reader clearly gets the impression that Bare himself unearthed
the material in the "Chinatown" section of the book, when in
fact I came up with the hard-to-find information (info that was available
to me only because I had scored a rare interview with Polanski).
And you can also see how Bare cynically and slightly
modifies several of my passages, though his alterations make it no
less a case of theft, since his text closely tracks and parallels
my own while stealing my core reportage.
It's worth noting that people are fired in journalism
every year for lesser cases of plagiarism. So I can't help but
think this case was kept quiet because John Wiley & Co. has lots
of friends in the biz.
After all, why side with me? Wiley might get you a book
deal down the road.
By the way, you betcha I contacted Wiley a couple years
ago to express my displeasure and to ask them to compensate
me for their theft of my work. After all, their theft of my
work potentially cost me money, since it reduced the value
of my Polanski story in an anthology I was submitting
to publishers. As might be expected, Wiley arrogantly
defended their plagiarism, and I've long since dropped
the issue. But the record should be corrected and the
public should know what kind of company Wiley is.
Here are the eight main examples of the book’s plagiarism of my story:
EXAMPLE#1:
MY STORY: Today, Towne says "Polanski was right about the end"....Towne now says that
Polanski is "virtually...the only director I would willingly work for as a writer."
THE BARE BOOK: Today, Towne admits he was wrong about the ending and adds that he
would gladly work with Roman Polanski again."
-----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #2:
MY STORY: "A pivotal eight-week writing session [followed] in which Polanski and
Towne dismantled Towne's script and then painstakingly rebuilt it piece by piece."
THE BARE BOOK: "During an eight-week-long session held before shooting began, the
writer and director tore apart Towne's original script and reshaped it into the final draft that
Polanski shot..."
-------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #3:
MY STORY: The most substantial disagreement was about the ending of the film, in which Towne wanted Cross to be killed by Evelyn. Polanski insisted on a more disturbing finale....With the backing of Evans, Polanski eventually won the battle over the ending.
THE BARE BOOK: The biggest fight that the writer and the director had seemed to be over the ending. Towne wanted a happier one, while Polanski insisted on a tragic conclusion. Polanski won out, with Evans in his corner.
------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #4:
MY STORY: Their writing workday would begin around 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning and
would last until around 7 or 8 in the evening -- and was usually followed by a night of hard partying.
THE BARE BOOK: Polanski and Towne would spend eight to ten hours a day writing,
rewriting and haggling. At night, they would go out and party...
------------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #5:
MY STORY: "'We took the script and broke it down into one-sentence summations of each
scene,'" Towne says. "Then we took a scissors and cut those little scenes...and pasted them on the door of his house where we were working. And the game was to shift those things around until we got them in an order that worked."
THE BARE BOOK: Polanski would roll up his sleeves and encapsulate each scene onto a
card, tacking them in a row on the wall. Then he would begin to shift the cards, rearranging the sequence of events until he felt he had a shootable story line.
-----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #6:
MY STORY: Polanski says he never once thought during the making of the movie that it
would become a classic.
THE BARE BOOK: Neither [Polanski nor Towne] had the slightest inkling their creation
would become a classic of film noir.
----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #7:
MY STORY: ...Most Paramount executives openly predicted the film would fail.
THE BARE BOOK: No one at Paramount was betting that the picture would earn its cost
back.
----------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE #8:
MY STORY: Four years earlier, his wife, Sharon Tate...was sadistically murdered by
members of Charles Manson's gang. [Please note that the relation in time of the film to the Manson murders had not been brought up in print before my article, as far as I know.]
BARE'S BOOK: Roman Polanski, four years after his wife was murdered by the infamous
Manson family, was summoned by producer Robert Evans to direct "Chinatown."
* * *
One of the many problems with plagiarism,
besides the obvious ethical issues, is that it hurts
the smaller entrepreneurs of journalism. For example, if an
insight by an unknown blogger is ripped off by, say, Time
magazine, that insight forever belongs to Time magazine
in the public mind. (It doesn't work the other way around;
if an insight by Time magazine is stolen by, say, an unknown
blogger, most readers will immediately assume the blogger got
it from Time, because Time is better distributed.)
Adding insult to injury, if the unknown
journalist comes up with a scoop and is
then ripped off by Time, the blogger
can no longer try to publish his own piece
without people wrongly thinking he stole it
from the magazine.
So it was hard the other day to pick up a
newspaper and see the byline of a plagiarist
and then turn on the tv and see yet another
plagiarist. It was hard to see where fairness
is located out there.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 1, 2007
John McCain and David Letterman Talk
It was June 1975, and I was a teenager standing
with a couple friends at the end of a long,
deserted pier on Tampa Bay in Florida. In the
distance, a smiling middle-aged man started walking
the long, hot walk toward the three of us, and
as he came closer it became obvious he
was walking the span just to see us, even
though none of us knew him. When he
finally came to the far end of the pier, he
reached out his hand to me and said, "Hi,
my name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm
running for president of the United States."
And then he hung out with us and made
small talk about the boats in the bay.
True story.
It shows how Carter won in '76, even
though he was a long-shot at
the time: he probably shook every
hand in America to win the presidency,
and no voter -- not even a nobody teenager
like me (I wasn't even old enough to vote yet)
-- was unimportant to him.
It also shows how early the '76 campaign
season began (Carter had announced his
candidacy months earlier, in '74) and how a
candidate who ranked in the single-digits in
the polls came from behind to beat the favorites
of the national party.
In the polls at that time, Carter was where, say,
dark horses like Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson
are today: nowhere. At the end of a long, deserted
pier, politically speaking.
Watching Sen. John McCain on "The Late Show with
David Letternman" last night made me think that
the conventional political wisdom will surely be
upended several times before the first primary
votes are cast in 10 months or so.
Elections as unpredictable as this one recall nothing so
much as the overly familiar lyrics of a Bob Dylan
song: "Don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in
spin/And there's no tellin' who that it's
namin'/For the loser now will be later to
win."
Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani may be
the front-runners for the GOP nomination now,
but they may be old news by January.
Watching McCain on Letterman last night, I was surprised by
how creaky he seemed, how much slower his reaction time
was than it had been, how much he resembled a revered
former president more than a vital candidate. Against a
vigorous Rudy, he'll likely look like a retiree.
Remember, Republicans have to veer right in
the primaries and toward the center in the general (while
Dems have to veer left in the primaries and toward
the center in the general) -- and that tends to favor the
nomination of a Republican who is tight with the religious
right -- neither McCain nor Giuliani. As in '76,
maybe we should be looking at the guy polling
in the single digits
Somehow I get the feeling that a voter at the end of
a long pier somewhere is being approached by a
a man who sticks out his hand and says, "Hi, I'm
Duncan Hunter and I'm running for president of the
United States."
* * *
Well, folks, your trusty freelance writer
tried one last time yesterday to land
the ultimate "get" -- an interview with
author J.D. Salinger, who never talks to
the press. I finally reached his wife
(I had tried her number once before, a
couple years ago, but didn't know whether
I had unearthed the right number or not).
Well, yesterday afternoon, I found I did
have the right number, but she was in
no mood to talk. "I don't think I
really want to talk with you," she said.
So I said thanks for your time and
goodbye. Perhaps she and her husband
had seen my web-exclusive feature
about Salinger and not liked it.
For those who want to read the story,
it's on this website.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Wednesday, February 28,2007
A Confederacy of Dunces?
Slavery was finally, belatedly condemned by the state of
Virginia a few days ago, though vestiges of the old
Confederacy still linger today in mainstream
American politics. Last fall's promotion to Senate
Minority Whip of Trent Lott, who resigned his
leadership role in 2002 after praising the late
Senator Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat
presidential candidacy of 1948, was yet another
reminder that there are some on Capitol Hill
who are still sympathetic to Jim Crow and the
Confederacy -- and many more who seem that way.
The alarming thing about Lott’s remarks on
Thurmond in '02 is they’re not very far from
alarming remarks by other U.S. Senators that
praise or appear to praise former segregationists
and Confederates.
In fact, the new Minority Leader of the Senate,
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spoke glowingly
in 1997 about Thurmond's presidential candidacy in
remarks that are quite close to those that caused
Lott to lose his post in '02 (see the
quote below).
My own search of the Congressional Record shows
that several Senators have taken the floor in recent
years to praise (or quote in a positive context)
both Thurmond and Robert E. Lee, the most famous
Confederate general of the U.S. Civil War.
In fact, the Senate can sometimes seem like a
Robert E. Lee (and Strom Thurmond) fan club. Here
are some samples from the Congressional Record:
"My dad and my granddad talked about the [1948]
election for a little while, and all I remember for sure
is that they said Strom Thurmond was a fine man,
they were going to vote for him for President of the
United States."
-- Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, on June 3, 1997, in a
Senate tribute to Thurmond
"In the end, what Douglas Southall Freeman said of
Robert Lee four decades ago might also be said of
Senator Thurmond today. ‘He [is] one of a small
company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency
to be explained, no enigma to be solved.”
-- John Ashcroft, then a Senator from Missouri,
June 3, 1997, in a Senate tribute to
former Sen. Strom Thurmond.
"My senior Senator [Thurmond] is the epitome of
Robert E. Lee's comment that the most sublime
word in the English language is duty.”
-- former Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-SC, May 21, 1997,
speaking about Thurmond becoming the
longest-serving Senator in the history of the Senate.
"The national history [educational] standards were more
interested in those who were politically correct. The
standards slighted or ignored many central figures in U.S.
history, particularly white males. To name a few,
Robert E. Lee was left out, Thomas Edison and the
Wright brothers were left out, Paul Revere was left out,
so we could have many, many references to the
Ku Klux Klan, so we could have references to
heroes from other continents."
-- Ashcroft, as Senator, November 6, 1997, speaking
about national education testing standards.
"I have thought about Senator Russell's reference to
Robert E. Lee when he quoted Lee as saying,
`Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.'
That has been my credo."
-- Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WVA, July 27, 1995, during
a tribute in which he was praised
for having cast 14,000 votes in his career.
"It is said, in the old Confederate Army, that they
didn't give medals. So the single honor was to be
mentioned in Robert E. Lee's communiques to
Richmond. Having the distinguished Senator from
West Virginia [Byrd] say something about me and to
pronounce me a honest man I take in the same way
that any private in Hood's brigade would have taken
in the mention of their name in one of those communiques."
-- Former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Tex, November 15, 2002,
referring to a compliment paid to him by Sen. Byrd
during discussion of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
"Snatching the initiative to turn the tide of battle,
Lt. Gen. James A. Longstreet, under the command of
Gen. Robert E. Lee, forced back Union forces directed
by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in an advance known as
`Longstreet's Flank Attack.' Mr. President, this legislation
will allow the Park Service to acquire this stretch of land,
which will serve to complete Wilderness Battlefield."
-- Sen. John Warner, R-Va, May 4, 1999, speaking
admiringly of the Confederate military while arguing
for government acquisition of a Civil War battlefield.
"And here we have a man like [former Arkansas Senator]
David Pryor, who has all the qualities that Robert E. Lee
described, and more: tenacious, determined on what he
believes, intellect, the character to stick with his ideas in
a totally honest way, and vision about where the country
ought to be heading. These are remarkable traits to be
wrapped up in one man, and rare and unusual in the U.S.
Congress.”
-- Former Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-AR, September 24, 1996,
in a tribute to former Sen. David Pryor.
"When asked by a mother what advice he could give her
for the rearing of her infant son, General Robert E. Lee,
then President of Washington and Lee, replied, ‘Madam,
teach him to deny himself.’"
-- Former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, entered this eulogy
by the president of a Baptist university into the
Congressional Record, April 29, 1996.
* * *
Anyway, now that the ol' Confederacy is
in an apologizin' mood, perhaps they
can start redesignin' some of the
state flags that incorporate the
Confederate banner.
* * *
What I'm reading today: nice
editorial in today's New York
Times on issues related to the
Establishment Clause. And, on
a far different subject, check
out Frank Bruni's witty review
of Robert's, which proves that
great loins are where you find
them!
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Tuesday, February 27, 2007
In a hundred years, history students
will be asked, "What U.S. president
finally became president a full eight
years after winning his first
presidential election?"
And the answer will be, of course,
the 44th president of the U.S.,
President Gore, who served from
January 2009 until January 2013.
But first Gore has to beat Rudy
Giuliani, the (at this point)
probable GOP candidate -- and
Gore may be the only Dem who
can do it. Barack
versus Rudy would be a 61%
blow-out for the GOP, a
Dukakis/Bush landslide that
would give Barack, the
Paul Tsongas of campaign '08,
10 states at best.
Hillary v. Rudy, replicating the U.S.
Senate contest that almost
happened back in 2000, would
still result in President Rudy, but by
a closer margin. Why? The anti-war Dems
would siphon off the votes required for
a Hillary win, just as they did to Hubert
Humphrey in 1968.
How soon Dems forget the main lesson
of '68: a party divided against itself
cannot stand against a united GOP.
Hillary sort of resembles the Humphrey
that was unwilling to break with LBJ
over the war until it was too late (in her
case, she inexplicably refuses to say she
blew the Iraq authorization vote).
The anti-war Dems, already turning out
to heckle her when she campaigns,
are rightly wondering why they should
vote for someone who made the same
mistake Bush made on Iraq. Voters don't
want hindsight in a leader, they want
foresight, and Gore had that in opposing
the Iraq war from the start while Hillary
didn't.
In any case, Gore appears to be running.
The latest signs, on display at the Oscars
last night, are these:
First, anticipating that he'll be running against
Italian-American Giuliani next year, he
appears with a highly respected star
who has an Italian-American last name,
Leonardo DiCaprio.
Second, Gore's public image was slyly
repaired at the Oscars by no less than
George Clooney, who publicly debunked
Gore's main perceived flaw: that he's
too stiff.
Gore, too stiff?, Clooney essentially said.
No, he's bad, he's Wildman Gore these days.
Oh yeah, he was quaffing a few with me and
Nicholson backstage, so believe me, he's
too much of a bad-ass to run for such a
goody two shoes office as prez of the USA,
know what I mean?
So, yeah, Gore may be runnin'.
(By the way, check out David Reminick's
terrific Comment on Gore in the new issue
of The New Yorker; it may be Remnick's best
editorial in years.)
Also, here are some faux
secret slogans of the current crop
of candidates:
Kucinich for President in 1968
Barack Obama at Bonnaroo in 2008
Hillary for President -- of Barnard College
Brownback for President of Oz '08
John McCain for President in 1956
Giuliani for President in '01
Dukakis '08: If Vilsack Can Try, So Can I
Bill Richardson/Wen Ho Lee '08
Dodd/Imus '08
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Monday, February 26, 2007.
Thoughts on the Oscars. Ellen DeGeneres
made the show seem like daytime tv. At
times, I thought it was 3:30 on a weekday
afternoon and that she was about to give a
Frigidaire to someone in the audience.
Yes, she is charming but she's
-- how to put this? -- not funny.
And the ratings don't lie: Ellen's
version of the Oscars "delivered the
third-lowest viewer tally in at least
15 years," according to today's Los
Angeles Times.
Bring back Jon Stewart! Even better,
bring back Steve Martin!
Like everyone else, I loved Martin Scorsese's
belated win but thought Clint Eastwood's
"Letters From Iwo Jima" was far better than
"The Departed." And who knew Eastwood knew
Italian so fluently? And Steven Spielberg was
such a winning presence last night (and a good
sport, too, taking that photo).
Other notes: Helen Mirren is overrated.
Also, anybody notice how obviously calculated
(and, frankly, phony) her "I give you the Queen"
soundbite came off, especially if you saw her entire
speech? Further, I didn't quite catch her drift: she
thrusts forward the statuette and says, "I give
you the Queen." Is the (nominally male) statuette
supposed to be the Queen? Was she introducing a clip
from the film? Is everyone too cowed by her "Dame"
status to ask such questions? One small step for man...
Kate Winslet is underrated (didn't
she look like love itself last night?). Meryl Streep
has rarely looked more attractive in recent years
(and she provided the night's funniest moment
with just one look). "Letters from Iwo Jima"
should've won best pic -- and will probably
resonate down the decades better
than "Departed."
With regard to "The Queen," I saw half of it on a red-eye
and then turned it off to listen to Bob Dylan's brilliant
"Modern Times." Frankly, I really don't care about
British royalty, unless Shakespeare is writin' about it.
What do The Royals do all day to earn their
millions, anyway? These are not really people of
accomplishment, now, are they? Diane Spencer, last
I heard, was driving drunk (or having her driver
drive drunk) through big city streets on a
Saturday night at a high speed, endangering
innocent people. (Oh, I know: her defense is
she was running from a man with a camera. Not a
man with a gun but a man with a camera. Think about
that one.)
[Note: I'm sure the previous graf will probably
offend those who admired Diana, but think of it
this way: suppose your son or daughter or mother
or father had been in Paris on the night of the
crash and had been killed by the princess's car.
How would you then feel about Diana's behavior?
Is drunken driving at high speeds
ok if it's done by someone you like?]
But the real winner of the night was Al Gore.
It's now obvious, or should be: Gore is the
only Dem who can beat Rudy next year (Hillary
comes off like a scold, alienating even her
closest supporters; Dems would be far better
off nominating Nancy Pelosi for president);
Sen. Obama would not be able to withstand GOP
attack ads -- not in swing states like Ohio
or Florida, which he'd have to win to
become president).
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Sunday, February 25, 2007
Lights Out for Network TV's Best Series?
NBC insists the show will go on, at least for now,
for "Friday Night Lights," which many consider
network TV's best dramatic series -- despite
the fact that the series has usually landed
in third or fourth place in whatever time slot it has
occupied since its debut last October.
Though the network is clearly not
talking about ending "FNL," and though the show
may yet be saved in the long run, a hard look at the
ratings suggests that only a miracle on the order
of a hail Mary pass could possibly stop its eventual
cancellation.
Despite its recent relocation to a less
competitive time slot, Wednesdays at 8pm, the
program continues to tank. In its previous time,
Tuesdays at 8pm, its failure was partly blamed on
the fact that it was up against ABC's runaway hit
"Dancing with the Stars." Now there is no such
competitor, which makes it all the more likely the
show might not enjoy another full season on the air.
So why aren't viewers watching "Friday
Night Lights"?
A few theories. "FNL" is one of those artful
depictions of the red state quotidian (created
by sophisticated blue state producers) that
seems to play better in blue states than
in red ones.
Hardcore red staters -- say,
churchgoing NASCAR Republicans -- apparently
don't want artful when it comes to
television viewing. They seem to want shows
like "WWE Friday Night SmackDown!" wrestling.
And they don't want to come home from a hard
day shoveling this or loading that to watch
a subtle drama about teenagers.
It's like a cat looking in
the mirror: it doesn't recognize
itself no matter how clear the image. Likewise,
red-staters probably don't see themselves
in "Friday Nights Lights." After all, this
is a program in which the quarterback for the Dillon
Panthers, Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), actually
talks to a classmate about Jackson Pollock in one
episode. Such atypicality is admirable -- but
is a TV viewer in a Don Garlits t-shirt going
to get it?
The show seems to be caught between demographics:
it's too smart for most mainstream red state
sports fans, but the football theme is not
exactly smart enough for the blue staters (even
though the show is about a lot more than football).
And it also seems to fall between
audiences in terms of age, as it's a show
mostly about teenagers, but its sensibility
is very adult,
It's sort of like the plight of a
critically acclaimed show of the mid-1990s,
"My So-Called Life," starring Claire Danes,
which was canceled after a short run. The
ratings problem with that series about teenagers
(also created by smart adults) appeared to be
that grown ups didn't want to see a
drama about teens, and teens didn't want to see
a drama that was so adult (again, the cat didn't
recognize itself in the mirror).
And for all its artfulness, the series
isn't perfect in the way, say, most episodes
of "The Sopranos" are. Promising plotlines
are not always pursued (whatever happened
to the scandal about Ray "Voodoo" Tatom's
eligibility, for example? Or what about the
fallout from Tyra Collette's affair with
that Los Angeles businessman?).
The show is also not quite as subversive or
edgy as it could be if it were on, say, HBO, and
it occasionally succumbs to cliches of the mainstream.
Wouldn't it have been adventurous to paint
Voodoo as somewhat insubordinate (instead of
over-the-top insubordinate) but also so
indispensable on the gridiron that Coach
Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler)couldn't manage
without him on the team? And wouldn't
it have been refreshingly unpredicatble if
Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles)
actually saw his fortunes soar because
of his steroid use while suffering no major
health problems from the 'roids?
But this being network TV -- where
happy endings rule, teamwork is always a
good thing and (unlike in real life)
bad deeds bring bad consequences -- those
plotlines probably won't happen. As James
Gandolfini once remarked, if "The Sopranos"
had been produced for network TV instead
of for HBO, his mobster character would
likely have been helping law enforcement
on the sly.
But that said, most critics have
rightly noticed that the show is exceptional
from intro to outro, and the examples of
its high quality are numerous (e.g.,
the way Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) grows
with almost each episode as her previous
identity gradually falls away; the way
Saracen is being robbed of his youth
by too many grown-up responsibilities;
how the bitterness of the father of the
recently crippled Jason Street eerily
resembles the bitterness of Jason
himself; how Billy Riggins's attempts
to become a better person are thwarted
at almost every turn; the way Lyla's
car-dealing dad, Buddy Garrity
(Brad Leland), has such an appetite and
taste for the small-time (and also seems
to genuinely believe all that dealership
jargon with gusto!).
But all that light may well
be extinguished this year. If so, the
cancellation of the series may teach us
new traumatic truths, such as:
talent does not always out and endings
are not always happy.
* * *
By the way, the most perceptive writing about
"FNL" has come from Virginia Heffernan in
The New York Times. She really does have
an impressive sense of what it's
about.
But I digress. Paul
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THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for Saturday, February 24, 2007
Katie, Meredith and Bob: Get Back to
Where You Once Belonged!
Katie Couric should return to the "Today" show,
Meredith Vieira should go back
to "The View" and Bob Schieffer should get back
to the "CBS Evening News." Immediately.
Before any further damage is done.
Of the four, Couric should go first and fast,
if she wants to avoid becoming Connie
Chunged, a real risk. In her new job as anchor
of "The CBS Evening News," Couric
seems to have shrunk, literally and figuratively --
along with the ratings for the program,
now at third place (and counting).
Remember that just months or ago Couric filled
the screen like a commander on "Today." But at CBS,
she seems too small for the screen, almost a pip-squeak
and (particularly when she appears as the low person on
the totem pole in the "60 Minutes"
intro) like the eager junior partner all ready to serve
coffee to Leslie Stahl. CBS has succeeded in
turning an empress into an office temp.
Katie used to be hard at 7AM but is now
the softest thing at 7PM, and that's not
good. After work, at 6:30, we want to hear
the tough stuff undiluted because we're fresh
off the subway or the freeway, we've argued
over a train seat or a parking spot, we're
hot and we want our schadenfreude up straight,
which is what ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's
Brian Williams give us, and what Bob Schieffer
used to provide. Which probably
explains why, despite all the hype and promotion
of Couric, she's essentially doing no
better than Schieffer did in the ratings -- and
a lot worse, relative to expectations.
Meanwhile, Meredith Vieira, who
used to be sort of irresistible, is a bit more
resistible in her tense new partnership with Matt
Lauer on "Today." And Lauer seems to
treat her like the new girl in class, the
one with knee-high socks who transferred from
some Country Day School, and he's always
high-fiving old pal Al Roker and giving off the
vibe that he's not the least bit interested
in that snooty new girl in his homeroom class
because he's seen plenty better, he's seen
paradise in Katie, and there'll never ever
ever be another Katie.
If Couric returns to "Today," Vieira
should return to save increasingly
chaotic "The View."
Problem is, you can't go home
again (to coin a phrase). Or as the Greek
philosopher Heraclitis put it, you can't
step in the same river twice (because it keeps
moving forward into a new form). In the very
unlikely event that Couric, Vieira or Fey ever
decide to return to their previous shows, they'd
come back as demoted losers, which is
different from who they were when they left.
So the fantasy wouldn't work. Only Schieffer
would be credible returning to his old role,
on "The CBS Evening News," without losing a
bit of stature. Ironic that the only one who
had the word "interim" in his title turns out to
be the most durable.
By the way, tv viewers in every local market
have their own favorite tv newsperson who
they think should ascend to the national level.
When I lived in New York in the 1990s,
there was lots of buzz about New York 1's Annika
Pergament, who had such onscreen appeal that
she was even singled out to appear in several
episodes of HBO's "The Sopranos."
Out here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there's
plenty of tv talent, but in my opinion the
person with the charisma and the brains and the
screen presence of a national star anchor is Carolyn
Johnson of the ABC affiliate KGO in S.F., who
commands attention quietly but unmistakably, even
for viewers who couldn't care less about the
rockslide in Orinda or the flood in Noe
Valley. Sort of like a young Beth Nissen
(circa "World News Now") with a slight touch
of Jessica Savitch. Worth checking out
on the KGO website.
The NBC and CBS affiliates in SF also have
their bright lights, though I know for
a fact that at least one top manager at
PIX is not always an honest man, and that
diminishes the station's news credibility.
(To expand on that: in October 2000, the KPIX mgr,
Dan Rosenheim, wrote a detailed letter to my editor
about his "discussion" with me about a minor story I'd
written. Only problem is, we had never spoken to each
other in our lives -- ever -- and he knew that. We
had never spoken one-on-one or in a group or on
the telephone or at a meeting or via email or via
snail mail or in any other context, and yet he wrote
a detailed letter to my editor about my "conversation" with
him. And I'm not leaving anything out of this anecdote,
either. (For more on the Rosenheim fabrication,
go to www.resumesidenotes.blogspot.com.)
* * *
Personal Note To You-Know-Who: My piece on Woody Allen
in the early 1990s was in the issue of New York Newsday with Sol Wachler
on the cover. Hope that makes looking for it easier.
But I digress. Paul.
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