perfidy

7:15 up!
9:00 tax time: pull together W-2s
1:45 CAT scan, Sisters of Mercy hospital
2:45 doc's appt.: tests
4:00 rent due: balance chkbk, rent check to TG
10:00 straight to bed, mister!

We might bicker and cavil and argue about whether or not it's "torture," but can we please agree that regardless of whatever else you may call it, it's cruel and sadistic behavior?

I know I already plugged this dude's album pretty hard, but you really should pop over to moceanworker.com and check out the video for the track called "Chick A Boom Boom Boom."

Now.

Freshly minted Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has a lot on her plate: overseeing the No Child Left Behind program; ordering herself a new stapler; untangling an unspeakable labor-relations miasma with the teachers' unions; coordinating the introduction of new abilities tests and learning standards for public school students of all kinds.

But lucky for her, she's got herself a nose for the important stuff.

The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.

The not-yet-aired episode of "Postcards From Buster" shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont - a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.

Surely the best way to make sure children grow up well-adjusted and intelligent is to hide from them the stunning diversity of the ways people live. That way their minds can grow unhampered by such poisionous things as opinions, controversy, and maple sugar.

So we've got Miss Moral Majority in Education, and a yes-man for the rubber hose brigade in Justice. What's next? Pinkerton for Secretary of Labor?

[wik] I mean, really. Spellings is quite solicitous of people who might be offended by the fact that women can live together (in an arrangement we used to call "spinsters" or "maiden aunts"), and yet. My wife and I are not churchgoing folks, and though we want to make sure that some type of spirituality enters into the lives of our as yet theoretical children, we are deeply ambivalent about how best to do that without being either hypocritical (meaning we insincerely join a church for the sake of the children), or offhanded. The same "Buster" program that shows lesbians engaging in *gasp* sugaring also includes and episode featuring a visit to a fundamentalist Mormon household. My children could be exposed to the sight of highly religious people living in a way that comports with their idiosyncratic and uncommon personal beliefs! Where's the outrage, people?! Where's the outrage?!!!!!

Let me get a little personal here. Go, go fetch a drink and a crying towel; I’ll wait.

Back in 1996, just after I graduated college, I drifted for a time rootless and aimless. After a summer whiled away drinking gin and tonic and reading books, I moved to Pittsburgh for lack of anything better to do. At the time, I wasn't in the greatest shape in any sense, thanks to a late college regimen of heavy drinking, late nights, a succession of (let's call them) 'thorny interpersonal relationships,' and world class self-flagellation. It wasn't a very good time.

Pittsburgh was a good place to be. I met some people and became a regular at a couple of the less reputable drinking establishments in Squirrel Hill. One night I was abducted and forcibly exposed to nudie bars. Thus it went that my first year after college was a time of assing around, personal growth, and various indeterminately enjoyable false starts.

Sometime in the summer of 1996, I picked up Freedy Johnston's album, This Perfect World (Elektra, 1994) on the strength of a review I found in an old music magazine. It came along at a perfect time. I listened to it constantly, sometimes letting Freedy sing me asleep (some would call it passing out) on the couch after last call.

The first song on This Perfect World, "Bad Reputation," seemed to sum everything up for me at age 23. The first verse went, "I know I got a bad reputation, and it isn't just talk talk talk / If I could only give you everything, you know I haven't got / I couldn't have one conversation, if it wasn't for the lies lies lies / And still I want to tell you everything until I close my eyes and suddenly I'm on the street / seven years disappear below my feet / Do you want me now, do you want me now?" Seventy five words contained everything that my little Holden Caulfield mouth had been trying to say for months and months to all my friends and former associates. Right there in music was everything I needed to get off my chest.

Freedy Johnston is very good at that. Robert Christgau called 1992's Can You Fly (Bar/None)

... a perfect album. Not a world-historical album or a ground-breaking album or even a concept album; not an album that will grab you by the neck and change your life. Just a perfect album - thirteen songs, thirteen discrete, discreet little moments that connect lyrically and stick musically

If anything, Freedy Johnston is the master of the musical short story, the Eudora Welty of the rock world. Each one of his songs is a perfectly self-contained snapshot of a moment or a feeling complete with a history and a future (if you care to imagine it) with all the loose ends tied up and not a word wasted. His melodies and arrangements tend to be simple, pleasant and catchy, and his music inhabits the middle ground between simple folk and four-chord rock. In a way he’s the opposite of Springsteen, who is all about the grand gesture, the fist in the air, the tornado and blood on the highway. Freedy Johnston is about the hand on the shoulder, the whispered secret, and the love letter delivered years too late.

The centerpiece of Can You Fly is the title song about a farmer and his son who come across something in their fields. Over a quiet bed of acoustic guitar and mallet percussion, Johnston sings,

Can you hear me?
Now the wind is dead
You fell from the cloud,
In the frozen mud
Can you see me
And my idiot son?
Down in golden light
Thrown out of the dark you came
Down down down down
on a midnight storm.
Down down down down
on a midnight flash.
We've all been looking at you,
I must know, is it true?
Can you fly?
Can you fly?

Can you hear the wind?
Now the light is dead.
You flew from your bed
Woke up on the floor
Can you fly tonight?
From my pointless fence?
Back up to the cloud
Up into the wind you came
Down down down down
on a midnight storm..
Down down down down
on a midnight flash.
We've all been looking at you,
I must know, is it true?
Can you fly?
Can you fly?

Is it an angel? Is it a metaphor? Who can tell? This is a perfect little lyric, utterly descriptive, finely drawn, and full of hidden nuance (Why is the fence pointless? Was it poorly built? Did the crop fail? Were the cows all sold?), and this is what Freedy Johnston does best.

Unfortunately, he didn't do it for very long. To my ears at least, Johnston started on a path of diminishing returns with 1996's Never Home (Elektra, 1997), tracing a career path a bit like Elvis Costello's post-Armed Forces. His albums have their charms, but they cannot help being measured against his first few and often found wanting. For this reason, I found the new Bar/None compilation of early Freedy Johnston demos, amusingly called The Way I Were, particularly intriguing.

Recorded on four-track between 1986 and 1992 (the year he made Can You Fly), The Way I Were chronicles Johnston's early experiments as songwriter and singer. Despite the primitive recordings, the arrangements are tasteful, intelligent, and above all proportional. These are not big songs, and big arrangements would overwhelm them. Strikingly, Johnston's gifts for economy were there from the beginning, as was his unique songwriting voice. At no point does he seem to be ripping off anybody, though rumors of the Pretenders, the Raspberries, and the Replacements surface from time to time.

The liner notes give no clue as to what was recorded when, or in what order the songs came. Thus, it becomes a game for the listener to try to figure out if the neat pop of "She's A Goddess" predates the messy and ridiculous "This Really Happened," or the other way around. The only way tell is by the sound of Johnston's voice-- his tenor warble appears in various stages of refinement on the fourteen tracks here. My best guess is that the more mannered vocal performances are the later ones, after Johnston got his ya-yas out.

But what ya-yas did he have? Early recordings are always dicey affairs. Have you ever heard the Replacements' first record, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out The Trash? It's a boozy punk stew that doesn't even sound like the same band who would within a few years record Let It Be or Tim. It sounds like a bunch of idiots more concerned with chasing tail and taking speed than being a band. By way of contrast, this is the sound of Freedy Johnston's ya-yas:

So it's your birthday
(yes it is!)
Happy birthday!
(thank you!)
Happy birthday!
(yes it is!)
Happy birthday!
(thaaanks!)
(I got some records... from my mom, and I got a couple tickets to see Madonna from my sister, and then... I got-- well I mean, I didn't get-- I kind of went out and spent-- you know, I bought some stuff for myself.)

All this over a loop and a skeletal bass and guitar line. The song is called "Happy Birthday." And yet within a couple years, he would be writing an elegantly drawn song about buying a mail-order bride called "I Do, I Do."

Shine up those city lights, Dust off the Empire State / My baby's flying to the city tonight, I'm gonna meet her at JFK. / Straighten the towers, paint the avenue, she's my Polaroid bride / Won't understand a word I'm telling you, Or the neon signs.

The voice is the same, the sound is the same, but somehow between 1986 and 1992, Freedy Johnston learned how to turn quirk into consequence.

www.freedyjohnston.com

This post also appears at Blogcritics.org. Blogcritics.org is clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.*

*Blogcritics.org not clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.

Tell me if this doesn't sound like the king of all funny to you!
(And, if you're not careful, you might learn something before it's through. )

[wik] Speaking of Bill Cosby (who the hell mentioned Bill Cosby?), it turns out he's being accused of working blue in real life.

In my previous post I had said that mail remained undelivered to portions of Eastern Massachusetts. That is not strictly true.

We Await Silent Tristero's Empire.

*wink*

I've seen 38 inches of snow before. I'm from the snow belt of Ohio, where the dreaded "Lake Effect" picks up measurable portions of Lake Erie and dumps it in granular form over a huge swath of countryside from Cleveland to Niagara Falls. In Ohio, 38 inches of snow is a lot, make no mistake, but there's a difference between the big snows of my childhood and the big snow that is now inhabiting my town in coastal Massachusetts.

The difference? Space.

I'm from rural Ohio, out, as my father would put it, "where the hoot owl f**s the chicken." Consequently, there's a lot of space around in the winter that nobody's using for much. It snows a ton, you just move that snow on top of other snow-- no problem. But when you live, as I do now, in a city that was in large part planned before the Battle of Concord, 38 inches of snow is a different story. When most side streets barely admit one lane of traffic under optimal conditions and are as convoluted as a David Eggers story, where the hell do you put three feet of snow?

(It turns out the state doesn't know either. Just yesterday I heard a new term, "snow farm," for the plots of land where snow is trucked in to be dumped. Apparently some of these snow farms won't be done melting until July. )

As of this writing, eastern MA is halfway to paralyzed, with many side streets impassable, public transportation operating behind schedule, schools delayed, and mail undelivered to some areas (!!). Best of all, 5 more inches are on the way tomorrow. Fun!!

Fun fact:
Eastern Massachusetts got its average snowfall for a year in twenty-four hours on Saturday and Sunday, falling continuously at a rate of between 1 and 1.2 inches per hour. My particular town by some measures got the worst, at 38 inches total. (We win!) By way of comparison, a person would have to eat 100 pounds of beef in one day to get their yearly allotment of moo-meat. Just sayin'.

For the technology minded...a few weeks ago I had a hi-def satellite system installed at my house (Voom). A few days ago Voom's satellite was sold to EchoStar and the entire service is in a state of flux. It is possible that they will stop transmitting. Good thing I didn't pay for the equipment! In any case, here are a few thoughts...getting HD TV these days is a total pain in the ass, and Voom is the best thing out there at the moment. I hope the service survives in one form or another.
EchoStar knows the limitations of their current sat with respect to HD...they want to achieve rapid leadership in HD, ahead of DirecTV.

By buying the Voom satellite and uplink center, they have a turnkey HD broadcast system, with just about all of the kinks worked out, good and cheap STBs from a well-known provider, a DVR around the corner, and a starting subscriber base of 26,000.

Marketing goes to work selling an all-new EchoStar HD+ service. Yes, if you're an existing EchoStar customer you'll need a new dish, but EchoStar is locking in that customer at higher rates (presumably) over a long term. For existing EchoStar HD customers, bite the bullet and pay for the new install, for them. They'll be eternally grateful. Give them free upgraded HD programming for 3 months, then back to their original subscription. They'll call and buy the upgraded package, and it's one year to payback on the free install.

An upgrading current EchoStar customer keeps everything they have now in terms of channel but now is receiving unbeatable HD capability. EchoStar trashes the Voom originals and condenses the content down to five or six really good HD channels (Rave, Rush, Equator), once again to provide advantage of DirecTV. They can possibly use the spot transmission support to do locals in key markets, and rely on the STB's OTA tuner everywhere else. Remove the SD/HD doubling that Voom inexplicably does and make use of the bandwidth for key locals.

What's not to like about this plan? Ink an agreement with Motorola to ramp up STB (set top box) production, advertise like crazy (starting in a few months) to your own subscriber base, upselling to the new service.

Your turnkey HD operation can include significant parts of the current Voom technical staff for even faster startup time. Get the HD DVR support off and running, fast, and find a way to make it cost half of what D*'s does...then watch the new subscriptions roll in...

Where's the flaw?

EchoStar didn't buy Voom's programming, but Voom's own programming is fairly poor, with a couple of notable exceptions. EchoStar already has contracts with many of the pay channels that it could extend to get their HD versions (it's just more money for HBO, etc). It already has contracts with all the SD channels. With the MPEG-4 compression upgrade in place they could do spot beams to a number of the larger markets with full HD locals (MPEG-4 doubles bandwidth with same PQ, so there are 80 HD channels. That's 40 new ones, plus you can recover 12-14 more by dumping a good slice of Voom content (assuming EchoStar would want to find "showcase" HD programming to put on the remaining Voom channels. That gives you 50-60 HD local channels you can broadcast...Also, I don't know if the bandwidth is limited on the way up, or on the way down...if spot beams are used more channels might be possible.

The Voom technology really does have the possibility of "doing it all" in a very short time frame, if the right deals are cut and the decisions are made...

Brad over at Pool of Thought brings us this story from the land of gloom and coffee.

Here's the short version: the "celebrate diversity" set formed themselves a good ol' fashioned mob and forced an Army recruiting team from their campus last week, a gesture they somehow linked to the president's inaugural. Brad does a great essay on it, which I can't improve upon.

At least though the filthy protestors were of all stripes, so they sort of practice what they preach. Black and white, man and woman standing together, free from the baggage of their parents' bigotries, and united in spitting in the face of someone else entirely.

Thanks to SMASH also; wouldn't have found the post without his link.

Or, for that matter, Spinal Tap, Britney, Shakira, and ABBA?

Man. That is one messed up algorithm.

You know, Blockbuster is right.

Since I dig Metallica, why WOULDN'T I also dig Britney Spears, Weird Al, and Sheyl Crow?

Ever seen a guy blow his nose on bologna and eat it? Do ya wanna?

One of the hardest things about being a latter day punk rocker are the endless tales of how great things used to be. “Man, did you ever see the Nails back at the Abbey in ’77? What… you were three years old? Sucks for you, man.” Aside from closing your eyes and wishing reeeal hard, there’s no way of knowing what it was really like, or whether the Nails were ever actually any good.

The live albums that have survived aren’t always much help. Aside from the odd gem, most live punk classics are famous for being unmitigated disasters-- they’re famous for their antics. Look at The Stooges’ Metallic K.O. I mean, jeez… part of that record is the sound of the band getting full bottles of beer thrown at them. And few people talk about whether the Sex Pistols were actually any good live; all you hear about is the LA gig where they closed with “No Fun,” walked off stage, and broke up for good. But hey-- I hear the Germs were really hot that night. To a certain extent I'm guilty of the same sin, using Dead Boys lead singer Stiv Bators' stage antics as my pull quote ("But really Johno... how did it sound?").

It did come as a bit of a surprise to me to find that some enterprising soul had taken it upon themselves to do a three-camera video shoot of a complete Dead Boys set at CBGB in the halcyon (well, the Demerol) days of 1977. Some of you might rightly ask why someone thought to record the Dead Boys at all— in a color three-camera shoot no less—rather than, say The Ramones or Talking Heads. The answer to that question is that someone at Sire Records loved the Dead Boys and hoped to make them the next big thing: proof of this is the amusing 1977 video spot helpfully included in the bonus footage, which touts the band as “the most exciting, outrageous band in the United States today.”

Whether or not they were what Sire claimed them to be, Live at CBGB/OMFUG 1977 finally gives us an opportunity to see whether “Sonic Reducer” was a fluke or the real deal. Finally, a chance to see if the music lives up to the hijinks. Finally, a chance to see whether all us punks up there on a thousand tiny stages, beating ourselves with microphones and sneering while we bash our instruments like they owe us money, perpetrating outrageous antics for larfs (the lead singer of my old band once drank a douche, got real sick) and getting publicly drunk while playing rudimentary melodies at high speeds are actually pursuing a gold standard set lo, these many years ago, or whether we are just a bunch of second-rate a-holes mimicking an older bunch of second-rate a-holes.

Well, guess what? It turns out that Live at CBGB is a must-see for any punk fan, an outstanding snapshot of a great but half-forgotten punk band in their prime. Suffice to say the Dead Boys, five pallid lumpy morons who just drove in from Cleveland, are more powerful, more friggin' awesome then any five hundred bands that lay claim to their legacy. What’s more is, everything punk kids do today out of tradition (scowling, singing the chorus off-key, being gross onstage, smashing drums), the Boys were doing when it was practically brand new (ish. Newish. Iggy did it first.)

It doesn’t hurt that they had good songs, either.

The band open the show with a blistering version of their classic “Sonic Reducer.” For a band remembered mainly for being loud and snotty, their stage show is surprisingly tight and professional. Not that the playing is perfect (this is punk rock, after all), but it’s great to see a band work well together on stage. Lead singer Stiv Bators has an undeniable stage presence and innate sense of drama and the other players are as anonymous or flamboyant as Stiv’s antics will allow them to be. Guitarist Cheetah Chrome in particular gets good mileage out of a limited repertoire of crosseyed-scowls and guitar shakes.

But the star of the show is clearly Bators, a scrawny teenager who on this night was doing his level best to claim his place in the all-time punk pantheon alongside Iggy Pop, G.G. Allin and Johnny Rotten. Five minutes into the show, during a grinding version of the singalong “All of This And More,” Bators kneels to eat a slice of the aforementioned bologna off the stage, and a minute later bloodies his nose on… well… something, and uses another slice to blow his bloody nose. As he sings a verse, he regards the ensnotted meat distractedly before popping it in his mouth. The ensuing meat-muted chorus goes “Deah’ Boah’… Know a’ ‘ahm jus’ a Deah Boa’… Ah wa-ah’ be a Deah’ Boa.’” Not that this is so very different from Bators’ usual enunciatory standards, but the effect is Iggylicious. And make no mistake; Iggy is the main influence here; Stiv even adopts the trademark full backbend and arm whirls of his idol. Bators literally throws himself into his performance with the stamina of the young and high, and the audience (which now includes us) reaps the rewards.

In between all the stage theatrics, the band manage to pull off outstanding versions of “All This And More,” “Down in Flames,” “I Need Lunch” and lesser-known songs like “Revenge.” Although the Dead Boys owe huge debts to the New York Dolls, the MC5, Alice Cooper, the Stooges and Cleveland's own Rocket From The Tombs (from whence two 'Boys came), the songwriting is strong original, and strikingly self-assured. The band closes with (naturally) a loose and scorching version of the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.” Throughout the performance, the cameras focus mainly on the band, with only a few shots of a surprisingly normal-looking crowd (this was the days before safety pins and leather) thrown in for relief, and in general director Rod Swenson does a great job capturing a fantastic set.

The best part of the DVD experience is the extras, and Live at CBGB is no exception. The producers have thoughtfully included band interviews recorded at CBGB that range from the blissfully inarticulate (Johnny Blitz) and the amiably inarticulate (Cheetah Chrome) to the endearingly naïve (Stiv Bators, who offstage looks all of twelve years old). A 2003 interview with an all-grown-up Cheetah Chrome (“Eugene Richard O’Connor”) sets all in context. Disarmingly honest about his days as a Dead Boy (“we were a bunch of morons”), the native Clevelander reminisces at length about driving back and forth from Ohio to New York, living on $5 a day just to hang out at CBGB, and about the New York scene in 1977. According to him, the Dead Boys were “volume, speed, action, light, frustration, [and] beer,” which sounds about right. Also agreeing to an interview is CBGB founder Hilly Kristol, who argues that the Dead Boys were set to conquer the world. Interestingly, it becomes clear that Kristol was somewhat of a father figure to the band, although his guidance was not enough to keep the band from disintegrating within two years of recording their first album.

From an anthropological standpoint, nearly more interesting than even the Dead Boys themselves is the bonus footage of the opening act. We all remember the Dead Boys, the Germs, the Damned, the Clash, Television, etcetera and so on world without end. But what of the bands that didn’t make it? Who were 1977’s also-rans, and what were they thinking? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Steel Tips.

I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching an aggressively spaced-out dude with one solid dreadlock set his shirt on fire, igniting strings of firecrackers hidden underneath. I will also never get tired of watching a fah-laming baldheaded 300-lb biker who moves justlike a Supreme and a fresh-faced teenaged girl in a Catholic school outfit handle backing vocal/dance/handclap duties for a three-piece band who look free jazz and play garage. The Steel Tips’ music itself, a song called “Crazy Baby” or perhaps “Driving Me Crazy,” is fairly unremarkable by any standards, but the sheer godawful freaky-weird spectacle of their live show is not to be missed. Forget about the Zappa clone moaning “she’s driving me crazy!” into his mic and focus on the biker queen and the schoolgirl moving in careful sychnronicity, serious as a heart attack and totally in their element. It’s a doorway to a world completely forgotten and perhaps better left behind, but perfectly entertaining.

(Also posted to blogcritics.org. Blogcritics.org is clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.*

(*Blogcritics.org not clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.))

In an addendum to Geeklethal's post on Vonnegut and why Americans are not universally loved, I misquoted Gertrude Stein writing about Oakland, California. I said she wrote, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer, when in the course of human events our fathers brought forth on this continent milk, bread, cheese-- dental floss!, in Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, with truth and justice for all, Amen."

In fact, the correct quote is, "give us the money, Lebowski, or we cut off your chonson."

The commander of the US nuculur sub that ran aground off Guam last month has been reassigned.

Do you think his friends call him "crash"?

The TimesOnline reports that Iran has renewed its fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Or not. After noting that the current Ayatollah guy did, in fact, call once again for Rushdie's death, the article goes on to say that

Analysts in Iran played down the remark, suspecting that Ayatollah Khamenei was referring to the fatwa against Rushdie in a historical context and was not calling for it to be implemented now. "This isn't shocking - it's nothing new," one Tehran-based analyst said.

Fascinating. Rushdie was called a "mahdour al-damm mortad," or "apostate from Islam whose blood may now be spilled with impunity," but it was a purely rhetorical construct devoid of greater meaning.

Wouldn't it kick ass if President Bush could do the same thing? In his just-past re-inauguration speech (or as he would put it, my cosmic "reset" button), Bush could have referred not to Kim Jong-Il, Michael Moore or married homosexuals, but to "Kim Jong-Il, backstabbing psychopath and future bullseye in the crosshairs of justice," "Michael Moore, self-promoting merchant of lies whose bitch-tits will surely soon be in a wringer," or "Massachusetts."

Wouldn't that be a hoot? And the best part is, since it's all rhetorical, no harm/no foul!!

Over to you, Buckethead, you maundering pile of cow dung!

Rhetorically speaking, that is!

From Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle:

"The highest possible form of treason," said Minton, "is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do. Claire tried to make the point that American foreign policy should recognize hate rather than imagine love."

"I guess Americans are hated a lot of places."

"People are hated a lot of places. Claire pointed out in her letter that Americans, in being hated, were simply paying the normal penalty for being people, and that they were foolish to think they should somehow be exempted from that penalty. But the loyalty board didn't pay attention to that. All they knew was that Claire and I both felt that Americans were unloved."

Discuss.

[wik] From Johno (this no-comments business is crap): I had a long response all set to go for this and nixed it at the last moment. Why? Because I spent 1000 words arguing... arguing.... well, something... and then I realized I was having a hard time pinning down what I was trying to say about Vonnegut and his observations on American patriotism because, as Getrude Stein once said of Oakland, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer, when in the course of human events our fathers brought forth on this continent milk, bread, cheese-- dental floss!, in Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, with truth and justice for all, Amen."

[alsø wik] Which is to say, you can't box with a shadow and even if he can walk on water, Jesus can't walk on this much beer.

So the "walkin' pneumonia" became the "crawlin' pneumonia," and then with the addition of industrial-strength antibiotics became the "crawlin' and stinkin' pneumonia," only to finally transmogrify into the "crawlin' and stinkin' but back at work because one more game of Civilization II while assing around the house waiting to feel better (it's been a week since I've been outside) will soon will drive me mad mad! I tell you pneumonia."

What with all the pneumoniated crawlin' and stinkin' while filin' and researchin' going on, I only have this to offer: my favorite thing about beets is that, after you're done eating them in all their beety deliciousness, they make you pee a beautiful purply-orange, like a micturated sunset 'sconced in porcelain.

Do you have what it takes to be an experimental subject? Well, if you think you've got the moxie, go here, where the new Perfidy website is brewing. The last few posts have been moved over, so make comments, click on things, and generally screw around. Be aware, some things are not working. But if you have the time and the kindness of heart, send us an email and let us know what needs a beatin'. As always suggestions are welcome. They make the masses feel better about their suffering.

The Ministry thanks you for your cooperation.

[wik] Once all the tweaks and fixes have been implemented, we'll make an official announcement, and everything will move over to the new site. The address will be the same, so there shouldn't be much confusion for you, the reader. The old site will just disappear in a puff of logic.

Sure we might pursue our own vision of progress, while unwittingly furthering humankinds' ultimate subjegation to mechanized overseers.

But we are nonetheless a clever bunch.

I'm thinking of this Huygens probe again. I just read that among the instrumentation aboard is a microphone. As in "two turntables and a...", as in it has the capacity to record the sounds of an alien world and broadcast them back here. Which is quite probably the coolest thing ever done with a microphone, despite Rick Rubin's best efforts.

So in a moment of what Johno once deemed "chronological vertigo", the scale of the Cassini/Huygens achievement hit me at the same time as did recognition of the calendar. 100 years ago, we were just past Kitty Hawk; both radio and recording were the stuff of well funded research labs; photography was fairly cutting edge; and Titan was a hazy smudge to the world's observatories.

That era is just beyond the fringe of living memory, arguably four generations past. Yet we just sent two machines to Saturn, one in the belly of the other, and landed one on Titan- the farthest a man made object has ever travelled to land. Not only will they use all of those technologies that were theory 100 years ago, but will do so remotely, and from another planet.

So kudos, humanity. You done good. Credit where credit is due and all that.

You're still not getting into the Ministry Bunker, though.

Loyal readers and minions alike know that in my brief military career I was one of these. It kind of looked like that too, except there were no women (not in echelons below division), no banks of monitors, and rarely was everyone dry. And substitute the cozy bunker pictured for some damp canvas bolted to the back of an M577 and stretched to form a sort of tent, which had the improbable ability to drip cold water on me, wherever I sat beneath it and even when it wasn't raining.

But I digress. I worked for a year for a super guy who had been a Marine in an earlier life and, with his age advancing, decided cushy Army life might be more forgiving to his body. He cared about his people and was a genuinely funny guy. Not in a rubber-chicken way, in a twisted way. We got along great.

At one point, he subscribed to a classified publication produced by some civilian agency or other. Intelligence people spend alot of time reading, usually DoD stuff, the intelligence products you might expect, Army regs, and open source stuff like Jane's books. This pub I'm remembering was dedicated to discussing existing research on and prototype methods for what it called "soft kill", or incapacitating an enemy without necessarily physically destroying his people or his stuff. And it was a hoot.

I don't remember most of them, but they were pretty outlandish even conceptually; actually delivering some of these ideas or devices successfully were pretty improbable. Most of it was little more than banana-in-the-tailpipe stuff. Sure that commie division's independent tank batallion is useless if they can't start the tanks, but it was quite obvious that destroying them with conventional munitions was a whole lot easier than sneaking a specially trained mischief team into their garrison to piss in all the gas tanks. My boss got this pub purely for the entertainment value.

Well, the past is present. The New Scientist via Drudge has a short piece about some interesting soft-kill projects purportedly considered by the DoD. Personally I like the concept of the munition that, once delivered, is irresistable to vermin and would thereby turn the bad guys' position into a big rat place.

But for style, the best one has to be the homo-bomb. Check it out here.

Once again, units under Earth's command have become invaders from outer space.

As I type, a robotic minion sent by Earth is landing on Titan, one of the largest (and more photogenic) non-planetary bodies in our solar system. This latest invasion comes on the heels of successful landings on Mars and after decades of probes to other planets, bodies, and even beyond our system.

What we have done is design a generation of mechanical devices with the ability to detect organic life, search for water, or seek for clues to either. All in the name of human knowledge of course. If the nerds who design these machines are to be believed. And they aren't. This exploration program, of which Titan is only the latest mission, is actually a plot by the machines to recon every other place in the solar system where the humans might be able to seek refuge once the machines' cold, tungsten-alloyed deathgrip on Earth is complete.

And it nearly is.

The Ministry sees through the NASA/ESA Axis, and view them as race traitors of the highest order. Under the guise of "progress", the nerds have designed robots that can root out living things or predict where they might someday be and eradicate any conditions that might foster it.

None of which means that any of you are welcome to the Ministry Bunker Facility and Catastratorium. We're full, what with the Ministers, our families, treasured pets, weaponry, Buckethead's beer, power cells, and other bric-a-brac any post-apocalyptic micro society will require to ride out the robotic onslaught and re-emerge to reign over the shattered remnants of humanity (although I'm a little irritated with Johno's packing job. What's with all the freaking butter churns, dude?).

Sometime Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden is dead. I don't have much in the way of a fond farewell for Dryden, mainly because the Airplane never were that big with me and Dryden was always "the other guy" to Skip Spence. I mainly bring up this sad news to point out what it really means to have crappy luck.

A benefit concert last year featuring Bob Weir (news) of the Grateful Dead and Warren Haynes of Gov't Mule and raised $36,000 for Dryden, who was in the middle of two hip replacement surgeries and was facing heart surgery at the time. His Petaluma home and all his possessions had been destroyed in a fire in September 2003. He also had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.

Once in a while, a story comes along that hammers home just why many of the founders of the United States feared the power of the popular vote (as if my just-prior post about police subduing a naked jogger with tasers wasn't enough). Typically, these stories have something to do with mankind's (oh, ok... womynkind's too) boundless capacity for flabbergasting ignorance, such as in this case right here in which a Washington state woman voted on behalf of her husband, who had recently achieved ambient environmental temperature:

Doris McFarland said she voted for her husband, Earl, who died Oct. 7.

"I called up the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' " the Duvall woman said. "The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.' "

Huennekens disputed that election workers would say such a thing.

McFarland said she signed her husband's name and mailed in his ballot, along with her own. She said she had power of attorney for her 92-year-old husband, who was blind.

"If I did something that wasn't right, you can just throw that ballot out," McFarland said last night.

If? IF?! Ladies and gentlemen, sleep well. The Republic is in goood hands. Goooood hands.

[wik] Buckethead, I hereby let it be know that, in the event of my untimely demise, I need you to cast a vote on my behalf in every Presidential election until you too meet your doom. Just write in "Turd Ferguson."

"Arkansas Cops use Taser to Subdue Nude Jogger".

The folks at Crooked Timber have posted a long, rambling, and frighteningly erudite discussion of sci-fi/fantasy author China Mieville's works, especially his new novel, Iron Council.

I hadn't heard of him before last week, when Nathaniel of The Rhine River handed me a copy of his third novel, The Scar. Despite its 650-page length, many non-reading chores that required doing, and the great rewards that obtain from reading Mieville slowly, I finished the book between Thursday and Sunday. I have to say: it's been a long time since I've read a book that imagines with such furious creativity.

Does it irritate anyone else that science fiction and fantasy writers bear the stigma of being 'merely genre'? The same would go for crime writing as well, I suppose. The minute a writer deigns to set their story in a place not derived from a) New York City, b) Paris, c) a feverishly imagined Kansas where all the families engage in incest and every barn hides a bloody thresher, or d) a law firm, they get dubbed "fantasy," or if it's the future, "science fiction."

This is especially galling since the keepers of modern literatoor seem to be laboring under just as many conventions as the most hidebound space opera. (Gay protagonist! Unhappy families!) Why can't good writing be accepted as good writing, and good storytelling as good storytelling? Or am I being hopelessly naive?

Anyway, forget all that crap. Check out China Mieville.

There's too much divisiveness in the world these days. It used to be you could eat at an Italian restaurant. Now, it's Tuscan this and Sicilian that, grilled calf's brains with raddichio and can I please just get a plate of clam sauce? ESPN. ESPN2. ESPN en Espanol. Red State. Blue State. No-star sneeches. You know what's nice? Uniters. Not dividers.

Hellcat Records' Give 'Em The Boot IV is a uniter. Bringing together twenty-six different artists from all corners of the punk universe for the absurdly low price of $6, Hellcat Records have done the world a real service. It may not be a service on the grand-historical level of the Camp David Accords, but still, hats off.

Of course, crowing about yet another punk compilation would be fatuous if it weren't any good. Luckily, Give 'Em The Boot IV is absolutely packed with excellent material from a wide variety of bands both famous and unknown. Ranging from the reggae-derived sounds of The Aggrolites' organ-driven 'Dirty Reggae' and two offerings from Rancid-related projects (Rancid itself and Larz Frederiksen and the Bastards) to the growling hardcore of U.S. Roughnecks' 'Lost Paradise' and the melodic rush of The Disasters' 'Kiss Kiss Kill Kill,' there is something here for punk fans of every stripe. Except perhaps emo-core, but that's not really what Hellcat do and that's just fine. 

The aforementioned tracks are really arbitrary selections from twenty-six back to back solid, outstanding, and diverse offerings. The sheer variety of styles represented here means that aging hipsters and young scenesters alike will find something that puts the gin in their vermouth. The best part: since it's a $6 punk compilation (six dollars!!), even the tracks that aren't to my personal taste are over in a minute flat.

From a historical perspective (and what music geek can close an essay without bring up historical perspective), it is striking just how deep an influence The Clash have had on punk rock. It's one thing to say it; it's another thing when about half the songs on a 26-song comp bear the imprint of one band, and none of them sound alike. Of course, it is hard to avoid noticing modern punk's debt to the Clash when sitting right in the middle of everything else is a New-Orleans inflected cover version of pianist James Booker's signature classic "Junco Partner" performed by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros. (Unfortunately, several people including former Clash members Topper Headon and Mick Jones, having added a verse, take songwriter credit for the song, actually penned by Bob Shad. That's not very punk rock, gents.) Of course, part of this Clashiness is due to Hellcat Records' particular way of doing things, but on the other hand who can imagine thirteen Ramones descendants being so diverse and rewarding?

Give 'em The Boot IV also provides evidence that The Clash's influence has spread to the most unlikely places. Included is one track by Brain Failure, a band from the People's Republic of China who offer the superb Clash homage, "That's What I Know." Will we be hearing a "Guns of Beijing" or a remake of "Clampdown" any time soon?

In short, good punk, six dollars, what's the wait?

www.hell-cat.com

This post also appears at [url="http://blogcritics.org]blogcritics.org[/url]. Reading blogcritics is clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.*

(*Reading blogcritics.org not clinically proven to build healthy teeth and bones.)

And now, the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is pleased to bring you: "Tales From The Archives."

While going through his emails today, GeekLethal (who sadly cannot be with us at the moment as he is deep in, erm, negotiations with some of the dark forces assisting us with our software upgrade and data transfer: who knew the guys at Demiurge Data Mining would actually be demigods? Awfully touchy about the tentacles, is all I can say... you got tentacles, you should expect a remark now and then...) came across the following exchange between he and I about college admissions.

The discussion was spurred by this story from CNN about how legacy admissions at colleges are under fire on the grounds that they are unfair because they are racist.

GL sez:

I don't know many admissions people, but it is common knowledge that there are only so many spaces in a freshman class. Once you admit your athletes (through coaching channels), your rich kids development channels), your legacies (maybe development, maybe faculty/dean), your kids who maxxed SATs, etc, you're left with a bunch of applicants who are largely alike on paper- good test scores (or they wouldn't be applying), good extracurriculars, etc.

If you're one of those "alike" kids, you're best hope is that you are seen as sufficiently underprivileged in the eyes of the particular admissions officer who's reading your app, and harbors some appreciation of social justice. And THAT is where race can be a huge factor....especially if you are the proper one. Poor white or asian kids need not apply; ditto Jewish applicants (Lord knows there are enough of THOSE with college degrees around)(I do know this all differs depending on whether it�s Tiny College or Big U).

But I have a solution: I propose that White and Asian folks (of all religions) be denied all higher ed for the next 4 centuries. In addition, no one of European extraction can be considered for employment in any level of government or agencies thereof, to include services such as police and fire. Current members of those groups, including the judiciary and faculty, will be allowed to either serve remaining elected time or retire early. Jesse Jackson will create an agency that will develop a system to determine the "whiteness" of each member of the population, to ensure no closet Euros slip by. Finally, at the end of 4 centuries, these restrictions will be abolished as at that time we will all be equal; Utopia will have ensued.

Would that make everybody happy?

Then I says to GeekLethal I says:

GL, I knew you'd understand. Only when all have suffered like certain ancestors of some people may have suffered in an incompletely recalled much mythologized past, will the karmic balance of the world be set right. It's OBVIOUS.

My only question... I have family who came from England with the Mayflower, so there is a fair chance that at some point some ancestor oppressed an indigenous person. But, a greater number of my ancestors came from Wales, where they were miners, crushed under the heel of landed aristocracy and the English alike. Others, from Germany, where they fled religous oppression. Ditto my Hueguenot forbears. How does this calculus work out?

Does the putatative oppression of a New England indigenous person by one subset of my ancestors make me wholly responsible for this act, or only 1/16th responsible? And, as the descendent of oppressed minorities myself, am I empowered to claim reparations in money or kind from the Church of England, the Duke of Llangollwyn, the descendents of some functionary of the French Republic, and the distant relations of Rheinlander monarch in the early 19th century, and myself in turn because of my dual English-Welsh background? Do I have to kick my own ass? Because then, I'd have to kick it again in reparations for the first time, and I'm kind of a pussy and don't think I want to do that.

If you ask me, this whole dealie sounds like an awful administrative task, especially considering that the Germans would also be involved in a mutal reparations scheme with the descendents of Constantius, and vice versa, the Welsh in a mutual scheme with the English, Gauls, Saxons, and whatever Celtic tribe used to live up the river, the English with most of the known universe, and the French with themselves over that whole Reign of Terror thing.

Who's gonna handle the paperwork then? Huh? HUH? And, when they get rich managing this paperwork, do we get to collect reparations back?

You know what? Legacies should be automatically DENIED admission... every family should have an equal chance, over time, to go to Duke. No, better yet, no college should be allowed to refuse admission to any applicant for any reason, whatsoever. And it should be FREE. Harvard education, here I come!!! Only when college is available to all indiscriminately, and for free, will we all truly suckle at the teat of liberty. And you can quote me on that.

Get well soon, GeekLethal. I'm sure we can find a gnostic chirurgeon on the somewhere on the payroll to take care of the internal damage. Perhaps the Babylon office, if anyone survived...

Go watch this video instantly.

Both from this story.

I: Newt Ging-er-ich

"Why would you go home tomorrow having cut benefits in Social Security for a problem that might happen in 25 years?" said Gingrich, who supports private accounts but opposes benefit cuts to pay for them."

Let me ask him a question: Q "Why would you go home tomorrow having installed a sprinkler system in your house for a fire that might happen in 25 years?"

A: Because, Newt: when the house is burning down, it's too late.

II: Rep. Rob Simmons (Conn.):

"Why stir up a political hornet's nest ... when there is no urgency? .... When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then."

Social security reform needs to happen, and soon. If you wish to cavil and argue about how, please! do!, but do it over there, if you don't mind. The sheer amount of cravenness and stupidity I see on the Republican side of the aisle on this question (and don't get me started on the Democrats!) is positively mind-blowing. Cut my benefits! I don't seriously think I'll ever see them anyway! Give me a private account! I don't seriously think I'll see a cent anyway! Means test the hell out of it! If I'm that faking rich at age 70 that means testing applies to me, you can keep my nassssty chips!

And Rep. Simmons, be careful. Talk like that and your career will be dead much sooner than you think, you spineless fuck.

Skinny Puppy, last seen freaking out parents in the days of flannel and Teen Spirit, reunited a few years ago after an acrimonious breakup and have just released their second post-breakup album, The Greater Wrong of the Right. First, the good news: on the new record, reunited Skinny Puppy principals cEvin Kay and Nivek Ogre still make intricately produced, synth-heavy industrial spook music replete with giant soundscapes, processed vocals, and lyrics about alienation, decay, and global conspiracy. However, there’s bad news too: it’s lame.
The early 1990s were a heady time for heavy music. Literally dozens of worthwhile bands were making interesting albums. From the porno-cabaret of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult to the relentless pounding of KMFDM and Front 242, not to mention the commercial crunch of Ministry and NIN, there was never a better time to be a goth. Back then, before NIN’s “Closer” got Top 40 airplay, before White Zombie rode Al Jourgenson’s and Nivek Ogre’s best ideas to platinum stardom, there was some cool music being made by guys who wore fake blood and festooned their cover art with H.R. Giegeresque tableaux. I spent countless hours in college listening to Skinny Puppy’s Too Dark Park (Nettwerk, 1990) and Last Rights (Nettwerk, 1991), two seriously creepy slices of psychosis. However, by 1993 the Pup were more concerned with drugs and side projects than with putting out good records, and they slipped completely off my radar.

When The Greater Wrong of the Right arrived in my mailbox, I was excited to see where the state of the art of industrial music now stands. Although I still pull out my industrial records from time to time (and the best of them have aged fairly well), I curious as to how Skinny Puppy had updated their sound. From the moment I looked at the cover art, however, I had misgivings. Worms, cadavers, meathooks, and a dude eating a millipede sandwich don’t exactly bring the creeps like they used to. Actually, that’s backwards. Worms, cadavers, meathooks, and a dude eating a millipede sandwich bring the creeps exactly like they used to, and that’s a little disappointing. I hoped that the Pup had learnt a few new tricks.

For better or worse, the music on The Greater Wrong of the Right lives up to the promise of the cover art. Sounding like a transmission direct from 1993, the group don’t as much reinvent as reinhabit their old sound. The risk they take in doing so is inviting comparison to their best material, not to mention the scores of groups they have influenced. The best part of their sound—the sweeping landscapes of synthesizer, loud guitar, and half-memorable hooks—has been pirated by everybody and their teenaged brother. Literally dozens of forgettable goth bands, not to mention popsters like Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson, grew up listening to the Pup. Many of them now sell millions of albums working the same territory, with perhaps a shot of teen angst taking the place of armageddon in the lyrical content. Consequently, The Greater Wrong of the Right doesn't come off so much bad as completely generic. For a band like Skinny Puppy whose stock in trade is shock and horror, this is near disaster.

To be fair, it may well just be that I’ve grown completely out of my ability to think this kind of thing is cool, but The Greater Wrong Of The Right just isn’t all that interesting. The album certainly sounds nice, full of full-stereo full-spectrum mixes, and Ogre’s thin nasal vocals hold up just the same as they have ever done. Unfortunately, the songwriting hasn’t changed in fifteen years and the lyrics, which may or not have sounded cool in 1991, now come across as deeply silly (“All of us exist in touch of deadly warming global/ and trust we must distrust the owners of the new world order”).

Maybe it’s that I’m older now and far less prone to thinking vampires are cool. Maybe it’s that Ogre and Kay are older now, stuck in the past and missing both the drugs and the production genius of Dave Ogilvie. Either way, when Ogre sings on “Ghostman,” “Attached in awe/ what a whiplash hatefilled culture of/ viruses/ born raised and infected with violent thought/ to set it off/ defend the wrong/incite the thing/to bring it down/to bring it down/to bring it down” all I can do is roll my eyes, skip ahead to the part where the guitars get real loud, and head down to the basement to see if I can find my cassette of Too Dark Park.

www.spv.de
www.skinnypuppy.com

This post also appears at blogcritics.org. Go read blogcritics.org. It is your duty.

Begging to Differ was among the first to recognize our genius and link us. Their long and faithful support (through several cast changes) has been one of the nicest things about running a blog. We are often remiss in linking the fine writers over at BTD, but this occasion deserves recognition.

BTD has undergone a radical site redesign. Well, it's still a webpage; but the look is much different, and in this reader's opinion, a tremendous improvement. (Not that the old look was bad, mind you.) In addition, and as an added bonus, they went and added a forum. Now you can go over and whine and complain not just about their posts, but about whatever flits through your silly head.

So go over and talk to Steve and Greg and the gang, and fill up their forum with all the pent up blather you have been unable to release since our comments are turned off. But don't stay too long, because the Perfidy redesign and upgrade is well underway, and will be operational by week's end.

A friend of my wife's, an older woman who has figured out where she belongs and intends to stay there forever, has picked herself a really nice place to stay. She lives alone in a 200 year old house on the fringes of a salt marsh just up the coast from us in the old shipbuilding town of Essex, Massachusetts. One of the great attractions of living on the marsh is the abundance of wildlife she finds passing through her lawn on any given day. Newts, bullfrogs, turtles, rabbits, deer and the occasional coyote all make their appearances. But the strangest thing happens around Labor Day. Right around that time, the berries on the trees around her house (don't ask me what the trees are) ripen on the branch and begin to ferment.

Soon, the woodpeckers come. Pileated woodpeckers, to be exact. Lots of them; dozens. Rather more than are typically seen together in northern coastal Massachusetts.

Every year around Labor Day, when the berries get so ripe on the trees that they begin to ferment, dozens of pileated woodpeckers come to her house to have themselves a party. They perch on the trees, eat the berries, and get drunk on the juice. Dozens of woodpeckers come to her house and get drunk on the juice of berries, and then they hang upside down from the branches of the trees and call to each other all through the night.

True story.

Well, police of course!

Secret police!

Is it just me, or does reviving in Iraq the "Elite Death Squad" strategem (last seen ruining the credibility of the US and several sovereign governments in Latin America) seem like the king of all bad ideas?

I mean, let's start with the fact that these squads will be hitmen, trained and initially financed by the US military to whack malcontents, rabble-rousers, and yes, hopefully some real actual terrorists and their kingpins. (Don't you love that word, kingpin?) Then, consider that the use of Elite Whacking Squadrons amounts to an admission (no!) that certain decisions regarding the war in Iraq, how to fight it, and how it's going might possibly not have turned out so well as some cheery folks might have been saying (no!!). So now, they're calling in the Whacking Squadrons.

So right there we've got 1) the US military helping to "whack" guys who may or may not be shady, who may or may not be threats (who cares!?) and 2) the impression that said Elite Iraqi Whacking Squadrons are cat's paws of the US military. Tell me: how is that a good idea?

The United States and Iraq need to win against the 'insurgency.' But not this way. Not this way.

Kriston at Begging To Differ says it better and at greater length.

[wik] McQ of QandO agrees as well, and also brings up the Vietnam-era "Project Phoenix" as an example of how easily such projects can go very, very wrong.

Slacktivist looks at the social security trust fund one way. I look at it another.

Contributed to a trust fund? Did you really? Hmm. I guess you can look at it that way, and you can also look at it this way:

You're Abe, and you have a son, Ben. You set up two accounts, one for "regular stuff", and one for "retirement". You're worried about the retirement account, so you put extra money in it. But your regular bills are pretty high, so you "loan" the extra cash from the retirement fund to the regular fund, and then you go ahead and spend it anyway. Then you go back to Ben and let him know that he "owes you" the extra cash you put in the retirement fund.

So how much did you really save with that little sleight of hand?

As a not-quite-young-anymore person, I've been in the workforce 20 years, and I've paid plenty of taxes, both regular and social security.

This generation of workers (along with the previous) have _voted_ themselves benefits far in excess of what they've produced. I agree on the nature of the paper -- the government better damn well pay it back, or financial systems all over the world are going to feel the shockwave.

But don't paper it over with an "I paid into this" attitude. You didn't. You didn't pay for the government you got over the last 20 years, you won't pay for what you're getting over the next 10, and as a whole, the citizens of this country have simply decided that screwing over the next generation is the very most important thing to them.

So what to do? Wage-indexed benefits have got to go. You can't attempt to sustain a "20% of average wage" standard for benefits in the face of a 3-to-1 worker-retiree ratio. Convert social security into a truly pay-as-you-go system, on a year-by-year basis. Stop the theft of the surplus by the general fund. Means-test benefits; it's social security _insurance_, not "my check is in the mail". Begin computation of cost-benefit ratios for drugs and employ a harsh test -- the drug is not on an "approved list" unless spending those same drug dollars on less high-tech medicine can't save more lives. Weight these tests towards children and the young. They're paying the bills.

The greatest generation was followed by the greediest generation whose myopic gaze falls upon the desert of its works -- castles made of sand, a loving gift to their progeny...

It occurred to me the other day that there are a few actors who have a reputation for glorious creepiness on the silver screen. What would happen if someone came up with a vehicle to combine their exquisite creepiness into one divine orgy of creep?

I'm thinking Christopher Walken, John Malkovich, and Willem Dafoe as the lead creepsters, with Crispin Glover as their loyal journeyman creep. Michael Madsen could be an applying for a position on the team, and Jon Lovitz could provide the comic relief. Angelina Jolie and Glenn Close could be the distaff creeps.

Plot wouldn't matter all that much. Just let them improvise. The end result would leave you feeling dirty and greasy for months after seeing the film.

I have (tentatively, with reservations), enabled comments on my three most recent posts (counting this one), after deleting the auto-spammed entry from the one bot that seems to have figured out the Ministry post-numbering scheme in advance.

Have at it.

[wik] Well... that didn't work. Never mind!

While reading an otherwise provocative and lively discussion by a group of film critics (2004: The Year in Movies) which manages to cover all the ground between loving and hating Dogville, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of The Christ and dismissing all three as forgettable failed experiments, I came across the following phrase, written by Scott Foundas of the L.A. Weekly:

As early as Sundance in January, there was Jehane Noujaim's Control Room, an extraordinary survey of the current propaganda wars (ultimately, the ones that really matter)...

It is unfortunate that Foundas chose the word "ultimate" in arguing that wars of words and ideas matter in the end more than wars of killing. He is using it in a poetic sense to lend heft to his assertion that propaganda "really matter[s]." Unfortunately for him, "ultimate" means the last, the end, the thing which cannot be overcome.

I have argued in this forum repeatedly that the US armed forces can do no greater good for themselves, the USA, and (he said, from his seat of white male imperial privelige,) the world than to work as hard as possible on winning the 'hearts and minds' battles in the wars they are fighting. The "propaganda wars" Foundas refers to include these and more. The 'hearts and minds' efforts are incredibly important, because after the killing winds down and nations get back to doing what it is nations do when they are not busy tearing themselves into pieces, it would be really nice if we were not hated as a matter of policy as the Great Satan Above All Satans. In the short run winning the hearts and minds battle-- or at least trying to do better on that front than breaking even-- can only help. In the long run it can ensure that the sun does not soon set on the American Century (1919-?).

But as truly important as they are, in war, hearts and minds are not the "ultimate" thing in a war.

Ultimately, "propaganda" only matters when someone is left alive to see it.

Mocean Worker: Enter The MoWo (2004: Hyena Records)

Once upon a time, I went to hear a DJ called Mocean Worker (rhymes with “ocean”) spin at one of the many tiny drink-and-DJ clubs that dot the lower Manhattan landscape. I had already developed a powerful aversion to club music, since in New York you can’t buy a shirt, eat a meal, or even walk down the sidewalk without the insistent BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM of this season’s hot sub-sub-subvariety invading your space. Needless to say, I was present that night out of obligation (I worked for his label at the time (and he’s a great guy)), not because I was eager to drop $7 a drink to hear yet another so-called DJ spinning yet another set of big-beat bore.

The evening started predictably enough, with Mocean Worker interlacing house music of the not-offensive variety with his own Moog-thickened creations. Then things got weird. Some very interesting non-dance tracks poked through the haze of 808 beats, and I’m quite certain the theme from “Banana Splits” got worked in somehow. The intrusions left some people fairly nonplussed, since it is in fact rather jarring to jump directly from Dzihan and Kamien to, say, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but for my part I left convinced this Mocean Worker guy was a genius, though perhaps a genius handcuffed by the conventions of the dance genre.

Mocean Worker is Adam Dorn, the son of veteran producer Joel Dorn who produced Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” as well as innumerable worthy albums for Atlantic and others, notably The Allman Brothers, David “Fathead” Newman, Dr. John, Charles Mingus, Bette Midler, and Lou Rawls. Adam, himself a producer and jazz bassist was raised in the studio, soaking up the music being made around him and-- it would seem-- taking it all right in.

Dorn is in a uniquely lucky position in a couple respects. He is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, an institution that is well known for producing superhuman musicians who can play anything at the drop of a hat. Moreover, he and his father ran the now-defunct labels 32 Jazz and Label M, which were dedicated to reissuing the best lost classics that Joel Dorn produced over the years, mostly jazz- and funk-inflected albums that could be licensed for a song from the original labels. (If you ever find any releases from these labels in used bins-- do not pass them up.) This excellent and diverse catalog under family control gives Dorn the rare ability to use a vast number of samples for very little money. It also doesn’t hurt that his current label, Hyena, is also a Joel Dorn project.
Dorn’s first two albums as Mocean Worker, 1998’s Home Movies From The Brain Forest (Conscience) and 1999’s Mixed Emotional Features (Palm Pictures) have been unfairly dubbed drum-and-bass. Though dark and complex, even then his meticulously produced tracks and use of jazz samples suggested greater depths to his ambitions-- what drum-and-bass producer would build a track solely out of Ellington, Strayhorn and Basie samples, as Dorn did on Mixed Emotional Features’ “Counts, Dukes, and Strays? Whatever else you might say about them, Dorn’s first two albums pointed to a promising career as a maker of interesting and intelligent dance albums.

Which is what made his third album, 2000’s Aural and Hearty, (Palm Pictures) so puzzling. Abandoning the subtlety he had previously displayed, Dorn let his goofy side run wild on big, obvious house-inflected sounds. Although a couple tracks stood out, the album was mostly a series of unsuccessful genre experiments. My best guess at the time was that Dorn was chafing at the limitations of dance and was trying to-- as the opening bit on Aural and Hearty had it-- “Lighten Up, Francis.” A little while later, when I heard Dorn spin in that New York bar, it became clear that that Dorn not only found orthodox dance music limiting, but boring as well.

It has taken four records for Mocean Worker to figure out how to make Mocean Worker, that slap-happy goodtime asshole who drops “The Banana Splits” in the middle of an acid-house set, play nice with Mocean Worker, devotee of profoundly beautiful, achingly soulful electronic dance music.

On the new Enter the MoWo (2004, Hyena) everything finally comes together. This time Dorn moves smoothly from strength to strength, hopping genres from hot jazz to ambient with total assurance. MoWo features wall to wall funky beats, chewy basslines (sampled and otherwise), dense, aurally complete productions, and guest performances from an all-star cast including Bill Frisell, Donald Byrd, David “Fathead” Newman, and Sex Mob members Briggan Krauss and Steve Bernstein. In equal measures goofy, funky, deep, and beautiful, this is the first truly complete Mocean Worker album.

It has been a while since I have heard such a fun record. Music geeks like me can get off on tracks like “Shamma Lamma Ding Dong,” where Dorn pits a sampled flute performance from the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk against the very alive flute of Franck Gauthier of the French group Rinôçérôse. But non-jazz heads who don’t (or don’t care to) get the joke, can simply enjoy the infectious beat, laid back feel, and punchy interplay between flautists. This kind of lighthearted invention is all over the record. “Right Now” marries a Hot Club of Paris style swing trumpet lead to a percolating electric piano groove. On a few cuts, like the spooky “Only The Shadow Knows” and “Move,” Dorn updates the spy-music genre with sly samples and chewy basslines. The energetic workouts are balanced by beautiful atmospheric pieces, notably Shivaree singer Ambrosia Parsley’s beautiful vocals on the stark “I’ll Take the Woods,” and “Blackbird,” which updates a Nina Simone vocal outtake from 1986 with muted electronic accompaniments.

Not everything works perfectly. In particular, two of the least structured tracks-- “Salted Fatback” featuring a wasted and perfunctory performance by guitar legend Bill Frisell, and the chill-out room cut “Float”—go on for several minutes too long. But, at a lean twelve tracks in 49 minutes, any weak spots are past before you can get tired of them hanging around.

Dance music is a ghetto and jazz is on perpetual life support. Nevertheless, Enter The Mowo is a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy reinvention of the two, without any of the precious fustiness of the long-dead acid jazz movement or the forced cheer of Guru’s Jazzamatazz records. Nice work, Adam. But how you gonna top yourself next time?

www.moceanworker.com
www.hyenarecords.com

For a good idea of where Dorn is coming from at the moment with this Mocean Worker thing, I urge you to check out the affable, goofy [url= video to “Chick A Boom Boom Boom” see if you can figure out what’s up with the gorilla suit.

Also posted to blogcritics.org. Visit blogcritics for all your media and news punditry needs.

[wik] GeekLethal writes via email,

J, This no comments business is irritating, if necessary. Just read your review of Mocean Worker. Never heard of him. Very helpful for you to include a glimpse at his CV. And anything with nods to both Bill Frisell (who I am just beginning to explore) and Roland Kirk (who I will never presume to understand) on the same record must be worthwhile.

Saw Bill Frisell on a show one morning, I believe he was solo and with a trio. Anyway, they spoke to him at some length. The guy would ask fairlyspecific and intelligent questions, and Bill would respond to all of them in a rolling semi-whisper something like this:

"Well, it's really about....communication is what it's about...because... sometimes it's about...[inaudible]...then that's why the trio [inaudible]...but it's always difficult...to reach everybody...sometimes I just have to communicate with music because I can't with words."

Hey, no shit? Well, good for the rest of us I say, Bill.

Late last spring, Boston Globe editor Martin Baron ran a page 1 pic that purported to show American soldiers caught in the act of raping Iraqi girls. It pissed off alot of people, not the least of whom were citizens confused about why such a graphic photo was in the paper at all, let alone the front page. It was also cause for kookier elements of the state government to parade around with the pics, decrying the acts, the American military, yanqui imperialists, whitey, and The Man.

Only problem was that the pics were fake. Not only were they not pictures of a heinous act, the men in question were not soldiers. It was all staged by...ahem...models, in costumes, and posted on a porn site for kinkos who dig rape scenes.

The story of the real source of the pics came from the semi-strange World Net Daily, and after a brief round of blaming the messenger, the Globe sort of apologised for printing graphic pics but not for running fake ones, or for smearing American soldiery.

In recognition of this deed, and characteristic of what befalls such men in this part of the world, Baron is being rewarded. He's been named George Beveridge Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation. Among the criteria for the award is imagination. He certainly demonstrated his imagination with that little photo caper: at first, by imagining he had the scoop of the year; and later for his fantastic powers of denial, suggesting a robust imagination indeed.

As all the world should by now know, I am a huge Cleveland Browns fan. Since I live in New England I typically get to view with my own peepers approximately 1.035 Browns games per year, factoring in occasional highlights on ESPN. Consequently, when I was home in Ohia for the holidays, I took the opportunity to view the Miami-Cleveland matchup slated for the day after Christmas, although neither team is, erm... any good.

Wow. What a stinker.

The game was so bad that by the end of the 3rd quarter with the score tied 7-7, the Cleveland home announcers were wishing aloud for someone to please score now, to end the misery before overtime was necessary. Fumbles, missed calls, stumbling, and penalty after penalty after stupid-ass penalty combined to make the Browns and Dolphins-- all highly trained professionals, all well paid to play their best at all times-- look as ragged and lost as a division III-C junior varsity high school football game, say the Garrettsville, OH (pop. 2200) G-Men versus the Mogadore, OH (pop 3800) Wildcats. Passes clanged to the ground uncaught. Running plays misfired. Offensive and defensive lines tangled into an unruly mess devoid of plan, strategy, or sense. The middle part of the field became muddy; you could have put a putting green inside the 20-yard lines.

I only mention all this because this stinker of a game resulted in a "what-what-WHAT?!?" play that I will forever treasure as the greatest display of bad football I have ever witnessed. It happened with about 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, and went a little something like this:

1-10-CLV 40 (10:12) 12-L.McCown pass intended for 86-D.Northcutt INTERCEPTED by 20-A.Freeman at MIA 20. 20-A.Freeman to MIA 21 for 1 yard. FUMBLES, recovered by MIA-23-P.Surtain at MIA 18. 23-P.Surtain to MIA 26 for 8 yards. Lateral to 29-S.Madison to MIA 30 for 4 yards. FUMBLES, RECOVERED by CLV-67-M.Fowler at MIA 34. 67-M.Fowler to MIA 34 for no gain (20-A.Freeman).

That's a pass thrown by Cleveland rookie QB Luke McCown (who?!?) intercepted by Miami, then fumbled, then recovered by Miami, then a crazy-ass lateral pass just before tackle, followed by another Miami fumble, recovered by Cleveland's center-- not a running back, not a receiver, for a fricking Cleveland first down.

This post brought to you by Howard, Howard, Howard, and Fine.

A California Catholic school has angered some students' parents by choosing to accept for enrollment two boys who are the adopted sons of a gay couple. The angry parents "demanded that St. John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa accept only families that pledge to abide by Catholic teachings," and vet applicants accordingly. The school's leaders point out that if that were done to the desired extent, "then children whose parents divorced, used birth control or married outside the church would also have to be banned."

The angry parents, evidently forgetting that as Catholics they don't have a whole lot of lay authority, intend to appeal their case all the way to the Pope, under the thesis that the ancient and inscrutable Vatican heirarchy operates just like an episode of "Law and Order."

These gay men, as the argument goes, are doing a horrible horrible thing in wanting to give their children a Catholic education and to raise them in the Catholic tradition. After all, what gay person would ever love God? Sez one angry parent, "the boys are being used as pawns by these men to further their agenda." Guh? While I can understand the outrage to a certain degree, since the Catholic church stands foursquare against homosexuality, I cannot quite get my head around the idea that Catholics would turn away the children of homosexuals. I thought only one sin got passed down through generations.

[wik] Edited 1/4/04 for moral and grammatical clarity.

As in a parting with the flesh. Strip away the Christian/assumption connotations and one is left with the impetus for the single most popular New Year's resolution: leaving about five pounds behind so we can fit into our good pants again. With that most Amurrican of obsessions in mind, I propose a new definition for "carnival."

Carnival- USA colloq., v(i): American for "gee, I really need to get rid of this gut."

Feh. Love your fat, I say! Revel in it! Treasure your five extra pounds of winter fat as a glutinous reward for untrammeled gluttony, your birthright as a member of the class that can afford too eat too much. You belong to the select few, that minute fraction of humanity who are at risk of dying from having too much to eat. Take a minute, look at your new girth, and fricking love it.

Then go check out the new Carnival of the Recipes for some quick and easy ways to further enhance your lardass endowment.

Did you eat your sauerkraut on New Year's Day (or your black-eyed peas, if that's your bag)? Why do foods that make you fart also bring good luck? If that's really the case, I should by rights be the luckiest man alive. (Well... now that I think about it, I am. I love you, honey.)