prisonship/_OG_ material self-inventory of things/events/places/etc.

1. courtney's dissertation defense: a blogger and a unionist and a social constructivist, courtney kicked a shitload of ass today. felicitations, hero!
2. grace is enough exhibit, Valerie Davis Haug and David Siebert, at Ditch Projects: Probably the best 'party' I've had in some many months, notwithstanding all of the earth-shifting-ly sonorous, sound and incisive drawings/paintings happening all around me. David Siebert's series of painterly canvasses came on like Leroy Nieman having his way with somebody's beach house portrait of a salty sailor or drunk harbormaster -- but blown up, as mentioned, into a way more theatrical size. Valerie Davis Haug is a charming hostess and supportive interlocutor of mine, as well as a kinda Exorcist-y, kinda Flannery O'Connor-y horror/satire terrorist who works, among other things, with markers and shit.
   
3. neil halstead, live at le Doug Fir: ahem, I was drunk at this shit, and once again reminded that I needn't ever again labor after attaining any sort of acoustic/dour thing: this guy's got it covered, and I'm a plate of goddamn yams.
   
4. springfield, OR: thank you, Springfield, for reminding me to look between the grocer and the grocery outlet; the diner and the luncheonnette; the strip club and the strip club and the strip club. thank you for anonymity and a none-too-highbrow, totally-fine-with-me township where i can spend my time of elevator-shaft-induced exile.
   
5. babylon's burning by clinton heylin (pic above.) i'd've preferred to've put the cover of the book above, but the cover suffers from its association with this book's dreadful subtitle: 'from punk to grunge' seriously? this couldn't've been the decision of Heylin, awesome author of the awesomely subtitled, awesome From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World. this book picks up in places where its absolutely crucial, aforementioned predecessor didn't go, like pre-1977 London, and pre-pre-1977 London. apparently I really need to hear some records by, say, Dr. Feelgood, Ian Dury, Radio Birdman, the Avengers, the Ruts, etc. Maybe some of you can help me with starting out on this stuff? On the US side, I've learned lots of LA punk and lesser-known NY action. 'Only halfway through and already I'd say that this, Velvets/Voidoids and Jon Savage's England's Dreaming are the "punk books" to be assigned before anybody should go near Greil Marcus or Azerrad. As Heylin acknowledges in the acknowledgements, this book was half-written out of a desire to usurp the place taken by several famous, rather opinionated and through-a-glass-darkly books about punk. He's a god for doing us this favor. Babylon's Burning - and the accompanying cd box set, I'm sure, which I'd love somebody to, y'know, buy for me - belongs in the "'bestuv genre" genre.
   
6. current persona-conflagration of lex dexter/pattyjoe/crazy jimmy/Rick: = cosmo from chinese bookie, ric flair, todd barry, elliot gould qua marlowe. (as quoted on twtr: "my heroes aren't actually 1970s movie-sleuths...but they're the best exemplars I've got to turn to for this kind of 'living.'")
7. gabba-on-the-go: gabba takes hardcorefornerds into the TUMBLR pile!
8. recent media appearances: a) Permanant Campaign, live on voicemail... hey, write in the comments if you happen to've gotten one of last Saturday's special song-messages! this last Sat., brown beard and i spent an r-rated, still-drunk afternoon phoning out cover classics all over the USA. it's a good thing i don't have gabba's phone number, or somebody'd've gotten a completely incoherent cover of "Washer" and overlaid with Southern-accented belching. Setlist, as I remember, included: "Remedy," "Tumbling Dice," "Head Over Heels," "Theme for an Italian Restaurant,".... what else?!?b) [pictured above, from l-r: 'PC' John Hodgman, funnyman Paul F. Tompkins, songstress Aimee Mann and Pharmacist Ted Leo, workin' it at the Best Show telethon...] two Tuesdays ago I pledged to TBSOWFMU, and had my name ("Patrick from Eugene, Oregon") read over 'dem WFMU airwaves. tom Scharpling thanked me personally, and even responded to my silly request to have the godlike Jon Glaser bring the character of 'Google' back to the airwaves. if somehow at this point you still don't get where I'm going with the worship of the TBSOWFMU, maybe you should just check out this perfect Stereogum tribute to the show, replete with a story about the self-same episode during which i made my all-important media appearance. seeing how i literally trembled while listening to the podcast of the show some two days after my call, i do not imagining ever having the courage to call in to the show, and thus will have to consider supporting it through monetary means.
   
9. twtr: seriousy, you should follow me on twitter. i don't care if you don't wanna "tweet" yrself - fuck, why would'ja? but, seriously? do you like what Lex writes, maybe? but, shucks, maybe you think I get a little 'flabby,' here and there? well guess what, tigerlilies? that's because my true chosen form may in fact be that of twitter's 140chamax milieu. seriously, just sign up and read my twtr. pick some weird pseudonym, email me, and then you'll be able to watch lex fall down a really short flight of stairs. don't worry, i really won't tell anybody that you're doing it; instead i'll just compel you to read kyle, wobs, dave3544, ted leo, hodgman and, of course, scharpling's threads. (seriously: i'm not going to hassle you to read my - wait for it - impending, actually-existing, hardbound zine when it drops. i'm just asking you to do this one thing with me.)
   

Let it be known

You do not fuck with little Johnny Stewart.

A trenchant critique of altruism

In a display of über-objectivist praxis, the Ayn Rand Institute kindly requests your donation.

One of those moments

Should the thought that Happy Gilmore could have probably gotten a loan with which to buy his grandma's house, at least after he got on the tour, have occurred to me a long time ago or not at all?

I'm sure none of us saw this coming

It seems that a mother's burgeoning political ambition isn't the solid foundation for a marriage that some thought it would be.

p/p, m/f, socialisme ou barbarie

Public/private is a hegemonic border within the political culture of capitalist societies, intended somehow to delineate proper divisions of labor between government and capital, between politics and the economy. The discourse has proven irrepressible, even as these intended distinctions prove themselves impossible at the levels of political economy and everyday life.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Notwithstanding Pat "fuck political spin, I care about results" Buchanan, I personally think that the "Rush Limbaugh as head of le GOP" frame is brilliant work by the White House - you?

Sen. McCaskill Rips Hypocrisy on Earmarks

This is a poorly edited (albeit an 'official') clip, but:
1) Claire McCaskill is an under-celebrated Senate badass who needs to up her OG profile; and,
2) She exemplifies the new, '2009' tone of les Dems, which as far as I can tell may actually include "trick plays" like calling the Republicans liars and thieves.

Where I'm at these days

Zombie islamofascist unionists!

While I have my (strong) disagreements with how SEIU runs its organization, I give full props to their media operation, which is top notch, and they've been producing some great pieces about the Employee Free Choice Act, like this one:

"With malice for being a sty:" Listening to Spiderland Horn

Clinton Pessimistic on Iran Outreach - washingtonpost.com
I was once a young man with squarely chopped locks. I was once an older man who sung about myself as a younger man. What's your bleeping provenance?

New spin on vinyl: Bundled MP3s - Mar. 2, 2009
Sometimes I think that the combination of bundled mp3s and the new Administration is enough to make 2009 one promising sunovabitch. Sometimes I stay out late and slippy-dip with the lads in the lanes.

Firedoglake » Things Rahm Left Out Of His Love Note To Himself
The Limits of a "3 Minute Rahm" in Obama's Kitchen Cabinet - The Washington Note
Are you an activist or an operator? Have you ever heard of the Tuxedo Killer, who would periodically require his victims to say "I love you" if they were to be afforded a merciful evisceration?

Very Few Small Business Owners Would Face Tax Increases Under President's Budget
I should start a distro operation that specializes in 7"s from 1990-1998, if only to honor this here lax tax.

NPA, "Let's Do It, like the Workers of Guadeloupe and Martinique!"
Once I heard a Castro-ite (?!?) from Dominica and an evangelical/black nationalist/Trot trade unionist from Guadeloupe debate whether I was an angel or just a "young man." This was next door to a barbed wire-d Club Med.
‘Socialism!’ Boo, Hiss, Repeat - NYTimes.com
Socialism is the new socialism, kids. Take the good with the bad: an exotic political desire called 'socialism' lives on, even in mainstream US newspapers. But it does so in the shape of an unconvincing, Hollywood movie shark.

Rahm Emanuel Discusses Rush Limbaugh on Face the Nation

Rahm.
Say what you will about Rahm's sketchy congressional NAFTA-ish-ness and his relatives' completely distasteful comments about Israel/Palestine: Rahm is a DYNAMITE OPERATOR when it comes to the (not necessarily ideological) arena of framing/discourse/spin.

Crap/Not Crap: BHO's "All-at-Once" Strategy

[See the "poll" on the "right," alright?]

This (admittedly rightward-ho!-ish) explanation of the all-at-once strategy is from the Note's Rick Klein:

This week an ambitious President Obama continues his move from what he must do (the economy, Iraq) to what he wants to do (healthcare, energy policy) and what he’s judging that he must do again, and again (AIG is the latest back at the federal till).

Using that sky-high popularity for what it’s worth (and then some), Obama is pressing ahead in a brash style, telling his opponents he’s ready for battle, calling them on hypocritical statements as quickly as they’re doing the same to him, and choosing more fronts, not fewer.

This is what he was elected to do -- though not necessarily all at once.

Now, piece by piece, Obama is taking ownership of problems he inherited -- not just from his immediate predecessor, but from decades of calcified politics that couldn’t deliver breakthroughs on the biggest issues of the era.

The pile-it-on strategy (just last week, remember, he said he was ending the war, fixing the financial meltdown, and curing cancer) signals an early evolution for a president who’s struggled with his own definitions of bipartisanship and effective governance.

More than ever, he looks like a president who will succeed spectacularly or fail miserably.

How much is too much?

I suppose yr answer to this question hinges, maybe, on whether or not you think the "all-at-once" srtgy. really is BHO's strtgy. I think it is, and I think it's "not crap," but you tell me...

I do not claim to know what the next six months of legislative combat have in store for us, but I think this tack is the White House's best bet for beating down the politically insane but tactically effective lockstep marching of the Congressional Rs.

Racist of the Day

Mayor Dean Grose was forced to apologize after it was reported he sent an e-mail out to colleagues and business people--including a black woman who serves on a committee with the mayor--that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons.

Grose claims he was "unaware of the stereotype that black people like watermelon," and didn't mean to "offend" African Americans.

TGIF

Other people's lives

I like it when people tell me that losing their wallet and having to replace their i.d. and credit cards is the "biggest ordeal I've dealt with in my life." It confirms my faith in cosmic balance.

Also, I was walking home the other day and there was a young woman walking behind me talking on the phone with a friend. I deduced that they were talking about what the friend might give up for Lent. The woman walking behind me suggested a couple of things and then she said "Oh! I know, you could give up pickles," slight pause, then "Well, it's supposed to be hard."

No, I Will Not Perish (yet) Horn

Ben Smith's Blog: Anuzis joins campaign against EFCA - POLITICO.com
SEIU head fights to merge labor unions - Ben Smith - Politico.com

Indeed, the anti-EFCA campaign is turning into something close to a full employment project for Republicans in exile. They were also giving away a Wii at CPAC yesterday.

Punditry: re the labor movement paints us as intrinsically tied to the electoral/legislative process and thus "special interest"-y...Maybe that's appropriate? We should ask Dave "I was born a Democrat and I'll die a Democrat" 3544 about this some time.

Slowcore Week: Slint and Codeine - a shared musical language? / In Depth // Drowned In Sound Pukekos: Codeine

Okay, in its matter-of-fact way, this is some of the best writing about Slint that I've read. Indeed, some of the speculation about possible Slint influences even kinda makes sense: Ubu, late Birthday Party, King Crimson, s/t-era Sabbath. Read this, even if you don't know who Slint are, because you need to know who Slint are. (Also, of course, Codeine are the original, glacial rock formation. But we've spoken of Codeine before, much more than Slint, who made what is probably, if I'm honest, my favorite record of all time with Spiderland. Check out the complete Codeine 7" discography on the Pukekos link above, btw.)

Economist's View: The Employee Free Choice Act
Bloggers and Unions Join Forces to Push Democrats - NYTimes.com

Anyway, back to Big Labor. 'Seems we've even got our own squadron of Post-Keynesians, these days, telling people, shucks, maybe doing something to stimulate growth in real wages'd be interesting, and maybe it'd be even more stimulative than, say, lowering interest rates and/or maintaining a strong dollar policy? I wonder to what extent the MoveOn, kos-ish "progressive" crowd can be said to be on board with the Economic Policy Institure, CEPR milieu? Or are they more of a Center for American Progress Crowd? Do they have their own research institutes? Increasingly, I dwell upon the in-politics of those privileged wonks who're allowed to "shape" policy "debates."

Michael D. Yates, "Michael Steele Is a Nitwit and Wolf Blitzer Is a Jackass"
Ben Smith's Blog: Coming back to Romney - POLITICO.com

And then there's the old Republican Party and the old conservative movement. Notice that I don't put "movement" in scare quotes: their thing is as real as any cargo cult or drum circle, to me. Conservatism is a social fact.

Letter from Washington: The Gatekeeper: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Twitter / clairecmc

As I mentioned before, I do love my glimpses into the inner workings of staff meetings, staffers and staffers' bosses. "The Gatekeeper" is a long, fascinating portrait of Rahm, probably my most guiltiest pleasure of a good time in recent days. Claire McCaskill is easily one of our coolest senators and also one of our least snobbish.

Open Left:: Nate Silver to Progressives: STFU and Defer to the Serious Experts and Czars
Digby populism tango

What does it say about me, that I cannot quite bring myself to "care" about rival tendencies and rival formations within the Netroots? I dunno.
But I do know this: remember our legendary (and worth-revisiting) "let's eliminate these adjectives" thread from the Prisonship? I have a less elitist, more parochial, but nonetheless similar directive in mind for mainstream political discourse: nobody should be allowed to use the term 'populism' until having read Ernesto Laclau's On Populist Reason. Surely I have no authority, and only a scoffing, sardonic-at-best relationship with the kinda at-large political philosophy that informs whatever kinda dumbed-down 'realist' orthodoxy permeates pundits' collective consciousness. But in my ideal world, let's say, 'populism''d have a stable referent. And activists, at least, could drag it out of the gutter of commentator-speak and the graveyard of flippant, loose snob-lips.

Stephen Malkmus | Pitchfork

Do you know what? Malkmus never seemed that likable to me in interviews, until now! Dig his really interesting, sober appraisals of what was going on during the short life of "indie rock" (1989-1994).

Language and Obama’s Budget - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

Who else has budget mania? Don't stop until you get enough.

The GOP comeback starts here

Holy fucking crap. If I told you that the Republican chair of the House Policy Committee was writing really, really bad "literature" critique on a right-wing website would you believe me?

I kid you not.

He writes to tell us that Gran Torino is a conservative movie and Clint Eastwood's character is a true conservative. This assertion has been disputed elsewhere and I am not sure Representative McCotter is writing in some sort of response or not. You'd think, but then the only way he can come up with that Eastwood is a true conservative is that he brings order out of chaos in his neighborhood just like Reagan did with the nation (don't ask me). And he hates his "Yuppie" kids. This is, apparently, all it takes to be a conservative, because McCotter rejects the character's racism, acknowledges he probably votes Dem, and is a unionist.

Before you read what follows, remind yourself that this guy is a leader of the Republican party. Read it and smile:

Like Walt Kowalski’s kids who would blithely stow their “old man” in a human warehouse, most American’s believe they are “post-Detroit.”

They are wrong, because right now no one is post-disorder. If the rest of the nation facilitates the decimation of Detroit through malign neglect, deeper social, economic and political chaos will accelerate and spread from the Motor City to the rest of America. The “limo libs,” the globalist Gucci “conservatives,” and all arm chair ideologues will pale before the deluge and drown in their streams of intellectual adolescence. [!] All the while as the waters rise, an anxious citizenry will call out for intelligent, mature leaders - flesh and blood, heart and soul Gran Torino Conservatives - devoted to creatively achieving constructive change amidst Globalization’s chaos

Until these Gran Torino conservatives arrive to restore order, justice and freedom to our American home, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

How are you an asshole? Let me count the ways

1. You seem to enjoy making your kids cry
2. Not only do you seem to enjoy making them cry, you enjoy filming them and then displaying them on the internet to score points
3. Not only do you make your kids cry to score points on the internet, you're lying to them in order to make them cry
4. Of the $800 billion to which you refer - the stimulus package - roughly $400 billion of that comes in the form of tax cuts. A quick search of your videos shows me you did not try to make them cry the last time someone proposed tax cuts. What changed?
5. You also didn't try to get them to cry over the roughly $1 trillion of their money squandered over the last 6 years killing brown people in the Middle East
6. You probably will also try to make them cry about the health care reform which will pay for the therapy they'll need in about twenty years

Fuck Ted Kulongoski

The time has come to damn Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski. He is an enemy of labor.

When we public employees first elected him, we were rewarded with a two-year wage freeze. Oregon had a budget crisis and Ted needed to show Bill and Sally middle class that he would stand up to those big bad labor public employee unions. And for the mot part we took it. Like idiots, we surrendered our hard-won collective bargaining rights because one prick in Salem issued a non-binding Executive order.

Here we are six years later and Oregon faces a budget crisis (surprise!) and short dick over here decides that we must all sacrifice in the interests of saving the state economy. He, personally, is going to take a five percent pay cut. He's going to sacrifice $4680 of his $93,600 salary. Ah, that's might generous of him. Of course, he's 69 years old, has worked as an attorney and politician most his life, one assumes he has at least one house paid for, and has no kids in school. How the hell is this man going to get by on just $88,920 this year?

Unfortunately, Ted's noble sacrifice is not going to be enough to save the state this year. Nope, that can only be done is you and me take a 5% pay cut in the form of unpaid furlough days. Twenty-six of them over the next two years. Apparently, Ted thinks it is the least we can do. I know, I know, I am a greedy asshole who doesn't want to do his share. Unfortunately, my creditors are greedy assholes as well and they'd like me to continue paying off my car (only 12 payments to go! And then I have no warranty!) The bank likes it when I make my house payment regular like. I have no kids in school, but I got vet bills out the ass. Sorry, boys, Ted thinks we need to sacrifice so once a month, so we'll eat air on those days; even those with claws, must take a pause.

Of course, I also have a rotten tree in my front yard that needs to be taken down. That only costs $1000 or so, which I will either come up with or my insurance company can pay for it. I'm sure Ted is faced with these same thoughts every day. I am sure that he is forced to make financial decisions where he actually hopes a tree comes crashing through is roof because his deductible is lower than the cost of prevention. Wait, of course he doesn't. He's fucking Governor and he can shove is $4680 sacrifice. He wants to sacrifice, why doesn't he try living on the average wage of a public employee in this state.

And while I am here, might I say "screw you" to the fine folks at SEIU who opened negotiations this year with an offer to take eight furlough days and a zero percent COLA increase. What it got them was a counter that asked for twenty-six furlough days, a zero percent COLA and zero percent step increases for the next two years. When is labor going to realize that it is our job to ask for what the workers need, and management's job to offer to figure out what they can afford and give as little of it as possible. When we go into negotiations worried about management's budget, we're doing their job for them. No one cuts you any slack for this, it only shows you're weak and they go for the twenty-six day kill. Oh, I know it fits right in with the standard union victimology stance, the bully boss, the downtrodden worker schtick, but for fuck sake it's not getting us anywhere. How about we point out that the states economy will recover when people on the streets have some green to spend and the way to make that happen is to not cut the wages of 23,000 workers in this state.

But in the end, let's remember who is driving this. Oregon Governor, Democrat, and Enemy of Labor, Ted Kulongoski.

Tucker Carlson to Cato - BOOM!

Hot on the heels of that hot Nat Hentoff signing, it'd seem the Cato Institute is looking to supplement their "jazzbo libertarian" quotient by dipping into the "aggrieved libertarian with deadhead leanings" pool.

Trots for Sanford?

(h/t: le Ben Smith)

Wait, a Republican governor is refusing stimulus for his state, likening said stimulus to Weimar/Stalin, and stirring up a stim-based bash with Dem. Whip James Clyburn?

What could this possibly portend, a 'Trots for Sanford' faction? Or maybe something a little more 2012-ish?

Dear (very specific) Marxist Academic

I'm not writing this because I disagree with the worldview which informs how you see our current situation and what led to it. I'm cut from the same coarse fiber, and yes, I too see systemic and structural failures wherever I look. That's not the issue.

I'm writing because you are an unmitigated, diseased, treacherous, flamingly poor excuse for an asshole. Calling you a straight-up asshole would actually be paying you a compliment, as assholes do serve a vital purpose. You, on the other hand, are a boil to be lanced.

I see you writing that you opposed the recently passed economic stimulus package, not because it didn't go far enough in providing the help that is so desperately needed, but because it delays the revolution you so desperately desire, possibly because you maintain the childish fantasy that then the masses will recognize your genius and rally around like some latter-day Che.

They won't.

Fuck you.

Fuck you for sitting around and taking a paycheck and an education paid for by the taxpayers you'd see fucked over to exacerbate the "crisis" which you seem to think portends your glorious revolution.

Fuck you for looking down your nose and saying "fuck you" to the people who produce the surplus which allows you to pretend you have all the answers, if only the people would listen.

But most importantly, fuck you for sitting around and doing nothing. Fuck you for not organizing. Fuck you for alienating all your students with your holier than thou bullshit attitude. Fuck you for thinking that your paper about how fucked up shit is is actually a solution. Fuck you for pretending to care about the people for whom you profess to speak, but really, inside you're a hollow, misanthropic piece of shit who'd rather say "I told you so" than do the hard work, make the hard choices, and experience the hard landings from failure that are actually necessary to make this world a better place.

Fuck. You.

Absolutely Essential Viewing

A highlight of 2009: CNBC's Rick Santelli on the floor of the NYSE, confusing himself and his trader colleagues with "regular folks."

Robert Gibbs' recent reference to the Santelli blast's also a hoot:

Gibbs gleefully went after Drudge's favorite CNBC reporter at today's briefing, casting his position as the view that "the adage that if it was...good for a derivatives trader it was good for main street."

Paul McCartney - Monkberry Moon Delight

Wondering where my head is? Right here. Where's yrs? 'TBSOWFMU has turned me on again. I need a copy of RAM asap.

Obama meets with who????

so I read that the Obama's had a sit down with progressives, and asked them to help support "big progressive" ideas, and I liked the first part.....

“The gist was, `We’re gonna need people out there telling the story of the stimulus and telling the story about how much we need big health care reform and clean energy and green jobs,’” the attendee says.

but then I spit coffee all over my computer at this:

Among those on the guest list: Labor leaders Jimmy Hoffa, Gerry McEntee and Andy Stern; MoveOn’s Eli Pariser; Sierra Club’s Carl Pope; Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richardson; and Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.

Maybe Eli and Joe could be characterized as progressive, but Carl, Jimmy, and Andy???

on the question of what is a freakin progressive, I recommend this piece by nate silver @ 538...he discusses two distinct strains in progressive thought, what he calls rational and radical progressives:

...Rational progressivism tends to be trusting, within reason, of status quo political and economic institutions -- generally including the institution of capitalism. It tends to trust these institutions because it believes they are a manifestation of progress made by previous generations. However, unlike conservatism, it also sees these institutions as continuing works in progress...
Radical progressivism is more clearly distinguishable from "conventional" liberalism and would generally be associated with the "far left" -- although on a handful of issues such as free trade, it may find common cause with the "radical" right. Radical progressivism embraces the tradition of populism and frequently adopts a discourse of the virtuous commoner organizing against the corrupt elite. It is much more willing to make normative claims than rational progressivism, and tends to view conservatism as immoral and contemporary American liberalism as amoral (at best). Its project is not reform but transformation.Rational progressives sometimes regard radical progressives as impractical, self-righteous, shrill, demagogic, naïve and/or anti-intellectual. Radical progressives, in turn, regard rational progressives as impure, corrupt (or corruptible), selfish, complacent, elitist, and too quick to compromise.

I don't suppose there were too many "radical progressives" invited....

The Prophet Speaks

Look, that's all it is in life: you just find yourself a way to have a grand old time.

Zing!

Wonk-Wank Two-Fer Horn

1. Who's Afraid of Jake Tapper? - The Daily Beast
2. Ben Smith's Blog: McAuliffe, Trippi exchange brickbats at Virginia dinner - Politico.com Only the strong will survive when "ClamHands" Trippi and" Ex-Paul Williams sideman" Terry McAuliffe throw down in Virginia! Tale of the Tape: Trippi ran Edwards' and Dean's campaigns, etc., and McAuliffe is a DNC shill most recently associated with HRC's failed primary charm offensive. Check this post out: there's video!
   

The Friends of Eddie Coyle and 70s Crime Films As Such

{Statement of Dexter, Lips. Recorded After the Rains and Before the Lorry.}

as I may or mayn't've mentioned already, George V. Higgins' NOVEL "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is one of my five fave crime novels, ever! Higgins' dialogue is bleeping awesome, and deserves mention alongside Hemingway/Carver when it comes to pulling off a weird, oafish, shrewd, "less is more" brand of emotionalism, if not melodrama, if not sentimentality.... all the while telling a fascinating, pretty macabre and hilarious story.

anyway, THE FILM is something else entirely. a slow, dry crime thriller made in the 1970s. in other words, this is among the filmic stuff i worship (or at least watch) THE MOST. sometimes these films are so obsessed with their pursuit of "documentary realism" that they end up in weirdly formalist, weirdly mannerist cul de sacs that'd make Hitchcock yawn, then blush. honestly, i won't rest until my nightly dreams resemble these oddly operatic, gun-deal-in-supermarket-parking-lot treatments. won't you come along on this expedition with me?

also, we should acknowledge the willingness of the "New Hollywood" establishment at Paramount, etc., to allow filmmakers to, like, practically rub dirt on to their film stock and generally use the camera to get in the way of the storytelling that we'd come to expect from these genre films...that's meaningful to me. the movies are all so slow, dry, technical and clumsy at certain times, we really have to teach ourselves anew how to live in 'em every damned time we see 'em. in a dramatic sense, however, the films DID provide a lot of space for character-based, partially improvised acting performances. but, maybe my passion is simpler than all this and i'm really just a hand-held camera fetishist? we'll never know until you watch these movies and talk to me about 'em, so organize some grievances and play the tapes!

in the slooooow dry 70s crime genre, you'll also do well to encounter Straight Time, The Seven-UPs. Chinatown (boom!), The French Connection and my personal favorite of the moment, The Long Goodbye.

on the artier wing, we got The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Mean Streets, etc..

on the "Hard PG Comedy" side, you NEED redford + george segal in THE HOT ROCK, which's directed by Peter Yates of Eddie Coyle (see trailer) and BULLIT. (Incidentally, Peter Yates' commentary track is featured on the fancy new Criterion Collection DVD version of EDDIE COYLE.

there're plenty of places to go, really. you just need to buy yourself a brown leather waistcoat and begin this journey.

Stupid with an S

Anyone else watch Fox News' Trillion with a T? I tuned in for the promised Andy Stern action, but there was very little of it. He got in two sound bites, one supporting the S-CHIP expansion and one about the funding of NCLB. The program was the expected propaganda job, with little pretext to fairness or balance, but I'm not bitchin', I knew what I was in for.

I did like this guy though. I mean, not as a human being or anything, but as a Republican who is young, can speak to a microphone without looking like a jackass, and is a sweet piece of meat, if that's your thing. He's extremely conservative and from Arizona so I guessed he was Mormon (not that there's anything wrong with that) and, of course, I was right. Does this hurt him for president or will Mitt's failed bids pave the way?

The answer is yes.

Un-FAZ-ed

I am listening to Defazio on the floor of the house explaining his No vote on the Stimulus....

All the money for schools out, bridges out...tax cuts in...

I wondered when the "left" was going to be heard on this issue....

As glenn points out:

The major problem now is that these entities -- the ones that ought to be applying pressure on Obama from the Left and opposing him when he moves too far Right -- are now completely boxed in. They've lost -- or, more accurately, voluntarily relinquished -- their independence. They know that criticizing -- let alone opposing -- Obama will mean that all those new readers they won last year will leave; that all those new dues-paying members will go join some other, more Obama-supportive organization; that they will prompt intense backlash and anger among the very people -- their members, supporters and readers -- on whom they have come to rely as the source of their support, strength, and numbers.

As a result, there is very little political or media structure to Obama's Left that can or will criticize him, even when he moves far to what the Beltway calls the "center" or even the Right (i.e., when he adopts large chunks of the GOP position). That situation is extremely bad -- both for the Left and for Obama. It makes impossible what very well might be the apocryphal though still illuminating FDR anecdote:

FDR was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

IMO, labor, and other progressives should begin to make demands of the new admin, not expecting to get everything, but to help "move the goalposts", and "work the refs"

TGIF

My cats and I are back in the pad after our West Coast swing. As much as I enjoy seeing the fellas, nothing beats sleeping in your own sheets, making your own waffles, and using your own toothbrush again.

If we met last week, the pleasure was all mine. If we didn't, we should. Maybe we can play some Fight Night on the PS2. This is the song my guy Solid "the Fatman" Citizen walks into the ring to. It always gets me pumped for a night on the town, which is where I am headed in a matter of moments.

Short-Form Art Horn

Nat Hentoff
Meet Nat Hentoff, guy who wrote liners for Miles and so many others, and...... member of the Cato Institute? I hope he writes shit like this in all the big libertarian magazines: "The fearsome blues advance of Cecil Mcbee has captivated European audiences and the hippest bop bandleaders for more than a decade now."

Hardcore for Nerds: Reasons to be Emo #200 / Hoover - The Lurid Traversal of Route 7
(This should probably go without saying.)

AN OPEN LETTER TO: Ryan Adams on Blurt Online
Congratulations on being engaged to the Actress/Chanteuse Mandy Moore, Ryan. Now go retire.

CD Review: "Willie and the Wheel" - washingtonpost.com
That's right, Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel've made an alb ensemble. This collaboration makes a lot more sense than the Wynton collaboration, for sure...but that's all I am prepared to say. (Inspired by SolidCitizen's big splash entry, apparently I cannot help but wanna make a name for our blog by giving Willie Nelson a sustained hard time? How long can this go on? Not long.)

Labor roots roaring

Apparently, the Solis' nomination is on the move...to the floor of the Senate...

Just read this over at the nation

A determined campaign by labor unions, women's rights groups, Latinos and progressives -- and a timely intervention by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy -- has renewed the confirmation prospects of President Obama's choice to serve as Secretary of Labor, California Congresswoman Hilda Solis...
An objection to the involvement of the pro-labor congresswoman with pro-labor groups was acknowledged even by some Republicans as laughable.

And progressive activists -- angered not just with reactionary Republicans but with cautious Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill -- began to put serious pressure on Congress to get this nomination going. Even the Associated Press noted that Republican delaying tactics had "prompted unions, women's and Hispanic groups to flood lawmakers' offices with calls and letters urging them to confirm her."

Holy shit is PETA stupid

Seriously. They're really fucking stupid.

When you turn thirty

Lex, me, and, if you're lucky, my two cats.

Let's do it.

All in, we're gonna win.




...the next day, I have to admit that I was drunk enough on said liquor to very much not remember posting this.

For Gabba, because we really love him

xoxoxoxo,

solid lex

She was there, too

When Solid and Lex made sweet love.

Memo to an Asshole

Do you want to know why I got served my coffee before you, even though you ordered before me? Of course you want to know, you threw a grown-up man fit there in the coffee shop, so you definitely want to know. Either that or you just enjoy berating minimum-wage workers at seven in the morning. I got my coffee before you did because you ordered a jag-off triple mocha skinny latte foamy with a shot of vanilla, while I ordered a cup of coffee. So the dude took your order, took my order, got me my coffee and then went about debasing himself by making your piece of shit. That you yelled at him while he did it means that you, my friend, are an asshole.

Bob Schieffer is crap

I was reminded why I don't watch the Sunday shows when I caught the lest few minutes of Face the Nation wherein Bob Schieffer called for both Democrats and Republicans to put aside partisan political games. I am tempted to imply that Schieffer is suffering from some age-related mental deficiency, but that would be wrong. His mental deficiencies probably have nothing to do with his age. He suffers from the affliction so many of our mediacrats suffer from, the stupid, stupid, stupid belief that being "neutral" equals being "fair" and this means that we call on both parties to put aside the petty games, even is only one party is currently participating in petty childishness.

In the entire stimulus debate, has any Republican said anything that even remotely sounds like they have the slightest interest in what might be good for the economy or the country? I mean if any of these fuckers actually believes that the solution to this crisis is reduced spending and more tax cuts, then Bob Schieffer et al in our so-called free press need to have the cajones to call these people out on it. They've had their time, it proved an abject failure.

The original stimulus bill was probably too small to do what is necessary. It was larded up with a bunch of tax breaks for the Chamber. For fuck sake, in a time when the vast majority of economists and financial people are saying that we need massive government spending in order to avoid another great depression, we are going to make sure that the government does not collect $350 billion dollars that it would collect after eight years of a tax-cutting orgy. We are cutting motherfucking taxes. I struggle to comprehend it.

Then we get the Republicans demanding more tax cuts or they won't vote for the bill. They get their motherfucking tax cuts. They refuse to vote for the bill. They lie about programs. They exaggerate. They make breath-taking leaps of logic (like ACORN is getting $10 billion in aid because there is $10 billion for community programs and ACORN is a community program) that should get them banned from ever being quoted again in anything other than a monologue. They get Dems to slash very necessary spending and dd more very harmful tax cuts and then still don't vote for the bill. These people are playing political games and do not care about the county. This is apparent to anyone paying the least bit of attention.

Unfortunately, those we pay to pay attention for us are more concerned about being "neutral" than they are about telling the nation what is happening. This is why I don't watch this shit.

Deal or No Deal?

call me a skeptic, but whatever Snowe, Nelson, Lieberman and Spector came up with has got to suck...
whatever the senate passes, the "joint" committee will be where it's at....

Grammar and punctuation are ever evolving rubrics, as well

A lot of the legislative agenda is driven by assumptions that have reached the level of given facts. Science is an ever changing rubric and even such core principles as gravity have been modified over the years as more information has become available. As we enter into a debate on our various courses of action, I think it is important to examine the base line to see if there is enough “real” science to warrant the direction we are taking. To that end my next few newsletters will deal with Oregon’s environmental agenda.

If you ask any climatologist (who has not bought into a political agenda) if the planet is getting warmer the answer will be; “we don’t know”.

TGIF

If you really love me, you'll find this t-shirt and buy it for me

h/t Pam

Because no one has accused the labor movement of being communist in the last week, we'll do this

Lex asks some important questions that no one responded to, so I will take a shot at getting some laboring questions answered.

First, let me say that a labor merger under the terms being discussed horrifies me. Let me grab a coupla quotes from that article:

There was general agreement that any future federation should focus on political and legislative matters, while also serving to encourage individual unions to do more to organize workers.

and

But many officials oppose a rotating presidency, saying the parent federation needs a strong, visible president who, by dint of serving for several years, is recognized by Congress and the news media as the undisputed voice for labor.

Several presidents have also called for creating a strong executive director’s position, partly in the hope that the parent federation would have two strong voices rather than one.

In other words, the AFL-CIO would become strictly a lobbying organization. Yay! I've always wanted to belong to a lobbying organization! Let the motherfucking revolution begin.

I do think we need a strong, strong president. Someone who can speak for "labor." Someone who is independent, answerable to no one. Someone who can demand unwavering support from everyone around him. Someone who can act decisively. Someone who has a lifetime position. Preferably someone willing to eliminate all enemies to labor, even those within the movement. I cannot see any problem with this at all.

But for fuck's sake, lets make sure this powerful man has a woman/minority assistant so that the workers can have someone to adore. Someone who looks like them. Some one who cares. Bam! Look out 21st century, here we come.

"The Leopards" is the most brilliant thing to come 0ut of Lex's mouth in some time.

Crap.

The Kingsmill Smackdown

Obama spoke at a Demo "retreat" tonight, and apparently left the prepared remarks and dropped some smackdown on the rethug obstructionism....
I am glad to see the new tone....
Digby added her two cents:
She recalled a Skocpol essay from a couple weeks ago:

The idea that "elites" will "get serious about repairing the safety net" if they are FIRST given billions of dollars of payoffs to shareholders who made bad decisions is the height of naivete. There are no corporatist institutions in U.S. politics that can enforce this kind of bargain, that can corral all the interests and get them to carry through on mutual promises. That is why Obama and the Democrats will get for the people in general exactly what they push through right now and will squander opportunities if they give money and leverage to "elites" first!

This is what Ira Magaziner imagined with health care back in 1992 -- that he could get up front understandings with powerful interests by giving them concessions in the Health Security proposals, and they would let it get through Congress later. (I remember sitting in his office as I took notes for BOOMERANG and having him complain to me that he could not understand why the business roundtable types "lied" to him about what they would do!) Of course, they turned on him the moment Congress got ahold of things. Same thing will happen here.

digby added:

I noticed in passing that David Gergen is nearly in tears that Obama has betrayed the promise of bipartisanship tonight. He's heartbroken that Obama decided that it was more important to save the economy than kiss GOP hems and bow and scrape before the villagers. No word on the parade of GOP jackasses who've been all over TV laying down the law that the only stimulus they can possibly sign on to is one that would have been written by Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich. It's not as if they've been acting in good faith. (In fact, Huckleberry Graham's multiple tirades today were pretty much a throwdown to Obama's manhood, which is quite a spectacle coming from him.)

At least the spell is broken and the white house will be suffering no further delusions that the Republicans are going to play nice. If they sell out to them, it's because they have decided to do so on the merits. (Now all we have to worry about is the administration playing some kind of equally delusional byzantine inside game with the Blue Dogs...)

What do you think about Obama's Stimulation Package?

Crap/Not Crap: US Labor "Getting the Band Back Together"

for reference purposes, please see Labor Calls for Unity After Years of Division - NYTimes.com

The union presidents issued their joint call after the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama signaled that it would prefer dealing with a united movement, rather than a fractured one that often had two competing voices.

David E. Bonior, a member of Mr. Obama’s economic transition team who withdrew from consideration as labor secretary, helped arrange and oversee a meeting of the union presidents on Wednesday in Washington.

The leaders are hoping, by April 15, to approve a plan to reunify, one union official said. But some officials said they might fail to reach agreement.

Mr. Bonior, a former House majority whip, said he would organize meetings with labor leaders over the next few weeks in the hope of hammering out details about what form a reunified labor federation would take.

BHO saying it'd be easier to work with a united labor movement, and potentially using EFCA as a quid-pro-quo to consolidate his base/our movement? Not crap. Bonior as master of reconciliation ceremonies? Not crap. But then comes tougher questions:

1. Is this "rotating two-year presidency" idea even more flaccid and in-efficacious than the UN-... I mean, the AFL-CIO's situation?
   
2. Trumka? He's not crap, but the "pale/stale/male" tradition he embodies is undeniably so.
   
3. Seriously, a new name? Can we call ourselves "The Leopards?"
   

Joker, smoker, midnight toker

Kathleen Parker

Making Fun of Little Children Horn

AC/DC's Big Score, by Andrew Earles :: The Memphis Flyer
Do I need to remind you that unconditional endorsee Andrew Earles is half of the force behind the Prisonship's 2008 Alb of the Year, and the engine behind m'b'loved Failed Pilot? I shouldn't have to.

Also, let me say this: for all of the babbling I do about enjoying the writing-about-rock, you'll know I'm really bought in to that venture when I abandon my too-easy-to-be-'good,' faux-Meltzer voice for a more expository (but no less writerly) one not unlike Earles'. This essay is about the (foreboding and horrible) irony of the legendary Aussie filth-mongers' team-up with WalMart. It'll be anthologized before you know it, but you should read it now. This is how you write about the social ramifications of rock records without coming off like Simon Frith or Greil Marcus of one of those munches. Why do I want to compare this essay to an Alan J. Pakula film? When I do so, I don't necessarily have this blurb in mind:

To a distant society in another part of the world, it might have looked like Americans were buying one album from one retailer for fear of electrocution by government-mandated shock-collars. Take out the shock-collar part, and you're getting warm.

What if Celebrity Nudity Database.com picked the Oscar winners? | A.V. Club
Celebrity nude database, huh? It's about damned time.

Prindle Record Reviews - Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream
Of course, the other reason I must veer away from the Coley/Meltzer vibe is that Prindle is Undisputed Reigning King of this style, and all the rest of us are just sort of historical re-enactors.

At this point in his career, Bruce just doesn't have the inspiration to write a great straightforward rock album like Born In The USA (or, for that matter, a dark acoustic masterpiece like Nebraska). As evidenced by The Rising and The Seeger Sessions -- the only two of his past five records worth buying -- he needs an overriding concept to wrap his brain around. This allows him to get into a certain mindset and craft an entire sonic and emotional experience for the listener, just as he did with The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle so many years ago. Otherwise, the result is exactly what we have here - a bunch of perfectly listenable pop-rock songs that nevertheless bring nothing new to our lives. Bruce fanatics will be happy because it's new Bruce, but casual listeners will be left wanting. Wanting and craving. With mad lustful desire.

(*sticks dick in Clarence Clemons' saxophone*)

Actually, the real problem might be that this is Bruce's fourth studio album in FIVE YEARS! I doubt that even a strong today's artist as formidable as Lenny Kravitz or Jamiroquai could pull that off with flying colons. Probably Soul Collective or Live could though; those guys are killer, and will have hit after hit for generations to come.

Of course I quite disagree with the positive appraisal of the Seeger Sessions, as I do with all positive appraisals of Pete Seeger. But Prindle's conclusion, that the alb is "just another batch of okay/not great pop-rock songs with a few stylistic surprises thrown in," rings true after my initial .95 listens.

TAD's Weird Ass Music and Books - Powered by CO.CC
Just a very, very good new site of reviews that tends towards my beloved 1970s rock. Get involved, huh?

Cluedo revamp: Jack Mustard, in the spa, with a baseball bat | Life and style | The Guardian
Movie Novelizations #2: Clue The Movie
A new version of Clue, which apparently the kids call "Cluedo" across the drink? Who knew? And also, I HAVE to own this novelization, which I believe might threaten even Hank Searls' Jaws 2 in my pantheon of righteous novelizations. For more on Jaws 2, see this review from a 29 year-old man named Jessica:

Jaws 2 ?It is a reading experience you?ll never forget. A novel of paralyzing terror that will grab you from the opening chapter?Jaws2.? Jaws2 is one of the most spine-tingling books I?ve ever read. It?s descriptive, scary, and the characters are realistic. The book by Hank Searls is descriptive; I always had a movie playing in my head when I read it. One part of the book that was descriptive was, ?A flattened, blood-red sun rose dead ahead?Twenty feet below the surface she swam dead on course for Montauk Peak?Before her, an invisible cone of fear swept the sea clean, from bottom to the surface.? I could really picture it in my head. A movie was playing in my head the whole time. It got so descriptive at times that I got scared at what I was picturing like I was watching a scary movie. Jaws 2 was scary because it explains what it is like to be attacked by a shark. My biggest fear is that exact thing. My mom said, ?When you read it it?s like you?re there inside the story, like you?re in the characters place.? That?s what I think too. Every once in a while I had to put the book down and take three big breaths for one minute. The realistic characters added some of the effect. The characters are realistic because of the way they?re described by the author; it is so real. I can picture a person perfectly from the author?s descriptions. An example of a realistic description is, ?The little attorney was burdened with all equipment money could buy. His mask was prescription- ground so that he needed no glasses. He wore a pressure equalizing vest. On the lawyers left wrist was a compass, and in his right was an underwater watch to give him below time. From his neck dangled a Nikonos underwater camera. Strapped to his left calf was a Buck diving knife, on his right was an aluminum scallop iron for their prey.? Jaws 2 is one of the most spine-tingling books I?ve ever read. You should get this book and read it right away! If you do, you?ll experience a frightening journey on the sea.

What novelizations make you twich, Rich?

Dispatches from the class war

Lucky to be alive, I tell you. Amanda Carpenter and her colleagues, using their wit, daring, and near flawless camouflage,...



... infiltrate class enemy positions and get a small taste of the bloodbath that awaits upon the advent of our Glorious Socialist Яevolution, which will occur on or just before passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Her feverish dispatch:

Throughout the event labor members blasted employers who harassed them in the workplace for supporting the liberal policy. The funny thing is, several of those same labor members openly harassed a pair of men protesting the legislation.

Good lord, that never gets old! At any rate, yes, yes! Objective observer gets the vapors over the treatment of people with whom she's in no way associated!

The [sic] dressed up as "union bosses" looking for their payback for helping Democrats in the 2008 election: passage of EFCA [sic]

They dressed up with helpful signs pointing out that they were union bosses. Which helped, because otherwise a body would've thought they were two assholes there to disrupt the rally.

Anywhere Union Bob and Union Bill went, a crowd of union members followed them and pushed them to the perimeter of the rally. Union members pushed their way in front of them to hold up signs to hide the anti-EFCA signs from the cameras.

The bastards! How dare they try to silence two assholes there to disrupt the rally union bosses looking for their payback!

Essentially, they did everything the [sic] could to make sure no media could see an alternative message.

Unions, of course, being all-pervasive and able to keep the owners and managers of capital from using their various media organs to present a perfectly reasonable argument that the Employee Free Choice Act would TAKE AWAY EVERYONES JOB EVERYWHERE! AND NO PUPPIES! Thank the jeebus cracker Amanda Carpenter was to make sure these brave assholes' union bosses' voices were heard!

When I asked them why they were doing this most of them went mute.

One woman, however, had lots to say. She's in the third video and I'll warn you, her vulgar language isn't safe for work

OMFG! Members of the Яevolutionary People's Proletarian Vanguard cuss at their rivals!



The Huns! The savage fucking barbarians! Amanda was just kind of wondering about the irony of the whole situation, and someone had to go and drop the f-bomb. Why I've never heard those exact words boldly proclaimed in any workplace I've encountered over the last 8 years - thanks for that NSFW label!

But a taste of the fury that is class war has Amanda experienced! We have plenty more insults in store to sweep aside the NAM and their lackeys as we march to our Яevolutionary destiny: an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act! On, comrades!

WTF is up w/Solis Nomination

new story in the LAT about the Solis nomination and card check.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading business lobby, outlined its strategy to defeat the proposal, saying the bill would "effectively eliminate the secret ballot protection for workers" when deciding whether to join a union.

Solis's Cabinet nomination is in the crossfire. She was a co-sponsor of the bill in 2007, and has served for the last four years on the board of American Rights at Work. Solis receives no salary as a board member or treasurer.

Republican senators zeroed in on the organization in a series of written questions and answers obtained by the Tribune Washington Bureau.

In her initial public hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions last month, Solis faced criticism for sidestepping questions about the union organizing issue. She was more forthcoming in subsequent written replies, saying she intended to work for passage if confirmed as Labor secretary.

In the written exchange, Republican senators asked if that would run afoul of Obama's new ethics policy. Obama has announced that appointees who lobbied on an issue must steer clear of it for their first two years of government service. The president has made some exceptions, however.

In their questionnaire, the senators noted that American Rights at Work has lobbied for passage of bill. They asked Solis whether she would seek a waiver from the Obama administration or avoid any role in passing the legislation.

Solis replied that she does not need a waiver and has no intention of stepping back. She said she was only a member of Congress exercising her powers.

"I am not a registered lobbyist, nor do I in any way meet the statutory requirements for registration as a lobbyist," she wrote.

On the eve of the committee vote, Republicans were taking a cautious stance.

A spokesman for the top Republican member of the labor committee, Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), said: "Sen. Enzi has received responses from Rep. Solis to his questions for the record, and he is reviewing those responses carefully."

Big f'in news that the CoC bastards oppose card check. And the nerve of the Rethugs demanding that she recuse herself from all actions on Card check.....Newsflash: they lost.....How is it that someone married to mitch mcconnell, and employed by the heratige foundation never caused a problem, but Solis' unpaid membership on a labor group is fouling her nom?.....Obama and the Dems need to go to the f'in mattresses on this...

Myth making at its worst

The only explanation I can think of is that the pseudo-feminism running rampant has made men feel guilty about our very fiber so long we’ve conformed to a feminist mindset. A mindset whose subtext would ultimately be, “If you think men and women are different … you’re a sexist.” Gender is a “myth perpetuated by society,” they’d say. The worst part is that many women haven’t even realized they’re the ones who have most victimized by this very ideology.

Cousin Oliver

I feel a bit like John Frusciante over here. I've followed the lads (and lady) at the OG here for years, even have the OG logo tattooed on my left butt check, and now I am the luckiest guy in the world because I actually get to jam with these mofos. Plus, Wobs has started to dial it in like he was Flea and Lex is busy trying to become an actor by playing a small-time thug in a Keanu Reeves vehicle. The parallels are uncanny. The only thing left for me to do is propose that we do a really ripping cover of Higher Ground.

As always when the new guy comes in, you will hate me. You will sit around and talk about how you used to read the OG before they sold out. (Speaking of which, can we get some motherfucking ads up in this bitch? I got two cats to feed.) But then the OG will conquer the known blog universe, win Grammies, and everyone will look at you funny when you say you liked early OG and drop a reference to Freaky-Styley. dave3544 Hillel is dead, long live me.

Still, the new guy has to be able to play the classics, if only for encore purposes. Hell, it's why I fell in love with the OG in the first place. So here's this:


Seriously, FUCK ANDY STERN. He's a Stalinesque piece of crap who wants power. His transparent need to grow his union to collect dues, not help workers, but to collect dues and expand his power is obvious to anyone paying attention. The deals his union works with employers, locking in low wages for years while pledging to work on the employers behalf is unconscionable. His ongoing battle with the California Nurses and now the UHW is not about helping workers, it is about power and control.

Alright,the classics done, let me point you to LaborNerd. For reasons I can't explain, I have hopes for this blog. Young people writing about labor, yes! Unfortunately, so far we have a strong endorsement of Robert Reich and a complete unwillingness to take sides in the SEIU-UHW affair. I mean, it's handy to have a clearing house for the info, but pick a motherfucking side. More calls for everyone to get along are not going to help. One side is more right than the other. Declare or shut the fuck up.

RIP

Millard Fuller
1935-2009

Screw you, soul patch

The arts have failed. They no longer keep mass culture in check with thought-provoking art that challenges the establishment. Now they’re in charge of spreading the mainstream mandate of the Liberal Vatican. There isn’t an original thought among them, just a thousand-mile stare, a blue logo and the drone-like vocabulary of emotive, vaguely inspiring chants.

Well, shit, Tom Daschle....

Ezra Klein is out front with the chasepack for HHS Sec./Health Care Czar gig (feat. Oregonians Kitzhaber and Wyden, among others) now that Daschle has left the scene.

Truth is, this may be a bad hit for the administration's health care efforts (these have already taken a backseat to the stimulus blowouts, of course.) I don't claim to know whether of not having a "Man of Stature Who Knows Washington" will or won't be decisive, but clearly there's not a comparable MoSWKW waiting to assume Daschle's position.

You know what, tho? 'Hell with it. Government-as-such faces a deficit in the legitimacy dept. that has to be erased if we're going to see even the "compensatory neoliberalism" schema de l'Obama administration brought to bear on this sonuvabitch. So if it means a Daschle has to disqualify himself in the face of little but the appearance of misconduct...well, I think we've got bigger fish to fry. Anybody disagree? There's plenty of reason to disagree.

Of Course It's a "Water" Pipe

Radley over at the Agitator nails it on the Michael Phelps thing.

A Letter I’d Like To See (But Won’t)
Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

read on...

As a good friend of mine likes to say, the tyranny and the bullshit have gone on too long.

Agnosticism Even in Our Anti-Capitalism

(h/t: fellow twitter-er and Edwards/Dean/Jerry Brown strategy guy Joe Trippi)

Spiegel Online re: Davos...

Davos can deliver insights it doesn't necessarily intend.

The key messages that seemed to flow from four days of speeches, panels, "bilaterals" (i.e., chatting with someone), cocktail parties, and press briefings were these:

1. Everyone stupidly failed to see the financial calamity coming except roughly four economists who now must be heeded in everything they say and all they predict.

2. The private sector has ruined the global economy and can no longer be trusted.

3. Government is ascendant, with regulation closest to godliness.

4. These conclusions are correct and will stand the test of time.

What I took away instead was this: Beware conventional wisdom and groupthink. Be skeptical of tidy explanations for complex past events. Be even more skeptical of confident predictions of future human behavior. Don't fight the last war.

All true, my "non-ideological" friend. I fear for those among us who are too hopped-up about:

1. New Deal 2.
2. "More public, less private" as an end in itself.
3. The fallacy that somehow favoring industrial capital over financial capital is an intrinsically good (or always necessarily meaningful) decision.
   

Brass tacks: be it in laissez-faire or mixed economy tones, the state always "regulates" the economy under capitalism (read your Dean Baker, or Poulantzas on the theory side.)

And to put a theoretical bow on things: on a political-cultural level, the 100% socialization of assets might somehow make our society 100% "public"...but it's not enough to undo the public-private binary that shapes the ideological playing field for social actors, social movements, etc.
Not to sound too lapsed-Catholic, but there's no getting out of the desert until the Original Sin of public-private discourse is undone, transgressed, defaced, profaned, overturned. Of course I'd rather the state administered/guaranteed my health care, and I'll go to as many informational pickets as you want in favor of it. But the state's still the (capitalist) state, in that instance.

What are you saying, Lex - Socialism or Barbarism? Well, of course I'm always at least implying that, I hope. But I'm also trying to make the more pragmatic point that there is a horizon - just a horizon right now, what with all of the totally necessary socialization/regulation/de-privatization we absolutely have to do right now - beyond which the socialization/regulation/de-privatization of capital will cease to be strategically viable aims for organized labor in particular, if not the "working class" in general. The work of agnosticism, which to me is also the work of democratic socialism, is to provide unflagging-but-contingent support for civil society, the public sphere and the state regulation of capital and capitalists, but without elevating those "empty signifiers" to the level of godheads or ends-in-themselves. These aforementioned are worthy socialist causes, but hardly the stuff of life-after-liberalism, let alone life-after-capital.

Any theologians out there interested in the question, "Is socialism capitalist?" It'd prolly make for good barroom talk if the company was right.

Way Beyond Academic Emo: 2009 Self-Inventory

There's nothing like hanging in your childhood home to lead you into deep, obscene feats of regression and recapitulation. Perhaps that's how I've pulled off such adolescent horseshit as mumbling "I don't care what happens to me" recently, and how I came to spend 20-35 seconds of actual, lived life on lamenting how my parents just don't "get" me. (These last episodes are a few days old, btw, and I've since hit the sea-floor and headed surface-way. Is that Ben Gardner's boat?)

Jeepers Creepers, Lex: I know. But circumstances are such that it'd be even stupider to go about mumbling to myself about just how asshole-ish I'd be to continue indulging these sophomoric courses of action and inquiry. Instead, I'll focus on some things that are keeping me on the sunny side, even if I mean to evoke "sunny" in the hollow, haunted sense of stark winter light.

(These're in no specific order, btw. No matter what the format seems to suggest at first glance, you are reading a now-slightly-better-off-than-totally-insane man's blog, not listening to sports-talk radio.)

1. John Hodgman’s Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require. These astonishing works have played a crucial role in helping me maintain the "keep larfing or you will die" dogma that has pretty much defined my internal and external goings-on since mid-12/08. The laughing's running a little thin, actually, but the wannabe Joycean attention to comedy-not-tragedy is both the upside of irish-catholic-ness, and my anti-spiritual skeleton key. What Hodgman knows, and what Lex believes, is that lies beat fiction: 'specially when it comes to larfs! Like the names of twitterers/life-heroes Tompkins, Scharpling and Barry, Hodgman's nom'll be muttered on my death bed when I ponder the 100s of saints who can claim to've at some point saved my life.
2. The District of Columbia. What is this place? Train, train, bomb threat, restaurant, train. When I say, "this is New York City to me," I mean it houses the better-than-sports, better-than-most-making-out politickery that I'm apt for ambling after, autumn after autumn. Now, to find a 'not crap' job therein!
3. Twitter. Listen, maybe this blog-form's imperfect for the rest of you...god knows I don't use Twitter "as directed," which is to say, via my cellphone. My firm commitment to the tweet-form is mostly forged of a formal affinity for the character limit, and a readerly attachment to a cultivated copse of friends'/celebs' banalities and abbreviated asides. If you don't get it, you're not me. (And if you're not me, congrats! That means your face probably isn't twitching.)
4. Cookie Monster.
5. NJ. Let's see, we've got the "lunar landscape" of the turnpike. We've got WFMU, non-crap pizza, and pizzerias whose delivery folks are all over 50. We've got penne vodka on the cheap. And et's not forget the assholes who drive like shit and a ubiquitous affinity for "semi-formal" men's leather jackets. Everybody's gotta be "from" somewhere, I suppose. Is this my "from" place, still?
6. Rules for Turning 30. More on this later. I talk about turning 30 as if I'm very apprehensive about it, but veteran readers'll recognize that I'm actually just arbitrary and vain. I'm taking the approaching birthday as an opportunity to outline an array of advisable/unadvisable life decisions, as well as the usual bombastic pronouncements. Really I'd just like to have my own apartment sometime before this or that equinox. That's my bleeping goal.
7. Le Foosbook. During the trying times of Holiday '08, I hit the Facebook like a bloody-mouthed, hungry lion. Mission Accompished, though! I think I found what I'd needed to find, and am happy to see myself pivoting back towards the blog-realm, be it long-form or be it micro. Now I'm just good pour the occasional status update while awaiting more insane archival Sewanee snaps. (If only I had a scanner, it'd be curtains for you kids.)
8. The Lite-ness of singlehood: have you ever taken LSD-25? I haven’t: not ever, ever, ever. BUT, I’m told that an alternate-universe version of me has done so. Allow me to imagine I'm him for a moment....When I used to dose on LSD (alt. universe 1997-2000) and the shite got thick, I'd contstantly have to put out my hands, slap the floor, and remind myself where my body ended and the rest of the material world began. This fetishistic work of boundary drawing reminded me how small and physical I was, and helped my occasionally heroic conscience semi-soothe me to the tune of "hold it down, hold it down." So, too, do I find myself seeking reassurance these days from things in the world, and from my own frail physique, as I go about demarcating me and everything else. I am small, I am light, I am unassuming, I am passionless. I am not positioned to hurt anybody or myself. But better, I'm on the way to learning how to just maybe "take it lite" with the enemy of my enemy, Lurks Durkinster.
9. My Grandfather. My grandfather's the kinda guy who, when you tell him you gotta go to the can, he says, he says, he says, “mention my name and they’ll give you a good seat.”
10. Prindle 73. Obviously.
11. Wlkmn. I understand how this fascination/affinity might seem weird to some, especially because on the surface these guys just seem like another iteration of the Brooklyn, 2001 rubric that even Pitchfork's starting to get snarky about. My history with this band: includes the legendary Jonathan Fire*Eater; gleefully acknowledges their way longer-running DC roots; but culminates with the non-context-y realization that I like every single sound coming out of their songs. My new Son Volt, le wlkmn? That's not the right comparison yet, not least because they haven't demanded my rabid attention for a decade yet. But there's something happening with me and they. (And by the way, this particular performance of "In the New Year" will forever connote Barack Obama being president for me. Hamilton's vocal performance is fucking commanding, his leather jacket hardly semi-formal.) I really don't care who else "gets it," and I'm perfectly cool with this being just a 'me' thing. There have to be 'me' things, these days, or I'd go the way of a beached whale.
12. Realizations re: Patrick, writer and Patrick, rocker. Okay, look: I can't sing. Even when the bands I've fronted have no-doubt rocked, it's never been cuz I approached my beloved Chiltons, Parsons, Farrars in the throaty pipes dept. I get this now, having made a solo alb where something like "singing" would've helped. You know what else? I can't even not-sing a la my guys Kinsella, Dylan, etc. Front-guy wise, I think I've done best sounding like, well, Lex Dexter, with all his unconsciously embodied Mark E. Smith, Lydon, Chris Leo-isms. Really, I'm fine with that. Especially now that I've decided not to waste my words on my own voice. Because, you see, I like what I write a lot, and I am pleasantly unconcerned about it winning an audience beyond you seven readers, so there's no need to dress it up all suitable-like for the bars. I'm right now happier doing writing-about-music than I am saddling my writings with music. Try to stop me, eh? And when I do sing again it's gonna be Lex Dexter-y rasp time, not falling-short-of-Chilton follies time.
13. MySpace qua Radio. The only reason to've a muhspuss pazh is cuz it allows one to cruise rock bands' mushpuss radio stations. Why didn't I think of this four years ago? I did, but had to cut bait when 225 students wanted up in my back catalogue. No such problems these days.
14. Relative Libidolessness. Can't help cataloging all of my less-ness-es right now, even if it means (non-)sex-nonsense-blogging now. I am seated between a Straw Man and a Blow-Up doll, and it's cold enough to see my breath. There's the sound of children's laughter pumped in from somewhere. I am my own niece. I shall not not not want for anything saltier than a paperback.

15. The State of Michigan (home of l'UAW, Joe Louis Arena, le Bellman,)

Even the Apostles stopped Always Pressing After the Pentecost.

Maybe my imaginary Reuther's better to Virgil me All throughout Anti-Purgatory. Every other year after every other year, there's Always Pickets.

Anti-Popes, After-Parties: Vinnie Johnson, Ron Gettelfinger, Elmore Leonard, Chet Lemon. All Pink wine And Pantlegs.

Fuck bread and roses! We want fixed prices on A lot full of Packards, and we want Awesome Pastels for our nephew and our niece.

Union Security for Dummies: Sure, dues checkoff = AutoPay.

It's gonna take A lotta Patience, Michigan. It's gonna take A lotta Poise.

16. Sam Adams/Two-Beer Patrick. Two-Beer Patrick is an important, prophesied deliberor, coming soon to yawn at you, be yawned at by you, and to go home early... ( Where's the vaign?) Sam Adams has been on my mind for months before I came home to Jersey and started slurping 1.25 of 'em every other evening. It's my new idea of "plain" flavored beer, and darned if it's not delightful having no more than 1.25 of 'em. Out of curiousity, what're you all's submissions to the Plain Beer Survey?
17. Big Black Boook of lists/dreams qua Open-Ended ‘What is to be Done?’ conversation with self. Thank god. 'I've sporadically maintained a big sketchbook (sans sketches) since my second night in Eugene, 2002. Lately I've returned to reading/adding to the retrospective catalog of rock shows, crushes, insane ambitions, dreams, French Trotskyists' speeches and list of girls kissed btw. 1996-2000. Don't you judge! I'm just trying to take it lite, and these days that's hard work, Regis.