04.30.08
Posted in Blogosphere, Congress, Culture, Environment policy, Ideology, North Korea, Sports, iraq at 7:47 pm by Administrator
Blogging has been light the past few days. That’s because life is good, professionally speaking. I’ve knocked out a couple of things for Indie-music.com’s May issue – a review of a lackluster CD, but also a very cool interview to which I’ll link when it comes out. Also doing some copywriting for a PR / marketing guy I’ve worked for over the years. I also had to do next Sunday’s Republic column (on why nuclear proliferation isn’t a bigger issue this political season). I’ve also been lining up musical associates for several upcoming gigs. Also grading papers and getting ready to administer tonight’s final exam.
I have been paying attention to the world around me, though. It’s wacky out there, ain’t it?
Were you like me when you heard about Miley Cyrus’s Vanity Fair photo shoot? I immediately thought, “Oh, no, our sordid, rotten culture nabs another Disney kid.”
I doubt if Obama’s denunciation of Rev. Wright yesterday ends the matter. That would depend on the Trash Talker from Trinity not shooting his mouth off any more. How likely is that? Plus, He Who definitely Doesn’t Walk On Water sounded, shall we say, less than resolute when he said, “I mean it.” Not the man he met twenty years ago? Oh, please. And if he’s that poor a judge of character, we sure as hell don’t want him sitting down one-on-one with Kim, Ahmadinejad and Chavez.
Iran looks to be a front-burner issue. There’s yet another warning-shot-to-a-speedboat incident in the Persian Gulf, another American aircraft carrier sailing into that body of water, more proof of Iranian weapons and Iran-trained bad guys turning up in Iraq, and, of course, Dennis Ross’s warning to that Toronto congregation that the West has less than a year to prevent Iran from having nukes.
Gas prices won’t be coming down any time soon, for two main reasons: Mideast tensions and Congress’s refusal to allow drilling in places like ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico.
Environmentalists aren’t just dweebs; they’re agents of misery. Riot-causing food shortages are menacing the entire world, in no small part because of the diversion of perfectly edible grain into biofuel production.
Zimbabwe’s oppostion is bravely trying to see that political justice and national stability prevail. Robert Mugabe is showing us how evil dictators operate when they have no more ability to dress up their motives as anything civilized, like “the national interest.”
As I say, it’s wacky out there, ain’t it?
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04.25.08
Posted in Politics at 3:42 pm by Administrator
Memo to Sen. John “we-may-disagree-with-them-deeply-but-let’s-remember-they-are-not-our-enemies” McCain: Dude, you don’t go calling a state GOP organization “out of touch.”
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Posted in Contact, Middle East, North Korea, Pakistan at 8:48 pm by Administrator
The CIA has briefed Congress on the Syrian nuclear reactor that the Israelis zapped last September. By now, you know that it was built with consultation and materials from North Korea. It seems that some in the administration are concerned that this jeopardizes the “diplomatic process” in both northeast Asia and the Mideast.
Take a moment to fully let in the irony of a Republican Representative, Pete Hoekstra, holding the position that this situation proves the failure of this whole “diplomatic” track, and a Democrat such as Howard Berman supporting the administration’s quest for a “diplomatic” solution to all this.
And watch the linked interview with John Bolton.
We have most assuredly entered the age of post-non-proliferation, and that has strategic and, indeed, spiritual consequences. There are consequences attendant to our insistence on seeing the potential for goodwill where none exists.
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Posted in Culture, Music at 2:05 pm by Administrator
The International Association of Jazz Education has filed for bankruptcy and Louisville’s world-class club The Jazz Factory has closed.
Much has been written about the changing – okay, shrinking – demographic for what had once been America’s music. It’s not really a new phenomenon. Players, promoters, record people and broadcasters back in the 1950s bemoaned the dwindling opportunities for those who were set on devoting their musical energies to this mode of expression.
Does the blame lie with the fact that, after WW II, jazz was no longer primarily dance music? I think there’s something to look at there.
I’m reluctant to say that race is any kind of a major factor. Both black and white players have been making seriously swinging jazz since the days of Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Venuti, King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. Yes, African-Americans pioneered the form, but it quickly became, as I say, America’s music.
And I don’t want to make too much of this postwar lack of danceability. Bebop wound up making its way into the broader conventions of the development of American music. You heard little bop flourishes in a lot of mainstream pop by the mid-50s.
I gave my final lecture for the semester in my rock-history class last night. I said, “I’ve really tried to keep my opinions out of this class, but here’s an opinion for you: I think there should be at least three prerequisites for taking rock history: history of American popular song, blues history, and jazz history.” I asked the class to name three George Gershwin tunes and three Cole Porter tunes. Alas, the assemblage came up short.
I think the overwhelming of American culture with the rock ethos – loud, fast, simple, and focused on the exaltation of youth – is the primary factor in where we find ourselves today. Any conveyance of the subtleties of human experience – in our music, and also our visual arts, our literature, and, indeed, in our personal interactions – gets harder and harder to accomplish. Such is the legacy of Alan Freed and George Goldner.
I still cling to some faint hope that jazz hasn’t calcified into some kind of museum piece, some kind of rarified specialty like opera. Those who pioneered it in the funky clubs, cafes, theaters and ballrooms of early 20th-century America certainly didn’t envision such an end for what they were fashioning.
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04.17.08
Posted in Free-market Economics, Law dhimmitude at 7:36 pm by Administrator
He Who Doesn’t Walk On Water After All didn’t have a good night at the debate last evening, but his low point came when he addressed the capital gains tax and made a downright ass of himself.
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04.16.08
Posted in American exceptionalism, Contact at 4:08 pm by Administrator
The great John Bolton on the W administration / State Department failure to do a damn thing about North Korea except make things worse:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120821851545814633.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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04.13.08
Posted in Jazz Guitar, Music at 3:02 pm by Administrator
Had dinner with some friends at Farm-Bloomington last night and got a look at the Root Cellar, the downstairs music venue where violinist Carolyn Dutton and I will be playing Thursday, April 24. Cozy place. The stage area has a grotto feel to it, hemmed in as it is by these massive ancient walls. Hope everyone in the area will come out as fill the place. It will be the premier public outing for my new Gretsch arch-top.
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04.12.08
Posted in Ideology at 6:08 pm by Administrator
He Who Doesn’t Walk On Water After All is trying to put the best spin possible on his embittered-small-town-midwesterners-turn-to-religion-guns-and-antipathy-toward-different-people-and-immigrants remark (which he made at a San Francisco fund-raiser, no less.)
Starting with the Sunday talk shows, this is going to be discussed wall-to-wall in punditry land thiscoming week. BN will be part of the fun, you can bet.
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04.11.08
Posted in Congress, Middle East at 4:16 pm by Administrator
Iran, you may have heard by now, is firing up 6,000 centrifuges, certainly enough to make nukes.
Charles Krauthammer says that, since the W administration has utterly failed to stop Iran in its quest to get nukes, the next president is going to have to institute a deterrent policy, which Krauthammer calls the Holocaust Declaration. Basically, it would assert that a nuclear atack on Israel would be regarded as the same thing as an attack on the US. Krauthammer says the focus needs to be on Israel, because Iran isn’t capable of hitting a Western target any farther away.
It’s a sound policy, but he may want to rethink his formulation in light of this development.
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04.07.08
Posted in Jazz Guitar, Music at 11:04 pm by Administrator
Fans and those who have attended my gigs know that I have played a 1976 Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty Custom for years. I got it in 1981, to be exact. I have played it and played it, in fact. Had it refretted six years ago, and it really could use it again now. Has some character-imparting nicks in the finish and it weighs 12 and a half pounds, but it’s been a part of me.
There’s a music store in my city that I patronize frequently, for strings, picks, music stands, etc. From time to time, one of the guys there has had me play various guitars and on a few occasions I’ve been so impressed that I’ve floated the idea of a trade-in. He’s always said, “I’m not even going to go there, man. Your Les Paul is you. You’d regret it.”
Well, Saturday morning, he put this absolutely gorgeous maple-with-sunburst-finish Gretcsh archtop in my arms, a G 5120 SB, with dual-coil pickups and that classic Brigsby whammy bar. I stummed it a few times. He said, “Dude, I’ve never seen that look on your face before!” I played it for about twenty minutes and left to run some errands. About an hour later I came back, Les Paul in hand, and said, “Don’t try to talk me out of this, man.”
It’s a stunningly excellent instrument. Not the first microinch of play in the tuning pegs, no odd sounds. It sounds like an object crafted from wood – so rich and resonant. It’s a gas to just sit there and stum a simple A major bar chord and listen to it ring out.
Practice has become inspiring again. Such a friendly fretboard. Scales and exercises practically play themselves.
I’m not even going to tell any of my musical associates. I’ll just let them be surprised when I take it out of the bag the next time I gig or jam with each of them.
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04.06.08
Posted in Human freedom, Radicalism in high places, UN at 10:59 am by Administrator
An actor of great power and versatility, and a ctizen and thinker who always stood for the principles enshrined in the BN Manifesto with dignity.
As with the passing of WFB, one is inspired anew to strive a bit harder for that combination of clarity, steadfastness and humanity that characterizes the greats in our cause.
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