Thoughts on culture, politics, music and stuff by Eric Olsen, Marty Thau and Mike Crooker, who are among other things, producers.

 
Bush World
For various reasons, including the six-month anniversary of 9/11 and the publication of Frank Bruni’s tales from the Bush presidential campaign trail, Ambling Into History (the current subject of Andrew Sullivan's book club), assessments of George W. Bush as very much in vogue. Today in the NY Times, Bill Keller takes a crack at it. Keller believes, not unreasonably, that right-of-center thinkers are most in tune with Bush, and he canvasses several for his piece.

The result is a broad consensus that coincides with my own observations. Bush is a moralist “crusader” (his use of the word just after the attacks was not a mistake) pursuing “universalist” (read monotheistic) ideals: at home in the form of soul-nurturing, nuclear family-oriented self-sufficiency (examples: welfare reform raising work requirements, a proposed $300M a year for counseling and other efforts to encourage and support marriage), and - galvanized by 9/11 - a mission to root out “evil” from the world in the forms of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in “irresponsible” hands. Keller quotes and agrees with this Bush observation by “influential conservative” Norman Podhoretz:

"On tactics, he may be listening to Colin Powell. But he's very clear as to his strategic objectives — not just to clean up Al Qaeda cells but to effect regime changes in six or seven countries and to create conditions which would lead to internal reform and modernization in the Islamic world."

All but the most vindictive concede that Bush isn’t stupid. Bruni, a liberal writer for the NY Times, in response to questioning from Sullivan’s book club readers, opines:

Some of the questions about Bush's intelligence arose from what can, I think, justly be called his poor brain-to-mouth coordination, and from his relative inelegance or simplicity in talking about policy. That's a yardstick that gets used, and it's probably a shallow one. But there are so many other yardsticks - knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses, the ability to make accurate visceral judgments about people, the mental discipline it takes to keep an eye on the forest without getting distracted by the trees, a good and accurate sense of the atmosphere around you at a given time. And by these yardsticks, which are also incomplete and probably insufficient, Bush fares much better, I think.

In addition to not being stupid, neither is Bush unserious or a “lightweight.” Keller, also a NY Times liberal, writes, "Mr. Bush is a serious man, meaning resolute and full of purpose," although he also states, "The sometimes skillful work of his speechwriters, which he sometimes delivers with conviction, cannot disguise the fact that he is not a deep thinker, a student of ideas, or even a very curious man."

Now, perhaps conveniently buoyed by his conviction that fighting terror and purging the world of evil is his “mission from God” (literally), Bush has a moral justification for a certain political ruthlessness, a ruthlessness that got him into office in the first place, and which he is clearly ready to use to keep him in office in the second place (his imposition of anachronistic steel tariffs was a purely political move aimed at bolstering support in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia).

How you feel about Bush comes down to your priorities. I didn’t vote for him and thought him to be something of a dolt, which I still do in a way because he’s good at things I’m not and vice versa. I’m a lot more articulate than he is, and, being good at it, articulateness is something I normally value highly. I’m perhaps more intellectual than he is, but he’s got me in all those other categories: the world vision thing, Bruni's “knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses, the ability to make accurate visceral judgments about people, the mental discipline it takes to keep an eye on the forest without getting distracted by the trees, a good and accurate sense of the atmosphere around you at a given time.” (I imagine if I was better at those things I’d be further along in life by now.) My priorities have changed since 9/11, and the things Bush excels at now seem more important than glibness and a way with theory.

It isn't that I suddenly agree with him on everything, though. Domestically, I’m opposed to much of what he’s up to: I’m a medium-strength environmentalist, think we need an aggressive alternative fuel policy, and oppose the steel tariffs as anti-free trade even though I live in Ohio. In principle I can hang with the welfare reform (which Clinton began), although it is perverse to require more hours of work from recipients without providing secure daycare to make it feasible.

However, at this point, I’m less concerned with individual policy than with the big picture, and right now the big picture is the state of the world. I don’t have a problem with his handling of Afghanistan, nor do I have a problem with his “axis of evil.” I think picking three countries and making sure one of them wasn’t Islamic was a bit cynical and overtly political, but who in their right mind would say Iraq, Iran and North Korea don’t have regimes that blow dead rats in the gutter?

I do believe in a carrot and stick approach: we can’t just blow them up, we have to build them back up as well, but at least Bush’s new three-year, $10B promise to boost aid to poor countries is a step in the right direction. Right now, I fear Democratic equivocation and lack of resolve on this biggest issue. We must restructure the world, period, and if that means blowing up countries one at a time until they collectively get their shit together, then so be it. Might doesn’t make right - but we have the might and it’s time to set things right, nuances and niceties be damned. You don’t clean a cesspool with a toothbrush - you drain the stinking mess, sanitize it with steam, and start over again, even if it takes another seven years.
posted by Anonymous at 9:02 PM

 
A Vote For Censorship
From NY Post (thanks to Marty)
"The wonder of the Web is that it makes it so easy to access information from remote areas of the world. If you're sitting in Afghanistan, you can access this. Our enemies are those who would use our technology against us. Look at Sept. 11."
- White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, on an administration order to clear government Web sites of information concerning weapons of mass destruction.
posted by Anonymous at 4:52 PM

 
News and Commentary Roundup
The finest of the day's journalistic harvest, preselected by Jerry.

Kausfiles, by Mickey Kaus

It's not just a 60-day blackout: The ACLU points out that, in presidential election years, the newly passed McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan law would suppress issue ads that mentioned the names of any of the presidential candidates for virtually the whole year. ... That's because the law bans such broadcast ads (when they aren't funded by strictly limited PAC contributions) 30 days before a primary, and there's a primary somewhere every couple of weeks! In 2000, the ACLU claims, only August would be left as a free speech month....

"The Politician's Wife: Behind every great woman is a dead husband” by Chris Suellentrop, Slate

Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, and Tipper Gore share one thing in common: A dead husband. Not literally, of course. Blood still pumps through Al's and Bob's and Bill's veins. But their husbands' elective careers are dead, though each man may be in a different stage of grief: denial (Al), bargaining (Bill), and acceptance (Bob). Hillary, Liddy, and Tipper aren't just political wives. They're political widows....

"The Gambler Loses Again" by David Ignatius, Washington Post

Back when he was a general, Ariel Sharon was often criticized as a bold but unreliable leader -- a man who took big leaps without knowing where he would land. That kind of adventurism is dangerous enough if you're commanding troops, but it's close to unforgivable if you're responsible for the security of an entire nation....

"What We Don't Know" by Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Sen. Hillary Clinton was "very mad." Her colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer, was critical as well. New York's mayor, Mike Bloomberg, was not happy either, and neither was New York's governor, George Pataki. As for myself, I am painfully perplexed. For once, the right answer eludes me....

"They Splutter Through the War" by Charles Krauthammer, Washinton Post

It is not easy opposing the war on terror. Sept. 11 seems to have been a fairly definitive declaration of war on America, leaving us little choice but to fight. Nonetheless, we are blessed with a cadre of thinkers for whom failure to oppose a war -- any war -- is a kind of self-betrayal. Whether out of distrust of American power or reflexive sympathy with whoever is today carrying the banner of anti-Americanism (yesterday, communists; today, Islamists), they have sallied forth carrying the flag of protest....

"How Does Bond Keep It Up?" Ian Fleming's sadistic, snobbish Cold War tales are the latest Penguin Modern Classics - and the secret of their success lies in the way they anticipated the world of bin Laden” by Christopher Hitchens, The Observer

There are many reasons for the immense adhesiveness of the 007 classics, and one of these reasons is certainly the loving attention paid to what we now term the 'designer' aspect of culture: the brand name and logo and product-placement element that, nowadays so pervasive as to be wanting in any sort of style, was quite a daring refreshment in the post-austerity 1950s....

"Behavior Modification: Soon after the Afghan war began, the Air Force dramatically altered its tactics. What lay behind the change?” by James Fallows, The Atlantic

When fighting begins, military establishments are nearly as eager to observe and record the results as to win. This emphasis is natural, since claims about what did and didn't work may be used for decades afterward to settle arguments, justify new weapons, and affect military doctrine. Long before the first bombs were dropped on Afghanistan, some of the Pentagon's official historians had been invited into the building to observe the proceedings....

posted by Anonymous at 4:34 PM

 
Emptying Out The Bookmarks #15

After the Telecondom, it only seems natural (so to speak) to point you to Nori The Original Nasal Passage Cleaner.

The pictures say so much more than I could...


posted by tofu at 10:13 AM

 
Skankees
The shadowy Jerry reveals himself as a Mets fan in this email exchange.

While I don't wish any physical ill to Jason Giambi, this Mets fan hopes you're right about the fate of the Yankees - especially the aging and (let's face it) evil pitcher Roger Clemens.
Jerry

Right on J! I used to wish for the Yankees' plane to crash (in the abstract, of course), 9/11 put a quick stop to that nonsense.
Eric

Maybe Giambi can get a paper cut that prevents him from gripping the bat. Or perhaps Ruben Rivera can return and steal all his bats. When you look at Giambi's OPS numbers next to Tino Martinez's, it's scary how much the Yankees have upgraded, particularly when you consider that Giambi is moving from a pitcher's park to the short porch at Yankee Stadium.
Jerry

Funny you should mention all that, because I think it will take some time for the Skanks to adjust to every old fart and errant thrower being purged. I have learned with the Indians that an Allstar at every position doesn't necessarily mean squat. The "chemistry," uncanny ability to do whatever needs to be done at the critical moment, and, of course, pitching is what has won for them. Giambi is a big dopey goof who may disrupt the delicate "chemistry" through no fault of his own. With nice-guy, humble-to-a-fault Jeter as the only superstar, there has been balance; egos (Bernie) may be bruised by all of the attention Giambi gets. My real hope, though, is that the pitching really IS getting old (El Duque 50?, Clemens is due for another breakdown, Wells is too old and fat to tie his shoes, Pettite is due for a down year, Mussina is still very solid), and the mystique of invincibility has been broken. HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Eric

posted by Anonymous at 5:54 PM

 
E.T. Phone Box Office
Prior to today’s 20th anniversary rerelease of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the beloved Spielberg alien/family flick had grossed about $400M domestically, putting it in 4th place all-time behind Titanic ($600M), Star Wars ($461M), and Star Wars The Phantom Menace ($431M). With some restored scenes and a high-profile marketing campaign, it stands a good chance of regaining second. Everyone who liked it before likes it again save for two curmudgeons: Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, who notes,

But other "improvements" smack of PC revisionism. Elliot's mom once scolded him for looking like a terrorist in his Halloween costume; now she says he looks like a hippie. And remember those guns the feds carried? Thanks to the miracle of digital, they're now brandishing walkie-talkies. Gone, too, is that moment when Elliot calls his brother "penis breath." Is this what two decades have done to free speech?

(Good point, actually) And, this interesting take from the Village Voice comparing E.T. to a dog (genre) movie.

If E.T. is indeed a higher intelligence, as Elliott insists, what does he have to teach? Evidently he is one of those autistic genius types that Hollywood adores—capable of crafting an interstellar communicator out of toys and cutlery, but completely inept at basic social skills. Despite his ability to learn English in a couple of hours, what does E.T. have to say? The boy learns about tolerance, loyalty, his capacity for love. Well, that's all fine, but it's nothing you can't learn from an earth dog.

We shall see.
posted by Anonymous at 3:02 PM

 
Take the Cash, Flash
While we’re talking baseball, the sad case of Jaret Wright (4th item down) is once again proof that a) you never know what’s going to happen, so b) always take the security of the multi-year deal. As a cocky rookie, Wright almost won the 7th game of the World Series in ‘97. The cockiness turned to overweening pride and a decline in '98, then shoulder problems reduced him in ‘99, and pretty much elimiinated ‘00, and ‘01. ‘02 isn’t looking good either. Fortunately for him, he signed a 4-year, $9M deal after the ‘98 season, so if he has to, he can pay someone to lift his arm for him. It’s still sad.
posted by Anonymous at 2:03 PM

 
Rock Hall Final
Check out Bob Gruen's cool pics from the induction ceremony and Phil Spector’s after-party.
posted by Anonymous at 1:19 PM

 
Sports News Out the Wazoo
First, humble Kent State, just down the road a piece, has people screaming “Cinderella” as they advance by beating Pitt in overtime 78-73. Kent is the first team from the MAC to make it to the Elite 8. Jaded columnists are giddy. “Cinderella” may not be the right word, though, as the Golden Flashes have won 21 games in a row. Maybe the right word is “destiny.” Go Flashes.

Second, proud Poland Seminary High School, where my daughter is a senior, got steamrolled by LeBron James and St. Vincent-St. Mary in the Ohio state Division ll basketball semifinals yesterday. Poland certainly has nothing to be ashamed of, making it to the semi’s in basketball, after winning their state division championship in football a couple of years ago. The real story here is that at the high school level, unlike college or pro, an extraordinary talent can still utterly dominate.

Here is Poland, a bunch of “ordinary,” if talented and well-coached kids, going up against a guy who was on the COVER OF SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, for Pete’s sake. Extraordinary talent is an odd thing: you are viewed as some kind of freak, it isn’t fair, it isn’t real competition, expectations are at super-human levels and if you meet them - well, what do you expect? If you don’t, you choked or worse. You are coveted and resented, cheered and hated. It is very difficult to know how to behave: expressions of humility are viewed as false, statements of confidence are viewed as arrogance. On the outside a magical, mature athlete; on the inside, still a dopey teen like all the rest. Let’s hope he keeps it together as well as Kobe.

Speaking of SI, the new baseball preview issue gives the reviled Yankees the double whammy: Jason Giambi is on the cover, and the team is picked to win it all. Thank God, now we don’t have to worry about them. Giambi will probably rupture a spleen in April, and the aging Yankees pitching staff will limp through a geriatric season of brittle bones and palsy.

Things are looking up for the Indians, SI picks them as only the 14th best team overall, and third in their division. Hello World Series.
posted by Anonymous at 11:51 AM

 
News and Commentary Roundup
The best in journalism, preselected for your edification by Jerry.

"Wedded to Our Celebrity Culture" by Mark Steyn, National Post

On Friday, Shirley Temple Black, the beloved former child star of On The Good Ship Lollipop and Animal Crackers In My Soup fame and more recently U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, pulled out of Liza Minnelli's wedding. Her reason for cancelling at 24 hours' notice was that she was "weirded out" by Liza's fiance's vast collection of Shirley Temple memorabilia....

"411 Is a Joke: When 411 gives you a day-care center number when you ask for Yung's Chinese Carry-Out's, you know you've got a problem” by Laura Lippman, Slate

If you have a complaint about local 411 directory assistance, chances are you are a) lazy and b) gainfully employed. An industrious person simply grabs the phone book. The self-employed are too cheap to pay the 25 cents that the phone company (in my state, Maryland) charges 411 users after they run through the monthly allotment of six....

"Airline Changes Mind on Rushdie Flying Ban” Reuters

TORONTO - Salman Rushdie is once again free to fly on Air Canada after the airline backed down Tuesday from its policy of refusing to carry the author, who is under a death threat for allegedly blaspheming Islam. "After further consultation with U.S. and Canadian authorities, we have updated our position and will accept Mr. Rushdie for travel on Air Canada," airline spokeswoman Laura Cooke said Tuesday....

"Islam In the Slammer" by Matt Labash, Weekly Standard

“IN THE pre-September 11 world, the culture of correctional facilities used to rely on a certain natural order. A criminal would get busted, be sent to the joint, then along about the first time he got turned out by a guy named Fang while getting Zest-fully clean in the prison shower, he'd decide to find a community, buy a skullcap, change his name to something militant-sounding, and declare himself a Muslim....

"Delta Plan for Testing Biometrics Has Privacy Advocates Worried” by JANE COSTELLO, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

A select group of Delta Air Lines passengers may soon be asked to hand over fingerprints as well as boarding passes when they fly out of New York. SecurCom Inc., a Schiller Park, Ill., security firm, says it is in discussions with the airline to conduct a test of biometric boarding passes at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York this summer. Should the contract be approved, participation in the "BioPass" program will be offered to some of Delta's top frequent fliers on a voluntary basis....

"Bullet Points: What the Fox network could teach the Pentagon, etc.” by Scott Shuger, Slate

If the U.S. anti-terror campaign can employ quick strikes, then a column covering it can too:According to news accounts of Operation Anaconda, after it was discovered that a Navy SEAL was missing from a helicopter that had been attacked when it landed, in-theater U.S. commanders quickly dispatched two helicopters back to the battle scene, where they were assaulted in a firefight that ended up costing six U.S. dead and 11 wounded. So, here's a question for enterprising war reporters to look into: Why were the helicopters sent back to the landing zone without first softening it up with airstrikes or artillery barrages? (We do have precision weapons, so suppressing threats in an LZ doesn't require vaporizing the folks we're trying to rescue too.) Wasn't the importance of avoiding a "hot" LZ a lesson learned in Vietnam?...

posted by Anonymous at 10:47 AM

 
Massive Windstorm Whips China, Millions Squint
posted by Anonymous at 8:59 PM

 
Wienerville
This site is ideally placed above the below episode, mirroring its mentality well. Slightly less than half of the human population is appropriately equipped. Forewarned is foreskinned. My only objection is the "English" English. What exactly is a "wanker?"
posted by Anonymous at 8:41 PM

 
You Shook Me All Night Long
I was reminded of this drama in real life when AC/DC was voted Hall of Fame-bound in the Cleveland.com/Cool Tunes reader's poll. It was long ago and far away from a snowy March 21 in Northeast Ohio.

Spring, 1988. There are nuclear missile sites more accessible, but all of the amenities of a modern debauch are there: a portable stage, a generator, Bedouin tents for private consultation, two heavily fortified bars and a wooden parquet dance floor. These relics of party sacrament have been hauled two hours northwest of LA, over four freeways, three highways, two gravel roads, a dirt path and across 50 yards of loose, pebbly sand and tumblin' tumbleweeds.

The DJ maneuvers his stouthearted little red truck, burdened with equipment and records, from the second gravel road onto the dirt path. He curses the obviously faulty map that was hastily scribbled upon a torn record sleeve the night before by the extravagantly drunken social chairman, Dirk, a tall, athletic and square-jawed junior patrician who squints and expectorates under the influence of alcohol.

The ink of the impromptu map is smeared at more than one critical juncture. The DJ can't tell if he is headed toward the promised party land, or toward a dead end of dried drool.

The disgruntled DJ is on the verge of throwing his truck into reverse and backing his way toward civilization when he rounds a bend and beholds what appears to be a major archeological site, replete with dozens of hyperkinetic nomads in flowing regalia. He then notices the stage and the dance floor and begins to recognize some of the Arabians waving floppy scimitars at him.

There is the elongated Dwarf towering above the rabble, and Mush and Beak and John ("no nicknames, please"), the house president, and all of the other deranged but essentially benevolent frat lads. These archeologists seek not the treasures of antiquity, but an Arabian Night of revelry unattainable within the shadow of the Great Concrete Campus by the Freeway.

Dirk's square jaw reaches the DJ first.

"'Bout time, dude, you've got half an hour to set up before the bars open."

"I'd have been here sooner if you hadn't spooged on the map. Nice Indiana Jones set."

"This is Pismo's father's land. Someday it'll be just another suburb, then he'll be rich. I mean richer. Reagan's ranch is around here somewhere. Pledges! Help the DJ get set up. His word is law! He is a god!"

Dirk flourishes his robes dramatically. He is still articulate, but already speaking wetly.

Electric anticipation courses through the overheated, cloudless, late afternoon air. Pledges bound about like Middle Eastern pinballs. With, or despite the assistance of the pledges, the DJ is set up upon the stage and ready to rock at 6:00pm sharp. The most zealous pledge, the wraithlike Lard, fires up the generator as insects flee the din.

The DJ's turntables, amp and lights spring to life as the kegs are tapped, the liquor bottles liberated and the once-barren wasteland reverberates with the sound of ice merrily clunking in large plastic cups and ACDC over the sound system.

(Some time later)

"I'm George and I'm the girl's escort."

"Girls!"

"Bitches!"

"Professionals!"

Unseen voices interrupt from the direction of the dance floor as George addresses the throng from the stage.

"Excuse me, gentlemen - as I was saying - we have some rules here - especially here."

George's shaved head and devil's goatee swivel through the gloaming in an effort to survey his audience. His interior lineman's bulk slumps against the improbability of his surroundings.

"How many guys are out there?"

George whispers conspiratorially to his perceived ally, the DJ.

"80, 90, maybe 100."

"Are they good guys?"

"Well, I like them, but they like me."

George's eyes glaze and his muscles tighten against his already straining tank top. He pictures himself as heroic. Kerosene lanterns lick canvas in the distance from within the tents. The stage is a lonely island of civilization against the encroaching barbarism of the night - the alcohol, the sand, the drugs, the blast furnace air, the hormones of a battalion of insulated, callow, Masters of the Universe.

George readdresses the throng.

"No touching the ladies with your hands. Don't throw anyting, including money."

He again peers intently at the vague forms barely perceptible a few feet away from him.

"Oh, and guys - let's be gentlemen."

"Rurrh," protests the darkness.

"Phssst!"

"Mumble Mumble."

"Bring out the fucking bitches!!!"

George's eyes are glued to movement in the gloom as he inquires of the DJ out of the right corner of his mouth,

"How long have they been drinking?"

"The bars opened at 6."

"So they've been drinking for two and a half hours?"

"You mean it's 8:30 already?" the DJ queries as a gust of desert wind nearly knocks him over.

"You've been at it too, huh? They been doing anything besides drinking?"

"Bongs, lines, perhaps hallucinogens."

"Hmm." George frowns. "You ready with the tape player?"

"Ready, willing and able."

The DJ executes a sharp salute and notices the distinctly uneasy look on George's face, a look that is unaccustomed to sitting there. George's features reassemble into a more resolute pout.

"Ok, let's get this thing rolling. You're with me, right?"

"I'm with you George, dude."

"Cherry on Top is the first dancer. Here's her tape. Just start it and stop it when I tell you to. Got it?"

"Got it."

The DJ ingests the last remaining dribble from his water bottle. This does little more than turn the desert soot in his mouth to mud. Dust devils dance opaquely by.

George departs in the direction of the road and returns shortly with a compact, fine boned, busty blonde in belly dancer attire: a bantam Barbara Eden. Her buttery voice precedes her.

"God, where are we George, Death Valley?"

"Aah, it's not so bad. You did that biker convention around here somewhere. Remember?"

"Yeah, but the bikers didn't make me walk through this pricker shit, they rode me to the spot."

The DJ withholds comment. George and Cherry on Top join the DJ atop the compact stage.

"Ok, point the lights on the dance floor," commands George. The DJ has two rectangular boxes, with eight light bulbs of various hues in each, sitting atop each of his speakers. The lights have been facing inward illuminating the stage, George, the DJ and his equipment and records. The DJ turns them out toward the dance floor as commanded, bathing dozens of ersatz nomads in a queasy, carnival glow. They blink in unison - a mob of Arabian moles.

"Fucking about time!"

"All right!"

"Here comes the first one!"

"Nude up, baby!"

"I can't fucking see," shreiks a vertically challenged sheik. The mini-Arab holds his thick glasses in place with his left hand and brandishes his cardboard scimitar in his right as he executes a series of view-improving hops.

"Quit bouncing, Kareem."

"Get out of the way."

"Down in front."

A surge from the rear slams the foremost Arabesques into the stage, knocking the DJ, Cherry and George to their respective knees.

"A prayer before we begin," sprays Dirk.

"Get your thumb out of my eye."

"Get your sword out of my ass."

"Look at the mini-Genie, she's on her knees already."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

Yeah!"

The DJ catches a whiff of Cherry's exotic aroma as she jingles back to her feet. What is the exquisite aroma? Frankincense, myrrh, bongwater?

The DJ's jaw tightens as Cherry brushes up against him with her pronounced and proud posterior. George disturbs the DJ's reverie.

"Say hello to the DJ, Cherry. DJ, this is Cherry."

"Hi Cherry, nice outfit."

"Hi sweetie, why aren't you dressed like a towelhead?"

"I'm with, but not of, the group."

The DJ is attired in his traditional warm weather party wear: t-shirt, big shorts, and his dancing, high-top Reeboks. He has bowed to the party theme by tying an extra-large white bandana about his perspiring head. George speaks a final warning to the congregation,

"Remember the rules: hands to yourself, stay back, and watch those god damned swords. Let's hear it for Cherry on Top!!"

"Cherry on Top!"

"No way!"

"Wow."

"I'll be on top of Cherry!"

"You wish, dildo!"

"You will? I will!"

"Pop her Cherry!"

"Hop on Cherry!"

"Hop on pop," cracks Lard in his excited high tenor. Cherry hands the DJ her tape. Her sweet smile contrasts with her "fuck you" posture and the oil that she rubs on her lean, brown thighs. Dust motes fight to cling to her.

"Just turn it on and let it go, sweetie. Don't stop the tape in between songs. Wish me luck."

She winks, then luxuriantly licks her lips with a round, pink tongue and tinkles away - bangles, baubles and bodice bouncing.

Cherry appears in the garish lighting of the dance floor as the sea of sheiks parts and closes again around her, obstructing the DJ's view. Cherry's beringed hand gestures above the be-toweled heads. The DJ pushes the "play" button on the tape player. "You Shook Me All Night Long" jackhammers through the sound system causing the assemblage to leap in unison and pound out air guitar power chords on their pseudo-scimitars.

The DJ can only glimpse an occasional gauzy garment tossed above the undulating, contracting and air guitaring throng. He is torn between wanting to see, and knowing that it is best that he doesn't. George wades into the sea, his hairless head reflecting pink and orange and green.

:"Back up, you morons! Back up, give her room."

George moves forcefully, asserting his mass against the Arabian sea. The sea yields reluctantly. Then the generator blows. What had been dark is now the black of a coal miner's nostril.

"Who turned out the lights?"

"Get that damn thing back on," commands the voice of John ("no nicknames, please"), the president.

"Wow, it's dark."

"Mumble Mumble."

"Mutter Mutter."

"Hey, what's this?" bleats Lard.

"Yeow!! Get yur filthy hands off of me! George, George. One of them has me. Let go - noooooo...."

Cherry's alarmed voice trails off as she dashes away, g-string glowing in the pitch. The dry wind carries her voice from a medium distance.

"Shit, oooh (sob, sob) I fell down in this pricker shit, and - I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding! I hate you, you little college faggot shits."

Derisive laughter meets her outburst. The DJ turns and strides toward his mental image of the traitorous generator. Following his compass-like sense of direction, the DJ shoots headlong off of the back of the stage and lands face down, mouth open on the desert. He spits out sand, pebbles and pieces of his broken luck. At least it is dark.

A few steps farther, he stumbles upon the generator. It fires up again cheerfully, unaware of the havoc that it has wreaked. The lights and music resume. The sea of sheiks leaks toward Cherry on Top's path of departure. The DJ gingerly hops upon the jittery stage and addresses the revelers,

"Gotta keep my levels down. Sorry guys."

George buffaloes onto the stage and stares at the dusty DJ.

"You need a shower, man."

The DJ grins, spits grit and mumbles, " Uh, a little accident back by the generator."

George seizes the microphone and bellows,

"You assholes blew it with Cherry. That makes me mad. If anyone touches the next dancer - that's it. No show - I keep the money. It's right in the contract!"

"Fuck the contract!"

"Fuck you, baldy"

"She sucked anyway."

"What good are they if you can't touch them?"

"Who needs a mini-Genie?"

"I thought we were getting the touchy-feely kind."

"Yeah, we paid for that extra shit."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"Shut up, you pecker heads or the show's over!" commands George impressively. The lights flicker ominously as the DJ scrambles to lower the microphone volume. The heckling dies down to wind-blown susurration.

"All right. The next dancer is Kitty Petty. She'll be doing something extra with whipped cream and shit like that. You guys have bills right?"

"Yeah, we got money but no pussy, hah, hah, hah."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

George opts for a reasoned appeal.

"Gentlemen, I don't want to keep your money. I want you to have a good time and enjoy life. But we have to follow the rules - NO touching with your hands. You'll be able to use your mouths soon enough - If you're good! Are you ready for the sensational Kitty Petty?"

"Yeah!"

"Fuck yeah!"

"Fuckin A!"

"Kitty Petty, get it?"

"Can I petty your kitty?"

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty."

"Where is she, coughing up a hairball?"

Kitty Petty emerges from the inky blackness: an imposing, erect figure in a leopard skin leotard. Her tawny hair trails her like an entourage. Only the generator speaks. Kitty hands the DJ her tape, then smiles an inscrutable feline smile and purrs, her throat abuzz. The DJ presses the play button. ACDC echoes across the lunar landscape.

Kitty steps down off of the stage and is digested by the Arabian night. Kitty's mane tosses above mesmerized heads. Kitty and the lads are doing something with money, whipped cream and alcohol-sterilized mouths when the generator blows again.

"Hey, fuck you!"

"I can't see."

"Aaaagh!"

"Where'd she go?"

"Yeaah! Get your fucking hands off of me! Aah, they're touching me! Get your finger out of there! I'll kill you, I'll kill you all! My boyfriend kills people - he's going to get you! We know where you live. He'll cut your miserable little pricks off!!!"

This final threat resounds from another direction and trails off. Several dusty, crunchy footsteps follow in the direction of the voice at a perky clip. George's cool evaporates.

"DJ asshole! Get the lights back on! Get out of the way. That's it - show's over. You blew it, you fucking spoiled suck asses! You pissant scumballs! Out of the way! GET THOSE LIGHTS BACK ON!!!"

The wind kicks, howls and stings. The DJ stands motionless. He puts his hand in front of his face. He closes his eyes. He opens his eyes. No difference. He hears George wading through the mob. Groans, thuds, hard body parts striking soft body parts with authority. Dozens of sheets flap animatedly in the gale. Arabian laundry day. Spilt cups bleed multicolored liquids into the sand.

"Where's the bitch?"

"She ran off toward the hills."

"Which way is that?"

"How do I know? I can't see my dick to pee."

"Lard, you squat to pee anyway - haw, haw, haw," guffaws Dwarf, enjoying the mayhem.

"Where's that huge-ass Mr Clean?"

"I'm right here, douche bag. Take that!" (whack!)

"Oww!"

"Try this!"

Dwarf's body bullets onto the stage, rolls past the DJ's feet and off the other side. A cooling coating of sticky liquid attaches itself to the DJ, his records, the stage and environs. The cup is a 32-ouncer: less time waiting, more time drinking. When the body hits the ground, a dust cloud kicks up that sticks to everything wet. A particularly vehement gust sends the plastic turntable covers spiraling westward, toward the sea.

The DJ hears moaning from beyond the rear of the stage. Only he - The Dancing DJ - can return any semblance of order to the chaos all around him. He dashes manfully to the aid of the fallen Dwarf. Feral cries of pain, victory, defeat, and blood-lust fill the swirling blackness.

The DJ begins calculating the distance between the ground and the stage just as his trailing foot loses contact with it. He tries to drag his airborne feet behind him like a wide receiver but he is out of bounds, even in a college game. The flying DJ lands on the prostrate Dwarf, much to the DJ's relief and Dwarf's discomfort. The DJ reasons that Dwarf had been uncomfortable already and that the greater good has been served. The DJ is comfortable with situational ethics.

Reassured that Dwarf is neither dead nor suffering major organ damage, the DJ again springs in the direction of the inert generator. His aim is true but his shot is long; the DJ slams into, and cartwheels over the generator, airborne again.

The DJ warily, carefully locates the generator, rights it, and pushes the reset button. The generator again reanimates as though nothing untoward has happened. The gaudy lights reveal a miasma of mud, blood, bodies and beverages. There are pricks everywhere.

A lean flash of flesh streaks by, butt naked, hands flailing frantically to cover exposed body parts. Kitty Petty careens off of the stage-left speaker, dashing a light box to the ground, breaking six of the eight bulbs. She hisses, "Die! Die! You all will die." Her grime-caked breasts heave with the effort. She is closely trailed by several Middle Eastern pursuants brandishing semi-erect scimitars.

"We'll cut you bitch!"

"You almost broke my finger!"

"Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty."

"We just want to be friends."

"She's looking for her litter box - hah, hah, hah."

"Some party, huh?" Dirk sprays as he squints calmly at the DJ. "And the real girls aren't even here yet."

"Uh..."

"Hey, bold stroke with the generator. Your timing was perfect - both times!"

"I, uh, didn't..."

"That's why we wanted you for this one. Music is only part of it, right dude?"

"Right, uh, thanks, but..."

"You can always count on the dancing DJ. Hey, wanna beer? How about line? Bongload? It's time to rage!"

Dirk catches movement out of the corner of his eye, turns and peers toward the road. Seeing bus headlights, he dabs the moist lower half of his face with a stray corner of his towel ensemble.

"Later dude, the babes are here. I gotta greet them. It's my job. Heavy hangs the mantle of responsibility."

150 California harem girls shimmy out of the buses. John ("no nicknames, please"), the president, strolls by.

"I think we're ready for them, don't you?"

"Clearly."

The DJ recognizes most of the advance scouts as they light upon the stage - sorority girls.

"We're ready to party!" peals statuesque, blazingly blond Suzy.

"What the hell is going on around here?" demands the other Suzy, equally blond, but compact.

"Where's the bar?"

"What's happening?"

"Why is everyone running around?"

"Let's party!"

"Play some ACDC!"

Relieved that the women-folk are there, the DJ does their bidding, playing more ACDC among other customary party favorites, in between generator shutdowns.

"Hey man, you can cool it with the generator. That was just for the strippers. We've got tents for the real girls," notes John ("no nicknames, please"), the president, sternly, a buxom Arabian vixen on either arm.

"Some of the girls think it's was supposed to be a date party. Silly girls," says the DJ.

"It is a date party, but we invited about 50 extra girls in case we get bored, or whatever. Besides, you and the bartenders need to have some fun too!" notes Dirk magnanimously.

The DJ begins hitting the beer in greater earnest. His pricker sores become less of an irritation. He dances with stray flowers of the desert, often three or four at a time. It is a good time to be alive. The celebrants of both sexes become less and less concerned about recomposing their costumes as the evening wears on, and the tents became more densely occupied.

"You wanna poke?"

inquires an unknown and not scrupulously redressed Arabesque blonde of the DJ.

"Uh, no thanks, I'm working," stammers the DJ.

"Aah, yes. Well, maybe later then. I just screwed some guy's dick right off, so he's uesless to me now. See you later."

The DJ feels a bewildering assortment of conflicting impulses tugging at him. No it is just Julie,

"Have a beer, play some ACDC, let's party!"

(Sometime later)

The rickety little stage is filled with gyrating nomads when a fist of brutal hot wind scatters the carousers like the diaspora. Several of the flung parties strike the turntables, sending them noisily to the stage floor, sending the incumbent record (ACDC) spiraling toward the Big Dipper. Record boxes tip, record covers waltz above the stage, I Dream of Jeannie silks flap fiercely as they, too, try to take flight.

Just then, the buses begin flashing their lights signalling the end of the Arabian night. One half-hour later the coaches are loaded and wheeling their way back to the Concrete Campus by the Freeway. The DJ toils alone as the stars and the moon suddenly break through the cloud cover to reveal a magical, sparkling moonscape. Another half hour later, a bemused but cheerful couple appears, startling the DJ into dropping his final record box.

"Where is everone. Play some ACDC!"

He gives them a ride back to LA.

posted by Anonymous at 7:53 PM

 
News and Commentary Roundup
The most important recent journalistic pieces preselected by Jerry, often relating to geopolitics or something. No sense going anywhere else.

"Trading Places: If you love free trade, elect a Democratic president” by Steve Chapman, Slate

George W. Bush is prone to strange syntax and mangled pronunciations, but on the subject of free trade his views are crystal clear: He's for it. "Free trade is an important engine of economic growth and a cornerstone of my economic agenda," he asserted recently, bragging, "My administration has successfully launched new global trade talks, reignited the movement for free trade within our own hemisphere, and helped bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization."...

"Washington Desk: The Unilateralist, A conversation with Paul Wolfowitz” by James Fallows, The Atlantic

Soldiers wear ribbons on their uniforms to signal where they have been and what they have done. People in Washington use photographs of themselves with famous officials. The typical lawyer's or lobbyist's office is decorated with trophy photos, on what has come to be known as the "I love me" wall. People who have worked in White House jobs often display pictures of themselves with the President in parts of their homes that guests will see....

"The World In 2005: Hidden in plain sight” by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic

As Americans, we have a natural tendency to believe that world events over the next few years will unfold from September 11. But in truth much of the world will evolve without regard to September 11. Civil wars will continue, diseases will break out, and local economic crises will run their course. The challenge is to anticipate how these other processes will intersect with the war on terrorism....

"Islamabad: A Modest Proposal From the Brigadier” by Peter Landesman, The Atlantic

In the center of the biggest traffic circle of every major city in Pakistan sits a craggy, Gibraltarish replica of a nameless peak in the Chagai range. This mountain is the home of Pakistan's nuclear test site. The development, in 1998, of the "Islamic Bomb," intended as a counter to India's nuclear capability, is Pakistan's only celebrated achievement since its formation, in 1947. The mountain replicas, about three stories tall, are surrounded by flower beds that are lovingly weeded, watered, and manicured. At dusk, when the streetlights come on, so do the mountains, glowing a weird molten yellow....

"Tartarstan: Islam Versus the Pleasure Principle” by Jeffrey Tayler, The Atlantic

On November 14 of last year the chairman of the Council of Russian Muftis, Mufti Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin, announced that the victims of the war in Afghanistan were not the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The real victims, he said, were the "completely innocent civilian population of Afghan villages and cities." He went on to warn that the "struggle with international terrorism" was "taking on an ever more bellicose, anti-Islamic character" and was "intensifying confrontational moods between followers of Islam and other religious traditions."...

"Cheney's Transformed: The Moose notes that the Vice President departed for the Middle East as Dick Cheney and returned as Madeleine Albright” by the Bull Moose, Project for Conservative Reform

When it was learned that Cheney was making the Middle East sojourn, all of Washington was abuzz with the chatter about why Cheney and not Powell was making the trip. The conclusion was that Cheney was the one who had to deliver the hard line to the Arab capitals about the inevitability of taking out Saddam....

"The Good Arab: Amidst the hate being spewed from the Arab press are a few examples of moderation” by Claudia Winkler, The Weekly Standard

A PIECE I wrote two weeks ago featuring Benjamin Franklin's anti-Semitism--alleged anti-Semitism, that is, as portrayed in a repulsive 1935 Nazi forgery lately recycled in the Egyptian government press - drew a response from an editor in Saudi Arabia. He objected to my citing the work of MEMRI.org, which publishes English translations of articles from the Middle Eastern press. MEMRI, in his view, is a partisan organization "whose sole purpose is to make the Arabs look bad in the West."...

"Saudi Editor Retracts Article That Defamed Jews” by MICHAEL SLACKMAN, LA Times

CAIRO -- A prominent Saudi Arabian editor Tuesday criticized and disavowed an article that appeared recently in his own newspaper, Al Riyadh, that repeated the century-old fiction that Jews use the blood of Christians and Muslims to make holiday foods....

posted by Anonymous at 8:50 AM

 
Piss In the News
If you can’t sell your own urine, what can you do? You can move to North Carolina, where the right to pee into a bag and sell it has been preserved (spotted by Best of the Web Today). This one, though, that Jerry spotted, isn’t funny at all. What possible reason does a school board have for drug testing students in the chess club and the choir? Even teenagers have some rights, and generalized invasive suspicion is utterly unwarranted. Screen for weapons, do a drug test if there is a specific, reasonable suspicion, but leave the chess club alone.
posted by Anonymous at 2:52 PM

 
Ray Brent Marsh Take Note
It is much cheaper to fly a dead body as a passenger than to pack him up as cargo. Good thing it was a short flight. (Thanks to Best of the Web Today)
posted by Anonymous at 2:08 PM

 
Random
I guess it’s a day for righteous indignation. Life is just too unfair sometimes. There has been way too much of that in the last 6+ months. This poor 13-year-old girl goes to a hockey game and gets killed by the puck. It’s just random chance. The glass is high, but unless it goes all the way to the ceiling, eventually something that hard, traveling that fast is going to find its way into the crowd. It truly appears that no one is to blame, which in a way makes it worse, more random, more senseless. Are you going to blame the poor schmuck whose stick deflected the puck? The guy who took the shot? They may be able to get a good night’s sleep in about five years, the girl’s parents, maybe never.

In a ridiculous irony, the world's oldest person, a Michigan woman 115 years old, died the same night. No offense to the family, but too bad she wasn't the one at the hockey game. I’m sure she did no more to “deserve” to die at 115 than the girl did to die a day short of her 14th birthday. Random chance: easy to understand in theory, almost impossible to accept in practice when the downside happens to someone you love. But with billions of people engaged in billions of activities, over time not just anything, but EVERYTHING will happen. This could be an excuse to go Howard Hughes and live in a vault, or to say screw it and indulge every hedonistic fantasy. Probably the best you can do is to take normal precautions and try not to worry about it. You won’t find me at a hockey game, though.
posted by Anonymous at 1:27 PM

 
Go Jolby
The Indians’ Jolbert Cabrera is about as cool as it gets: he can play any position as well or better than the current starter, is fast, makes consistent contact, and is apparently indestructable. Talk about putting a “cap in yo’ ass,” this winter he was literally shot in the butt during a robbery in his native Colombia. But a mere bullet won’t keep him down.
posted by Anonymous at 11:59 AM

 
Pledge Drive Me Out of My Freaking Mind
I’m not sure I can express in words how much I hate NPR’s pledge drives, of which the Spring Drive is in full bloom. I loathe the interruptions in local and national programming for large blocks of tag-team manipulation, guilting, hectoring and mendicancy. They even write neat poems about their drives.

I know they need “listener support,” and those NPR inducements - like sporty NPR coffee mugs - are sure tempting, and that “blah blah percent of our funding comes from listeners,” and that the government “will cut off all funding at any moment,” and that “where else can I get this kind of in-depth coverage of a presumed-extinct woodpecker taking a dump on a tree stump?”

Don’t get me wrong, I listen to NPR a lot: pretty much every morning I get news from "Morning Edition," I often check in with "Talk of the Nation" now hosted by Neal “Conehead” Conan - on my way to pick up my daughter in the afternoon, and I usually get some afternoon news from "All Things Considered."

Locally, once in a while I’m in the mood to chill to some classical music from WKSU (where I have occasionally done commentaries), and I often get crunchy along with my friend Jim Blum's (who is one helluva nice guy and a brilliant radio man) folk show on the weekends. No problem there. And I also enjoy evening jazz pretty regularly on WCPN, Cleveland’s “ideastream” (I wonder how much they paid a consultant to come up with that one) with the suave Dan Polletta. Love that weekend blues show with Fitz, and there are many other national shows I won’t turn off when they come on, like "Rewind," "On the Media," and "A Prairie Home Companion" (unless Garrison is being particularly annoying that week).

I don’t much mind the "liberal bias" that so many whine about. Everyone is biased somehow: better “liberal bias” than, say, "deaf asshole bias," or "pedophile priest bias," or even "pasty-faced douche bag bias" (I must mention, however, that for the most part, Terry Gross, Click and Clack, "Says You," Michael Feldman, and most especially, Ira Glass, can fuck right off).

So the programming isn’t the problem: it’s the fact that NPR and “noncommerical” broadcasting in general now wants the best of both worlds. Other than some dinky-assed college or high school station that doesn’t have "underwriters," ALL stations are now commercial to the extent that they all run “commercials,” i.e. messages paid for by commercial enterprises, AND they still want listener money too. Of course they all claim, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, that only a small percentage of their funding comes from underwriters, but the fact that they are underwritten by “sponsors” is never discussed while they are droning on and on and on about how desperately they need my money.

Since they now get money from advertisers they should shut up and leave me the hell alone. They don’t need my money, they need my ears, because my ears give them better ratings, which allow them to charge more for advertising, just like the stations that don’t pretend that they don’t get money from advertisers.

I appreciate the fact that NPR-type programming features much more subtle advertising, and there is much less of it on an hourly basis, but when those (at least) quarterly pledge drives hit, they jabber and wheedle for blocks of five and ten minutes for weeks on end and it drives me straight into the arms of commercial broadcasting that doesn’t pretend to be functioning for my benefit.

I encourage you to give to your NPR station so I don’t have to. They hope if they irritate you enough, you will give them money to shut them up. I will never give anyone money to shut them up. When I hear Ira Glass, or any of the other misfits with speech impediments (nothing against speech impediments, really, but why on the radio? It’s like encouraging burn victims to get into TV) cajole me into supporting my local public radio station, I just want to kick them in the head right through my radio, which doesn’t do anyone any good. I had to take off my shoe to get my foot out of the dashboard waiting at a traffic signal the other day. I blame NPR.
posted by Anonymous at 11:25 AM

 
Global Warming, What Global Warming?
What we need is real, scientific PROOF that the earth's atmosphere is warming. Surely, 70 degree days in Northeast Ohio in February AND March is mere coincidence. Good thing I got out of L.A. in time before the monsoons hit. Surely, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island (see pics) breaking off and floating on its merry way isn’t cause for concern.

The total disruption of the world’s weather patterns might be fun: it’s great up here in Ohio, not sure how they feel about the ice storms in Georgia and Texas. Next year I hear the department stores in the upper Midwest are going to stock bathing suits year-round.

I wonder how things are going down in Australia, where some scientists predict IT WILL NEVER RAIN AGAIN: we should ask Tim Blair, who is the only conservative in the whole country. Hey, that floating Rhode Island might be a good source of water. Let’s lasso it and haul it over to the Land Down Under. Perhaps the fresh water melting near shore will keep the sharks away.
posted by Anonymous at 9:22 AM

 
News and Commentary Roundup
Top stories of the day selected by the enigmatic Jerry.

"They Died For Lack of a Head Scarf" by Mona Eltahawy, Washinton Post

The fire was a tragedy that could have struck anywhere. Fifteen girls between ages 13 and 17 were trampled to death and 52 others were hurt when a blaze swept through their school. Parents and journalists angrily demanded the resignation of education officials they accused of incompetence and corruption. There was plenty to be angry about. Some 800 schoolgirls were crammed into a building designed for only 250. The main gate to the school was locked. There were no emergency exits, no fire alarms and no fire extinguishers in the building. But another far more sinister detail in this particular tragedy shows that it could not have happened anywhere but Saudi Arabia....

"Palestinian Pretense and Israel Reality: What the world knows, but can't say, to be true” by Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

A common theme throughout classical literature is the role of pretext (prophasis) contrasted with the actual cause of complaint (aitia) - the great divide between what aggrieved people say publicly and what they feel privately. Nations, the historian Thucydides reminds us, also adopt such strategic postures. Their spokesmen often voice complaints that are either groundless or - even if partly justified - at least different from the "real" or "true" causes of their discontent....

"Suffering Must Come Before Peace Is Possible” by WALTER LAQUEUR, Wall Street Journal

As Israel's decision to occupy parts of the capital of the Palestinian Authority this week shows, the conflict in the Middle East has no end in sight. The attacks and counterattacks on both sides are multiplying, and so is the number of victims. How long will it continue, how many more victims will be killed and maimed until a truce will be agreed upon and a new peace process begins? The only possible answer, however inhuman it sounds, is that the conflict will have to run its course, until both sides will have suffered to such an extent that there will be a willingness to compromise....

"Airline Bans Author Rushdie" by Mike Fox, BBC

In Montreal.
The author Salman Rushdie has been banned from travelling on all Air Canada flights because the airline is concerned about the delays extra security measures would cause. Mr Rushdie had faced a death threat contained in a fatwa issued in Iran in 1989, which said his book, the Satanic Verses, was blasphemous....

"Debt of a Salesman" Village Voice

The way he's going, Bud Selig's going to need a bigger coffin for all those nails he keeps hammering in. Not content merely to piss off the players' union, the House Judiciary Committee, and Youppi the Montreal mascot, the commissioner last week launched a new gambit-announcing plans to start enforcing MLB's 60/40 rule on team debt come June-that could land him in hot water with the people who pay his salary: the owners....

"Ex-Enron Executive Related a Dispute Baxter Gave Account Before His Suicide” by Peter Behr and April Witt, Washington Post

Two weeks before his suicide in January, former Enron Corp. executive J. Clifford Baxter told investigators about conflicts with the company's then-president, Jeffrey K. Skilling, that Baxter said marred his final years at the company, according to a memo on the interview....

"Ebert's Oscar Picks" by ROGER EBERT, Chicago Sun-Times

I approach this annual task with a sense of foreboding. The 2002 Oscar race rests on shifting sands. There are scarcely even any absolute front-runners, unless it is Jennifer Connolly as best supporting actress. I am sure of one category, then another. Then I change my mind....

"Urine Trouble: Uncle Sam Wants You To Pee in a Cup” by Dahlia Lithwick, Slate

A question for the "Fray": If you could pick just one Supreme Court justice to spontaneously haul off the bench-say, in the middle of oral argument - and drag into a nearby bathroom, where they'd be forced to hike up their robe and pee into a Dixie cup whom would you choose? Take your time. We have all night....

posted by Anonymous at 8:58 AM

 
Terror Teen Talk
It took six months, but 9/11 terminology is leaking into the lexicon via the mouths of teens. This is either a healthy sign of psychological recovery or a slippery slope toward desensitization that could weaken resolve. Or both. Or neither.
posted by Anonymous at 3:49 PM

 
The Oracles of Delphi Were Huffers
According to this report in the NY Times, petrochemicals rising up through fissures in the earth beneath the ancient Greek temple caused the oracles of old to have visions. Tests have shown the presence of ethane, methane, and, best of all, ethylene:

"There's a fair amount of data on the effects of ethylene," Dr. Spiller said. "In the first stages, it produces disembodied euphoria, an altered mental status and a pleasant sensation. It's what street people would call getting high. The greater the dose, the deeper you go." Once a person stops breathing ethylene, he added, the effects wear off quickly.

Modern teenagers know of such intoxicants, including ones that in overdoses can kill. Experts say that youths who breathe fumes from gas, glue, paint thinner and other petrochemicals are toying with hydrocarbon gases.

In other words, don’t try this at home. One man's vision is another man's brain damage.
posted by Anonymous at 12:22 PM

 
Rock Hall Ex Post Facto
I’m really beat today, but had a great time at the Rock Hall last night webcasting the Induction ceremonies for Cleveland.com. It was very exciting, and not a little ironic, to see another generation enter the semi-hallowed halls: the punk/new wave movement as represented by the Ramones and Talking Heads arose as a direct reaction against the music industry that feted them last night.

The Heads reunion after 18 years was the musical highlight, with the Ramones induction the emotional highlight. Eddie Vedder’s strangely montone, very lengthy presentation drained much drama from the moment, and, due to Joey’s death and continued internal bickering amongst remaining band members, there was no Ramones performance. Green Day rocked out a great Ramones medley, but the impact was, of course, not the same.

Special thanks to Johanna and Loretta from Cleveland.com who provided technical and editorial assistance, and were, as always, a ball to be around. You can read the play-by-play of the entire proceedings here, before VH1 gets hold of the night and sanitizes it for popular consumption for tomorrow night. You can hear my after-show comments here.

During the evening I heard from legendary producer Craig Leon, who signed the Ramones to Sire and produced their classic first album.

Hi Eric,
It's good to hear from you. It's truly amazing that the Ramones have been inducted into the Hall Of Fame. They truly deserve it. I don't think it was something that we foresaw back when the band was starting out. It's also strange how the influence of the band has been felt from the day their first record came out. That was clearly not envisaged either. Hopefully someone out there today is hearing them for the first time and letting it influence them to go out and make some music that's fun, loud, and kicks the ass of the current musical establishment. Music is now, more than ever, truly in need of the spirit that inspired the Ramones.

posted by Anonymous at 10:54 AM

 
New and Commentary Roundup
Jerry picks the most important journalistc pieces of the day, no need to go anywhere else.

"Victory Lapse: The Pentagon and the media's chronic mistake” by Scott Shuger, Slate

Why does the Pentagon consistently fail to put its best foot forward when it addresses human rights issues related to the war? And why does the press so frequently fail to supply the context the Building leaves out?...

"Relief From Imports, for as long as it takes” by Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune

The president has decided that the struggling American steel industry needs relief from unfair foreign competition, so he has announced firm steps that will stem the tide of imports. But for those who warned of the dangers of protectionism, there is truly heartening news: The measures he imposed to help steelmakers will last only three years. Please understand that this is nothing permanent - merely a respite designed to give the industry some time to regain strength so it can compete without special assistance....

"Action Plan: Bush vs. Bush on Iraq” by Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune

I was not alarmed to read the news, leaked to the press last week, that the Bush administration has ordered the Pentagon to make plans for the use of nuclear weapons against countries that attack us with weapons of mass destruction. What alarms me is that no one has explained it to President Bush....

"Crony Capitalism American-style” by Joseph Stiglitz, Project Syndicate

Remember the East Asia crisis? when the US Treasury and its IMF allies blamed that region's problems on crony capitalism, lack of transparency, and poor corporate governance? Countries were told to follow the American model, use American auditing firms, bring in American entrepreneurs to teach them how to run their companies. (Never mind that under the leadership of their own entrepreneurs East Asia grew faster than any other region - and with greater stability - over the previous three decades.) The unfolding Enron scandal brings new meaning to two favorite American sayings: “What goes around comes around,” and “People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones....”

"Goldberg: Dear Diary..." by Tod Goldberg, Las Vegas Mercury

About five years ago, when Caller ID officially became a must-have, the rules of dating changed forever. Suddenly, calling l'object d'amour just to hear l'object's voice became a real test of your will: Were you willing to leave your house, find a phone booth not filled with human dung (no easy chore in Las Vegas, lemme tell you...), compile the correct change, and then spend the next hour fulfilling your various stalking needs? For anyone over 18, the answer has generally become no...most would rather just obsessively check their e-mail to see if the love interest had responded to that super-cool "You're old if in the '80s you owned clothing by Chams" list-o-humor that was accumulated to elicit that "Awww, he/she is thinking of me!" vibe. And, of course, chat rooms have replaced singles bars and Internet porn has replaced, at least for a certain segment of the community (read: the Las Vegas Mercury freelance staff), actual coitus....

"In Saddam's Shadow" New Yorker

In this week's issue, Jeffrey Goldberg reports from Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, where, in the late nineteen-eighties, Saddam Hussein waged a devastating chemical and, possibly, biological war against the Kurdish people. Today, the Kurds have achieved limited autonomy, thanks to the U.S.-British no-fly zone, but they still face the threat of ethnic cleansing. Goldberg's report also raises questions about fears of future biochemical attacks against America or Israel-as well as Iraq's possible links to Al Qaeda. Here Goldberg discusses his trip to Kurdistan and his article....

"Skies Won't Be Safe Until We Use Commonsense Profiling” by Stuart Taylor Jr., National Journal

“The government's effort to upgrade airport security over the past six months has been massive and expensive: federalizing airport security forces; confiscating toenail clippers; frisking randomly chosen grandmothers, members of Congress, former CIA directors, and decorated military officers; stationing National Guard troops in airports; putting sky marshals on planes. Has it been effective?...

"Et Tu, Dick?" by Andrew Sullivan, Andrewsullivan.com

I'm trying hard not to feel immense disappointment in the administration for reverting so feebly and so quickly to the flim-flam propagated by various Arab satrapies about the urgency of the Palestinian-Israeli issue. The only reason for the vice-president to be in the Middle East right now is to prepare the way for ending the chemical, nuclear and biological threat from Saddam Hussein's Iraq....

"Our Cold War Hangover" by Jackson Diehl, Washington Post

Islam Karimov, strongman of Uzbekistan and newly minted U.S. strategic ally, had just finished delivering a paean to democracy over the conference table at Blair House. So the follow-up question from the assembled journalists seemed logical enough: Does this mean, Mr. President, that you might be willing to hold free elections in your country?...

posted by Anonymous at 10:20 AM

 
Join Me at 7:30 From the Rock Hall on Cleveland.com
Refer back here for bios, links, features, and whatnot. Running out of time, gotta chug on down to the Rock Hall for the ceremonies: here are the bios of Little Miss Dynamite, Brenda Lee, and one of the great sufferers of rock 'n' roll history, Gene Pitney.
posted by Anonymous at 5:37 PM

 
Jim Stewart is this year’s “Nonperformer” inductee, the founder and owner of the legendary Stax Records. More on Stax here. And this from legendary rock writer Robert Palmer.
posted by Anonymous at 5:26 PM

 
Chet’s a Rocker Too
One of the most revered instrumentalists, producers, and executives in country music history, the late guitarist backed rockers like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and the Everly Brothers also. Here is his entry from The Encyclopedia of Record Producers. He enters the Rock Hall in the “Sideman” category.

Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins has long been known as one of the world's greatest guitar players. That title has often eclipsed the fact that he's also a legendary producer credited with developing the"Nashville Sound." As head of RCA's Nashville division, Atkins’ production skill shaped the careers of artists such as Jim Reeves, Don Gibson, Jerry Reed and Dolly Parton, and helped the country genre gain deserved respect in the music world.

Born June 20, 1924 in Luttrell, Tenn., Chester Burton Atkins developed love for the guitar early. He watched his older brother play the instrument, and at 5, started playing an old ukulele with strings made of screen door wire. A sickly child who battled asthma, Atkins went to live with his music teacher/evangelist father in Georgia when he was 10. At 17, he left home to pursue a music career and wound up working for local radio stations and with country artists such as Red Foley, Archie Campbell, Bill Carlisle and Homer and Jethro.

He signed to RCA Victor in 1947 and moved to Nashville in 1950, the same year he began playing on the Grand Ole Opry as a soloist and guitarist for the Carter Sisters. It was during this period that singles like "Mainstreet Breakdown" and "Galloping Guitars" established Atkins as a major instrumentalist. In the mid-'50s he began working for RCA A&R man Steve Sholes. "I started out doing covers," he remembers. "My boss in New York would send a pop hit down and say 'Go in and record this with Johnny & Jack or Minnie Pearl and Grandpa Jones.' The first one I did was 'Papa Loves Mambo' with Minnie and Grandpa Jones. It was fun.

"Then Mr. Sholes, my boss, had bought Elvis' contract and became a big man in the company. He got promotions so that gave me a chance to record all the artists. I took over and started recording all the country artists and eventually started recording some of the pop artists, too. We'd bring in Perry Como and people like that. It was fun making pop records. I did that and I finally realized I was working much too hard and putting too many hours in the day . . . So I hired Jerry Bradley and he hired some more people and gradually I turned all the artists over to producers who worked within the company."

Before turning the reins over to other producers, Atkins carved a successful niche for himself at RCA and was known for adding his talents to a variety of important sessions. In 1956, he arranged the first Nashville sessions for Elvis Presley and played guitar on "Heartbreak Hotel" and "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You." His guitar prowess can also be heard on such Hank Williams hits as "Jambalaya," "Settin' the Woods On Fire," and "Your Cheatin' Heart." He was promoted to manager of operations for RCA in 1957, the year he moved his work to the legendary RCA Studio B. By 1968, he was named RCA's VP/Nashville operations and continued to head the label until he resigned in 1981. A year later he signed as an artist to Columbia, for which he still records.

Atkins says he enjoyed his years in production. "It was one of my favorite roles because I was able to get with my friends in the studio and have a lot of fun producing records," he says. “We’d all gather around the piano and work out an arrangement and it was a good chore. I don't really know how they do it now. I think they do it different. I don't think they gang around the piano and everybody contributes like we used to."

Atkins' philosophy as a producer was simple. "I looked for good songs I thought fit the artist. I encouraged the artist to look for songs also, and I tried to find a hit along the line somewhere," he says. "I also watched for good musicians who came to town who would be able to add something different to the records I made. Floyd Cramer is an example of that. I talked him into coming in from Shreveport, La."

In addition to good musicians, Atkins was always on the lookout for good songs. When asked what he thought made a hit, he says, "It was my first impression, if I liked a tune when I first heard it. I realized that my senses were right . . . I realized that I was kind of square and what I liked, the public would usually like also."

When it came to signing talent, Atkins says he looked for artists with a unique quality to their voice. "My boss told me years ago you have to find an artist with an edge to his voice," Atkins relates, "somebody who will sound good on the jukebox. On jukeboxes years ago, there were no highs; about all you could hear were the lows because of the way they were constructed . . . So we selected artists who had an edge to their voices. Ernest Tubb and Charley Pride are good examples."

Asked whether being such a stellar guitar player gave him a different view as a producer, Atkins counters that his production skills were shaped more by his musical influences. "It was a combination of things," he says. “My Dad was a classical teacher and I moved to Georgia when I was very young, and there was a lot of black blues down there and I got into that. And I got to listening to jazz a lot. I always loved jazz like they played in the '30s, '40s and '50s. I had influence from a lot of different directions, including country. So when production was turned over to me, I had a lot of different things to draw from."

A key architect of the Nashville Sound, Atkins pioneered a smoother, more pop flavored style that took country to a wider audience. He won't take credit for that, however. "I don't really remember," he says, when asked how the Nashville Sound was born. "I was just trying to keep my job and keep from getting fired and I'm sure Owen [Bradley - see entry] was doing the same thing. I was working for Mr. Sholes in New York and Owen was working for Mr. Paul Cohen and we were just trying to survive, and the way you survive is by making hit records. I'd been fired many times in my life, in many time zones, so I was just trying to keep my job, and every once in a while I made some hit records. I made two smashes in one day, 'I Can't Stop Loving You' and 'Oh Lonesome Me.' So after that I regained confidence and realized I knew a good song when I heard it and I realized I could go into the studio and make hit records, and I did that."

Atkins has won nine Country Music Association Awards and 14 Grammy awards. One of the entertainment industry's most lauded luminaries, Atkins has a street named after him in Nashville and has been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall Of Fame. In 1992 NARAS awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy ceremony and in 1997 he was honored with the Billboard Century Award. Atkins has recorded 75 albums and has collaborated with numerous artists, including Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Mark Knopfler, Eric Johnson, Earl Klugh, Les Paul [see entry], Jerry Reed, Hank Snow, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Paul McCartney [see entry], George Benson, Neil Diamond, Steve Wariner, Lenny Breau and Tommy Emmanuel. Still active on Nashville's live music scene, Atkins could be found Monday nights performing to standing room only crowds at Nashville's Caffe Milano. In June 1997, Nashville held its first Chet Atkins' Musician Days, a week-long festival celebrating Atkins' idea of honoring "the people who make the singers look good." Chet Atkins died June 30, 2001.
-Deborah Evans Price

posted by Anonymous at 5:18 PM

 
Tonight is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremonies - I will be webcasting live from the Rock Hall tonight. All music, all day on Tres Producers: Bios, features, links, book excerpts on the Ramones, Talking Heads, Tom Petty, Isaac Hayes, Brenda Lee, Gene Pitney, Chet Atkins and Jim Stewart. A veritable cornucopia.
posted by Anonymous at 4:36 PM

 
Isaac Hayes is also being Inducted into the Rock Hall tonight. An excellent performer, he was an even better songwriter and producer as a cornerstone of the great Stax/Volt sound of the ‘60s and ‘70s. He was also one of the more interesting interviews I conducted for The Encyclopedia of Record Producers.

Isaac Hayes
Another man with Isaac Hayes’ credentials - musician, singer, songwriter, producer, actor, humanitarian, radio personality - would be called a chameleon, but Hayes has always been resolutely, undeniably himself. As a sideman at Stax, then co-producer and co-writer (with David Porter - see entry) of the great Sam & Dave hits ("Hold On I'm Comin'" - No. 21, "Soul Man" - No. 2, “I Thank You" - No. 9, "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby") and others for Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, William Bell, Judy Clay and the Bar-Kays, Hayes helped define soul music in the ‘60s.

Then, as a solo artist Hayes stretched the boundaries of soul adding strings and social themes; with Sly Stone, Gamble and Huff, Curtis Mayfield and Norman Whitfield [see entries], he helped move black music from a singles to an album format. On albums like Hot Buttered Soul (No. 8), The Isaac Hayes Movement (No. 8), To Be Continued (No. 11), Black Moses (No. 10), and especially the Oscar and Grammy-winning Shaft (No.1), Hayes took his brand of elegant but funky soul to a huge new audience.

Isaac Hayes was born August 20, 1942 in Covington, Tennessee. He lived on a farm until he was 7, then moved with his maternal grandparents (who raised him) to Memphis. The family was musical and active in the church, school and community. Hayes’ first public performance was a duet with his sister at church when he was 3. Already the musical perfectionist, Hayes halted his sister mid-performance when she made a mistake.

In high school Hayes won a singing contest, noted the attention his performance generated, and said “Hmm, this is what I want to do.” He took a year of band (tuba then sax) and began singing with a variety of combos: rock’n’roll, doo wop, blues, gospel, jazz. “I loved it all - this adventure into music - I was sucking up everything like a sponge,” he says.

“With the blues band we played the juke joints of Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas. We didn’t make much money: it was all the corn liquor you could drink and enough money to get back home. If the owner didn’t feel like paying you, he didn’t pay you and you didn’t argue because he had a .38 pistol on his hip,” he laughs darkly. “With gospel it was all the food you could eat, and then maybe a collection was taken up for expenses.”

Eventually he “learned enough piano to get along,” and wound up on the staff at Memphis’ Stax Records by around ‘63, having been turned down three times by the label as an artist. An old friend from his doo wop days, David Porter, was already with the label and said to Hayes, “You play music and I write lyrics, let’s team up and start writing and producing like Holland-Dozier-Holland [see entry] up at Motown.“

“When we started writing,” Hayes remembers, “guys around the city would tease us: ‘Hey hit men, how many hits did you write today?’ But we kept our noses to the grindstone and we finally clicked with Carla Thomas’ ‘How Do You Quit’ in ‘65. Then they chose David and I to write and produce for Sam and Dave, and after we had a big hit with them, more people around town wanted to write songs. We organized a writer’s workshop and everything,” recalls Hayes. Their writing for Sam & Dave was typical of their approach. “We would come up with a good subject or a good hook. For the meat of the song you have to ask yourselves some questions: If you want this girl, why do you want her? If you get her, what would you do? People have to able to get what you’re trying to get across. As far as music is concerned, you’ve got to come up with a groove with changes and things that keep the emotional content in it.

“Usually our songs came from personal experiences,” he continues. “For instance, with ‘When Something’s Wrong With My Baby,’ David and I were working and working and working, and we just couldn’t come up with anything. So we gave up and each went home. After about 30 minutes, he called me: ‘I got it, I got it, I got it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He had just written it on toilet paper or something, and said, ‘When something’s wrong with my baby, something’s wrong with me.’

“He came over and we started going over the lyrics. I sat down at the piano and started playing something slow. We got the changes and the melody and put it with the first verse, and the rest was easy. Sam & Dave were in town - we would usually work on their songs when they were around - sometimes we’d have them sitting there while we wrote to get a good feel for them.

“‘You Don’t Know Like I Know’ was originally a gospel song: ‘You don’t know like I know what the Lord has done for me.’ Well, a woman can do some good things for you too. We just switched it around,” Hayes says with a chuckle. “‘Soul Man’ came about during one of the riots. I was watching TV and they said something about businesses being bypassed when ‘soul’ was written on the door. That reminded me of Passover in the Bible. So I thought about this ‘soul’ thing: there’s a lot of pride in it. I didn’t look at the rioting as destroying. I looked at it as frustrated people taking out their frustrations on whatever got in their way. I told David about it and we started working on it. Everything just clicked.”

Hayes recalls the Stax studio. “We only had a one-track recorder at first. [Label-owner] Jim Stewart was considered the king of one-track. If anybody screwed up, we had to start all over again and [trumpet player] Wayne Jackson’s lips would fall off. Eventually we got two-track when Tom Dowd [see entry] came in and installed it for us.

“Regarding arrangements, we did them in out heads, where Motown may have had them written out. We went on feel. I continue to do that. Otis [Redding] would come in sometimes with just an idea. He would get behind the microphone and say ‘work up a groove’ and start doing lyrics spontaneously - [singing] ‘I can’t turn you loose.’”

Though deeply in the groove, Hayes was always a thinking man with a conscience as well. “I was active even in high school in marches and things. I was afraid but I thought it was the right thing to do. When Dr. King was killed [in ‘68] I went through a period when I couldn’t write, couldn’t create. I just went blank. I was so hurt by that and I had so much bitterness and hatred for racist attitudes. Then one day after about a year I cognized: ‘Hey man, the only way you can make a change is to do what you do.’ So I got busy again.”

Hayes had recorded a very casual album in ‘67 that received a fair amount of critical praise and was given the opportunity to record again in ‘69. This time he took the affair more seriously, but still felt no particular pressure to succeed as an artist. That album became Hot Buttered Soul, and it established the recording career of Isaac Hayes.

Hayes was shocked by his solo success. “I couldn’t believe it because I had been behind the scenes so long. When David and wrote together, we wrote for other people so we had to match their personalities. I had a background in blues, jazz, pop, even classical and I wanted to get it all out. I had a funky groove underneath, but those strings on top. I was happy with it for myself, but a few million other people got into it too,” he laughs.

For Shaft, Hayes had the powerful image of a tough but vulnerable black screen detective to inspire him; he found his all-time resonant grooves for the title track and long instrumental passages that achieved a perfect balance between the funk and the sweet. Hayes has released almost two-dozen (mostly) successful albums since. He remains humble. “I never took myself too seriously. Each time I cut a hit record I would say ‘Whew, I made it again.’ I was honest with my music and said ‘if I hurt, I cry.’ A lot of men liked it because it said what they wanted to say but didn’t know how to. Women liked it because it showed sensitivity in a man, and that’s what they were looking for.”

Hayes could get away with sensitivity because of his tough, forbidding image in the way that Nixon could go to China. Some TV stations wouldn’t let him on because they thought he was militant. “The image was my security blanket, especially the shades (tough on the outside, sensitive on the inside),” he confides.

That image - shaved head, chains draped over muscles - led to an acting career. Hayes has appeared in over a dozen films and in recurring roles on TV. His favorite role so far is that of Gandolf Finch in James Garner’s Rockford Files TV series from the ‘80s. Hayes’ most recent album is the notable Raw and Refined from ‘95. He also did a Shaft parody for the Beavis and Butthead Do America soundtrack; and is the star of the Isaac Hayes and Friends radio show on “KISS-FM” (WRKS) in New York, playing “classic soul and today’s R&B” weekday mornings. He is also the voice of “Chef” on the Comedy Central hit animated series South Park. But most of all, he is Isaac Hayes.
-Eric Olsen

posted by Anonymous at 3:49 PM

 
"No Backing Down: Tom Petty has never given in to trends. It's clearly paid off, as he gets set to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” by ROBERT HILBURN, Los Angeles Times

Tom Petty's music has always reflected the purity and faith of a musician who had the courage and conviction to simply listen to his heart. Rather than tailor his style to better fit critical or commercial trends, the singer-songwriter and his band the Heartbreakers have remained true, in themes and presentation, to the basic rock 'n' roll tradition that they learned from the records of such classic figures as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Byrds and Bob Dylan....

posted by Anonymous at 3:32 PM

 
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were THE American rock ‘n’ roll band of the ‘80s after a very strong beginning in the mid-’70s. They worked with two great producers over that period: Denny Cordell and Jimmy Iovine. Below are their entries from The Encyclopedia of Record Producers.

Denny Cordell
Denny Cordell had a remarkable ability to bring out the best in the artists he worked with; and over a thirty-year career he brought out the best in artists as varied as the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, The Move, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and Tom Petty. In addition, through astute A&R work with Island and his own Shelter label, he was instrumental to the careers of Phoebe Snow, J.J. Cale, Dwight Twilley, Marianne Faithfull, Melissa Etheridge, The Grifters, The Cranberries and producer Tony Visconti [see entry].

Dennis Cordell-Laverack was born in Buenos Aires in 1944, but went to public school in England. Cordell’s initial interest in music was sparked by jazz . After public school, Cordell sojourned to Paris to track down Chet Baker, the West Coast school cool trumpeter and vocalist. Though still in his teens, Cordell managed the troubled troubadour for a time and even arranged and supervised a few recording sessions in the midst of Baker’s heroin addiction.

Cordell joined Chris Blackwell [see entry] at Island Records to run the new sub-label Aladdin in 1965, but he left soon thereafter to work with the Moody Blues. He convinced the band to cover an American soul track, “Go Now,” by Bessie Banks. Sung by Denny Laine (who joined Paul McCartney’s - see entry - Wings in 1971), it was a Top 10 hit, and for many, the band’s defining moment. Cordell set up the deal as an independent producer and made some large change - a pattern he continued when set up his own production company, Straight Ahead.

In 1967, Straight Ahead aligned with Decca's Deram label where Cordell produced the Move’s first album. In September, Cordell moved to EMI's Regal Zonophone label to produce the white soul classic “A Whiter Shade Of Pale,” by Procol Harum, which reached No. 1 in England and No. 5 in the US. Matthew Fisher’s languid organ, derived from Bach’s “Sleepers Awake” cantata, sets an atavistic tone for Gary Brooker’s world-weary reading of Keith Reid’s Chaucerian lyrics - a rare medieval blues.

Having set all of the elements in motion, Cordell was reportedly visiting the loo when the final take was recorded. This song began the “art rock” movement while remaining incongruously soulful. Literary to a fault, Procol Harum’s first album also includes the Cervantes-inspired “Conquistador.” A young Tony Visconti met Cordell in New York just after "A Whiter Shade Of Pale." Cordell was impressed by Visconti’s production and arranging skills, and tapped him to serve as his assistant in London.

Cordell urged Visconti to explore the London club scene in search of talent. Visconti’s first two finds were a pair of eccentric singer/songwriters named Marc Bolan and David Bowie [see entry]. In an example of Cordell’s thirty years of mentoring, he passed on Tyrannosaurus Rex for himself, but invited Visconti to produce them under the auspices of Straight Ahead and funded the first recordings. Having had success with blue-eyed soul, Cordell then moved to the next level with the production of Joe Cocker’s first album. With his spastic motions and barbed wire bellow, Cocker is a ripe target for parody; but Cocker is also one of the great stylists in rock history, infusing every song with a passion and intensity worthy of his idol, Ray Charles. Denny Cordell brought the right material and a savory, Memphis-style soul feel to Cocker’s first four albums: the the zenith of Cocker’s career.

The title track of 1969’s With a Little Help From My Friends dares to take on the Beatles and leaves poor Ringo gasping in the dust. Cocker’s remake features a stirring guitar intro from Jimmy Page [see entry], then lies low before Cocker and his three female background singers call-and-respond a la the Raelettes, making the throwaway lyrics seem as serious as salvation.

Cordell and Leon Russell then put together an all-star band (Russell, Chris Stainton, Don Preston, Carl Radle, Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon, Bobby Keys, Rita Coolidge) to tour with Cocker, which led to one of the great live albums of all time: Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Englishmen rocks with loose, wild renditions of “Cry Me a River” and the Boxtops’ “The Letter,” highlighted by Cocker’s wail, Russell’s honky tonk piano and a smoking horn arrangement. Cordell and Russell were so inspired by the results that they formed a record label together - Shelter - on Russell’s home turf, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1970.

Shelter had remarkable success. Cordell produced or co-produced Leon Russell’s great early work, albums by Freddie and Albert King, and Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers first two albums. In addition, Shelter released albums by J.J. Cale, Phoebe Snow, The Gap Band and the first two Dwight Twilley albums. Leon Russell, Leon Russell and the Shelter People, and the pseudonymous album of country covers, Hank Wilson’s Back Vol. 1, are excellent albums, but 1972’s Carney is the highlight of Russell’s career. Cordell leads Russell into a highly personal and weird world of Roller Derby queens, expired junkie girlfriends and the queasy thrills of the carnival.

The jaunty hit “Tightrope” pushes Russell’s vocals up front and neatly captures the vertigo inherent in relationships and similar balancing acts. The album, Cordell and Russell all peak on “This Masquerade” (later covered by George Benson), which opens with strange vibraphone and eerie electric guitar interplay that is beautiful, evocative and fathoms deep. A simple strummed acoustic guitar and Russell’s most natural singing blend with a light Latin beat into a flickering pool of intrigue and regret.

Cordell continued his amazing production streak with the first Tom Petty album. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is one of the great debuts of the ‘70s, and, alive with youthful energy, is Petty’s most compelling album. Again, Cordell’s production hits the mark. “Rockin’ Around With You” kicks off the album with an insistent backbeat, Petty’s patented mush-mouthed delivery and an almost-new wave intensity. “Breakdown” was Petty’s first radio hit; it comes alive with an insinuating guitar line from stalwart Mike Campbell, and Petty’s nuanced vocal over a great melody, buoyed by a loping beat.

“American Girl” is the best song Petty has ever recorded: the kind of anthem that few southwest of Springsteen were recording in the ‘70s. “Girl” generates a level of excitement that belies a relatively tame arrangement. The chiming guitars, the syncopated drums and Petty’s vocals - both pleading and defiant - leave no doubt as to the archetypal nature of this “American Girl” or this American band. Shelter also released Bob Marley’s first U.S. single, "Duppy Conqueror," shortly before Cordell launched Mango Records in a joint venture with Blackwell in 1972.

Cordell sold his interest in Mango 1975, but not before The Harder They Come Soundtrack was released, helping to acclimate American ears to reggae, and paving the way for Marley’s enormous success. In 1980, Cordell left the music business to concentrate his production abilities on thoroughbred horses and enjoyed moderate success in that field.

Cordell returned to the music business in 1991, again forming a partnership with Island’s Blackwell. Cordell brought the Cranberries with him to the label from Ireland. The band’s debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We?, became the largest-selling debut in Irish history.

Prior to his death from lymphoma in 1995, Cordell had recently formed a new music publishing company, Realization Music. A man who loved life and had not one, but two successful careers in the music business, Cordell took a bottle of Irish whiskey, a spliff, and his favorite Ellington record with him to the Great Beyond.
-Eric Olsen

Jimmy Iovine
Jimmy Iovine is a legendary figure who produced or co-produced an exceptional array of rock and modern rock by Tom Petty (Damn the Torpedoes - No. 2, Hard Promises - No. 5, Southern Accents - No. 7), Stevie Nicks (Bella Donna - No. 1, The Wild Heart - No. 5, Rock a Little - No. 12), Bob Seger (The Distance - No. 5), Dire Straits (Making Movies - No. 19), U2 (Under a Blood Red Sky, Rattle and Hum - No. 1), Patti Smith (Easter - No. 20, Dream of Life), The Pretenders (Get Close), Graham Parker (The Up Escalator), and Lone Justice (Lone Justice, Shelter) among a multitude of others between the late-’70s and late-’80s. Since ‘89 Iovine has co-owned (with Ted Field) the highly successful Interscope Records (and sublabels Nothing, Aftermath and Trauma), with acts including Blackstreet, Bush, Dr. Dre, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Smash Mouth, and the Wall Flowers.

Jimmy Iovine was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1953. He loved music, especially the rock of the Rolling Stones, Cream, Sly and the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix. Iovine played guitar in a band, “but I wasn’t any good at all,” he declares. Given his interest in music and the lack of employment prospects in other fields, Iovine felt fortunate to enter the recording industry in the early-’70s when a cousin’s friend introduced him to songwriter/producer Ellie Greenwich, who got him in the door at the Record Plant as a second engineer. The job was rough: Iovine had no electronics background, the hours were grueling, and having barely set foot out of Brooklyn before then, Manhattan was a strange world full of strange people. He spent his time “concentrating on doing the job and trying to figure out how to adapt culturally. They would throw you out if you made too many mistakes and I needed the job,” he says.

Young, desperate and dedicated, Iovine learned his trade quickly, engineering for John Lennon, then for Bruce Springsteen starting with Born to Run in ‘75. Iovine met Patti Smith when she was recording Radio Ethiopia at the Record Plant in ‘76. They got along well, hung out together, and Smith asked Iovine to produce her next album - which turned out to be her commercial breakthrough - Easter. A solid, more rock-oriented affair than her punky first two albums, Easter rode to victory on the back of Smith’s first hit single, “Because the Night” (No. 13).

The rousing anthem started as a demo written, recorded and rejected by Springsteen for his Darkness On the Edge of Town album, which Iovine was engineering. Once Springsteen nixed the song from Darkness, Iovine asked Bruce if he could record it with Smith because he needed a single for her album, and he had “always found a woman singing from a man’s point of view to be interesting,” he says. Iovine’s instinct was correct as Smith’s ballsy reading shot her into the mainstream, and became the highest charting Springsteen-penned single to that point.

Easter began a sensational 10-year run for Iovine (and his engineer Shelly Yakus) that included four great Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums, establishing them as the American rock’n’roll band of the ‘80s. Not only did the albums all go Top 10, but Iovine (and co-producer Petty) turned Petty into a singles artist, scoring six Top 20 songs between ‘79 and ‘85 including “Don’t Do Me Like That” (No. 10), “Refugee” (No. 15), “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (No. 13), and with Stevie Nicks, whose Bella Donna album Iovine calls one of his favorites, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (No. 3).

Iovine co-produced (with Mark Knopfler [see entry] the excellent Dire Straits album Making Movies with “Tunnel of Love” and the epic “Skateway.” Iovine produced Lone Justice’s self-titled cow punk classic, featuring the mighty pipes of Maria McKee on her most appealing performances: Tom Petty and Mike Campbell’s “Ways to Be Wicked,” and her own “Sweet, Sweet Baby (I’m Falling).”

Iovine produced U2’s classic live EP Under a Blood Red Sky in ‘83, and then their double-album mega-work Rattle and Hum in ‘87. Though its reach exceeded its grasp, this collection of live and studio tracks contains one of the band’s rockingest tunes, the Bo Diddley-rhythmed “Desire” (No. 3); the Memphis Horns-powered, Billie Holiday-tribute “Angel of Harlem” (No. 14); and the lovely, affecting “All I Want Is You” (No. 4 U.K.).

By the time of Hum, Iovine felt the icy breath of winter on his neck. “I felt that my best days as a producer were behind me,” he sighs. Having had a child and feeling that music was going to change heightened the feeling. “I felt like an athlete past his prime, and that there was no way a 20-year-old would want to work with me. I realized that I had to move on to something else to get back the feeling I had when I was a kid.”

So he created Interscope. Did the feeling come back? “No, but close,” he says. “There’s no experience like making the records. You’re in there with a bunch of people working together. There’s a real bond that has nothing to do with business and only to do with emotion. When it’s successful it’s an incredible feeling.”

How did he measure that success? “For me it was always hearing it on the radio. I’d say, ‘Wow, I worked on that.’ I fuckin’ don’t know why I was successful. I just know I brought an enthusiasm. I learned cooperation by working with people who were more talented than I am: Springsteen, Bono, John Lennon, Tom Petty. When I was a kid I gained a lot of respect for the process because I made some money and my life got better. I still have enormous respect for when someone comes in and makes a great record.

“The other side of it is instinct,” he continues. “I have no idea how I know what I know about music. I went for feeling: the feeling I got when I first heard ‘River Deep Mountain High,’ or ‘Sympathy For the Devil,’ or ‘I Want to Take You Higher.’ Not the same sound, just the same feeling. With music it’s either great or shitty. It’s not that complicated.”

At Interscope, Iovine functions as a meta-producer. “I love working with Teddy Riley, Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor [see entries] - people who are as true about what they are as some of the people I worked with when I was younger. I try to give them the independence that we fought for when I was in the studio: noninterference from the record company, yet support and belief at the same time. The label is a vehicle. My main job is to set the attitude of the place - a place where people can say ‘this record company is not in my way.’ Sometimes it’s hard. Interscope is something I’m extremely proud of because it feels the way I pictured it would feel.”
-Eric Olsen

posted by Anonymous at 2:56 PM