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Thoughts on culture, politics, music and stuff by Eric Olsen, Marty Thau and Mike Crooker, who are among other things, producers.
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Saturday, March 30, 2002
And the Players Should Trust Him? Lying, book-cooking, document-shredding dung beetle: Arthur Andersen? Enron? No, Bud Selig.
Think Positive "I'm disappointed about losing that toe, but I realize how blessed I've been," said Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner, noting that he has nine others, and ten fingers too. Rumble At Cambridge I swear to Plato, if I hear about one more philosopher brandishing a sharp metal object, I may pop a blood vessel. Not since the Peloponnesian War have so many deep thinkers been threatening each other with pointy things. You’ve got Wittgenstein in one corner, Popper faced off against him, Bertrand Russell egging them on:
“Witty, show him your ‘threatening poker.’” “Oh yeah, Russell. What kind of deluded idiot could write ‘science deals with the realm of the definite, philosophy with the unprovable?’ Everyone accepts that science centers on the hypothetical and the conjectural, the imaginative leap and the subsequent search for a significant test, and the questions turn on just what tests, and just what guesses, count.” “You’re right, Poppy. Why are we listening to this shriveled old fart?” “I’ve been blind! Witty, let’s gut the godless raisin.” “Yeah, remember, ‘Nasty Men Make Nice Things; Unpleasant People Think Important Thoughts.’ Let’s flay him.” Act Naturally I’m retracting like an obstetrician today. Apparently the letter we printed from the Israeli army to Mrs. Arafat was bogus. It turns out the rat-faced corpse found buried the rubble of the Arafat compound was in reality Ringo Starr, leaving Paul McCartney free to tour and record as “The Beatle.” No official word on what the beloved drummer was doing in Ramallah at the time, but rumor has it he was asking Arafat to be his stunt double for the upcoming filming of Caveman 2. Hippety Hoppety I’m getting some severe cognitive dissonance between the whole rebirth, bunnies-in-the-yard, pastel jolliness of Easter and the grim state of the world, especially with things coming to a head in the Holy Land. Here’s Jesus getting reborn and saving mankind, and literally down the street from his cave people are displaying some of the most naked hatred on earth. I’m all for Arafat going away - I’ve despised and distrusted that misshapen freak since I had any thoughts at all about the Middle East, probably thirty years ago - but I am not sure whatever happens to him will change things much. Our more hardcore friends think the only solution (scroll up to “Reality Check”) is an all-out war that Israel will, once again, win; and perhaps decisively enough to break the spirit of the survivors. Maybe so, but I am not joyful over the death of hundreds, or even thousands of stupid, misguided fools who happen to have been born in the way wrong place (refugee camps and the like) at the way wrong time (the last 50+ years). Such decisive punitive action may even be necessary for the entire Islamic/Arab world to take a seriously reflective look at themselves, see they are in fact to blame for their own sorry-ass state of affairs, and GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER. But again, I am not looking forward to vast numbers of pathetic corpses strewn over devastated lunar landscapes in some Darwinian thinning of the most misdirected of our species. I’d still like to believe that life is precious, that all lives are precious. All of this ran through my mind as I watched our 2-year-old daughter, ridiculously cute in fuzzy pink and bouncing blonde curls, bound about the plush confines of the neighborhood clubhouse this morning collecting Easter eggs with the other yuppie larva: their futures not assured - none are - but certainly firmly situated on the greased chutes to health, wealth, and security. It’s not that I feel guilty - life’s too short - but I do feel sad for all the 2-year-olds who won’t be loved, nourished, encouraged, educated, protected, and cherished as this bunch will be. One other observation regarding the mothers and grandmothers overseeing the hunt: I definitely prefer the modest-but-confident, aging preppy look to the teetering on spiked heels, shoehorned into second-skin pants, who-let-that-whore-in look. But that’s just me. Correction My bad: in our Tour O the Blogs review of the exemplary Cursor site, I said Rob Levine is the editor of the Media Patrol section, Mike Tronnes is in fact the helmsman. I hang my head. Friday, March 29, 2002
Death Knell For the Death Penalty Illinois Republican governor George Ryan has had it with the death penalty. As I have previously said, I don’t support the death penalty for these reasons:
If self defense isn’t involved - and protection of society by incarceration without possibility of parole is virtually as secure as protection via death - then an eye for an eye is simple revenge, not justice. If the death penalty only marginally better-protects society from violent criminals than incarceration, and if it isn’t a deterrent, then there is no practical reason that can overcome that fact that innocent people have and will be irrevocably terminated. While you can’t give innocent people back the time they have erroneously spent in prison, at least you don’t have to dig them up to tell them they have been exonerated. It is this simple.
...He says that until he can reach a ''moral certainty'' that not one innocent man or woman will die, no one will be executed. ''If we're going to have a death penalty, the system is going to have to be perfect -- 99.9% isn't good enough,'' Ryan says. Ryan is an unlikely advocate for changing the death penalty system. He's a longtime Republican stalwart who voted as a state representative in 1977 to reinstate the death penalty in Illinois. In a recent interview at the Capitol, Ryan talked candidly about his changing views over his career. ''I grew up believing that the system worked,'' says Ryan, 68, the son of a Kankakee, Ill., pharmacist. ''I never had a reason to challenge it. I just took for granted that the bad guys went to jail, and the really bad ones were executed.'' Then came Anthony Porter, who spent 16 years on death row for a double murder he did not commit. Ryan ordered his release in 1999 after another man confessed. ''We fitted him for his last suit and brought him his last menu,'' Ryan says. ''He was two days away from death. He was innocent.'' Porter's case prompted Ryan to halt executions. ''As governor, the most solemn obligation you have is the death penalty,'' Ryan says. ''You are the last stop between life and death. You'd better darn sure be right.''
Of the 38 states with the death penalty, 22 are considering moratoriums similar to Illinois, though none of the states is expected to pass such legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union is calling for Congress to enact an indefinite moratorium on federal executions as well. Proponents of the moratoriums say the numbers demonstrate the need. In the 29 years since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, 764 men and women have been executed under state laws. Ninety-nine people have been freed from death row. Under the federal death penalty system, 26 are on death row, and two have been executed. In Illinois, 12 inmates have been executed and 13 exonerated. ''That's like flipping a coin,'' Ryan says. Condolences Dear Mrs. Arafat, Sorry we blew your husband up. We were trying to "isolate" him from the rest of his terrorist leadership, and we ended up “isolating” his ass from the rest of him. Our mistake. We were trying to destroy the Palestinian "terrorist infrastructure" and we ended up destroying his infrastructure too. Here we were, innocently peeing on a wall in his compound when some of our frisky cohorts cut off the electricity and we ended up peeing blind. Well, you can imagine what happened then: we started slipping around creating a dangerous “crossfire.” Pee, guns, tanks, all firing in the dark - the next thing you know, a wall comes down, BOOM, "isolation” becomes “extermination.” Well, sorry again; at least as the widow of a “martyr” you can snag a quick $25,000 American from Saddam Hussein. Say, is he married? Your Friends, The Israeli Army Coincidence? I Think Not Huge dead sucking creature found off New Zealand, no wonder Marty can’t get an answer. WITH CALLOUS DISREGARD Here's a little story about how hypocritical a major corporation can be. In 1977 I founded Red Star Records, an indie label designed to present new rock 'n' roll music, and released my first two records -- Suicide's classic debut and Boston's Real Kids LP. Both were well received and set the stage for further releases by groups like the Fleshtones, the New York Dolls, Martin Rev, Richard Hell & The Voidoids plus a number of compilations that included performances by the Ramones, Blondie and Brian Setzer. Over the years I reissued these same LPs internationally many times and still do to this day because they're always in demand. In other words, my name “Red Star Records” has been in continuous use since 1977. This past October (2001) the Heineken USA Company struck up a deal with Epic Records to release a record on their own Red Star Records label called "Red Star Sounds Volume 1: Soul Searchin’." It's a very good record indeed -- neo-r 'n' b songs by artists like Eryka Badu, Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Nellie Fertado and India.Arie, among others. However Heineken is using my company name as their own without consideration or compensation. I contacted my lawyer and sent Epic and Heineken a cease-and-desist notice claiming they were violating my rights. Heineken's highly-paid Washington Trademark attorney informed us they had conducted a search of the trademark files to see if Red Star Records was available for usage, and did not maliciously intend to wrongfully violate my rights, but since I hadn't trademarked Red Star Records back in '77 they assumed it was free and clear. Okay, so here's where it gets down and dirty. Months passed. Silence. When I continued to object to Heineken’s usage of my trade name, they informed me that their intention regarding the release of “Red Star” records was to benefit urban musicians, and therefore, I should respect their noble gesture and go along with the program. (Translation: “let's sell more beer to blacks”). I have what is called Common Law Rights and knew I could (and will) overturn their Trademark Application and be a total nuisance, but instead I wanted to settle this issue amicably. I proposed they use the name “Heineken's Red Sounds” instead, and only release one or two urban CDs per year with the proper acknowledgment on all CD packages that their Heineken Red Star entity was a nonprofit organization. This did not suit them because their music marketing plans include a 60-city tour of alternative rock artists this coming summer under the Red Star name that has nothing to do with benefiting “urban” musicians and everything to do with selling beer. Clever marketers trying to look righteous. As Yogi once said ... "it ain't over 'til it's over." Bottom line: in the end they basically told me what to do with myself - of course, in much more polite terms as they accused me of being impolite and presumptuous for pursuing my rights. I guess I'm just a little guy and don't deserve consideration, and since they're a major corporation they can step all over me and rewrite history at the same time. All to sell more beer. DISCLAIMER: So as to avoid prosecution under the USA Patriot Act, I hereby advise all interested parties that my announced intention to be a nuisance to Heineken USA should be interpreted as verbal criticism only, and not as a personal threat against any of its employees - although I can think of a few lawyers who deserve, and would probably love, to be spanked. Did you ever try Samuel Adams beer? It's a very tasty drink. Marty Thau Tour O the Blogs - Ken Layne Okay, so I’m all set to review Ken Layne, and I’m excited because he’s one of my favorite bloggers, but then the shit doesn’t merely hit the fan: a giant elephant turd detonates out of a behemoth Jackie Chan turbine and toxic wastes an entire city block. I won’t go into it now, but the story involves prescription medication, black ice, municipally mandated religious observation, a sinister hamster cage, and the Alamo - which I almost forgot. So, scarred but functional, it is time to turn my attention to the sensational Ken Layne. A brief glimpse of his site reveals that this is not the home turf of some timid policy wonk, some squinting squab who lives through his cyber-persona. Emblazoned across the top of his site, in Lichenstein-sized MANUAL typewriter print is “KEN LAYNE.COM,” reeking of nicotine, jaundice, oak barrels, and East Hollywood alley urine. This man is a reporter: an on the scene, the body is still warm and oozing, helicopters are for pussies, I’ll chase the scumbag down on foot, hard-boiled, hard-ass reporter. This tells you about all you need to know:
No posts 'til tonight. Off to the shooting range to fire a variety of guns.
"I asked the Ramallah office of the Arab Liberation Front," McGeough said. "They said I could go." He was welcomed. So the Palestinian Authority is blatantly exposing its terrorist funding from Iraq? To foreign reporters? "You can interpret it in various ways. One way is that it is a deliberate way for Baghdad to escalate the suicide bombings."
Andrew Sullivan, in his famous "Blogger Manifesto" for the Sunday Times of London, lauds Layne, and elsewhere lists him with his Top Ten bloggers saying Layne “tells it like it is.” Mark Steyn calls Layne a “rollicking Internet war pundit,” who “thinks we should all fly naked. Prepare for takeoff.” Most recently and completely is this story on Layne and his partner (and fellow blogger) Matt Welch, who have yet another Internet project/blog, LA Examiner,
Launched last year by two local journalists, LAExaminer.com is intended to evoke the memory of the departed L.A. Herald Examiner, the scrappy daily that closed in 1989, leaving the second-largest city in America a one-newspaper town (the Valley's Daily News notwithstanding). Irreverent and clever, LAExaminer.com's daily blurbs about the city's news and news gatherers is catching on with the city's writers and thinkers. "I think it's a great site. I find myself every morning, like a lot of people, checking their log," says Catherine Seipp, a media critic who contributes to American Journalism Review and writes a weekly column for UPI. ...as Seipp points out, what makes this "blogger" stand out from the rest is its creators: two real reporters posting more than simply daily musings. "After September 11 a lot of people have started logs as hobbies," she says. "But these guys are real journalists. They're very smart." Layne recalls that he and Welch were drunk one night last year, discussing how they were going to get rich enough to start their own newspaper -- or find a wealthy patron to do it for them. It wasn't such a farfetched idea. In fact, it had happened before. Eleven years ago, Welch and some colleagues convinced their parents to fork over the cash to start an English-language weekly in Prague. Layne joined the paper soon after it began. Years of itinerant journalism later -- with a side trip to Macedonia for Layne to start that country's first country music station -- the two found themselves in Los Angeles nursing wounds after the dot-com crash and scheming to rebound with a new publication of their own. Thursday, March 28, 2002
Gone With a Keystroke One of the more interesting aspects of blogging is that you can see process and not just result. We are working on a book right now about September 11 as viewed through computer communications like chats, emails and websites. Since religion, in particular the religious mentality, is at or near the core of the whole mess, I thought it would be a good idea to begin the main part of the book with a discussion of religion. This chapter stuck in many a craw, and I finally had to take it out. Here it is, you won’t see it in the book, which I imagine ultimately is for the best. Sad to see it go, though.
9/7/01 "The reality of life is that your perceptions - right or wrong - influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place." -ROGER BIRKMAN We enter the cyber thought stream with a short discussion on the nature of God a few days before September 11. The participants span much of the belief spectrum in America, from atheist to devout, although we probably don’t see the extreme ends, the evangelical disbelievers and believers. According to a recent survey (“American Religious Identification Survey,” conducted by the City University of New York, released in June of 2001), 81% of the adult population of the U.S. identifies with one religion or another: 77% Christian (159 million), 1.3% Jewish (2.8 million), and .5% Muslim (1.1 million, in contrast to figures of up to 6 million bandied about in the media). However, while 4-out-of-5 identify with a given religion, that religion is loosely held by many, as nearly 40% of “believers” don’t attend church with any regularity. Prior to September 11, Islam seems to have been on the American mind to a degree about commensurate with its population totals: not much. We will see that change shortly. If bin Laden’s goal was to raise the profile of Islam in America, he certainly achieved that. In this chat "Apostle" defends the God of Christianity against charges of murder and destruction, put forth from within a humanistic value system. Apostle places God above that system, placing with Him the ultimate authority to establish a value system in the first place and equating God’s actions with goodness per se. "Salvan" mentions that the God of Christianity has no monopoly on destruction, which is logical since Christians, Jews and Muslims all claim the same God. "Shorti’s" God would seem to be a pantheistic, perhaps Buddhist deity, asserting that we find Him within, “with sincerity.” This kind of discussion is formally called “apologetics” (derived from I Peter 3:15: "But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense [apologia] to every one who asks you to give an account of the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence"), defending faith through reason. In the very near future, some would choose to defend faith through horrific violence. Chat Apostle: God wills only good. What God wills is good in itself. Shorti: More propaganda. It's a shame that it blocks the path to God. It seems that the one simple truth people are missing is that we find God with our hearts with sincerity. Salvan: Destruction doesn't only show up in the Christian mythos. Why do so many people say it does? Read the Old Testament. Read the Koran. Brides: He kills children. Is that not evil? Apostle: God created an existence which included the possibility of good AND evil. Vedi: God seems to change with the wind. Apostle: You are morally insane. Are you a Satanist? Vedi: It just seems that Christians support murder and rape. Rocket: God murdered babies in Egypt. He murdered them to convince Pharaoh to release the Jews. LaSoul: Selective reading and selective understanding and believing dogma as truth. People who don't go to church are evil? Let's murder them. Apostle: God in Old Testament days did order the destruction of those he knew were evil. Rocket: Murder is murder no matter what the "reason" is. Apostle: God knows more than you. God knows present and future. God decides what IS and what IS NOT evil. Apologetics A brief explication of Christian apologetics is attempted here. Though the subject is somewhat arcane, it affords a revealing glimpse into the intellectual religious mind and may be helpful toward an understanding of how faith and reason interact. There are as many styles of apologetics as there are believers (most religions have some form of apologetics), but Christians have historically taken one of five broad approaches: Classical, Evidential, Presuppositional, Reformed Epistemology, and Cumulative Case (Steven Cowan, Five Views On Apologetics, Zondervan, 2000). Classical Method The classical method of Christian apologetics first addresses the issue of worldview, of which there are five main categories: Naturalism - The material universe is real and is all that is real; it is best understood through science; man is entirely a random product of evolution; morality is based upon utility and is mutable. Also known as the secular or humanistic worldview. Pantheism - The spiritual world is real and is all that is real, the physical world is illusion; all is a part of spirit and spirit is part of all; man is one with impersonal spirit and individuality is illusion; rational thought does not lead to truth; good and evil is really enlightened vs. unenlightened. Hindu and Buddhism are pantheistic. Theism - Also known as “monotheism”; infinite personal God created finite material world with a beginning and an end; reality has material and spiritual components; man is uniquely created in God’s image: individual, eternal, spiritual, and biological; truth about God comes from revelation, truth about world may come from revelation and/or the senses tempered with rational thought; moral values are immutable and derive from God. Polytheism - The world is real but governed by spiritual beings present in animate and inanimate objects alike; man is creation of the gods like all else, particular spirits may invest with particular groups of people whom they protect or punish; truth lies in the spiritual interpretation of the natural; morality is derived through discerning cause and effect between human behavior and the mood of the gods. Also known as animism. Postmodernism - Reality is interpreted through language and cultural paradigm and is therefore a social construct; people are nodes in a social construct and don’t possess free will or autonomy; truth is a mental construct relative to one’s culture and no one’s value is more true than anyone else’s. Classical apologetics sets out to prove that theism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is the appropriate worldview through the use of natural theology, an approach that argues the existence of God can be grasped through reason alone, from an appreciation of his design in nature. A classic example is early 19th century thinker William Paley’s Natural Theology, which begins as follows: “In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. “But supposing I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? “For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose . . .. Th[e] mechanism being observed (it requires indeed an examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have said, observed and understood), the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.” (William Paley, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence of the Deity Collected From the Appearances of Nature first edition, 1803; quoted from Edinburgh, 1816, pp. 5- 7) Naturalist philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau arrived at a similar conclusion in 1765, "It is impossible for me to conceive that a system of beings can be so wisely regulated without the existence of some intelligent cause which affects such regulation. . . I believe, therefore, that the world is governed by a wise and powerful Will." (Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar). While this approach was largely abandoned for much of the 20th century, Oxford professor Richard Swinburne has revived it over the last 20 years. In Swinburne’s take, theism is held to be the most appropriate worldview because it is the only worldview to explain everything we observe, including "the fact that there is a universe at all, that scientific laws operate within it, that it contains conscious animals and humans with very complex intricately organized bodies, that we have abundant opportunities for developing ourselves and the world, as well as the more particular data that humans report miracles and have religious experiences." (Is There a God? Richard Swinburne. Oxford University Press, 1998) After establishing theism as the preferable worldview, natural classical apologetics then attempts to demonstrate that Christianity is the most appropriate branch of theism using historical “evidence” from the Bible and auxiliary sources including miracles, salvation, etc., which they believe counts as evidence once you have established the existence of God in the first part of the argument. Evidential Method Whereas classical apologetics use miracles to establish Christianity as the proper form of theism having established the existence of God through reason, evidentialists use miracles, especially the Resurrection, as evidence to establish the existence of God; it is an inductive rather than a deductive argument. Though evidence is cited, the goal is still to establish the reasonableness of Christianity. Cumulative Case Method Cumulative case argues that neither traditional inductive nor deductive reasoning in the manner of a formal proof is appropriate here, according to Basil Mitchell who named this technique (Five Views on Apologetics; Steven Cowan, editor; Zondervan, 2000). Instead, an accumulation of evidence as in a legal case, leading to a hypothesis that best describes the accumulated data, is used. Among that data are the existence and nature of the cosmos, the reality of religious experience, the objectivity of morality, and historical facts such as the resurrection of Jesus. Presuppositional Method Presuppositionalists say that, realistically, the gap is too great between believers and nonbelievers to bridge using argumentation based upon either logic, evidence, or a combination of the two; and that the only way to approach apologetics is to assume that Biblical revelation is Truth, that it transcends human reasoning and must be accepted on faith. In Five Views, John Frame says that one should “present the biblical God, not merely as the conclusion to an argument, but as the one who makes argument possible.'' Presuppositionalists attempt to demonstrate that the nonbeliever’s worldview is inadequate to explain their experience of the world, and to convince them that Christianity alone makes sense of their experience. Reformed Epistemology Method Reformed epistemology argues that, since the Enlightenment, we have acquired the faulty view that all belief must be supported by evidence in order to be rational. This method assumes that a “sense of God” is inherent in human beings (John Calvin), and is thus rational. It has to be “awakened” from within the nonbeliever, not imported from without. “Irresistible Grace” is the “certain response by the elect to the inward call of the Holy Spirit, when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the Word of God, according to the Calvinist perspective. Apostle the Presuppositionalist Armed with this abundance of knowledge, what kind of apologist is Apostle? He (or she?) would appear to be a presuppositionalist in that he doesn’t try to present any kind of inductive or deductive evidence for belief in God or His goodness, but merely states them as received fact. (“God wills only good. What God wills is good in itself.” “God knows more than you. God knows present and future. God decides what IS and what IS NOT evil.”) He believes in free will and implies that God didn’t create evil, He allows it. (“God created an existence which included the possibility of good AND evil.”) He doesn’t try to defend the actions of God in human terms, acknowledging that God did destroy, or sanction the destruction through human hands, of “evil” peoples in the Old Testament (examples: Genesis 19:24, Numbers 14:15, Deuteronomy 13:9, 2 Chronicles 25:12). He would seem to be taking the basic apologist line that these peoples (Sodom and Gomorra, Canaanites, Amalekites) were brazenly and willfully wicked, that they were given chances to redeem themselves, chose not to, and were destroyed by God in righteous judgment. Clearly then, from the Christian or Judaic (Christianity and Judaism share the Old Testament) perspective, these actions can’t be “murder,” as accused by Rocket in the chat. Murder in these cases is judgment: punishment for sins committed against God and man, which God alone has authority to judge. Even in a purely secular judicial system, Rocket’s statement, “Murder is murder no matter what the ‘reason’ is,” doesn’t hold up. Not all killing is murder, and the “reason” has everything to do with it. Ethically, there is an entire spectrum of killing, from the killing of combatants in a justifiable war on the one end, through self-defense, accidental killing (wouldn’t apply to God), and on to premeditated, first degree mass murder at the other end. General Intellectual Defense of God The above overview of Christian apologetics presents an intellectual approach to God that is rather narrow in its particularity. We can take a step back and generalize the intellectual defense of God to three main categories that can be derived from reason: Argument From Design, Cosmological Proof, Ontological Proof (The Whole Shebang, Ferris, p 304). Argument From Design is akin to natural theology addressed above under Classical apologetics, for which Paley’s pocket watch is an apt analogue: the exquisite design of both the watch and the universe leads to the “natural” conclusion that each was expressly created. Neither just happened. While similar to natural theology, this interpretation is deistic rather than theistic. A deistic God doesn’t have a personal and ongoing relationship with His creation: he designed it, created it, then sat back to watch the show. As Ferris puts it, the deistic God doesn’t influence “the outcome of battles and football games” (ibid.). The anthropic principle addresses design from a scientific point of view, stating wonder at the fine-tuning of the universe as demonstrated by the internal resonances of carbon and oxygen nuclei: if the carbon resonance level was only 4 percent lower, carbon atoms wouldn’t form at all; if the oxygen resonance level was only 1/2 percent higher, all carbon would combine with helium to form oxygen. Without carbon there would be no life on earth. Cosmological Proof hearkens back to Aristotle who took the mechanistic view that the existence of motion requires something or someone to have begun the motion in the first place, an “unmoved mover”: God (Ferris, p 306). Something started this whole ball of wax, and because something (the universe) doesn’t come from nothing, a source outside the universe - God - must be the something who started it. Ontological Proof was surmised by St. Anselm in the eleventh centuryas such: God is the most perfect being we can conceive of and therefore He must exist because existence is part of his perfection. If he didn’t exist we could conceive of a more perfect being, that is one that existed. Summary To this untrained eye, the above arguments prove nothing, but do speak to the reasonableness of belief in God: varying with the chosen method of proof, if one grants certain suppositions then it is not unreasonable for a logical being to believe in God. None of the arguments are convincing logically because they all, to paraphrase Kant, confuse the internally consistent rules of reason (deduction), with the world of actual stuff of which we learn through observation and experience (induction). Neither the existence nor the nonexistence of God can be proved with deduction (requiring unproved suppositions) or induction (all “evidence” of God can be interpreted in other ways). Belief (in its many varieties) and disbelief alike are matters of faith and as such are the greatest defense for the separation of church and state. Reason finds truth through understanding - it is a process; faith finds truth through apprehension - it is either grasped whole or it isn’t. Matters of law and governance, though grounded in a foundation of shared morality, must be dictated by logic and constructed with reason as religion can never be. We can never demand that anyone apprehend the truth of faith, while we can expect and demand that people understand our laws and methods of governance through the tools of reason. That is the basis for civil society. Religion in America and September 11 Regarding religion in direct relationship to September 11, according to Gallup, over the last 30 years between 39 and 43 percent of Americans have said they attended a house of worship within the previous week. The figure in May, 2001 was 41%; immediately after September 11, the figure rose to 47%, but was back down to 42% by early November. The basic American religious structure of “one-quarter of the population devout, one-quarter secular, on-half mildly interested” hasn’t been changed by September 11 according to Robert Wuthnow of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton (quoted from the NY Times, 11/26/01). Of Eternal and Never-Were Adolescents Sad to see both Uncle Milty and Dudley Moore go. I had no idea Dudley was 66. I suppose his eternal impishness and the second-time-around adolescence of his 10 character chasing the goddess Bo Derek, and his never-left-adolescence character of Arthur, froze him in time. I’ll never forget John Gielgud, as the ultimate gentleman’s gentleman, deadpanning to Moore’s Arthur character, “Would you like me to wash your dick, sir?” Moore’s persona of a person always in transition, never quite arriving, reminds me of another 66-year-old, Woody Allen. Moore played a mean piano, too. Uncle Milty was such an institution for so long, it seems like he should have been older than 93. He was among the last remaining of the vaudeville showbiz generation who had to grow up young: to function as equals in the adult world, to earn a living as just another act on the circuit from childhood on. It seems as though he was never an adolescent, a period that the Society for Adolescent Medicine now defines as between 10 and 26. That’s a hell of a long time to be between the rock of childhood and the hard place of adulthood - to be “transitional.” While I am all for extending youthful qualities into adulthood ("neoteny"), there is a big difference between retaining a “childlike” freshness and exuberance, and retaining “childish” qualities the prevent a person from taking responsibility for his/her life, from saying “my real life begins now.” This is probably, even more than egalitarianism, the best argument for universal public service, military or otherwise. Faced with that kind of responsibility and enforced seriousness of purpose, it is rather difficult to put off saying “my real life begins now.” This was not, I think, a problem that Uncle Milty or his generation faced: responsibility was thrust upon them and they bore it, lightly or heavily, each in their own way, when the frivolity of childhood ended and the responsibilities of adulthood began. This acknowledgment of an extended transitional period between childhood and adulthood is a very new phenomenon in the history of mankind, and while certainly a biological reality (puberty), its extension over years, and now even decades, is certainly not helpful to the civic or societal demands of a democracy, and leads to 40, 50, even 66-year-olds dressing, thinking, and acting like adolescents, remaining transitional, never getting there. My most vivid memories of Milton Berle are of his classic TV battles with Lucy, another childlike adult, who like Uncle Milty, probably passed from childhood to adulthood rather quickly and decisively and just got on with it. Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Tour O the Blogs - Kausfiles Mickey Kaus - one of a handful of real-media “name” bloggers - has been running Kausfiles since the pre-blog-storic date of 1999, so he’s no bandwagoneer (unlike, say, me), in fact he’s a pioneer. A neo-liberal, ("put those welfare slackers to work"), Kaus is in many ways an equally quirky mirror image of neo-conservative Andrew Sullivan, for whom he worked at the New Republic when Sullivan was editor there between ‘91 and ‘96. Kaus is a contributor to Slate, and has written about public policy for Newsweek and several other publications, including the Washington Monthly, where he a contributing editor. His bio reads:
The End of Equality discusses the larger issue of how to pursue the traditional American ideal of social equality when incomes are growing inexorably more unequal. The book was co-winner of the 1992 Washington Monthly Political Book Award. Kaus was born in Santa Monica, California, where he currently lives. The most recent "Kausfiles" column sees campaign-finance reform as the political resurrection of Bill Clinton. His set-up:
Kaus feels that Clinton whipping up a Democratic frenzy from the center would provide an excellent party counterweight to the left-pulling “raw political muscle of phone-banking unions and turnout-boosting civil rights groups.” Peering into the Clintonian soul, Kaus sees that
Kaus’s tone larks a bit, but this is a damn good idea. Clinton could have a powerful forum from which to redeem his image, and help yank the Democratic party back toward the center. On to the running commentary of “Hit Parade,” which Kaus somewhat ominously informs us, is “updated at all hours,” implying a hawk-like vigilance from his seaside redoubt in sunny Santa Monica (where I once DJ’ed an “International Bartending Competition” - I think there were a couple of Mexicans, but, hey, that makes it “international”; teams from various bars operatically whipped up complex alcoholic concoctions to music, then philanthropically dispensed them to the clamoring throng; it all came to a gruesome halt when someone concocted with bad bananas and turned the event into the “International Puking Competition,” of which there were many winners). His most recent “Hit” is a commentary on a column by the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters. Kaus’s post is titled “Die Walters Weltanschauung” (I know what that means - “comprehensive philosophy” - because my son takes German). Walter’s column is titled “Long-term issues vs. short-term politics -- and we pay the price,” the gist of which is
In an excellent Clintonian triangulation, Kaus notes that
One last thing, Mickey took on the Oscars yesterday: he notes their “hijacked by the left tone,” which is hard to disagree with,
Flash! Oscars Self-Referential and Insincere... The Pope Is Catholic More snide Oscar-bashing, this time from William Saletan in Slate. His premise:
I am humbled by the honor to the extent that you, my peers, could have picked anyone but you picked me; not that I don’t deserve it, but I am surprised that you collectively had the good taste to note that my work was something special and to ignore the vicious slur campaign(s) waged against me by my competitors’ publicity people and my ex- (wife, husband, manager, agent, hairdresser - the bitch). I recognize that both the film in question and my career are joint efforts by many people - here are some of their names, for the little people too, oddly enough, have names, although I forget many of them from time to time, let me read from my list (blah blah) - but of course I am where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. In many ways, I am just a vessel for the work of others and for the tradition within which I am working, but I am a rather magnificent vessel - thanks for noticing. So ultimately, this is about me - that’s why I am standing up here at the moment minus accompaniment. I am truly grateful, though, because this means that the massive investment in ego I have made over the years hasn’t gone for naught, because ego is nothing if it isn’t recognized by others. Thank you for validating me, my efforts, and the people behind me, who deserve to be up here, but not as much as I do, of course.” Look at what happened to Letterman. He did what he always does: made fun of the structure of whatever activity he is engaged in, but this was unacceptable at the Academy Awards and he was dumped like a week-old fish sandwich. You can make fun of just about anything, but not the sincerity of the profound insincerity of the evening. That’s unseemly, and worse, beside the point.
Passover At this exceptionally difficult time for Israel, with virulent anti-Semitism rampant in the Arab world and not unknown elsewhere, I wish all of my Jewish friends (and relatives) the happiest possible Passover, which begins tonight at sundown.
Tribe Tows Nagy North My favorite time of the baseball year is almost over (unless the Indians are in the World Series - twice in the last seven seasons, but also twice in the last 48 years). Spring training is the time when the actual act of playing matters most: not stats, not standings, but skills, drills, coming together as a team as dark horses rise to the top and formerly light horses sink to oblivion. The high expectations that have weighed upon the Indians every spring since their amazing breakthrough year in ‘95 (100-44, now that’s a freaking season) aren’t there this year. Maybe that will prove to be a good thing. For the first time in quite a while, the Tribe may surprise some people. At least I hope so. Unfortunately for the Tribe (and for every team other than the Yankees), as Spring Training winds down, putting the very best possible team on the field isn’t purely a matter of skills and baseball ability, but is also a matter of economics. In the case of the Indians, that means carrying Charles Nagy on the roster as the long relief man, even though he is not the best man for the job, or even close. Nagy is on the roster for two reasons: he has a year left on a contract that will pay him $6M no matter what, and he has been a good soldier over the years, winning 128 games for the Indians over the last 12 years, including six seasons with 15 or more wins. He’s been a winner, a dogged competitor, and a good guy to have around. But everyone knows he’s done. Sports writers are rarely this blunt - in this town anyway:
After trading or losing to free agency (in a payroll cut of about $11M from $92M to about $81M, dropping them from 5th to 9th among ML teams) stars Juan Gonzalez, Robbie Alomar, Kenny Lofton, Marty Cordova, Dave Burba, the Indians roster looks like this for the start of 2002:
Relievers (seven): Bob Wickman, Paul Shuey, Ricardo Rincon, Mark Wohlers, David Riske, Jarrod Riggan and Nagy. Catchers (two): Diaz and EddiePerez or Josh Bard. Infielders (six): Jim Thome, Ricky Gutierrez, Omar Vizquel, Travis Fryman, John McDonald and Wil Cordero. Outfielders (five): Matt Lawton, Milton Bradley, Brady Anderson, Ellis Burks and Russell Branyan. Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Alright, Baseball: Pt. 2 I watched the 1971 World Series Game 7 on ESPN Classic late last night (Orioles vs. Pirates). Curt Gowdy called the game, and the thing that struck me the most was that I remembered almost every player by their batting stance before they were announced -- Elrod Hendricks, Manny Sanguillen (and his funky fuzzy batting helmet), Dave Cash, Bob Robertson, Pat Dobson, Steve Blass, Mark Belanger, and of course Boog Powell... 30+ years ago and I remembered it like it was yesterday. Roberto Clemente stood at the plate just like his baseball card, with a very upright stance. The other thing that struck me was how fast the game moved, nobody screwed around in the batters box, no appeals on checked swings that today would have taken six instant replays to agonize over (as a matter of fact, I only saw one replay on a bang-bang play at first), and no pitchers asking for umpteen new balls, no trips to the mound by the pitching coach trying to buy some time while the left handed specialist warmed up in the bullpen... It was jarring to watch. That, and it was an afternoon game -- with Curt often reminding viewers that the Cleveland vs. Cincinnati (or Denver vs. San Diego) football game was coming up right after the end of the game. No promos for upcoming prime time shows, no teasers for the post game show, no celebrity shots of the crowd, just shots of Danny Murtaugh and Earl Weaver on the bench. Murtaugh didn't move the entire time the camera was on him, bottom of the ninth, one out from a World Series and he looks like it's a spring training game. Beautiful. And I have to admit I am still a die-hard Cubs fan -- while I may have lived in the Cleveland area for 25+ years now, I was born and raised a Cub fan, perhaps the only more pathetic baseball group than an Indian fan... Microculture Redux Eric wrote: >Yes, but Glenn, for many people popular culture IS their micro-culture, hence the popularity of >the awards shows (Oscar ratings down a bit, but still 77 million tuned in at some point) 77 million of anything is not a microculture -- that's an industry ;) After re-reading my post from yesterday, I think I should point out that I'm not completely immune to it (and to twist William Burroughs, pop culture is a virus), but it's certainly less compelling to me than it's ever been. I know that if I need a pop culture update I can always turn to the printed bible (a.k.a. Entertainment Weekly), or E!, but I just don't have the motivation anymore... At Least We'll Have a Season Grand Wizard Bud Selig announced that owners would not to lock out players through the 2002 World Series. ALLEN KLEIN'S AFFIDAVIT Check out this bit of legal/popular culture history. Strawberry fields forever for lawyers. Thanks to Marty. Social Darwinism I could never understand why my ex-wife was always so sensitive about being short. I also didn’t get the flap about Randy Newman's “Short People” (congrats on the Oscar, by the way; I interviewed him in about ‘78 when he played at our school, he was very fidgety), which was obviously a joke, when it came out in ‘77. But over the years evidence has accumulated that shorter-than-average people suffer more than psychologically. According to Steven Landsburgh in Slate,
The big answer is, “Tall men who were short in high school earn like short men, while short men who were tall in high school earn like tall men.” The cause appears to be self-esteem
Popular vs. Micro Culture Yes, but Glenn, for many people popular culture IS their micro-culture, hence the popularity of the awards shows (Oscar ratings down a bit, but still 77 million tuned in at some point) E!, Entertainment Tonight and all the meta-entertainment media: they afford an overview of popular culture, they tell you ABOUT popular culture without having to experience most of the wretched material itself. Glenn also references Dan Hanson’s view that the Oscars didn’t do well in the “red states” because they are "GIVEN OUT TO FREAKING MOVIE PEOPLE." This strikes me as dead wrong: the very reason peole watch the Oscars and all of the other entertainment voyeur media is precisely because they are movie people. They are flamboyant, unpredictable, narcissistic, glamorous, emotive, pampered, shameless, and have lips permanetly attached to their hindquarters. They are eminently watchable as a result. They are like us, but much, much more so: a distillation of what we envy, love, hate, desire, are repelled by and, at least some of the time, WISH WE WERE. They are very vividly alive. This is the condensed appeal of popular culture; that, and the fact that knowledge of popular culture is a kind of code. A code that is slipping away to a certain extent with the rise of narrowcast media, precipitated also by the people “who use the Internet to find what they really like.” Even as they are simultaneously repelled and attracted by it, what a lot of people really like is popular culture. LeBron Being the best high school basketball player and being on the cover of Sports Illustrated wasn't enough to win the state title game, as LeBron James' St.Vincent-St. Mary (not even two saints were enough) HS from Akron lost to Roger Bacon HS from suburban Cincinnati in Division ll action. But LeBron isn't bitter; in fact he's remarkably civic-minded for a very young man. He signed autographs for two hours yesterday to raise money for charity. James
Cleveland Hails Halle Besed upon this response, you might have guessed that Halle Berry is from Cleveland. Lot's of people are FROM Cleveland. TEENAGER PREVENTS CANCER, PISSES OFF PARENTS In my daily trek to Drudge, I came across a link to an interesting disconnect between the generations regarding smoking. Per this article in the Washington Post, a 13-year-old boy has requested legal assistance in getting his mother to curtail her pack-a-day habit in his presence. Hallelujah!! Anyone who knows me well, knows I am a complete smoke-Nazi. It has taken years to fully cultivate my hatred of smoking, but I feel a have turned my anti-smoking fanaticism into an art form. For example, I feel that in public places all smokers should be “invited” to smoke in hermetically-sealed areas with no ventilation of any kind, AND additional carbon monoxide should be pumped in just to make sure they are really happy. Public smoking is an especially acute problem in “family” restaurants like Denny's, Bob Evans, Bob's Big Boy, and other establishments with boy’s nicknames. There is a certain segment of the population who believe that all adults must smoke when eating in public in the company of small children, AND who believe smoke-proximity must be in inverse proportion to the age of children. An example might be Grandma, two cigarettes - one in ashtray, one in hand - all smoke directed at 2-week-old baby; Mom, one cigarette, 2-year-old on lap sharing in all the rich flavor goodness; Dad and Grandpa, cigarettes dangling precariously from mouths, chasing older children around the table, ashes dancing merily on the breeze. The previous scenario inevitably leads to vitriolic stage-whispers directed at said family by me, accompanied by “shushes” issued by my husband. What kind of (low-rent, low-class, uneducated, stupid, selfish) person smokes around, allows smoking by, or just plain gives cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18? These people should be sterilized and bludgeoned to death. An overwhelming number of studies have been done showing the link between countless health disorders and secondhand smoke. Not only does smoke cause physical health problems, but it has been linked to psychological disorders in children as well: give them asthma AND make them crazy. In 2002, only a mentally-challenged troglodyte is unaware of the dangers of smoking to one's personal health, and more importantly (it’s a free country after all), its insidious action upon those who are exposed secondarily. The most egregious offenders of all are mother's who smoke while pregnant. There is not one excuse for this, and when I see it, I must restrain every single micro-fiber in my being to not repeatedly punch the head and neck of the worthless excuse-for-a-human who commits this child abuse. Deep breath!! That stated, I am made cautiously optimistic by the 13-year-old and the current anti-smoking wave sweeping across this country. I believe, again cautiously, that the current generation will go a long way toward snuffing out the deadly, reeking, asphyxiating plague that is smoking. Until that day I will unabashedly express my disgust and distaste for those who continue to poison the air, themselves, their offspring and the world with their weak-ass nasty habit. Oh yeah, for those of you who flick your cigarette butts out the car window to land in dry brush causing forest fires, defile the landscape, and just plain piss me off: you can eat batshit and die. Dawn Olsen More Evidence for Hanson, Derbyshire, and Noonan One definition of insanity is a profound derangement of priorities. What is the purpose of religion? To give life a larger meaning, to place it within a larger context. Even if the purpose of life is perceived to be dedication - in Islam, “surrender” - to the Almighty, the purpose of that dedication or surrender is to enhance that life. Without life, religion has no purpose, no object for its subject. Fundamentalism in general, and in particular the Islamic fundamentalism of the (deposed) Taliban and (the still very much in power in) Saudi Arabia has lost sight of the humanity of religion, of the priority of the person, and this distortion has led not only to Osama bin Laden and his merry men, but to this much more mundane tragedy where 14 girls were killed because they weren’t sufficiently covered. In sane societies, circumstances can preempt the rules. The other day, I sat for 1, 2, 3, then 5 minutes at a traffic light. After 5 minutes it was clear that the light was broken. I proceeded with caution through the intersection only to be pulled over by a policeman driving the other way who had no knowledge of the fried light. I explained my actions, pointed to the light - which was STILL red after 10 minutes - and was waved on, not even ticketed let alone beaten or killed. This is symptomatic of a sane society: the rules are a means to an end, not an end in themselves, and even minor emergencies can cause the rules to NO LONGER MAKE SENSE. If I lived in Saudi Arabia I would still be sitting at the light. Gallows Poll The National Council on Public Polls has done a critical analysis of the famous recent Gallop poll on Islamic attitudes toward the U.S. Although “the Islamic world” still thinks we suck (though Indonesia isn’t all that happy about 9/11), the methods used by Gallop, particularly aggregating data by country rather than by population (“It's as if California and South Dakota each were allocated the same number of electoral votes in presidential elections.”) has exaggerated both the numbers themselves, and the reliability of those numbers according to a story in the Washington Post. (Thanks to Jerry) Criminally Insane The gloves are coming off, way off. John Derbyshire, swinging from the far right, and Peggy Noonan, punching from the near right, are no buying longer the Bush administration piffle that “this isn’t a war against Islam, it’s a war against terrorists.” Specifically, they and others (see below) see this as a war against Islamic insanity, which they view as pandemic. Derbyshire punctuates his view thusly:
Noonan feels we should be treating our enemies quite literally as if they were insane, speaking quietly and making no sudden movements instead of threatening them, and that the media also bears responsibility for not startling the unstable:
All of this raises the insanity defense in a much larger context. Within a given society, like the U.S., insanity is a legitimate mitigating factor regarding culpability and punishment. We agree that the ultimate punishment, death, is unfair because the insane can’t be held responsible for their actions. From society’s point of view, this approach is acceptable because we can confine the insane to prevent them from causing further harm. We are willing to give out citizens the benefit of the doubt and not confine them unless we have ample reason to believe that they will cause harm. Look at Andrea Yates, everyone knew she was deeply troubled, but she was allowed to roam free, to be responsible for the care of her five children. This tragic episode is deeply regrettable - and now there is talk of holding someone (in addition to Yates herself), namely Yates’ creepy husband, responsible for allowing this to happen - but still we are very hesitant to take preventive measures against our own citizens. Regarding Yates, it is instructive that under Texas law, she was held legally responsible for her actions - the unspeakably heinous act of killing her five children in cold blood - but she was not given the death penalty, even in execution-happy Texas, because clearly the woman was nuts even if not legally so. Even in this most heinous of crimes, we give our own the benefit of the doubt and don’t eliminate them because we can isolate and confine them so that they are no longer a threat. We also assume the problem is individual and is not a reflection of a greater societal issue that needs to be stamped out by creating an example. Were this the case, we would have killed her. Unfortunately, we can’t “confine” the murderously insane from distant shores, or even keep them from our own shores unless their insanity is manifest and has been labeled as such by their home governments. But according to Derbyshire and Noonan, entire regions are insane. This question is of paramount importance now, because between portable weapons of mass destruction and ease of transportation, the insane can kill as never before. What do we do about them? If we can’t confine them, do we kill them? According to the stalwart and ever-stern Victor Davis Hanson, the relevant “insanity” here is more of a mass delusion. Referring to history as is his wont, Davis reminds us of the Western “appeasers” who chose not to confront Hitler until it was too late.
Saddam Swan Song Jim Hoagland has history with Saddam going back to 1972. After second, third and thirtieth chances, the end is nigh. The bottom line is this:
Bloggy Blog It has become clear to me, as if in a revelation, that it is inadequate for me to simply put up stories for the News and Commentary Roundup, no matter how carefully culled by Jerry. I must actually read them and explain why they are worth reading, which I will now do. This is my role. Here I go. Talk to you later. Monday, March 25, 2002
Viva Oscars et al Hey, I empathize totally with Mike’s point about not being ruled by popular culture - I watch little TV other than sports, movies on cable, some news, the daring and compelling 24 on Fox (but not amnesia, for God’s sake, why did they give her amnesia?), and Sunday night on Fox (I guess I like Fox) where Futurama (I catch once in a while) runs into King of the Hill (sometimes) into The Simpsons (almost always) into Malcolm In the Middle (always - the wrenching twists between dysfunction and hard-won emotion are bizarre, unique, and hilarious) into The X Files (wavering, we were devoted until last year when the steam leaked out with David Duchovny, although he’s coming back for the two-hour series wrap-up). The only other broadcast show I can heartily recommend is Disney’s Recess cartoon, which my (high school-aged) son and I catch every morning before school. This brilliant study of childhood socio-cultural dynamics - ostensibly for children, to which I say Hah - is a miraculous blend of Lord of the Flies, Mary Poppins, and Malcom In the Middle. As I mentioned yesterday, I don’t get to many movies before the Oscars each year (this year, of all the nominated movies, I had seen Lord of the Rings, Monsters Inc., Shrek, A.I., and for some inexplicable reason, the Animated Short winner, For the Birds), but rather than avoid the show as a result, we use the Academy Awards as a convenient DVD and cable preview. Certainly my interest in A Beautiful Mind (it looks weird and obsessive, Russell Crowe is cool), Gosford Park (which I swear I had never heard of; oh, I was vaguely aware that Robert Altman had some kind of drawing-room mystery out because my father met him at a party a few months ago), and Moulin Rouge (looks visually ravishing) has been piqued enough to rent them, and I’d probably at least start any of the others nominated if they came on cable and I had nothing better to do. So, mission accomplished. I watch the Grammys for some of the same reasons; although as a “music person” I usually have around half of the nominated records, ironically I’m typically least familiar with the most popular records. I don’t usually catch the Emmys, but the same purpose is served by reading TV Guide: by reading it I don’t have to watch TV unless there’s something that really sounds good. By immersing myself in the awards shows from a relatively disinterested, naive perspective, I get a distillation of the (at least officially) very best of that particular art form without having to slog through the sludge, without being jaded, and can spring off to discover those individual works (or “products” if you prefer) which tickle my fancy. I even try to catch the Tonys and I haven’t been to a Broadway show in about 20 years. Awards shows rule. 
Oscars, Grammys and Emmys, Oh My! (or how I learned to live in popular cultural oblivion and like it.) I missed the Oscars last night, although I did accidently catch Opie winning his Oscar for "A Beautiful Mind" on my way to the bathroom and then Brian Grazer who kept rubbing the side of his nose in some sort of secret code or perhaps he just had some nasal discharge he wanted to keep in... anyway -- I was busy up in my studio/office updating my websites and re-wiring the studio after the Elliptical show last week. Last month I missed the Grammys, which, as a musician, you would think I'd be interested in (not). I was working on a track for a compilation of Madonna "remixes" done by the .microsound list. I hadn't heard the Madonna track before I started the "remix" -- I keep putting "remix" in quotes because, well, once you listen to it you'll know why -- they're really deconstructions of the music taken to a granular level of exploration. You might recognize a vague hint of Madonna remaining in the resulting pieces, but not if I hadn't told you ahead of time. Then, there's the Emmys -- I do watch TV right? Well, if you consider the 2am ET Sportscenter and Iron Chef primetime viewing, then yeah, I guess I'd qualify. And that is really a microcosm of where my head is at on popular culture and specifically, award shows. I couldn't tell you who won last night -- but I suppose the more important part of it is I don't care, and haven't for a long time. The truth is, my connection with the popular culture media has been slipping for the last 15 years, to the point now, I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a CD or went to a movie (without my kids) or watched primetime network fare (is ALF still on?). (update: Amazon tells me it was a "Best Of Julie London" CD, two years ago) Growing up I was totally saturated by it. I watched TV when I wasn't going to the record store or the movies. You can't beat me in the Trivial Pursuit 80's edition if you wanted to (sad but true). But the fragmenting of my time started when I became a working musician (1987) and later with the advent of cable. Musician hours tend to be late, where going to bed by 4am on a weekend after a show is considered an early night. And then cable -- between infomercials, CNN Headline News and lots of soft core Shannon Tweed movies on HBO there wasn't much on late, late at night. Even today, ESPN is still showing the same damn lumberjack tournament in Wisconsin or the Senior golf wrap-up after 3am. On the pop culture front, I see it further slipping away every time I scan past MTV and they accidently play a video. I wonder (in a David Byrne-like voice) "who are these people, and where did they come from". This is not simply part of getting older and the eventual divide that comes between generations -- (i.e. "you kids and that loud music you play -- get off my lawn!). The irony is I probably listen to more music than ever (Morpheus or the Gnuetella clones), but it's by people you've never heard of (and probably never will). That appeals to me. I miss the DIY spirit that punk and electronic musicians had when no one would listen, play or book them. That's the intersection of the music I make and what I want to hear from music... As much as they try to package it (electronica, grunge, lounge, alt-country) back to me, I refuse to bite. I'm doing other things now -- cooking, web design and I'm still making music -- I don't have time for popular culture to influence me in it's own obsequious way (like setting traps with shows like E! True Hollywood Stories or VH1's Behind the Music). So, congratulations to the best movie, actor, actress and supporting cast. I hardly knew ye.. |
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