July 2004 Archives

It's almost like there's too much noise around FAHRENHEIT 9/11 to watch it with a clear head, and I still wonder whether it will change minds. Bush is such an easy, wide-ass target by now that as his defenders grow more shrill, his critics seem to carp in vain. I wish Moore was more responsible with his data, had more insight, provided more context on the Iraqi footage, and in general was more of a journalist. But my wife [SKL] says that's wanting it to be something it's not. Goeffrey O'Brien is pretty persuasive on this. (See how generous we're being after O'Brien got SUCKED IN to Mystic Fever?)

Elsewhere in that same issue, Gary Wills surpasses himself on Bill Clinton. Every time Wills peaks like this, you think he's found his subject. If you haven't read Nixon Agonistes, or Innocents at Home: Reagan's America, you have only yourself to blame.

SKL made a very good point last night about Ron Reagan Jr.'s speech: it's a coup for Dems because he's a surrogate for Nancy. She's spoken up about stem cell research, and gotten the cold shoulder from her grand old party. Ron was up there for her, as a symbol of how cutting the Dems are getting without mentioning GW's name. How savvy: very little of what even Ted Kennedy said could be used in an ad declaring the convention a "hatefest." I'm heading down to the Fleet center tonight to meet up with my sister, Ann, a labor floor whip. Stay tuned.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL:

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT DVD

Does anybody out there know if this show got picked up yet for another season?

Freddie Mercury Nesting Eggs

Is it me? Feels like I've taken crazy pills: "...hedonism, as expressed by rock, is playing center stage in our culture. But being 'out front' doesn’t have to mean 'better than the rest.' More influential? Sure. More perfect? No.'" I tried very hard to make the case that rock figures symbolized something far more than hedonism, something richer, more poetic, far better. And there's more than a touch of cynicism to my approach.

Mr. Riley, Fever limits its discussion of country music’s influence to Johnny Cash (starting on page 9). With that, you seem to suggest that rock, following Elvis, completely overshadowed any other manly ideal, especially the one you associate with John Wayne and Johnny Cash. Is that what you meant?

By exclusion, you're suggesting that country music did not promote a stoic ideal of manhood, or that if it did, rock eroded its influence completely. That is, rock's open ideal claimed 100% of the cultural mind-share, and country music's references to a more stoic ideal either claimed none, or its influence didn't matter. Is that your position? --from Wall of Sleep

Hardly. In addition to talking about John Wayne's influence on Johnny Cash's persona, I mention Kitty Wells on page 38, where I say "Country and western has a mistaken reputation as a rather chaste style..." I think of Rosanne Cash as C&W (and more), and she's featured in chapter 5; and Merle Haggard ranks as one of my favorite singers, period. Did C&W promote a more "stoic ideal of manhood," yes. But next to his gospel sides, Presley's C&W remains some of his finest genre work, and I don't think there's a contradiction there. FEVER is devoted to rock's gender influence on culture, which had a far greater impact than C&W. You could easily devote a similar book to C&W gender codes. To say that Presley's male code swamped other genres is probably the least controversial thing I have to say.... So I guess I don't understand your question. I don't devalue C&W, I'm just more interested in rock. Rock wasn't the only medium trumpeting new gender styles, but it was way ahead of every other medium. If you ask me, C&W is still catching up: Garth Brooks is your basic old-school male trying to act newfangled.

Some very worthy-ass lists from McSweeney's. We gravitated towards Dick Cheney's iPod playlists, Wasploitation flicks, and Alcoholics Anonymous Slogans as Eleven Murder Mystery Titles and One Spy Thriller Title, but we didn't have all day. Irresistible. This alone is a site waiting to happen.

And this, from Behind a Wall of Sleep, which gives you the feeling he doesn't know his blog is a Smithereens song. I'd like nothing better than for him to lob me some specific points to argue.

Self-Righteous Brothers

RUNNER-UP:

Wack-Ass Egyptians

...The film takes for granted that rock 'n' roll, while it remains the soundtrack of youthful disaffection, has long since become a respectable middle-aged profession. Both Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Hetfield, the band's founding members, who started playing music together in the early 1980's, are married men with young children. They also behave, with each other, like a long-married couple who find themselves bored, dissatisfied and on the rocks..."

After A. O. Scott's inexplicable rave in the NYTIMES, I feel honor-bound to warn people off Metallica's SOME KIND OF MONSTER. Not only is it overlong and tedious, (like Metallica's music) it confirms all your worst assumptions about metal, its bizzers, and hack pretensions. That serious-minded folks can fall for all of this is beyond me. "Process" is already a pretty lame subject for a musical documentary, as has been proven over and over again (LET IT BE being the BIG exception, curious how nobody has ever used it as a template). How records get made can be pretty stultefyingly boring, any one-hit wonder will tell you that. The bigger story here is: how hard and expensive it is to make even mediocre music; how the market drives middle-aged pros towards maintaining, even cultivating, their mediocrity, and how metal has achieved a parity of "respectability" with rock itself.

...Mr. Ricks’ work is filled with offhand Empsonian brilliance, uncanny erudition and a belief in literary value that will, hopefully, finally shut up the poorly read types who waste time questioning whether Dylan’s works have earned the "right" to be called poetry. What a useless argument: Of course they have earned the right, but we have the right to think to them as songs as well...

--Ron Rosenbaum in the Observer.

...Lars deserves bonus points for being shorter than his wife, and his remark that the band's "in a bit of a shit sandwich" wins the most-blatant–Spinal Tap–reference award. But he's not nearly as lovable as his ancient Danish dad, Torben—a bucktoothed, troll-bearded ex-Wimbledon third-rounder, jazz muso, painter, poet, filmmaker, and arts journalist who looks exactly like the wizard-of-the-rings mountain man inside Led Zep's Zoso gatefold. He's also the only person brave enough to tell Metallica their music sucks...

--Chuck Eddy solos on SOME KIND OF MONSTER in the Village Voice.

The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Rocket From the Tombs, Los Lobos, Wilco, the Beastie Boys, and Sam Phillips channels PJ, in what Republicans might call a "big tent"... on WBUR.

Since it opened, "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been a hit in both blue and red America, even at theaters close to military bases. Last Saturday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his Nascar crew to see it. The film's appeal to working-class Americans, who are the true victims of George Bush's policies, should give pause to its critics, especially the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore...

Paul Krugman on Moore in today's Times

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...Regarding My Life itself, it is long. Yes. While I doubt that any of the reviewers who have disparagingly compared it to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant have ever actually read the latter, I also doubt that they have read the former. Say what you will about Clinton, but he is one of the few U.S. presidents since Grant to have written a book by himself. While reading it I often wished someone else had written it for him, since he clearly has a tin ear and little sense of what to include and what to leave out. All the same, it's impossible to actually read this book without missing Clinton, for unlike his predecessor and his successor, the Spook and the Born-Again Cokehead/Booze Hound, he isn't mean-spirited, homophobic, racist, or idiotic, never confuses himself with Jesus Christ, and even when putting annoying people in their place, does it with a light touch. "Unfortunately, my relationship with Bill Bennett didn't fare well after I became President and he began promoting virtue for a living." "Vice-President Dan Quayle said he intended to be the 'pit bull terrier' of the election campaign. When asked about it, I said Quayle's claim would strike terror into the heart of every fire hydrant in America." Clinton is even gracious to Barbara Bush, a vicious old bag in pearl sets who could've given Angela Lansbury notes for her role in The Manchurian Candidate...

Gary Indiana on Clinton's MY LIFE in the Voice.

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Also,

Dud of the Month

WILCO
A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch)

Not counting the 11-minute synth drone that Jeff Tweedy says reminds him of his migraines, the most blatant of the mannerisms that riddle this privileged self-indulgence is its dynamic strategy. Play the soft parts loud enough to hear and the loud parts will demonstrate the limitations of your cheapjack sound system, you pathetic transistorized consumer clone. Fortunately, there is a counterstrategy. Play the soft parts as faintly as they deserve and you'll still be able to make out the guitar workouts that are the only conceivable attraction the album will hold for any neutral party not seeking an associate degree in sound engineering. Once Tweedy wrote legible songs. They didn't add up to much because he didn't, but they had their shallow charms. Here he's beyond such compromises. "Handshake Drugs" we get, and the NPR-ready one about the best songs not getting on the radio is a clever feint. But it's hard to imagine any of the suckers who fell for the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot hype striving to identify with, say, "Muzzle of Bees." Not impossible. Just hard. B MINUS...

Robert Christgau lets Tweedy off easy.

Goldstein on Hitchens:

When someone is attacked with such operatic ferocity, one thing is certain: That person is successful.