Murphy's Law

Doesn’t that picture put both of these imbeciles in perfect perspective?

Hey, Tea Partiers count for ratings, too!

Listen, I don’t begrudge Leno. Make all the money you can dude. There has to be something to compensate for contorting yourself into a harmless, plastic, inoffensive, ass-kissing, shameless gerbil. To the victor go the spoils and that hollow husk where your soul used to be sure smells a lot like something spoiled a long, long time ago. Rock on, you insecure, grasping, desperate, backstabbing weasel. He who dies with the most toys wins! (Remember that bumper sticker from the Reagan ’80s? Maybe he has that bumper sticker on each of his 3,000 antique hot rods.) Leno became a waste of skin two decades ago, so it seems silly to point out the obvious. One just wonders if, on some levels, this corporate pawn who has HOLLYWOOD tattooed on his paper heart is aware that he has become the only thing worse than our most ambitious but brainless politicians: the guy who eagerly gives them a platform. All in the name of good clean fun!

As always, Bill Hicks got there first. He was correct twenty years ago, of course. But it is our cultural loss as Americans that even Hicks could never  have imagined how bad it would get.

She nodded. “Make it extraordinarily squalid and moving,” she suggested. “Are you at all acquainted with squalor?”

I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time…

–J.D. Salinger, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” (1950)

Spin me back down the years and the days of my youth, as the song says.

April, 1988.

More time has passed since those days than had passed since I’d been born.  There has to be a more eloquent way to put that, but I’m having a difficult time coming up with it. More to the point, I am increasingly unable to avoid calculations like this. Why? Because the balance has shifted and, going forward, more years (and things) will have transpired in my life, but few of them will be as indelible. So there’s that.

Everyone talks about how reading The Catcher in the Rye is one of those seminal rites of passage. Now that J.D. Salinger has gone to that big field of rye in the sky, everyone is talking about it all at once. I would be a phony, I figure, not to include myself (and all). For starters, what do you call a rite of passage involving a lot of middle-aged (or older) folks talking about the passing of an author who wrote one of the ultimate rite of passage novels? Indulgent? Inevitable? Ironic? All of the above?

By the time I got around to Holden Caulfield, I was already a senior in high school. Too young? Too old? Just right? For better or worse, I was either too old, or not alienated enough, to feel the full force of Salinger’s operetta of adolescent angst. Of course, I’m selling it short (or am I?), but I’ve heard very few adults whose opinions I admire mention falling under this novel’s spell while revisiting it as an adult. Myself, I couldn’t tell if it was too obvious this book was the result of a grown man trying (diligently, and in that overly mannered, oft-imitated style) to sound like a disaffected but acutely sensitive sixteen year old, or if it’s because he succeeded so thoroughly that, even as a seventeen year old, I wasn’t especially simpatico with his anguished, if solipsistic observations. Which is not to say that his plight did not move me, or that his situation is not, at times, rendered with profound artistry by Salinger.

(This is the squalid, or moving part of my observation: after getting several paragraphs of analysis and personal reflection put down, my power went out for a second, and I lost everything I had just written. Everyone knows, whether they are writing an essay or an e-mail, how indescribably frutrating this can be. Nevertheless, I had to chuckle thinking Salinger’s spirit was taking the piss out of my piece, or else the collective force of so many Holden Caulfield acolytes simply snuffed me out in midstream as a sort of karmic correction. Duly noted, and a discouraging setback but not enough to tempt me to pull a Seymour Glass.)

Perhaps it would be a bit unfair, if mostly accurate to conclude that The Catcher in the Rye is the archetypal novel of adolescent alienation for teenagers/young adults who don’t read a great deal of fiction. Just as there are certain types of movies and music that, through a perfect storm of critical consensus and a groundswell of contagious public approbation, get anointed as authentic touchstones of a particular moment in time (I would say “tapping into the zeitgeist” but I try to avoid using the dreaded z-word if at all possible).

Regarding the almost half-century of silence that followed his initial burst of creativty, Norman Mailer decreed Salinger “the greatest mind to ever stay in prep school.” That is harsh but it is also –based on the available evidence– pretty indisputable. On the other hand, when people hold up The Catcher in the Rye (or even Franny and Zooey) as the zenith of Salinger’s oeuvre, they are overlooking (or more likely, have never read) “For Esme –With Love and Squalor”, in my estimation one of the five best American short stories of the 20th Century. Indeed, what Salinger accomplishes in those twenty-odd pages greatly exceeds the sum total of Mailer’s voluminous, if mostly perishable output. Everything that Salinger didn’t do, or didn’t do convincingly, or didn’t do well enough to reward subsequent readings by a more mature audience, in his canonized novel, he does in spades with this short story. It is a compact, devastating illumination of the cruel machinery we, for lack of a better or more appropriate word, call adulthood. How fittingly ironic, then, that a writer celebrated (and minimized) for being the consummate chronicler of what Pete Townshend later called “teenage wasteland” actually wrote a shattering treatise from the trenches (literally and figuratively) that endures well into a new millennium. Of which, more later.

As it happens, when I first experienced The Catcher in the Rye I was in the early (but intense) stages of what became a lifelong infatuation with Jethro Tull. Which naturally coincided with my burgeoning obsession with all-things progressive rock, which happened to coincide with the release of so many classic recordings on that new-fangled technical revelation called compact discs. It would be near impossible for anyone who didn’t live through those days to imagine a world when you waited for anything: i-Pods and online access have made everything that has ever happened available, immediately.

Back then, waiting for certain Rush, Yes, King Crimson and especially Jethro Tull albums to get their digital reincarnation was like patiently awaiting Moses to deliver a new sonic commandment every other week. The upside of this, of course, was that it was still a time when you had time (you had no choice) to savor and spend time with a new purchase, and by the time you’d (temporarily) exhausted your enthusiasm, you had ample funds to get the next installment. This was also, as many will remember, a time before information itself was a free 24/7 proposition. As such, each trip to the record store was loaded with possibility: you never knew what might have been released, including albums by bands like Genesis and Pink Floyd, that you never even knew existed. And, it should go without saying that the prospect of upgrading scratchy vinyl (or tape-recorded) copies of Beatles, Stones, Doors, Zeppelin and Hendrix albums was something slightly beyond orgasmic.

Anyway, it was during the winter and spring of 1988 that the back catalog of Jethro Tull was being released, a couple at a time, on compact disc. It was around this time, having already devoured Thick as a Brick and still patiently awaiting the arrival of A Passion Play, that I had my first sustained go-round with Tull’s third album, 1970’s Benefit. In April 1988 it was the right album at the right time. Remarkably, it still is.

But before you can fully appreciate what Tull achieves on Benefit, one has to consider (and understand) the brilliant album that preceded it, 1969’s Stand Up. In addition to the handful of gems that still get radio play (“Nothing Is Easy, “Bouree”, “A New Day Yesterday” and “Fat Man”), there were a couple of standard coming-of-age type middle finger salutes to the establishment: “Back to the Family”, which features a blistering guitar coda from Martin Barre and album-closer “For A Thousand Mothers”, where Ian Anderson not only spits on, but laughs at the naysayers. This song is notable for perfecting  a sort of “garage flute rock”: once you hear that joyously spiteful noise, this might not sound like such an oxymoron. (And incidentally, if you don’t realize how incendiary and downright dangerous this band was capable of sounding circa ‘69, get a load of this.) The two most surprising, and surprisingly abiding, songs are “Look Into The Sun” which Led Zep could have put on their third album (and indeed they may have been listening to this one before taking their somewhat left-field, and awesome, acoustic turn in 1970) and the best song you’ve never heard, the sublime and ethereal “Reasons For Waiting”. But the one that stands out (or stands up, as the case may be) from the rest is the ceaselessly astonishing “We Used To Know.” Check it out:

How many 21 year olds write songs like that? The world weariness of those vocals (not to mention the lyrics) and the masterful subtlety of Martin Barre’s embellishment through the first half make the song ache with longing and arid resignation. But then after the flute solo bleeds into the guitar solo, the song explodes into the clear-eyed appraisal of a man who has fully taken stock of the world, and the reigns of his destiny. As we know now, he never looked back. (A few quick words about that guitar solo: more than a few folks, including Ian Anderson, have noticed that The Eagles’ much more famous “Hotel California” seems to have borrowed more than a little from “We Used To Know”. Personally, I think it’s a tough case to make as the two songs are so different, but this does present an opportunity to lament the fact that Joe Walsh, lovable rascal that he is, would be easily identified by approximately 100% of people who know anything about rock music, while Martin Barre might be recognized by one in ten, and that is being generous. Such is life, and don’t weep for Mr. Barre who can wipe his own eyes with the piles of money he has earned. Joe Walsh, who left his talent and most of his brain cells in that holiday weekend of excess called the ’70s, endures as an avatar, and casualty, of that era: he is the coke-stained hundred dollar bill that says so many things about a time and a place where certain people did certain things because they quite simply could afford to. Mr. Barre, on the other hand, is a vintage Jaguar –pronounced Jag.U.R.– that may have neither the flash or immediacy of newer, more colorful models, but discerning eyes can assess its value, and class, with little difficulty. In hindsight, listening to him in song after song after song, it becomes increasingly clear that even some of the most accomplished –and celebrated– guitarists of the ’70s were using crayons while Barre had already figured out how to use water colors.)

So where were we? Ah, 1970. The growth evidenced between Tull’s blues-drenched debut and the follow-up, only a year later, is unequaled by any other rock band’s first and second albums. This is in no small part due to Barre’s arrival (replacing Mick Abrahams, who lost his battle to co-lead the band and continue down the British blues revue road) and the almost incomprehensible maturation of Ian Anderson’s songwriting proficiency. To the band’s credit, their ambition knew no bounds, and part of their strategy for the third album was to recruit John Evan to agument the sound with his considerable piano (and organ) skills. It was a move that paid substantial dividends, immediately evident on the first song, “With You There To Help Me”. Evan’s welcome presence is in full effect on the deceptively simple, almost waltz-like “Alive and Well and Living In“, which details the dynamics of a failing, probably abusive relationship. The flute and acoustic guitar bely the heartbreakingly familiar subject matter (a woman stuck in the rut of on-again/off-again romance with a man who is distant and then demanding, while she is quick to forgive but not quite able to forget), but Barre’s abrasive guitar tone articulates the anger steadily being buried beneath the surface. It’s a cautionary tale for the teenage listener who has yet to embark on a meaningful romance (written by a young man who could not have had a great deal of experience himself) that an older listener can still admire, decades later.

But the centerpiece (thematically, aesthetically) of the album –and a song that absolutely ranks in the upper echelon of the Tull catalog– has to be “Nothing To Say”. If “We Used To Know” grapples with a wary nostaligia that accompanies the resolve to make one’s own way (as an artist but also as a young adult going out into the world),  ”Nothing To Say” confronts the pressures (of an artist or a young adult out in the world) of conformity or, in Anderson’s case, the expectation that he will embrace the role of countercultural guru, ready to dispense words of wisdom for his young acolytes (a role many artists are quite satisfied to assume, and much more so today than in 1970). Anderson’s ambivalence about this scenario signals, as much as any rock song of that era, that the ’60s are over. Anderson who, to his credit, did not pay much more than lip service (intellectually, lyrically) to the free-love surface level ethos of the festival-flocking hippies, takes aim at both sides of the system and espouses a creed of personal responsibility. What at first might be read as a surly refusal to take a stand is actually an admonishment that everyone needs to figure it out on their own; certainly Anderson was not willing to be a de-facto spokesman for anything political or otherwise. The world was, in many ways, a mess, but every concerned citizen is personally accountable for finding their way and bringing about whatever change is warranted:

It’s not my power
to criticize or to ask you to be blind
To your own pressing problem
and the hate you must unwind.
So ask of me no answer
there is none that I could give
you wouldn’t find.

At this point, Anderson has dealt with the past (Stand Up) and the present (Benefit); his burgeoning confidence would prompt him to combine those elements in an attempt to grind some axes that probed quite a bit deeper than the typical sociopolitical commentary on offer (then, now). As it turns out he had plenty to say, which brings us to Aqualung and the semi-dreaded concept album, wherein Anderson turns his attention, and lacerating wit, to the institution of organized religion. First off, it’s one of the more unfortunate, if trivial, missteps in rock. Naming their fourth album Aqualung was akin to Black Sabbath changing their name from Earth. In both instances, a less appropriate moniker makes the work easier to dismiss. Considering the thematic scope of the album, and the central thesis of how religion affects us all, especially when we are at a young and formative age. It is tantalizing to imagine how much more street cred this album could –and would– have accrued if it were named after almost any of the other ten songs, specifically “Cheap Day Return”, “Up To Me” or “Wind Up” (particularly as a pun for what this expression signifies in British slang–as a comment on the song and the album, and the material, which was sure to “wind up” some listeners). But most of all, this album absolutely should have been named “My God” which, again, would be appropriate on the micro and macro levels.

In any event, anyone who has made it this far most likely has at least a passing acquaintance with this particular album (perhaps beyond the excellent title track and the radio staples “Locomotive Breath” and “Cross-Eyed Mary”). While the first side of the LP concerns itself with, for lack of a better cliche, man’s inhumanity to man, the second side takes on religion with a righteous indignation that has not been improved upon by many (if any) other mainstream artists since ‘71.

I wrote a bit about this one (while attempting a succint overview of the band’s career here) and here’s an excerpt on a couple of songs from Side One: the one-two acoustic punch of “Cheap Day Return” and “Mother Goose” are archetypes of a sort; the kind of whimsical British folk that Tull perfected: the songs seem straightforward and pleasant enough (and they are) but are cut by their topical, and occasionally unsettling, lyrical import. This is Anderson’s calling card, and nowhere is it in better effect than the one minute and twenty-four seconds of perfection entitled “Cheap Day Return”. In astonishingly succinct and effective fashion Anderson deals with his own alienation, offers a sardonic appraisal of his own budding super-stardom (What a laugh!), and his father’s imminent death, all in a song that sounds innocuous as a nursery rhyme.

Side Two is a remarkably ambitious –and successful– attempt to look at the racket religion has degenerated into (or was it always thus?) and after getting some licks in on the clergy, Anderson turns both barrels on the men who have sought to create a  convenient God in their own image. Pretty sophomoric stuff, eh? Well, that’s partly the point (more on that in a moment), but what’s remarkable is that these songs have lost none of their power or perspicacity. It still sounds pretty audacious today, but was downright defiant to pen tunes like this in 1971 (check out “My God” and “Hymn 43“, which includes the incendiary couplet “If Jesus saves, he better save himself/From the gory glory seekers who’ll use his name in death). In just one minute Anderson nails, for all time, the opportunistic hypocrisy of the materially rich but spiritually depraved amongst us who compensate (figuratively) for their nagging consciences in the confessional or in the collection basket (“And you press on God’s waiter your last dime/As he hands you the bill”). But on the literal levels, these are the people we all know: our peers, parents and especially our politicians, and Anderson sardonically nails these weekend warriors to their crosses of gold.

He saves the best for last, when in “Wind Up” he recalls being shipped off to church, eventually concluding that God is “not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays”. I can trace the trajectory of when I first heard this album, early in high school, and loving the “hit” songs, to eventually gaining a fuller appreciation of “My God” –in terms of the lyrical import and the inspired way Anderson multi-tracks his vocals to imitate, and satirize, a sanctified choral hymn– and the other songs on the second side. But it wasn’t until college that the full effects of “Wind Up” revealed themselves to the not-so-innocent, recovering Catholic who had served mass as an altar boy only a couple of years earlier:

In your pomp and all your glory you’re a poorer man than me/As you lick the boots of death born out of fear.

I’ll decline to further recall how profound those lyrics seemed to a nineteen year old, but I’ll argue they retain their poetic import even now. Of course one comes to an age where they can see through the self-serving charade and the fake humility and the sickening appropriation of the holy for personal, earthly gains. Et cetera. But this sort of material goes several steps beyond fighting the power or endorsing the punk rock anarchy; this stuff is gospel for a young sensitive soul, alienated by everything and earnestly (sensitive souls are nothing if not earnest) looking for Truth with a capital T.

Which, at long last, brings us back to Salinger. If the holy trinity (sorry) of Tull albums comprised the ideal, if occasionally uncomfortable, source material for making that awkward (but earnest!) leap from adolescence to young adulthood, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” is among the handful of indispensable short stories (along with Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”,  Tolstoy’s “The Three Hermits”, Kafka’s “First Sorrow”, James Joyce’s “Eveline” and especially Joao Guimaraes Rosa’s “The Third Bank of the River”) that resonate on profound and permanent levels with a certain type of person at a certain age.

Perhaps, as already acknowledged, I simply came to The Catcher in the Rye too late (although, as already suggested, I am uncertain it was capable of working its celebrated charms on me, not because I didn’t relate to Holden Caulfield on some levels, but more because as I read I kept thinking “Yeah? Is this all you got?”). There can be no doubt that I came to “Esme” at exactly the right age: after digesting Catcher and spending many a session (and, the writer would be remiss to overlook, at least one enchanted, and mycologic evening) uncovering the ultimately not so mysterious mysteries of Aqualung. I was, inevitably, an ardent if confused soul quite concerned with “again becoming a man with all his fac– with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact”.

Like the very best literature, “For Esme — with Love and Squalor” is every bit enjoyable and edifying to adult eyes as it is to, say, the wider eyes of a college sophomore. In fact, Salinger’s achievement is that much more poignant (and devastating) to an older audience who has actually known people who have been wounded or killed in war. But the narrator of this story is reeling from actual experience in the real world, so it resonates to a young reader about to enter it, and certainly a more mature reader who has seen and felt some of those proverbial slings and arrows. If there is a more  quietly coruscating image in literature than the narrator lifting Esme’s (KIA) father’s wristwatch, which has shattered in transit, out of the care package, I’m not aware of it. The question, as the story ends, is: does that broken glass represent the narrator’s spirit, or will he rally to once more become part of the world?

This is the question so many (but apparently not enough, considering we are still fighting wars and still taking less than acceptable care of our veterans) young adults grapple with at a crucial time in their lives.

This is the question J.D. Salinger may or may not have answered, in his own inscrutable fashion, once he turned his back on fame –and his fans– and spent the last decades of his life in a golden cage of his making. Whether or not he was quietly desperate, or just quiet, will presumably be answered once those elusive and much-discussed manuscripts see the light of day.

Once it seemed there would always be
a time for everything.
Ages passed I knew at last
my life had never been.
I’d been missing what time could bring.
Fifty years and I’m filled with tears and joys
I never cried.
Burn the wagon and chain the mule.
The past is all denied.
There’s no time for everything.
No time for everything.

–Ian Anderson, “A Time For Everything” (1970)

From Sigourney Weaver’s “What You’ve Learned” feature in December’s Esquire:

I volunteered to serve food to the workers at Ground Zero after 9/11. There were dogs trained to find living people. The people who worked with the dogs became worried because the day after day of not finding anyone was beginning to depress the animals. So the people took turns hiding in the rubble so that every now and then a dog could find one of them to be able to carry on.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/sigourney-weaver-interview-0110#ixzz0eaf5qWS1

Before moving forward after looking backward (getting on with 2010 after remembering and assessing the last decade, one movie, album and sporting event at a time) New Year’s Eve is that vertiginous event where you are recalling –or trying to forget– the past while anticipating –or dreading– the future, but at the same time living utterly in the moment.

This year is slightly different, because we are not only reflecting on the last twelve months, but the last ten years. I’ll join the cliched chorus and marvel at how fast it goes. Ten years, already? Exactly a decade ago I was up in the Big Apple, determined to see in the new millennium even if meant going down with the ship. Remember how terrified people were about Y2K? The clocks would stop, the computers would crash, Reality TV would disappear, et cetera. Of course, we made it through in one piece. If Reality TV is the price we had to pay for surviving the infamous fin de siecle, then so be it.

Through a combination of dumb luck and the audacity to hope (abetted by a full night of celebratory end-of-the-world cocktails) my friends and I stumbled right out into the middle of Times Square — which had been on total lockdown for more than two days (we ran into people who’d stood in place for 36 hours or more, pissing into cups and freezing to death in slow motion under their multiple layers): the folks who wanted to witness history in real time were packed in barricaded city blocks, behind ropes and more cops than there are donuts (or cops) at a Krispy Kreme convention. Long story short: a few of us were simply trying to get back home to watch the New Year (or obliteration of the planet) happen on TV, like any reasonable American would do. As it turned out, we ended up watching the ball drop less than five hundred feet in front of us. Once in a lifetime, one in a million. We not only lived, but lived to tell about it. And, despite the awkward oversight that enabled us to slip not-so-innocently under a chained line to mingle with the crowd, the security was stellar that whole weekend. Cops were everywhere and they had things under control. But it was more than that: once the clock turned to 2000 the craziest (and coolest) city in the world was partying like it was…well, 1999. And there was nothing but love and happiness amidst that spectacle. People were happy, perhaps exhilirated to still be alive. Hugs and high-fives abounded, and I did not see a single act of violence or ill-will as midnight lurched toward the hangover of the century. Good times, to be certain.

And I remember thinking: what a great time to be alive. What a positive omen for a new century. Of course, things didn’t quite pan out as predicted that evening. In the same city, less than two years later, everything changed forever. (In cities all over the country, less than one year later, the worst president in the history of America weaseled in on a technicality, ensuring that the idiotic and apathetic would ruin it for the rest of us, as usual.) It seemed like the rest of the decade was one calamity or crisis after another, testing even our capacity to absorb the inexplicable. And we still managed to make it, scarred and scared, to another decade. Another chance to make good on the work that needs to be done. For all of our sakes, let’s hope we do better this time around.

I went into 2009 prepared to deal with the inevitable passing of my best furry friend, and could not have imagined it would end up happening many months sooner than expected. That hurt. It still stings, every single day, but as anyone who has experienced any kind of loss knows, the harder it is, the better it was. It’s never enough to compensate for the pain by acknowledging the profundity of the love, but it helps. That was the big event for me this past year and it feels right to remember that, now, while celebrating that he was with me for just about a decade. Bittersweet, to be certain, but as Big Head Todd would say, more sweet than bitter.

And, as always, it’s a hell of a lot easier to keep these things in perspective by considering the (increasing) number of our brothers and sisters who are struggling just to be, here and overseas. And for entirely too many people (inside our borders but especially beyond) every year is only about one thing, survival. Here’s hoping better times (financially, spiritually) are on the horizon for all, but mostly for those that need it the most. Don’t be cynical: find a charity you can feel good about supporting, endorse the efforts of our great artists, tell your parents you love them, appreciate –and savor– the friends who always have your back. Be good to strangers and be better to yourself: you deserve it.

Friends, family, health, music, movies, books, good food and drink, and happy memories yet to be made. Those are some of my favorite things, and I am blessed to have enjoyed all in abundance throughout the 2000’s.  Here’s toasting much more of same, for as long as all of us are able to keep the party going.

After that, the only possible chaser is a little Snow Dog. RESPECT!

Don’t you dare say that Obama has not accomplished anything.

He has done something no president in recent times (if ever) has come close to achieving: namely, alienating and disillusioning a huge percentage of the people who put him in office. And it took him less than a year to do it. Is this guy incredible or what?

This health care debacle is obviously the last straw.  And blaming Joe Lieberman will not suffice (more on the despicable one here). Did anyone expect anything different from this self-absorbed, petty, childish, greedy, shameless clown?

I’m not proposing that we fail to hold this asshole accountable. Certainly we should. But I’m perplexed by my brethren who are unable to see exactly what’s going on here. Lieberman has been on borrowed time; he knows it, and he knows he has no chance to win re-election (if he is as insane as I’m beginning to suspect, he may have deluded himself that he has a better chance if/when he actually runs as a Republian: if so he is setting himself up quite nicely. Think I’m being facetious? I’m not. If/when he gets his old, wrinkled, money-grubbing, insurance-industry-owned ass called to the carpet, he can/will go into full martyr mode, then try to reposition himself as the sane man who stood up to the loony liberals. More on this another time, maybe, but spending any time thinking about Lieberman is actually making me sick.)

But as I said, don’t blame him. Hold him accountable, sure, but remember that these histrionics were entirely predictable.

If you’re looking for someone to blame, how about the person who is supposed to be running our country. That guy who, as soon as Shameless Joe went public with his transparently fabricated sanctimony (has there ever been a more insufferably sanctimonious hypocrite in politics than Lieberman?) Obama quickly dispatched the toothless bulldog Rahm Emanuel to get Reid in line (I actually feel pity for old Harry at this point: yes, he’s a putz and a mostly ineffective empty suit, but he has seemingly tried his best on this health care clusterfuck, and it certainly appears that all he has gotten from Obama is a big bowl of nothing. Obama long ago cut him loose and laid him out to dry, slowly and painfully. Translation “Hey Harry, do my dirty work and I’ll sit on the sidelines, carefully waiting to see how this plays out; if it works, I’ll happily bask in the glory, if not, I’ll distance myself”. It’s time to stop calling this pragmatism and call it what it is: opportunistic cowardice. Obama, whatever you do, don’t even entertain the idea of channeling some very righteous indignation, and possibly breaking a sweat or getting some proverbial dirt under those fingernails).

Prediction: As has been projected (by myself and many others), whatever this bill ends up as –once it’s been whittled down beyond all recognition– Obama will suavely declare it a “major victory” and trumpet it as the centerpiece of his State of the Union Address. Hence, the hurry to get something (anything!) signed by Christmas. (Well, that and the fact that we couldn’t ever expect these well-paid, well-insured sloths in the Senate to ruin their holiday having to pass meaningful legislation!)

Obama’s arrogance, combined with this disgracefully unprincipled cowardice, has become intolerable.

He wanted to be above it all last year and not alienate the man who actively campaigned against him (Joe L.), and has bent over backwards to not speak ill of any Republicans at any time under any circumstances. If this was shrewd politics, or if this could be illustrated as a sly way of enacting his agenda by cleverly keeping his powder dry and temper cool, I would stand back in awe of his discipline. As it stands, his stance has hurt him, repeatedly, and this recent Lieberman debacle is the King Chicken coming home to roost (crapping and pissing all over the floor as he does so). The President has not invested an ounce of political capital trying to do the right thing. The only move he has made with a ruthless disregard for the fall-out is …..bailing out Wall Street! That sweetheart of a deal, without any concessions whatsoever, entirely financed by the same taxpayers who got fucked over by these swine, made it clear that Obama owes allegiance to the special interests who own him. Therefore, it’s anything but surprising that just the other day some of these so-called “fat cats” were snickering that Obama’s alleged smackdown was “just a PR stunt”. It was. Let’s call it MISSION UNACCOMPLISHED.

If someone cares to explain to me any other rationale prompting this slapshod negotiating, and quick (spineless) capitulation other than political expediency, I’m all ears. What is most upsetting is that one can see through this like a watery turd: led by the increasingly clueless Rahm Emanuel, it’s all about the next election cycle. That, in and of itself, would be unconscionable on the human level. The kicker is, it is a non-starter on the political level as well. These guys actually seem to believe that it’s all about getting something, anything passed, then holding a press conference declaring it a huge victory with the word “reform” stamped all over it like a well-travelled guitar case, and that will be that. Of course, that is how the game is played; that is how it works. But at what cost? Sure, there will be folks who don’t follow the news that will buy the boilerplate. But at this point, even casually interested Democrats have to be scratching their heads: Gee, it smells like piss and feels warm and is kind of yellow…but they are telling me it’s Dom Perignon, so I guess I should open wide; wait, that tastes like…piss!

Put slightly less grotesquely (although that metaphor, unfortunately, is pretty accurate), if Democrats (not to mention the more ardent portion of “the base”) were understandably disillusioned by –but willing to grant benefit of the doubt on– the recent Afghanistan “surge”, this may be the proverbial bridge too far. Count me amongst that group.

Look, we all know the bottom line: this bill, no matter how shredded and soft, is still miles ahead of what any Republican could do (nothing) and, in the final analysis, will constitute progress. But good god, what a hollow victory. That’s like losing five hundred bucks at the craps table and then finding an unexpected $20 in your front pocket and declaring that it’s a net gain. Sure, that $20 is better than being broke, but it would be nice to have held on to that $500 (or even $250): the simile is strained, so insert one more suitable if you please. You get the picture. The key takeaway here is that the evolution (or devolution) of this process epitomizes the two worst characteristics any politician can encompass: cowardice and cynicism. That is a devastating combination. To his credit, as much of a craven buffoon George W. Bush has always been in his personal affairs (Daddy, bail me out again; Rove, don’t have me confront a single coffin returning from overseas; let’s do a fly-by of Katrina, etc.), he had the courage of his (admittedly idiotic and mostly backwards) convictions. Can you imagine Bush tolerating the brazen mechinations of Lieberman? At the very least, the threats and promises being made behind closed doors would be frequent and unambiguous. Could you imagine Slick Willy (the King of Triangulation himself) enduring this charade? Or Hillary? Sigh.

It would be depressing enough if you could chalk this up to arrogance or even naivetee on the part of the Obama camp (traits that have been demonstrated repeatedly, starting –and ending– with Lieberman, but also repeatedly throughout the health care “debate”): you can imagine them thinking “it’s really different now, we can rise above the muck and emerge unscathed; we’ll get them to see the light”. But I don’t think, at this point, that is feasible; nobody could possibly be that delusional (well, except Sarah Palin). What’s much, much worse, is the ugly reality that Obama (as a politician, as a person) is not terribly invested in any of this on a personal level. One has never gotten the sense, through any of this, that Obama is tossing and turning at night, or that he wants to sacrifice any of that (rapidly diminishing) political capital on doing this thing properly. (And any dupe who still furrows their brow and declares that Obama is only eating the shit sandwich served to him by the simpletons in the Senate needs to revist the always-astute Glen Greenwald today.)

Never fear, there is plenty of blame to go around:  these “moderate” Democrats are all going to lose their seats in 2010. Good riddance, obviously. Yet, it’s amazing that in the by-now cliched fear (did we not learn anything in the 2006 mid-terms) that catering to the center-right orthodoxy, otherwise known as not taking a stance on anything except status quo –a status quo that any middle class American would agree is FUBAR– is a recipe for ruin? In that regard, their collective comeuppance will be deeply satisfying. Except for the fact that all of them will be replaced by actual Republicans. Can you say lose/lose? Or just: loser.

Lastly, it was entirely predictable (and equal parts distressing and infuriating) that as soon as Howard Dean (the man who should be enjoying his second term right now…) spoke truth to corruption, the White House attack curs came after him. Let’s recap: Joe Lieberman emasculates the Dems (and Obama), several times, and there is not even a semblance of blowback. Dean, with facts at his side and a record of actually putting people before politics, voices his concerns, and immediately he is savaged (the fact that Emanuel apparently loathes Dean is all you need to know about Emanuel, and speaks volumes about Dean’s honesty and integrity). And of course, Dean will be easy to marginalize. He, after all, is the crazy left lunatic who screamed that time. To see Dean betrayed so ruthlessly (and so quickly: boy does the Obama team act quickly when it feels the need to) should be the final affront for anyone who fancies themselves remotely progressive. If you are even beginning to rationalize or spin this any other way, just stop.

So…to summarize: Obama endorses a bill that continues to have pieces hacked off, like the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, which becomes less popular with each iteration, and through this imbecilic obsession with a non-existent middle-ground, emboldens his enemies and infuriates his allies. In fact, Obama is the Black Knight: his viability is sliced away, chunk by chunk, and he (and his mouthpieces) insist this is exactly the way they wanted it. And after a while, there is little choice but to believe it is the way they wanted it.

Concluding thought: Bush was a modern day Nero in the sense that he fiddled away while the empire burned. But he was a child, utterly overwhelmed and mostly incurious about how the fire started or who might put it out. Obama, on the other hand, knows exactly what needs to be done. He also is aware that fire is hot, and that if you get too close you might just burn yourself. And why go to all the trouble of putting on that fire suit, and then you waste all that water when the fire would just burn itself out anyway. After a while. And no matter how the fire goes out, if it’s no longer blazing, we can claim credit for making it stop…

Right?

Fortunately, end of decades only happen once a decade. Otherwise, trying to decide on a reasonably accurate (not to mention reasonably brief) list of “best of decade” albums, movies, books and songs (et cetera) would put many good minds in an insane asylum. Come to think of it, what better place to get the necessary peace and quiet necessary to compile such lists? Do they allow i-Pods in those places?

But seriously folks. I feel obliged, or at least compelled, by the lesser angels of my list-making mind, to take a crack at what moved and impressed and inspired me most this very busy decade. And even before you get around to separating the good, very good, and great, you invariably stumble upon more distressing shit like “Good grief, ten years went by that fast?” And then you start thinking that the Big C (Cliche) is lurking ever around the corner, like a straight-jacket.

And yet, in some ways, it’s easier to assess a decade than it is to focus on one year; picking, say, the ten best albums of 2010 might prove more challenging than picking, say, the fifty best albums of the decade. In part because you can really be picky and anything that doesn’t make the cut can get tossed pretty quickly. And, of course, as all the hipsters know, there ain’t any good music being made anymore anyway, right? Hardly. In fact, this past decade was a near bottomless pit of bliss: so much great music and so many great movies, it is intimidating as much as it is astonishing to consider what remarkable artistic times we live in.

So where does one begin (assuming one is the odd sort who puts stake in such lists and thinks anything is accomplished by making them)? Well, you start with a list. And then revise and expand, expand and revise. Get frustrated, get angry, feel overwhelmed, feel a little bit like God. Feel the eyes of friends and strangers already getting you in the cross-hairs. How could you possibly leave out this one? How can you possibly think (insert CD or movie) is worthy of making the cut? Et cetera.

And that is what it’s all about: sharing ideas and stimulating some discussion. That is all it’s ever been about for people who really love art and live to talk about it. And it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun (or edifying) to consider spending so much time agonizing over these lists if you couldn’t count on the conversation that is certain to ensue. And before you know it, your living room looks like the week before final exams, with notes and cheat sheets scattered around like stale breadcrumbs. But those crumbs serve a purpose, and you drop them on the (dirty) ground in the hopes that they’ll lead you to something approximating Epiphany. The moment you make your choice(s) and throw them out there. And then look forward to hearing how much better it could or should have been (and laughing because you knew going into it that you, above all, would likely end up feeling the same way). The weak get paralyzed, and the uncertain get to work (the only ones who know all the answers are of little assistance because, unfortunately, they are in padded rooms with iPods).

Keep an eye out for the Top 50 (or 60) Albums, the Top 40 Jazz Albums and the Top 20 (or so) movies. And get your scalpels out. Figuratively speaking, of course.