Murphy's Law

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, 1st Movement

Grant Green, “Exodus”

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, “Balm in Gilead”

John Coltrane, “Psalm”

Philip Glass, “String Quartet No. 5”

Jimi Hendrix, “Beginnings”

Bob Marley, “Revolution”

Bad Brains, “Leaving Babylon”

Living Colour, “Wall”

Antibalas, “NESTA (Never Ever Submit To Authority)”

Children are supposed to aim high and pick up where their parents left off, moving the ball farther down the field, or finding new ways to contribute to society, or –in the instances where their parents have seen fit that they never have any financial burden whatsoever– be sufficiently humbled that they give up something to the greater good, and share the proverbial love. Naturally, in the upside-down world that is Cheney, Inc., it’s all about sharing the hate. And that is neither surprising nor particularly disappointing; I mean, would we expect anything less from this clan? (Slightly less famous daughter Mary, in the epitome of self-loathing battling money-grubbing, pimped for Coors beer, a notoriously gay and minority unfriendly franchise: a quick Google search will provide more than a little back story; be forewarned, it’s revolting.) Little needs to be said of the literally shameless Dick Cheney, but his daughter Liz has seen her star rise in ‘09, helped in no small part by the Fox lies factory, but also typically timid MSM outlets who allow her smile n’ smear tactics to go entirely unchallenged.

Nothing new under the sun, right? Well, at some point, people in semi-prominent places need to say enough. That she (along with her father, who is suddenly more visible out of office where he spent most of his time safely sequestered in his undisclosed rat hole) is now appearing in public as often as possible, spewing demonstrably false venom is…typical. That she (along with her five deferment seeking father) is now suddenly the self-appointed voice of reason regarding foreign policy (in general) and wars of choice her chickenhawk pops helped embroil America in, is also typical, expected, and insufferable. And it’s not going to stop, so people interested in truth (and this should include many military folk who actually have to fight and die in the battles instigated by others) need to not only call her out, but encourage her to keep exposing the pathetic and self-serving bile she spews every time a camera is close by. Keep inviting her to debate and actually have to attempt to defend her demonstrably false rhetoric. Certain types of Republicans continue to profit from literally inventing an opposite reality (hello Orwell!) and since we should neither hope nor expect that to change, let’s encourage them to hoist themselves with their own petard.

We can hope that a handful of so-called reporters follow Lawrence O’Donnell’s lead:

First of all, after Bob, somebody who I felt could have been a big star was Jacob Miller. Bob basically became a rock star in Jamaican music, and Jacob, I felt, could have done the same. He was a big guy, but an incredible personality. Incredible. I mean, I have a picture of Bob and Jacob and myself standing in front of a plane, and you look at it, and you would say that Jacob is the biggest star there without any question. He just had that presence. But then he was killed in a car crash, and things ended before they began.

–Chris Blackwell, talking about Jacob Miller (original post here).

Jacob Miller is one of the exceedingly rare musicians who it’s easy to fall in love with both quickly and deeply. There is likely to be no middle ground: you hear that ebullient, irrepressible voice and it’s either on or you are, sorry to say, not capable of handling this kind of truth. He’s that good. Which makes it that much more agonizing to contemplate how little of him we got to enjoy. But that we received even an inkling is a blessing of considerable magnitude and, as always, it behooves us to appreciate the bigger picture. Jacob Miller did not make reggae music, he was reggae music. In an ongoing series to celebrate the end of summer, here is a sampler of Miller bliss. Just try not to fall in love.

Blogs are, or can be, like diaries.

Except that diaries, by nature, are private. Which begs the question: do people who blog censor or soften the observations, complaints or critiques that in other times would exist inside a document designed to remain unread by others? (Or more to the point, should they?) To be certain, only a few years ago, thoughts like the ones I’m about to express would have been safely ensconced inside a journal, not read by anyone else, even including myself (I don’t often return to old journals, hopefully because I’m too busy living in the here and now). And for whatever it’s worth, I am humble enough to know that small numbers of people visit this blog, and I have enough sense (or self-respect) to instinctively acknowledge that nobody is well served by overly earnest airing of personal trivia.

Put another way, I don’t begrudge anyone else documenting every last detail of their existences (no matter how mundane or mawkish); I simply remain uninterested in reading about it. In that regard, blogs are self-regulating: if you don’t write things that others will find interesting, you won’t have an audience. And who cares anyway? In that regard, blogs are like diaries: people post on them because they want to, or need to, and the concept of friends or strangers reading their innermost thoughts won’t necessarily hamper their willingness to compose. Still, only the sensation-seekers looking for notoriety (usually the already famous, and even those folks have a shelf-life of about six months) go out of their way to wax solipsistic in a public forum.

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically, and anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I have little compunction sharing some thoughts on this plaintive anniversary. Indeed, for me these occasions are much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

As I have mentioned in other pieces (most recently on my birthday), one of my earliest and most positive memories of art and discovery is associated with my mother: listening to Nutcracker Suite and drawing pictures. Tchaikovsky has a real Proust-like effect on me (and, I suspect, a great many grown-ups who have indelible memories of the Nutcracker or Fantasia, or both), but on a purely aesthetic level it is like Bizet’s Carmen: I can (and do) enjoy it on purely musical terms. Moreover, I prefer it that way (and having seen my share of holiday performances and the opportunity to enjoy a full performance of Carmen, I’m happy to have those experiences and need not go there again). Anyway, there are more than a handful of favorite moments (coincidentally or not, conductor Fritz Reiner’s version from 1960 is the first compact disc I ever purchased, in 1986), but the one that gets me every time is the sombre yet majestic ”Coffee: Arabian Dance”.

There’s no shame in my game. I cannot deny my past and the fact of the matter is, back in the ’70s I thought Jesus Christ Superstar was pretty awesome. Moms, sis and I knew this one by heart (at least Side A of the 8-Track, which received heavy airplay in the Ford Grenada). This was in the pre-Kiss and post Fantasia time period, and of course before I discovered the original “rock opera” Tommy (not the last time ALW would be influenced by a rock band). In any event, this was my first and last dalliance with Andrew Lloyd Webber and while I can hardly stomach it now, oh how I loved it then. And you know what? A handful of moments are still worth reliving.

I’ve also alluded to the fact that we worshipped at the altar of the White Album, and we’d listen to the cassette (taped from the original double record) constantly in the car. Our favorite singalong was (obviously) “Rocky Raccoon”, but one of my favorites that I can never hear, now, without thinking of my mother and those million car rides is another great song by McCartney, “Mother Nature’s Son”:

It was pretty cool to watch movies with my mom, who was much more lenient than Pops when it came to the Rated R ones. One we watched many times (which I haven’t seen in ages and suspect I’d like much less now) was The Big Chill. Of course, the soundtrack was ubiquitous at that time and did for Motown what soundtracks like O Brother, Where Art Thou? did for bluegrass and Goodfellas did for oldies (or at least Tony Bennett). It’s silly to contemplate now, but it was almost a novelty to hear Smokey Robinson and The Temptations in the very arid early years of the ’80s. Indelible baby steps for an impressionable young honky:

Beethoven. I’ve spoken often in regards to my worship of Ludwig Van. Everyone encounters the symphonies first, but once I latched onto the piano sonatas, that was it. It still is. I’m not sure if I ever succeeded in getting my mother to really appreciate the immortal  Mondschein, but she at least tolerated how often it was played during the late ’80s and early ’90s in her house. Since I’ve already thrown Barenboim a bone, I’d like to give props to Freddy Kempf’s superlative rendition of one of the truly sublime compositions ever written:

The other great discovery and love of my life around this time was Bob Marley: kind of like Beethoven and the symphonies, it’s impossible to have ears and not be exposed to Legend at some point in high school or college. When the amazing Songs of Freedom (by far the best box set of all time) came into my life during grad school I latched onto it like a remora. This career-spanning set opened a large door wide on Marley’s music (particularly the mostly unknown, and remarkable, work from the late ’60s and very early ’70s), and eventually, reggae. Moms needed no convincing, she formed her own deep love and appreciation for Marley and would sing his songs on my answering machine. Suffice it to say, our shared love of the great man is one of the very special bonds in my musical and spiritual life.

I think she saw pretty quickly that I was going to be a special case, and there is little doubt that regardless of anyone’s opinion, I was off and running early on, and little could come between me and music. Nevertheless, her encouragement (from Kiss to The Beatles to The Doors all the way through classical and then jazz) was generous, ceaseless and always appreciated. It’s kind of neat to consider that a CD she originally bought for me my senior year of college (when I explained to her that it was very important for both my studies and my sanity to procure this album) is one I wrote about almost twenty years later. I can’t think of a more beautiful song from a more perfect album to commemorate my gratitude.

Not too much needs to be said by way of introduction to Jimi Hendrix, but my mother definitely dug some of his (less experimental? more accessible?) work. This one was, and is, a no brainer: a song he wrote about his mother (who passed away when he was ten years old): “Angel”:

August 27, 2002 was the first day of the rest of our lives. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recall (or half-reall) the blur of events that come after, all of which are a blessing in the disguise of distraction. I did a lot of driving: driving from father’s house to my place, from funeral home to father’s place, to the airport to pick up relatives. The emotions and sensations would become overwhelming at times, and there are those awful moments when you wonder how you can possibly find peace or make sense of anything ever again. During one of these episodes I was coming or going somewhere and I had not been paying attention to my car stereo, and then this song (by the great Israel Vibration) broke through that haze like the sun and saved my life:

Finally, and this one is the most important, for me.
The ’70s: this one reminds me of coming home from school and spending time in the house in between games of soccer or kickball or whatever else I was up to in those days. I have a memory: it was either autumn or winter, but it was a day I couldn’t play outside, so I was stuck inside the house and my mother had first dibs on the sounds. She was a huge fan of Janis Ian (as I would become, and remain) and I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider Between The Lines one of the better albums of that time, or anytime. “At Seventeen”, “Tea and Sympathy”, “Light a Light”: this is as good as it gets. But it’s the swan song, “Lover’s Lullaby” that affects me most; it haunts and restores me in equal measure. This one makes me think of my mother, so young; myself, so young, and even the beautiful Janis Ian, so incredibly young and so unbelievably beautiful. Sentimental? Not so much. True, this is wistful on multiple levels, and while my nature is to embrace or confront things that I consider cliche, it still took me quite a while before I could bring myself to listen to this song after my mother’s death.

I can, now, and when I do I naturally think of her. And inevitably I think about myself:

Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 –Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

Our world is a much poorer place today.

How could one man enrich us this much? Let me count some of the ways…

Any time I need to feel reminded that I am one of the lucky ones, I simply need to look at this picture. That pose is not unique; virtually every child has at least one “money shot” of the post-birth adoring gaze. Or, every child that is fortunate enough to be born in a hospital (or home) in safe conditions, to a mother who welcomes the moment and most importantly, is prepared for the moments (and days and years) that will follow. I don’t need to resort to religion or spirituality or even new age-esque invocations of the universal bond; I can just consider the infinitesimal likelihood of even making it from my father to my mother, if you know what I mean (as my father has always been fond of saying, “You owe me your life”), is rather statistically remarkable in and of itself. To know I was brought into this wicked, wonderful world by two parents who put my safety, well-being and evolution at the forefront of their collective energies is to be humbled, and grateful.

And there’s John Cusack, playing me on my 19th birthday. Some of his finest work; he managed to look just like me (extra props for the authentic paisley tie, which was featured at many seminal occasions of my life at that time). It only took one year at college to appreciate just how spoiled rotten I had been the previous eighteen years: Moms ran a tight ship and I was never once without toilet paper, toothpaste, breakfast cereal or any of the other million things a typical bratty American from that generation (any generation?) so easily takes for granted. And that is a point unto itself: it’s because you take those things for granted that you were well tended by your caretakers. I had also come to a better understanding that my parents weren’t nearly as clueless as I often suspected whilst a snot-nosed teenaged shithead. Or, as Mark Twain observed with his inimitable elan: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” In other words, you grasp that your father was the quarterback, after all. But you also become cognizant that your mother was the coach, cheerleader and locker partner; she covered all the proverbial bases, enabling you to run around them even as you thought you were just floating on air.

Everyone remembers when, as a kid, on Mother’s Day they would inquire “How come there isn’t a Kid’s Day?” And the response would be, “Every day is kid’s day.” Most people who have lived a single day in the real world come quickly to understand how true that old cliche actually is (those extremely well-raised didn’t need to wait that long for this epiphany to come, and I remain grateful to count myself among these). A year or two punching the clock, paying bills, cleaning up one’s messes (the literal and especially the figurative ones) and generally attaining the independent status that one strove so single-mindedly to attain is sufficient impetus for reflection. Not just an appraisal of how impossible it will be to repay the investment made, counted in money, time, affection and concern, but a recognition of what was really at stake: how astonishing and selfless it is for these same people who put in all those hours and all that effort to effectively enable you to become your own person. The best gift a parent can give you is to love you enough to allow you to not be just like them; to encourage you to be whoever you are destined to be.

I had the opportunity to deliver the eulogy at my mother’s funeral (which, incredibly, occurred only a few months after this photo was taken, at my cousin’s wedding in June 2002). I remembered her as fondly as I could which was easy to do; I tried to convey what she meant to me, which was difficult. Everything that is good about me is because of my mother. That was the line I used to open and close my remarks, and looking back, I still reckon it’s the most succinct way of illustrating the role she played–and continues to play–in my life. I tried to steer away from sentiment that was self-absorbed (this was an occasion to remember and celebrate my mother’s life, not how it affected me) or to unintentionally overlook the loved ones gathered whose lives she touched in so many indelible ways (or to give my old man, my boy, inadvertent short-shrift by ostensibly giving his wife all the credit for the heavy lifting he had also done), but as the chosen speaker, her only son, it was my opportunity, and obligation, to pay her the ultimate compliment. It was the most honest and appropriate thing I could do. And so I made mention of Pops (at whose surprise 60th birthday I had given a toast less than a year earlier), and I observed the many individuals; the family, friends and yes, strangers to whom she mattered and whose lives were enriched by her compassion and indefatigable empathy. And I remembered that she was the one who nurtured, and encouraged, my early love of music. That she seldom said no if I wanted to buy a new book, even if it was going to sit on top of the big stack of books I’d already accumulated (she knew I’d get around to it, and I always did). How she told me B’s were as good as A’s so long as I was learning (and even the sporadic C+ wasn’t the end of the world, particularly for those maddening Math classes), how she (and Pops) never missed a single soccer game, swim meet or miscellaneous rite of passage. The way she illustrated, with words but especially with actions, that being a Christian was a fine thing, but acting like one was even better. Or that no matter who I met or eventually married, she was always going to be the first woman in my life. And that by raising me the way she did, she was instinctively preparing me for when she was no longer around, even if that ended up happening a hell of a lot sooner than any of us could stand.

And despite her absence, which remains an inconsolable loss in my life, I am sincere when I tell people I genuinely feel fortunate for the cards I was dealt. How could I not be? And I cry every time I hear “our song” (the great Bob Marley tune originally left off of Catch A Fire, called “High Tide or Low Tide”), but I smile every time I hear “Rocky Raccoon”, which we sang along with a hundred times in the car. And each time I scribble a thought with artistic intent I am inspired by the encouragement she offered, going back to when I was a kid with crayons, coloring outside the lines while listening to The Nutcracker Suite. And I have a special place in my heart for all my friends (and extended family members) who have become wonderful mothers themselves, and I see my mother alive in the looks they give the children they love with all their being. And I nod my head in affirmation knowing her loss made our family stronger and helped ensure that we would have one another’s back the rest of the way.

“How do you get over the loss?” That was the question I asked an old girlfriend who lost her father when she was a teenager. “You don’t,” she said. And hearing that you can understand, and appreciate the sentiment; that you could never heal from that type of heartbreak. But one has to experience it to comprehend the inexplicable ways this truth is an inviolable aspect of our existence: it’s worse than you can conceive, but if you’ve been one of the lucky ones, it’s also more redemptory and beautiful than you might have imagined. Mostly, you accept that a day will never go by when you don’t think of the one you loved and lost. And, of course, that you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Every day is kid’s day, and who could hope to change that?

Every day, for me, is now Mother’s Day. And on my birthday I don’t celebrate myself so much as acknowledge, and appreciate, the one who got me here.

One of the blogs I take great pleasure in linking to is my man Mark’s delectably named Trotsky’s Cranium, here. There are always worthwhile and insightful nuggets to glean over there (what else would you expect with a name like that?) but I give him major props for posting a piece I would have otherwise missed. Interview Magazine has an amazing interview with Chris Blackwell here. Who is Chris Blackwell, you ask? The founder of Island Records, obviously. Who was associated with Island Records, you ask?  Oh, just a few moderately successful and impactful artists like Steve Winwood (Traffic), Bob Marley and U2. Have I got your attention now? Good.

The interview is great, and Blackwell very obviously is a living encyclopedia of the music scene (British, Jamaican and U.S.): he was on the front lines at the time it was all going down. He was the front lines. And just because the Mighty Upsetter, Lee “Scratch” Perry famously called Blackwell a vampire because of his aggressive (and better funded) business acumen, attention still must be paid to the man who discovered, and promoted, some acts who significantly altered the musical landscape.

There are a couple of indispensable quotes from the article, touching on two of the more beloved musicians Blackwell mentored, Steve Winwood and Bob Marley. Of the former, he has this to say:

BLACKWELL: It was the voice of Steve Winwood—because I loved Ray Charles, and Steve Winwood was like Ray Charles on helium. Because it was the same phrasing, the same drive—it was like blues chords, but there was also just this incredible voice and musicianship. So I signed The Spencer Davis Group. And, at that time, we pretty much managed everyone that we signed, so we managed them. The rock scene was just sort of exploding at the time, with The Beatles and, after that, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. It all just changed. It was like the lights went on in England in the early ’60s, because up until then, nobody you heard on the radio had anything other than a BBC-type voice or accent. It was impossible for anybody with a Cockney accent or a Liverpool accent or a Manchester accent to get on the radio, much less have a decent job. But then, with those bands, that all started to change.

Like Ray Charles on Helium. That is perfect, and by far the best description I’ve ever heard of the diminutive blue-eyed boy wonder. The work he did with Traffic is largely overlooked these days, and it shouldn’t be. John Barleycorn Must Die is one of the great early ’70s rock albums and is, for my money, Winwood’s best work.

Moving on the Marley, this is where the real import of Blackwell’s involvement comes into clear focus. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that his destiny was to be the prime mover in terms of parlaying Marley’s raw genius into a more accessible vehicle. It took a while to take off, but the perfection of Catch A Fire (Marley’s first real exposure outside of Jamaica) simply was impossible to overlook. The album’s title was certainly prophetic, and one envies Blackwell’s mere involvement with the incendiary proceedings:

So they came around and picked me up and took me to the studio and played me some of the songs. The first one I heard was “Slave Driver,” and I remember it particularly because, firstly, I was excited that they had recorded anything. So I was really encouraged. It had this great kind of bass line. The second line of the song says “catch a fire,” and, you know, I remember thinking right there, Wow, if this record is good, then that’s the title of the album.

Blackwell does not have much to say about U2; he signed them (and that speaks volumes) but he admits he had little to do with their success. Rather he focuses on the one act he hoped, and expected, to break through: the amazing Jacob Miller:

First of all, after Bob, somebody who I felt could have been a big star was Jacob Miller. Bob basically became a rock star in Jamaican music, and Jacob, I felt, could have done the same. He was a big guy, but an incredible personality. Incredible. I mean, I have a picture of Bob and Jacob and myself standing in front of a plane, and you look at it, and you would say that Jacob is the biggest star there without any question. He just had that presence. But then he was killed in a car crash, and things ended before they began.

There is more where that came from.

Bob Marley was born February 6, 1945, which means he would be turning 64 today.

This summer in a series for Popmatters.com, I chose what I consider five reggae albums that are lesser known, but crucial for any self-respecting music fan’s collection. No Marley albums were chosen, partly because if anyone has a single reggae album, odds are it is a Bob Marley album (and big odds are that it’s Legend which, while crucial, only skims the very deep and dread waters).

Nevertheless, in one of the pieces here, I offer some thoughts on Marley and his import, on reggae in particular and music in general:

Big misconception about reggae music: it’s all happy, at the beach, drinking music. Biggest misconception about reggae music: it all sounds the same. Even Bob Marley (and it is both respectful and required to at least mention the great man’s name in any consequential discussion or reggae) had markedly different styles he embraced throughout his career, as his sound evolved from straightforward ska and rocksteady in the ‘60s to the full-fledged rastaman vibration everyone has heard on the radio—or at Happy Hour. Indeed, Marley serves as the most obvious case study for the distinctive sounds reggae has produced: anyone unfamiliar with songs not included on Legend, but curious to explore what else is out there, are encouraged to start with the crucial transition albums from the early ‘70s. You cannot go wrong with African Herbsman, the culmination of his brief but bountiful collaboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry. Or to appreciate the incomparable harmonizing of the original Wailers (Marley along with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer), Catch A Fire and Burnin’ are indispensable cornerstones of any halfway serious reggae collection. And, above all, if it’s possible to single out one work that encapsulates Marley’s genius, Natty Dread is the alpha and the omega: not only is this his masterpiece, this one holds it own with any album, in any genre.

There are certain artists who are so beloved, so ubiquitous, that they are effectively–and ironically–taken for granted. Marley’s better known songs are so known and so satisfying they might make people fail to realize he created vital music for two full decades. Bob Marley is without dispute one of the seminal artistic figures of the 20th Century. More, he remains every bit as significant and essential today as he did yesterday. He will survive tomorrow and live long after we are all gone. Marely idureth for iver. Peace.

Today they say that we are free,
Only to be chained in poverty.
Good God, I think it’s illiteracy;
It’s only a machine that makes money.

Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, has passed away. Obit from Washington Post here.

His story, self-made millionaire who gives away his money to the needy and actually dedicates his days to helping those who need the most help, is atypical in the best of times; during our ongoing economic clusterfuck, it seems almost quaint. Unfashionable, old-fashioned beneficence, an actual Good Samaritan. More on that in a moment. It speaks volumes, and captures his import in an impressively succinct manner,  that no less a man than Jimmy Carter was galvanized by Fuller’s call to arms.

“(He was) one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing,” Carter said. “As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership.”

How unbelievably redemptory, and refreshing, to see a person who put his money (and his time) where his faith was. In our lamentably soporific times, both intellectually and spiritually, where actual debates among so called Christians rage about putting the “Christ” back in “Christmas”, it’s unique to see a man of action (and means) more concerned with putting the “Christ” back in “Christian”.

Needless to say, all that golden-rule claptrap is antithetical to a more muscular version of the American dream. In this testosterone-laden mythology, Christ is a Capitalist (of course), and He wants us to be wealthy and strong. You know, just like he described it in the New Testament. This incarnation of Christ has a new generation of apostles (mostly born again and Fundy types, no longer a minority of the lunatic fringe) bristling against the ways in which nerdy do-gooders have turned their Savior into a sissy, a bleeding-heart liberal. Heck, you might even say Christ was a Socialist. If it wasn’t for all that inconvenient evidence to the contrary (again, that annoying New Testament), it might be easier to make a case for Christ as a Conservative (along with Holy Ghost Ronald Reagan seated, to the right, by his side). These are the patriarchal patriots who helped nudge Bush over the top in ‘04, on a buffalo wing and a prayer. It did seem like the world had turned upside down to see these people who gained the least from small tent Republican politics clamoring the loudest to sustain the status quo.

Of course, the tide has turned. Obama’s election is actually, if possible, less a paradigm shift than the collective noise that millions of Americans are making as the scales fall from their eyes. It’s not a joyful noise, either, as they finally confront the inescapable fact that the most powerful and wealthy polo players of the apocalypse have been sticking it to them hard and fast, for a very long time. Same as it ever was, of course, and that is old news; that is why we have super heroes and Democrats to occasionally stem the tide of immoral sewage. But the Bush administration, as we are seeing all too clearly now (a tad too late, as always),  dusted off the Reagan Revolution’s depraved tri-fecta (that government is the root of evil, that the free market is an immaculate arbiter of fortune, literally and figuratively, and that regulation is antithetical to a thriving infrastructure) and took off the training wheels. Funny how a formula combining incompetence, cronyism and unadulterated cupidity can devastate a nation’s surplus, safety and goodwill so quickly. And completely.

Incredibly, we saw some of the seeds of this sordid ideology bearing rotten fruit during the last eight years, but only now are we really getting a taste of the shit sandwich. It would be amusing if it were not so all-encompassing; it would be wonderful if it merely served as the overdue epitaph for avaricious gremlins like Grover Norquist and his gluttonous cadre. The no-taxation swine-mongers had their time at the teat, and they sucked on it without shame or a second thought. Now, the entire facade has collapsed, which is unfortunate for them, but it’s taking good people down with it. Tons and tons of them. The joke is on us, apparently. Which is what makes the notion of these bank bail-outs so discomfiting, especially as we know that (as usual) the richest of the rich saw this coming and made certain those golden parachutes were appropriately packed. It’s also what makes the spectacle of these CEOs whining about their divine right to ten million dollar bonuses so infuriating. It would almost be enjoyable to see people reaching for their pitchforks.

Thomas Frank targets the obscene Wall Street bonuses that are currently the tipping point of (egregiously overdue) public populist outrage. He also brilliantly encapsulates the outmoded and always unsustainable faith in the forces of the market to regulate itself and create jobs, spread wealth, and keep America strong, forever and ever Amen. His piece in today’s WSJ is here.

The god that failed is the god that never lived in the first place: the god of greed. Actually, that is not accurate: the god did not fail, its unholy spirit succeeded most spectacularly. Make no mistake, the rich did get richer. A lot richer. The CEOs may not actually be able to wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills anymore, but they aren’t going to be missing any meals. Props to them for pulling off a perverse Ponzi scheme where its transparently predictable default ends up indebting the populace who never profited from it. Surprise! The only people really losing everything are the folks who had too little to lose in the first place.

For this reason alone, it’s a minor miracle that a Democrat is in charge right now. But real progressives should brace themselves and be prepared for some disillusionment: this election was not a coronation, it was a correction. To be certain, it’s infinitely better than the alternative, but change (even a great deal of it) isn’t going to magically create lost jobs or replenish peoples’ 401k accounts. Obama might not be able to put enough fingers in the dyke, but at least his presence is preventing a full-on, Armageddon style meltdown. That was only the first step, but it is the most important one. And if you don’t think McCain, who had Phil “America is a nation of whiners” Gramm as his senior adviser, would at this very moment be driving us deeper into the ditch, I have some Lehman Bros stock I’d like to sell you.