Subterranean homesick Bob

Posted on May 25, 2011 by oddmanout215

I tried, but the hundred Inevitables dogged me all day. By the time I got back to the bunker the medicine man was gone and Beethoven had unwrapped a bedroll with Ma Rainey. I’d missed my chance to give Bob Dylan his props on Birthday No. 70.

No sweat, the songs are timeless. We never have to worry about missing the birthday of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” from Bringing It All Back Home, as fresh now as it was in 1965. It’s a rap, a blues, an electrified protest song, a vision of the future, a time-lapsed photographic look at how easy it is to fall asleep, Rip Van Winkle-style:

…Get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid…

Look out, kid, only one thing is different. In 2011, twenty years of schooling is more likely to put you in deep debt than on the day shift.

But Dylan threw in those famous aphorisms and koans to remind us that life needn’t be as dreary as the people who, out of self-interest, dictate what’s good for us and what isn’t. Forget cable news, satellite transmissions, picture phones, Twitter and blogs, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And don’t follow leaders/Watch the parking meters sounds wise all over again when ten-year-old wars and record unemployment don’t even make the news, and when a president elected because he promised sweeping change turns out to be in bed with the biggest crooks in history.

Dylan didn’t need a crystal ball or polling data to know some things are unlikely to change, that democracy is just a punchline if most politicians are on the take, that the pump don’t work/’Cause the vandals took the handles.

Happy birthday, Bob. Good luck, America.

Posted in arts, economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, Iraq war, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, pop music, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thump Trump once, it’s all he deserves

Posted on May 21, 2011 by oddmanout215

(This one’s a little late but hey, so’s my mortgage payment…)

Here’s to the Earnest Weasel, David Brooks, and all the other insiders who get paid big bucks to bloviate. Thanks, guys, for wasting thousands of words speculating that Donald Trump might end his trash-TV show and run for president. Special thanks to the clown/pundits who predicted he definitely would run. (You were one of them, Weasel.)

The mainstream media shies away from iconoclasts but it embraces certain sideshow freaks who can be counted on to attract the attention of Middle America. Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are only a few of the freaks who repeatedly blow the same hot air, on the birther issue and other lies, and yet never fail to make it into the news.

The fact that Trump presided to some extent over three Atlantic City casinos that went bankrupt multiple times was worth reporting, as was his failed attempt to open a casino in Philadelphia. The fact that he was making false noises about running for president — an obvious ploy to boost his TV ratings — was not worth reporting, except maybe once, on Page 10 in the C section.

It’s not news that Trump is the prototypical Ugly American. He comes from privilege and brags he’s a self-made man. His wealth is a vehicle for imposing his vulgarity on the world. His arrogance is matched only by his ignorance, which is evident every time he comments on a serious issue.

My favorite Trump story is from my Atlantic City friend Sterling and dates from well over a decade ago. Sterling was heading one way on the Boardwalk, The Donald was heading the other way, surrounded as always by his goons. They all wore business suits and identical red ties. As he passed them, Sterling said, “Yo, Donald, you got a special on the ties?” The biggest of the goons made a move toward Sterling and appeared ready to throttle him, but another goon pulled the big guy back into lockstep.

That’s Trump — Mussolini with a muskrat on his head, surrounded by goons marching in lockstep, protecting him from uncontrolled exposure to real people.

And that’s the one and only time I’ll mention this ridiculous creep, unless his shaky real estate empire implodes.

Posted in casinos, David Brooks, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Philadelphia, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

It’s Rapture time. Do you know where your dog is?

Posted on May 19, 2011 by oddmanout215

Holy eschatology, the end is near. Worthy folks across the land are wrapping up their earthly business and getting ready to be summoned, or assumed, or maybe just whooshed into heaven at 6 p.m. Saturday.

There has been much debate on whether all good people will ascend en masse on May 21 or in groups over the next couple of months, but 89-year-old Harold Camping, prophet and MC of Judgment Day, is unequivocal on this point. The Rapture will be an all-in-one-day affair, like one of those mass weddings presided over by the Rev. Moon in the 1980s. So spend your savings and forget your debts, amen.

But don’t forget your pets. There is still time to connect with the good folks at Eternal Earthbound Pets who, for a small fee, will make sure you’re not too sorely missed by the “four-legged and feathered friends” you leave behind to await world’s end.

Some preachers have doubts about Camping’s prediction, and many skeptics have pointed out that rapture time will vary according to what time zone you’re in. But would you take the word of naysayers and risk the health of your pet(s), not to mention the wrath of the Divine Timekeeper?

BTW, those of us who remain unraptured can look forward to a few months of lag time while the Divine One puts the final touches on Armageddon. Not a bad prospect if you stock up on the right drugs and the greatest hits of Mahalia Jackson.

Footnote: In case the Rapture doesn’t happen, there is still a good chance the Rupture will. The latter is from novelist Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story and refers to the near future when the United States goes bankrupt, microcomputers eliminate privacy and the government does away with the poor. Now that’s a prediction I can believe.

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The hole where Borders was, and the dummies who dug it

Posted on May 17, 2011 by oddmanout215

Writers hate the idea of slush piles, where agents and editors dump unpublished works. On the last weekend of business at Borders in Philadelphia, I saw the equivalent of a slush pile for published works.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. The titles, all marked down by 80 percent, included Norah Marler’s No More Dating Pigs, Suzan Hilton’s Feng Shui, Seth Meyers’ Dr. Seth’s Love Prescription, Susan Boyle’s Dreams Can Come True. There was Lacrosse for Dummies and titles by Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Bill O’Reilly and other contemporary sages.

That’s a small sampling. The store was jammed with books no one would want, even if they’d been marked down 100 percent. The scene was a testament to the mind-boggling number of bad books in print and to the waste of enormous amounts of money by publishers, not to mention waste of trees.

It was a reminder that, in the not-too-distant future, the books industry will be selling more e-books than new printed books. Publishers and distributors can’t hurt themselves making stupid guesses about press runs for e-books. They provide exactly as many e-books as the public demands, and consequently will clear higher profits as book buyers become hooked on the e-reading habit.

Did I mention this is some depressing shit? I can get used to a world with a dwindling number of bookstores, just as I got used to fewer record stores, no video stores and almost no decent movie theaters. But it’s hard to imagine a world without these destinations as anything but diminished, especially in regard to in-person social interaction.

Footnote: Ideally, the three-story corner space in the heart of Center City where Borders was would become another bookstore, but this time with smarter owners — for instance, the people at Joseph Fox Bookshop. (“Distant Star by Roberto Bolano? Not in stock but we can have if for you by 11 a.m. tomorrow, sir.”) But Fox would have to invent its own e-reader to compete with the surviving monster chains.

The bottom-liners who own the former Borders building — they’re in New York — will simply rent it to the highest bidder, regardless of whether that bidder’s business is as good a fit for the area as a bookstore-coffee bar-eatery.

And this: Ever wonder about the dim bulbs at the top who make the disastrous decisions, or non-decisions, that ultimately drive good businesses into bankruptcy? You don’t have to — they almost always land on their feet in new executive positions, as opposed to rank-and-file employees, who end up jobless. Ironically, there were probably a dozen employees at Borders Center City — people who actually work with customers — who knew years ago that the execs were making a big mistake by not confronting the challenges posed by Amazon and, much later on, by e-books.

The chiefs in the chain were probably too busy gambling on new acquisitions to check on the health of what they assumed was a herd of cash cows.

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‘Low-stoop’ fiction writer seeks agent, brand

Posted on May 16, 2011 by oddmanout215

Balzac at the Rodin Museum in Philly

Citations from an article about the importance of tireless self-promotion in trying to establish a brand for your work:

For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself noticed.

— Honore de Balzac, Lost Illusions

Great success is not possible without a certain degree of shamelessness, and even of out-and-out charlatanism.

— Stendhal, Memoirs of an Egotist

I slacked off blogging this month, mostly to focus on my manuscript, from the Latin manu scriptus, “written by hand.” A funny word, because nobody writes anything by hand anymore, and because it connotes the promise of special knowledge or even wisdom. “I sent the whole manuscript to an agent,” a fellow writer said to me the other day in a self-reverential tone that made me think of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A doubly funny word because, on any given day, thousands of fiction writers seek agents for their manuscripts, and we aren’t talking precious scrolls here. Most manuscripts end up in so-called slush piles. Increasingly, virtual manuscripts are assigned to virtual slush piles.

And yet writers persist, mainly because we’re egotists, as Stendhal noted. We think our manuscripts will be embraced if only the world can get a look at them. We know we’re one lucky break away from gifting Western civ with something as enduring as The Red and the Black.

I exaggerate, but you get the point. We want to be read.

Sometimes a writer breaks through to an agent who may actually skim a manuscript because of a clever cover letter or an influential intermediary and then try to “place” the thing because he/she likes it and thinks it might be salable. As a last resort, there’s self-publishing — you will read my stories, damn it, even if I have to peddle them personally!

For the record, I haven’t yet sent my manuscript — a collection of short stories called Idiot Lights — to any agents, but rather to an English professor friend for suggestions and, most importantly, praise, whether or not it’s deserved. I’m pitching individual stories to magazines.

I harbor no illusions. None of my stories will find a champion at the New Yorker, and they’re much too raw for whitebread literary publications such as… I won’t drop names, there’s always the chance someone actually reads these posts.

Let’s just say my stories have provoked mixed reactions among the few people who’ve read them. My favorite was a workshop leader in New York who’d made a name for himself working with a famous minimalist short story writer. He said my characters are “low-stoop,” meaning low-class — pimps, junkies, psychos, whores, musicians, produce vendors and so on — and that my fiction therefore wouldn’t appeal to middle-class readers, the group that buys the most books.

What could I say? One writes what one knows, and I think there’s an audience somewhere for my low-stoop fictional friends. One of these days an agent will agree and it will on my head to push push push to establish recognition and sales, so I’d better start practicing now.

Or maybe not — “It’s a crap shoot,” as my professor friend says — and I’ll try to worm my way back into copywriting and PR. Hey, where do you think I learned so much about pimps and whores?

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Again, Bernie plays the Obama we thought we elected

Posted on May 12, 2011 by oddmanout215

This from Bernie Sanders, who stands out from most of his fellow U.S. senators like a St. Bernard in a pack of toy poodles:

The United States is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee healthcare as a right to its people. Meanwhile, we spend about twice as much per capita on healthcare and, in a wide number of instances, our outcomes are not as good as others that spend far less. It is time that we bring about a fundamental transformation of the American healthcare system. It is time for us to end private, for-profit participation in delivering basic coverage. It is time for the United States to provide a Medicare-for-all, single payer health coverage program.

The key word is “basic.” Sanders thinks most Americans are smart enough to understand the most important step toward reform is to eliminate the middleman; to provide an option that doesn’t involve for-profit private companies — Aetna and so on — that have made our healthcare system an international joke. He knows we don’t like this system, that it only thrives because insurance companies pay politicians big bucks to maintain the status quo.

That’s why Sanders just introduced a bill that would do for the nation what single-payer health insurance is doing for Sanders’ home state of Vermont — lowering costs while providing care for all who may need it.

A companion bill to Sanders’ was introduced in the House by Rep. Jim McDermott, a long-time advocate of health insurance reform who stands out from most of his House colleagues like a Great Dane in a pack of… I’d say rat terriers, but rat terriers have more courage than congresspeople.

If the new legislation were to miraculously come to fruition it would be a big improvement over Barack Obama’s health reform law, which provides coverage for 32 million more Americans but does not cover 23 million others. And the new law does nothing to bring down soaring healthcare costs.

Ironically, Republican corporatists scornfully refer to the reforms as Obamacare, as if they’re a radical departure from the old healthcare system instead of a watered-down version of reform that makes insurance companies richer than ever.

Which only goes to show that half-measures usually earn you nothing but contempt from legislators determined to never give an inch on issues crucial to the continued outlandish profits of the companies that own them.

One can only wonder what would have happened if Obama had fought for single-payer insurance — i.e., taken the issue to the American people in a series of appearances and speeches — or for the so-called public option, a government-funded alternative to the private insurance companies.

Instead, he caved to right-wing demands before demands were even made, possibly because of advice from dirtbags such as Rahm Emanuel, who called Dem advocates of the public option “fucking retarded.” Or because Obama himself simply wasn’t into significant healthcare reform, just as he wasn’t into ending bonus tax cuts for the rich, backing labor unions, creating jobs programs for the unemployed or taking steps to discourage outsourcing of what used to be American jobs.

OK, it’s all water under the bridge. But it’s good to know there are still a few public servants who fight the good fight instead of surrendering without firing a shot. And that’s enough cliches for one column. Go Bernie!

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What does ‘killing evil’ mean, Maureen?

Posted on May 9, 2011 by oddmanout215

Here’s the Beltway sage Maureen Dowd, defending those who danced in the streets and shouted “USA!” at the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by the U.S. military:

I don’t want closure. There is no closure after tragedy. I want memory, and justice, and revenge. When you’re dealing with a mass murderer who bragged about incinerating thousands of Americans and planned to kill countless more, that seems like the only civilized and morally sound response.

I don’t want closure either. It’s a meaningless concept in the real world, where cause and effect ripple through all of our actions. All I want is some intelligent discourse in the mainstream media, where almost all opinion pieces are written by hacks such as Dowd, who can always be counted on to poke fun at the Washington D.C. establishment without ever — not once — writing from a point of view outside the narrow range of opinions acceptable to that establishment.

Dowd is either too dishonest or too feeble-minded to address the implications of her gung-ho remarks about bin Laden. In World War II, Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay gave the order to incinerate not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of civilians in the air war against Japan. And this was before nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wouldn’t the only “morally sound” response to LeMay’s savagery have been to kill him by whatever means necessary? Or was his savagery morally sound because Americans were the good guys?

Similarly, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, from 1969 to 1973, secretly and illegally ordered air raids in Cambodia that killed a half-million civilians and led to the takeover of the country by the Khmer Rouge, who subsequently massacred millions. (Sideshow, by William Shawcross, is the book to read.)

Nixon lived long enough to partially “rehabilitate” his reputation. Kissinger, arguably the most well-known living mass murderer, is regarded as a respected elder statesmen by much of the mainstream press. But wouldn’t it be morally sound to indict and prosecute Kissinger for his well-documented crimes?

And what about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? Wouldn’t it be morally sound to bring charges against them for misleading America into a war in Iraq that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths? There are prosecutors in Europe who think so. Both men know they might end up in jail if they were to set foot in some civilized country where jurists don’t turn a blind eye to the crimes of the rich and powerful.

The headline on Dowd’s column was “Killing evil doesn’t make us evil.” This is a silly pronouncement (how does one “kill” evil, a force stoked by killing?) that assumes a conveniently reductive definition of evil. History has shown that people often become so convinced of their own inherent goodness that they fail to recognize the point at which their conduct makes them no better than their enemies.

Midway through her column, Dowd writes, “I leave it to subtler minds to parse the distinction between what is just and what is justified.”

Too bad she didn’t take her own advice. And too bad NYT editors are too intellectually lazy — or, more likely, too cowardly — to publish op-ed pieces on such a serious subject by writers who don’t stoop to using the written word to wave the flag.

Posted in Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, New York Times op-ed, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Osama, we hardly knew ye!

Posted on May 2, 2011 by oddmanout215

Put on your waders, here comes the presidential bullshit:

Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

For almost a decade, the mainstream media obediently served up government lies concerning the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. The criminal mastermind was holed up in a cave on the Afghan-Pakistani border. He was dashing from mountain to mountain with U.S. Army Rangers in hot pursuit. He was in a tent somewhere, on a dialysis machine, surrounded by bazooka-toting lookalikes. He was dead and buried at Tora Bora.

In the end, he was “found” and killed by Navy SEALs 60 miles from the Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, where he’d been living in a mansion/compound. Now all we’re hearing from the media, aside from clips of politicians spewing victory speeches, is that U.S. forces acted on a tip about bin Laden’s whereabouts that was confirmed back in August.

If you believe we had to be tipped off by a third party, then you probably believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth together, as they do at that theme park in the Bible Belt.

If you think the Pakistanis didn’t know exactly where bin Laden was years ago, or that the U.S. didn’t have to cut a deal with them to get to him, then you’re even dumber than Wolf Blitzer. (Last night, the hoary CNN host exclaimed “who would have thought” bin Laden would be found living in luxury under the noses of our allies.)

Finally, if you think bin Laden’s terror attack on 9/11 didn’t spark exactly the responses he’d hoped for — two disastrous ongoing wars that have killed hundreds of thousands, and helped destroy our credibility and erode our constitutional rights — then you probably believe what you hear in the media or from blowhards masquerading as political leaders.

Have fun, news junkies. Over the next week, mainstream reporters will crank out thousands of dispatches about bin Laden, mostly infotainment from government sources. The real news will remain locked in a cool, dark place, far from the not-so-free and extremely timid press.

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A Python-esque rite in South Philly

Posted on April 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

Always look on the bright side, my homeys.

Ah, the rites of spring in the `hood! You know — palm weaving, the Easter Parade on South Street, race riots in Grays Ferry. Here’s one that was new to me — the Good Friday re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus, outside the Annunciation B.V.M. Church at 10th and Dickinson streets, with a large crowd of Latinos that included rosary-clutching women and some men in plumed helmets, toting spears.

Not so long ago Annunciation was on its way to becoming pretty vacant, as the Sex Pistols would say. Many parishioners in the once heavily Italian neighborhood had died off or moved to places like Washington Township, NJ, aka Little South Philly. But then came the large influx of Latinos into the area.

Many of these Latinos do the grunt work in local restaurants or have helped keep the Italian Market neighborhood alive by starting their own businesses, some of which remain open after dark, a concept the old merchants on Ninth Street never warmed up to.

According to the latest census, the influx of Latinos and Southeast Asians has helped stop the decline in South Philly’s population. Their presence here has angered Joey Vento, owner of Geno’s Steaks, and suburban Tea Party types who blame recent immigrants for lost American jobs because they don’t want to understand how we’ve all been screwed by Wall Street and corporate outsourcing.

I’m off-topic, as usual… What a versatile word, crucifixion. Lindsay Lohan and Tiger Woods have described themselves as crucified by the media. Tori Amos sang of crucifying herself for love. William Jennings Bryan warned that the U.S. would be crucified on a cross of gold.

But there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, or at least a copy of the real thing. The Jesus impersonator, rather than hanging from nails driven into hands and feet, was standing on a platform and gripping metal rungs embedded in the cross. The crowd milled, presumably imagining the real Jesus dying in the hot sun, although it was cold and overcast, a bad day to be half-naked and immobile.

And what did the onlookers take away from this show? Maybe the old-time notion that Jesus died for their sins, or for somebody’s, and deserves some gratitude. (I think this was in the Book of Patti Smith.)

More likely, an earthly reminder that you can travel thousands of miles to escape poverty and prejudice and have to fight the same battles all over again in your new home. But also the semi-comforting thought that things could be worse, you might as well hang around for a while and, like Monty Python, look on the bright side of life.

Posted in economic collapse, globalization, Great Recession, immigration, livable cities, mainstream media, NJ, Philadelphia, Politics, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brooks, the Earnest Weasel, nips at Obama

Posted on April 18, 2011 by oddmanout215

This because it’s been a long while since my last installment of the Weasel Watch:

President Obama and Paul Ryan are two of the smartest, most admirable and most genial men in Washington. It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s Washington they have never had a serious private conversation. The president has never invited Ryan over even for lunch. As a result, both men are misinformed about the other, and both have developed a cold contempt for the other’s position. Obama believes Ryan wants to take America back to what he sees as the savage capitalism of the 1920s (or even the 1760s). Ryan believes Obama wants to turn America into a declining European welfare state… If they met, would they resolve their differences? No, but they would understand them better.

David Brooks excels at pushing right-wing agendas while pretending to be the voice of moderation, the man in the middle. He trots out false equivalencies and flawed assumptions in support of his arguments, then pretends to be distressed by the partisanship of those who can’t match his magnanimity.

He is, as I wrote in January, the Earnest Weasel of American pundits,

tweaking an imaginary congregation of moral midgets who don’t understand how sinful it is to oppose, in an uncompromising way, those who would destroy not only the social safety net woven from the New Deal but also the political system that put the safety net in place.

The country will collapse, you see, unless we uphold civility in our debates, even when our opponent is a cold-blooded libertarian twerp — Paul Ryan, that is — who starts from the premise that budget reform is impossible without huge cuts in the funding of programs that help define what it means to live in a society built on humanist values.

Today’s dispatch by Paul Krugman — “Let’s not be civil” — implicitly dismisses the weasel’s false felicity. Obama lunching with the likes of Ryan is “a bad idea,” because the Republican budget proposal is irreconcilable with progressive, or even mildly liberal, notions of good government. It proposes that spending cuts “pay for tax cuts rather than deficit reduction. The transparent and obvious goal [is] to use deficit fears to impose a vision of small government and low taxes, especially on the wealthy.”

And yet the weasel would have readers believe that the gulf between ideologies is bridgeable; that it’s merely a question of how much spending on social programs must be cut, not whether such cuts are fundamentally wrong.

I wish Obama had Krugman’s clarity, or at least the willingness to act on some of the moral arguments he makes in his speeches.

From George Lakoff: “What is called a ‘tax break’ for the rich is actually a redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class—whose incomes have gone down—to those who have considerably more money than they need, money they have made because of tax investments by the rest of America.”

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