Reflections on cancel culture, or when creeps make good tunes

My wife recently posed the following challenge to me: name an artist who's well represented in my music library (which we defined as 3 or more albums) that I could get rid of. Not like, erase from existence or anything - just disappear from my collection, entirely. See ya, no regrets, won't be listening to you ever again. Could you do it? I had a couple options pop into my mind, mostly teenage era faves that I once loved but haven't cared about for many years - you know, Journey, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis. Other faded crushes from later eras came to mind as well (Dave Matthews?) But that didn't seem fair, since they once mattered (a lot) and helped shape my musical journey to here. The mere fact of aging, and the changing tastes that accompany that process, didn't seem sufficient to relegate otherwise decent musical acts to the dustbin of personal history. It's not like they suddenly sucked, I just outgrew them. So how to decide? Was there a band, an artist, I could live without and not look back? Didn't seem possible. Almost everything in my music collection is there intentionally, it has purpose or meaning or value, especially if we're talking artists with multiple albums. And then it hit me. 

Ryan Adams.

Don't know if you've followed along, but Ryan Adams has become something of a pariah in the music biz these days. (And for good reason - maybe if he'd displayed some actual contrition and taken steps to right his wrongs and make whole those whom he's harmed it would be different, but apparently he hasn't done any of that.) But that hasn't stopped him from releasing new material - his latest CD came out earlier this month, on the heels of another new album last December. And there's a full-blown marketing campaign underway, or at least it feels that way if you still follow him on social media. New videos, singles dropping, countdowns to release day - all of it feels completely familiar and normal. And also creepy and wrong and completely tone deaf. 

To the casual fan who somehow didn't read about the mess ol' Ry got himself into, there's nothing weird about this. Popular artist drops new album; online fan base goes gaga for it; artist tours and makes some coin; everyone's happy. It's a common cycle that repeats for most artists every few years, more frequently if you're prolific, which he has been for going on three decades now. And back in the day I was right there for it. In my late 20s and early 30s I was a huge Ryan Adams fan. It started with his band Whiskeytown, one of the preeminent Americana / alt-country acts of the 90s. Stranger's Almanac is still a stellar record that holds up very well. When he went solo and released Heartbreaker I didn't think he could do much better, just a perfectly executed "sad" album. And then once Gold came out right around 9/11 there was lots of attention, and fame, and I don't think he handled it so well. But he was one of "my guys" at that point, and so I became a defender of his churlishness and petty bickering within the industry. When he responded poorly to gentle public ridicule, when trolls would deliberately confuse him with Bryan Adams just to get under his skin, I took his side. Saw him perform multiple times, most notably at Red Rocks and the Paramount, and he was musically marvelous, even if sort of a dick on stage. Through the 2000s and well into the past decade, the music kept coming. And as someone with completist tendencies (see Sting post, below) it wasn't always easy to keep up with all the new content. When an artist is both this prolific and this much of a chameleon, it can start to feel overwhelming. I'll admit I didn't fully get on board his pensive alt-country phase AND his leather jacket rock n' roll phase AND his 80s revivalist phase AND his Grateful Dead noodling phase AND his Taylor Swift fascination, etc. etc. There were some gaps in there. But the good stuff was so good that I was willing to give each release a chance. Plus there were the many singles and B-sides to track down, all of which added up to quite the healthy representation of his work in my library. Long story short, I've got a lot of stuff by Ryan Adams. 

And I'm OK with never hearing any of it again.

How does that come to be? At what point does the artist become inseparable from his art? I'm certainly not the first to ponder this, it's an issue that consumers of all artistic disciplines have struggled with. What to do when the artist is remarkably gifted, uniquely talented, and also a complete asshole? Worse, what if he's not just unpleasant or a jerk, but actually dangerous? What do you do with art made by a criminal, a predatory creep? Where do you draw the line between morally judging the artist and appreciating his creation? Unless you traffic in moral absolutes, these are not easy questions to wrestle with. There's some cognitive dissonance involved if you intend to continue to support the artist, especially when it comes to their new art. Maybe you can compartmentalize the bad and focus only on the good - but separating the artist from his art ultimately diminishes the work, and what it means to you. The context of where, how, and by whom art was created may not seem as essential as where and when you were in your life when you encountered it, but that context of its creation still informs your experience with it. None of this occurs in a vacuum.

But how much is a bridge too far? I don't know that there's a hard and fast rule, at least for me - seems to be a case by case basis. I didn't shun all Woody Allen movies forever (not that I was a huge fan to begin with, but the great films are undeniable still great.) I'm still able to laugh heartily at a beloved Bill Cosby record - I can still appreciate the humor and wisdom for what they were, at face value. It's harder to enjoy his performance and his public persona while knowing in the back of my mind who and what he really is - but it's possible, And I think you have to be able to do that in order not to live your life in perpetual judgment of others. While the impulse behind cancel culture is a good one, to constantly be so hung up on whether someone is living up to the moral standards you ascribe to them, only to be constantly disappointed when they inevitably fall short at some point...that just feels exhausting. So while this doesn't mean we should continue to support the creep - I don't see myself dropping a couple hundred bucks to see Louis C.K. in person ever again - it also doesn't forever render their works of art illegitimate. Does it color my view of the performer when rewatching their show or listening to their album again? Certainly. Will I completely stop listening to/watching creepy artists? Well...

I haven't gone so far as to remove all my RA CDs, they're still sitting up there. Not sure there's much of a market for them at the moment. And while I might fancy myself a bold social justice warrior for standing astride my high moral ground as I decree which artists deserve to remain in my library ("Until and unless you are honestly repentant, you shall remain banished!"), it's not like I've begun the cleansing purge of kicking all the other moral reprobates to the curb. In the end this is still just a thought experiment. And if I'm being honest, the real answer to my wife's question comes down to this: if I had to, I could say farewell to Mr. Adams...because Jason Isbell is right there, just waiting to fill that Ryan-shaped hole in my library.

Anger, Fear, and the Election of Donald Trump (an open letter to my father-in-law)

[NOTE: This was originally posted on Facebook in response to my father-in-law's comments, two days after the 2016 election of Donald Trump.]

As one of those liberal Dems who’s angry, scared, sad, and has been physically sick to my stomach for the past 36 hours, I wanted to reply to your post. (Sorry, it’s long – I had a lot to say as it turned out.) First of all, thanks for deciding to post your thoughts and for expressing them in such detail. It really helps to promote understanding and communication when we take the time to write down how we feel and why we think what we think, rather than just sharing a meme or clicking ‘like’ on something. I hear you when you say you are tired of being ignored and feeling looked down on. I think the big message in this election was largely overlooked, at least by the media and the Democratic Party, and that’s how much working class folks feel unrepresented. It’s still a disappointment to me that we nominated Hillary over Bernie. She was clearly the wrong candidate with the wrong message for this moment, where his campaign would have spoken directly to those voters. I hope that Bernie and Trump have a long sit down face to face, discover they have more in common than you might think, and can work together to find concrete ways to help people who are hurting or feeling left out. For decades, the Dems have gradually drifted away from labor unions and working class families, toward Wall Street and the pursuit of big money donations. I hope the party learns its lesson and changes its ways for the future.

And I can appreciate that being called racist or sexist or stupid again and again, when you don’t think you are any of those things, can get old real fast. I can see how you could start to dismiss it as just kneejerk libtard noise, if every time you object to policies you are opposed to, you get labeled racist just because those policies happen to be promoted by a black man. That’s not fair. But here’s my point – it’s different with Trump. In my lifetime, I have never seen a major candidate get the public endorsement of the freakin’ KKK – out in the open for everyone to see. (And it worked! He won! That’s crazy.) And while he didn’t drop the N word or do anything overtly racist on the campaign trail, there’s something in his background that has brought the worst elements of our society – white supremacist, neo-Nazi, hate filled young men – to come out in droves to vocally and enthusiastically support him. I don’t know the man and can’t say for sure whether he’s racist, but he seemed perfectly OK with their support – at least until he got called out for it, and then issued a lukewarm rejection. If he looks like a duck, acts like a duck, etc… I’ll let you connect the dots here. As for sexism, I don’t think there’s any argument that he’s a sexist pig. From his documented behavior, to his language behind closed doors, to all the accusations of sexual assault, there’s so much evidence that it’s undeniable. This is the part that guts me the most by the way, as the father of a 4 yr old girl who’s just starting to pay attention to the bigger world around her. Not only does she lose out on the role model of a woman as president for the first time – and regardless of how you feel about Hillary, that would have been a big deal for impressionable young girls – but instead, she gets a… (wait for it…) deplorable man who embodies some of the worst qualities imaginable as far as how to treat others. He sets a horrific example for our kids IMO, and it saddens me to think that she and her brother will be too young to remember the grace and dignity of the Obamas, and that instead this crude man will be their first example of what a President is. I hope he can change like he says he will and be ‘so Presidential’ – but I’m not holding my breath for this leopard to change his spots. The thing is, Mike, if you support a sexist and racist (or at least, bigoted) candidate for his economic or trade or immigration policies, but you don’t vocally criticize the racism or the sexism part, what are people supposed to think about you? That at best, you’re OK with it? It doesn’t bother you enough to speak out? How is that functionally any different than actively supporting it? I have yet to see anything on your feed, or Lisa’s for that matter, decrying any of the awful bigotry he’s expressed. If you don’t want to be lumped in with everything he represents, then it seems to me it’s on you to proactively separate yourself from the parts you don’t like and call them out – and if you don’t, how can complain about being called the same names as him? Maybe you have, I don’t know, I’m just saying I haven’t seen it online.

As for the bitterness and anger you’re seeing, I think there are two separate issues going on. The initial shock of losing when you fully expected to win based on almost every indicator, that’s hard to comprehend at first. It takes a while to accept it. Combine that with the disappointment of so many women prepared to finally celebrate breaking the glass ceiling, only to have it slammed back down on them, adds an extra element of sting. So I’m not surprised that people are angry and bitter, at least in the immediate aftermath. I expect a lot of that to die down soon - people get on with their lives, after most elections at least. But this feels different for another reason.  I’ve been on the losing side of elections many times, but never did I feel sick to my stomach and scared afterwards. Disappointed, of course. Worried, yes. But feeling this fearful is different. I hope it’s overblown, like so many of the crazy fears the Republicans had about Obama which turned out to be nothing (he never came for anyone’s guns, he wasn’t a secret Muslim terrorist born in Kenya, he never declared martial law and invaded Texas, etc.) I hope that the freakout over a potential nuclear war started by a 3am tweet, or Nazi-style roundups of all suspicious looking brown people, or hordes of armed racist men roaming the streets looking to lynch reporters and critics of the Fascist-in-Chief – I hope it all turns out to be equally nonsense and silly. But I should point out, Mike, that however ugly things get with deportations or wall building or whatever, that you and I as white men are probably gonna feel it the least. Please keep that in mind when you see bitterness and anger and fear online, especially from Muslims or Latinos or Sikhs or Pakistanis or anyone else who’s scared because of what he said during the campaign, and also how his crowds responded to it. Personally I think he’s been so inconsistent on policy that in many ways we really don’t know what’s in store after Jan 20. Again, I hope that it’s all way overblown and looks silly in retrospect. But I can tell you that I see and hear from a lot of people who are horrified that a man with Trump’s character (his thin skin, his need for revenge, his propensity to bicker with each and every critic, his insatiable desire to always even the score and be the WINNER) has now just been elevated to the most powerful position on the planet, with massive military force and surveillance powers at his fingertips. He now has the ability to lash out at basically anyone he deems to be his enemy, and if you think he might consider you an enemy, that’s terrifying.

All that said, I am hopeful that there are opportunities to move the ball forward for everyone under Trump. In a sort of Nixon-to-China way, he could choose to push through an infrastructure jobs package that would make a huge difference for millions of Americans, and it wouldn’t be shot down by Republicans as just another Obama/Reid/Pelosi liberal waste of taxpayer money. It would be great if he really can root out the corruption in Washington and drain the swamp. (I’m not optimistic about this because it would take more than term limits to get money out of politics, it would require a change of direction in the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United, reject the idea of money=speech, and root out the bribery / pay to play corruption that’s so embedded in the system - and based on his values, it seems highly unlikely he’ll nominate a SC justice who agrees with that. But I’d love to be wrong about this.) He is our President, for better or worse, and we need him to succeed. I’m just worried that deep down he’s nothing more than a great con artist who sold his supporters a bill of goods and talked his way into the job and won’t be able to or even that interested in actually governing effectively. But I recognize that 8 years ago, many people felt the same way about the last guy, so I guess we’ll see.

If I Ever Lose My Faith In You

Interesting article and thread on NPR’s website today, discussing when it’s OK to bail on a once-beloved-yet-now-sucky artist and how to deal with the guilt that may arise from abandoning them. From the comments, some people view this as a silly, absurd topic. To them, music is simply another commodity in the marketplace, where no one owes anyone else any loyalty and emotion is irrelevant. One party creates the art and another consumes it, or does not, as the case may be.

At first I completely disagreed. Music is highly personal and intimate. It becomes closely affiliated with so many areas of our lives, providing the soundtrack to so much daily activity, that to disregard it as merely another commodity to be bought and sold is naïve and misguided. If you truly believe that’s all music represents, I pity you.

But then I got to thinking…

I used to be fiercely loyal to certain bands and artists, in part because I am a very loyal person by nature, but also because I used music as a way to self-identify with certain groups or tribes. By liking (or loving, or hating) a certain performer, I was setting myself apart from the rest of the crowd who was into something else. These are My Artists – those are Yours. It’s a tribal mentality that trickles down from sports fandom into music; it doesn’t translate quite as neatly to literature or film or other art forms, perhaps because bands are more relatable to us as fans than individual works of art. [Although I can get just as possessive and defensive about individual albums…but I digress.]

Case in point: I was a big Police/Sting fan throughout the 80s and 90s. Saw Sting on the Soul Cages tour in 1991 and he was tremendous. Sadly, I never got to see the Police live during their heyday – I did catch them a few years ago, but only after the wind had left their sales (pun intended) and they embarked on a lame cashing-in reunion tour (Vowels Across America 2008 – “Eeeee-AAAAAA-Oohhhhh!”) But I bought everything he/they released, always liking it and often loving it. I was totally on board for Punk Sting, Rock Sting, Ballad Sting, Jazz Sting, even Olde English Folk Sting.

But I recall thinking at the end of the 90s, after tolerating his mediocre Mercury Falling, when the Desert Rose, Sting-in-a-Jaguar ad was all over TV, that maybe I didn’t want to keep this latest Sting CD I’d purchased. It was a revolutionary thought to me, somewhat disturbing and rather sad. I had always been a fan, I had always purchased everything he released, I would always continue to purchase everything he released because it would always continue to be worthwhile, and this would always continue for the duration of our lives. Right? I really thought about my musical library in those terms; it was just anathema to think about bailing out on one of my stalwarts. Like U2 or R.E.M., Sting was central among the core group of My Artists – these were my tribal leaders, and we were bound together for the long haul. I just assumed it was a lifelong relationship I’d committed to, much like a marriage – and you don’t bail on a marriage just because things get a little rocky. Or even soft rock-y.

The thing is, Sting and I were never married. There’s no partnership here, it’s purely a one-sided relationship – and in that sense, the free-market puritans are correct. I’m the fan, he’s the artist, and while I want to be supportive, sometimes artists produce crap art. Even good artists. Even My Artists. Musicians go through phases of highly creative levels of output only to be followed by periods of creative drought, and just because you were around during the good times doesn’t obligate you to stick it out for the lousy stuff. This all seems fairly obvious now and a little silly to spell out in detail, but the first time it really hit home was when Sting dropped the turdburger that was Brand New Day (two decent songs out of ten). This was not the first time I’d been disappointed with an album – I’d been selling unwanted CDs for years. Before iTunes and the return of the single as a viable format, I was as frustrated as anyone else when forced to purchase 14 track albums with 12 songs of filler. So while I’d been painfully disappointed with an album before, rarely was it by one of My Artists.

After I accepted the notion that I wasn’t committed to purchase and retain every Sting release from now until one of us dies, it was both liberating and depressing. What had been a perfunctory, fairly rote mechanism (it’s Tuesday: check new releases, scan for familiar names, purchase familiar names, listen, assess happiness level relative to previous releases) was forever transformed. I now had to decide which records made the cut, which ones were worthy enough to pass the velvet ropes and enter the hallowed halls of my collection. Discernment takes effort and focus and a desire for greatness. When you take your collection seriously, when you entertain vague, foolish notions of future generations discovering this immaculately curated time capsule of music after you’re gone and appreciating the lengths to which you went to acquire each essential item, you view it as more museum than library. Is displaying the finest examples of a particular genre or artist more valuable in the long term than an obsession to document each and every iteration of an artist’s journey? I suppose either direction could be a worthy endeavor as a record collector. But there came a time when I had to pick one path or the other, and while most of my income in the 90s went into that wall of CDs, I reached the point where I just couldn’t afford to collect them all.

As a collector with deeply rooted completist tendencies, it’s like an irritant under the skin to know there are albums by My Artists that exist but which I do not possess. So once I relinquished the unspoken but deeply-held belief that all of My Artists are great, legendary, and historically relevant musicians worthy of complete catalogue documentation (because, you know, they’re My Artists) and accepted that they are, in fact, capable of releasing utter dreck as well as works of genius? That was a sad moment. On the one hand it’s liberating to know I’m not obligated to follow each and every flight of artistic whimsy they may pursue, but it’s mostly disappointing – and there’s a little bit of pride involved as well. The common fears of sports fandom trickle down into music fandom. You worry that perhaps you erred by picking the wrong team, siding with the inferior artist who isn’t as historic and legendary as you once portrayed them to be, casting your lot with a fallible tribe comprised of mere mortals and not rock gods. In both endeavors (rooting for a sports team and passionately following an artist), I think that’s where part of the desire for greatness enters in: you want to back a winner, not just because it’s fun but because you want to be proven correct, for your faith to be rewarded. You don’t want get to the end only to discover you wasted your life on something unworthy. You want what you’re rooting for, what you’re passionate about, to actually matter. Ultimately what you really want is to live beyond your years – so if you can’t live forever, at least the thing you loved will survive you.

The NPR discussion doesn’t address the larger question of why so many artists inevitably lose their muse. I suspect aging and the erosion of passion by the inexorable passage of time has a lot to do with it.  Or it could be that some artists only have one great record in them, despite oodles of potential. (Looking at you, Pete Yorn.) To be explored in another post…

In Defense of Dad Rock

Caught Big Head Todd and the Monsters at a Twist and Shout in-store performance this week. I’ve seen them in concert too many times to count, double digits for sure – but it had been several years, and I was anxious to hear how they sounded these days. Their CDs have been pretty hit-and-miss lately, although I liked what I’d heard of the new one so far. While the band sounded great, and Todd still has his boyish charm and infectious enthusiasm, it became painfully obvious standing amidst the 100 or so fans that we are all getting older – the band, the fans, even (especially?) the groupies. I could hear them behind me: obnoxiously giggly, WOOing during the breaks but incessantly chatty during the actual songs, arriving midway into the set yet shocked and dismayed that the show was over so soon (OMG!) When I turned around, though, I was stunned by their haggardly appearance. The clothes were tight and slinky, the hair was teased, but while one of the four was still empirically hot, the other three... I believe the phrase is ‘mutton dressed as lamb.’ Ooof. Time to let it go, ladies.

The couple in front of me had brought their roughly 8 year old daughter to the show, apparently against her will.  With Mom and Dad swaying awkwardly to the beat and flipping through the vinyl bins (‘Look honey, it’s that Flight of the Conchords show you like!’), the young girl stared up toward the ceiling with a look of resigned exasperation – ‘you can force me to listen to your stupid old folks band, but you can’t make me like it.’  Her parents both looked like experienced concertgoers, and I thought to myself, ‘they look pretty good for their age – probably, what, early forties?’ And then it hit me: I’M in my early forties. Christ! What the hell happened here?

Didn’t matter that the band sounded tight and energetic, not coasting at all. Didn’t matter that they just put out their strongest album in over 10 years. Didn’t matter that they can still cut loose and r-a-w-k. Fact is, Big Head Todd & the Monsters have gotten old, just like their fans. It’s music by dads, for dads. And while I still love it, there’s no denying that this is no longer a college band, the pride of Boulder, the standard bearers for the burgeoning music scene in Colorado. This is now a nostalgia band, playing for nostalgic fans who remember where they were when someone first handed them a copy of Sister Sweetly (‘you gotta check these guys out, they’re local and they’re awesome!’)

At some point, every generation goes through the cycle, from the latest thing to outdated to forgotten to retro to classic. It’s always easier to notice this transition from the outside – when you’re in the middle of it, it’s not nearly as apparent that the stuff you love that used to be the stuff everyone else loves isn’t loved anymore. You don’t realize how much time has passed, how trends have changed. Sure, there’s always some hot new thing coming along, but MY bands are still where it’s at.  But at some point it hits you – Sister Sweetly was over two decades ago.  High school was 25 years ago. All the things you loved, the bands and movies and sports heroes and shows and quotes and pop culture references that defined you, that you clung to as badges of honor distinguishing you and your tribe from all others… that’s all ancient history. Maybe it’ll come around again as retro or ironic or trendy – but more likely, it’s simply forgotten, culturally irrelevant to everyone who came after you. And you don’t see this shift until long after it’s already happened. But then the dinosaurs probably didn’t notice the impending comet of doom coming to wipe them out either, they always figured they’d keep on keepin’ on…

And yet there’s merit in the old stuff, the nostalgic, the retro-in-waiting. Because good music is simply good music, and quality art endures. So I don’t feel so bad about my inevitable failure to keep up with every current trend and fashion. The vapid Flavor-of-the-Month has always been with us, it just used to be called Van McCoy before it was called Wham! before it was called Chumbawumba before it was called LMFAO. Don’t get me wrong, I will always have a soft spot for cheesy, infectiously catchy pop songs. But I also strive to avoid getting stuck in the mud of the familiar and the safe, because it’s so easy to do. We all know people who found their sound (or their look) and never let it go – upon reaching a certain level of musical development and sophistication they said, ‘Yep, this is it, this is where I make my stand. Beyond here I shall go no further.’ Be it 60s folk, or 90s grunge, or all things Lynyrd Skynyrd, they found their comfort zone, and there they shall remain.

As I continue to seek out new music and new bands, I’m always digging for unheard sounds, exploring the roots and branches of artists and genres that I love, because there’s so much great music out there, from emerging artists as well as old fogies. It may not be fashionable, it may not get airplay, it may have limited appeal outside of its core constituencies, but it’s there. And I aim to bring it to the surface as often as possible. That’s what this blog is about.

As I’ve said for years, life’s too short to listen to crap music.

On tea bagging, corporate protesters, and faux outrage

Generally speaking, human beings are freaked out by change. Especially a lot of change, all at once. It's unsettling and scary, and people tend to resist it by either clinging to what is familiar or by fearing and deriding the strange new thing. This is true even when the change is needed, even when it may be essential for survival. We like routine, the familiar, the habitual. We don't like to change and grow unless we have to, because it's often painful. Obama's election signaled a shift in the social and cultural makeup of this country. We all know Obama talked ad infinitum about change during the campaign, but I don't think America totally grasped the degree of the change that was coming. (Yeah yeah, insert your 'see, told you, Obama's a secret Muslim/Nazi/Socialist/Communist' joke here.) I mean that having a black/bi-racial/non-white/non-traditional President of the U.S. is unnerving to many Americans because it strikes at the core of how they have always viewed themselves as a nation: white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian. That's the default setting in their mind. And culturally speaking, that's how it's been for a couple hundred years...but now it's shifting. The browning of America is more than underway: Caucasians will soon fail to be a majority in America and merely be a plurality (i.e. the largest of the minority groups, but under 50% population.) I think it's fair to say not everyone is cool with this happening. Doesn't mean if you're a white guy who made a sign and yelled at a rally recently that you're a racist - but if not, there's a good chance some of your fellow Tea Baggers are. Do the math.

But this isn't about being Racist! with a capital R, it's about people's fear of the unknown (change) rising up as the cultural norm that frames their world view is shifting below their feet. That it's happening at the same time as an economic meltdown turned into a vicious recession, which is coming on the heels of a difficult few years of overextending ourselves in two wars and diminished standing in the world following our misguided response to 9/11, is truly unfortunate, and I think is really the reason for such deep seated emotion being seen. America was a little shaky coming into this year, and now we're seeing the social cracks revealing themselves as more and more strain is being placed on society. I worry, if this level of vitriol and outrage is resulting over changing health care, what about changing immigration policy? Or changing our consumer and manufacturing habits regarding climate change, or our food production? We have so many major challenges facing us, all at once and all of them urgent.

I really worry about our ability as a nation to keep it together, especially since 1) neither side seems capable of listening to the other, 2) politicians and pundits seem more than willing to stoke populist fears and play on people's worst instincts, 3) most of them are funded by powerful interests who are perfectly happy raking in their profits and will fight (and spend) like hell to maintain the status quo, and 4) our media sources are increasingly parochial and insular - we keep feeding ourselves with only what we want to hear, and demonize and make caricatures of the other side, on nearly every issue. (Bush was a fascist? Obama's a Nazi, or a commie? Sotomayor's a racist? Come on. This sort of language doesn't help, it only makes things worse.) And the sad, frustrating thing is that it seems to be working - the corporate interest noise machine is not just obstructing progress by obfuscating the truth, it's poisoning the well...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-e-burns/an-open-memo-to-progressi_b_255918.html

I'm glad I'm not President because I don't have a solution, just the knowledge that nations have crumbled under lesser circumstances and there's no guarantee that the United States of America will continue to exist on this Earth forever. It's up to each generation to take action to keep it thriving and alive, and we've got to work together, as a country, as partners in a joint venture, to make it happen. I wish I saw more willingness to do that out there, both online and in the streets.

An open letter to opponents of health care reform...at least the stupid ones

I'm confused. How exactly will providing insurance coverage for the 48 million Americans who don't have it deny you your right to see your doctor when and if you wish? I still haven't heard someone rationally explain that or show me where this nefarious plot is spelled out in the proposed bill. This isn't a zero sum game where there are only so many doctor's office appointments to be had and if you don't push me aside you won't get yours. What part of 'if you like your existing insurance you can keep it' aren't you getting here?

And please stop using the Soylent Green, 'the gummint's gonna kill all the old people' argument - it's asinine and inaccurate and entirely unfounded. The power of attorney/living will section of the bill (page 425, I believe) reiterates existing legislation that provides Medicare recipients the funding to seek out counseling once every 5 years to discuss their end of life options, at their discretion. It's not mandatory, it won't force anyone to have to defend themselves in front of a death panel or any other such nonsense. It's an additional, optional benefit to Medicare recipients who may be faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to remain alive on respirators, tubes, etc. This counseling gives them the info to decide in advance which course of action they want, IF they want to take advantage of it. Sort of like deciding to be an organ donor on your driver's license. Nobody's making you do it, it's your choice. People seek out this advice all the time, but up to now many of them have had to pay an attorney out of pocket to get this advice. (Damn lawyers!) So now, it would be a government-funded benefit, see? This is a compassionate and benign measure, not a diabolical plot to kill off the sick and infirm. And to continue to use that as a tactic to scare the ignorant and fearful rather than coming up with a valid argument against reform is disingenuous at best, if not downright sinful. So stop it.

Erection Day!

Holy crap. A whole lotta shit has gone down the past few months. Seems like the world as we know it is crumbling...and there's a lot more trouble to come. Not really sure why either of these guys wants to be president anymore - this has to be the most daunting set of problems facing a new administration since FDR, maybe longer. And it's been the never-ending campaign - so thank God, Election Day is here! Hard to believe it’s finally, nearly, truly almost over. I’ve refrained from posting anything on here the past few months, choosing to vent elsewhere – Huffington Post, shooting the shit with friends, mumbling to myself while watching assorted talking heads on cable.

But now, at long last, the chance to take the one meaningful action that matters – the only thing that matters, really. Vote. Although technically I already did it – turned in the mail-in ballot in person last week, knowing I’d be spending the entire day as a poll watcher for the Democrats. And what a lonnnng day it looks to be – 6:30am until the last person votes and they tear down the site, which could be well after the polls close at 7pm. I’m thinking a 15 hour day – wahoo! But it’s a lot better than sitting at home and watching MSNBC tally the returns for hours on end – never thought I’d get to the point where I’d had enough of the campaign, but I’m just about there. (Jenny has been in awe/disgust at my capacity to consume so much election-related media.) Jesus H., let’s just vote already.

Also choosing to resist obsessing about how many things could go wrong, about the Diebold machines that Rove and Cheney programmed to cheat, about the numerous ways that voter fraud and intimidation may rear its ugly head. Choosing instead to envision just how great it will feel to win, to back the winner, and to know that the long national nightmare of W. is about to mercifully draw to a close. Not sure what I’m more excited to watch tomorrow night – Matthews and Olbermann beside themselves with glee, or the variety of assholes at Fox News trying to intellectually process an Obama victory, perhaps even a landslide/mandate. Probably the latter – exploding heads are always cool.