A friend of The IP recently sent him an e-mail invitation for an Election Night cocktail party.  Part of the text in the invitation was the title to the Depression-Era song Happy Days Are Here Again.  Although The IP will indeed vote for Obama, he was, at first, taken aback by the assured tone of the e-mail.  The IP worries about this election as he’s sure many Obama voters do.  When you think about it, for the Obama supporter, there is almost a sense of trepidation with the recent polls.  One starts being suspicious.  The stories and headlines, sometimes weird and questionable, throw wrenches into the works.  And most important, the plans (if they really have any) of  “THE ENEMY” could F-up the whole election.  WTF are the McCain/Palin PR fucks gonna do to torpedo this whole unprecedented scenario?  What kind of subterfuge will the Republitards engage in to win the prize?   How more sleazy can they get?

But recently, The IP started thinking about it objectively.    

It’s a righteous thing that a large lot of  Republitards are voting for Obama/Biden simply because they believe he is the better candidate.  A large lot of them are jumping ship:        

Elected Officials: 

Jim Leach, Former Congressman from Iowa

“For me, the national interest comes before party concerns, particularly internationally.  We do need a new direction in American policy, and Obama has a sense of that.”

Lincoln Chafee, Former United States Senator from Rhode Island

“As I look at the candidates in order who to vote for, certainly my kind of conservatism was reflected with Senator Obama, and those points are that we’re fiscally conservative, we care about revenues matching expenditures, we also care about the environment, I think it’s a traditional conservative value to care about clean air and clean water.”

Wayne Gilchrest, Congressman from Maryland

“We can’t use four more years of the same kind of policy that’s somewhat haphazard, which leads to recklessness.”

Richard Riordan, Former Mayor of Los Angeles

“I’m still a Republican, but I still will always vote for the person who I think will do the best job.”

Lowell Weicker, Former Governor and Senator from Connecticut

“At issue is not the partisan politics of two parties, rather the image we have of ourselves as Americans.  Senator Obama brings wisdom, kindness, and common sense to what is both his and our quest for a better America.”

Jim Whitaker, Fairbanks, Alaska Mayor

“If we are as a nation concerned with energy, then our consideration should be a national energy policy that is not predicated on crude oil 50 years into the future.  We need to get to it, and I think Barack Obama is very clear in that regard.”

Linwood Holton, Former Governor of Virginia

“Obama has a brain, and he isn’t afraid to use it.”

Government Officials: 

Colin Powell, Secretary of State under Bush 43 

“…he has met the standard of being a sucessful president, being an exceptional president.  I think he is a transformational figure.  He is a new generation coming into the world– onto the world state, onto the American stage, and for that reason I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.”

Douglas Kmiec, Head of the Office of Legal Counsel under Reagan & Bush 41 

“I was first attracted to government by Ronald Reagan, who lives in our national memory as a great leader and an inspiring communicator.  Senator Obama has these gifts as well, but of course, more rhetorical flourish without substance would be worth little.  Is there more to Senator Obama?  I believe there is.”

Jackson M. Andrews, Republican Counsel to the U.S. Senate

“Barack Obama is a thoughtful visionary leader who as President will end the decline of American law, liberty, and fiscal responsibility that are the hallmarks of the extremist policies of the current Administration, now adopted by John McCain.”  

Susan Eisenhower, Granddaughter of President Eisenhower & President of the Eisenhower Group

“Given Obama’s support among young people, I believe that he will be most invested in defending the interests of these rising generations and, therefore, the long-term interests of this nation as a whole.”

Francis Fukuyama, Advisor to President Reagan

“…Obama probably has the greatest promise of delivering a different kind of politics.”

Rita Hauser, Former White House intelligence advisor under George W. Bush 

“McCain will continue the wrong-headed foreign policy decisions of Bush, while Obama will take us in a new direction.”

Larry Hunter, Former President Reagan Policy Advisor

“I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on.  He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought.  His economic advisers, notably Austan Goolsbee, recognize that ordinary citizens stand to gain more from open markets than from government meddling.”

Bill Ruckelshaus, served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations

“I’m not against McCain, I’m for Obama.”

Ken Adelman, served in the Ford administration

“The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.  That decision showed appalling lack of judgment… that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign– Country First, and experience counts.  Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.”

Lilibet Hagel, Wife of Republican Senator Chuck Hagel

“This election is not about fighting phantom issues churned out by a top-notch slander machine.  Most important, it is not about distracting the public– you and me– with whatever slurs someone thinks will stick.”

Columnists and Academics:

Jeffrey Hart, National Review Senior Editor  

“It turns out that these political parties are not always either liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican.  The Democrat, under certain conditions, can be the conservative.”

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University

“For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope.  McCain represents none at all.  The choice turns out to be an easy one.”

David Friedman, Economist and son of Milton and Rose Friedman

“I hope Obama wins.  President Bush has clearly been a disaster from the standpoint of libertarians and conservatives because he has presided over an astonishing rise in government spending.”

Christopher Buckley, Son of National Review founder William F. Buckley & former NR columnist

“Obama has in him– I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy ‘We are the people we have been waiting for’ silly rehtoric– the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader.  He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.”

Andrew Sullivan, Columnist for the Atlantic Monthly

“Obama’s legislative record, speeches, and the way he has run his campaign reveal, I think, a very even temperament, a very sound judgment, and an intelligent pragmatism.  Prudence is a word that is not inappropriate to him.”

Wick Alison, Former publisher of the National Review

“I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.  But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history.”

Michael Smerconish, Columnist for the Philadelphia Enquirer

“…an Obama presidency holds the greatest chance for unifying us here at home and restoring our prestige around the globe.”

German intellectuals coined the term “zeitgeist” to describe a particular spirit and inclination of a culture.  It was usually applied retrospectively by historians to characterize a spirit of a culture in a particular time in the past.  Yet there are times when one senses a zeitgeist as it’s happening.

This is one of those times. 

All The IP can say is WTF!  OMFG! and Jebus H. Christ in a chicken basket!  Seriously.  If, as it now seems, Obama will become our next President, The IP will cry.  And he will gladly eat some veggie weenies at that cocktail party (the host is a reconstructed omnivore).  And, thankfully, he will not have to jump off the balcony of the high-rise where the party will be located at like was earlier thought after that post-convention  Palin “bump” that now looks like the festering pustule it always was.  Jumping will always be an option, for sure, and knowing the Republitards, they could make that happen, but, like Obama’s book declared, there really is an audacity of hope in the air.

This is one zeitgeist we can all experience in real-time.   

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This post is # 100 for The IP.  He’s actually posted more than that if you remember his initial “Gregarious Misanthrope” blog.  Regardless, he just wants to thank all you pithecanthropes for even giving a shit, for taking a minute to read his rants and musings.  He wants to thank Tomitron, over at View From The 13^TH Floor, for supporting the idea of blogging for the principle of it, for the shear cathartic aspect of personal expression.  We all need to vent.

 

In the end, it’s all about friends and family.  It’s about having a place where one can respond to whatever rant The IP has to offer.  Boston, Chicago (Evanston), Athens, Atlanta, Seville, Portland, Minneapolis, Huntsville.  Each of those cities harbors friends and family that The IP will always love and care for.  For which The IP will always care (: )).

 

A special shout-out to Ned over at Wildfreshnes for helping The IP get a clue to this whole blogging thing.  He will always be my blogmaster.

 

HAPPY 100!!

It’s been so nice this past week.  Cool nights and mornings, warm and dry sunny days.  And then this past Saturday evening The IP drove past this:

Talk about ruining your day.  Talk about potentially ruining EVERY one of his days in the near future.  He could accept the Obama/McCain division among yard signs, but when some asstard decided to take the “socialism” cue from McCain/Palin and fashion his own stupid addition to his chain-link fence propaganda, The IP had to groan aloud “WTF?”

And it’s not even like The IP is “against” capitalism, per se, or “for” “socialism,” it’s just that people tend to use the term ignorantly and ineptly.  They do the same with the word “liberal.”  These are the easy, guaranteed-to-evoke-a-response catchwords that have become the bread-and-butter of the desperate Right Wing.

The most frustrating aspect of the use of the S-Word as slander is that so much of our tax policy is actually a form of corporate socialism.  Now that it’s almost 2009, it might be a good time to review what Ralph Nader had to say about the topic all the way back in 2002.

Nader, despite how many people blame him for the 2000 election of W, remains one of the more coherent critics of corporatism.  If anybody deserves the right to declare a big “I told you so!” it’s him.

McCain played so hard to the Republican base with his Palin pick, he’s now trying to siphon some votes off the middlemass; he might get some, but it ain’t gonna work too well.  He recently donned his Green hat, the one he wore about a year ago, but the echoes of “DRILL BABY DRILL” just drown out any sincerity he might have once had.  McCain and Palin jumped on Obama’s “redistribute the wealth” comment the latter told Joe Plumber as if all would suddenly see Obama as Stalin, but it won’t stick.  Henry Ford, though kind of a prick, at least understood about increasing the middle class by raising wages.  Read this timely report.

So, that homemade sign now just makes The IP kinda grin.  The kids of the echo-boomers are now voting.  Most of them are not afraid of gays and brown people.  They understand green initiatives too.  If McCain had chosen a more progressive Alaskan, he’d be a shoe-in.

And if you’ve never watched the original “All Your Base” video, do so here.

All his base belongs to him; and he can keep it.

The banner image at the top of the page is an aerial image of the actual house where The IP encountered the ultimate of estate sales.  This particular venue had a huge WTF factor going for it.  Just the setting gave it a powerful sense of suburban authenticity.  There was the hallway partition with panes of white translucent plastic; a sunken living room; glass sliding doors off the same out to expansive patio.  And to top it off, an unpretentiously small, kidney-shaped, in-ground swimming pool filled with turgid rainwater and some frogs; it looked like a scene from that movie adaptation of John Cheever’s The Swimmer, the one with Burt Lancaster swimming from pool to pool in a suburban landscape.  The IP had to read that short story in school, and it always seemed to resonate with him; not because he lived in an area like in the movie, but because the way Cheever described that suburban world and the way he portrayed the pathos of Ned Merril, the main character so aptly played by Lancanster.  Cheever is good at creating the surreal geographic and mental landscapes of “The American Dream.”  Cheever understood the WTF? aspect of everyday suburban reality.  The movie just reinforced The IP’s initial impression of Cheever’s work, and he still thinks it’s one of the better movie adaptations of mid-century literary fiction.

How’s The IP’s David Foster Wallace imitation going so far?  Anyhow, when you think about it, that Ned character in the story is probably pretty similar to some of today’s  Wall Street dealers.  Probably similar to a lot of “Joe Sixpacks,” too.  Either way, there is likely going to be an expansion of the “failed capitalist” cohort in our society, a bunch of Ned Merril-types looking around their world and beginning to freak out.  They’ll do what Ned did and swim from pool to sociable pool until they realize that they’re actually broke.  A friend told me of a homemade sign in NYC that was pointed toward the corporate towers that read “Jump, Fuckers!”  That could happen.   That is, unless they get saved by the taxpayers.  The IP would like to divide the taxpayers into categories so we could “separate the wheat from the chaff” in terms of culpability.  Aren’t there people called “Fund Managers?”  Just asking.  Maybe Merrill Lynch…oops, Ned Merril, can answer the question.

So, into this frozen-in-time ranchburger house walked The IP.  No.  Actually, there were items all over the driveway and garage, and the little table where the nephew of the deceased took cash and gave change.  Death, in the end, was the reason for the estate sale.  The IP learned from casual AND intimate conversation with one of the two remaining brothers (each other present on the site) that their brother owned and lived in the house.  He had died of lung cancer.  He was The Chair of some noted high school English Dept.  Judging from all his stuff, he had sensibilities similar to those of The IP.  Holy Crap and WTF!!  Cameras, projectors, reel-to-reel tape players, turntables, radios, radio consoles, stereo components, speakers of all sizes, clocks, telephones, video recorders, video cameras, video players, slide projectors, slide viewers, books, books, and more books (many first editions), ephemera, “modern” furniture, paintings and LOTS of vinyl;  literally “lots.”  The latter were divided into lots with brown butcher paper covering them declaring “NOT FOR SALE.”  The brother of the deceased The IP talked to most told him about how he got a professional appraiser to help him plan the estate sale.  The appraiser concluded that there were two main groupings of records that a dealer (NYC; Chicago; LA) would buy for more that he could make at the dollar-a-record he was selling to the general public.  Who has time to haggle (without the requisite knowledge) over each of literally thousands of records.  That’s right.  Thousands.  And that does not include the closet of  78s my friend Mike was diligently perusing; he spent five hours in a dank basement closet, much more than The IP did in HIS closet!   

The two not-for-sale categories were labeled “Rock and Roll,” which evidently included many collectible 45s in NM condition, and “Jazz & R&B,” which broke The IP’s heart, because it’s always Jazz he looks for at such sales, and one could tell as he went through the house that this guy probably had some cool stuff.  You could also tell that the deceased was probably a lot different than his brothers who were running the show.  The one The IP talked to made a living in “sporting” goods and made videos of big-game hunting in Tennessee.  He showed The IP some covers of his videos that show him proudly holding up the head of a dead Elk.  Nice.  He kept hyping a pile of Frank Sinatra records out on the patio that had water damage as being some kind of Holy Grail of records.  The two living brothers seemed to have no clue about their dead brother’s estate.  But at least they had a sale.

Now, The IP’s friend Mike dedicated himself to the closet filled with the 78s.  He was looking for some material that might-could be used as musical fodder for a local “record” company (it’s funny how people still use the term “record companies”) ; he’s actually the audio engineer for the small-yet-impressive Dust-To-Digital label.  You should check out the catalog.

The IP had to stake out a claim also.  There it was.  Just a small closet with some shelves, but like almost all the shelves in the basement, it was filled with records.  And it was not covered with brown butcher paper like the big collections in the other rooms.  What would The IP find?

The IP quavered in his cheap, Made-in-China leather sandals he never should have purchased at Target two years ago when he realized this was the “Latin” and “Guitar” section of the deceased’s collection.  Oh, The Joy!!  Oh The Stress!

Keep in mind these were the dollar-a-piece records, and that can add up if you start grabbing everything.  There are various “modes” of cognition a record collector can adopt at any give source of records for sale.  Since the estate sale was beginning to increase in intensity, with more and more people vying for elbow room and space, The IP chose the “S.W.A.T.” mode.  He would use his special weapons and tactics of knowledge and instinct, both of which have been known to falter at crucial times.  Grab a pile.  Rifle through them and just immediately grab the ones that give you (like W.) a gut feeling.  The IP actually believes in such a thing, at least in some situations, so The IP did just that for the whole lot.  In the midst of his S.W.A.T. review and selection, The IP suddenly remembered a game show where they put a person in a Plexiglas tube and blew money all around and they had about 30 seconds to grab as many fluttering bills as possible; there were all denominations, but mostly it was dollars.  That is how The IP felt.  But it was not a grasping for monetary value; he was grasping at quality music; dealers buy records to sell to collectors, collectors buy music to enjoy.  The IP does not sell records.  But he still appreciates rarity and value.  It’s all very tumultuous emotionally and psychologically to be in a small closet of collectable and cool Latin records with other phonophiles breathing down your neck.  The IP had seen some of these faces before, probably at the Atlanta Record Show that dealers used to have in that run-down-but-pleasingly-vintage hotel with the crazy pool sculpture and fountain.  We’re all like vultures picking at a carcass, always looking for the best piece of meat and asserting our assumed dominance over the same. 

But because we’re human, the etiquette in such situations is often ambiguous.  One “could” fit two people in that closet, but that would make each person hate the other, even if they might-could be friends.  So The IP did his best imitation of a guy being in a REALLY SMALL closet and methodically looked through the entire collection at an accelerated pace while he placed his body in a position that took up as much space as possible and pulled records that somehow “spoke” to him.  He chose a total of 39 records, and he wishes now he had chosen more.  But he consoles himself with the idea that the S.W.A.T. method always provides rewards.  And then a part of him says “share the wealth.”  Why shouldn’t other members of “the public,” including the other record vultures circling nearby, have a chance to score some records?  Why, on the other hand, shouldn’t The IP have just bought the whole lot out of greed, opportunity, and obsession??  He actually wonders that now, as he listens to and researches some of the LPs he actually acquired.  WTF!  As Milton would say, “He found a weal twezure twove!”

If someone told The IP twenty years ago that he was going to become a collector of vintage Mambo and Cha-Cha-Chá, he would wonder to himself “WTF?”  But ever since he found a couple of Seeco and Tico records about a year ago at a thrift store, The IP’s really had a Mambo/Cha Cha Cha obsession.  Keep in mind this isn’t the cheesy Mambo and Cha Cha Cha fare of the major labels; this is the “authentic” Cuban and Puerto Rican stuff that you can absorb like a musical drug, one that gets into your head with its hot rhythms and Latin passion.  Sure, that’s a stereotype, but it applies.  Once you hear it and get to know certain artists, you keep wanting more. And the S.W.A.T. method of estate sale record selecting worked quite effectively for The IP.

No.  Not The IP’s estate.  At least not yet.

Last weekend The IP went to one of the better estate sales he’s ever been to (he’s not gonna say ‘to which he’s ever been’ because it sounds stilted).  Among a number of cool items, including  a good haul of records, The IP came up with this little gem:

The IP has an attaction to graphic arts of the pre-software age.  Take, for example, the above cover of a 1963 educational booklet from the Federal Aviation Agency, the precursor to today’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The G-man artist assigned to this booklet created colorful rural landscapes in the manner of a restrained Thomas Hart Benton.  They’re really quite charming, if not damn good.

Even the more “scientific” illustrations have a playful quality, but entirely appropriate to the task.  Flying should be fun, and this little book makes it look so. 

More on the estate sale and Item # 2 in the next post.

McCain actually would make a better object of swiftboating than Kerry.  McCain actually betrayed his fellow servicemen by giving in to interrogators.  By all accounts (even some of his own) he was an impulsive and incompetent pilot to boot.  His college education was marked by nepotism and poor performance, both as a person and a student.  Yet, McCain still dons the mantle of hero.

Let’s be honest, the term “hero” really should be for people who died in the cause for which they believed; at least that’s what The IP thinks.  Getting shot-down in Hanoi is, in and of itself, neither heroic nor cowardly; it’s just a consequence of modern jet warfare.  Why should McCain be a “hero” for something over which he had little control?  If anything, it was his lack of control that led to his being shot down in the first place.  Really.

The IP did not want to get too political here, and he will talk about persimmons in Part Two of this post, but he read a great bio of McCain today in the Rolling Stone, a magazine that actually pulls off some of the best investigative journalism in our country.  After reading the article The IP felt a real loathing for, not only McCain, but for politics in general.  The article gets the The IP’s rare REQUIRED READING linkage.

Yesterday, on THE MARTA (sorry, jojo), The IP saw an Asian-American soldier with what seemed like an unreasonable amount of Army duffle bags and a laptop computer to haul around.  WTF?  How did he travel with all that crap to carry around?  I (I will use first-person here) looked at him there, resplendent in his computer-generated camouflage, and noticed a look of profound sorrow and disillusionment on his face; at least that is what I thought.  I saw NG on his nametag and mused about how common that name is for people from Korea and Viet Nam.  And  I also noticed how, rather than being treated as a “hero,” this kid was being totally ignored, almost avoided, by my fellow passengers.  And even I was no better.  But I REALLY thought about how he might have felt, if he was mad because he came home from whatever front on this “War on Terror” and he sits on the train like some schlub like everybody else.  I wondered if he was pissed off about how no Americans here really sacrifice shit to these wars (other than their grandkids’ money).  I really saw this kind of look on his face, but maybe he was just tired from carrying all those bags.  In retrospect, I think I should have just said hello or made some dumb comment about all his bags, just to let him know I noticed he was there.  Sometimes that’s all it takes to change a mood.

Part Two: Persimmonious Part of  Post

There is nothing like nature to mark the passage of time, and in The IP’s first Autumn here on Skyland Drive, he recently noticed that a tree adjacent to his abode was bearing fruit; lots and lots of fruit.  WTF?  The IP really had a hard time trying to figure out just what kind of fruit it was.  In the Spring the tree had had nice white flowers.  The IP guessed crabapple or something like that; but when he saw all the fruits, all the many fruits, he had to dig into his rather weak horticultural memory.  Plums?  No.  WTF?   Then, like a bolt out of the blue: Persimmons!!

The IP had no idea how he guessed it correctly.  Maybe he saw a persimmon somewhere in the past.  Who knows?  But indeed, if any of you pithecanthropes need persimmons, The IP can fix you up.

One cool thing about persimmons is the sequence of color they go through as they ripen.  The fruit transitions from green, to yellow, to an orange sherbet, to a rosy red.  The IP will eat a ripe one this weekend.  He’ll keep you posted.

When The IP’s brother sent him a link to this video, it produced for him a true and mighty “WTF?” moment.  Here was one of his favorite British bands, produced by one of his favorite producers, messing about with moving pictures and creating an early “video” for their song Robot.  Then there was the video itself: WTF! 

Most Americans know The Tornados for their big 1962 hit Telstar, named after the AMERICAN (AT&T) satellite that blew Sputnik out of the water in terms of performance.  Other than that hit, however, The Tornadoes pretty much evaded the U.S. as they went on to record song-after-bloody-song in Britain.

An instrumental band, The Tornados -as produced by Joe Meek- created a “sound” that was a musical exclamation point for Meek’s complex creative imagination.  The IP will only refer you to a few Web sites that deal with the ever-growing Meek legacy (and its pilgrams). 

That Mr. Meek had an obsession with all things “outer space” and moon-oriented is obvious in this endearing, and frankly, one-of-a-kind film short.  It’s doubtful you will ever see anything like it again.  Consider yourself invited into the crazy world of Joe Meek.  Yes, it’s the Tornados, but Joe is calling the shots.

WATCH VIDEO   

7-part BBC series on Joe Meek 

Joe Meek – The wiki entry

More Meek Here

Joe Meek Fan Site

There are times in popular culture when a simple tune comes along and fills a void in the collective consciousness (if there is such a thing).  These are often songs one can whistle to.   In the case of British Evasion Video # 3, the song itself is whistled.  And whistled, and whistled.  Boy, is it whistled.

Even the “artist’s” name evokes whistling, though the guy in this video isn’t the actual whistler; he’s just a body and a face they scrambled to recruit for the song when it unexpectedly shot up the UK charts in 1967.  Incessantly chipper and repetitive, I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman whistled it’s way into the minds of Britains much the same way that the insipid piano tinklings of Music Box Dancer did in the USA much later.  They are very similar in structure, actually.    

Beyond the music (which The IP admits to liking) this video’s saving grace is found in the kitsch value of “Whistling Jack’s” “dancing” which might be characterized as a blend of in-place marching, an attempt at The Frug and a mild bout of epilepsy.  The set is brilliant in its simplicity, and it works to make our batman stand out as he marches in place and gesticulates in a relatively small area of the stage. 

Watch for the many “special effects” that evoke a blend of fun-house mirrors and proto- psychedelic film editing.  Make sure you wait for Jack’s sudden engagement of the viewer towards the end as he looks directly into the camera and wags an admonishing finger.  This is the kind of music short that could end up in your dreams (good or bad).  It also has a minimalist quality that can be appreciated in these over-produced times.   

WATCH VIDEO

Intarwebs Sources:

HERE

HERE

& HERE

& an awesome ska version HERE (also from Britain)

Horrible Frank Mills Rip Off HERE