Pete and His Dad Joe

Pete Buttigieg is really working that Obama thing hard, isn’t he? Maybe he will win the presidency and get a Nobel prize for not being Trump just like Obama won a Nobel for not being Bush.

There was an article in The Nation ostensibly about what he learned from his father Joe, who was a leading Gramsci scholar and literary theorist, and the conclusion of the article is that Pete learned to be quiet about his beliefs and work with everyone … you know, the usual centrist bullshit.

But you know what? I studied under Joe not long after he got to Notre Dame, and while it is true he did not challenge his students on a directly political level in the classroom, his reading lists left little doubt as to what discussions should be on the table.

But the most vivid image I have of Joe Buttigieg is from 1981. On a sunny spring day toward the end of the semester, he let class out early and advised us that we were welcome to join him at a rally protesting the commencement address of President Ronald Reagan. This was not long after Reagan got shot … as a matter of fact, it was his first public appearance after the assassination attempt. Now Reagan was extremely popular at a right wing Notre Dame in the first place, and post-shooting, even the liberals thought the disrespect of a protest bordered on treason. So the counter-protesters outnumbered the protesters easily 10-1, and the windows of the dorm that towered over the small elevated wooden stage boomed Doors music out the windows - I don’t remember what song, but that was a year after No One Here Gets Out Alive came out, and all the bros were pumping the Doors 24/7, and it was killing me - and dropping bedsheet banners with witticisms such as “don’t give the Gip no lip”. I remember one particularly loud stereo pumping Elton John’s “Texas Love Song” over and over again, completely without irony.

Most of the student speakers chickened out. I remember one dude stepped up, shouted angrily for minute, and backed off before the hail of debris crested. The priests, nuns, and monks stepped up though. And Joe stepped up. He was a small guy, and “foreign looking” to the ND bros, and he got even more shit than the rest of the folk. But he stood strong, weathered a storm of eggs, and looked straight up into the windows with the booming speakers and flying eggs and unequivocally let it be known just what a horror Ronald Reagan was.

Meanwhile, I have no idea what position Pete holds on Medicare for all, or any issue at all, for that matter. Kind of like Obama. I remember Obama taking one fairly solid stand: if elected President, he would close Gitmo. Okay, I thought, that’s good enough, that’s something he can do by executive order. But of course, Obama didn’t close Gitmo. Obama didn’t do anything. Obama was congenial and statesmanlike. Obama was dignified. I suppose Pete will be dignified. I suppose “dignified” is the major plank of his platform, and I don’t know that there are any other planks.

Sure, Obama was better than Trump, but the bar should never ever be that low. I would choose Pete over a lot of Dems, including Harris, Booker, Biden, Gabbard, etc., but again, the bar should not be that low. Likewise, “unity” is worthless if we unify under defective principles and values. America is simultaneously on the verge of rising toward being a just, humane country and descending into fascism. The government is nothing more than a circus, a dramatic re-enactment of reality; the real work needs to be done on a socio-cultural level. And “unity” is the friend of stasis, the enemy of change.

Luke 12:49-56 y’all. If I don’t actually oppose Pete, it’s only because the real work has to be done outside government.

In Rotation: Winter Doldrums 2019

Sofia Gubaidulina - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Silenzio
Jackie McLean - Let Freedom Ring
Pink Floyd - Ummagumma
Nels Cline/Gregg Bendian - Interstellar Space Revisited
Various - Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa el Fna
Arto Lindsay - Mundo Civilizado
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Wagner - Götterdämmerung (von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic/Deutsche Oper Berlin; Haitink, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Bayerischen Rundfunks chorus)
Schoenberg/Berg/Webern - Gurre-lieder, Lieder (Kubelik/Fischer-Dieskau)
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Furtwängler)
The Ex - History 1980-2004
Suicide - s/t
Don Cherry - Brown Rice
The Flesh Eaters - I Used to be Pretty
Anthony Braxton - (Actuel 15)
Sonny Sharrock - Monkey Pockey Boo
Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge, Kontakte
Xenakis - Orchestral Works & Chamber Music

Wacky winter, Louisville style: a dump of snow that lasts barely a day, temperature ranges from single digits to 70+, often within the same week, and the February showers that bring March . . . floods.

I acknowledge the drastic slowdown on this blog, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Bands and solo projects in full swing, new recorder means new recordings and mixdown times, still working on a poetry collection started last summer . . . lots & lots of projects, little time. There are several projects in this particular pipeline as well, including the ongoing Profligate Vinyl series, and yet another attempt to "get into" Bob Dylan. This blog too will find its turn. Until then . . .