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 . . .

The 18

            {one}

Preston Highway is hard and yellow brown, an

Ohio Valley temperature inversion parks the stink

on top the Watterson overpass  leaden clouds coating the lungs

of the proletariat lumpen and otherwise lining up aside the road

            waiting for the 18

churches and check cashing joints

suicide lane running all the way down to the Snyder

the 18 runs down Preston every 15 minutes

eight, nine, noon, four, five, six, nine-thirty

the wrong 18 dumps you out short of Outer Loop

at the Cash America on Ulrich

in the sun or rain or snow or pure cold or unbearable heat,

whatever the fuck is dealt on that asphalt strip

its never as bad as it can be  but its always worse

than it should be

            {two}

Mexican places for whites  Mexican places for Mexicans

bare tube fluorescent gold-flecked white formica and Tecaté

whites point at the menu in the Mexican Mexican joints

Mexican white places have secret menus &

seat all the Latins under curved glass at the front of

  the converted Wendys

bus stop, hammered wet cigarette tar, poison

fumes from busted catalytic converters

broken cars making the right off Outer Loop

accelerating up Preston in a trail of stink

late, catching the 18 with the stragglers

they’re not turning off the blue lights, obviously

pull knit cap down over burnt eyes  up to Eastern Parkway

the 18, then a mile home

            {three}

drunk and killing things with punk rock, pulling

on a Tecaté 24 running up Preston in the dank night

up about where Indian Trail slashes across oily dark

swimming across broken asphalt  dirt you feel as much as see

  breathing chunked petroleum

  sloughing off strip malls 

           

{four}

perhaps not dark so much as light at crazed angles

as negative light  always people crossing the street

in the dark you don’t see them just sort of hanging out

there in the double turn lane  Mexicans Africans

Koreans Whites about half dragging strollers

the prole lumpen and otherwise defying death

hanging on the edge of the broken asphalt river

            {five}

all it is is

you wake up in

the morning

and find yourself

back out on Preston

fucked

Ed Dorn

it was a green velour suit
at least I think it was, a bit rumpled
it was really fucking cold
of course it was, South Bend Indiana
at the end of February, dry
fine powdered snow and single digits
I was hip to the Southwest thing, so
I said “fucking cold, bet that’s a bit
of a shock” and he said “well, I’m
from Chicago (he probably said
Illinois, but I heard Chicago), so . . . .”
and turned away

the interminable death of the Lit mixer
years before uncool was the new cool

The Friends Theme but it's Clapping Music by Steve Reich

Putin at the photocopier

Profligate Vinyl: London Calling

Welcome to the second edition of Profligate Vinyl; you can find the first one here.

In the last post, we went deep on the White Album, partly because it existed as a vast fog in my head, and I really had to go track by track to get a handle on it. In the end, we addressed (but did not answer) a few questions: was the White Album self-indulgent? Clearly yes; it perhaps stands as the monument to pop music indulgence. Would it have been better as a single album? Well, yes and no: a 45 minute edit of the album is definitely tighter, and (to my mind at least) an absolutely superb album. BUT: there is a certain charm to the loose indulgence of the whole thing, and while a single album would be better in most respects, the shaggy dog double has a flair that goes beyond the hits.

So, I suppose you could say that is was a split decision on the White Album. Today, we will have no such split decision: London Calling is tight as a drum to the very end, and any cut will be to meat, not fat. Unlike the White Album, I can sing (sort of?) London Calling in order from the beginning to the end. Part of that is due to the fact that I have listened to it so often, but beyond that, the whole album rolls with a certain tension and inexorable logic all the way through. It is The Clash at the height of their powers.

London Calling is a legendary record, certainly in the class of the White Album. It is a major transformation for The Clash, who move from being a straight up punk band to being a pretty versatile rock band, from being a sloppier left-wing version of the Buzzcocks to being a younger, more politically astute version of the Rolling Stones (but with decent lyrics, which the Stones only sporadically indulged). Like any career transformation, London Calling left some of The Clash's older, more purist punk fans behind; but the record is probably more remarkable for how many punks actually followed them through the transition. Those who wanted their punk rage more left-wing, noisy, and pure moved on to bands like Crass and The Ex, but even those who followed a less commercial route often still had a soft spot for The Clash.

Without further ado, here's the 45 minute edit:

Let's start of with a list of the songs left off of the edit:

• Brand New Cadillac
• Jimmy Jazz
• The Right Profile
• Lost in the Supermarket
• Wrong 'Em Boyo
• Train in Vain

Can you quibble with this list? HELL YES you can, and I almost want to reconsider it myself, except that I know it would be an endless process. "Train in Vain" was the only easy decision, and it is a fine song, but a bit of a throwaway, which gets it cut. Other than that, we loose two of the three covers (including a blistering version of "Brand New Cadillac"), "Lost in the Supermarket", which is one of the most famous songs on the record, "The Right Profile", which I wanna put back on the list right now! . . . and, well, you get the idea. This is one goddamn lean record as is, and any cuts are to the detriment of the whole.

Verdict: NOT indulgent, EDITS BAD!

Now, Sandinista, on the other hand . . .