tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15977610463786939132024-03-16T11:51:12.339-07:00Notes from the Ironbound<b>Essays and pop culture musings from a teacher/historian in New Jersey
</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1772125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-74359033140245301302024-03-07T18:54:00.000-08:002024-03-07T18:56:24.797-08:00Shadow Show, "On a Cloud" (Track of the Week) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Shra66FqbJwl3ixLi-znWg2823c9-fLMrRrgvdcFUuuqgHq6LuIHXFAVkTDsZkmfFDYSkMQCaJddNIfL5mbfr8WhS4u3XF0VkfYMn8mXQw9yn4ubv5pznFfLxEdNj0uUsuPrsKWeknuDl-SJFtc3HBFLB6p1CF2hbTh74u7KilsjEFw-Xin1uSIBH0s/s225/shadow%20show.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Shra66FqbJwl3ixLi-znWg2823c9-fLMrRrgvdcFUuuqgHq6LuIHXFAVkTDsZkmfFDYSkMQCaJddNIfL5mbfr8WhS4u3XF0VkfYMn8mXQw9yn4ubv5pznFfLxEdNj0uUsuPrsKWeknuDl-SJFtc3HBFLB6p1CF2hbTh74u7KilsjEFw-Xin1uSIBH0s/s1600/shadow%20show.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">One thing that both thrills and depresses me is that there is an unending stream of amazing new music coming out every day. The embarrassment of riches is thrilling, but the fracturing of the listening audience is depressing. It's often hard to find this new music, and when I do, it's hard to find other people digging the same thing. When the encounters do happen it's amazing. A few weeks ago I was at a record store in Hoboken and the clerk was playing an album by the Sundays, a band I've recently returned to. I enthusiastically let her know this, and later when I bought a Ween live album she returned the favor by gushing about it. </span></div><p>I thought I would share some new music today so the world has a slightly better chance of hearing it. I get a lot of my new music from New Jersey's freeform station WFMU. The other day as I drove to the train station I heard a song come out of my speakers that blew me away. When I stopped at a light I immediately turned on Shazam so that this nugget would not escape me. </p><p>The guitars shimmered and jangled with pristine, pure beauty. The tight harmonies lifted me up further, ready to face my day ahead. The song in question is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h-KiQ21RkQ" target="_blank">"On a Cloud" by Shadow Show</a>, which I listen to multiple times a day. I know almost nothing about this band, other than I want a way to hear this sublime sound forever. </p><p>Falling in love with a song and a band isn't that different from falling in love with a person. The desire can be persistent, insatiable, and even maddening. I remember when I became a Bowie-head in the late 90s. I bought practically his entire back catalog on CD in less than two years (and I was broke.) It is amazing to me that I can still get that crazy feeling of connection with a band that I used to have as a teenager. It's less fun, however, if you can't share it. I recommend that you go and tell people about your favorite new song the way you did in high school. I think it will make the world a better place. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-85710557704479032812024-02-25T07:04:00.000-08:002024-02-25T07:04:32.306-08:00Ween, "Transdermal Celebration" (Track of the Week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUN3mI3u4rMcSPr13BXZOKQcy-5btsILluwsswfL3KerGmbPjIsUV0067G_oERocqU4MK5q5-LxqAu95dWzxCLNnIAuwBhdpwFByudso6zaLgCENh74vXKklOI8Kih-8FEFEFbimBzNQxDFCw2hIJFLgBt1TomGD8AU8C6_A_fqL8qZPhQg_N1iOWlDSI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="500" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUN3mI3u4rMcSPr13BXZOKQcy-5btsILluwsswfL3KerGmbPjIsUV0067G_oERocqU4MK5q5-LxqAu95dWzxCLNnIAuwBhdpwFByudso6zaLgCENh74vXKklOI8Kih-8FEFEFbimBzNQxDFCw2hIJFLgBt1TomGD8AU8C6_A_fqL8qZPhQg_N1iOWlDSI" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Life has been busy recently and I have been neglecting this blog and not cross-posting my Substack stuff. <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/politics-for-babies-or-how-to-deal" target="_blank">I wrote a primer</a> on what I call "baby politics" about simple narratives low information voters have and how to address them. <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/inside-llewyn-davis-and-the-long" target="_blank">I also wrote about Inside Llewyn Davis and the dismal nature of February</a>. Little did I know that things would get even worse!</p><p>Death took a relative and a colleague this week, and I took my own advice to wallow in my negative feelings a bit. After a few days I've come out on the other side and am ready to talk about the things that have been pulling me through.</p><p>One of them has been the music of Ween. They were a band I did not rate much in the 90s and early 2000s when their profile was highest. They seemed like a joke band and purveyors of the kind of deep hipster irony that I just didn't get as perhaps an overly earnest young person. My biggest encounter with them was hearing that "push the little daisies" song on Beavis and Butthead and the college radio station in grad school spinning "Bananas and Blow." </p><p>It's fitting then that I would finally "get" Ween by hearing them on the radio. One of my favorite DJs on WFMU likes to spin them, and after loving every song he played I realized that I actually really enjoy Ween. It might be that I have started listening to lots of Zappa and Beefheart and so crave the weirdness. It might also be that I am not so earnest anymore and need to mock the world around me instead of trying so hard to fix it. Ween's irreverence has been a welcome addition to my life in a trying time. </p><p>Hearing more of their music I also realized they have some truly heartfelt songs, and that the ironic front gets dropped in surprising and effective ways. I have been digging the <i>Quebec</i> album the most for that reason. I am not sure what <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyxBBFNqXCo" target="_blank">"Transdermal Celebration"</a> is even about, but it has a kind of joy of living beating inside it. That's a feeling that I think we could all use. Put it on and turn it up. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-4472434661605126542024-02-11T09:06:00.000-08:002024-02-11T09:06:37.928-08:00Taylor Swift Is a Welcome Distraction at America's Most Dismal Public Event<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEmvzPbm4J5ynMI-5jtv1D60vY7c_oqZuWASpMqvllMuTJG4c9J0okKzjdNGDEVxBCedkCk0fDDsO_po1V_4x66HUUvsXxcXG80snbfJCYQSGSgb8LDrnnYQ9pMKdsRTIwaUg_6A9exW-h49ih6Tu9cHo9iKngT2HVrUHunNFmzSrdbB74qQ-idRP9m4k" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="880" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEmvzPbm4J5ynMI-5jtv1D60vY7c_oqZuWASpMqvllMuTJG4c9J0okKzjdNGDEVxBCedkCk0fDDsO_po1V_4x66HUUvsXxcXG80snbfJCYQSGSgb8LDrnnYQ9pMKdsRTIwaUg_6A9exW-h49ih6Tu9cHo9iKngT2HVrUHunNFmzSrdbB74qQ-idRP9m4k" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>It's Super Bowl Sunday, and this is the first Super Bowl I can remember whose discourse is dominated by someone who will be merely attending the event instead of playing or performing at halftime. There's already been a secondary discourse about why the hell conservatives seem so upset at Taylor Swift. I am not here to participate in that, but to proclaim that I welcome how she has added something new and welcome to the Super Bowl mix.</p><p>The Super Bowl is by far the most dismal event in American life, and that is saying something. It is supposed to be the championship game of a sport proven to turn its participants' brains into mush, a sport defined by the American dysfunctions of violence and commercial breaks. At this point, however, the Super Bowl is not really a football game. Half of the game's viewers probably have not seen a full football game this season. They are watching because it has become a media spectacle, one of the few that exists anymore that people from the entire broad social spectrum can participate in. It's also just another excuse for the excess consumption of tasteless lite beer and garbage food. It happens on a Sunday evening to boot, making work the next day even more miserable than your average Monday.</p><p>A significant chunk of the audience is watching just for the commercials. Is there anything more dismal than advertising being turned into entertainment? The structure of football itself makes this easy, considering that it has frequent breaks, and the ball is barely in play. Famously, there are only eleven minutes of action in a broadcast that lasts over three hours, and a lot of that action is boring two yard runs up the middle. The Super Bowl thus represents the triumph of capitalism where the advertising at the game ends up being more significant than the game itself. </p><p>Even though I can't tear my eyes away, I've long felt that the Super Bowl sucks. It's certainly appropriate that due to changes in the NFL's schedule that it is played in mid-February, the most depressing, wretched time of the year. This year, Taylor Swift's presence has led to Super Bowl backlash for all the wrong reasons from the world's most irritating reactionaries. I, on the other hand, welcome her participation. She will give something to bond with my daughters over, who are normally lukewarm on this event. Swift is a cultural phenomenon on the level of Beatlemania right now, and like Beatlemania it's a lot of fun to participate in. Certainly a lot more fun than three hours of commercials. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-28824103193207489412024-01-28T19:22:00.000-08:002024-01-28T19:22:25.684-08:00The Glory of Magazines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh53letDmaN06MExHZ3DxvZr4AqdJALms8SFOU53Gz7RHF3bk2NhWxClSq82-3m6wfvHK3_1FSy_NWDB2dPdNHBWk_eYq8Ph79M11u755Y2iyugLWKgCCok_ANjecAybC-v8BtYa46dIyx2ZYnnujGIPLhfaqrxo9OhMxyM3Vj6BDKCeZRX_XZPrQH0J-w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="560" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh53letDmaN06MExHZ3DxvZr4AqdJALms8SFOU53Gz7RHF3bk2NhWxClSq82-3m6wfvHK3_1FSy_NWDB2dPdNHBWk_eYq8Ph79M11u755Y2iyugLWKgCCok_ANjecAybC-v8BtYa46dIyx2ZYnnujGIPLhfaqrxo9OhMxyM3Vj6BDKCeZRX_XZPrQH0J-w" width="180" /></a></div><p>I was recently in New York with my children. At one point they asked to go a newsstand to see if they had a copy of the Taylor Swift cover of <i>Time </i>magazine (my daughters are dedicated Swifties.) It struck me in that moment that magazines occupied a very different place in their life than mine, more collectors' items than an essential part of life. </p><p>I owe a lot of who I am to magazines. For years people would compliment me on my the breadth of my knowledge and my ability to recall random facts. I am less impressed by this than others, but I learned a lot of this stuff from being an avid magazine reader in my youth. In junior high I would walk to the public library every day after school and just raid the magazine section, which was the part of the library where I would wait to get picked up. I was not too discriminating. I read Time the most since it was the consensus news magazine at the time, but dipped a toe in Newsweek and US News. I would get intrigued by both The New Republic and The National Review, unaware of their rival ideological perspectives. In a lighter mood, I would peruse People and Life.</p><p>At home I had a prized subscription to Sports Illustrated. It gave me a far deeper understanding of the sporting world than I was getting from my daily doses of Sportscenter. I got it every Thursday, the same day my sisters and I went to piano lessons. I always finished first, then would sit on my teacher's basement floor and read the magazine. It was always such a welcome moment of solitude and discovery. At the public library I would branch out and read the now defunct Sport and Inside Sports (for some reason there was no Sporting News.) I also had a subscription to MAD magazine, a publication that greatly attuned my young bullshit detector and allowed me to look at my surroundings with a clearer eye. </p><p>Magazines served me well later in life, too. In high school I would scour the reviews in the back of Spin magazine and use them as a guide to find the kind of indie rock albums they did not play on the radio in my neck of the woods. As a college student I did competitive debate, and to prepared by reading as much of The Economist as I could. In my off hours between classes I would go to the campus library and pick up and read magazines, recreating those middle school moments. Afterwards I had low wage jobs as a gas station and library clerk, and in both cases reading magazines at the counter helped me pass the time in that pre-cell phone world. Once I had my first real job and could afford creature comforts I immediately subscribed to the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. As often as I could, I would pick up issues of Mojo and Uncut at the bookstore. Some of them were so dense with insights that I've held on to them through multiple decades and moves. </p><p>Magazines have alas fallen on hard times. There's talk that Sports Illustrated will soon be dead after years on life support. <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olivet-david-jang/" target="_blank">Newsweek's new ownership has ties to a cult</a>. It's also been interesting to see that we just can't give them up. When Time announced Taylor Swift as their Person of the Year it dominated public discourse for days after. Evidently the editorial decisions made by magazines still matter to people, even if they were not as seismic as Time's <a href="https://time.com/isgoddead/" target="_blank">"Is God Dead?"</a> cover from the 60s (or Demi Moore's nude pregnant cover photo on Vanity Fair from the 90s, for that matter.)</p><p>Being the Luddite sentimentalist that I am, I have responded to this state of affairs by subscribing to magazines. I had let my New Yorker subscription lapse years ago, but immediately resubscribed the day pandemic lockdown began. Since then a friend gifted my a Texas Monthly subscription, which I enjoyed. I have subscribed to the Atlantic and Vanity Fair (it came free with my New Yorker sub and I've enjoyed it) since then. When I went to the newsstand with my daughters I picked up the most recent New Republic and was so impressed by it that I may indeed add another subscription. Who knows, maybe I will bite the bullet and get the meaty New York Review of Books back in my life (sorry Harper's, you've gone hack.) </p><p>Not all of these publications are paywalled, but even then, it's worth it. The experience of reading a magazine online is so erratic and fractured. When I use my New Yorker app they keep pushing little web articles responding to current events to the top of the feed. I don't subscribe to the New Yorker for that, but for the voluminous studies of subjects that I didn't know I was interested in until I picked up the magazine. Just picking up the magazine is a great experience. It is not an agglomeration of links but a carefully considered product from front to back, the result of great effort and human creativity. (The French Dispatch is one of my favorite Wes Anderson films because it understands the aesthetics of magazines, which are not replicated anywhere else.) </p><p>I am not sure how long paper copies of all the magazines I subscribe to will even be around, so I am trying to cherish them while I can. I also think there's just a chance that they will make a comeback. My daughters have long been intrigued by my copies of the New Yorker and like to formulate their own answers to the cartoon caption contest. They have a couple of subscriptions themselves, a love that I hope will blossom. At a time when the internet has increasingly become a cesspool of AI goop interspersed with popup ads and clickbait links, a well-composed magazine is a necessary antidote. Go read them while you can and maybe we can keep them around longer. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-83029265582586469612024-01-15T06:57:00.000-08:002024-01-15T06:57:00.427-08:00Iowa Caucus MLK Day Thoughts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Ybg0m5ySBJ4zblf5RUmzbHifKaszaPxSoN8awiipJOqKYid9iAC2IaKo9sspBlF8rHiOvM_iVqutfBTRUE5qRqIwAwZ4htU0MmPncALYMjKZxweGqALR6g_KKaXNKruC06Fq2UmAyoEpb_01LoZ14yeVGepCP28J3xTHICZIh8WepLq_eodmD6WzR5A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="2000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Ybg0m5ySBJ4zblf5RUmzbHifKaszaPxSoN8awiipJOqKYid9iAC2IaKo9sspBlF8rHiOvM_iVqutfBTRUE5qRqIwAwZ4htU0MmPncALYMjKZxweGqALR6g_KKaXNKruC06Fq2UmAyoEpb_01LoZ14yeVGepCP28J3xTHICZIh8WepLq_eodmD6WzR5A" width="320" /></a></div><br />There's an irony to the Republican Party holding their first caucus on Martin Luther King Day. On the day we honor a man who demanded that the nation live up to its oft-proclaimed ideals of freedom and justice, we are seeing a wannabe dictator whose slogan is about reversing this country's gains since MLK's times about to trounce his opponents. Nikki Haley, who is supposed to be the "moderate" alternative, is a South Carolina conservative who refused to name slavery as a cause of the Civil War. The "party of Lincoln" has become the inheritor of the Lost Cause and is the political home of the people who fought so hard to stop the civil rights movement. <div><br /></div><div>This sadly should come as no surprise. King is so universally admired and claimed today that it is hard to know that he was a controversial figure in his lifetime. The FBI had him surveilled and used that information to blackmail him and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/how-public-attitudes-toward-martin-luther-king-jr-have-changed-since-the-1960s/" target="_blank">in 1966 only 27% of white Americans said they had a positive view of </a>MLK. Those people's political children (and hell some of the original bigots are still alive) are Trump's base. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's also hard to remember there was a time when King even getting a holiday was controversial. Jesse Helms, the avatar of Southern white racist migration from the Democratic to the Republican Party, tried to filibuster the bill establishing the day. Ronald Reagan, president at the time, implied in his public statements that he was holding his nose and voting for the holiday out of political considerations, rather than his own convictions. Some states like Arizona did not recognize the holiday (as Public Enemy famously denounced) while others used the day to celebrate both King and Confederates. <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/16/mlk-day-states-confederate-holidays-slavery" target="_blank">Alabama and Mississippi still celebrate King and Lee's birthday on this day</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Eric Foner called Reconstruction "America's Unfinished Revolution," and Dr King's efforts were part of a Second Reconstruction that also remains unfinished. The spectacle of Republican candidates clamoring to show their opposition to birthright citizenship and their support of banning Black history in schools is proof of this (if we still needed any.) While it might be depressing to face these facts 56 years after King's death, I want to use this day as a call to action. His death and the deaths of so many others who fought for equality should not be in vain. It's up to us to carry on their legacy and vindicate them. If anything else, the spectacle in Iowa today is a reminder of the stakes. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-89435124764321401432024-01-11T18:08:00.000-08:002024-01-11T18:08:32.723-08:00Low, "Just Make It Stop" (Track of the Week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEPLXTx1D5GeRf5hs0u3Qneree9z2BmloBHjSdLjmQ34cIof5MOc3ET9Y9RngpE6TQWDzko097JKqzC-CaeAVd6rmZRbRMjjGw200bJQQN9IUkD22cIMTD-5NBY1w3QaCH9DIycuXmNXEwFjCS2BSNpLsuYq4Lb3PJKXSRNVMz5cEl_FrzNXMQse9aeV4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEPLXTx1D5GeRf5hs0u3Qneree9z2BmloBHjSdLjmQ34cIof5MOc3ET9Y9RngpE6TQWDzko097JKqzC-CaeAVd6rmZRbRMjjGw200bJQQN9IUkD22cIMTD-5NBY1w3QaCH9DIycuXmNXEwFjCS2BSNpLsuYq4Lb3PJKXSRNVMz5cEl_FrzNXMQse9aeV4" width="240" /></a></div><p>Over on my Substack page I wrote about how <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/january-6th-is-a-test-we-are-failing" target="_blank">January 6th is a test that we are currently failing</a>. That reality is hard to hold in my head sometimes, as is a lot of news these days. The daily reports of carnage in Gaza and Ukraine fill me with such sadness, and America's political scene does not fill me with hope. It is hard not to get stuck in a doom loop.</p><p>Beyond distancing myself from social media, I have managed to cope by paradoxically embracing my negative emotions. Our broken world is a cruel, capricious place where virtue goes unrewarded and the worst people never face justice. If you try to deny that basic, unalterable fact you will make yourself insane with anger and grief. The best artists and philosophers instead teach us how to endure this existence and even flourish in it despite its inherent absurdity. </p><p>To that end I have been reading Kierkegaard again, but also listening to the right kind of music. Last week while listening to WFMU I happened to hear the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAdzJ1U0RU" target="_blank">"Just Make It Stop"</a> by Low and it stopped me in my tracks. </p><p>I'd listened to some of Low' music before, but not this song. For a band considered "slow core" it's pretty fast-paced. The lyrics, however, are harrowing. The singer's heart is broken by this world and she begs and pleads for all of it to just stop. She's not suicidal or anything, just tired and worn out and needing a break from the never-ending pain and horror that she knows actually will not ever stop. </p><p>This is an emotion I have felt at many times in my life, a desperate need to escape the inescapable, cruel reality that none of us can break from as long as we are living. Kierkegaard calls despair "the sickness unto death," and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAdzJ1U0RU" target="_blank">"Just Make It Stop"</a> articulates that feeling better than any other song that I've heard. In an especially cruel irony Mimi Parker, the singer of this song, was cut down by cancer in 2022.</p><p>Lest you think I am horribly depressed or something, I am not. Making peace with the wretchedness of this world is necessary to overcoming it. In a year that I am sure will prove to be an awful one, the soul needs preparation. Once we dispose ourselves of childish optimism, we can actually get down to the real work of fighting the good fight against the worst of this world, victory or no victory.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-46966042698367930532024-01-05T15:57:00.000-08:002024-01-05T15:57:00.490-08:00Establishing a New News Diet For a New Year<p> <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/establishing-a-new-news-diet-for" target="_blank">Over at Substack </a>I wrote a piece that people seem to like about having a better news diet. The new year isn't just a good time to think about what we eat and drink, but also how we engage with the news. </p><p>After I finished writing it I (of course) thought of a lot of things I forgot to mention. For example, it's really important to get a good source of local news (NOT these fly by night Patch sites.) I'm lucky to live in a place where local journalists have established their own site, which I subscribe to. I increasingly believe that people who are frustrated with the lack of change on the national level could profitably channel that emotion into getting involved in their own backyards. </p><p>When I talked about my news diet, I also forgot to mention <a href="https://www.propublica.org/" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>, whose investigative work is invaluable. I also didn't say much about podcasts. I should have mentioned that I used to listen to stuff like the 538 cast and NPR's politics show but then I realized I had to cut out all horse-race coverage. Instead I just listen to analytical stuff like Know Your Enemy and Unclear and Present Danger. So far my news habit has greatly reduced my stress about the state of the world, so I guess I'm not just talking out of my butt in that piece. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-72587089637067940682023-12-30T09:16:00.000-08:002023-12-30T09:16:25.648-08:00Predictions for 2024 and the Best of the Blog of 2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzibM63EdFVN8o9PxAg2SAcgoIljIJYkhte59ktnyiYG15h9vclmgl_c-O0y6zovzzYZiHl0unJmB2QHX1mjvfkO2CB_tAJso-5srN2NuL98urqhzyfoI9nHxjOAt51Yj6F7g97tZu_wWUyK5oh38xArx82CcXfyn5zRDVrqpgQvcKOlkbddTvLqTSNTM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="800" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzibM63EdFVN8o9PxAg2SAcgoIljIJYkhte59ktnyiYG15h9vclmgl_c-O0y6zovzzYZiHl0unJmB2QHX1mjvfkO2CB_tAJso-5srN2NuL98urqhzyfoI9nHxjOAt51Yj6F7g97tZu_wWUyK5oh38xArx82CcXfyn5zRDVrqpgQvcKOlkbddTvLqTSNTM" width="320" /></a></div><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/predictions-for-2024" target="_blank">Over on my Substack I made some predictions for 2024</a>. To sum it up, film audiences will continue to embrace non-blockbuster movies, voter turnout will drop, the Constitutional crisis will intensify, social media discourse will continue to fragment, but there will also be signs of a new consensus. </p><p>As I do every year, I like to boost what I consider to be the best of what I've written this year. To start things off, I am most proud of my chapter in <i><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-and-Power-of-Bob-Dylans-Live-Performances-Play-a-Song-for/Callahan-Carney/p/book/9781032315416" target="_blank">The Power and Politics of Bob Dylan's Live Performances: Play a Song For Me</a></i>, now out with Routledge. It was years in the making and an enjoyable project to complete. </p><p>As far as my online writing goes, here's some things I wrote worth checking out last year:</p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/the-need-for-a-values-conversation" target="_blank">The Need For A Values Conversation From The Left</a></p><p>I wrote this over at Substack on how the Left has ceded talk of "values" to the Right. This is bad for many reasons, not least that it prevents discussion of the moral failings of capitalism. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/the-crisis-we-see-but-cant-name" target="_blank">The Crisis We See But Can't Name</a></p><p>I wrote here about the reports of increased mental illness and depression in young people as well as lowered life expectancy. It pairs well with the last post in terms of naming the ways unfettered capitalism is undermining our social fabric. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/the-lockdown-insights-worth-salvaging" target="_blank">The Lockdown Insights Worth Salvaging</a></p><p>I wrote this one staying at my friend's cabin in March, reflecting on what we could get out a pandemic world that had passed. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/chatgpt-and-the-monstrousness-of" target="_blank">ChatGPT and the Monstrousness of Silicon Valley Ideology</a></p><p>I mostly avoided AI discourse because this is all I have to say about it. </p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/03/track-of-week-fountains-of-wayne-sick.html" target="_blank">Track of the Week: Fountains of Wayne "Sick Day"</a></p><p>One of my favorites in this series this year</p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/what-america-feels-like-after-a-weekend" target="_blank">What America Feels Like After A Weekend in Canada</a></p><p>Spending some time in Montreal highlighted what ails the US.</p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/notes-on-a-journey-to-small-town" target="_blank">Notes on a Trip to Small Town America</a></p><p>I wrote this after visiting my rural Nebraska homeland. As with the prior post, travel highlighted the challenges we face. </p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/05/tis-season-for-narragansett-beer.html" target="_blank">'Tis the Season for Narragansett Beer</a></p><p>Every now and then I like to extoll the virtues of a favorite low-rent product. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/we-need-languages" target="_blank">We Need Languages</a></p><p>Language learning is being attacked across the board, a huge loss as I argue here. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/that-last-day-of-school-feeling" target="_blank">That Last Day of School Feeling</a></p><p>One of the great things about being a teacher is getting to have the rush of the last of school still in my life. </p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/06/70s-airport-movies-as-pre-historic.html" target="_blank">70s Airport Movies as Pre-historic Blockbusters</a></p><p>I got into some weird rabbit holes this year, including the airport movies of the 70s.</p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/07/what-way-july-4th-is-celebrated-says.html" target="_blank">What the Way July 4th is Celebrated Says About America's Divides</a></p><p>Wrote this one at the request of a longtime friend and reader. It is an interesting way to see the rural-urban split. </p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/search/label/Summer%20of%20Springsteen" target="_blank">Summer of Springsteen</a></p><p>I did a series this summer where I listened to all of the Boss's albums in order and wrote about them. I think it's pretty great! I capped it off<a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/how-bruce-springsteen-got-me-ready" target="_blank"> with a Substack about the concert</a> where I finally got to see him.</p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/what-i-saw-on-the-last-day-of-the" target="_blank">What I Saw on the Last Day of the Mets Season</a></p><p>My favorite baseball writing of the year. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/shane-macgowan-and-the-sadness-of" target="_blank">Shane MacGowan and the Sadness of Diaspora</a></p><p>Another music essay I am proud of. </p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/11/tuesdays-election-illustrates-why.html" target="_blank">Tuesday's Election Illustrates Why Republicans Gerrymander and Suppress the Vote</a></p><p>This was me beginning to think through my theory that we actually do have a potential consensus on issues like abortion.</p><p><a href="https://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2023/11/seeing-bob-dylan-on-rainy-jersey-night.html" target="_blank">Seeing Bob Dylan on a Rainy New Jersey Night</a></p><p>Another great geezer rock show that prompted thoughts on persistence and mortality. </p><p><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/2023-the-year-reality-died" target="_blank">2023: The Year Reality Died</a></p><p>I am really proud of my framing here. Write your local pundit to get them to adopt it, too!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-14734740725770647592023-12-23T17:49:00.000-08:002023-12-23T17:49:16.244-08:00Tom Waits, "Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis" (Track of the Week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHg_8hEj6bimbV1OboaQBBx_QQ9tbcgP1KwksMkgwOBnRTh7Y3njBoasCQ3w4j_WvDqxtnK9W81HXkaqycq9GBPYcLgb4InISoW2Z4k3nhgdSHTmc8vO3ob--ldqv7QqytBp6DCRcRcQv_C5oFhA_zkYMpXxxeNNSfYaPnLdwyilETmHXKo-09CQ33CMo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHg_8hEj6bimbV1OboaQBBx_QQ9tbcgP1KwksMkgwOBnRTh7Y3njBoasCQ3w4j_WvDqxtnK9W81HXkaqycq9GBPYcLgb4InISoW2Z4k3nhgdSHTmc8vO3ob--ldqv7QqytBp6DCRcRcQv_C5oFhA_zkYMpXxxeNNSfYaPnLdwyilETmHXKo-09CQ33CMo" width="240" /></a></div><p>This last week has been a real roller coaster. My winter break began, and on Wednesday I got to see a bunch of my former students at an event at my school. On Thursday, I got to bum around New York City for the day. When I got home, I went into the basement and saw that our boiler was leaking and our heat was off. Turns out we need a new one! Merry fucking Christmas.</p><p>In a strange twist of events, this whole fiasco has me feeling more optimistic than I have in awhile. Yeah we are confronted with an annoying and expensive problem, but we are going to fix it. I was also able to find a way to travel with my family instead of being stuck here waiting to get the boiler fixed, so Christmas has been saved, too. In a fit of good feeling <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/dont-let-2024-be-the-year-of-the" target="_blank">I wrote a Substack piece on establishing some good habits for engaging in politics in 2024</a>. The fascists want us confused and hopeless, we need to put our shoulders to the wheel and ignore the bullshit. </p><p>I have to get up at 3AM tomorrow for my flight so I am trying to relax myself by drinking a Manhattan and listening to Tom Waits music from the 70s. I don't think he really showed his true genius until the 80s, but in the polyester decade he cut one of the great sad Christmas songs, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxVo5mjK4eg" target="_blank">"Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis."</a> It's resonating with me because it's about persevering through some shit times. After every crappy day comes sleep and then a new morning. Maybe that new day will be shit too, but perhaps it won't. </p><p>The whole premise of the song is a dark joke. Christmas cards that come with a yearly round-up of life events usually come from middle-class families wanting to brag on Susie's grades and Bobby's position on the varsity squad. They don't come from sex workers living a hand to mouth existence on the margins of society. The narrator's life is hard. She talks about a record from the person she's writing to, but also that her record player had been stolen. She tried going back to live with her parents in Omaha but "everyone I used to know is either dead or in prison." Now's she's back in Minneapolis "and I think I'm going to stay." By the end she admits she's in jail and needs help. In the worst and most desperate straits, she's still thinking that things can turn around. After all, "I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's Day." </p><p>The holidays are a time of reflection, which can often make us rue the ways our lives didn't turn out the way we thought they would. But even in the worst circumstances, people still find ways to keep on living. My busted boiler is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Tomorrow is another day. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-74117573302923582252023-12-17T16:33:00.000-08:002023-12-17T16:33:30.174-08:00The Holdovers and Alexander Payne's Cinema of Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA044h5Yx-eg7OG0P3lxnquXl7ppoOZ3OegLlN3Lk6SHiWxq-pURAfZacUyIKMWfc7F4IEXLpOMnZSykO7eohtVz_HYtQg9ibx4FeX8KOQkOK0PpBp1eFxgpjCotZtIYjQN7y4y2tEF65QLzgZQFqi7iCMCJMBMnbPoDnC7T8A3bfJehz6S4NyeZR3LrM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1356" data-original-width="944" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA044h5Yx-eg7OG0P3lxnquXl7ppoOZ3OegLlN3Lk6SHiWxq-pURAfZacUyIKMWfc7F4IEXLpOMnZSykO7eohtVz_HYtQg9ibx4FeX8KOQkOK0PpBp1eFxgpjCotZtIYjQN7y4y2tEF65QLzgZQFqi7iCMCJMBMnbPoDnC7T8A3bfJehz6S4NyeZR3LrM" width="167" /></a></div><p>Yesterday I had the good fortune to see <i>The Holdovers</i> in the theater. It's been out for awhile, so I saw it in a small box inside of a small-town independent movie theater, which was pretty much the perfect combination. </p><p>I had seen the trailer multiple times, and I knew the movie would be catnip for me. Not only was one of the main characters a history teacher at a private school (like me), it was about the melancholy side of the holidays, it was set in the 1970s, and it was directed by Alexander Payne. What a combo! I was glad that it exceeded my expectations.</p><p>Payne has long been one of my favorite filmmakers, and not just because he's a fellow Nebraskan. He started out making wicked satires like <i>Citizen Ruth </i>and <i>Election</i>, but since <i>About Schmidt</i> has mostly made films about life itself, in particular how we deal with its inevitable pains and disappointments. As I have entered middle age, that subject has felt much more real. I have probably never cried harder in a movie theater than I did when I watched <i>Nebraska</i> because it so perfectly represented the world where I am from and I had never imagined ever seeing its stilted emotional landscape being put up on a big screen for all the world to see. </p><p>I cried a lot at the movie theater yesterday, too. I knew that mourning a loved one was a theme because of the school's chef losing her son in Vietnam. I did not know it was also about the experience of mourning a loved one while they are still alive because a mental illness has made them into someone else. (I won't give away any spoilers beyond that.) That's a kind of mourning I am very familiar with. </p><p>The pains and disappointments of life are often followed by resentments, something Payne explores deftly in this film and others. Giamatti's teacher character resents his wealthy students for their privilege, even more for their obliviousness to it. He may live in a campus apartment and drive a shit car, but he gets to put them in their place when he fails them on their exams. Of course, this is not a healthy way to go through life. I think too of his character in <i>Sideways</i>, the father in <i>Nebraska</i>, and the title character in <i>About Schmidt</i>. All of them seem beaten down by life's unfairness and the feeling that things should have turned out differently.</p><p>The other characters in <i>The Holdovers</i> have ample reasons for resentment. Angus is stuck alone on the holidays because his mother would rather vacation with her new husband. Mary had her son's promising life snuffed out by a stupid and unjust war. In middle age I have learned that resentment is the soul killer. Life is unfair and heartless but dwelling on it will make you insane. If I think too long about how I work hard to teach students who are often blase about an education that costs more than my old yearly salary as an assistant professor I get paralyzed. </p><p>We all have to find ways to overcome the dynamic of disappointment and resentment because there are only a blessed few whose lives turn out the way they want them to. Even then, bad things happen. I heard this week that an old classmate of mine who was a good dude and had gone on to be a highly successful basketball coach is beset with a painful, deadly illness. For some cruel reason the hardest and most untimely losses of life among people I care about have happened in December, so I can't get through the holiday season without thinking about how some people are robbed of the time they should have had on this earth. </p><p>I appreciate Alexander Payne's cinema of life because he gets at the dailiness of these emotions. Certain feelings are always with us, sometimes as a barely perceptible ache, sometimes as an all-consuming fire. I also appreciate how the endings are never neat. The characters in <i>The Holdovers</i> find ways to survive and gain some needed perspective, but there's no guarantee that they won't get pulled back into the undertow of disappointment and resentment. We can only try to handle it as best we can. I hope Payne keeps making movies like this because they've helped me with my own process. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-44343873498183911752023-12-16T14:04:00.000-08:002023-12-16T14:04:31.072-08:002023: The Year Reality Died<p> Over on Substack I wrote something I am pretty proud of called <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/2023-the-year-reality-died" target="_blank">"2023: The Year Reality Died."</a> </p><p>As I mention, it's the culmination of almost twenty years of major changes in how we understand and interact with the world. The rise of AI and the destruction of Twitter are two things I see as key in this development. </p><p>I also recently got a book chapter published! It's about Bob Dylan's engagement with the 1976 Bicentennial, available in the new Routledge book <i>T<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-and-Power-of-Bob-Dylans-Live-Performances-Play-a-Song-for/Callahan-Carney/p/book/9781032315416" target="_blank">he Politics and Power of Bob Dylan's Live Performances: Play a Song For Me</a></i>. </p><p>I'll have more things coming on this site for the end of year festivities. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-25139202143187996602023-12-03T14:02:00.000-08:002023-12-03T14:05:48.138-08:00The Pogues, “Dirty Old Town” (Track of the Week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mylifeinmusiclists.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/the-pogues-1985.jpg?w=580" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="349" src="https://mylifeinmusiclists.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/the-pogues-1985.jpg?w=580" width="465" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Shane MacGowan’s death has hit me hard, which has been a bit of a surprise. I love his music, but I can’t say the Pogues were one of my top bands. Based on his legendary hard living it’s a miracle he even made it to 65.</p><p>After thinking about it, I realized I was reeling because it’s especially hard when people who are truly bursting with life leave us. Even their bright flame must eventually be snuffed because all of us mortals live under death’s dominion. We try to avoid that hard fact but a death like his makes it impossible to forget.</p><p>While accomplished songwriters like Bruce Springsteen have been praising MacGowan’s abilities as a songsmith, I’d like to highlight his capacity for interpretation. Making a song your own doesn’t just mean writing it.</p><p>“<a href="https://youtu.be/pupVjQBwASo?feature=shared" target="_blank">Dirty Old Town” </a>was the signature song of folkie Ewan MacColl. He sings of his industrial hometown of Salford, spinning a tale of love and longing. There are kisses, but also old canals, a gasworks, and factory wall. Anyone who is from an obscure place and who has left it behind with fond attachments will understand the feeling of this song.</p><p>MacGowan’s bedraggled growl gives it a fitting grit for a song about a grimy industrial town. The Pogues give it some country flavor, keying into that genre’s own long history of songs longing for home. I heard it today and the radio and felt tears welling up in my eyes. It was partly sadness over death, but mostly my complicated feelings about my own hometown.</p><p>A lot of the sadness over his passing that I’ve heard online and in person is rooted in the longing baked into diasporas. MacGowan grew up in the London area, but spent summers back in Ireland with relatives (his parents were immigrants.) Being in a diaspora means never being totally rooted where you are because an important part of your soul lies across the sea. It is a sadness a lot of people experience but so few could articulate like Shane MacGowan. Pour one out for a real one.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-57038496424943465242023-11-30T17:10:00.000-08:002023-11-30T17:16:10.370-08:00Kissinger is Dead But Realpolitik Lives On<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2_Db8bCEF6RKfjBo_0JSHG5Wg27zts7D8QZvz4aC1bsgFVdZrIQFguR1zKPJyDM0PtIFFcj3Pyo3xaKxQceHjRgA73tMd7Eu69wRZMAy256xooNmMN-M0vW9OtBv2YPnzCTY1kHG6spHw7m7CNsJXc-qzipEGNDbVGsXw4x6IYQzxiZDHp170c9y11WU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="580" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2_Db8bCEF6RKfjBo_0JSHG5Wg27zts7D8QZvz4aC1bsgFVdZrIQFguR1zKPJyDM0PtIFFcj3Pyo3xaKxQceHjRgA73tMd7Eu69wRZMAy256xooNmMN-M0vW9OtBv2YPnzCTY1kHG6spHw7m7CNsJXc-qzipEGNDbVGsXw4x6IYQzxiZDHp170c9y11WU" width="308" /></a></div><br /><p>The internet is abuzz with the news of Henry Kissinger's death. Amidst all the jubilation and snark, I have seen little analysis of his actual legacy. I think this might be because those celebrating his demise are well aware that his ideas and approach to foreign affairs are still making their mark on the world.</p><p>Back around 2007 I was living in Grand Rapids, and Kissinger came to town to deliver a talk. I showed up out of curiosity and to see what this man was like in the flesh that I had heard so much about. For years I had heard about his charisma and skill with romance, which seemed inexplicable until that night. When he took the stage, the man talked with a striking air of certainty and obvious erudition. While I strongly disagreed with the conclusions of his analysis, I understood in that moment why he had been such a successful diplomat and political operator. </p><p>He was more of a legend to me to that point, a figure I had seen on television since my youth. In college I took some classes on international politics, where I learned that he was more than a diplomat. Kissinger was a thinker, probably the most important modern proponent of "realism." He referred to this viewpoint with his famous statement, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." A modern day Bismarck, Kissinger defended the doctrines of Realpolitik in a time when international institutions and connections undermined the old certainties of nation-state politics.</p><p>When I took that class in the late 1990s, Kissinger's realism felt very antiquated, the political science equivalent of a leisure suit. The end of the Cold War opened up the possibility of a more global world where peace would be achieved by international cooperation, rather than the machinations of "balance of power." </p><p>9/11 and especially the "war on terror" shook that certainty. The Bush administration's murderously idealistic attempt to remake the Middle East not only discredited neoconservatism, it undermined the belief in globalist, idealist solutions among a lot of people. (Kissinger supported the Iraq invasion, although on different grounds than the neocons.)</p><p>As the neocons have faded, a Trumpian "America First" nationalism dominates the Republican Party. That's certainly not Kissinger's methodology, but both America First and Kissinger's more diplomatic global Realpolitik are rooted in a belief that no moral or legal considerations ought to restrain the government in pursuing the perceived interests of America. Many world leaders from MBS to Putin to Xi to Netanyahu practice Realpolitik with gusto. Kissinger may be dead, but his spirit lives on. Amid the grave dancing we ought to be paying attention to that. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-58468651328814114822023-11-26T16:43:00.000-08:002023-11-26T16:43:04.329-08:00Coping with Winter's Onset<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiEuiSVfNyZ5UeY1-qA0uonIohtZgbEMRpKixuOnL-uzmh4S9vcKImt7f2QiMVHu0X-acZFV-H3bbj01tctlkbb2p4oKMb9VZihU-P_lcDUdAyCqmMkoNzJIuvDI1tYt2zPq36H31NBpXsKJLijJKmteqQYDxsWERMTL-YJfQMXwUt7sESCRon2nCFCG0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiEuiSVfNyZ5UeY1-qA0uonIohtZgbEMRpKixuOnL-uzmh4S9vcKImt7f2QiMVHu0X-acZFV-H3bbj01tctlkbb2p4oKMb9VZihU-P_lcDUdAyCqmMkoNzJIuvDI1tYt2zPq36H31NBpXsKJLijJKmteqQYDxsWERMTL-YJfQMXwUt7sESCRon2nCFCG0" width="320" /></a></div><p>Thanksgiving came, and with it, winter. Night falls hard, the darkness at 5 making it feel like ten o'clock at night. The wind bites, stabbing through the buttons of my coat. Even when the clouds clear, the sunlight feels feeble, cut at an angle. </p><p>I feel the transitions in the seasons more than most people. My clothing, diet, and even music choices change radically this time of year. The outdoors goes from something to be enjoyed to something to be endured. I embrace the holiday season as a fun distraction, but that makes the first two and a half months of the year even more bleak. Knowing I will soon have to live through them is already weighing on me.</p><p>I have well-worn coping mechanisms, but a little perspective is helping me face this winter. It hit me today that we are almost four years away from the anniversary of the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. I suddenly remembered the awfulness of the winters of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. The deaths, the disruptions, illnesses and uncertainty are something I never want to revisit. Last winter I was still waiting for the axe to drop. This winter, for the first time in years, I can just have the good ole winter ache without a big blast of fear. Maybe things will go south and we will have another outbreak, but I am at enough peace right now to not get antsy about it.</p><p>As those of us in the northern latitudes face winter I'd like to share some of my traditional coping mechanisms.</p><p><b>Root Vegetables</b></p><p>To get through winter you've got to stay healthy, and as quality fresh fruits and vegetables get scarcer with the change in temperature, root vegetables are there for you. Throw those parsnips in your stews, boil and mash up a rutabaga with some carrots and your stomach will since a happy song. </p><p><b>Canadian Folk Music</b></p><p>I listen to inordinate amounts of Gordon Lightfoot, early Leonard Cohen, and Ian & Sylvia in winter. Who knows better how to weather the cold than Canadians? The music soothes me to boot. No song embodies winter to me more than Gord's "The Way I Feel," either the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKDJZEtEV8" target="_blank">acoustic</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEehNZUnsg0" target="_blank">electric version</a>. </p><p><b>Bourbon</b></p><p>When you've got to shovel your walk there's no better prep or reward than a shot of bourbon. The whiskey keeps you warm, and that complex bourbon flavor has the depth to match the emotions of the winter months. Putting it in a hot toddy? Even better. </p><p><b>Cardigans</b></p><p>Feeling chilly when you want to be cozy? Put on a cardigan and all your problems are solved, baby!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-57105415103273864792023-11-21T20:21:00.000-08:002023-11-21T20:21:44.426-08:00Seeing Bob Dylan on a Rainy Jersey Night<p>Tonight I got to see the last show on Bob Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/music-break-talkin-bob-dylan" target="_blank">As I wrote about on my Substac</a>k, I have been anticipating this for months now. I was not disappointed. </p><p>His band set a perfect smoky vibe with Dylan behind the piano. I was in a large theater but it was a performance meant for a cozy club. Moody selections from his most recent album mixed with old chestnuts of the kind normies don't know. He started with "Watching the River Flow" and ended with "Every Grain of Sand." On the latter, he played a harmonica solo, a surprise where I could hear echoes of Woody Guthrie and freedom songs in the Mississippi heat.</p><p>It was hard to believe I was hearing an 82 year old; he played like a man reborn. The time in the hourglass is running out, but like his namesake, Dylan raged against the dying of the light. As I look at my own 48 years on this earth it's hard to believe there's anything coming that I haven't already seen. This show made me believe there's still surprises in store. </p><p>We all have only one life to live, and each one is a fragile flame, ready to be blown out at any moment. In the meantime, we live and try to flourish. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-83464858090813618162023-11-09T16:22:00.001-08:002023-11-09T16:22:31.028-08:00Tuesday's Election Illustrates Why Republicans Gerrymander and Suppress Votes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9ReCAdpwGdL-lroyurQzCCU60i0yq6iwsW61hdbo7IBp_z5dZrrs4LOegk7PEmE5ntvC4-7VkkPfwU9BO-oTHvuSyt8hKkqZ6nRPrxNrxEUYxFGyEXZ-GgCcRAm3A0o6OB26ptYYnysbM8t8woAPdebaKSpJFYqi0_2xvIkqez8LOOOBSdfOdulODAyM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9ReCAdpwGdL-lroyurQzCCU60i0yq6iwsW61hdbo7IBp_z5dZrrs4LOegk7PEmE5ntvC4-7VkkPfwU9BO-oTHvuSyt8hKkqZ6nRPrxNrxEUYxFGyEXZ-GgCcRAm3A0o6OB26ptYYnysbM8t8woAPdebaKSpJFYqi0_2xvIkqez8LOOOBSdfOdulODAyM" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/election-night-2008-fifteen-years" target="_blank">Over on Substack</a> before Tuesday's election I was remembering the anniversary of Obama winning the 2008 election. I argued that the current anti-democratic, white nationalist Republican Party has its origins in that time. The 2007-2008 economic collapse helped undermine belief in Reaganomics, even among conservative voters. Trump figured this out, and won Republican support while giving out free money during COVID and assailing free trade. Sarah Palin's "Real America" talk in 2008 was a harbinger of the future. <div><br /></div><div>As the Republican Party has become the party of populist nationalism, it has come to rely on a shrinking demographic of aging white people, many of them living in declining rural and Rust Belt areas losing population. This has made it necessary for Republicans to tilt elections and use the non-democratic institutions in our system to maintain power. It's why they try to suppress votes and aggressively gerrymander. It's why they managed to rig the Supreme Court to overturn reproductive rights despite winning the presidential popular vote only once since 1988. The electoral college allowed them to put in two losers of the popular vote with disastrous consequences this century.</div><div><br /></div><div>Writing two days after the election, I now see that the Republican agenda is even more unpopular than I first realized. In red Ohio voters decisively approved of voting rights and legal weed. An anti-abortion Republican challenger for the governor's mansion went down in flames in red Kentucky. Virginia Republican governor Glenn Youngkin's attempt to get control of the state legislature ended in embarrassment after he floated a 15 week abortion ban "compromise." </div><div><br /></div><div>This is part of a larger and longer trend. In many states with Republican state houses, voters have passed ballot initiatives to overturn laws passed by Republican legislatures. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/10/politics/medicaid-minimum-wage-midterm-election-ballot-measures/index.html" target="_blank">Voters have approved Medicaid expansion, raises in minimum wage</a>, and abortion rights. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/nebraska-voters-decide-ballot-box-public-money-private-103877234" target="_blank">In my home state of Nebraska, voters have approved an initiative to be put on the next ballot to overturn a law diverting money from public to private schools.</a> In some of these states gerrymandering has all but eliminated free and fair elections. Tuesday night's referendums, which circumvent gerrymandering, show why.</div><div><br /></div><div>Intriguingly, there also appears to be a significant number of people who vote for Republicans while voting against some of their core priorities when given the chance. If Democrats can solve this riddle, they have the chance to make big gains in places assumed to be hostile territory. For a long time conventional wisdom said that opposition to abortion explained why so many voters in red states could disagree with Republican economic policy yet for politicians who prioritized the interests of the wealthy. The recent abortion referendum votes show this is not the case at all. Perhaps the core issue is actually white resentment, perhaps not. As Andy Beshear illustrates in Kentucky, it is not impossible for Democrats to do well in red states while still governing as Democrats and not Mancin-style Republican Lite. </div><div><br /></div><div>Just as Donald Trump changed the older political coalitions with his focus on nationalism, abortion has the chance to reorient things in another direction. Basic assumptions are changing. Opposition to abortion, unions, higher wages, LGBTQ rights, and public educators are not winning issues anymore. The Reagan era was a long time ago. A normal political party would react by moderating their positions, but I expect the maximalist current version of the Republican Party will just double down on diluting the people's voice. After all, the people who vote against them aren't "real Americans."</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-73176383942456916292023-10-31T04:36:00.003-07:002023-10-31T04:36:57.949-07:00Missing the Halloween Spirit This Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMSJzLjrHuMzlr2e0KsDzueTYA99rPFubYHs1RzVUM-bnWxZCqy6QnMalstAqwjZoFVAGSOaD2il4Y-R5QN7zx-ZNZwiODyERx1SJ4jBAaMGh1B0c3PDmaiJofxhvCJY-xQnO8_YgwPd93ksCVoTOU-9RLNStDev8k_NCzao5FCe49RBfpdYiMIjTQIuI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="618" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMSJzLjrHuMzlr2e0KsDzueTYA99rPFubYHs1RzVUM-bnWxZCqy6QnMalstAqwjZoFVAGSOaD2il4Y-R5QN7zx-ZNZwiODyERx1SJ4jBAaMGh1B0c3PDmaiJofxhvCJY-xQnO8_YgwPd93ksCVoTOU-9RLNStDev8k_NCzao5FCe49RBfpdYiMIjTQIuI" width="320" /></a></div><p>One of the things I like about the town I live in is how people go all out for Halloween. We usually get a ton of trick or treaters and it's just a blast overall. I was having fun in the leadup to this week, but suddenly I've lost the spirit.</p><p>Part of it has to do with the ridiculous obligations in my life right now, both in terms of work and parenting. I am just tired, all of the time. During the few moments I have to rest my mind is preoccupied with the sad, depressing state of the world. This month has brought war in the Middle East, related murders in this country, a mass shooter, a radical anti-democratic gerrymander in North Carolina, and an election-denying Christian nationalist weirdo being elevated to the Speaker of the House. (<a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/the-slow-coup-rolls-on" target="_blank">I wrote about the latter on Substack</a>.)</p><p>This is all being experienced through a media filter that constantly promotes lies and manipulations of all kinds. It's getting hard to tell the truth, and soon people will stop trying. Once that happens, there's no bottom.</p><p>I can't escape the feeling that everything is collapsing. On inauguration day in 2021, I cried tears of relief and joy, hoping we were through the Trump years. I had been vaccinated against COVID the day before and the two events together felt like two horrible crises might finally be ending. Looking back I can't believe my naivete. Trumpism and COVID are not past. They were tipping points knocking down a rotten and rickety American and world social order that had been teetering for decades. </p><p>Neoliberalism hollowed everything out, including basic social obligations and connectivity. We've lost the capacity for positive collective action and the privations of COVID have made us even more angry and suspicious. We interact through social media, which only brings out the worst in us. In the face of all of this progressives have retreated into making self-righteous statements ("In this house we believe...") because deep down they know there's nothing that can be done about it in any material sense. Social movements have adopted a "leaderless" model allowing them to take to the streets while accomplishing nothing. </p><p>The scariest thing this Halloween is the world we are living in. I once believed in the capacity for change, but right now my main focus is trying to survive the coming onslaught. Just take the shooting in Lewiston, for example. We know there's absolutely no chance that we will regulate guns, and that our society is awash in so many guns and gun nuts that any attempt to regulate them would be useless. A conservative Supreme Court would strike that down, anyway. We talk about the 2024 election as if it's a referendum on democracy, but democracy already lost. </p><p>I tried posting about this on Facebook and people assumed my feeling that Halloween had no joy this year is curmudgeonly, not the result of existential dread over the state of the world. Don't worry, you'll probably be feeling the same way by next Halloween.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-38591156603738290872023-10-28T06:18:00.002-07:002023-10-28T06:18:09.556-07:00Geezer Rock Sweepstakes<p><a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/jasontebbe/p/madonna-mick-jagger-and-the-melancholy?r=cbvk5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web" target="_blank"> Last week on my Substack </a>I wrote about how both Mick Jagger and Madonna are trapped in a rebellious image dated to the epochs when they were the "it" figures. Some of the inspiration came from things I've written on this site. This week I am planning on looking at the implications of what is happening in the House.</p><p>Writing last week's piece got me thinking about "legacy" musical artists who have actually managed to endure and flourish in old age. I've noticed some distinct approaches that I will name here.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The Dolly Parton Approach</i></p><p>Dolly has been a pop culture figure my entire life but I don't think she's ever been as revered as she is now. Lots of people who never seemed to like country music have a lot of affection for her. Beyond opening up to new musical styles and going with the times, her philanthropy has burnished her reputation. Turning yourself into a cultural figure rather than a musical artist seems to pay dividends, especially if it looks like you aren't trying that hard.</p><p><i>The Bob Dylan Approach</i></p><p>Dylan has kept touring consistently for decades, which I think has kept his music fresh. He's been willing to explore new avenues in ways that keep his fans invested while occasionally confounding them. Ever since he sloughed off the "voice of a generation tag" he's also not been interested in stardom. By not caring what people think he's avoided the trap of Madonna and Jagger, who seem painfully addicted to adulation. </p><p><i>The Smokey Robinson/Paul McCartney Approach</i></p><p>Keep playing, keep performing, keep your smile and good nature and keep making your fans happy while never getting too predictable or pretentious. This is the simple path and I don't know why more legacy don't do it.</p><p><i>The Tom Waits Approach</i></p><p>Put out a great album, take a step back, and say nothing. Don't officially "retire," just enjoy life out of the spotlight and people will talk and say "Are they going to ever put another album out?" and "Gee, I miss them." Waits never hurt his reputation by putting out lame records to support cashgrab tours and I respect that. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-65288994804117717332023-10-16T17:49:00.001-07:002023-10-16T17:49:33.999-07:00Putting the House Republicans' Disorder into Historical Context<a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/the-house-speaker-mess-is-a-new-episode" target="_blank">Over at Substack</a> I wrote about the current fight in the Republican party over the Speakership. We are so used to seeing political events in a decontextualized 24 hour news cycle that many miss how McCarthy's fate mirrored those of Boehner and Ryan because the same dynamics are at play. I basically argue that Gingrich broke the House as a legislative body, and that it's impossible for a Republican Speaker to be both his party's ideological firebrand and an effective legislator. <div><br /></div><div>I mention the power of conservative media in the piece, and I after I wrote it <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-house-speaker-mccarthy-trump-0b92b9a88864dcbc9edcba94aede74f3" target="_blank">I read that Sean Hannity is whipping votes for Jim Jordan</a>. I guess I'm pretty smart. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-51567848875347952672023-10-07T14:41:00.002-07:002023-10-07T14:41:22.357-07:00October Baseball<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwtGImcIcbNwFbk86z1T0hUklPudZPSu2WjwYIjq5llO5abSJD0NtjGX43O5UU5KZ1UMMtbjRKkL9DXkat91P3OV4LIXqq9fb76Aae0Uu3sjOuyqXIIGA6V2mODTNswT7_fSqhUmRMm-lsoplkkoFnlQKoXbaT97hebm9fe9_lDn_1fQzgdSqjISgias" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="1200" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgwtGImcIcbNwFbk86z1T0hUklPudZPSu2WjwYIjq5llO5abSJD0NtjGX43O5UU5KZ1UMMtbjRKkL9DXkat91P3OV4LIXqq9fb76Aae0Uu3sjOuyqXIIGA6V2mODTNswT7_fSqhUmRMm-lsoplkkoFnlQKoXbaT97hebm9fe9_lDn_1fQzgdSqjISgias" width="320" /></a></div><p>Last Sunday, I went to the last game of the Mets' season and <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/what-i-saw-on-the-last-day-of-the?utm_source=activity_item" target="_blank">wrote about it over on Substack</a>. I tried to articulate the feelings of both disappointment and longing on the last day of the season when you root for a losing team. I wish things had turned out better, but I am already longing for April and new beginnings. There's always next year.</p><p>In the meantime, I get to watch some high-stakes games in October without the anxiety of my own team's performance hanging over me. Last year I spent the first round of the playoffs ripping my hair out over the Mets' collapse. I would listen to late-season and playoff games on my headphones during my daughter's autumn travel-team softball games. Her coach, a fellow Met fan, wanted the scoring updates. At least I had a fellow sufferer when I delivered bad news. This year, I can just enjoy some baseball.</p><p>When your team is out of the running it still helps to watch the games with a rooting interest. I find it hard to be some impersonal observer of baseball so I still insist on investing myself in at least one team still playing. While this can bring more disappointment, it also pays dividends. Back in 1988, I decided I wanted the underdog Dodgers to best the dominant As. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toCMwEBwLo" target="_blank">When Kirk Gibson hit his improbable home run </a>in game one I felt part of the collective joy and the baseball moment that is closest to a real-life myth. An injured player coming off of the bench so feeble that he can barely manage his eventual home run trot winning it all? That has to be made up. </p><p>I also just enjoy the intensity of October baseball. The change in the weather reflects a radically altered vibe. In the regular season, baseball is the Summer Game (in the words of Roger Angell.) Like those long, languid, sunshiny summer days, the season seems to stretch on forever. There are 162 games, and none in the summer seem make or break. You want to win, but if you lose, there's another chance tomorrow. When the leaves start to fall and the temperature drops, things suddenly change. Losing games means having to go home. The grass browns, the trees shed their leaves, night falls early, and the baseball season wanes. </p><p>When the baseball games matter more in October, the late innings have an emotional intensity that is not matched by any other sport. In other team sports, a late lead is safer because the clock is on your side. In baseball you must get the other team out. Dennis Eckersley could not take a knee or get a trip to the free throw line. He had to pitch to Kirk Gibson. I love those late inning moments, pitchers and batters staring each other down, the tension between pitches reaching an almost unbearable level. </p><p>As an 11 year old I stayed up late by myself to watch game six of the 1986 World Series. I was not an official Mets fan yet, but I decided that I liked their swagger and players like Gooden, Hernandez, Carter, and Strawberry. It looked like they were going down. Infamously, in the 10th inning, the Shea Stadium scoreboard briefly flashed a message of congratulations for the Red Sox, assuming it was all over. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tkQHvPg60" target="_blank">What followed</a> is legendary and confounded any sane expectations a Mets rooter could have had. I was a casual baseball fan going into that game; afterward, I was hooked for life.</p><p>In '87 I saw an intense seven-game series between the Twins and Cardinals. In '88 I witnessed that mythic Gibson homer. In '89 there was a freakin' EARTHQUAKE during a World Series game. In this era the Super Bowl, by contrast, was a ridiculous blowout of whatever weak AFC team had the misfortune to be a sacrificial victim. There have been some other memorable Octobers since, few of them featuring my White Sox and Mets. No matter, I can still dig that October baseball feeling, its triumphs and tragedies. In 2006 I was living in Michigan and swore I heard a statewide collective cry of anguish when the Tigers made their last out. Ten years later I experienced such joy when my many Cubs fan friends and relatives finally got to celebrate. I am looking forward to more October baseball, and for my Phillies, Orioles, and especially Twins fans friends to have something to cheer about. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-41154608546551419282023-09-30T06:01:00.003-07:002023-09-30T06:01:27.072-07:00John Lennon, "Working Class Hero" (Track of the Week)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgusalfMRlvNZvHj8mCPqFgMc2DeCFsZ5Me8vWe9Qm7qrAvKjun83sB-iibi5q2USf0lg9UFbkzXLm3rRpCKioV0Za8Bq5HKyIFPmWxNqUU40gf5pT0tFPrha9F5DwcX8kUmTECizs07RkwcqKXSUEG9FxIBvHhOVkx6D3hlNS6p1ddcRYZ5l8SbkgsjBE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="900" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgusalfMRlvNZvHj8mCPqFgMc2DeCFsZ5Me8vWe9Qm7qrAvKjun83sB-iibi5q2USf0lg9UFbkzXLm3rRpCKioV0Za8Bq5HKyIFPmWxNqUU40gf5pT0tFPrha9F5DwcX8kUmTECizs07RkwcqKXSUEG9FxIBvHhOVkx6D3hlNS6p1ddcRYZ5l8SbkgsjBE" width="263" /></a></div><p>I've written less for this blog in the past month than I have since I first started writing it. The truth is, I am just too tired most evenings to sit and write, or I have other work to do. The start of the school year this year has been especially rough. </p><p>Music is seasonal for me, and every autumn I keep coming back to a playlist I made of songs from the Beatles' first solo records. The shift from summer into fall is mirrored in these songs by the kings of the pop music scene descending out of Beatlemania. In the words of one of Lennon's songs from the era, "I was the walrus, now I'm just John." Fall is a time of reflection for me, and these albums are full of reflective feelings about spending a decade in the eye of the pop cultural storm. Lennon's <i>Plastic Ono Band</i> is the most famously reflective of these albums, with literal primal screams. While most of the songs are painfully personal, he gets political on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMewtlmkV6c" target="_blank">"Working Class Hero."</a> </p><p>Like the rest of his generation, Lennon was the product of the long post-war economic boom in the West, one still not over when he wrote this song. In Britain, it was the era where PM Harold Macmillan could taunt a heckler by saying "you've never had it so good!" The class struggles of the preceding decades seemed to have been drowned in a tidal wave of cheap consumer goods. This song questions what workers actually got in the bargain. Instead of the sunny vistas of postwar consumerism, Lennon sees children cowed by punitive schools, locked early into unfulfilling careers, and working unsatisfying jobs leavened only by the opiate of television at the end of an awful day. </p><p>Lennon uses an old folk riff on acoustic guitar, sounding like the finger-pointing Dylan of "Masters of War." The first lines still hit me in the face, "As soon as you're born they make you feel small/ By giving you no time instead of it all." This month, when I just don't seem to have the time or energy to write, I am feeling it really hard. </p><p>This song does not lay out any specific political plan, but encourages the listener to dump the ideology that keeps them from questioning and changing the system. That's the first, crucial step. In the past decade, I have noticed more and more people refusing to reduce themselves to their job, a process that accelerated during the pandemic. Whereas striking workers were once treated almost as outlaws by normie types, there has been an outpouring of support for the picket lines in recent strikes. Many people are realizing the raw deal that neoliberalism gave them once the "boom years" ended. Over fifty years after writing this song, Lennon smirks from the grave. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-31193010095469533992023-09-25T05:49:00.003-07:002023-09-25T05:49:37.744-07:002016 All Over Again?<p><a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/jasontebbe/p/2016-all-over-again?r=cbvk5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">On my Substack</a> I recently wrote about how many of the large factors influencing the 2024 election are similar to those in 2016. The point is not doom and gloom, but for progressives to act proactively to mitigate them instead of failing to see the issues. (This was the mistake of 2016.) </p><p>I did not talk about the Dobbs decision in my piece, as a friend on Facebook rightly pointed out. It certainly represents a major change from 2016, but I am not sure it is entirely in Democrats' favor. The fact that Dobbs came AFTER Biden's election seemed to underscore the futility of fighting a conservative movement that has decided to use non-democratic means to stay in power. The young people I know seem more fatalistic now, and far less politically committed. One thing that can doom democracy is a feeling that participating in it just doesn't matter. </p><p>Again, I am not saying that Trump will definitely win in 2024, but I consider it a coin flip, which is fearsome enough. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-23008259579065730302023-09-16T16:55:00.005-07:002023-09-16T16:55:41.395-07:00Catching Up and Thoughts on Rock Geezerdom <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjT6bLor1cII-3sFMdxc_gHH1FplAOmJN9AaQE-6oSCYscOA1FndpfbhGYLaXjHLPVPlWD8dykxM0Cx304VQMnUtmZPIAsX4BEFWYKrLdpJJcar_409jtxAwCTSjH0hC7KpQvOydy7WbpFKjFOL4RHOh7DLtiCFmYXsjWA-Hw1i5EuPiBMNB1USWbgBFNQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1581" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjT6bLor1cII-3sFMdxc_gHH1FplAOmJN9AaQE-6oSCYscOA1FndpfbhGYLaXjHLPVPlWD8dykxM0Cx304VQMnUtmZPIAsX4BEFWYKrLdpJJcar_409jtxAwCTSjH0hC7KpQvOydy7WbpFKjFOL4RHOh7DLtiCFmYXsjWA-Hw1i5EuPiBMNB1USWbgBFNQ" width="320" /></a></div><br />The start of the school year had me on the longest hiatus of my blogging career, I think. I have had a ten megaton stress bomb detonated on me and it's been hard to do anything other than just maintain. I have written a couple of things over on Substack, however. <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/we-never-reckoned-with-911" target="_blank">One essay</a> gets into the ways that we have failed to reckon with 9/11 and the wars that followed. <a href="https://jasontebbe.substack.com/p/how-bruce-springsteen-got-me-ready" target="_blank">Another is about how seeing Bruce Springsteen live motivated me for the school year</a>. <div><br /></div><div>That was such a fine experience that when Bob Dylan tickets for shows in Jersey this coming November went on sale Friday, I snatched them up. As I have written about before, people my age (born in the mid-70s) have a strange emotional attachment to the music made by the generation before us. It was a product not just of the long Boomer shadow, but of growing up in the 80s corporatization of the radio waves. I could listen to one station and hear "Sussudio," or another and hear "Whole Lotta Love." The choice wasn't hard.</div><div><br /></div><div>These days it's easy to wonder how long my most beloved geezer rockers will keep running. I bought Springsteen tickets -despite disliking stadium shows- because I wondered if this was my last shot. I am hearing similar rumors about Dylan's upcoming tour. I am also beginning to think I need to find a way to see Neil Young soon, or to finally catch the Stones. </div><div><br /></div><div>In recent years I have gone out of my way to listen to new music, and most of what passes through my Spotify is indie stuff by people in their 20s and 30s. While I enjoy seeing new bands live on their way up, seeing the geezer gods live gives me a feeling on a different level. The Springsteen show, for instance, was like a religious experience. I felt the same way when I saw Dylan the day after the 2004 election and he played "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" and sang "Sometimes even the President of the United States must stand naked" with a barbed intonation. </div><div><br /></div><div>What I also find interesting is that some of the geezer gods still make great and interesting new music, and others don't. <i>Rough and Rowdy Ways</i> is one of Dylan's best albums, in my opinion. Springsteen's more recent songs did not sound slight when played live next to his oldies. I really enjoyed Paul McCartney's last album, especially how much he experimented. Contrast this with The Rolling Stones, who have not put out an album of new material since 2006. They just put out a single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mEC54eTuGw" target="_blank">"Angry,"</a> that is, shall we say, suboptimal. It sounds like an outtake from <i>Voodoo Lounge</i>, and very well might be. Mick's posturing is parodic, and the production sounds dated, but not dated to the Stones' heyday. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's telling that the video features the young actress Sydney Sweeney dancing beneath images of the Stones' glorious past. The Stones simply aren't allowed to grow old, and self-reflection is anti-thetical to their music. Springsteen's concert was full of references to mortality, aging, and dedications to the departed. I wonder if the next Stones tour will do much to reckon with Charlie Watts' absence. </div><div><br /></div><div>I still love those old Stones records, but as I age I have less patience for people who try to fool the world that they are forever young. Springsteen and Dylan have crafted some profound songs in their later years about being old, songs I bet I will keep with me when I reach their current age and they are long gone. Maybe just maybe we can convince Mick and Keef to be a little vulnerable and admit that death's cold hand is soon coming for them, too. </div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-1236316905563462023-08-30T10:06:00.004-07:002023-08-30T10:06:50.201-07:00Summer of Springsteen Part Six: Living Legend<p>I was worried that I was not going to finish this project by Friday, when I will finally be seeing the Boss live. What helped was that I generally really like his most recent work. I did a listen of Dylan's albums two years ago, and there were wild swings in quality. Listening to his whole catalog, I was struck by how Springsteen managed to maintain such a high standard. While I won't be revisiting some of his albums, none of them could be called bad. </p><p>Springsteen has embraced his status as a living legend in his most recent phase. He wrote a memoir, told his story on Broadway, and hosted a podcast with Barack Obama. He has also been less predictable in his musical styles, which I think has really paid off. He is one of the few rock legacy acts (along with Dylan) who is making new music worth listening to that explores new directions.</p><p>****</p><p><i>Springsteen on Broadway</i> (2018)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIcVkzNN__Aa-DzJOLvUs-uxSSjRcLmNEPJ6ov-2SGGH4nyW-yGvn1m8KBwzY-c24Jp7R8HNk0IC8RBdH4AqrViAwYTp3onbIdJRnZYCPoj1b69u8GlY5Htq87ml_QWHBTZv33D7NNAWUXhIgR08qlhhTDm6hd-8Clghp3TOMk0Xk6ZKVWFkfwXS_GVp8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIcVkzNN__Aa-DzJOLvUs-uxSSjRcLmNEPJ6ov-2SGGH4nyW-yGvn1m8KBwzY-c24Jp7R8HNk0IC8RBdH4AqrViAwYTp3onbIdJRnZYCPoj1b69u8GlY5Htq87ml_QWHBTZv33D7NNAWUXhIgR08qlhhTDm6hd-8Clghp3TOMk0Xk6ZKVWFkfwXS_GVp8" width="240" /></a></div><p>I said before that his 80s live box was the only live album I was going to cover, but this one demands to be addressed. A rock star on Broadway seems like a contradiction in terms, but his autobiographical show fits with his turn inward, also marked by his excellent memoir. After a flurry of activity from 2001 to 2014, Springsteen took a step back from new music and toured the side roads. </p><p>I regretted not seeing this show, and for that reason never listened to it or watched the film because of the intense FOMO. I can say now that it is a true career highlight. Springsteen's memoir proved he's a great storyteller outside of songs, and his stories here make a similar impact. His intro to the acoustic version of "Born in the USA" is one of the most moving things I have ever heard. He talks about reporting to the draft office the same day as two other musicians he knew in the Jersey Shore scene. Springsteen was not taken, but his friends were, and neither of them came home from Vietnam. He then wonders about the person who took his place. The rendition of the song that follows will just rip your heart out. </p><p>There's also plenty of humor. He starts by admitting he never worked a day in a factory. At first this seems flippant, then you realize he was trying to articulate his parents' experiences. The vignettes of working-class life in small-town Jersey are incredibly vivid. Also, as I have said before, Springsteen might be at his best when it's just him and an acoustic guitar. I will definitely be returning.</p><p><b>Rating: Five Bosses (out of five)</b></p><p><i>Western Stars </i>(2019)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifv_sFFLnyCqI4XrLsv5yu7wUkWFnDWjszcmZe-fv_BdIaKIDFC0LHmjcYzMwLIupLc4mfZIEz-MintEhpf9wurkS5N7zhX0TtM4iwDat4qE8gd3vw1b9UxyjwmsI3Rl_7DdPXmmTyZ6hJHTD6e2zv2p-Zf8VpF49EfoYK69SaWL0soKao3wBf3Y3Y-a0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifv_sFFLnyCqI4XrLsv5yu7wUkWFnDWjszcmZe-fv_BdIaKIDFC0LHmjcYzMwLIupLc4mfZIEz-MintEhpf9wurkS5N7zhX0TtM4iwDat4qE8gd3vw1b9UxyjwmsI3Rl_7DdPXmmTyZ6hJHTD6e2zv2p-Zf8VpF49EfoYK69SaWL0soKao3wBf3Y3Y-a0" width="240" /></a></div><p>I saw a lot of praise for this one when it came out. I listened to it for the first time on a Western road trip, anticipating a perfect marriage of sound and experience. Unfortunately, it left me flat. I was excited to hear Springsteen dig into a more country sound, since that had always been an under the radar influence on his music. For some reason, it felt flat.</p><p>For this project I listened to it while going on a long walk, and it totally clicked. Much of the record feels like a concept album about a drifter alone out west, and it drew me in. Many of the songs have an understated beauty to them, like looking at the Western sky. I am probably the target audience, considering that I grew up in rural Nebraska right where the Midwest meets the West. </p><p>At the same time, this album has some of Springsteen's 21st century album issues. Some songs are a little flight, and the production is too distracting in others. Those issues don't sink the album, one that successfully looked to new artistic vistas.</p><p><b>Rating; Four Bosses</b></p><p><i>A Letter to You </i>(2020)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgigW9YQvZSD3wUC51AAcSVonUErzyM1jTsSr4EYKiHEw4TqATLemKoejMAO2cI-hpS5i4u20QpitiQB-4U7-aCoFgr4aabV_PsOBomSYHgx6n5NFff8Db3jNhl11LTPTi_xEZSzc9y_1lmwSM_uslgVxx_38gcgns-SDwRIKERzu9Y0LI4Xm5G8RsBrlU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgigW9YQvZSD3wUC51AAcSVonUErzyM1jTsSr4EYKiHEw4TqATLemKoejMAO2cI-hpS5i4u20QpitiQB-4U7-aCoFgr4aabV_PsOBomSYHgx6n5NFff8Db3jNhl11LTPTi_xEZSzc9y_1lmwSM_uslgVxx_38gcgns-SDwRIKERzu9Y0LI4Xm5G8RsBrlU" width="240" /></a></div><p>In the beginning of the pandemic here in Jersey they did a telecast honoring and fundraising for health care workers (I don't know if it was televised elsewhere.) Various people Zoomed in from their homes. Jersey guy John Stewart hosted, but the highlight was Bruce Springsteen and Patty Scialfa playing and singing some songs on acoustic guitar from their living room. In that very dark time, when hundreds of people in my state were dying every day, it was a bright spot of hope. This album came out of that time, and out of a demand to make sense of it. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of songs about death and aging.</p><p>"Ghost" particularly good. Its hard-rocking surface almost obscures the theme of missing a departed loved one. Springsteen has been performing it at every show on his current tour, with good reason. We all remember that pandemic feeling of intensely valuing life and the people in it brought on by the knowledge of life's fragility. Springsteen appropriately reunited with the E Street Band, and this song and others feel like more "band" efforts than he has had in awhile. </p><p>As with his other recent records, there are some inconsistencies but this time around the production style feels much better suited to the material. </p><p><b>Rating: Four Bosses</b></p><p><i>Only The Strong Survive</i> (2022)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwSXYEmdLEfCIP99cOF9wwSQM1yWr78WGFrReUeyfKgIeZBHNsNG5dyUyFkEUtptc7jlbkT6UpONypPiUMENRAUu3OOY9jx4kjUHX7O7KGLPkVtdu0A6EPRKKGqbRXJR8EGdwiSkUlT_K_Ll6z4TG4_ZytoFSj1S2uum62P9lRGX5vmBnDXYL8FlpVT9o" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwSXYEmdLEfCIP99cOF9wwSQM1yWr78WGFrReUeyfKgIeZBHNsNG5dyUyFkEUtptc7jlbkT6UpONypPiUMENRAUu3OOY9jx4kjUHX7O7KGLPkVtdu0A6EPRKKGqbRXJR8EGdwiSkUlT_K_Ll6z4TG4_ZytoFSj1S2uum62P9lRGX5vmBnDXYL8FlpVT9o" width="240" /></a></div><p>This is his second covers record, with the first being <i>The Seeger Sessions</i>. While that album reinterpreted the classics with flair and originality, this one mostly plays it straight. It's not nearly as good, but Springsteen's deep love for the soul material he sings at least makes this listenable. The backing sound and production are more fitting for a karaoke machine, but the Boss can still make a meal out of these songs. </p><p>Springsteen's earliest records are steeped in R&B, and it's something still alive in his live sound but not really on his records since <i>Born to Run</i>. It's great to hear him in this mode. The songs might not be interpreted originally, but I commend the Boss for his choice of tunes. I also think he breaks out of karaoke into something more stunning with his versions of "I Wish It Would Rain" and "Seven Rooms." </p><p>This is a slight album but a fun performance. To quote an earlier song of his, "It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."</p><p><b>Rating: Three Bosses</b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1597761046378693913.post-6045381319695109542023-08-28T09:27:00.000-07:002023-08-28T09:27:04.030-07:00Summer of Springsteen Part Five: Rising BackAfter his quiet 90s, Springsteen came roaring back in the 2000s. His comeback was intimately tied to 9/11, and his music of the era is some of the little we have that is genuine in discussing the terror attack and the wars that followed. While Springsteen achieved critical acclaim in this period, he was starting to spin his wheels a bit. Part of this had to do with a production style that did not serve the songs very well. Springsteen ended this run with a strong album in <i>Wrecking Ball</i>, then switched gears and went Broadway.<div><br /></div><div>***</div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Rising</i> (2002)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIyM1Co3VkpbC-CTs449lTJAVhhBsHb64HtyeckJiMM7iboCfu5w0KVVgGEZf0z-nNtZGTlTmEmReqpxsTZzZ09O8HcQ5gaFKmRskcgzsczdUyHHjArk4CosodbNJ4z7GSHrvvtfDTLnBjEP3tj2m90lNQVdEBVZ7tMBjzfhdbpyyJpaMYfPxv0CVKgec" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIyM1Co3VkpbC-CTs449lTJAVhhBsHb64HtyeckJiMM7iboCfu5w0KVVgGEZf0z-nNtZGTlTmEmReqpxsTZzZ09O8HcQ5gaFKmRskcgzsczdUyHHjArk4CosodbNJ4z7GSHrvvtfDTLnBjEP3tj2m90lNQVdEBVZ7tMBjzfhdbpyyJpaMYfPxv0CVKgec" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The fact that songs on this album were connected to 9/11, either in their themes or lyrical content, was much discussed at the time. Despite all of the talk and public ritual, I do not think this country has really dealt with the real trauma of that day. I feel like these songs, especially "Empty Sky," actually do. Springsteen brought back the E Street Band for this one, but you really can't tell from the music. He achieved a kind of compromise where he would bring these "blood brothers" back, but he would continue to make the music he wanted to make. The album holds up surprisingly well, but it has a bloat problem endemic to his 21st century albums. Just because a CD can fit more songs it doesn't mean they all belong there. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Four Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Devils and Dust</i> (2005)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlSoOXRln62lOr6mFftqm5pIS2PT7RBPxm33fqWSSh0vttsSt8kzi5cuy5kuhZgHGNqgoJXoQ_aAo511BANdy18m6BkpdqvhS9YgZOhurdnfUBoXv0MZ7MNiGsbebJ9d12RfB_jzpDJ2saWfUZl9IiG_5azKXg3CJwOfZBWEs6gXurU-61MVEoX8e6jEI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlSoOXRln62lOr6mFftqm5pIS2PT7RBPxm33fqWSSh0vttsSt8kzi5cuy5kuhZgHGNqgoJXoQ_aAo511BANdy18m6BkpdqvhS9YgZOhurdnfUBoXv0MZ7MNiGsbebJ9d12RfB_jzpDJ2saWfUZl9IiG_5azKXg3CJwOfZBWEs6gXurU-61MVEoX8e6jEI" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Fitting with his pattern, Springsteen followed a massive popular success with an acoustic album. This one is not as good as Nebraska and Ghost of Tom Joad, but it's still excellent. The title song, from the point of view of an American soldier in Iraq, is about how the country bears the guilt for the killings it sends people to commit in their name. Some of the songs give us a glimpse into Springsteen's spirituality as well. As you can probably tell by my ratings, I really enjoy this side of Springsteen.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Four and a half Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions </i>(2006)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgb2WJEPeAwRjnbGLsifrQ5-kU8a8l33Eg3vuoqihwDgoGF4x8rvFIVbppadVSBSBKt3UJAY04iIRNSkRdO9v5tOunuWEiWRiYJXohoQ2LbfQG9LE6pwFYg3BW2rSBb-PFA9uyvedwBTUK_kAJc-adgnIA2nPlH3WbQeJ8ylbpOYS7XOPHoGwug89sD8U" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgb2WJEPeAwRjnbGLsifrQ5-kU8a8l33Eg3vuoqihwDgoGF4x8rvFIVbppadVSBSBKt3UJAY04iIRNSkRdO9v5tOunuWEiWRiYJXohoQ2LbfQG9LE6pwFYg3BW2rSBb-PFA9uyvedwBTUK_kAJc-adgnIA2nPlH3WbQeJ8ylbpOYS7XOPHoGwug89sD8U" width="242" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I have loved this record from the second I first heard it. Revisiting it, it somehow sounded even better. Springsteen's folk influences, there from the beginning, get fully indulged here. It's a covers record of songs interpreted by folkie godfather Pete Seeger, but Springsteen makes them all his own. What I appreciate is that he turns folk from "serious guy with an acoustic guitar" into rollicking, good time music. The "folk" have to break their backs all day long for the boss, they need to party in their downtime! If there is such a thing as a folk song party record, this is it. If you are feeling down and need a burst of energy, listen to this. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Five Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Magic</i> (2007)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiI28jbfv35xOhCSrAFSo_7PDd26r7EGq3HknBCICY7tJZ9aMW_-53M2e1ptWbC_ETVDB6RYmudxyp3jhtq_FlQ6ylvgfZtyfgpcnEkihllX0LEPmRFMnzX2B1VIPJbhqxIrjvdY_UrVrillo8Vf5h8rGn-HfjNRTWfbRt6vNp9DT-__WobYjqZzoLjy68" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiI28jbfv35xOhCSrAFSo_7PDd26r7EGq3HknBCICY7tJZ9aMW_-53M2e1ptWbC_ETVDB6RYmudxyp3jhtq_FlQ6ylvgfZtyfgpcnEkihllX0LEPmRFMnzX2B1VIPJbhqxIrjvdY_UrVrillo8Vf5h8rGn-HfjNRTWfbRt6vNp9DT-__WobYjqZzoLjy68" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I remember this album getting a lot of love when it came out. Springsteen is back with the E Street Band, but it's not quite as memorable as <i>The Rising</i>. The lead single "Radio Nowhere" had a hard sound to it that intrigued me, but no hooks. He is still railing against the Bush administration's "war on terror," one of the few to do it this effectively. While it's not strong top to bottom, songs like "Long Walk Home" stand out. This album establishes a pattern for a lot of his later records. They are less consistent than his early work, but still have songs worthy of his career best. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Three and a half Bosses</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Working on a Dream</i> (2009)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDLefuuWrrCC9b1eAyP2nW1SFOWXy3Nq9s1d4L0zJVoZ_mkPbEQM_iAHwhEeSvsaq3AmHK0E9aGfnOrpD5df3LQ54p8b8mBWXqXW2_6xD4W_ra5mGGwXdGypcc7SBciP_xUdvzRMjGguHdWR1Q1LxsAJvKaQYKLe04BN23nQfO5OiF6GYRcU0c3n4Ab08" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDLefuuWrrCC9b1eAyP2nW1SFOWXy3Nq9s1d4L0zJVoZ_mkPbEQM_iAHwhEeSvsaq3AmHK0E9aGfnOrpD5df3LQ54p8b8mBWXqXW2_6xD4W_ra5mGGwXdGypcc7SBciP_xUdvzRMjGguHdWR1Q1LxsAJvKaQYKLe04BN23nQfO5OiF6GYRcU0c3n4Ab08" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Springsteen recorded this one during tour breaks, which gives it a looser feel. The songs aren't as strong however, as some of his other releases. I do like the experiments with a Beach Boys sound at one point, a sign that Springsteen was still trying to do new things. "Good Eye" is hardcore blues of the kind we've never heard from him before. He might not be as obvious about it as Bowie or Madonna, but Springsteen is quietly one of the more unpredictable major rock stars. This is not a great record but it's a fun one to listen to.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating; Three and a half Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Wrecking Ball </i>(2012)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiZtAXWO-XoiCsWD1dSRdox9RiQjzE0RGyXAIB5S4xBDDOjA_8SM2xqofdo-Cd4DvCIJGEqHUPOjJhLA4tUAuGAj8RNUFWrJrVQNmleCNBJ_jvwlBmPONrl64SmRnHmZy3xftRD9Y4y8Mzckyav3hDblF8xCmwRKGrLPFo_dqF4P6LToCKiqG4DujZBw0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiZtAXWO-XoiCsWD1dSRdox9RiQjzE0RGyXAIB5S4xBDDOjA_8SM2xqofdo-Cd4DvCIJGEqHUPOjJhLA4tUAuGAj8RNUFWrJrVQNmleCNBJ_jvwlBmPONrl64SmRnHmZy3xftRD9Y4y8Mzckyav3hDblF8xCmwRKGrLPFo_dqF4P6LToCKiqG4DujZBw0" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div>After getting looser with his last album, Springsteen came out swinging on this one, a statement about the Great Recession, another trauma like 9/11 that we have failed to reckon with. The production is far more focused than <i>Magic </i>and <i>Working on a Dream</i>. At times, there's the spirit that made <i>The Seeger Sessions</i> so great, as on "Death to My Hometown." While it still has some fat on it, the number of strong songs is really high. I hadn't listened to this album since it came out, and I was struck by its vitality. It's easily the best of his original studio albums of this era. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Four and a Half Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>High Hopes </i>(2014)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjkYmIjv8jTAi-9f2rJSrjpGmra1sUH2sV-BVg0wzRLvfAitlxWk2Huq9Ga6mtPwYR1svWU-PxZ5qX69GNqUZ3vqxWBhMGqzx6A0ZHXBzVNhUKDripspoWtv01gkfcKJciwB37SnPLoXfqhYCngGBjSB79d4W4HZHYqZv3DIwMe4IiKCd5TbU8tSD2O8g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjkYmIjv8jTAi-9f2rJSrjpGmra1sUH2sV-BVg0wzRLvfAitlxWk2Huq9Ga6mtPwYR1svWU-PxZ5qX69GNqUZ3vqxWBhMGqzx6A0ZHXBzVNhUKDripspoWtv01gkfcKJciwB37SnPLoXfqhYCngGBjSB79d4W4HZHYqZv3DIwMe4IiKCd5TbU8tSD2O8g" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a weird one, since it consists of songs that were performed only live before, out-takes, and covers, but all re-recorded. The reviews made it sound really slight, but I actually enjoyed listening to this hodgepodge. The addition of Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello brings something new and vital to the mix and Springsteen sounds energetic. The production styles are a bit confounding, however. Some songs sound like they are straight out of 1998. This doesn't cohere much as an album, but individual songs stand out well. By bringing together out-takes from the prior decade, Springsteen was putting a bow on his 21st-century revival. After this he would head in new directions, from Broadway to the Western plains. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Rating: Three and a half Bosses</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0