Dark Thoughts On Armistice Day

World War I was the historical event that first drew me to the past, and one that I have never ceased to be interested in.  Once I learned that my Dad's grandfather had emigrated from Germany, but ended up getting shell shock fighting in the American army, my interest was only more deepened.  Once I was a grad student I wanted to do a dissertation project related to its cultural history, but realized that I had nothing new to add, and that I would be happier having it as an amateur fixation.

Ever since I was a child, I have thought of this day as Armistice Day, not Veterans Day (partially because it's never been a day off for me at any of my jobs.)  When I first learned of the Armistice going into effect on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh month of the year (an oddly meaningful alliteration), I tried to imagine how the soldiers would have felt coming out of their trenches and confronting a fundamentally altered world.  As my studies in history deepened, I began to see the war as a kind of germinating catastrophe for the 20th century.  I realize this is a rather mundane observation, but it struck me pretty hard when I was a teenager.  The horrors of the Great War only served to spawn another, worse conflict.  Beyond World War II, the war's redrawing of borders led to ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe and have contributed to current instability in Iraq, Syria and Palestine.  It legitimized authoritarian, extremist governments and gave nationalism, that scourge of humanity, a big shot of steroids.

When I meditate on Armistice Day, I tend to meditate on the catastrophes of the 20th century writ large.  This Armistice Day, I am beginning to think that the catastrophes of the 21st century may rival those of the bloody century just passed.  The news about the environment is extremely disheartening, we are truly living on borrowed time.  The scarcity provoked by our dying earth will only stoke conflict around the world.  While I am no fan of American imperial hyperpower, we seem to be transitioning from a global Pax Americana to a renewal of the kind of multipolar system that led to the First World War.  All the while unfettered, all-consuming global capitalism has never been more powerful.  The wealthy are piling up unprecedented caches of lucre, profiting from the earth's destruction and unwilling to change their ways.

Perhaps I'm thinking this way in light of the recent anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall.  I was 14 at the time in 1989, and overjoyed that the Cold War nuclear standoff was finally broken.  I felt such optimism about the future, and as I came of age in the 1990s, there were awful events like Rwanda and Bosnia, but also the sense that global conflict was on the wane.  A quarter of a century later, things have changed.  America has waged perpetual war since 2001 with no end in sight.  Politics in this country has been divisive to the point of complete dysfunction.  In this environment where our political institutions have been discredited, Americans trust the police and military most.  That will not end well, especially with the world set to inflict turmoil.

On this Armistice Day I am thinking forward, not back.  We like to think that the trenches are a historical artifact, that the horrors of the 20th century are behind us.  I am afraid that in another century our descendants will have different events to mourn.

Track of the Week: Mates of State "Along For The Ride"

There is nothing quite like the random grace of hearing the right song at the right time come on the radio.  I've had the pleasure of living in a few places with great radio stations where DJs are allowed to spin records rather obscure in nature.  Here in Jersey my radio dial is almost permanently on WFMU, the great community radio station.  The college town where I lived in my grad school days was also blessed with a community radio station, along with an alternative bluegrass/country/folk station in a local small town and the college radio station.  When I first started as a grad student I didn't care much for the college station, mostly because it was aping corporate stations, both in style and playlist.  In the early 2000s it was calling itself "alternative," but the playlist was wall to wall Sum 41 and Linkin Park.

Then, in a glorious change, it switched formats and became an old school, bonafide college radio station with lots of underground music and DJs driving the playlist.  It seemed that each trip in my car held the possibility for hearing something I loved already or something new that became an immediate favorite.  One of the latter songs was "Along For The Ride" by Mates of State, which seemed to get played every time I turned on the radio.  Its synthesizer sound cut against the guitar rock grain and male-female vocal leads against the rock cult of the charismatic front man.  I can still listen to it over and over again and not get tired of it.

I first heard it after getting back from Germany after my doctoral research.  That year, when I was able to write my dissertation without the impending anxiety of the job market, was probably my happiest in grad school.  I hear this song and I remember so many great people who now live so far away, and the dream of being a scholar before the harsh realities of academic life nearly broke me.  I managed to find the All Day EP on vinyl a couple of years ago in the bargain bin, and whenever I want to relive memories of of a life that once was, I pop it on the turntable.

The Pros and Cons of Roger Waters Period Pink Floyd

I am a regular listener to the Sound Opinions podcast, which recently did a thing about the 35th anniversary of Pink Floyd's Wall album.  That inspired me to listen to it again, something I hadn't done in quite a long while.  For a three month stretch when I was seventeen I must have listened to it practically every day, trying to glean meaning from what was locked in the cassette tape.  Soon afterward I picked up Dark Side of the Moon, and decided that I much preferred the psychedelic, prog-rock Floyd to their hard rocking dystopic Roger Waters-centric period.  I would occasionally pick up The Wall, but much preferred spinning Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Meddle, Relics, and Piper at the Gates of Dawn.  (In college I discovered and quickly embraced their early, Syd Barrett incarnation.)  A friend in grad school convinced me to pick up Animals, but it was too straight ahead for my tastes.

Around that time I picked up a history of the Floyd and learned the reasons for the change in sound and theme.  Roger Waters had become the dominant force in the band, with songs and concepts exploring the anomie of modern life written in a much less textural, progressive mode than what the band had done before.  The spikiness of the sound also reflected increasing tensions in the band.  1975's Wish You Were Here was a kind of transition, as it contained both the extended, textured "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and the hard rock sound and cynical attitude of "Have a Cigar."  That song, with its acid take on the music industry, would be a harbinger of things to come.

Waters' albums as the Floyd's impressario form a sort of trilogy: Animals in 1977, The Wall in 1979, and The Final Cut in 1983.  On the latter Waters took sole credit for the music and lyrics, and sang on almost all of the tracks, effectively making it a Waters solo album with the other band members as side men.  Like his official solo work, it's not very good, evidence that Waters needed David Gilmour and Rick Wright's touch and sense of tone to properly translate his ideas.  (On the other end, the material the band has put out since Waters' departure has been decidedly mediocre, since it lacks Waters' animating ideas.)

Re-listening to Animals and The Wall, however, has shown me these albums' unique power in ways I hadn't quite realized when I was younger.  In the first place, they dig really deep into the everyday inhumanity of lives lived with fear and loathing.  The epic "Dogs" on the first record delves into the minds of the servile brown-nosers that shake your hand while they jab the dagger in your back, and "Pigs" the mentality of the kind of authoritarian prig I once had the misfortune to work under.  This is really adult music for adults, despite the facade of flying pigs on the cover.  The Wall turns this theme of modern inhumanity to rock operatic lengths, and while the story doesn't quite hold together, it does not flinch at delving into deeply painful territory.  It's good to know that Pink Floyd for a time used their power and ability to make what they wanted to touch on mature subjects and not the usual rock and roll clatter, cock rock strutting (looking at you, Mick Jagger) or silly demons and castles storytelling a la Led Zeppelin.

The other thing I've noticed is David Gilmour's guitar playing, which has gone from psychedelic and atmospheric to thrillingly searing.  This is especially the case on songs like "Run Like Hell," "Young Lust," and the soaring solo on the otherwise quiet "Mother."  On "Comfortably Numb" Gilmour gives us the last dose of that old psychedelic magic, which has made it a classic rock radio staple for over three decades.  If not for his contributions this rock opera would have been much too stark and lacking in beauty for its own good, much like The Final Cut.

On Animals and The Wall Waters proved that he may have had the most astute conceptual mind in rock, but still needed Gilmour to make those visions sublime, rather than just angry and narcissistic.  It's a pity they never managed to do it again.

The "Didn't Vote" Party Wins Again

I almost never watch cable news, but I did last night in order to catch the election returns.  As the pundits' jaws flapped I kept noticing how they were trying to parse the "public mood" with this vote.  These pundits have one big problem: they're focusing on the voters.

What about the people who didn't vote?  Not only do they outnumber the number of Republican and Democratic voters, they outnumbered all voters period.  This means that yet again, the Didn't Vote Party swept the midterms.  It amazes me that elections which will determine all kinds of policy and will have a profound effect (especially on the state level) on so many people saw much fewer than half the voters show up.

This is what the commentariat ought to be discussing.  These are the people, not the voters, who ought to be polled, since they are the dominant group.  Why don't they vote?  It should be a simple answer, but I am willing to bet that it's actually multi-faceted in nature.  Do they just not care?  Is disillusionment part of that?  Is politics so nasty and godawful that so few want to take part?  Are they just apathetic numbskulls who can't be pulled away from cat videos and reality TV?

We ought to know, since our nation's voter turnout numbers are an embarrassment.  We lag behind dozens of other nations, so here is a case where America is truly an exceptional nation.  If we were a real democracy, and not a sham one, the last election would have been invalid because so few people bothered to vote.

I must say, it took a lot of effort to get to the polls, since my enthusiasm for the election was so low.  It's hard to blame people for not showing up, except for the fact that their apathy keeps our broken, corrupt, crappy system in power.

The Empty Election

There's an election tomorrow, and for the first time since I've been able to vote, I've thought long and hard about skipping it.  I won't, mostly because there's a movement afoot to deny the vote and to make politics so wretched that nobody votes.  I certainly don't want to let thebastards win.  The big question is, of course, who the hell am I actually going to vote for?

The sample ballot I got in the mail was rather uninspiring.  Here in New Jersey we don't vote for state level elections in even-numbered years (which insures low turnout for those elections, but that's another piece for another time), so I don't get to vote on anything related to state politics.  When it comes to the senate I can vote for right wing Republican (no chance) or Cory Booker, a Democrat who never met a banker he didn't like.  I read the League of Women Voters guide for my local House race, where I discovered that the incumbent Democrat didn't bother to send in a response, and his Republican challenger had multiple typos and grammatical mistakes in hers.  There's a mysterious third party candidate called "Dark Angel" (no joke) on the ballot who actually has some good positions on student loan debt (his big issue), so he'll get my protest vote.  Donald Payne, Jr is the incumbent.  He got his seat as a replacement after his dad died in office, so I will also make it a vote against nepotism as well.  In one election, that of Essex County Executive, I might actually vote for a conservative Republican to deny my vote to incumbent Joe DiVincenzo, a machine boss who despite his party affiliation has been a major Christie ally.

The choices in this corner of New Jersey seem to mirror those in the nation at large.  Voters can go for radical conservative ideologues, or for milquetoast Democrats who still do the bidding of corporate interests.  The outcome of the Congressional elections isn't really that meaningful to begin with.  If the Democrats hold the Senate, Republicans will continue to keep it from working.  If they win, the president will just have to get his veto pen ready.  Apart from the insane yet feasible attempt at impeachment that a Republican Senate might try, I don't see much changing here either way.

Despite the seemingly low stakes involved, millions and millions of dollars are pouring into these races, and in many states Republicans are doing their best to manipulate the outcome by limiting voter access.  You can't put a price on power, I guess.

The national news media, in their usual stupidity, has latched onto the easiest and shallowest explanation for a strong Republican election: that Barack Obama is unpopular.  Never mentioned in this is that Republicans are even less popular, but the moderates who voted for Obama will probably be sitting this election out.  In any case, it's not just Obama who's unpopular, it's the whole stinking, rotten, corrupt system.  I don't know anyone, conservative or progressive, who has any real faith in it.  We are going through the motions of democracy, but have long ago left it behind.  As I've said before, America is in its Brezhnev period where the empire limps on, zombie-like, even though nobody really believes in it or its ideology anymore.  This empty election, so full of sound and fury signifying nothing, is as much proof of that as anything.

Track of the Week: Gordon Lightfoot, "The Way I Feel"

As if by clockwork, when November hit yesterday the temperature dropped and a cold, bitter rain fell.  November is less autumn than it is pre-winter when the trees lose their last leaves and harvest has come and gone.  It is a time when I turn to the warmth of folk music, its simplicity and tradition as comforting as a plate of shepherd's pie on a cold day.  I first established this tradition during my first, brutal winter in Michigan, which seemed to last forever and brought no sunshine or solace.  Right around that time I started listening to Gordon Lightfoot, and first heard his sixties folkie stuff.  I'd known his 70s hits, but was intrigued by the mood of these more spare, less poppy songs.

"The Way I Feel" is among the best of them, and certainly evokes this time of year well with its talk of empty nests, tall oak trees, and loss.  While he later electrified it, I really liked this earlier, moodier acoustic version.  The guitar is dark and ethereal, his voice low and brooding.  It is the sound of a cold whispering wind rattling the dead leaves on a dark November night.

Why Soccer Is The Sport Of The Future

I am a big fan of the soccer podcasting (and now broadcasting) team Men in Blazers, and especially their bold (and somewhat ironic) declaration that "soccer is the sport of the future!" in America.  Their perspective as British immigrants who have embraced living in America makes it easier to believe them, since they have an outsider's perspective on American soccer without the usual disdain one normally gets from British soccer followers.  (The fact that I am using the word "soccer" instead of "football" would be enough alone to set them off.)

Recent experiences have made me inclined to believe them.  I have been following soccer for about twenty years, ever since I spent the 1994 World Cup on a school exchange trip to Germany, where I was drawn into the intensity of soccer culture.  The only other sport in America with that kind of party atmosphere and communal festival feeling around it is college football, which is regional in its popularity.  Back in '94, when America hosted the World Cup, soccer was on the fringiest fringe of sports culture in America, and it took a trip abroad for me to really have any contact with it.  There was no major professional soccer league in the United States, even though so many children played the sport.  That changed with the MLS's first season in 1996, when I was able to see a game in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium.  There maybe only 20,000 fans present, but they made a lot of noise, and the atmosphere was fun and exciting.  Fans chanted throughout the game and the crowd exploded after each KC goal.  I went to another game three years later in Chicago, where it was obvious that soccer had become an entrenched sporting subculture in America, but nothing more than that.

Suddenly things have changed.  As many have noted, America's World Cup match this year against Portugal drew twenty-five million viewers.  Those numbers were just barely exceeded by game 7 of this year's World Series, but are much more than most recent World Series games.   Compare that to the NBA finals this year, which averaged 15.5 million viewers per game.  Of course, a World Cup comes only every four years, and has the added advantage of having nationalism to draw people in.  You could argue that soccer will be like Olympic sports: wildly popular for one month every four years.

I don't think so, though.  One really important change in American soccer culture is that games from the European leagues are readily available on cable television.  Americans are not crazy about the MLS because they know it is not the best version of the sport, which they will see when they watch MLB, the NBA, the NFL, or the NHL.  Those leagues are by far the top for their sports worldwide.  Being able to see the best in the world compete makes that sport much more attractive.  I have no doubt that there are more American soccer fans with loyalties to English teams than to MLS teams.

I would also argue that soccer has some advantages as a televisual sport.  While the NFL rose to dominance because it is perfectly suited for television, its televisual imperatives are starting to strangle the sport.  The average football game has only eleven minutes of action with the ball in play, but around one hour of commercial breaks.  In soccer there are no breaks during the halves for commercials, the ball is constantly in play, and regular season games never last longer than two hours.  Compare this to baseball, whose pace has slowed dangerously, and which is a game best experienced in person, because the TV cameras can only show a little of all of the things happening on the field.

And when it comes to seeing games in person, nothing beats soccer.  I went to a Red Bulls game for the first time two months ago, which was also my first MLS game at a soccer-specific stadium.  The atmosphere was amazing, the cheering and chanting loud, and our seats put us right on top of the action.  It was the most engaging sporting event I had been to in years, and although my friend and I had been gifted the tickets, the price was much lower than most other sports.  Compare this to the NFL, which is not a great product in person, and whose games are beginning to get a reputation for drunken hooliganism (ironically the smear used to attack soccer fans by soccer-phobic Americans for years.)

Hockey is great in person, but the sport is a regional one, and its culture of fighting and extreme violence looks increasingly barbaric.  The NBA is great in person, too, but ticket prices keep going up, and regular season games are relatively meaningless, making them rather low-intensity affairs compared to your average soccer match.  Watch your average NBA regular season game, then watch an average Premiership match, and you'll know what I mean.

The NFL has grown to be the leviathan of American sport, but like all empires about to fall, it has overextended itself and is being undermined by its hubris.  Concussions, scandals related to player violence, teams blackmailing cities for new stadiums, and adding football to Thursday night have all become problems for the league, and it hasn't handled them well.  For sports fans looking for an alternative or something new, soccer is now a potential alternative.  Like the other professional sports, the NFL has become bloated and removed from its fans, something soccer, which still feels like a community, could benefit from.  The NFL also has been selling the "shield" and the game itself rather than star players.  The men who sacrifice their bodies on the gridiron have become anonymous.  Compare this to soccer, which has so many well-known individual players that you can't keep track of them.

The change in soccer's popularity has been slow in coming, but it's picking up steam.  This year's World Cup excitement was a sign of things to come.  There are young kids in America today who are finding more excitement in Robin van Persie's flying header than in yet another Peyton Manning quick slant pass.  Their numbers will only keep growing at a time when the rest of the sports landscape is losing the plot.