Are You A Kurt Or Are You An Axl?

I was watching the fine but disturbing Kurt Cobain documentary A Montage of Heck last night, and something dawned on me during home video footage of Kurt Cobain mocking Axl Rose.  Just as English rock fans in the mid-1960s could be divided into "mods" and "rockers," Gen X rock fans in the early 1990s could just as easily be divided into Axls and Kurts.  There was plenty of crossover of course; I owned both Use Your Illusion II and Nevermind.  GNR was a hard rock/metal band with a distinct punk influence, while Nirvana was a punk band that borrowed heavily from metal.  That being said, there was no doubt that I truly loved Nirvana and idolized Kurt Cobain, and merely liked some of the Guns' songs while finding Rose himself repugnant.

If you aren't sure if you're a Kurt or an Axl, take the following quiz below:

1.  Should a rock front man wear a dress in concert and videos?
A. Yes
B. No

2.  Your stage act includes:
A. Smashing your guitar
B. Dancing like a snake

3.  Your ideal guitar solo is:
A. A junk-sick, feedback howling squall of noise
B. A virtuosic, searing experience bursting forth like the hammer of the gods

4.  If you are interviewed by Rolling Stone you:
A. Wear a t-shirt saying "Corporate Rock Magazines Still Suck"
B. Make paranoid demands to be able to copy edit your interview transcript

5.  Your ideal life partner is:
A. A fellow musician
B. A model

6.  If you get slagged by members of the media you:
A. Write a hand-written letter to the offenders calling them out
B. You write an unhinged song about how you want to "get in the ring" and beat them up

7.  You stop playing during a show because:
A. You see a young woman in the audience being harassed, and you call on security to remove her tormentors
B. Someone is taking a picture of you, leading you to storm out in anger

8.  You're super-excited that ______ is touring with you
A. The Melvins
B. Metallica

9.  When MTV plays a live cover version by your band, the song is:
A. David Bowie's "Man Who Sold The World"
B. Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door"

10.  Your band's album art is banned/restricted because it depicts:
A.  Fetuses
B.  A woman being sexually assaulted by a robot

11.  One of your songs is included in the soundtrack for:
A.  Beavis and Butthead
B.  Terminator 2

12. After your first hugely successful album your next major release is:
A.  A less poppy more edgy collection of songs made with an underground producer
B.  Two separate, indulgent sprawling albums with songs and genres ranging all over the place

13.  When you discuss your influences, you are more likely to mention:
A.  The Pixies
B.  Thin Lizzy

14.  Your biggest music video features:
A.  Students rioting and destroying a school
B.  A celebrity wedding and mysteriously deadly thunderstorm

15.  After your original drummer is out of the band, his replacement comes from:
A.  A hardcore punk band called Scream
B.  Hard rock band The Cult

16.  You take the stage wearing:
A. A tattered cardigan
B.  A white leather jacket

17.  Your drug of choice is:
A.  Heroin
B.  Heroin

If you answered 10 or more questions with "A" you are a Kurt.  If you answered 10 or more questions with "B" you are an Axl.  If you did not answer 10 or more with either "A" or "B" your are the lead singer kid from Silverchair.

The Pleasures and Pitfalls of May Baseball

Cy Williams hit a whopping 44 RBI in May of 1923 for the Philadelphia Athletics 

In my years of watching baseball, I've tended to divide the seasons into thirds.  April and May are when hope springs eternal, and fans can get a little too excited by their team if they happen to be overachieving.  June and July are the proving ground, usually the moment when the real contenders start to separate themselves from the pack.  August and September, after the trade deadline, are when the pennant races get real in the tight divisions, or when the leading teams put themselves into a dominant position.

May is a dangerous time for fans of mediocre or struggling baseball teams.  If your team is good in April, you might not get drawn in or your hopes too high, but if the team still keeps wining in May, it is hard, if not impossible, to start believing.  Of course, there’s a reason that “swoon” rhymes with “June.”  Many a baseball fan has raised their expectations in May, only to have them melt away in the harsh summer sun.  The Mets, for example, are still in first place after their 11 game wining streak at the end of April, but the team has faltered, and the dreaded Nationals are quickly gaining ground.  Part of me thinks I need to enjoy the Mets as much as a I can now, since I doubt they'll still be in first place after Memorial Day.

When it comes to my other favorite team, the White Sox, I am having the opposite problem.  They spent the off season acquiring a lot of first rate players to compliment the likes of Chris Sale and Jose Abreu, and so far the team has been a mess of hot garbage.  When you expect your team to do well, and they still suck at the end of May, it's easy to give up hope on the season.  I'm much more likely to watch a Mets game than a Sox game at this stage of the season for that very reason.

At any rate, May is when you begin the feel that the games really COUNT, with April being a kind of mulligan for a team that does poorly, and a lucky break for a winning team.  This is why I am having a harder and harder time exulting in the Mets' April winning streak.  The team now seems poised to settle back into a more competent mediocrity than they have shown in recent years, but nothing more.

But baseball starts feeling real in more pleasurable ways.  Going to April games sometimes means braving a cold snap, while a May day game with spring in full swing might be the optimal time for baseball.  The weather gives pleasure even outside the stadium.  Last night I was driving around running errands with the game on the radio, feeling the cool of the air through my open windows.  It certainly won't be like that in July.

While we're a long way off from October, May has brought some great baseball moments.  Here are a few:

May 6, 1998: Kerry Wood strikes out 20 in a game

Wood was an unknown rookie when he tied the single game record for strikeouts in one of the greatest pitching performances of all time.  It is sad that Wood never reached his full potential due to injury, but he can always look back to this game.

May 25, 1935: Babe Ruth Hits His Last Three Home Runs

The great Yankee slugger finished out his career in the National League with the Boston Braves, eventually calling it quits in early June, 1935.  Before he did that, Ruth had one last moment of glory, hitting three homers in one game, the last ones he'd ever hit.

May 25, 1959: Harvey Haddix Pitches 12 Perfect Innings And Loses

No other pitcher has managed to go twelve innings in a game without letting a man on base, but Haddix's Pirates couldn't score a run to beat the Braves.  Finally, in the unlucky 13th, Haddix succumbed and lost the game in what might be the biggest hard luck story in baseball history.

May 1, 1974: Dock Ellis Goes After The Reds

Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis has become a kind of folk hero for having pitched a no hitter while high on LSD.  So much attention is paid to that moment, that people forget that he also did another highly erratic act.  During a game in May of 1974, he decided to hit each and every Cincinnati Reds batter in an attempt to show the rival team who was boss.  This decision ended up getting him pulled from the game early.

Track of the Week: Ben E King "Stand By Me"

I can't believe it took me over a week to finally hear the sad news of the death of Ben E. King.  I must have been very distracted, or our media (as usual) failed me again.  Anyway, I enjoyed his smooth yet powerful voice from a young age, hearing it come out of the radio on the oldies station in my parents' van on our many trips to see my grandparents.  My dad always seemed to turn up the volume whenever "On The Boardwalk," "On The Roof," or "Save The Last Dance For Me" came on.

While King had a bunch of hits with the Drifters, "Stand By Me" was his signature tune, and with good reason.  In the first place, he wrote it, and in the second place, it's one of those love songs that's both managed to stand the test of time and not be totally cheesy.  It's hard to describe, but it has a dark tone at the heart of it that intrigues me to this day.  It might be the spare bass and percussion accompaniment at the start, or perhaps its references to the apocalypse.  The very first line is "when the night," and one verse starts with the memorable lines "If the sky that we look upon/ should tumble and fall/ and the mountains/ crumble to the sea," deep stuff for a teen love song.  The string section in the bridge has a very melancholic sound to it, and it never fails to put a chill down my spine.

This song went back on the charts in 1986 after it was included in the movie of the same name.  I heard it first on the hits channel, not the oldies station.  At that time a lot of sixties nostalgia was going around, from Dirty Dancing to Monkees re-runs on MTV, and I ate it up.  In retrospect it's not hard to why.  Would I rather listen to a three minute masterpiece like "Stand By Me," or the likes of Falco and Peter Cetera?  The answer should be obvious.  This song was part of a general opening up of my knowledge of music, and I'm bummed that its creator has left this earth.

What Do The Presidential Candidates Taste Like?

The Guardian did a brilliant little piece where one of their writers, going crazy from election fatigue, wrote about what the different candidates for PM "taste" like.  A sample: "Nigel Farage tastes like rich fruit cake, the inside of a frankfurter sausage, fried onions, a few peas, a wet tweed jacket sleeve that grinds on your teeth and a dollop of semolina."  Just for kicks, I've done my own for the currently declared and likely to declare candidates for president.

Hilary Clinton tastes like roasted kale.

Jeb Bush tastes like caviar and a bland burrito with too much sour cream in it.

Ben Carson tastes like blanched, unsalted peanuts and a mayonaise and onion sandwich.

Bernie Sanders tastes like a big hot bowl of pho with a little extra siracha stirred in.

Chris Christie tastes like a McDonalds cheeseburger that's been sitting under the lamp too long.

Rand Paul tastes like the gyros they have at Applebee's.

Carly Fiorina tastes like the quince log left for last in the chocolate box.

Ted Cruz tastes like a slurry of Sour Patch Kids, Pop Rocks, and Warheads candy.

Marco Rubio tastes like a gas station hot dog washed down with bottled water.

Mike Huckabee tastes like Waffle House.

The Irresponsibility of "Fiscal Responsibility"

[Editor's Note: choice words and salty language ahead.]

The Republican pre-primary is in full swing, meaning that there are a whole bunch of desperate shysters wanting to get their hands on that sweet, sweet Koch brothers cash.  The winner of the fund raising war in the GOP primary stage is usually the winner of the nomination, so this is prime time for potential also-rans like Chris Christie to make themselves relevant again with a money transfusion.

So what has the Most High New Jersey Bridge Troll done?  He’s decided to talk about “responsible” and “honest” fiscal policy.  What this means specifically is proposing raising the retirement age to 69, and then making Social Security a much reduced provision that would not even paid out to a large number of retirees.  Christie, in typically mendacious fashion, has spun all this as “telling hard truths,” assuming that his listeners believe, like he does, that the money to sustain old age benefits does not exist.

Of course, we all know that it does.  We live in the richest nation on earth, one where plutocrats are amassing ever-increasing piles of lucre.  Just this week comes the news that during a “down” year the top 25 hedge fund managers were still able to pay themselves bonuses that altogether add up to more than twice all of the money made by all the kindergarten teachers in America last year.  James Simons made $2.1 billion in 2011, about the equivalent of the yearly wages of 140,000 minimum wage workers.  Imagine that, the “bonus” to a select group of bankers eclipses the sweat and muscle expended by literally hundreds of thousands of laborers.  They also paid a lower tax rate than I did as a teacher last year.

And yet we are told that we are to sacrifice even more, that the nation simply can’t afford to give them a secure retirement before we might give out from overwork. 

When I hear the fiscal hawks talk about “hard truths” I know they are really spinning some diarrhea-soft grade A horseshit.  What they really want is a system where the wealthy can amass even bigger fortunes than before, and perhaps to shovel money out of Social Security and let their criminal friends on Wall Street play with it.  Perhaps due to the pernicious persistence of a Puritan streak in this nation’s culture, the media elite eat up this “hard truth” crap and never, ever question the motive, always taking these con artists at face value.  Because young voters are so far away from retirement, they do not take to the streets about being bamboozled.

Make no mistake, Gen Xers and Millenials, they are out to bamboozle you.  I made my first FICA payment at the tender age of 13, and have been paying into the system almost continuously from that time.  All that money has gone to pay for people already in the system, and I was glad to do it, since I knew that the next generations would do the same for me.  Now that contract will be broken, and I will spend the rest of my working life paying for the same Baby Boomers who got cheap college education and plentiful jobs to have a much cushier retirement than I will ever have.  It will be the final insult in a degrading generational war that many in the younger generations have no clue is being waged against them.

To consign future generations to the dung heap in their old age so that the plutocrats, hedge fund managers, and bankers dare not make a greater sacrifice is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.  To break apart the social contract that so many have benefited from is a horrible thing to do, not something deserving of the canting hosannas of “truth telling” so often heard in the more fatuous corners of our mediascape.  Please, for fuck’s sake, stop pretending that the attempt to end Social Security as we know it is anything more than a heinous crime of enormous proportions.

Thoughts on the British Election

I have an inordinate interest in British politics and culture that I still have yet explain except for perhaps having been drawn in by art and style of New Wave music during MTV’s early days.  In any case, I have been closely following the UK election, which is fascinating in its precariousness.  It does not appear that any one party will have a clear majority for the second time in a row, and the emergence of the Scottish National Party and UKIP show some real challenges to the two party system.  Of course, in a first past the post winner take all system, that tends to create a bit of chaos.  At this point the UK might as well have a proportional system.

One thing I have always liked about British elections is that the parties are pretty open about what they are, and that voters don’t pretend they are voting for a person.  Despite this fact, the largely right wing press has tried its hardest to impugn Ed Miliband for his basic appearance and occasional awkwardness.  I guess they saw how well that worked in the US against Al Gore and John Kerry.  Like those two candidates, Miliband has a certain stiffness and over-seriousness about him.  Unlike them, it seems that his style will not deep six his ability to win.

I also think that his approach works in his favor.  I recently saw Miliband’s interview with comedian and political provocateur Russell Brand, something that David Cameron has attacked him over.  Seeing the interview, I think this is a desperate attempt by Cameron to spin the interview, in which Miliband comes off looking rather good.  He takes Brand’s questions about voter apathy and the power of the wealthy seriously, and doesn’t just through out the usual bullshit.  While Miliband may be a littly gawky and awkward, it’s obvious that he actually cares and has a head on his shoulders.  I’ve never seen anything in Cameron other than pure political calculation and toffee-nosed arrogance.  I would love to see American candidates have to go twelve rounds with the likes of Brand, but alas, that is hoping for too much.  

The British election has also been another nail in the coffin of the notion that we are living in an interconnected world where the nation is superfluous.  Despite the fact that the referendum on Scottish independence recently failed, the Scottish National Party is poised to win the vast majority of seats in the region.  The UK is a confederation of four nations (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), hardly the ideal model for cultivating a strong national identity.  In a world where nationalism is getting more, not less, important, this configuration may not survive.  The growing popularity of UKIP, an explicitly nationalistic party, has also been on the rise.  I think we are poised to see a similar rise in nationalism as a potent force in the upcoming American election.  The Tea Party call of "take our country back" has morphed into a more palatable nationalism, one calling to make America "strong" in the world again, and to define immigrants as undesirable.

Relatedly, the British election has shown that along with nationalism, region matters.  In America one speaks of "red" and "blue" America, but a similar geographic cleavage can be seen in the UK.  As in America, the divide is largely between North and South, with the South trending more conservative (but with plenty of Labour support in London.)  It's a split that's been pretty clear at least since Thatcher, and the reliably Labour regions can basically be defined as "areas damaged by Thatcherism."  

Last, it is interesting to contrast Britain and the United States when it comes to the issue of health care.  Whereas the rather weak half measure of Obamacare has been met with lots of contention and fierce opposition, in Britain both parties pledge to defend and fund the National Health Service.  The fact that the Tories may not intend to actually do so has been a major Labour argument in the election.  This dispute is the Republican Party's worst nightmare, in that they do not want Americans to learn to love state-sponsored health care, as much as they have learned to love Medicare and Social Security.  Deep down, they know that most people appreciate the security and improved quality of life that so-called "entitlements" bring, and are absolutely desperate to avoid reminding the people of that fact, lest they object to the continuing  neo-liberal onslaught/corporate money grab.  

Track of the Week: Courtney Barnett "Elevator Operator"

Aussie indie singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett is one of my favorite new artists, mostly because she has a unique ability to capture the beauty and strangeness lurking inside daily life.  The first song of hers that drew me in, "Avant Gardener," is about having an anxiety attack while gardening on a hot summer day.

"Elevator Operator," the first track on her new album, is the tale of young worker tired of the daily routine who goes to the roof of his office building to meditate, only to find that people think he is about to jump and commit suicide.  It's a funny song, but also great at describing the feeling of ennui that comes from working a crummy service job where people are always looking down their noses at you.  The song stomps along at a great pace, mimicking the needless, frenetic push of the morning rush, and thus making the listener really put themselves in the shoes of the titular elevator operator. Barnett delivers her words in a kind of deadpan Aussie drawl, milking the most out of great lines like "I'm not suicidal, just idling insignificantly."  If you want to hear the best qualities of 90s indie rock resurrected, or enjoy the poetic observation of daily life, you should definitely check Courtney Barnett out.