Heartache With Hard Work

Alaska – Camera Obscura (from the If Looks Could Kill EP)

There’s a small part of me that finds the possibility of Lisa Murkowski running (and winning) a write-in campaign to be hilarious.  Booted out in the primary by the obnoxious Tea Party dude, but still able to win in the general…it would be a good story.

But the more I think about it, the less appealing it is.  Murkowski is, after all, not planning on doing anything differently if she returns to the Senate.  She’ll caucus with the Republicans, seek to regain her old positions of authority, continue funneling millions to Alaska even while complaining about big gov’mint, and generally making a nuisance of herself.

Indeed, this is precisely why she might win.  As Jay Newton-Small notes: “As the most highly subsidized state, Alaskans are feeling the loss of Ted Stevens acutely; during his 49 years in the Senate he brought billions of federal dollars to the Last Frontier. Add to that losing another senior states(wo)man (remember, the more senior, the more pork) and the prospect of a guy — Joe Miller — who wants to ween Alaska off the federal tit is downright scary for a lot of folks.”

If Miller wins, I sincerely doubt it makes a meaningful difference on this front.  But all things being equal I’d appreciate it if the hypocrisy of Alaskans complaining about big government even while raking in the cash from the government was a little less glaring.

As I said last time I commented about Alaska: “I love the idea of Alaska. Open spaces, snow, Northern Exposure, etc. but I can’t say I’m in favor of the politics there.”

No One Mourns The Wicked – from Wicked

Sometimes I really wonder about what makes it into the primetime as a Big Story.  Of all the loopy things that have been said by major Republicans candidates this cycle, I struggle to understand what is supposed to be such a big deal about Christine O’Donnell’s comments about witchcraft.  It wouldn’t even make my top 10 list of crazy stuff that SHE has said.

What’s the story here?  That candidates have lives where they at one time did things differently than they now do?  I guess I would get it if she was out on the campaign trail talking about how her Wiccan faith really influences her approach to public policy.  But remember that the point of her comment was to say that she tried it when she was a kid and didn’t like it.  And now looking back it helps to confirm her faith.

Now, if you were going to complain about this comment, there is some fair ammunition.  We can start with her depiction of ‘witchcraft’ as being focused on devil-worship.  Which, you know, it isn’t.  There are, of course, random folks out there who may self-describe as witches and also claim to worship Satan or whatever, but on the whole the more ‘official’ variants of witchcraft are very clearly pagan, focused on the natural world, etc.

What this suggests, of course, is that O’Donnell had no clue what she was talking about and just made some stuff up.  Her description of what she ‘dabbled’ in comes straight out of the Christian moral panic manual that’s been circulating for centuries and has no resemblance to what actual people do.  So there’s that.

And let’s also remember WHY she brought up witchcraft.  It was because she wanted to argue that Halloween is dangerous because it valorizes devil-worship.

Verdict: she is worthy of some mild derision for the comment.  But this is among the stupidest things to fixate on.  And it’s kind of depressing that a candidate for a major office can be lunatic-fringe nutty on actual POLICY issues and get nary a mention, but mention witches and everyone freaks out.  So yes, they’ve managed to suss out a crazy person but for many of the wrong reasons, I think.

The American media: even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails

Kevin Drum has a strange post today on Prop 19 (legalization of marijuana in California).  He first points out that a standard criticism (it would provoke a conflict with the federal government’s laws on the subject) is in fact a selling point: “Anyway, a showdown with the feds might not turn out well, but then again, it might produce some useful fireworks. Sometimes that’s what it takes to make progress.”

Absolutely right.  The point of this wouldn’t be to generate a perfect new legal mechanism in California.  It would be to make a clear statement that the whole national structure of our drug laws is completely insane–and to force the federal government to make a proactive case for its position.  If California voters declare that they are against the status quo, and if California law enforcement is instructed to ignore these federal violations, it requires the folks in DC to either punt and let California do what it likes, or it forces them into the difficult position of having to actually defend this stuff.

So, why then, does Drum end by saying: “(So am I going to vote for Prop 19? I’m tempted. But my presumption for voting No on all propositions is pretty strong, and Prop 19 really does have some drawbacks that are probably not suitable for enshinement for all time in the state constitution. So probably not.)” ?

What are those drawbacks?  Further, while I respect the general principle of a high threshold for presumption on matters of direct democracy (basically: I don’t really trust direct democracy very much at all), this seems like a case ideally suited to the matter.  Where the potential problems with the proposition are kind of the point.  The issue is that there are institutional checks within government that make it (think that it is) completely incapable of addressing this matter in a sane and rational way.  In such cases, blowing things up a little bit through the proposition process seems fair.

So let’s say your an idealistic progressive voter.  You were excited about Obama, but wary of the fact that he seemed to speak in generalities but never seemed truly committed to the left.  You’ve grown increasingly aggravated over the last two years as promises have been broken, goals have not been achieved, as sacrifices have been made.  The public option is long dead.  Gay men and women still can’t serve openly.  Guantanamo is open.  Executive powers have been marginally restrained, but not really all that much.  The stimulus was far smaller than necessary.  Financial reform was a lot more toothless than you’d hoped.  We continue to wage a (most likely unwinnable) war in Afghanistan and (despite claims) Iraq.

I’ll set aside for a moment whether it’s fair to hold Democrats or Obama to blame for all of those things.  I think reasonable people can disagree quite a bit about exactly where and how to apportion responsibility.  But it doesn’t really matter for this point.  You can believe it’s entirely down to Democratic cowardice, weakness, lack of commitment to genuinely progressive norms, etc.

The point remains: if Democrats lose the House (and especially if they lose the Senate), the “lesson learned” will be that moving to the ‘far left’ is political suicide.  The conventional wisdom will quickly solidify that the Tea Party crowd gained so much momentum due to public agreement with their claims about the overreaching of the liberal agenda.  They went for too much, too fast.

Now look: we all know that’s poppycock.  More stimulus, more spending, would have improved our current economic situation – and it’s amazing how much anger about specific policies tracks with a general anger about the economic situation as a whole.  I don’t want to drift too far into accusations of false consciousness here, but the point remains fair.  When people say they hate deficits, it doesn’t meant they hate deficits.  Ask 10 average American voters whether they’d take a) big deficits and steady growth with declining unemployment or b) smaller deficits with stagnant growth and flatlined unemployment numbers and most are going to choose option A.

All that said, the narrative is the question here, not the underlying reality.  Because what we’re concerned with is how to ensure that progressive items remain on the agenda, that we move forward on important items.  And the one thing that more or less ensures that the massive movement we saw in this direction in 2006 and 2008 stalls is a massive loss for Democrats in 2010.

Not just because a Republican House is going to be spending too much time impeaching Obama and holding hearings about ACORN to pass cap and trade–although obviously that is a big part of it.  But even more because it’s going to take another whole generation before middle of the road Democrats will be willing to believe that a strong left-of-center agenda is politically palatable.

If they see a big loss as caused by overreach, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll be even LESS willing to mobilize for your preferred agenda.

The point being: it’s good (great, even) that the blue team is diverse, has a lot of different perspectives, including some who spend a lot of time being outraged at the craven nature of the establishment Dems in Washington.  But there’s a big difference between being outraged and holding their feet to the fire and being apathetic.  Choosing to not turn out in November because you’re frustrated by the weak sauce is the surest way to produce more of the same.

I know it doesn’t feel like the greatest message.  Vote for us so that we don’t spit in your face.  But I think it needs to be understood differently.  The issue is that a lot of the country is persuadable on some big progressive issues, but isn’t there yet.  The best way to enter into that process is to ensure that the elected officials have an incentive to take your position seriously.  The best way to do THAT is to be part of their constituency.  Don’t give them the easy out.  Don’t allow the response: “look, we got health care reform (not perfect, but better than anything we’d managed in the previous 70 years), tons of amazing things in the stimulus bill that have been progressive priorities for years, modest progress on financial reform, we didn’t start any NEW wars, etc.  We got all of that and you STILL didn’t vote for me.  Well, then what is my motivation to listen to anything you say?”

I’m not saying that argument would be fair, or wouldn’t be.  I’m just saying it’s what’s likely to happen. Don’t let it happen.  Get motivated for November.  Look at the important differences.  Remember how much this stuff matters.  And make the tough choice to keep pushing the envelope.

Basically: we need to show up big and unified on one day in November so that we can fight with each other for the rest of the two years, and have it MEAN something.

Landslide – Smashing Pumpkins

I’ve got tons of other more significant things running through my head about politics (including a particularly scathing one about the insanity running around the country around the concept of deficits), and about 10 album reviews swirling around in my subconscious, too.  And some comments about the Pitchfork list of the best songs of the 90s.  But all that will have to wait.  For now, just this:

Everyone keeps talking about how the midterms are going to be a bloodbath, a resounding defeat for the Democrats.  The evidence is a massive swing in the House, sufficient to return control to the GOP.  I’m not trying to say that wouldn’t be a big deal.  And I’m not trying to say that it’s meaningless.  But let’s keep some perspective here, people.  Every single House seat is up in every single election.  So if the Republicans win, say, 225 seats.  That means the Democrats win 210.  Which means the country will have demonstrated, in aggregate, a moderate preference for the Republicans.

Like I said, sure it’s significant.  But it’s not anything close to the actual landslide that happened in 2008 in the other direction.  If the Republicans swing an 80-seat majority anytime soon, that will be a true repudiation.  If they manage a tiny majority, well, let’s agree that we might need a bit more time to truly assess the meaningfulness of it.

Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt – Kate Nash
Early Christmas Present – Kate Nash

I complained yesterday about some records that I was really looking forward to which left me feeling a bit disappointed.  In an effort to change the tone, I’ll try and talk for the next few posts about records that absolutely lived up to my hopes.

First on the list is the new record from Kate Nash, which is everything that you’d expect from her, and more.  All over the place, full of big pop hooks, a confessional style that is both awkward and endearing, poignant, occasionally over-indulgent, but often charmingly brilliant. In short, it’s a wonderful follow-up to 2007’s Made of Bricks, which featured four or five brilliant songs as well as a couple head-scratchers.  My Best Friend Is You is similarly varied, with some wonderfully high moments and more than a few places that pull you up short.  Which is part of the magic.

Things start out normally enough, with both “Paris” and “Kiss That Grrrl” offering fairly mainstream, slightly doo-wop inflected, pop–with just enough attitude to make it clear that this is Kate Nash and not some interchangeable starlet.

The first big twist comes with “Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt,” which maybe be her most interesting song yet.  It begins quietly, introspectively, and with a bit of distant pain in her voice.  After about a minute and a half the drums join in, and add a sense of disquiet.  The general tone is still quiet beauty but you start to feel an element of urgency.  This is captured perfectly at 2:47 when she whispers “listen…” and the notes are piercingly clear. But things are just about ready to run off the rails, as the deep sadness, pain, loss, and general sense of breakdown gets splayed out before you in a wonderfully mad stream-of-consciousness rant.  As it goes on and gets more and more frantic you feel just how claustrophobic it can get inside the head of someone who has no outlet.  It’s brilliant and absolutely crammed with pathos.

The next two songs provide as clear a contrast as you’ll get about the multitudes contained on this record.  “I Just Love You More” is a grungy bit of riot-girl sludge.  It’s terrible and fascinating at the same time — and is set off perfectly by the fact that the next song “Do-Wah-Doo” is about as pure a piece of straightforward Phil-Spectored-girl-pop as you could want.  This is followed by “Take Me To A Higher Plane” which splits the difference.  It holds onto the pop sensibility but sets her free to flail about.

That’s a theme repeated a number of times on this record. There are a number of songs that aren’t strictly ‘good’ by any reasonable definition.  But the atonal grinding of “I’ve Got a Secret” builds up the reverb in order to provide stark relief to the bubblegum that resides elsewhere. Meanwhile, if the semi-rant to close out “Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt” is a pitch-perfect characterization of a personality under great strain, then the one to open “Mansion Song” is the flip-side.  Where the former exposes the earnestness and simple humanity, the latter is the aggressive and mad and so over-the-top in its littering of bad words and sexual imagery that it’s impossible to take it seriously.  The resulting track is almost impossible to listen to, but perversely (and I use that word advisedly) appealing.

Lest things get too far off the rails, she brings things back to earth with a couple songs that are almost trademark Kate Nash.  “Early Christmas Present” is the logical heir to “Foundations” or Mouthwash” – with the same simple major chord progressions and snarky lyrics (the present is an STI) that made us all fall in love with her in the first place.

Elsewhere, “I Hate Seagulls” is the heir to “Birds” – the deceptively simple acoustic track designed to reveal the significant truths that often lie hidden in plain sight.  It’s not as well done as “Birds” but still packs a punch. After listing off a litany of her other minor dislikes (“I hate burning my finger on the toaster, And I hate knits, I hate falling over, I hate grazing my knee”) she declares out of nowhere:  “I hate all the mistakes I make.”  It’s very affecting.

In the end, this is a record with many flaws.  But that’s part of what makes it so great.  It’s a bit messy and incoherent, but in the end so is life.  And that’s not a bad point to make.  Without the couple standout pop songs to keep things lively, this would be just a mess. But because she gives us the candy, it gives all the rest a bit more stability as well.

Recognizing that the pace of posting here is unlikely to give me a chance to issue full reviews of records that didn’t quite tickle my fancy, here’s a short post to offer a one or two line review of a variety of good records that I just wish had managed to be a little bit better.

Efterklang – Magic Chairs

Their last record inspired dreams of magic and danger; this one reminds me of the kind of dreams you get when sleeping in an uncomfortable airplane seat. You’re happy to be sleeping, but it’s still more a facsimile than the real thing.

Shout Out Louds – Work

Show Me Something New

It’s got 5 or 6 pretty nice songs, but it’s still a disappointment how restrained and tepid it feels compared to their previous one. The whole thing is immaculately constructed, but it feels a bit like a toy train set just going in circles.

The Apples in Stereo – Travellers in Space and Time

What you’d get if you baked a loaf of bread but used sugar instead of salt.

Cloud Cult – Light Chasers

The Mission – Unexplainable Stories

They can still write a great tune, but are quickly falling into an abyss of preciousness. It’s really a shame to see glimpses of what went into making one of my all-time favorite records a couple of albums back strewn in the midst of embarrassing autotune effects.

Eels – End Times

Oh Mark Everett, why have you forsaken me? Eels were one of my all-time favorite bands a decade ago, but it’s getting to the point I don’t even bother to listen to them any more. This one is a bit of a return to form, but it’s just too dreary to give me much. Back in the day, Eels records tore my world apart. This one just makes me glum.

jj – n° 3

I’m so close to getting this one. It’s just a little bit too geometrical for me to process.

Josh Ritter – So Runs the World Away

Folk Bloodbath

He’s got a couple VERY nice tunes but–sort of like Cloud Cult–seems to be getting a bit too enraptured with himself (and an ill-fated pseudo-hard guy persona that ruins a couple tracks) to be able to turn out another record like The Animal Years. “Folk Bloodbath” is right up there with his very best work, though. It’s big and beautiful and scarring in all the best ways. It’s the sort of song that asks for, and deserves, your full attention.

The Kissaway Trail – Sleep Mountain

They went for big and bold. They pretty successfully manage the former but come up a bit short on the latter. The first four tracks are great, but it tails off quite a bit from there.

Ted Leo – The Brutalist Bricks

No real surprises–it’s a Ted Leo record. Maybe even one of his better records. I just can’t get into it. Dunno.

Again, none of these are bad records. I’ve listened to them all a decent amount. They’re just all flawed in some unfortunate ways–because there are elements in each that gestures toward what could have been.  I can see each of them being a big hit for someone who gets a little something different.  So they get a tentative Heartache With Hard Work seal of approval.

That’s kind of been the theme for the whole year, though. Even the records that I’ve really enjoyed (posts forthcoming for many of these) include a ton of not-quite-as-good-as-their-last-one albums. Stars, Frightened Rabbit, New Pornographers, Antarctica Takes It!, Gaslight Anthem, Magnetic Fields, etc. All great albums, but none of them the best from those bands.

Sorry for a slight downer of a post. I’ll try to get some more enthusiastic stuff up here soon!

Little Lion Man – Mumford & Sons

Technically released in 2009, but new to the states, and (more importantly) to me in 2010 comes Sigh No More, a brilliant little record from Mumford & Sons.

My tolerance for this sort of vaguely disconsolate, rootsy by way of an Oxford poetry anthology, coming down the mountain style folk music is usually pretty low.  Checking out their RIYLs, and you’ll get a list full of bands that I’ve never been able to get into–in spite of quite a bit of praise from other corners.  I never found anything inspiring about Blitzen Trapper, for example, and Fleet Foxes left me a bit cold.  Bon Iver was far too wispy for me.  Iron and Wine were only listenable when Sam Beam was getting his rock and roll on.  I love a banjo and all but the whole genre just never quite did it for me.

There’s something about Mumford & Sons, though, that rouses me from my stupor. They’re not afraid to go big and bold.  They don’t shy away from putting it all out there and risking the sneers of post-ironic hipsters.  They see a purpose in music–to inspire us, to fill us with awe, to leave us breathless.  And they go for it!  Not always successfully, but when it works, oh my does it work.

You can get a sense of it on “Little Lion Man.” Where I sometimes feel the finger-picking folks to get a bit precious or lackadaisical, this track comes out with a roar and pulls no punches.  I mean, seriously, who has a chorus like this:

It was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
didn’t I, my dear?

Then you get the wordless bridge, and the pace quickens.  You can sense the tension growing…and growing…and then they come back at you with the chorus one last time.  And it all pretty much shatters.

Pivotal – Rai Knight

Self described as “Trip Pop with Soul” and living up to that in every way possible.  It’s slinky and cool, and lodges itself deep in your psyche.  You can feel the beats in the unthinking movement of your fingers–and after a while you start to imagine that your heart has taken to beating in time with the rhythm of the song.

Just listen to how the song glides.  It’s like magic.

Rai Knight signed recently with FrontStreet Records, so hopefully we’ll hear more from her soon.

It Can’t Hurt – Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Things that are aggravating me today

1. People who equate ‘pain’ with ‘correct’ when it comes to political decisions. Slate is full of such people, but it’s a pretty common meme: that you’re not really serious unless you’re willing to inflict some pain. You hear it, in particular, when it comes to the economy. The only serious economic policy is one that asks people to make sacrifices, and so on.

Of course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with creating a political culture that is a little more aware of the necessity for making tough choices that will involve some sacrifice. Energy policy is a clear example: we have a spate of non-serious solutions that are grounded in the idea that it will be possible to radically reconfigure our energy consumptive patterns without it forces any difficult changes.

So that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a pundit class that seems incapable of grasping that there can be situations where policies that don’t inflict obvious pain are nevertheless the right ones. Discussion about stimulus, for example, is often afflicted with a sense that just spending money can’t possibly be right because it doesn’t ask anything of anyone.

Matt Yglesias has a good post about this. Key quote: “I think this highlights the extent to which political commentators like to substitute cheap moralism for real thinking about economic issues.”

2. The whole Park51 ‘controversy.’  I hesitate to even bother bringing it up, because the whole thing is so ridiculous, but I think it’s still important to think about it.  A number of people have pointed out that there is vanishingly little chance that this particular issue will have any lasting effects.  I think that’s right.  As much as I hate the current discussion, I don’t think it’s reasonable to claim (as some have) that the attacks on the center constitute a major boon to bin Laden.  I’m sure the radical folks out there are pleased to see the US behaving like a bunch of idiots, but I can’t really see this being part of their large strategic plans.

That said, I think it’s worth reflecting on this particular controversy insofar as it reveals something broader about our political discourse.  Remember that we face a new version of this every couple weeks these days.  Some relatively innocuous thing that gets treated as a national crisis–never for any genuinely good reasons–and then forgotten about.  And each individual issue never ends up mattering that much, but the coarseness of our capacity to collectively consider important issues surely has to be a concern.

Basically: it’s a sad comment how quickly and how explosively a total non-issue can get turned into a firestorm–particularly when the undertone of the entire thing is a message that being Muslim is (in and of itself) a kind of affront to ‘American’ identity.  It’s just sad how willing people are to go along with the whole thing.

3. Speaking of which, the new news is that over 1/6 of the country believes Obama to be a Muslim.

One response to this news from a lot of people has been to issue a caution.  It’s not that 18% of people REALLY think he’s a Muslim.  They’re just using it as a stand-in for ‘different’ or ‘not like us.’

It confuses me why people think this ameliorates our concerns.  That a massive chunk of America feels completely confident in associating ‘Muslim’ with ‘bad’ is a MASSIVE problem–far bigger than some conspiracy zidiots being incorrect about a religion.  The fact that they think he’s a Muslim isn’t bad because it reveals they are ignorant–it’s bad because it reveals just how deep and wide the subtle bigotries of anti-Muslim thought run in the country.

Or, to put it another way, John Dickerson at Slate poses a good rhetorical question: “Why won’t any Republicans condemn the “Obama is a Muslim” myth?” For example, you get Mitch McConnell saying he “takes the president at his word” that he’s a Christian.  Which is about the weakest defense imaginable.  For instance, I take Senator McConnell at his word that he’s not committed to the violent overthrow of the US Constitution.  Why have there been a vanishingly small number of Republicans willing to actually condemn this narrative? As Dickerson writse:

What you didn’t hear McConnell say was that the whole notion that Obama is a Muslim is ridiculous because by any standard we use to evaluate the religious beliefs of our leaders, President Obama is a Christian. Nor did he go on to say that any politician who tries to benefit from this urban legend—by courting either Islamophobes or conspiracy nuts who think Obama is engaged in some kind of systematic deception—should be ashamed of himself.

It’s offensive for what it says about Obama, to some extent. But it’s really offensive for what it says about being Muslim–that it’s a slur to imply that someone secretly is one. And it’s a stain on our political discourse that it’s so easy to mobilize these kinds of attitudes.