Zach Wahls On Same-Sex Marriage

Wow.

Remarkable, succinct, poignant, and moving. I want to buy stock in this guy. Dude killed it.

Not shown? Heads exploding when select legislators still insisted on testifying or voting for bigotry.

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Narayanan Krishnan Will Shame Your Face

Video from CNN of a remarkable guy who, you know, just got sick of feeling empty and started feeding people. You know, like the sort of thing Houston, Texas fines people for unless they’re certified.

America is insane.

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Why I’d be horrible in the mafia

Mafia teamleader: You! Git over there and bound and gag ’em.

Me: Don’t you mean bind and gag ’em?

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Kenny Powders Is Back

I am Christmas-morning-excited about the new season of Eastbound & Down:

I realize that it’ll be hard to duplicate the perfection of the first season, but I’ve got a feeling this one’s gonna be even better. I mean, just look at the damn cornrows: it’s amazing.

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Chris Ware is a Badass Artist and Truthteller

Check this out: Chris Ware was commissioned to do a cover for Fortune. Can you believe they rejected this?

Everyone knows Chris is an artist of some intensity, which for the most part has been directed toward meticulous cartoon dissection of childhood trauma.

Maybe they thought – based on the scenes of Jimmy’s Grandpa – that he really had an instinctual sense for the Depression Era, and that this was a relevant visual cue. I could buy that. Maybe they even imagined he would do something unblinking, and pointed. You know: EDGY. When your mind’s eye floats back over his slavish cross-sections of emotional hurts, can you say you felt any strident political viewpoints leap off the page? After being offered this platform, Ware ripped off his Jimmy Corrigan sad-face mask and revealed: STAB YOU! Turns out that intensity has also been quietly set on Simmer over the economic crisis.

What the art director at Fortune didn’t see in Ware’s work, that maybe he should have, is his comfort with brutal honesty. Painful things don’t incidentally happen in Ware stories: he meditates on them. Maybe the guy who draws an intricate schematic of your heart being ripped into 6,000 pieces isn’t going to pull any punches with the corporate looting of the American economy.

What I love about this: Ware is a smart guy. He knows what Fortune’s niche is. (What’s their name again?) Let’s just say that if Bill Greider ever walked in the lobby they would ask him if he needed directions. Ware KNEW they would never, ever run this piece. But I picture him in his studio, setting the record straight with every futile pen stroke. For the few thousand or so people this would leak to on the internet, anyway.

God Bless you, Mr. Ware.

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Banky’s Exit Through the Gift Shop Film Trailer

I cannot wait to see this. The scene in the trailer where Banksy scales the wall effortlessly to escape the cops is tre´ Ninja.

This, to me, is the purest example of art needing a valve. When people will risk criminal prosecution to exercise free speech, creativity, and really, hard-ass-work, I think there’s a pretty compelling case for the world always getting its prophets when it needs them.

It’s just a ride.- Bill Hicks

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Malcolm McLaren Was a Clever Bloke: Rest in Peace.

Malcolm McLaren died yesterday. Never was a Sex Pistols man myself (I’m a follower of St. Joe Strummer- I’m a Clash man), but I’m not above tipping my cap to someone who cuts that wide of a cultural swath. I’ll be raising one to McLaren this weekend.

Over at the Caledonian Mercury is a nice little list of Six Things Malcolm McLaren Thought Of Before You Did.

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Dream Baby Dream- Bruce Springsteen

This slays me.

The way Bruce performs this Suicide cover on the Devils and Dust Tour, it’s an incantation, a humble spell.

The song kind of circles you, and when you think it’s gonna give up, it doesn’t. A really nice moment when he rises, walks to the foot of the stage, and unabashedly, kindly, asks you to rise again, wipe your bloody mouth and tears, and smile. Keep your day-to-day bravery.

Quite frequently, I am in awe of Bruce Springsteen.

At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines

It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap / We gotta get out while were young…

Coincidence? In one song? Not possible, man.

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Courage Wolf

God grinds the axes He intends to use.

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All A-Tremble

Once there was a seventh-grader who fell in love with an NFL team. You know, the one with the dazzling passing offense.

As a kid in Wisconsin, I was surrounded by the penitent, longsuffering Packer fanbase. It was a dreary era for the green and yellow and I knew that I didn’t have masochistic impulse to choose Packer Nation. In the Eighties, Packer fans were like the Bride of Christ, patiently waiting for his return. Meanwhile Eddy Lee Ivery was running up the middle three downs in a row, getting stuffed for a loss. I just couldn’t be a Packer fan, I wasn’t that Catholic. And yet, in this period of my fandom free-agency, I couldn’t get that root-for-the-underdog mentality completely out of my system.

Who You Are Going To Root For is an important choice for a young man, regardless of sport. I believe it’s a choice that should be made in the pre-teen years, but everyone is late for at least one party in their lifetime. Once you choose though-  child please—stick with that team.

The NFL-Wisconsin was awash in shame during my formative years. It was almost a given that a young lad’s eyes would turn abroad for an extension of his identity, and most did. But there were other pitfalls: there was the glitter-tyranny of the Dallas Cowboys. Somehow the Tom Landry/Roger Staubach era drifted down from frustrated father to son, so that children of the seventies were steeped in this perverse, wanky Cowboy fanhood. With their corn-fed brawn and their metal-flake helmets, I hated the Cowboys. Damn their eyes! The other popular team to choose was the Raiders, with their silver-and-black bad-assness. Choosing adoptive awesomeness just didn’t seem sporting. “Don’t get me wrong, yeah I’m FROM Surinam but my favorite soccer team is Manchester United, GO UNITED!!!!!!!”

People choose a team that reflects their region or their character. If they are lucky, it’s both. My team wasn’t what you’d call a storied franchise like the Cowboys or the Packers. They’d never won the Superbowl, but they were always making awesome diving catches in those games they lost. Plus they had pretty rad uniforms, which one has to admit, is a serious consideration when you are thirteen years old. Dan Fouts had an arm like artillery and Charlie Joyner & Kellen Winslow were always leaping around to pull in those bombs. Chuck Muncie brought an extra big pile of awesome to the table, but the Chargers were never known for their running game.

(How awesome is this uniform? I mean, honest to Christ! That helmet is almost black!)

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Andrew Sullivan on Obama and his Pivotal Presidency

The best 1st year assessment I’ve seen so far. From his blog post:

…Obama is on notice that, whatever the enormity of the mess he inherited, the opposition has no sense of responsibility for any of it and will blame him for everything and anything. All he has going for him is the American public’s ability to see through the dust and fury to the realities beneath.

Sullivan’s blog has been invaluable reading this year for me. From his Iranian revolution coverage, to his pragmatic yet measured scrutiny of Obama himself, he and The Colbert Report have been air to me in a year when the atmosphere was polluted beyond recognition. Kudos, Mr. Sullivan. And to you, Mr. President.

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Matthew Ryan- Dear Lover

Well, he’s done it again.

I’d be hard pressed to think of an artist who has released as many great albums as Matthew Ryan has in the past 12 years. His latest, Dear Lover, is no different. Written from an emergency room (hopefully everything is ok now, either with Matthew’s family or himself), it’s yet another album of hopeful heartbreak, of people with bloody grins after they’ve been kicked in the teeth, of people with no Reason to Believe waiting on Amazing Grace.

Matthew’s a hard sell, I realize; he’s raw, he’s unvarnished, he’s true. Whenever I suggest him to people (which I do less than I should), I always add a warning: “Well, he’s kinda dark.” And he is. Yet I find his music endlessly uplifting, in the same way I find Shane McGowan, or Tom Waits, or The Ghost of Tom Joad uplifting. They don’t bullshit you. They don’t have time for false hope and bravado.

In Matthew’s songs, people keep going, man, they persevere. There’s a beauty in that, a humble majesty. I think one of the reasons it’s tough to spread the gospel of Mr. Ryan, of just how good he really is, is that I really feel you have to suggest him to people who look deeper, who have somewhat of a refined pallette, someone who’s not going to go, “Wow, his voice is rough.”

Yep. Sure is. Ain’t it grand?

I used to work at a record store in Minneapolis, and when we were closing, we would either put on the Flaming Lips or Tom Waits, generally ’cause they’d shake the hockey moms on out the door. One night, a woman came up late night, and asked, “Who IS this?” We were playing Rain Dogs. “It’s hideous,” she hissed. Oh, how the record store snobs laughed. I would not suggest Matthew Ryan to that woman.

And yet, I suggest Dear Lover to everyone. It’s got a Kraftwork meets early U2 meets Springsteen vibe to it. It’s raw like a journal entry, brave like a rejected first kiss. My favorites at this point are City Life, We Are Snowmen, The World Is…, and The End of a Ghost Story. I’m delighted to have a version of Some Streets Lead Nowhere, which is one of my favorites of his, ever. Spark reminds me of what it was like to hear Missing by Everything But The Girl in wintertime London.  Your Museum is a stark stained-glass piece that evokes The Waterboys; a sublime waltz in an abandoned church, decaying and crumbling buttresses open to the night sky.

The World Is… really floors me. It’s just a gorgeous piece of work. Like a man getting up to go to work in a town like Detroit, kissing his sleeping daughter, grabbing his coffee, and going to work, hoping against hope that he won’t get laid off today. The fight is fixed, but he’s lacing up his gloves regardless.

I could go on and on, really.

In the liner notes, in Matthew’s dedication, he writes:

I would suggest that you rail against the things or events that daunt you and/or your dreams with every consonant, vowel, sentence, idea and muscle in your mind and body.

Or, as Winston Churchill said,

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Thanks again, Matthew. Keep ’em coming.

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RiP! A Remix Manifesto: Girl Talk, U2, and Walt Disney as Remixer

Just watched Brett Gaylor’s Rip! A Remix Manifesto on Hulu last night. I’m actually shocked that NBC, Fox and ABC (Disney) would have this online, in this format; despite its lionization of Disney the Man, Disney the Company is really taken to task here. Maybe it’s the “if we join them, they will disappear” belief. Or maybe they (Los Corporations Grandes) figure the animals have already left the zoo, and they can’t stop it, exhibited by their mere acceptance of Hulu as a business model. Don’t know.

What I do know is that the film is pretty damn good. I’ve been loosely paying attention to these issues since the U2 vs. Negativland debacle in the early nineties, which really made U2 look backwards at a time when they were actually creating some pretty forwards-looking music. I think Negativland would have looked a bit more serious if they hadn’t included the cover, which is pretty much a giant “U2” over a much smaller “Negativland.” You can claim “culture jamming” all you want, but when you transparently are looking for huge sales by being cheeky, I understand Island’s concern. Maybe not the legal overreaction, but the concern is valid.

(I also think Greg Ginn’s re-release with Negativ(e)land: Live on Tour album on SST is about as brilliant a response as possible- Negativland may have posed and said, “EXACTLY! That’s what we’re talking about!” but the loss of their “intellectual property” and the realization of Ginn’s masterful chess move must have stung a little.)

Regardless, I think Rip! and Girl Talk (the “band” that Gaylor champions- those quotes are not sarcastic, it’s actually one guy) are completely necessary right now, and Girl Talk to me is more of an idea than an actual band. (Much like The Sex Pistols are a better idea than a band- Never Mind the Bollocks… is a pretty good album, but it’s a better call-to-arms. The Clash were 10 times the band the Pistols were.) I love the idea of “everything is fair game, ’cause we’re all the same person” and I think the spirit of Girl Talk is much more interesting than the actual music- I listen to the songs and think, “That’s interesting,” but there’s an aspect of it (to me) that seems like a novelty. It’s not the music that’s important, it’s the crowd’s reaction to said music- much like the Pistols, it’s the movement that’s the star. And I think Girl Talk completely understands that.

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Roger Waters- “Home”

I consider this to be one of Water’s minor masterpieces; it echoes Dylan at his best, really. Both choruses echo ’round my head quite regularly whenever I see a weepy, bloated pundit selling a kinder, gentler fascism and brand of Christianity that has nothing to do with empathy, love or truth:

When they overrun the defenses
A minor invasion put down to expenses
Will you go down to the airport lounge
Will you accept your second class status
A nation of waitresses and waiters
Will you mix their martinis
Will you stand still for it
Or will you take to the hills

Will you mix their martinis? That’s a f***er of a question that’ll keep you up at night.

The production and arrangement is criminally 80’s, including the guitar solo, but I can overlook that because of the amazing writing. It’s really one of my favorite songs of Mr. Waters’.

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I’d Like to Ask for Sinead’s Hand in Marriage, Please?

“Brilliant.”

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Redemption and Forgiveness

Words fail:

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They Shall Be Alive Forever

From W.B. Yeats’ Cathleen Ní Houlihan:

They shall be remembered forever

They shall be alive forever

They shall be speaking forever

The people shall hear them forever.

Tipped, of course, by Andrew Sullivan and his relentless and unmatched Iran coverage.

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“Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed.”

From a translated Iranian blog:

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow.  Maybe they will turn violent.  Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed.  I’m listening to all my favorite music.  I even want to dance to a few songs.  I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows.  Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see.  I should drop by the library, too.  It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again.  All family pictures have to be reviewed, too.  I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye.  All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them.  I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that.  My mind is very chaotic.  I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure.  So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them.  So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism.  This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

The old cannot kill the young forever.

Hat tip, once again, to Andrew Sullivan’s tireless and admirable coverage.

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The Tide is Turning

Andrew Sullivan’s coverage of the Iranian “election” debacle and the subsequent protests and fascist crackdown by the Revolutionary Guard has been truly admirable. Something is happening in Iran, indeed.

You can’t force democracy down the barrel of a gun, the way the Neocons think. All this weekend, as all hell is breaking loose in Iran, I’ve had a line from Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” running through my head:

You can blow out a candle/But you can’t blow out a fire/Once the flame begins to catch/The wind will blow it higher.

There are young people in Iran (and all over the world) who are sick of the tyranny of old ideas, who want to be part of something hopeful, not repressive and brutal. While we’re worried about whether Adam Lambert is gay or indulging Sarah Palin’s shameless mock outrage at Letterman, people like this are fighting for their lives and freedom in Tehran.

One wonders if this was Obama’s long game: to engage the hopeful, and young, and through his Middle East address present them with a choice of continued submission to tyranny, or to forge their own future, much as the USA has done. “May you live in interesting times.” It doesn’t get much more interesting, y’all.

I wholeheartedly suggest following Andrew’s blog as well as Huffington Post’s coverage. It’s not as if Fox is gonna cover it; they’re too busy praying to God that Obama fails. Party first, country last, right guys?

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20 Years Ago Today

Inscription on the Pillar of Shame in Hong Kong:

The Old Cannot Kill the Young Forever

Excerpts from “Watching TV” from Roger Waters’ fantastic album, Amused to Death.

We were watching TV
In Tiananmen Square
Lost my baby there
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef
In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
She had a shiny hair
She was a daughter of an engineer
Won’t you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She had a perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy
Won’t you grieve with me
For my yellow rose
Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes

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