I was thinking listening to the album this song comes from, Stumpy, that maybe by 1996 the Dwarfs have lost a step but actually the music, rather than their own as on previous releases, is their curation and editing of music made by sixteen home tapers from all around the world. Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate wrote the songs but then put the music together from these home cassette recordings they collected from other lo-fi home tapers like themselves. That's why they call themselves on this album the International Tall Dwarfs. And maybe why this one has the ghostly cast of the Velvet's "Heroin," slowed down and stretched out for all its spiritual-emotional worth. This is also Galaxy 500 territory, although not sure they have any song quite 19-minutes long. Epic lo-fi. Bloodletting indie rock; an uplifting dirge. Hummable. Rock-a-bye Baby, Up.
Trump's Second or Third Coup Plot
Bidenomics for the Green New Deal
"Biden’s economic program looks less like a deliberate attempt to move beyond neoliberalism and more like an ongoing commitment to political pragmatism over any particular economic ideology. That it worked is a testament not to Biden’s profound economic foresight, but to the limits of economic analysis. Economists often disagree with one another over important issues, which means that on any given question, a lot of them are just wrong. The Federal Reserve, for instance, spent the past two years trying to generate mass layoffs in order to cure inflation. Those layoffs never materialized—economists aren’t really sure why—and inflation came down anyway, because the Fed had misdiagnosed its cause. The country had been suffering not from an excess of household wealth, but from a pandemic-induced supply crunch."
Full-employment is Biden's True Legacy, by Zachary D. Carter, Slate
Go Joe! And Harris/Walz will be his legacy! Of note, however, the Fed's misdiagnosis is in fact pure neoliberalism. The market, or supply shocks, in this instance, which were obvious at the time to everyone paying attention, and historically expected after any global disruption in normal economic operations, were ignored by the Fed. Like the role of "seller's inflation," in the subsequent surge of inflation, is ignored to this day by the Fed and elite journalists and economic experts. According to these people, unfettered market and corporate behavior cannot be the problem; and should never be regulated or reformed, this is the neoliberal default position. And it's the position of the Fed and mainstream economics and so the mainstream media, coincidentally all owned and paid for by corporate oligarchs. Biden's genius, attributable probably to spending decades in the special interest scrum that is congress, is in calling out and going after the failings of the neoliberal order-- yeah, pragmatically-- while not getting tied up in soapboxing ideological battles with the chattering class, where he'd have to explain to the public via corporate owned media that so-called "free markets" are in fact not very free at all-- as he's already noted after all, "trickle-down economics don't work"-- but are actually costly for workers, the environment, and when you get down to it not even the most pro-growth or not the kind of economic growth that promotes sustainability and the shared general prosperity of all Americans, anyway.
"Clam Shells and Roller Skates"-- The Triumph of Chic's Good Times
I really don't follow what's happening with the rock & roll hall of fame much. I visited the place once in Cleveland. Lots of fun rock & roll trivia. I wore a baseball cap with a yellow 7" record insert symbol I picked up in the Hall merch store until it was threadbare and falling apart. The annual ballot for new inductees into the Hall usually turns up in one of my news feeds and at least half the lists, it's been my impression, look like no-brainers to me.
There's a lot of great rock & roll, why be stingy about it? The Hall ought to celebrate the immense diversity of rock & roll. Not narrowcast it as another classic rock only format. I've heard Chic have been nominated and failed eleven times to get inducted into the rock & roll hall of fame. That's ridiculous, and should be a shaming embarrassment to the music writers who vote. Chic should be in the rock & roll hall of fame for one song alone, "Good Times," and its' tremendous pop influence.
If one song isn't enough, which sounds weirdly anti-rock & roll to me, Chic have at least two other classic disco hits and turned into solid album artists. But, again, for "Good Times" alone, Chic belong in the Hall, easy. See/hear below.
Anyway, they call the place the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but seem unfortunately hung-up on Rock and the rock stars era. To my mind rock & roll takes off in 1954 or 1955. It's Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, The Coasters, The Shirelles, Ronnettes, Everly Brothers, Sun Records, Atlantic Records (including LaVern Baker, Bobbettes, Ruth Brown), Etta James, The Fleetwoods, the rest of the 1950s and, really, expands exponentially from there til possibly the end of the Century and the collapse of the record industry or why not all the way to the present? Rock & roll is more a mixed race/multicultural, by now vastly complex, constellation of sounds than any classic guitar rock cliche, not that there's anything wrong with the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. My point is Hiphop is as much Rock & Roll as Classic Rock as is Folk Rock as is EDM as is Punk Rock as is Disco, etc.
And maybe it's all only rock & roll but I like it.
"Good Times," Chic: Number one on Hot 100 in 1979.
"Rapper's Delight,' Sugarhill Gang: Reached 36 on Hot 100 same year.
"Rapture," Blondie: Number one in 1981.
The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steal: Also from 1981 a live DJ mix of Flash cutting, scratching, and mixing a bunch of records, including "Good Times," "Rapture," Sugarhill Gang, Queen, Spoonie Gee, and Mr. Rogers. It's an ultramagnetic party mix based musically on Niles Rodgers' funky guitar and Bernard Edwards' super fat bass. And, Flash, winningly, DJ'ing for a bunch of kids whooping it up getting down to his fresh beats and cartoon wit. It's disco and New Wave and Flash's cutting stabs of proto-hiphop turntable hooks.
Oh yeah, and another one: Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." Spent 15 weeks on the Billboard Top 10 in 1980. In all, "Good Times" is a dominant force on the charts for three years running, helps launch Hiphop, and has been sampled by over 200 pop songs since coming out in 1979.
Americans want to rein in Supreme Court justices, poll finds
Last month, the court’s conservative majority granted Republican nominee Donald Trump and future presidents broad immunity from prosecution for acts committed in office, potentially sinking Trump’s historic New York hush money conviction and pending cases stemming from his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
In the wake of the immunity decision, some 70% of Americans favor a constitutional amendment stating that no person – including the president – is above the law, according to the poll, with 54% of Republicans joining 72% of independents and 89% of Democrats.
More good numbers at: USA Today
Twenty-six former Officials Say Trump Unfit to be POTUS
"They’ve expressed their concerns about his character, his leadership, his impulsiveness, and his narcissism, among other traits. The opposition from so many former close aides is unprecedented in the annals of American politics."
“Weird” Is a Rebuke to Republican Dominance Politics
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Are you weird? According to Democrats—who have made “weird” a new term of art for Republicans—you’re weird if you get overexercised about the genitalia of Olympic athletes, think childless people shouldn’t have the right to vote, and generally fixate on controlling women, families, gender, and sexuality for reasons that seem transparently bound up in your own embattled masculinity and deep shame. You’re weird if you yell in public about sharks, or about “Joe Biden’s border bloodbath,” especially while your hands dance to music only you can hear. You’re weird if you want to track strangers’ menstrual cycles but are mad that people know you Googled “dolphin porn.” You’re weird if you campaign vigorously on issues that fly against common sense, such as getting rid of library books, abolishing the Department of Education, and giving the President dictatorial powers. “Weird” is multipurpose, a catchall designation for extreme or intense things that Republicans do or say. Its capaciousness is part of its appeal."
Go Katy Waldman! (another reason to subscribe to the NY-er)
I can't find this meme/photo that made the rounds in the middle of the pandemic. It's two people sitting next to each other on a public bus. A little old lady in a big overcoat and a nonbinary kid with fuchsia hair. The caption reads: Urban nightmare! I might be adding the exclamation point but I loved that photo. Nothing is more bullshit and nothing riles me up more than Trump and his outer-exurbia Maga country minions hating on cities as "living in hell." I've lived in Seattle since the late 1980s, and lived in Portland and the Bay Area (San Jose) in the early '80s; so I've lived in cities for going on half a century. They've had their problems but their problems are NOT women making reproductive health care decisions for themselves or LGBTQ+ people or immigrants or people of color or minorities or even protesters. Never have been.
Repuglicans right now are weirdly obsessed with punching down at marginalized groups, women, people in drag, people speaking in a different language or with an accent, people protesting state violence in the streets. They maybe always have been bad but they at least haven't been this bad about it in a long time; since America was "great" in their way of thinking, I guess. Project 2025 really is a Handmaid's Tale dystopian nightmare. And despite Trump's denials Project 2025 is in fact a perfect distillation of Trumpism, with the fingerprints of over 200 former officials of the Trump admin all over it.
The biggest problems in the city of Seattle, from my humble perch in the peanut gallery, are living wages, homelessness, and the rich do not want to pony up (with taxes) for obvious infrastructural needs like public housing and green sustainability reforms, and the mayor and political establishment are for some inexplicable reason intimidated by the fascist Trump-endorsing police union.
I'm usually a passive supporter of those "Keep Portland/City X weird" campaigns. So the crucial qualifier here, made by Walz at their Michigan rally, is "creepy" weird. Trump/Vance are creepy weird on steroids. You don't want to hear them talking about your family or anybody else's families. Let's put this creepy weird stuff behind us. We really do have better, more pressing, things to do.