Maths Is Fun, 1.

Seventeen large birds are perched on the roof of Arlen's home. If nine dragons fly out of the sky and eat one bird each and Arlen wets his pants in fear and wonder, how many large birds will be left to smell the pee pee pants after the dragons vanish, leaving no answers as to their origin, purpose, or destination?

Correct answer (number and label) in the comments here at the blog gets the next quesion.

Update: 2. is now.

Apocalypse: Has It Always Been Just Around The Corner?

Climate change, which is now irreversible, will render huge swaths of the Earth uninhabitable.

Ebola or some such virus will painfully kill some very large percentage of the human race.

Innocent children are enduring life in poverty, squalor, and cruelty, only to die young and in pain.

Fox news.

We will all be facially and retinally recognized by the computer, relegating anonimity and privacy to the realms of memory.

Gaza, Israel, Hamas.

The very wealthy will continue to get richer until the economic divide is such that the majority, who are now the new peasants, revolt.

Nukes continue to trickle down to countries and NGOs who will use them irresponsibly.

You get the idea. Is it reasonable to be more frightened for the future than ever before in human history, or has it always been thus? Have there always been people saying, "We only have about ten or twenty years left; then our whole way of life will just be swept away."?

The Onion: News Before It Happens, Part 5

In April of 2002, The Onion published this article:

Mideast Peace Process Derailed, Burned To Ground, Shoveled Over With Dirt

Only 12 years and 3 secretary of states later, the lamestream media caught on:

Kerry: It’s ‘Reality-Check Time’ For Peace Process

The Onion is America's finest news source for being #1 in news. Previous four examples:

Part 4: Iraq
Part 3: The Economy
Part 2: Also Iraq
Part 1: Bush II, U2, The Brewers

Some of the links to the "real" news are dead, as it turns out. None of The Onion's links have died, which just means they are better at that too.

Happy Valentine's Day

"There never was a time when you or I did not exist. Nor will there be any future when we shall cease to be"

-Krishna to Arjuna in the Baghavad-Gita, quoted in the George Harrison albums Somewhere in England and Brainwashed

"That was me!"

-Paul McCartney

Is it important to be a cohesive person from one decade to the next?

If so, why?

What makes you the same person now that you were five years after you were born?

…that you were five years ago?

…ten years ago?

…ten years from now?

…a hundred years from now?

…ten years before you were born?

What is the same?      What have you always had?

What is different?  What will you always have?

What defines you?       What have you always been?

What will you always be?

No Matter What

NameMemoriesThoughtsBeliefsActions

StuffLovesFamilyFriends

NationStateJobHobbiesBodySoulGod

Who are yOu?

Don't Draw Conclusions About A Person Simply From Reading A New York Times Article About Them. Read Something They Wrote Themselves.

This was an interesting article, shared without comment by a musician friend.

Defining and Demanding a Musician’s Fair Shake in the Internet Age

Now I am a songwriter and musician (please imagine Star Jones parody voice), but oddly enough my main initial reaction to David Lowery, the protagonist of this article, went something like this: Boo-freaking-hoo.

In 2012 he only made $440 in songwriter royalties from his 1985 debut album while back in 2002 he had made $1,147. To suggest that, thus, the system is broken, struck me as ridiculous. I was all set to blog about how writing a song has zero inherent monetary value. It's the promoters - the people who mesmerize journalists and other strangers into believing your song has value - who really earn the money. You made deals with multi-national corporations to record, release, and promote your music to the point where it gets a million plays on Pandora and now those corporations aren't giving you enough money? Again I thought, boo-freaking-hoo. You're actually impossibly lucky to have gotten as far as you have. Get some perspective. Get a real job.

The music business is the system by which the vast number of people who would not inherently care about music (hereafter referred to as Z for Zombies) are all but forced to care about music by people who forcefully shove that music down their throats (hereafter referred to as F for Feeders). The F can not create the product and thus require people who care deeply about music and create it themselves (hereafter referred to as B for Brains). Sometimes a young, naive, excited B, full of love for their craft (think 1962 Bob Dylan), makes a deal with a hardworking, highly skilled F (think Albert Grossman), to get their music to Z. Later B is sad to learn that F expected to receive money for getting B the attention of Z. "It's all because of my genius that Z loves me!" thinks B, deluded. B sues F, etc.

However!

Then I read David Lowery's original blog post and most of the indignant wind went out of my sails like Roseanne Roseannadanna.

My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89, Less Than What I Make From a Single T-Shirt Sale!

Now I get it. Songwriters can't negotiate a rate with Pandora. The government sets that rate. That is unfair. Agreed. Nevermind.

Am I even going to post this? What would be the point? I guess the point would be don't draw conclusions about a person simply from reading a New York Times article about them. Read something they wrote themselves.

Which I knew already, having been myself the subject of 3 (three!) newspaper articles, all mildly or wildly inaccurate, over my twenty-four years in (actually mostly out) of the music business. Anyway, I woke up an hour early today with no hope of going back to sleep, thus blog post. Enjoy. Could have written a song, I guess, but what would be the point? I don't have an F and wish to avoid the attentions of Z.

Modern Things. Bah!

I recently watched this video.

It's fine, right? No problem. It does the job it's supposed to do, which is keep a baby's attention and teach them some signs. For me personally, though, after about as many seconds as I am years old, I started trying to figure out whether the sound of the waves synced up with the actual waves because it doesn't seem like that pristine audio could possibly have been recorded on a windy beach. The rigid, repetitive, perfect sameness of the whole thing started driving me nuts. See what I mean?

Now I'm no audio engineer, but I am pretty sure she's lip syncing. She's doing it really well, which made me think there was probably a click track playing over speakers with the vocal when they shot the video at the beach. So what a baby is actually watching is a person lip syncing to a click track, probably some keyboards, and the vocal, all pre-recorded. An impossible illusion.

Later on, in post-production, my guess is they took out the sounds of everything except the vocal. Then they added in some quiet background waves. Well, fine, we just want the best end product, right? Just using modern tools. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Except that everything new is like this now. Everything is this digitally enhanced illusion of perfection. Long before this particular video was even over, I started thinking what it would look like if it had been taped for Sesame Street in 1974.

Susan's hair would be blowing around, her pitch would be wavering. She might crack up a little bit. You would hear the actual waves as they broke. She would be singing loud to be heard over the wind and those waves. It would be a real, one-of-a-kind, human performance. Factors beyond the control of the producers would have an impact on the final product. Watching her, you would think it was something you could do yourself. You would be right.

But back to 2013 (sigh). Every professional piece of video and audio that young people watch and hear now has this layer of digital illusion built in. They grow up in an acid bath of impossible, inhuman, auto-tuned perfection. And anything that hasn't been perfected by auto-tune is ridiculed. You're Star Wars Kid. You're William Hung. Ha Ha!

I wonder what cumulative impact this has on younger, more impressionable people than myself. Might they think, "Oh, I could never sing like that."? Because if they did think that, they would be right. But what if they stop trying?

Major League Baseball Puts A Gun In Its Own Mouth And Pulls The Trigger

So every year for the past eleven years I've gone with some of my friends on a baseball road trip. We've gone to Kansas City (7 times), Milwaukee (2 times), Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis (1 each). (Yes, some years there were two, Mathlete!) When the Twins' schedule was announced several months ago, I was excited to see where we would go this year.

We ain't goin' nowhere. There are zero three-game weekend serieses with the Twins on the road against those nearby teams. Because Houston was moved to the American League, putting 15 teams in each league, interleague play has to happen every day that all 30 teams play. The schedule this year sucks rocks. But don't take my word for it, listen to Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.

(From TwinsBaseball.com):

The Twins finish May with two games in Milwaukee, followed by two against the Brewers at home. Gardenhire was disappointed that the teams won't play three in each park like they used to.

"It's the first time, for me, that we have Milwaukee for two and we go there for two," he said. "We always played three and three. It's a big deal for our fans to go to Milwaukee, and for their fans to come here. It's a two-and-two during the week. That's always a big deal. Tons of Twins fans go to Milwaukee and pack that place, and just the same way when they come and pack our place.

"I thought that's what it was all about. The natural rival used to be the Brewers. That was always a pretty cool series, three over there and three at our place. Now it's two and two in the middle of the week. A lot of people will have to take off work."

Or just not go at all. For the first time since 2001. Stupid. Stupid baseball. Stupid Bud Selig. (Smart Ron Gardenhire.) The inevitable accumulation of wives, children, mortgages, and real jobs couldn't kill our enthusiasm and our determination to make this annual road trip. But now it's just - poof! - not even an option. You did it to yourself, baseball. Did you want me to stop attending your games? Does anybody really give a shit what league the hopeless Houston Astros are in? Thanks for the memories and change it the fuck back for next year. See you then.

Baseball Picks

In enjoying the first full page of Major League box scores yesterday, I noticed something strange. Mark Buehrle was not an opening day starter. Honestly I didn't even know what team he was on. Turns out he's on the Blue Jays and they had R.A. Dickey, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner as their opening day starter. Fair enough. Certainly Buehrle will start the second game? Nope. That'll be Brandon Morrow, who had a good season last year.

Thus my prediction: With someone the caliber of Mark Buehrle as their third starter, the Toronto Blue Jays are my pick to win the increasingly and delightfully unstable AL East and the 2013 World Series. They will be the antiTwins, as the actual Twins have a fourth starter as their ace and thus can not even bring themselves to say the word "ace" in regard to any of their pitchers.

Fellow guitarists! Learn from my mistake!

When you are going to use a whammy bar in performance on, say, a Fender Stratocaster, you should use the following sequence of events to prepare:

1. Screw whammy bar into that hole near the bridge.

2. Tune your guitar.

If you do these things in the opposite order, your guitar (if it is like mine) will end up almost a half step flat just as you are supposed to start playing. Then you will be tuning up while the band runs through its first few songs. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

The things you can learn, even after 25 years of playing guitar.

---------------------------------

Memphis Evans is the composer of several pieces of serious music that explore the area between desireable and undesireable sounds.

I Pray For Rain

Just a micro-post, slightly too long for FB. I am getting The Box Tops' The Letter/Neon Rainbow album from Hennepin County Library's Freegal system for free at a rate of three tracks per week. I found the track "I Pray For Rain" to be one of Alex Chilton's best vocal performances ever. People using Freegal or people who like Big Star/Alex Chilton should check this out. That is all.

To log in through Hennepin County Library (requires a library card):
http://www.hclib.org/pub/search/LoginActionFreegal.cfm

Enter your barcode to enter the site.

Search for "The Letter/Neon Rainbow" using the "Album" search. Click on the album name when it appears. "I Pray For Rain" is track 12.

This album appears to have gone out of print in physical form, which is why I was getting it here in the first place.

The First 100 Albums That Occurred To Me, Roughly In The Order In Which They Occurred To Me

When I got out several pieces of paper and a pen to write down the 100 greatest albums of all time, these were the first 100 to occur to me.

The Beatles, Abbey Road

The Beatles, The Beatles (The White Album)

The Moody Blues, Seventh Sojourn

They Might Be Giants, Flood

They Might Be Giants, They Might Be Giants

Kirsty MacColl, Kite

The Beatles, Let It Be

The Beatles, Revolver

Scot Ninnemann, Moon June Spoon

Scot Ninnemann, Slight Change of Plans

Flip Nasty, Guitool

UFO Catcher, The Tale of a Sad And Lonely Boy Who Dreamed of Love

Kaptain Karl, Art Is A Lie, Baby

Kaptain Karl, The Chicago Tapes

Kaptain Karl, The Kepler Agenda

Jubilant Dogs, Abby

Prince, Purple Rain

Prince, Dirty Mind

Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends

Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water

Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds Five

Ben Folds, Rocking the Suburbs

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde

Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks

Bob Dylan, Oh Mercy

Bob Dylan, Time Out Of Mind

Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, Bringing it All Back Home

Bob Dylan, Desire

Bob Dylan, "Love And Theft"

Bob Dylan, Live 1966

Lou Reed, Transformer

Lou Reed, Set the Twilight Reeling

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground, Loaded

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville

Trip Shakespeare, Across the Universe

Trip Shakespeare, Lulu

Matt Wilson, Burnt White and Blue

The Beatles, Rubber Soul

Billy Bragg, Worker's Playtime

Billy Bragg, Don't Try This At Home

Joni Mitchell, Hejira

Joni Mitchell, Blue

Joni Mitchell, The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark

Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon

Paul Simon, Graceland

Paul Simon, Paul Simon's Concert in Central Park

Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon

Paul SImon, Hearts and Bones

John Coltrane, Giant Steps

John Coltrane, Africa/Brass

John Coltrane, Live at the Village Vanguard

Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um

Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Sarah McLachlan, Surfacing

Enya, Paint the Sky With Stars

Steve Miller Band, Greatest Hits 1974-1978

James Taylor, Greatest Hits

Gram Parsons, GP

Gram Parsons, Return of the Grevious Angel

The Minnesota Orchestra, The Complete Beethoven Symphonies

Les Miserables, Original Cast Recording

The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man

The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo

The Band, Music From Big Pink

The Band, The Band (The Brown Album)

Bob Dylan & The Band, The Basement Tapes

Paul McCartney (or whatever), Band on the Run

Billy Joel, The Stranger

Billy Joel, Turnstyles

Billy Joel, Cold Spring Harbor

Paul McCartney, Tug of War

Paul McCartney, Venus and Mars

Paul McCartney, Flowers in the Dirt

Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?

Jimi Hendrix, Axis: Bold As Love

Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas

Elvis Presley, The King of Rock and Roll: The Complete '50s Masters

Elvis Presley, From Nashville To Memphis: The Essential '60s Masters I

Elvis Presley, Promised Land

Elvis Presley, From Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis, Tennessee

Elvis Presley, Memories: The 1968 Comeback Special

Elvis Presley, Elvis Country

Elvis Presley, Moody Blue

Elvis Presley, That's The Way It Is

Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run

Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town

The Kinks, The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society

John Lennon, Imagine

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy

George Harrison, Brainwashed

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass

George Harrison, George Harrison

George Harrison, Could Nine

The Moody Blues, The Other Side of Life

"Weird Al" Yankovic, Dare To Be Stupid

"Weird Al" Yankovic, Alpocalypse

Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster

David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars

David Bowie, Hunky Dory

David Bowie, Low

David Bowie, Heathen

David Bowie, Reality

David Bowie, Station To Station

The Kinks, Muswell Hillbillies

Falco, Falco3

And I think that was 100.

Next time I sat down/stuff I thought of immediately afterwards:

John Hartford, Areo-Plane

Guster, Keep It Together

Guns -N- Roses, Appettite For Destruction

The Carpenters, 1969-1973

Big Star, #1 Record/Radio City

Big Star, Third/Sister Lovers

Evan Johnson, How Could I Know

Colin Spring, How I Came To Cry These Tears of Cool

Trip Shakespeare, Volt

Semisonic, Feeling Strangely Fine

Ted Hawkins, The Final Tour

I thought about looking over my CD collection and adding anything I forgot, then cutting up the pieces of paper and physically assembling the absolutely definitive list, in order. But I'm 41 not 14.

Top Ten Most Inspiring Keyboard Moments

Number. Title - Artist - Keyboard Player - Album - Year

Description/Justification

10. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five - Whatever And Ever Amen - 1997

My reaction upon hearing this in 1997 was, "Hey! Someone is making great piano music in a way that no one else has since Billy Joel and Elton John started dramatically overproducing their records in the 1980s! Hallelujah! Must acquire everything by him."

9. Let It Be - The Beatles - Paul McCartney - Let It Be - 1970

I have basically fetishized every aspect of this entire performance. The way the left hand octaves interact rhythmically with the right hand block chords. The way the F chord has an e in it which goes down to a d that sounds like a mistake at first. The actual mistake on "Mother Mary" during verse three. The way the gospel riff happens exactly one and a half times total. This song provides the crossover with my top ten guitar solos list. Fascinating alternate version from the movie.

Shoot, I could make this whole list Beatles songs. I could ALMOST make the whole list from Let It Be. So let's give honorable mentions to Billy Preston, electric piano on One After 909 and Get Back and Paul again for The Long And Winding Road. Don't know who did the Moog solo on Because from Abbey Road. George Martin's double speed classical solo on In My Life, which was copied by me on Jubilant Dogs' Stratosphere.

8. Green-Eyed Lady - Sugarloaf - Jerry Corbetta - Sugarloaf - 1970

I love the snaky riff, but what grabbed me the most was the punchy, breathy SOUND of this thing. I'd never heard anything quite like it and I still haven't.

7. Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen - Danny Federici - The River - 1980

The solo, (1:39) in a different key from the whole rest of the song. Little grace notes sliding up to the main notes. Like the previous entry, the sound of this solo is awesome - part ice rink, part silent movie, all rock and roll. Listen on headphones. It's panned all the way across the stereo picture but isn't monolithic. The Phantom never sounded sweeter.

I can't believe I didn't put any Roy Bittan on the list. Let's just give honorable mention to his work with Springsteen (duh) but also Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell and Bob Seger. While I love his playing, I can't honestly say he's literally inspiring to me because, like Eddie Van Halen on guitar, his playing seems impossibly out of my reach.

6. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel - Billy Joel - The Stranger - 1977

Mainly the part (2:48) where everything drops out except the rolling octave bass in the piano (I think, like me, Billy Joel listened to Let It Be a few dozen times or more) and then the right hand comes in, tumbling down the stairs a couple times but landing on its feet.

See also the fast piano intro and outro of Miami 2017. I have played them many, many times and never quite perfectly.

5. James - Billy Joel - Billy Joel - Turnstyles - 1976

The always groovy Fender Rhodes. The melodic and harmonic shifts you didn't expect but recognize as perfect. The little scales. I have played the intro approximately 95 percent of the times I have sat down at an electric piano.

I could make the whole list Billy Joel, too, of course. The gorgeous flow of "Summer, Highland Falls", the simply perfect intro triads of "She's Got A Way", the guitar-doubled arpeggios of "She's Always A Woman", and even the funky, electric live version of "Los Angelenos" from Songs In The Attic.

4. Philosophy - Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds - Ben Folds Five - 1995

So many little grace notes ripping up to the main melody notes. It's like Floyd Cramer times a thousand and speeded way up. It displays such a huge range of feelings, the piano basically sings this song and everything else is background.

3. Bennie & The Jets - Elton John - Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - 1973

The solo! The solo! (2:22) This also has a whole lot of little grace notes ripping up to the main notes, which I seem to love. Huh! Never thought about that quite so overtly before. Love the way it starts folky then builds to a honky tonk scream.

2. Streetlife Serenader - Billy Joel - Billy Joel - Streetlife Serenade - 1974

It's the long bridge passage in the middle (2:24) with just piano where a mournful, graceful melody plays then gives way to a cascading fountain of notes before the singer comes back in. I explicitly copied this idea on my song "Eddie Gee". Now that I think about it there are two such passages in just this one song! This is my favorite Billy Joel piano moment of all.

1. Still Crazy After All These Years - Paul Simon - Barry Beckett/Richard Tee - Still Crazy After All These Years/Simon & Garfunkel The Concert in Central Park/Paul Simon Concert in the Park - 1975/1981/1991

Not many people who study twelve-tone serialism come up with an evergreen top forty hit. Even fewer have it played on a silky, liquid Fender Rhodes electric piano. The 1991 live (skip to about 49:50) version has Richard Tee and Michael Brecker (both now jamming in another world) taking the song to the next level.

Since You Asked...

A friend writes: "I'm wondering what you think of this video

I found myself agreeing on a few things, like the "nothing is free" and "personal responsibility" aspects.

It also reminded me of the things a parent might say to a child..."

Well, since you asked, here is the heart of my entire political philosophy.

As far as fiscal policy goes, he's got some good ideas. "Forgiving" student loans by paying them with taxpayer dollars is wrong. (And what a perfectly sad picture of the wretched occupy kid! To misquote Jewel, I hate him 'cause he's pieces of me!) I even think bailing out GM was a bad idea, even though it won Obama Michigan and probably Ohio. I am on the fence about Obamacare, but I'm willing to wait and see. Basically, there's still an awful lot about Democrats I like less and less as I get older and this guy kinda nails it.

I am a fiscal conservative. No doubt about it. I am Taxed Enough Already. Government is overly huge and incredibly wasteful and gets more so all the time.

HOWEVER

Believing this causes me to vote for Democrats. What? Why? Aren't they the ones who tax and spend?

Here are the last six presidential administrations (basically my life), in order by the size of the percentage increase in the national debt on their watch:

Ronald Reagan 188.6

George W. Bush 89.0

George H. W. Bush 55.6

Jimmy Carter 42.3

Barack Obama (through 2011) 41.1

Bill Clinton 35.6

source

Historically, Republicans waste more money than Democrats. Republicans do not like wasting money on American poor people. Democrats do not like wasting money on wars. Whoever is in office, some of my taxes will be wasted. But I'd rather have them be wasted here on something that helps our people instead of there on something destructive. Ergo, I am a fiscally conservative Democrat.

This naturally leads me to where this video goes horribly off the rails: foreign policy. Yes, there are bad societies who do horrible things. But it's not our job to kill them all and replace them with good societies. We simply can't go to war with Darfur, China, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Alabama, Mississippi, Pakistan, and Egypt just because they aren't free democracies with full rights for all citizens. The cost is just too high in blood and treasure.

Instead, we must be a model of freedom that other societies will see and want to emulate. Revolutions will happen. They will grow towards us and our way. If we learned anything yesterday and in the last thirty years, it is that the tide of time swells toward freedom. Like the United Federation of Planets, we will welcome these countries to the big table when they are ready. But we must not bomb them in the meantime unless we want dreams of revenge against us to become inextricably linked with their dreams of freedom.

Let's move on to domestic policy and a word about the Republican narrative of personal responsibility, entitlements, and the culture of poverty. The story goes something like this. Ever since FDR and LBJ created all these entitlement programs like social security, the American people have become more and more dependent upon them. FDR inadvertently created a monster, a lazy person who just sits at home and lets the government money roll in and uses it to buy high speed internet, Cheetos, and beer. Times a few hundred million. They choose to live in a culture of poverty supported by the government. This narrative is not completely false. The situation must be reformed.

I believe in personal responsibility. I believe in working hard and having a good life come as a result. I believe in if you snooze you lose. But take a person who is born into poverty. Say they work their way up. The person takes responsibility and doesn't ask for nothin' from nobody. Works two or three jobs. Gets married, stays faithful. Has children they love. The person is scrimping and saving $25 a month for higher education to get a better job someday, providing for their children, basically living on a razor's edge like so many Americans are. Then the person's spouse is killed by a drunk driver. All the personal responsibility in the world isn't going to bring that spouse back, continue to bring in that spouse's income, or fill the permanent hole in those kids' lives.

Bad things happen to good, hardworking, personally responsible people. And when they do they don't deserve to be abandoned by their government.

There has to be a safety net. My theoretical person needs social security and maybe even welfare and food stamps and those things should be there for that person. That is not a waste of my taxes. That could mean those kids go to college instead of living under a bridge. Yes, Democrats perhaps tend to cast the safety net too wide, even to lazy people who just lean back and use the safety net as a hammock. But it's better to cast the net too wide than than to shred it and let everyone who gets unlucky fall.

I finally understand what my seventh grade history teacher Mr. Peck was talking about when he contrasted the "culture of poverty" ideology with the "cycle of poverty" ideology. I tend to believe that government aid will help people break out of the cycle more often than it will encourage them to loaf in the culture. Man, Mr. Peck was a good teacher.

Finally, ever since I started paying attention to such things as a teenager, Republican presidents have brought war and recession while Democratic presidents have brought peace and recovery. That's hard to ignore.

That's about all I got. Like all of us, the guy in this video has got some good ideas and some horribly bad ideas.

Billy, Ya Let Me Down

So Billy Graham. Has he always been a conservative tool and I just wasn't paying enough attention? All these people that I thought about positively during my Christian upbringing. I even put one of his delightful book titles in a GUH song. Geesh. James Dobson, whose book we read as a family to help my transition into puberty. Turns out? Right wing tool. I couldn't listen to him on the radio for two minutes without becoming furious.

These people who take the extremely powerful name of God and use it to promote their pet political agendas really piss me off, especially when I find those agendas un-American, restrictive, and hateful. What makes me maddest is that if someone was to ask me if I was a Christian I would say definitively yes, but I would feel the need to add "...but I'm not a misogynist, homophobic, idiot asshole."

I believe the bible is the inspired word of God; a beautiful, wonderful, endlessly engaging, guiding, and challenging holy scripture that I elevate above all other books. I'm also able to admit that a lot of it is really specific to the time and place it was written and a lot of it is just fucking weird and you can't possibly live by it all.

Perhaps unfortunately, what you CAN do, if you want to, is take any position you want to and support it with cherry-picked quotes from the bible. Whatever else you can say about it, the bible is versatile.

Plus, this country was not founded strictly on biblical values. And despite my own personal love for the bible, I think that's a good thing. Countries that try to mix holy scripture with governance never look like good places to live from where I'm sitting. America was founded to promote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Some people think that means running as far away from the bible as they can get and I respect their right to do that.

My favorite moment from any of the debates, Presidential or Vice-Presidential, was Joe Biden admitting that his Catholicism told him that abortion was wrong but that he didn't think he had the right to force that belief on someone else. I agree on both points. This is the line that we people of faith must walk as we vote and help to create public policy in this wonderful, amazing, miracle of a country we live in. (I also have a fervent love of America but again there feel the need to add "...but I'm not a etc.")

So how can we solve the original problem, that is that the very words "Christian" and "American", which are both so precious to me, have come to suggest a hateful, misogynist homophobe who would have us living in an Iranian style theocracy? How about if someone says something like this:

I'm a Christian who believes in the bible and I think it's time for America to acknowledge marriages regardless of the gender of the two people involved.

I'm a Christian who believes in the bible and I don't think states or the nation should be making decisions about women's bodies for them.

Whew! I feel better! I think that's what I needed to do. Okay, now you.

My Favorite Bob Dylan Album And Why

Desire is my favorite Bob Dylan album. Why? The stories. The high drama. The wildly inaccurate tales of actual people like Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Joey Gallo. The legend of Dylan's time with a gypsy tribe in Spain. The myth of Isis. Bob and Sara on the beach with their kids. The Greek and the natural disaster on Black Diamond Bay. All these stories and the characters are beautiful and full like a Megan Bell painting and yet they leave plenty of space so they go on and on in your imagination after the music fades.

Why? The players. Rockin' Rob Stoner and his dancing bass. Emmylou Harris, who felt like she was not keeping up and broke down in tears and must not have noticed the powerful spell she was casting over the whole thing, especially Joey. Scarlet Rivera, whose violin and Bob's harmonica should be a train wreck on paper but merge and wail like a mystical spirit on tape.

Why? Because like so many other Bob albums, the recording method shouldn't have worked but it does. Too many players on too few tracks resulting in an erratic mix, confusion, discord, legal issues over the lyrics about actual people, and as always no rehearsal, chord sheets, or lyric sheets for the players. Just follow Bob. Watch his hands. Listen hard. It shouldn't work, but the performances are magnificent, spontaneous expressions of joy and sorrow.

Why? The collaboration. As a devoted fan who wants Bob to be well and happy, who believes that after all he's given us that he deserves to be well and happy, I like that he wrote a bunch of these songs with someone. Jacques Levy, a playwright, contributes to the cinematic quality of the best songs on the album. I imagine them having fun, late nights writing and creating together and I'm glad for Bob.

Why is Desire my favorite Bob Dylan album? Because all those things occurred to me when I was asked the question. I could just have easily said Time Out Of Mind and how it seemed eerily to speak directly to me the first time I heard it in September of 1997. I could have said Highway 61 Revisited and the way I involuntarily barked laughter, disturbing the peace and quiet of the St. Olaf music library, the first time I heard Jesus say, "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken!" I could have said Blood On The Tracks, of course. And who knows what will happen this afternoon, when I listen to Tempest for the first time? I could go on, honestly and sincerely, for at least this length about any and all of them. So yes, Desire is my favorite Bob Dylan album. But ask me again in five minutes.

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Ah, God this sucks. We shouldn't even be playing this game. How did I screw up that throw? Should have been a double play. Dammit! I just threw away the whole thing. Career over. This is horseshit. These guys should be sitting on a couch somewhere watching us play a division winner, not running the bases after I throw the ball into rightfield. All right. Shake it off, just like a thousand times before. Back in the game...

Yes! We're going to get it back! This'll even it up! McCann, Bourn, Prado, Heyward, me. Everybody hits. Here we go! Another shot at the...what? Oh, fuck me. Infield fly rule? Are you kidding me? We shouldn't even BE here!

Hey, what was that? Did something just fly onto the...oh, that's great, fans. Stay classy, Atlanta. You people. Ugh. I should get on a microphone and tell these drunk assholes where they can shove their beer cans. Oh, this is disgusting. Well, we can't all go out like Elway. Fuck.

Judiciary Election Thrills!

Against my better judgment I spent time researching the candidates in today's primary election. I blame my friend Justin Bell, esquire, for telling me that if people really understood politics they'd be as excited about the judicial branch elections as they are about the executive (President/Governor) and legislative (Senate/House) branch elections.

So I read the websites for all of today's candidates. By the end of it I was indeed wound up about the judicial elections, as well as the primaries. Why?

Democratic primaries:

For U.S. Senator I support Amy Klobuchar. As I understand it she will be the Democratic nominee. This is not why I decided to go.

For U.S. Representative District 5 I support Keith Ellison. He did a direct mail piece and some facebook ads that ultimately made me check out the candidates and wonder why he was bothering with campaigning in the primary. Well!

Ellison, who is a Muslim, is facing a Tea Party DINO (Democrat In Name Only) who is accusing him of all kinds of things. As soon as I saw "Sharia Law" on the front page of the guy's website I decided I'd continue researching and maybe even vote. I like to vote against any candidate who uses hate and fear. And I like what I see of Ellison. His interview with Stephen Colbert and the fact that he embedded it in his website doesn't hurt either.

For State Senator District 46 I support Ron Latz. He is running unopposed in the primary.

Judiciary elections:

For Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court I decided to support Jill Clark. The incumbent has scads of supporters, some of whom I like (Walter F. Mondale, etc.) but she was appointed by Pawlenty. Jill Clark has a very good website where she clearly outlines her candidacy.

In these judiciary elections the winner will not be decided until November. However, the candidate field will be whittled to two. As I understand it the incumbent usually wins the primary, gaining one of those two spots. This basically means I'm voting for either Jill Clark or Dan Griffith. Griffith had a lot of smart, meaningful things to say about judges and how they are chosen but I just heard and saw too many buzzwords suggesting he resents the poor and is basically a Republican.

For Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court I decided to support Alan Nelson. A clear, well written website splash page (and more importantly its content) made this an easy choice for me. That's actually where I learned the electoral procedural information in the previous paragraph.

For Judge, 4th District Court 22 I narrowed it down to either Deborah Russell or Elizabeth V. Cutter. I asked J. Bell if he had any information and he did not. Deborah Russell would be a fine candidate and I will vote for her if she makes it to November. However, she used two spaces after a period on her website. Thus today I voted for Cutter.

Cutter had a lot of evidence to back up this bold statement on her about page: "Liz is dedicated to issues of fairness, justice, and integrity across a wide spectrum." Plus she is a musician.

So that's what I did today for the first time ever. I actually researched and cared about judicial elections. Then I ran across the street and voted my conscience and my beliefs. When I got home I told bride who I had voted for and encouraged her to do the same since we have similar visions for America and Minnesota.

For someone who once wrote in the Twins lineup on the judicial part of the ballot, today was progress.

Update: 8:44 p.m. The Dems we voted for and Elizabeth Cutter are winning in landslides. Nelson and Clark are losing pretty decisively and will not make it to November. It doesn't look like my vote, even combined with bride's, if she even voted my line, is going to make any difference. Was it all worth it?

Check your own races here if you are so inclined.

Beatles Fan? There's Something You Should Know

There is an album available now called Silver Beatles At Home 1960. It strongly suggests (with my scientific psychology major I have insurmountable internal prohibitions against using the word "proves") that before The Beatles were The Beatles The Beatles were The Velvet Underground.

The tape is of four teenage kids (Paul, John, George, and Stu Sutcliffe) goofing around with a tape recorder. The sound quality is terrible. The music is fascinating. It's almost all based on simple blues changes and a lot of it is instrumental. It's impossible to imagine these Beatles creating a song like If I Fell, to say nothing of Eleanor Rigby or Martha My Dear. Ironically, it's easy to imagine them going immediately to Tomorrow Never Knows, a monolithic slab of a song if there ever was one.

They are much closer to The Velvet Underground song What Goes On than The Beatles song What Goes On.

If Andy Warhol had heard this band in 1960 instead of Brian Epstein in 1962 they seriously would have become The Velvet Underground. Wild. Obviously two years of going to Germany and the Cavern Club and having to learn actual songs and having to entertain people for hours at a time made The Beatles what they became.

I highly recommend listening to a few tracks at amazon.com.

My fellow residents of Hennepin County can get it free at a rate of three songs per week using Freegal. (That link may only work if you log in first.)

Hurry, because this album will disappear as soon as The Beatles legal team gets their way, just like The Complete Decca Sessions did last year. It is part of that "Grey Market" of semi-legal bootlegs that bands don't actually want released but that were recorded before they had their legal team in place.

Seven Easy Questions

In the Saturday Star Trib there was an article about an event called The Great American Think-Off that started in New York Mills, Minnesota. To illustrate the point that they were wrestling with "big questions" the Strib created a colorful graphic with the questions below. In the interest of saving everyone some time I have answered these questions. It took me about two minutes. In the interest of clarity, I have added appropriate capitalization and corrected syntax where the Strib had tortured it.

Q: Has anyone ever had a better run of four albums than Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, For the Roses, and Court and Spark?

A: No.

Okay, that one I just put in myself because I've been listening to those. I challenge anyone to disagree. Please put your candidate for superior four album run in the comment section. Now to the Strib:

Q: Does God exist?

A: Yes.

Q: Does life have meaning?

A: Yes.

Q: Is the nature of humankind good or evil?

A: Evil.

Q: Is the pen mightier than the sword?

A: No.

Q: Should assisted suicide be legal?

A: Yes.

Q: Head or heart: which should you trust more?

A: Head.

And done. Whew! You're welcome.

The Two Bruce Springsteens

In the early '70s there was this skinny guy who wrote these epic story songs about really fantastic characters. You never knew where the songs would go or which of his huge, wild band was going to play the next solo. They blasted out of your stereo speakers and played long, unpredictable jams in concert.

From 1979 until now there's been this guy who writes these wordy folk songs about people who seem all too real. They're mostly people struggling in hard economic times or broken relationships or both. Once in a while they are happy. They're just like you and me. There's a highly predictable verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo or bridge, verse, chorus structure.

Since summer 2011 I have had a CD player in my car. What I've been doing is putting one CD in and leaving it for weeks, really listening to the music. It's been great and I highly recommend it. Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding, They Might Be Giants' John Henry (just a coincidence - didn't see that 'til just now), R.E.M.'s Reveal, and the Minnesota Orchestra's Beethoven Symphonies 1-8 (not ready for 9 yet) have been the heretofore neglected pieces of music I've really enjoyed getting to know in more depth. Recently I've been listening to Bruce Springsteen's Lucky Town.

Turns out there are also two of me. Here's how one part of me hears Lucky Town.

- Ugh. Why is every single melody 3-3-3-3-2-1-2-1-1-1-1-(down to)-6-5-5? (These are scale degrees. If you don't know what I'm talking about listen to my very sincere tribute to Bruce Springsteen.)
-These chord changes are the same in every song just in a different key.
-The drummer must have gotten really sick of playing that same medium rock beat on 7 out of the 10 tracks. I wonder how he got up the energy and enthusiasm. Maybe the huge amount of dollars per thump?
-The quiet songs are inaudible and if I turn up for them the next loud song blasts me away. Ah, early CD mastering. Still preferable to current CD mastering though.
-He might should have kept the E Street Band on hand for this one.
-Why is he trying so hard to become Bruce Cockburn? He was BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!?!?!?!
-Boring, boring, boring. I can't take another repetition of this whole album.

Here's how another part of me hears Lucky Town.

(Weeping) "Yes, Bruce, I too treasure the beauty, mystery, terror, and joy that comes with being an adult and being in a loving marriage and raising a family! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh-ha-ha-ha!" (Further laughing and crying)

I don't know how that works, but there it is.

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Check it out yourself for a penny plus shipping at amazon. It's super cheap used because it was one of those "artist does something slightly different after a huge hit album so the public buys it right away then sells it when it doesn't sustain popularity because the public doesn't really care about music as music only about music as a cultural signifier for part of their fickle, shallow, hollow, insubstantial identity" albums. (See also: R.E.M.'s Monster, which, if they were really super environmentally friendly, they would just take out of print since there are four or five copies in every single used record store and they could save the petroleum used to manufacture new copies.)