Stand Up and Be Accountable

The Resident has finally admitted what we knew all along: "I am one dumb motherfucker." Well, that would have been nice, but he did say something that surprised me today:

Q: Mr. President, you often speak about the need for accountability in many areas. I wonder then, why is Dr. Condoleezza Rice not being held accountable for the statement that your own White House has acknowledged was a mistake in your State of the Union address regarding Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium? And also, do you take personal responsibility for that inaccuracy?

THE PRESIDENT: I take personal responsibility for everything I say, of course. Absolutely. I also take responsibility for making decisions on war and peace. And I analyzed a thorough body of intelligence -- good, solid, sound intelligence -- that led me to come to the conclusion that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

[...] Dr. Condoleezza Rice is an honest, fabulous person. And America is lucky to have her service. Period.

(for the record, above quotes are from the White House website)

Now, of course, you expect me to pick this apart. So, here it comes:

1) If this were a fair and balanced Government, the Congress would be drafting Articles of Impeachment. The Resident today accepted full, personal responsibility for lying to the American people and to Congress. Lying to Congress is a felony. However, it ain't gonna happen. Because, according to the Rethuglicans, lying about what you use as a humidor is more felonious than giving false pretenses for sending American troops to war.

2) We now know that Condoleezza Rice is "fabulous." This is the most important thing to look for in a National Security Advisor. If she wasn't "fabulous," why, Resident Bush would, "Just DIE." I look forward to the next appearance of the "Simply Marvelous" Donald Rumsfeld and "That Bitch" Dick Cheney.

I must now apologize for that second point there. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't help myself. No one calls me "fabulous."

New World Forming

In another life, another time, Terence Trent D'Arby brought light and happiness to all with his angelic tenor, a seraphim in peg pants and finely braided hair. There was no other acceptable explanation for that voice, that honeyed sweetness of wildflowers and morning dew. Terence should have been my generations Sam Cooke - a fiery passionate man, a secular lover in the arms of the Lord. I still hear "Wishing Well" and feel the goose bumps rise on my arms.

A few months ago I found Terence under his modern guise of Sananda Maitreya. The short tale of this rediscovery is chronicled on Big E Thoughts, my original and still ongoing weblog. Well, I was transferring some things to my ipod and came across the MP3's of some of the Wildcard out-takes I downloaded at the time (Sananda has graciously made many out-takes available at his homepage). I decided to give them some eartime - my wholly unoriginal name for self-broadcasting (otherwise known as headphones) - and was just as impressed as at first listening. I'm particularly fond of "New World Forming", an acoustic guitar driven track that is immediately head-bobbing and smile inducing. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a little tambourine accompaniment, or joyous gospel influenced background singing, or for Terence himself.

What else explains my acceptance of bongos and lite-jazz noodling flute on "Glad She's Gone"? He sings over background music that wouldn't be out of place in a 70's Sesame Street montage - children spinning on a witches' hat, glaring oranges and rusts, overexposed shots of multi-culti families holding hands and dancing in a circle before a setting autumn sun - and I love it. Even the poorly done scatting.

I just can't deny that voice, even 15 years later.

If I say you'll live forever
It's because I've seen the light
I can see your transformation
Is a cause for celebration
I can see a new world forming

"New World Forming", Sananda Maitreya

The Dog End of a Band Gone By

I was born in 72, which means that my musical tastes were formed by the 80's. From the first glimmers of my discriminating ear (I bought "The Tide Is High" 45 for my sister's 11th birthday. This was my first musical purchase of any kind) through the pivotal high school years, the 80's are the guideposts to my musical identity. Alas, I found out recently that some of those guideposts lead to some amazingly bad music.

I was, and am, somewhat of a loner. In high school I developed a small coterie of friends, far from even the periphery of popularity. Luckily, there were plenty of bands catering to my outsider status, and my nerdy sense of cool. I had Morrissey and Robert Smith to comfort me, I had Flesh For Lulu and Gene Loves Jezebel to get me dancing. I had Some Kind of Wonderful. I had an in with the coolest of cool; I had Love and Rockets.

Love and Rockets - the band that was the heart (if not the voice and mind) of Bauhaus, the band named for the greatest comic book of the 80's, the band with Daniel Ash and Daniel Ash's hair. I started the L & R ride with Earth. Sun. Moon, and it's Alterna-folk anthem "No New Tale To Tell". I arrived a bit late - a month or two before "So Alive" and their peak of popularity - and "So Alive" was redemption. A band I liked, a band appealing to freaks like me, Love and Rockets were on Top 40 radio. This was huge. There was and is no alternative radio in the area I grew up in - there was no HFS, no KCRW to redeem the airwaves. We had classic rock, where the 80's were not to be found; we had a Top 40 all-white cheese-metal extravaganza; we had country. Love and Rockets had broken through.

Into college I had a weakness for the music of Mr. Haskins, Mr. Ash and Mr. J - even the solo efforts (I still believe "I'll Be Your Chauffeur" isn't half bad). Yet somewhere in the midst of Nirvana and Sonic Youth, of the Happy Mondays and the Clean, of Steven Jesse Bernstein and Meat Beat Manifesto, Love and Rockets disappeared. I never updated any of their albums to CD; I didn't pick up later efforts like Lift or Hot Trip to Heaven. Yet this spring they crept back into the periphery of my mind, and I decided to find out where they had been. I looked and found out a greatest hits album would be released June 3.

So, June 3 arrives, and I traipse down to my local independent record store (keep them alive!) and bought the only copy they ordered. They were surprised anyone was looking for it, and the clerk tilted his head to the side and looked at me, puzzled. Love and Rockets' Loaded, and a used copy of the special edition Singin' In The Rain DVD. One brilliant, a classic; one very much less than that.

I didn't realize just how bad this band was! My sister always hated that I put "Haunted When The Minutes Drag" on multiple mixes for her - she said it was so long that she just stopped the tape then and there and decided that was the end of that side. I'm sorry. I never understood, and I hope you believe me. It's crap. And so is most of this album. "It Could Be Sunshine" could be, but I tend to think it's just more crap, with bad music and bad lyrics. "Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)" - the title is the best part. Don't let yourself get suckered by that opening riff - it's just "Haunted When The Minutes Drag" played at an appropriate speed.

The songs from the period of time when everyone thought they were dead (otherwise known as the 90's) are just as bad. "Holy Fool" even taints the mediocre legacy of Luscious Jackson with their background vocal contributions. Yet "Holy Fool" is the Holy Grail compared to David J's lyrics to the "record companies don't appreciate artists" diatribe that is the piece of shit otherwise known as "Shelf Life":

How many A&R men does it take to change a light bulb?
I'll get back to you on that
How many spells and dollars does it take to make the magic
of pulling legends from a hat
Well we'll take another sucker for another sell
Regarding them with compliments and muskatelle
A honeymoon in Vegas in a plush hotel
For that's a sad time in the morning light

That's the opening, and I'm surprised I got that much typed before I thought I would puke. So where did I go wrong? They were good once, right? I still think a CD EP of "No New tale To Tell," "So Alive," "No Big Deal" and "Ball of Confusion" wouldn't be too bad. Maybe not classic, but worth three or four bucks.

To wrap this up (I was going somewhere with this, I think), some guideposts and signs of the past are just that; indicators of where you've been, stops on a dotted line like the travel sequences of old movie serials. Some are safe havens, places you can return to for comfort and succor. Others, like Love and Rockets, are reminiscent of the unknown places on the maps of the ancient mariners; "Here there be Monsters." Or giant piles of shit.