True Originality, Arising From Interpretation: Joe Cocker And Alchemy

In some ways Joe Cocker, who died last week at 70, was a man out of time.  A simple laborer from Sheffield, England, primarily known for its steel (Sheffield Steel was the title of one of Cocker's albums, in fact),  Cocker began his working life as a gas pipe-fitter.  As we all hope, though, talent will out:  Cocker burst onto the music scene in 1969 with two albums--which wasn't unusual in those times; I think people maybe just worked harder-- With A Little Help From My Friends and Joe Cocker! which immediately established him as a unique (Ray Charles comparisons notwithstanding) voice and, shall we say, an idiosyncratic live performer.  What also set him apart, in those times, is that he wrote almost none of his own material.

Back in the day, of course, there were, really, only interpreters of others' songs.  Sure there were anomalies such as some of the blues guys, like Robert Johnson, and Mel Torme did write "The Christmas Song,"  which he also performed, but for the most part writers and singers were two distinct groups and came together only on record.  Sinatra, Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, all the famous vocalists, relied on the Cole Porters, Harold Arlens, Yip Harburgs, all of the Tin Pan Alley songsmiths to provide them with their material.  That tradition continued mostly unchanged into the 60's with the Brill Building songwriters like Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Boyce & Hart, Neil Diamond, Sonny Bono (!), Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Greenwich and Barry, Leiber and Stoller, Mann and Weil:  the list goes on and of familiar names who were contract songwriters, churning out hit after hit for others to perform.

The shift to performers writing their own material probably had its beginnings as did, arguably, rock 'n' roll, with Chuck Berry, and was taken to new levels, as were most things in that era, by a couple of fellas named Lennon and McCartney.  Publishing, see, was where the real money was.  A songwriting credit on a hit album was a goldmine, as royalties roll in year after year from every performance of your credited song.  That's why you stopped seeing covers on Beatles and Stones records, for the most part, and why John and Paul would reluctantly throw George a bone of one song per album, which eventually resulted in All Things Must Pass;  Harrison had all those songs stockpiled, and when the Fabs split everyone was stunned by the wealth of his material.  Well, he was finally in charge.

So the Joe Cockers of the music world became anomalies, "mere" interpreters of others' material.  And yet, and yet:  whose version of "With A Little Help..." would you rather listen to?  Ringo singing lead on the original, endearing as it is, or Cocker's all-stops-out throat-wrencher?  With whom do you identify "Feelin' Alright?  Traffic, and Dave Mason's original version, which is great in its own right, or Joe's cover?  "Something," "...Bathroom Window," "Darlin' Be Home Soon," all were done quite satisfactorily for most folks' needs, but Joe Cocker made them his, even through--or maybe partly because of--his often indecipherable delivery.  There are passages in nearly every Joe Cocker song, especially early in his career, that I defy anyone to translate, maybe even if you already know the originals.  Dylan's "Dear Landlord," from Cocker's second album, for instance: it's absolutely indecipherable, but it really doesn't matter--and it's a Dylan lyric, for chrissake.

The reason he was able to put such an indelible stamp on the songs he sang, I think, is that he was inseparable from them:  He was the song, and the song was him.  Cocker inhabited the songs and they inhabited him simultaneously, a Mobius strip of sound, sight and emotion.  He was transported by the music and his performance, to the point where his very body became possessed, moving involuntarily as it tried to let out all the emotion that even that amazing voice was incapable of expressing on its own.  If you've seen early videos of Cocker performances, maybe especially from Woodstock, then you know whereof I speak.  Sweating profusely from the energy he expended, hair drenched, hands and arms flailing seemingly uncontrollably, mimicking the movement of hands on a guitar neck or a keyboard, tugging at his hair, he was the very personification of  uncontrollable, unvarnished, all-encompassing emotion.  Those performances are perhaps the closest secular--if, indeed, music can rightly be called "secular;" I think it is mystical and holy-- embodiment of the Sufi dervishes, whose unrestrained, wholly-given dancing is an attempt to reach religious ecstasy.  Joe Cocker's performances showed that he was already there, in his own musical/secular/mystical trance.

And so the passing of another great, another icon from my youth, a circumstance which will of course only increase in frequency in the coming years, leads me to this week's show, a tribute to Joe Cocker, someone whose like we really may never see again.  I'm going to play his first two albums in their entirety, maybe mostly 'cause that's how I have to hear 'em.  The last, stinging guitar note in "Lawdy Miss Clawdy, leads necessarily and inexorably into the fuzz-tone guitar crescendo intro to "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window," for instance.  To separate them would be criminal.  I'll supplement those albums from among this list:

The Letter                                                                                 (The Boxtops, originally)
Many Rivers To Cross                                                               Jimmy Cliff
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress                                                 Jimmy Webb
Into The Mystic                                                                         Van Morrison
Let's Go Get Stoned                                                                   Ray Charles
Cry Me A River                                                                         Julie London, et al
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away                                       The Fabs
The Weight                                                                                 The Band
Put Out The Light                                                                       Joe Cocker (!)
Jamaica Say You Will                                                                 Jackson Browne

See you on Tuesday, from noon till two, on WOOL-FM, 91.5, or www.wool.fm on the net.

Another Xmas, Rollin' On Through

It's the shortest day of the year, it's snowing, we've literally seen the sun one day in the last two weeks, we as a country are racially retarded and basically at war in our streets and neighborhoods, and Kim Jong Un is probably reading this.  Actually, that's one of the bright spots in the the news lately, that the North Koreans are threatening terrible consequences if we don't allow them to help in the investigation into who "really" hacked Sony.  We should promise them full cooperation in the investigation, with one condition:  first, they have to help O.J. Simpson in his exhaustive search to find the "real" killer of his wife....

But it's Christmastime, when peace, brotherhood and goodwill fill the hearts of all people. (Bonus Questions: What is the tone of the previous sentence?  How do you know?)  I'm going to try, for the third year in a row, to do an xmas radio show.  Two years ago, when my show fell on Dec. 25,  I planned a 4-hour extravaganza.  Unfortunately,  Alice was in the hospital with pneumonia, so that went by the boards.  Last year, I was too busy with work to do what would've been a Christmas Eve show.  This year, though, goddammit, I'm going to do that show, now a Christmas Eve Day Eve Day show, come Hell or high water--the latter of which, ironically, we're supposed to be getting around then.  It'll be a little abridged, and so end up at around 3 hours, and it'll of course be a little skewed, but at least it'll be.

I read in The New York Times last year around this time that many radio stations go to an all-Christmas-music format in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that doing so served as "rocket fuel for ratings;" stations see their listenership skyrocket when they provide a steady diet of holiday-cheerful songs.  Personally, I'd jump off a bridge (holiday movie reference, there) if I had to listen to or play nothing but that stuff, but if it'll increase WOOL's listenership dramatically--which is pretty bloody likely, I think--why then I'll suck it up and do it for 3 hours.  I hope yule join me on Tuesday from (NOTE SPECIAL STARTING TIME) 11 AM till 2 PM on WOOL FM, 91.5, or wool.fm on the webs.

The playlist is as follows, ahem, harrumph, harrumph:

Birthday                                                                                    The Fabs
Christmas Must Be Tonight                                                      The Band
Kung Fu Christmas                                                                   Christopher Guest, et al.
Merry Christmas, Baby                                                             Lou Rawls
Friend Of Jesus                                                                         John Stewart
Bach: Cantata #22, "Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwolfe"               Yo-Yo Ma, et al.
Jesus Christ                                                                               Arlo Guthrie
Christmas With Jesus                                                               Josh Rouse
Jesus Was A Capricorn                                                             Darrell Scott
Jesus Was A Crossmaker                                                          Judee Sill
Jesus Just Left Chicago                                                             ZZ Top
Jesus Is Just Alright                                                                  Doobies
Christmas Time (Is Here Again)                                              The Fabs
On Christmas Eve                                                                     John Hartford
Christmas Time Blues                                                              John Lee Hooker
Christmas Time Is Here                                                           Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
Christmas Time                                                                        Ray Charles
Christmas Ain't Christmas                                                       The O'Jays
Father Christmas                                                                      The Kinks
Getting Ready For Christmas Day                                           Paul Simon
Variations On The Kanon By Pachelbel                                  George Winston
The Rebel Jesus                                                                        Jackson Browne
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis                     Tom Waits
Christmas In Kyoto                                                                   Michael Franks
Christmas In Prison                                                                   John Prine
Christmas Morning                                                                   Lyle Lovett
Christmas Morning                                                                   Loudon Wainwright III
Christmas Wish                                                                         NRBQ
Jesus, Etc.                                                                                 Wilco
Tell Me What Kind Of Man Jesus Was                                    Big Bill Broonzy
Jesus Wrote A Blank Check                                                     Cake
Come On Down Jesus                                                               John Kongos
River                                                                                          Joni Mitchell

Silent Eyes                                                                                Paul Simon
Night                                                                                        Bruce Springsteen

You Got The Silver                                                                   Rolling Stones
Ring Them Bells                                                                       Dylan

Frosty Morn                                                                              Doc & Merle Watson
Humidity Built The Snowman                                                 John Prine

I'm Walkin'                                                                                Rick Nelson
Winter                                                                                       Rolling Stones
Wonderland                                                                               Michael Franks

Little Big-Time Man                                                                Dirk Hamilton
Heavy Metal Drummer                                                            Wilco
Boy                                                                                           Darden Smith

We                                                                                             The Roches
Wish You Were Here                                                                Pink Floyd
You                                                                                           George Harrison
Merry Go Round                                                                      The Replacements
Christmas                                                                                  The Who

Next week:  the annual year-end-review of noteworthy--according to me--people from the musical realm who died this year.

Happy Xmas.

"...Started Out So Young and Strong, Only To Surrender"

I always defend meteorologists.  It bugs me when people say "If I screwed up in my job half as often as they do, I wouldn't have a job."  I happen to think weatherpeople (and I don't mean Bernadine Dohrn) are right way more than they're wrong, and they're right about stuff I can't even imagine: what time a storm, which hasn't even formed yet, in fact is just a twinkle in colliding high- and low-pressure zones' eyes, will start in a given area.  Not only that, but what type or amount of precipitation different parts of a state, even one as small as New Hampshire, will get, and when the storm will "pull away."  See, if it pulls away too fast, there'll be no storm; even the weather is about sex.

So here I sit, a true believer, hunkered down in anticipation of mixed-precipitation-becoming-6-inches-of-heavy-wet-snow, in my area.  That was supposed to begin 5 hours ago.  Nothing has happened yet.  I'm writing this during the time I'm supposed to be on the radio.  I'll still believe next time.

That's not what I want to write about, though.  I recently purchased Jackson Browne's newest cd, called "Standing In The Breach."  It'll probly be dismissed by many with a casual "sounds like every other Jackson Browne album," but what's wrong with that, I'd like to know (sounds like a McCartney lyric, dunnit?)?  Hemingway's books looked and sounded like they'd been written by Hemingway, Faulkner's by Faulkner, Henry James's (ugh) by Henry James (ugh).  Picasso, once he found his style, painted Picassos.  Emily Dickinson wrote Emily Dickinson poems.  I apparently don't have any cultural touchstones post-1950: we are who we are.  Put on Jackson Browne and expect to hear Monet (that fooled you, right?)?  It won't happen.

Browne has a reputation, I think, as something of a melancholic, writing songs (mostly) about love lost, love gone wrong, relationships not quite working out.  Mopey, literate, Romantic stuff.   Of course I eat that kind of thing right up, and revel in his ability to get emotion into words, onto paper, out of guitar and piano strings.  But he's also always been socially conscious and aware of the larger world: not just a navel-gazer, but an activist (god, I hate that term.  I can't believe I used it.  But these missives are one-and-out, so there's no goin' back to change it) and committed Lefty, which of course I also eat up.

I can't get past (or over) the third cut on the new disc, "The Long Way Around."  I mean literally.  I have previously described in this space my obsessiveness and obsessions--20 consecutive plays of "Melancholia" being perhaps the best example-- and I find myself hitting "repeat" whenever that song comes along. The arrangement, a little shuffle, is pretty cool, and there's this spooky, I'd say backmasked, electric guitar part.  But the words, the words:  Here's what he says in it:

I don't know what to say about these days.
I'm seeing people changing in the strangest ways.
Even in the richer neighborhoods
People don't know when they've got it good.
They've got the envy, and they've got it bad.

When I was a kid everything I did was trying to be free:
Running up and down Tinsel Town with the fire inside of me,
My planets all in retrograde, the best of all my plans got laid.
I made my breaks, and some mistakes--
Just not the ones people think I made.

Now I'm a long way gone,
Down this wild road I'm on.
It's going to take me where I'm bound
But it's the long way around.

It's a little hard keeping track of what's gone wrong;
The covenant unravels, and the news just rolls along.
I could feel my memory letting go some two or three disasters ago.
It's hard to say which did more ill:
Citizens United or the Gulf oil spill.

And I'm a long way gone,
Down this wild road I'm on.
It's going to take me where I'm bound
But it's the long way around.

It's never been that hard to buy a gun.
Now they'll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone.
The seeds of tragedy are there
In what we feel we have the right to bear:
To watch our children come to harm
There in the safety of our arms.
With all we disagree about,
The passions burn, the heart goes out.

And we're a long way gone,
Down this wild road we're on.
It's going to take us where we're bound
It's just the long way around.

Man, there's so much brilliance there.  You have no idea how much I wish I was smart and talented enough to come up with that.  In Verse 1, a self-referential bit at the end of line 1 ("these days," the title of a song no 16-year-old should be capable of writing, but he did).  In V. 2, the odd syntax about youthful freedom, but that scrambled-up stuff was what it felt like, tryin' to be free.  Then that fabulous phrase "the best of all my plans got laid" in V. 2 (now that's something a 16-year-old oughta be thinking about!),  and the reference to "some mistakes...just not the ones people think I made," which I presume refers to the Darryl Hannah episode (and what is it with her and Neil Young, of all people?!?).

After the first chorus, V. 3 expresses exactly how I feel lately, resigned and helpless and hopeless, not even helplessly hoping anymore.  I don't think it is hard, though, to know which did more ill:  the Gulf oil spill polluted a relatively small area for a small time; Citizens United has polluted our entire political system ("the covenant") for, perhaps, generations, until maybe someone who believes in the Greater Good, not just temporal political expediency, comes along and makes us more whole again and tries--and has the guts-- to right the Ship of State.  I despair that I will live to see that.

Then Chorus 2, and the blazing brilliance of Verse 4, full of wordplay (if such serious stuff can rightly be called play):  "the seeds of tragedy in what we feel we have the right to bear," which is of course a doubly intended use of that word, meaning "to stand, to put up with" as well as the Second Amendment reference implied, "the right to ... bear arms,"  while our children "come to harm, there in the safety of our arms:"  a "safety" is the mechanism on a gun that prevents it from firing; our children should be safe in our arms, but our arms too often hold arms (weapons).  Finally, "the passions burn, the heart goes out:"  an echo of Yeats, in The Second Coming;  "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with a passionate intensity."  Our passions for a cause burn, sometimes, and our hearts can go two ways: "out," to those whose lives are adversely affected by life's slings and arrows, or "out," extinguished, like "a brief candle."

And that's not even to mention the choruses, which move from the suddenness of "Now" to the continuance of "And" to the inclusive and encompassing "we're" of the final chorus.  Not effin' bad for just another tune from a faded former star, huh?

Are you there?  Say a prayer for The Pretender: get up and do it again.

The Tears Of My Tracks

My uncle, Philip Pikul (Ellis Island, again: who knows what that surname really was, in Poland?) was a railroad man after he came to this country, a member of the "Bull-gang," those rugged and overworked and underappreciated souls who kept the trains running.  They shoveled the stone to make the railroad bed, laid the ties that supported the rails, spreading out the enormous weight borne by the rails, hefting the rails, those enormously heavy, ingeniously-shaped lengths of steel on which the train cars rode, and drove the spikes, with nine-pound or more hammers, a la John Henry, which held the spikes in place.  They also had to shovel snow from the tracks and the switches (which shunted trains or cars onto another set of parallel tracks, moving them out of the way of trains coming in the other direction), and walk track sections in all manner of weather and times of day in order to ensure that all was well.  Theirs were the backs on which this country's prosperity was largely built.

My Uncle looked just like you'd expect someone who did that work would look: large, blocky, solid, the sort of person who has, as my college roommate once said of someone, "muscles in his shit." I really try to avoid cliche, but you'd almost have to describe his hands as "ham-sized," his fingers like kielbasa.  Hey, I told you he was Polish: those two items, along with boiled cabbage and copious amount of beer, were necessary staples of his diet.  His strength was legendary.  There is a family story, perhaps apocryphal but one I choose to believe with all my heart and soul:  Uncle once had a load of, I dunno, something, which he rented a horse and wagon to transport.  He led the horse, and one section of road required going up a hill.  The load was too heavy for the horse and, try as it might, it just couldn't pull the load up the incline.  My Uncle, not a patient fellow, finally got so enraged at the beast that he punched it, killing it.  He was of course brought to court by the horse's owner.  The judge asked him to detail his side of the facts of the case, in which he freely admitted to the events described above.  The Judge then allegedly said to him "And what did you do then, Mr Pikul?", whereupon my uncle replied "I got between the traces and pulled the wagon up the hill."  Case dismissed.  See why I want so badly to believe that story?

I was thinking of my uncle the other night, and of Albie Hearne, my neighbor as a kid, who was an engineer for the railroad, and who used to let me sit on his lap and actually work the throttle on the locomotive as he moved cars around the switching yard ("Drivin' that train..."), and how they would feel to have seen the results of their hard work and their livelihood destroyed by Dwight Eisenhower as a result of Ike's drive (yeah, I see the pun) to create the interstate highway system.  I was sitting in the dark on the balcony of the place where we were having Thanksgiving dinner, cooling off, drinking a beer, and temporarily escaping the jabbering throng inside.  The spot, which is actually quite lovely, is right on the Hudson River; in the middle distance is the impressively lighted outline of the Tappan Zee Bridge; in the near distance, the Ossining stop on the Hudson River Line (yeah, Billy Joel didn't make that up.).  I watched a couple of commuter trains pass through the station, and felt so sad that that experience isn't more universal, riding on trains.  We had the technology and the infrastructure, and we wrecked and rejected it, for the most part.

In most of the country, rather than that wonderful form of mass transit, we have cars and trucks commuting to and from work, which vehicles are generally occupied by one person, a travesty and a waste of staggering proportions.  Rather than one mechanical beast carrying people and goods efficiently, to a common terminus, then to be dispersed by smaller carriers for shorter distances, we've chosen to eliminate the efficient middle-man and just go with inefficiency from the get-go, yet another example of the American lone-wolf-self-sufficient myth turned to a negative. D'oh!

Train songs this week, then, to be listened to alone while driving by yourself to some common destination:


"A" Train Lady                                                                          Mink Deville
Take The "A" Train                                                                   Duke Ellington
Betting On Trains                                                                      Hem
Desperadoes Waiting For A Train                                             Jerry Jeff Walker
Broken Train                                                                              Beck
Death Of A Train                                                                       Daniel Lanois
Freight Train                                                                              Taj Mahal
Fast Train                                                                                   Van Morrison
Gone, Just Like A Train                                                             Bill Frisell
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry                    Dylan
Just Like This Train                                                                    Joni Mitchell
Silver Train                                                                                 Stones
You're No Train                                                                          Kris Delmhorst
Yesterday's Train                                                                        The Byrds
When My Train Pulls In                                                             Gary Clark Jr.
Waiting For A Train                                                                    Dickey Betts
Two Trains                                                                                   Little Feat
Train Train                                                                                   Billy Bragg
Train Song (Demise Of The Caboose)                                        Victoria Williams
Train Of Glory                                                                             Jonathan Edwards
Train Leaves Here This Morning                                                 Eagles
Train In Vain                                                                                 The Clash
Train In The Distance                                                                   Paul Simon
Train Home                                                                                   Chris Smither
Train Kept A Rollin'                                                                     The Yardbirds
Train                                                                                              Mose Allison
This Train                                                                                      Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Something About Trains                                                               Jane Siberry

So c'mon aboard this Tuesday, noon till two on WOOL FM, 91.5, or www.wool.fm, streaming live on the webs.  And please give up your seat to someone who looks like they need it more than you do!

God Help The Child Who Ain't Got His Own

Here we are, immersed since September in another glorious, soul-serving-and-saving Holiday season, to wit Thanksgiving and Xmas.  You know, the seasons when we are filled with gratitude for our own good fortune and with warmth, good will and fellowship, not to mention aid and comfort, for those less fortunate than we are.  The season when we throw money into little black kettles tended by hardy souls in order to help those in need.  Some even volunteer in soup kitchens and food pantries, giving traditional Thanksgiving meals to people who wouldn't otherwise get them.  Lots of folks, for sure, give lots of and from themselves in the service of their fellows.

Then there's Ft. Lauderdale, FLA, to name one of the more than 30 cities nationwide which have passed or are considering laws which outlaw the feeding of homeless people out of doors.  Perhaps you've seen accounts of Arnold Abbott, the 90-year-old WWII veteran (that Commie!) who has been arrested 3 times, along with a couple of Pastors, for setting up outdoor soup kitchens in order to feed the homeless.  One Peace Officer actually ordered Abbott to "drop that plate!", as though it were a weapon, and I guess that you could argue that it is.  The same would hold true, I guess, for the immortal line from Firesign Theater's "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye": "Put down that pickle!"

I have tried as diligently as I can--which ain't so much, truth be told, as I am fundamentally lazy--to discover the makeup of the civic board responsible for such legislation; I strongly suspect, though I can't quote chapter and verse, that it's Tea-Party types, certainly conservative Republicans, the party of family values and Christian tenets, who are behind this coldhearted, evil law.  Homelessness, after all, reflects badly on a municipality and a government, especially one which professes a belief that Free Markets will solve every ill, or at least arrange them in favor of those already privileged.  So these burgs are trying to outlaw homelessness, or at least to sweep it under the rug which also may shelter some unfortunate folks.  The statutes actually, in a pathetic attempt to justify their validity, contain language that asserts that feeding the homeless "encourages people to remain homeless."  Goddam right: if I can sleep on a park bench or live in a cardboard box under a highway overpass and get fed by some bleeding heart, why the fuck would I want more?  Why, it's The American Dream, circa 2014; where's our Frank Capra to glorify it?

As a further warning to all y'all Liberals who might be inclined to share your bounty: the laws explicitly ban "the sharing of food in public spaces."  It feels like the old saw about banks: they'll only loan you money if you can prove that you don't need it.  So if you give a forkful of salad or, heaven forfend, a bit of that Muslim delicacy, the falafel, to a friend or loved one in a public space, be sure that that person is carrying a deed to property and a financial statement which proves that they're capable of caring for themselves, but that you "love" them, in a governmentally-sanctioned manner, and thus are okay to share a bite of your food.  And by the way, please save me a slice of the pecan pie, my favorite.  I can pay for it, honest.


A playlist, then:

Caravan                                                                           Van Morrison & The Band
Black Friday                                                                    Steely Dan
Brand New '64 Dodge                                                     Greg Brown
At The Feast                                                                    Monty Alexander/Ernest Ranglin
Blues For The Homeless                                                 Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters
Hip To Be Homeless                                                       Claudia Schmidt
Homeless                                                                         Paul Simon
Homeless Child                                                               Ben harper
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving                                      Vince Guaraldi
Thanksgiving                                                                   George Winston
Thanksgiving                                                                   Joe Lovano
Thanksgiving                                                                   Loudon Wainwright III
Thanksgiving Day Parade                                               Dan Bern
Feed The People                                                              Stephen Stills
Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)                                 Bob Marley
Hungry For Your Love                                                    Van Morrison
Hungry Planet                                                                  The Byrds
Hungry Man                                                                     Steve Winwood
Alice's Restaurant Massacree                                           Arlo

Tuesday, noon till two on WOOL 91.5 FM, Wool.FM on the webs, at which time I'll attempt to expiate or at least assuage my white male middle-class guilt.  But it'll be wicked fun                 

The Barbarians Aren't Just At The Gates...:

They're inside the walls and, boorish oafs that they are, they didn't wipe their feet, and they've left the gate open behind them.

Welcome to another installment of The Language Guy, Who Learn's You About Punctuation, Well Talking, Writing And Speling  And Other Useful Stuff With Words.  This week's topic is the misuse of the phrase "Begs the question."  Technically and in formal argument, as all of you former Debate Club nerds and nerdettes know, "begging the question" is a logical fallacy, an argument whose conclusion is simply a re-statement of its premise, i.e.  "I think he's unattractive because he's ugly" or "Her political beliefs are stupid because she's a Republican"--okay, maybe we could argue that second one.  What we cannot argue, though, is that "Beg the question" and "Raise the question" are synonymous:  they are not, or at least didn't use to be, and are not supposed to be.

The New Yorker, one of the last bastions of civility, culture, correctness and certitude--although they do use "fuck" a lot--recently fell victim to this insidious trap, even though they are notorious for their fact-checking and editorial staffs.  Jay McInerney's first novel Bright Lights, Big City was a thinly-veiled depiction of life as a fact-checker at TNYer.  In the movie version, the main character was played by a pre-Parkinsons Michael J. Fox; if you read the novel, it was likely the first one you'd read written entirely in the Second Person, and you're still unsure whether you like that style or not and how it affects the way you see the world (you see what I did there, right?); I mean, do you really want someone else, someone you may not even know, speaking for you?

Well, in the October 27 edition of TNYer,  in the "The Talk Of The Town" section, Jelani Cobb writes "The fact that underrepresented groups can vote, and do so in substantial numbers...begs a question:  Why aren't there more such candidates?"  Clearly, what Mr. or Ms. Cobb (don't you just hate gender-unclear names?) means is that the situation raises the question, not that it attempts to answer it in its formulation, or attempts to dodge it.  If The New Yorker lets that go, acknowledges, de-facto, that that construction is acceptable, then where are we?  I can feel the very earth shifting beneath my feet.

Then, on Friday night, the nasty mis-appropriated phrase reared its ugly head (or headed its ugly rear) again.  I went to see Mavis Staples (OH. MY. GOD.--what an incredible show!!!) in Bellows Falls, VT (who'd'a thunk?), and the nice fella who introduced her, after plugging whatever organization he represented that put on the show, said something like "But that begs the question of how you do introduce someone like Mavis Staples...."  Alice, knowing how irked I am by that usage, leaned forward, past our son, Jake, who came up from Harvard just to see Mavis (and, at 26, was one of the youngest members of the audience), to see how I was reacting  to that major breach in usage, that assault on the very barricades of civilization.  I shrugged and filed it away for this week's post.

Do I really give a damn about this stuff?  In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty insignificant, isn't it?  Einstein split the atom, Gene Roddenberry split the infinitive ("...to boldly go where no man has gone before.") and the world is still here.  Of course language is the currency of politicians (unless currency is their currency: that'll never be out of fashion), advertisers and other shysters trying to de-sensitize us to the importance of words and of how they can be corrupted for nefarious purposes.  What sounds better to you: Pro-Choice or Pro-Abortion?  Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion?  Bitchy or Assertive?  The words, they color our views and even shape our opinions, mon ami.  I believe it was The Bard, or Yogi Berra, maybe, who said "Eschew Obfuscation."

Perhaps, though, I give too much credit.  A couple of days after the midterm, when the Barbarians did storm the gates and gain admission, again, I heard a quote from John Boehner (Motto: "Skin cancer?  Hah--lung cancer'll get me long before that does!") wherein he said "If Obama acts unilaterally, by himself...."  Doh!

For the show, the songs remain the same, from last week (that's just a sneaky way to make you go back to read last week's post).  I like 'em, wanna play 'em,  and, after all, the subject's still valid, maybe more so, after the election.  And I don't think that begs any questions.

Citizens United: Murder In My Heart For The Judges

For my 60th birthday--an early gift if ever there was one, as I won't hit 60 for 10 or 15 years--my son and daughter-in-law gave me a fake magazine cover-ish thing called Happy 60th Birthday.  Among the faux headlines was On The Tube:  How Many Commercials Can He Mute?  Well, all of 'em in general, if I had my way, but in election season there's no question.  Except that this year even hitting "mute" isn't enough:  I can't even bear to look at the goddam ads anymore.  I'm this close to pulling an Elvis and shooting my TV set.

You've all seen them, especially if you live in a "swing" (not to be confused with "swinging") state, with what are deemed to be close and important races by the pundits who are wrong almost as often as weather forecasters, and I'll bet you're as sick of them as I am.  I'm almost to the point of not caring who wins, or disenfranchising myself, although of course I won't.  I do believe that the D's are better than the R's, and one main reason is the shadowy figures who lurk behind the scenes, financing each party.  Although none is straight-up running for office, I'll take Tom Steyer over the Koch Bros. every day of the week.

The blame for all of these negative ads, ads that can only lead one to conclude that no one, not one single person, is fit to hold office in this country today, rests, of course, squarely on the shoulders of the incredibly, dismayingly, unabashedly partisan shoulders of the Roberts Supreme Court and the ironically named "Citizens United" decision, which of course decided that corporations are people, money is speech, up is down, and war is peace.  Well, maybe not actually those last two, but it might as well have.

Which has led us to this point, where so-called "dark money," money given by shadowy, nameless and faceless figures who may give as much as they like to make ads that can say virtually whatever they want, veracity be damned, is what drives our electoral process.  My two favorite catch phrases this season are "Wrong for (blank)" and "Too extreme for (fill in the state);"  so it'll show a picture of (forgive me--unflattering characterization coming up) Annie Kuster, Carol Shea-Porter or Jeanne Shaheen, the first two of which look like typical slightly frumpy soccer mom or grandmom types, the third just like a somewhat stern grandma, and we're expected to believe that they're "extreme." The worst thing I can imagine them doing is burning cookies or banana bread for a school bake sale. This is hardly to say that they're incapable; what I mean to say is that calling them extremist is mind-bogglingly absurd, on the order of saying Scott Brown is not a carpet-bagging opportunist.  I'm Mark Edson, and I approved that sentence.

Their opponents, of course, favor things like shutting down the Dept. of Education, essentially banning abortion, doing away with universal healthcare, Medicaid/Medicare, infrastructure support, denying climate change and science in general in order to bolster corporate bottom lines, a return to Jim Crow, and in their spare time starting another war in the Middle East.    Those are apparently New Hampshire's normative values, mainline Main Street beliefs.  If that's mainstream, then I'm with Barry Goldwater, the father of modern Conservatism, Reagan with a modicum of intelligence who said, at the 1964 Republican National Convention, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

The playlist for this week's show:

Campaign Trail                                                                   John Gorka
Campaigner                                                                        Neil Young
Political World                                                                   Dylan
A Apolitical Blues                                                              Little Feat
Political                                                                               Mark Germino
Political Science                                                                 Randy Newman
Political Poachers                                                               America
Citizen Fighter                                                                    Robert Pollard
Citizen Of The Planet                                                         Simon & Garfunkel
Model Citizen                                                                     Peter Gammons
Truly Fine Citizen                                                               Moby Grape
United We Stand                                                                 Brotherhood Of Man
Extreme Measures                                                              Tony Williams
A Token Of My Extreme                                                    Frank Zappa
Elected                                                                                Alice Cooper
Money                                                                                 Pink Floyd
What Are Their Names                                                       David Crosby
Lies                                                                                      The Knickerbockers
Lies                                                                                      J. J. Cale
Lies                                                                                      Manassas
Lies                                                                                      Rolling Stones
Everybody's Wrong                                                             Buffalo Springfield
For Shame Of Doing Wrong                                                Richard & Linda Thompson
Mr. Wrong                                                                           Sade
Some Right, Some Wrong                                                   Mose Allison
World Gone Wrong                                                             Dylan
Wrong Direction                                                                  Ian McLagan and The Bump Band
You Been Doing Something Wrong...                                 David Lindley
I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician                                 The Byrds
Politician                                                                               Cream


Hope to see you Tuesday, mid-term Election Day, from noon till two at 91.5 FM, wool.fm on Al Gore's creation.

The preceding has been paid for by the Committee to Hijack Democracy.                  

It's The Circle Of Life: New Ones Come, Old Ones Go

I was going to focus on new music this week on my show--and I mean new to the world, not just to me--as I have recently come into possession of a couple of really good records (and yes, I'll continue to call them "records" or "albums;" so sue me) from brand new artists.  And then I read yesterday that Jack Bruce had died, and I can't let him pass unnoticed.

The first disc of new stuff is by Andrew Byrne-Hozier, known commercially simply as "Hozier."  He's Irish, 24 or so, a multi-instrumentalist (and recently featured in Rolling Stone), and, if you know him at all, it's for his song Take Me To Church.  Personally, I hear some John Martyn, some Elton John, and even, in the rhythms of some of his songs, K.T. Tunstall.  I feel like there are a couple of other references, but that's not terribly important:  he's a pretty exciting new talent.

The second newbie, and they're newbie-er than Hozier, is the band Mad Satta.  Full disclosure:  their lead singer/frontwoman/driving force (as far as I know) is Joanna Teters, the daughter of Alice's best friend from high school (and still a very close friend), and the niece of Alice's HS boyfriend (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  So I have known her, albeit superficially, since she was born.  Joanna is a recent graduate of Berklee School of Music in Boston, has gigged around for years, and has just put out this first CD.  I don't mean to give short shrift ( whatever that means) to the rest of the band, who are great, but Joanna is the one I know best.  In Mad Satta I hear, as I wrote to Joanna, a mix of Steely Dan, Sade, Norah Jones, with Van Morrison horn charts.  I hope that's not insulting to her/them; to me, it's pretty heady company in which to be included.  It's not to say that they're derivative, simply to say that they've listened, absorbed, and spun out their own stuff very, very well.  At this point in human history, after all,  it's pretty hard--likely impossible, actually-- for anyone to be totally original. 

Finally, there's Jack Bruce.   Cream co-founder,  bassist extraordinaire, incredible vocalist, stunning composer, great keyboard player, he pretty much had it all covered.  He's but the latest in a line of heroes of mine who've passed, a list that will continue to grow, and that I will continue to celebrate until I die, or until they're all gone; I suspect it'll be the the former.

So, nothing terribly profound this week except music.  Really, though that's the most profound aspect of my life, I think, except for family, maybe....  Here's the playlist, anyway:


Take Me To Church                                                                    Hozier
Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene                            Hozier
Jackie And Wilson                                                                      Hozier
Someone New                                                                             Hozier
To Be Alone                                                                                 Hozier
From Eden                                                                                   Hozier
In A Week                                                                                    Hozier
Sedated                                                                                        Hozier
Work Song                                                                                  Hozier
Like Real People Do                                                                   Hozier
It Will Come back                                                                       Hozier
Foreigner's God                                                                           Hozier
Cherry Wine (Live)                                                                     Hozier
Sattatude #1                                                                                 Mad Satta
Reach Out                                                                                    Mad Satta
Better                                                                                           Mad Satta
Oh Lord                                                                                       Mad Satta
See Through You                                                                         Mad Satta
The Makings Of You                                                                   Mad Satta
By Your Side                                                                               Mad Satta
Sattalude #2                                                                                 Mad Satta
Past Lives                                                                                    Mad satta
Epiphany                                                                                     Mad Satta
Dancing On Air                                                                          Jack Bruce
I Feel Free                                                                                  Cream
Sunshine Of Your Love                                                              Cream
SWALBR                                                                                    Cream
Tales Of Brave Ulysses                                                               Cream
Sitting On Top Of The World                                                      Jack Bruce
Theme For An Imaginary Western                                              Jack Bruce

Out with the old, in with the new.... 91.5 FM, wool.fm, Tuesday noon till two.  See you then.               

Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child

'Cause I am.  My Mother died 35 years ago, but October 21 is the centennial of her birth.  That's tomorrow, as I write this, and I thought I'd honor her memory a little, which is somewhat odd, because I often feel guilty about how seldom I think of her, and I'm not sure why.  I even have a photo of the two of us holding hands on the beach at, likely, Kennebunkport, when I was maybe 6, sitting on the windowsill above my desk, looking right at me.  She was a wonderful mother, I loved her, I know that she loved me, but gone is gone.

Which doesn't mean I don't remember lots of details from her life, facts which have formed and informed me:  she was a first-generation American, born in the house she lived in in North Walpole, NH, to Polish immigrant parents.  Zosia Bernadette Prybylo-- such a lovely name, Zosia, although, unfortunately, it was often Anglicized to "Sophie Smith," as Americans are known for our willingness to adapt to others' cultures and languages.  Her father died when she was very young, so it fell to her to help support the family when she was 13.  She quit school and went to work on the night shift at a brush factory in Bellows Falls, VT, more than a two mile walk from her home, a walk she had to make alone, at night, after a ten-hour shift.  She always hated whippoorwills after those years, as her walks home were often accompanied by their eerie and mournful calls--at least to those lonely 13-year-old ears. 

On payday she would turn over all but 10 cents of her week's pay to my grandmother, and on Saturday nights--the big night out-- she and her best friend would go to The Chimes Cafe in BF, split a cup of coffee, and watch all the people passing by, going to places she couldn't afford to go--movies, clothing stores, dances-- all pastimes for those better off.  Growing up in this state of lost childhood and privation was actually a mixed blessing for my mom, I think; she was necessarily frugal, and never really recovered from those early years of having nothing, but it enabled her to make do with little as needed and, more importantly, to appreciate the things she had when she had 'em, and to instill that into her children.  The downside to the trials of her early life were a serious case of insecurity, an inferiority complex, and much self-doubt:  those attributes I'm sure she never intended to pass along, but, alas....

I have discussed in an earlier post my mother's depression and how it brought about her premature death, a chance to escape from a life which had become something she simply didn't want to deal with anymore.  But she was one of those people John Stewart sings about in "Mother Country," which I attached to the post-alert, and which I'll play in my show, one of "those faces in the old photographs,"  people just doin' the best they could and who did it "pretty up and walkin' good."  Here's to them, and their memories, and to Moms everywhere, living or dead.

And here's a bunch of songs about 'em:

Call Your Mother                                                             Johnny Cash
Every Mother's Son                                                          Chris Smither
Every Mother's Son                                                          Traffic
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby....                              Stones
Hymn To The Mother                                                       Charles Lloyd
In My Mother's Eyes                                                         Al Di Meola
Mother                                                                               John Lennon
Mother                                                                               Pink Floyd
Mother's Spiritual                                                              Laura Nyro
Mother And Child Reunion                                               Paul Simon
Oh Mommy                                                                       Brewer & Shipley
Mother Angel                                                                    Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters
Mother Beautiful                                                               Sly & The Family Stone
Mother Country                                                                 John Stewart
Mother Earth                                                                      Tom Rush
Mother Mother                                                                  Kate & Anna McGarrigle
Motherless Children                                                          Eric Clapton
Mother Nature's Son                                                          Fab
Mother Popcorn                                                                 James Brown
Never Tell Your Mother She's Out Of Tune                      Ellen McIlwaine
A Real Mother For Ya                                                       Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child                      Van Morrison
That Was Your Mother                                                       Paul Simon
Your Mother Should Know                                                Fabs
This Is To Mother You                                                       Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
100 Years Ago                                                                    Stones
My Mummy's Dead                                                           John Lennon

Hope you can join me Tuesday from noon till two on 91.5 FM, or wool.fm on the webs.

For this once, "Mother" is the whole word, not just a half....