If the hat fits...

     "The cool was a whitened degenerative form of bebop. And when mainline America was vaguely hipped, the TV people (wizards of total communication) began to use it to make people buy cigarettes and deodorants . . . or put life into effeminate dicks (uhh, detectives). The white boys slid into all the studio gigs, playing 'their' music, for sure.
     So-called 'pop,' which is a citified version of Rock 'n' Roll (just as the Detroit-Motown Sound is a slick citified version of older R&B-Gospel influenced forms) also sees to it that those TV jobs, indeed that dollar-popularity, remains white. Not only the Beatles, but any group of Myddle-class white boys who need a haircut and male hormones can be in a pop group. That's what pop means. Which is exactly what 'cool' was, and even clearer, exactly what Dixieland was, complete with funny hats and funny names . . . white boys, in lieu of the initial passion, will always make it about funny hats . . . which be their constant minstrel need, the derogation of the real, come out again."

-LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), "Jazz and the White Critic." 1966

Decline and/or Fall.

From The New York Times, an exercise in agonizingly strained optimism: Opportunities and Perils for Obama in Military Action in Libya. How many ways can one find to say "If it works..."?

The Course of Empire: Destruction. Thomas Cole, 1836.

Two fun facts.

#1
"There are only two things more beautiful than a gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. Ever had a good...Swiss watch?"

- Cherry Valance (John Ireland), Red River, 1948

Seeing these sexy dudes size up each other's guns made the Duke feel all funny inside.

#2

At the start of filming for the 1948 Howard Hawks film Red River (which I reluctantly watched and thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the great Roberto), there was concern that John Wayne and Montgomery Clift would not get along due to their matching outspokenness on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They agreed to steer clear of politics on set, but Wayne and Walter Brennan both made it a point to avoid Clift off-camera because he was a known homosexual. Shit really hit the fan when a rumor made it to the Duke that Monty was having an affair with John Ireland, at which point the Santa Ana Airport's namesake actually lobbied to have his costar fired.

So I can be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting that John Wayne made some (some!) really good films, but I maintain that the guy was a complete jerk-off. 

Thank you, Public Enemy.

Brave New World.

An exchange between my father and a friend of his, both of whom were raised in villages on the island of Terceira, upon hearing that their sons (myself and a friend, both of whom were raised in southern California) hung out together on the east coast:

"These guys go to New York easier than we used to go to the city."

"It's true. We hardly ever left the village. Maybe once a month. But we used to have to walk."

"Yeah, I guess if they had to walk they wouldn't make that trip so often."

"You daggone right."

I think that as a nation we need to be reminded that what's passed for country music over the past few decades is actually a popular offshoot several removes from what the term "country" once referred to. I don't mean this as an argument about authenticity--that's a discussion that tends to give me hives--but merely to suggest that most members of my generation who subscribe to the "I listen to everything but country" position don't know what they're actually missing.

How can you dislike someone who threatens to kick your ass with such a winning smile?

"Pow, you're dead." (1932-2011)

The Westboro Baptists have come to serve some practical purposes in American society, not least of which is to paradoxically confer honor on their declared foes. If you've earned a Westboro Baptist picket line at your funeral, you're okay by me.

So the fact that they've announced their intention to picket Elizabeth Taylor's funeral shouldn't just elicit anger. Rather, it should enable us to chip away at the patina of celebrity craziness with which Taylor's been tarnished for at least as long as I can remember.

Also: damn, she was pretty!

Many of the people most repulsed by the Westboro Baptists today seem to have conveniently forgotten that for a while back when they lived in Reaganland it was perfectly acceptable and quite common to talk about AIDS much as the Phelps family does now: as God's punishment for the abomination of homosexuality, or at least as the natural consequence incurred by a population for living in sin. And while most everyone else with a high profile was either maintaining a cowardly silence or running in the opposite direction, Taylor came out and voiced her unequivocal support for a segment of the population whose suffering was for most Americans little more than the butt of tasteless jokes.

So child star, addict, alcoholic, home-wrecker, serial monogamist, odd religious convert, narcissist who did and said some crazy things in that long strange second half of her life--whatever. Dame Elizabeth has earned her Westboro tribute, and whatever else one might say about her career or her very public personal life, that gets a tip of the hat from this humble blogger.

Wheezy 'n' Breezy

Are we there yet?

No, and we'll never get there. Wherever we are is here, and there will always be somewhere else. We're just chasing the horizon. There will never be here and here will never be there. We'll never get there, and that's the most important thing to remember. The joy's in the voyage, in the constant chasing and the knowing that it's never to be caught.

Shit, we wouldn't know what to do if we did catch it.