ARLEN SPECTER'S GHOSTS

Will this man's decision haunt the Democratic Party?

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter rocked the political world on April 28 when he bolted the Republican Party and became a Democrat. Assuming Al Franken soon assumes the seat he fairly won, the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority in Congress. This is good news for Obama supporters, but liberals may wish to hold a pot-luck cookout rather than a champagne supper. Arlen Specter will make, at best, an odd duck Democrat. He’s an improvement over the execrable Joe Lieberman as a party ally—as would be Benedict Arnold—but welcoming Arlen Specter also means finding room for his baggage.

Specter has been such an opportunist that his true principles are as elusive as Bigfoot. He began his political life as a Kennedy Democrat and worked on the Warren Commission Report. Specter was one of the primary authors of the report’s controversial “single bullet” conclusion. Shortly thereafter, the ambitious Specter became a Republican. At the time, Pennsylvania politics were heavily under the sway of the moderate “Rockefeller wing” of the GOP.

That didn’t work out too well but Specter rode the Reagan tidal wave to the U.S. Senate in 1980. Like a chameleon he reemerged as a Reagan revolutionary with all its concomitant free market and culture wars rhetoric. How much of the latter he believed is an open question. He helped sandbag Robert Bork’s 1987 nomination for the Supreme Court and subsequently appeared to be a strong supporter of abortion rights. But in 1991, Specter not only supported Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, he badgered Anita Hill in tones that bordered on the very sexual harassment of which Thomas was accused. Yet in 1998, he defied the GOP again and spoke out against attempts to impeach President Clinton. So which guy is the Real McCoy?

Specter’s most-recent conversion seems to have grown out of disgust for Bush-style Republicanism. Specter didn’t care for the Patriot Act, the actions of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, or military tribunals. He also lost his stomach for culture war issues and his lack of zeal almost led his own party to strip him of his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee.

There’s little reason to doubt Specter’s announcement that he found himself “at odds with the Republican philosophy,” but a brilliant April 29 Dan Wasserman cartoon sums up why that statement is less than the sum of its parts. It shows a suited Specter dashing from a table of GOP Neanderthals dining on human bones. As Specter flees he remarks, “It’s been a lovely tea party, but I have to run.” The word “run” is a clever double entendre. Specter probably would not have survived the GOP primary and the state is now tracking heavily Democratic. (Obama won the state by 10%.) A Democratic Specter is his best chance of keeping his seat, but it’s probably also the GOP’s best chance of regaining that seat in 2010.

It’s hard to look at Arlen Specter’s record without thinking of Tom Paxton’s poignant satirical song “They All Sound the Same.” It has a very appropriate lyric that goes, “I’ll be out there leading, two or three steps behind you.”

JEWELL'S NEW JEWELL

EILEN JEWELL
Sea of Tears
Signature 2021

Eilen Jewell’s latest is a delightful throwback to rock’s Age of Innocence, a time in which a lyric—such as that of the title track—conveying a love-me-or-else message was dancing on the edge of danger. The band opts to front Jewell’s smoldering vocals with a stripped-down sound that’s heavy on Hawaiian surf guitar, slap bass, and snare drums. For the most part Jewell sings with an understated starkness that skirts the border of torpor but never crosses it. This provides startling and edgy contrast for those moments in which she airs out her voice, as on her cover of the Van Morrison hit “I’m Gonna Dress in Black” and of Loretta Lynn’s “The Darkest Day.” Still another detour is “Fading Memory,” a song in which Jewell slips into a Patsy Cline persona. But the song people are talking about—with good reason—is her remake of “Shakin’ All Over.” Put aside visions of loose-hipped rockers and frenzied teeny boppers; Jewell’s version builds around soulful bass lines and guitar notes that sound like nervous popcorn. Jewell’s languid vocal is icily sexy. This music is where rockabilly, Chicago blues, café jazz, country, ands swing collide and create a new musical galaxy. LV

THE DIGGERS AND DEAD WERE WRONG

An odd thing happened recently: while I was teaching a class at the University of Massachusetts, a student was served with a subpoena for illegal music downloading. I don’t think that busting college students doing what the cultural encourages them to do is the answer to the problem, but I was not very sympathetic when the young man told me, “I just fundamentally don’t believe anyone should have to pay for music.”

How many of us would spend three years in law school, pass the bar, and spend an entire legal career giving away our services? Would we go through a carpentry apprenticeship program and build houses for free? Would we get an MBA, build a factory, and let anyone who wanted our product walk into the warehouse and take it? Then why in the name of Ani Difranco would we think we are entitled to free music?

I invoked Difranco for a reason. I was in Portland, Maine this past weekend and Difanco was performing in support of “Record Store Day,” a nationwide event to support non-chain music retailers. Unless you live in a town with an independent music merchant you probably had no idea that April 18 was Record Store Day. That would be most of you. (See “I Need That Record”—Movie Madness) There are only a few thousand left in the entire country. Massachusetts has just twelve, but we’re practically swimming in them compared to places such as West Virginia (3), Nevada (5), and Louisiana (5). Mississippi, the heartland of the blues, has just two indies in the entire state.

It’s easy to blame corporate rock, corporate news, and corporate radio for this mess, but we also need to blame ourselves. Somewhere along the line we stopped believing that musicians were hired help and started thinking of them as chattel. Perhaps it began with the Diggers and the Grateful Dead in the 1960s. The Diggers wanted to live in a “free” society, which they meant literally. Theirs was the ultimate anti-materialist, anti-money dream, but to affect it they became a tie-dyed Mafiosi who shook down local merchants and musicians. All that happened was that San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury ceased to be a hippie haven and instead became an urban nightmare of drug dealers, con artists, petty thieves, and violent sociopaths.

The Grateful Dead was more benign, but they added to the problem. The Dead allowed anyone to tape their shows and distribute the music for free. That business model worked for them because when they started the practice they were famous enough to make their dough on concerts, residuals, and merchandise. One might admire such an ethos from an established band, but the key and problematic word is “established.” Without meaning to do so, The Grateful Dead—and those emulating them—set the expectation that we could have something for nothing.

The effect is to kill music at the source. Just like most people never heard of Record Store Day, we’ll never hear future Grateful Deads or Ani Difrancos if we live in a world in which only established artists can support themselves. The only way to become “established” enough to give away music is spending a lot of time playing for tips, cadging meals and lodging from local promoters, and living out of a rented car. (See “Local Heroes,” Celtic Corner) The performers who played in support of Record Store Day—such as Difranco, Bad Religion, Tea Leaf Green, Neko Case, and The Decemberists—are ones you’d never have known if there was no independent music scene. If music production is left to the Big Four—Warner, Sony, EMI, and Universal—then by all means let’s all become pirates and steal the bastards blind. But if you want music that’s diverse, challenging, and fresh you need to pony up. Check out the reviews on this blog; unless the artists herein can sell a few CDS most of them can’t work. Now listen to their work and imagine how impoverished our world would be if their voices were silenced.--LV

I NEED THAT RECORD!

I Need That Record!

By Brendan Toller, 2008, 77 mins.

This documentary takes on the distressing decline of America’s independent record stores, some three thousand of which have closed in the past ten years. Toller explores the community impact and artistic toll when local owners and creative spirits are pushed aside by big box stores, media consolidation, format radio, and kids who think they’re entitled to free music. He also shows how the defiant avant-garde hangs on. This film should provoke animated debate over issues such as cultural homogenization, global capitalism, media policy, and who owns music. Order this from http://www.ineedthatrecord.com/Site/I_Need_That_Record%21.html

ON THE BEAM WITH BODEGA

BODEGA
Under the Counter
Mad River 1010

Members of the Scottish band Bodega—not to confused with two other bands bearing the same name—are only in their early twenties, but just four years out from winning the BBC 2005 Young Folk Award they’re already playing like vets. Many Celtic bands anchor melodies with accordion and fiddle, but Bodega give the combo more color and musical tension by having fiddler Ross Couper play edgy contrast to Norrie MacIver’s swingy squeeze box. On occasion, Gillian Chalmers puts down her pipes and whistles and plays second fiddle to MacIver, which gives Bodega’s music unexpected twists. The opening “Inward Chimney” set, for instance, opens with a jazzy little tune penned by guitarist Tia Files, segues to a duel-fiddle-fueled Shetland mariner’s tune as it would have never been played at sea, and rounds out with a Quebeçois stomper. Or how about Bodega’s version of “The Stamping Ground,” a song popularized by Runrig? Bodega forego rock and roll for a folk treatment that sets the mood for MacIver’s vocal with June Naylor’s harp notes bouncing off djembe beats. Bodega pay careful attention to pace changes and it pays glorious dividends. In succession we are treated to “Puirt,” a bit of tongue-twisting Gaelic mouth music; “Helyinagro,” a dreamy musing on the Shetlands; “Balaich an Iasgaich,” a Gaelic fishing/crofting song sung in dancing celidh cadences; and “Missing Tramp,” a classic Celtic big set with muscular guitar from Files, MacIver’s bold accordion, Naylor attacking her harp, Couper’s aggressive fiddle, and Chalmers stepping out on fiddle and pipes. Under the counter? How about on the beam?--LV

Check out their cool cover of Bob Dylan's Wagon Wheel.

SHUT UP AND PAY YOUR TAXES

April 15 has come and gone and the right-wing whackos have had their little teabag parties. Right now they’re congratulating themselves on their cleverness, apparently too clueless to realize that all they’ve done is highlight how out of touch they are with reality. America is bleeding and what do they propose to do about it? Lower taxes. The same tired old mantra we’ve been hearing since the 1980s when the right snookered the public into believing tax cuts saved the U.S. economy.

Just when I thought the political right couldn’t get any more ridiculous they proved me wrong. Our latter-day tax rebels have invoked the Boston Tea Party, but the term they appropriated is actually exceedingly vulgar sexual slang. (Teabagging is an urban term for when a man places his scrotum in someone’s mouth.) But then again, maybe teabagging’s implications of dominance and submission is what it’s all about after all.

Only the greedy and the willfully ahistorical still believe in trickle-down economics. Its success was a myth when Ronald Reagan touted it and we’ve three decades-worth of laboratory-tested proof since then that massive tax cuts only serve one clear purpose: they further enrich those who need it the least. (Look it up; for most of Reagan’s two terms unemployment was higher than it was under Jimmy Carter. If you want to see low unemployment look at the mid-1960s when the war on poverty pushed it under 5%.)

Reagan at least was warm enough to make some Americans believe in fairy tales, but who believes the embittered wingnuts out there pushing the latest load of trickle-down hogwash? The same crew that bankrupted the country now wants us to weep with them over taxes!? Is there anything more lame than opposing taxes? In the abstract nobody likes to pay them. Saying you hate taxes involves roughly the same amount of political courage as saying that you’ve decided to take a bold stance in favor of warm fuzzy puppies.

We pay taxes because we need to, not because we want to. And we need to now more than ever. The America that actually exists is not one in which hardworking folks are being ruined by taxes; it’s one in which hard workers can’t get a job at all. It’s one where the average American family is carrying over ten grand in credit card debt owed to the same usurious speculators who gambled with their futures and now want to steal their pensions. It’s one where one of six Americans can’t afford to get sick and nearly a million are homeless. It’s a place where the infrastructure is crumbling, housing values are plummeting, and college costs are soaring. It’s one where my former students are losing hope and my current ones see little reason to have any in the first place. The same damn bandits who squeezed political mileage out of praising cops, fire fighters, and soldiers are now content to see them lose their jobs and benefits. In the name of what? Lower taxes? How about raising them to solve some social problems. That would be an act of courage.

Shut up and pay your taxes. Be thankful you have the resources to do so. Get back to me when every American has shelter, healthcare, a pension, and a job. Maybe then we can talk about tax rates. Until then, the next time you open your mouth to cry about taxes I hope someone teabags you.

THE LORDS OF THE BOARDS

Basketball gets the headlines, but for pure excitement it’s hard to top hockey’s Stanley Cup. This year’s odds-on favorite to win it all is the San Jose Sharks and for once I agree with the Vegas line. The Sharks have it all: a hot goaltender (Evgeni Nabokov), size (Jumbo Joe Thornton, Rob Blake), grizzled vets (Jeremy Roenick), agitators (Claude Lemieux), and so much depth that Jonathan Cheechoo and Mike Grier often skate on the fourth line.

That said, surprises generally occur in pursuit of the Cup. Hot goaltending can carry teams deep into the playoffs, which is why even the worst team to make the playoffs, the New York Rangers, have a shot—Henrick Lundqvist is one of the best in the league and is the only reason the Rangers are in the hunt. And goaltending is the reason that the league’s most-skilled team, the Detroit Red Wings, will go home disappointed—Chris Osgood and Ty Conklin are mediocre at best.

Let’s all be grateful that Atlanta, Dallas, Florida, Los Angeles, Nashville, Phoenix, and Tampa will not be playing into May. Unless Carolina gets lucky we’ll be spared seeing the Cup go someplace that hockey has no damn business being played. Half of those teams should fold and the other half should move where someone cares (Hamilton, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Seattle). In like spirit we should bemoan the absence of Buffalo, Edmonton, and Ottawa in the playoffs. The Sabres are arguably the most-talented team not there. (It’s hard to feel sorry for Toronto’s absence; Leafs stink.)

Here are my predictions for Round One. In the Eastern Conference:

1. Boston Bruins over Montreal Canadiens: The Bruins aren’t spectacular, but Coach Claude Julien has assembled the most-cohesive and hard-working team in the NHL. Defenseman Zdeno Chara will manhandle the undersized Habs and open space for Phil Kessel and Marc Savard. This should be over fast, unless goalie Tim Thomas falls apart or the Habs’ Casey Price becomes Superman.

2. Washington Capitals over New York Rangers: This one should also end quickly, Lundqvist notwithstanding, because you actually have to score goals to win. The Rangers went deep last year because Jaromir Jagr woke up from a season-long sleep, but this year’s crop has no one of his ability. The Caps do: Alex Ovechkin. Goaltender Jose Theodore is prone to mistakes, but the Rangers couldn’t score in a bar full of drugged sophomores.

3. Carolina Hurricanes over New Jersey Devils: Here’s your first-round upset special in the East. The Devils have Marty Brodeur in goal, but they don’t have much scoring power and they had an awful last month of the season. The Canes, by contrast, have played with passion and energy. Look for Eric Staal to score some big goals. But if the Devils do hold on, I’ll be happy—Raleigh is another place that doesn’t deserve a team. Bring back The Whalers!

4. Philadelphia Flyers over Pittsburgh Penguins in a minor upset. The Flyers stumbled at the end, their fans are mad, and the team is primed to take out their frustrations on someone. And what better target than the Pens’ whiny, chippy Sid Crosby? The Pens have a lot more firepower than the Flyers, but Evgeni Malkin goes soft in big games; the Flyers’s Simon Gagne thrives in them. I like Philly because Martin Biron is a better goalie than Marc-Andre Fleury.

Western Conference:

1. San Jose Sharks over Anaheim Ducks: This one may actually be one the toughest matchups the Sharks will face. The Ducks are big and gritty and they’ve got a few guys on their roster (Teemu Selanne and Jean-Sebastian Giguere) who rise to big occasions. But Giguere’s not the goalie he once was—courtesy of downsizing the equipment—and the Sharks are just too deep.

2. Detroit Red Wings over Columbus Blue Jackets. Everywhere you turn there’s talent on the Wings: Zetterburg, Hossa, Franzen, Maltby, Rafalski …. And nobody is more exciting in open ice than Pavel Datsyuk. Everywhere, except goal! Because of the leaky net I not be surprised if the pesky Jackets make this series closer than it should be.

3. Vancouver Canucks over St. Louis Blues: This has the potential to be a very exciting first-round matchups. The Blues have flown in under the radar and their offense beyond Brad Boyes is fairly anemic, but they play tough (especially enforcer David Backes) and Chris Mason has been solid in net. But the Canucks should prevail with its big defensemen, the Sedin brothers leading the scoring, and a superior goalie: Roberto Luongo. Look also for ex-Blues center Pavol Demitra to have a big series.

4. Calgary Flames over Chicago Blackhawks in the Western upset special. Why? The Flames have the dynamic Jarome Iginla, made the best late season pickup (center Olli Jokinen), and have some guys who had off years and can redeem themselves in the post season: Craig Conroy, Todd Bertuzzi, and goalie Mikka Kiprusoff. Chicago has nice young wingers in Martin Havlat and Patrick Kane, but the goaltending is in the hands of the washed-up Nikolai Khabibulin and the never-lived-up-to-hype Cristobal Huet. Look for Iginla to give both of them fits.