The Doors Acoustic? Yep. It Actually Works

JAMES LEE STANLEY AND CLIFF EBERHARDT

All Wood and Doors

Beachwood Recordings B004VMX65Y

****

Skepticism doesn’t even begin to describe my initial feelings about this project. Let’s see, let’s take a dozen classics from The Doors and let two folk music veterans cover them—two guys known for their guitar picking no less. Those who remember The Doors will recall it wasn’t a guitar-based ensemble; Robby Krieger played bass more than lead and the band’s distinctive melodies were built around Ray Manzarek’s organ riffs. “It can’t possibly work,” thought I. Wrong! It’s a very fine piece of work and another confirmation that if you’re going to mess with iconic stuff, take it to the limit. Neither Stanley nor Eberhardt seek to channel Jim Morrison, even though Krieger and John Densmore guest on several tracks, as do well-know folks such as Peter Tork (The Monkees), Timothy Schmidt (The Eagles), and Paul Barrere (Little Feat). If anything, a lot of the covers and harmonies evoke a slightly trippier version of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nothing here is quite as you’d anticipate. “Break on Through” has underlying Motown soul peeking through, “Love Me Two Times” feels like a country song, and “Light My Fire” is dreamy and slow. “Crystal Ship” as a folk ballad? Who would have imagined? Crisp guitar licks—mostly done on the “wood” of the album’s title—round out this thoughtful release. It’s way more than just another tribute album; this is a considered rethinking of The Doors—a fresh coat of varnish if you will.

Somewhere Goes Nowhere and Takes Forever to Get There

Somewhere (2010)

Directed and Written by Sofia Coppola

American Zoetrope, 98 mins. Rated R

*

Sofia Coppola’s fourth feature film, Somewhere, won a Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. From this one can only conclude that the judges spoke no English. The appeal of Sofia Coppola escapes me entirely. Her reputation rests on being the offspring of a real director, Francis Ford Coppola, and for the hype given to a single highly overrated film, Lost in Translation (2003). The latter was so enhanced by Bill Murray’s droll performance that many reviewers were blinded by a script as lightweight as gossamer. It seems like an anvil compared to the inconsequential boredom of Somewhere, a film that goes nowhere--slowly.

Pay attention to the opening sequence of Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) driving his expensive black Ferrari in circles. It lasts about three minutes and then Marco parks and steps out of the car. End of sequence. Pay attention because that’s absolutely riveting stuff compared to the rest of the film. (It’s also supposed to foreshadow something weighty, though it doesn’t.) Marco, it seems, is a disaffected Hollywood superstar. When he breaks his arm in a fall, he suddenly becomes aware that life in Hollywood is shallow. (Imagine!) Marco has become the kind of guy who falls asleep watching a private pole dance or whilst administering oral sex, and we’re to conclude that ennui, not painkillers, is to blame. So what will make Johnny Marco a whole man again? Why reconnecting with Cleo (Elle Fanning), the eleven-year-old daughter he had with his ex-wife. The latter has a mysterious (contrived?) mental collapse that forces Marco to take temporary custody of Cleo.

Because Johnny is a big star and has commitments he must honor, Cleo goes on tour with him. Insofar as I can tell, most of the film’s $8 million budget was blown on the Italian sojourn part of the road trip. Too bad; Coppola could have used some of the dough to hire a real scriptwriter. Here’s the film’s revelation, which I give away because I don’t want you to spend your time watching it: Johnny discovers that being a father is what’s missing in his life. He doesn’t want to have sex with any of the bare-breasted women who throw themselves at him. He couldn’t care less about the flash, fame, and fine food that surrounds him. He’d rather duck into an old church with Cleo. (Well who wouldn’t, eh?) That’s it--the whole film….

What the hell is this, a Hollywood version of a Family Values Epiphany? (I doubt that the Christian Right is watching.) Okay, fine, Johnny reconnects with his daughter. I’m sure this happens, though I suspect that most out-of-control thirty-seven-year-olds seek wisdom from mentors older than eleven. Somewhere isn’t as unrelentingly awful as Marie Antoinette (2006), Coppola’s previous film, but only because it didn’t have the budget to be as extravagant in its vacuity. Will someone please tell Coppola that she’s forty now and needs to make movies would more depth than the MTV videos she used to make. It’s also time to stop riding the old man’s coattails. I can’t escape the feeling that if her last name was Prole she’s the sort who would have earned a C in filmmaking at some second-rate arts college. Remove its accreditation if she gets above an F in scriptwriting.

Postscript: Apparently the public agrees with me. This film earned less than $2 million in its American and European release. It has made costs thanks to video residuals, but let me urge you again to avoid it lest you inadvertently encourage Sofia Coppola to make another feature.

Carmageddon Hoax Shows Media at Its laziest

Did the “Carmageddon” story capture anyone else’s imagination? I don’t mean did you hear about it, I mean did it strike you as lame as it struck me? Forget for a moment that it was as big a nonevent as Y2K or the (non) end of the world on May 21. Allow me to introduce another element and label all three as examples of how pathetic “news” coverage has been in recent years.

Carmageddon was never a real thing; it was a media invention from the get-go. In the golden (pun intended) days of yellow journalism, media sources creating stories out of thin air at least had the good grace to bring their inventions to life. The most infamous version of this occurred when William Randolph Hearst sent Stephen Crane to Cuba in 1898 to report on the “war” for independence from Spain. Crane arrived in tranquil Havana and cabled Hearst to report there was no war. Hearst was alleged to have wired back, “You provide story. I’ll provide war.” Maybe that’s apocryphal, but few historians doubt Hearst’s role in providing the drums that war hawks subsequently beat.

I’m not advocating that reporters start wars, but I would like them to get off their lazy rear ends and report on matters that require investigation and research more grueling than a half hour on Google. Carmageddon was perfect for the current breed of smug and sardonic typists. (They do not warrant the titles “reporter” or “journalist.”) First invent a phenomenon. Hey that’s a story. Then report on the buildup to the invented event--a second story. When nothing comes of nothing, story three becomes the reaction to what didn’t happen. Pretty neat--three stories without ever having to stray from the blue light of the computer monitor and the deskside stash of Cheese Doodles.

Where are the new Bob Woodwards and Carl Bernsteins? If Watergate happened today, who would have the patience to investigate a story for nearly two years? Yeah, I know; Mother Jones, The Nation, and one or two others still do this sort of thing, but who (besides me) reads these? What impact do they have? The mainstream media has practically much abdicated investigative reporting. Celebrity and junk news is so much more glamorous and so much less work. If one must go out into the field, by all means be embedded with your sources. That way all you have to do is cut and paste rather than check out the veracity of what’s being spoon-fed.

So what goes uninvestigated unreported? Only serious stuff like who’s behind the drive to gut Social Security. Wouldn’t you like to know about the network that convinces Americans that it would be a disaster to make rich people pay taxes? Wouldn’t it be nice to pull a Watergate and “follow the money” to see how bankers, investors, and CEOs managed to jam the T.A.R.P. bill down our throats and take billions from our pockets? How about why Pakistan still gets any U.S. aid? Where is the ongoing analysis of America’s failed mission in Iraq? Or the faux reasons for getting us there? Where are the critical voices questioning the presumption of a rise in “democracy” in the Middle East? I could name dozens of other stories that beg for investigation, but we don’t get them because, “Oh my God! It’s Carmageddon.” You can pretty much guarantee that if Carmageddon or the end of the world does happen, you won’t read about it in the paper or see it on TV. It will probably get reported on an obscure blog like this one. If you’re lucky, you’ll hear a rumor.

The Dim Bulbs of Congress

A new GOP trademark?

There are ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against global terrorism. The budget runs out on August 2, and unemployment stands at nearly 10 percent. If you believe rightwing pundits, presidential hopeful Michele Bachman, and dim Republicans in Congress, though, the most pressing issue of our times is the right to buy energy-inefficient light bulbs.

In case you’re one of those Americans (God bless you!) who doesn’t fall pretty to what journalist Susan Jacoby astutely calls the “culture of distraction,” the GOP is trying to generate resource-depleting heat over the end-of-the-year ban of the sale of incandescent light bulbs; a 2007 law mandates that these will be withdrawn from the market and replaced by halogen or compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) that use less energy--generally about one-third less. To red-meat Republicans this isn’t an environmental bill; it’s just another needless government intrusion in our lives. Even worse, they argue, it’s a liberal-led plot to create the Big Brother State and destroy American liberty. Every Republican in the House voted to repeal the 2007 law. (It passed 233-193, far short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.)

We have often railed against the culture of stupidity on this blog, but the light bulb kerfuffle takes us into deeper realms of darkness. As it so happens, we had an energy audit done on our home just before Bad Bulb Bachman went on her rant. We replaced all the incandescents left in our home, and the energy savings are real, not liberal fantasies. Every four bulbs you replace saves an average of $25 per year, even when one factors in the higher costs of CFCs. The payoff time for a CFC is just nine months and they last, on average, six to eight times longer than incandescent bulbs. Yes, they contain mercury, which is why you have to recycle them, not dump them in the trash. But I suppose recycling is another government intrusion.

GOP antigovernment rants have long crossed the border between cautionary and paranoiac. They’re also philosophically and politically unsound. Antigovernment activists (be they libertarians or anarchists) constantly confuse liberty, the freedom to move between socially sanctioned constraints, with libertinism, the right to do as one wishes without external controls. Rightwing libertines would--except in cases involving their own agenda--set individuals adrift in a Social Darwinian society in which the only rule is the right to do whatever the hell they want. Civil society doesn’t work that way. One of government’s roles is to “promote the public welfare.” (Look it up; it’s in theConstitution the Right references but never reads.) This is why, in recent history, we have passed things such as the Clean Air and the Clean Water Acts, both of which many Republicans wish to overturn. Promoting the general welfare is why we have criminal laws and civil statutes such as speed limits, food inspection, and building codes. Yes, sometimes the general welfare makes us do things we don’t wish to do, like stick a catalytic converter on our car or not smoke in public, but you might have noticed that none of the Doomsday scenarios predicted by ranters ever seem to materialize. (In our town, restaurant profits went up when smoking disappeared.)

I’d like to know what sort of logic says that government can’t mandate a consumer preference--which it does all the time through dozens of federal laws--but that it should take away a woman’s right to control her own body, forbid gay marriage, or impose school prayer. I’d also like to know why it’s all right for consumer choice to be abridged by private industry, but not government fiat. Did you vote on the decision of cable companies to dump analog in favor of digital, thereby rendering your faithful old Zenith incapable of receiving TV signals and necessitating the purchase of an expensive flat screen set? Were you in on the plan to replace self-maintained windup watches with those using batteries that only a jeweler can replace? Have you cast a ballot over the price of heating oil? Interest rates? And don’t give us that free-market dollar-vote nonsense, or we’ll invite you to cast that dollar vote and sit in the dark if you don’t like CFCs.

The discussion over light bulbs is so stupid that it’s a shame to waste 760 words on it. The only serious question it raises is whether there are any adults left in Republican Party leadership ranks. From where we sit, it looks like the party is controlled by burnt-out ten-watt incandescents.

Clark Exhibit on Pissarro Humanizes Impressionism

Pissarro’s People

Through October 2, 2011

Clark Institute of Art

Williamstown, MA

If one had to anoint a single artistic style as the global favorite, a strong case could be made for impressionism. Indeed, it’s so popular (and ubiquitous) that it runs the risk of stupefying modern viewers. We rush into galleries, seek the Monets, Renoirs, Cézannes, and so on, stand before them, drink in their colors, and enjoy our vicarious brushes with greatness. But do we see them? Do we get beneath the surface? Do we understand why or how they changed art history? Taking in the new exhibit at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts is a step in the right direction of reevaluating impressionism.

Impressionism was, of course, a French movement of trained young artists rejected by the official salon seeking recognition. It thus comes as an initial surprise to learn that the one painter--Camille Pissarro--who took part in all eight impressionist exhibits between 1874 and 1888 wasn’t a precocious youth, wasn’t French, and was a Jewish anarchist to boot. Pissarro (1830-1903) was older than his impressionist compatriots and his Danish nationality--he was born in the Danish West Indies--his anarchism and his secular Judaism made him an outsider in the France of the Dreyfus Affair and Third Republic crackdowns on radicals. Pissarro’s anarchism was not the bomb-throwing kind; he was a utopian who idealized plebeian life and dreamed of a future in which peasant life was one part hard work and several parts idyllic leisure. He sought to make the personal political and often frontloaded his paintings with his anarchist vision. Like so many aspects of impressionism, today’s viewers can easily forget how radical these images were in their day.

The Clark wisely focuses its exhibit not on the grand boulevards and tranquil landscapes with which Pissarro is now most remembered, but with his paintings of people: family members, friends, Normandy neighbors, and--when he finally acquired some discretionary income (he was never wealthy), his household staff. He treated the latter as equals; among the most radical aspects of this exhibit--aside from a seldom-discussed illustrated anarchist primer he made to instruct younger family members--are paintings of peasants and domestic workers at rest. A personal favorite is one of a young woman wholly focused on drinking her café au lait, a scene that might seem banal unless one knew about what passed for normal in master/servant relations outside the Pissarro household.

None of the works in the Clark show are “famous” in the sense that they would normally be part of a Pissarro retrospective, and quite a few of them are ones you’d not know were his without the signature: early figure drawings, market scenes with cartoon-like coloring, and works that stray from what we think of as impressionism, including some that approach pointillism. (Pissarro befriended Georges Seurat and famously badgered him to revise “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”) Not dwelling on iconic work helps us see Pissarro in a fresh light. He was an artist who worked in various media (oil, gouache, Conté crayon, charcoal, ink) and one whose brush strokes ranged from freestyle strokes to Van Gogh-like thick layers to images comprised of carefully calculated right-angled lines. On a single canvass he painted a peasant surrounded by cabbages, some “impressionistically” rendered by looping sweeps of his brush, and others of thousands of finely rendered tiny flecks of green and white paint.

If impressionism had a leader, it was Pissarro. The beauty of the Clark exhibit is that we get a better understanding of why everyone from Monet to Van Gogh tracked down Pissarro to discuss painting. Sometimes clues reside in ordinary details, not big spectacles. This exhibit is rare in having several paintings accompanied by all of the studies that preceded them. In the end, though, it’s not the sketches or the canvases that are Pissarro’s enduring legacy; it is the connection he made with his subjects. “Pissarro’s People” humanizes impressionism and strips away its clichés.

Congratulations to the Clark for cobbling together so many works from private collections and “lesser” works from museums such as Oxford’s Ashmolean and Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam. The museum has even spruced up its own buttoned-down image a bit by sprinkling the grounds with Pissarro tableaux fashioned from cloth and straw. If you’re anywhere near Williamstown before October 2, carve out a few hours for this show. And while you’re at it, clamber up the hill to the Stone Center to see Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui’s stunning large-scale flowing curtains fashioned from entirely of the bands from alcohol bottles. Trust me--you’ll be astonished.

Major League Baseball at Midseason: How am I Doing?

The All-Star game marks the traditional half way point. So how am I doing in my preseason predictions?

As Yogi Berra so astutely observed of major league baseball, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” but that doesn’t stop any of us, including me, from engaging in preseason speculation about what will happen. I dutifully posted my predictions in April, so let’s check up and see how I’m doing.

As Good as I Predicted:

The San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, and Detroit Tigers are sitting atop their divisions, as predicted. I also said the Atlanta Braves would top the NL East. At present they’re 3 ½ games back, but they’re the second-best team in the NL, so give me that one too.

Slightly Better than Expected:

The Philadelphia Phillies offense has more than made up for the fact that I found their vaunted pitching staff slightly overrated. I’m shocked that Cole Hamels is 11-4, but I was right that Oswalt wouldn’t last a whole year. The Milwaukee Brewers are currently in first; I picked them second. I may still be right about them as I think the real story is how bad the NL Central has been. I picked the Washington Nationals for last and currently they’re 46-46, so currently I’m off, but I don’t think I will be in October. The team has a future, but it’s not now.

I knew the Boston Red Sox were loaded, but I picked them for second (and the Wild Card) and they’re currently leading the tough AL East. This prediction could go either way, as that division probably won’t be settled until late September.

Way Better than I Anticipated;

At present the obvious choices are the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Arizona Diamondbacks, both of whom I slated for the basement. That said, I continue to see both of them as bad teams currently overachieving in the case of the D-backs, and simply playing in a bad division in the case of the Pirates. This year, though, the Pirates won’t finish last, so I’m wrong on that one.

I knew that the Cleveland Indians had wonderful young talent, but I thought they were a year or two away and picked them to finish fourth. It looks like their kids are maturing faster than I anticipated, though I still don’t think they’ll finish in the money. Ditto the Los Angeles Angels, who are lurking in second. I don’t think they’ll last either. And I think Jared Weaver will return to earth.

My biggest misfire, methinks, is the New York Yankees, whom I picked to finish fourth. Who knew that Freddie Garcia and Bartolo Colon would pitch like they were 28? The Yankees have been very resilient even though they’ve had devastating injuries and are old and fragile. Age and fatigue took their toll at the end of last season and I suspect it will again this year, but so far I look like a chump on this prediction!

As Bad as I Predicted:

The Kansas City Royals never fail to live down to expectations. I’m sick of hearing about their “prospects;” most of them retire before they’ve ever shed the label. Bad team in a lousy city.

I also said that the Houston Astros were in for a long year and it looks like a desperate summer indeed as they’ve fuddled their way to MLB’s worst record. It doesn’t look promising for next year either as management is in flux and isn’t likely to be offloading underachievers.

Speaking of underachievers, leave it to the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs to set the bar low. Both are absolute train wrecks that need to be scrapped with new stock placed on the rails. That might not be a bad plan for the Seattle Mariners either, a team that always looks good on paper and stinks on the field. The GM will be lynched if he trades Felix Hernandez, but it might be time to package Ichiro for prospects as this team is spinning its wheels, as predicted.

As Mediocre as I Thought:

The St. Louis Cardinals are sputtering, as I suspected they would because of injuries. They’re tied for first at present but they’ve been up and down all year. They might still win the division, which wouldn’t surprise me. Nor would I be surprised if they finish third or lower. Looks like .520 ball will win this division.

Leave it to the big-mouthed, little-talent Ozzie Guillen to keep the Chicago White Sox safely under .500 instead of in the chase. This one’s playing out as predicted, with Ozzie launching more shots than his lineup. Will the Colorado Rockies make their yearly run at the top? I continue to think they’ll finish in the middle of the pack, where they currently reside and where I picked them to be.

I also said that the Toronto Blue Jays would finish in the cellar, but be the toughest last place team in MLB. Looks like they’ll finish fourth instead, but they’ll continue to be a team you simply don’t want to play in an important series. If this team can stay together, it will make some real noise in the next few years.

Who Knew How Bad They’d Stink?

There’s simply no excuse for the Miami Marlins or the Oakland A’s to be in their respective basements. Both teams have already fired their managers; look for the trade vans outside both ballparks. And can we stop talking about what a genius Billy Beane is? Yeah, right! The A’s aren’t going anywhere soon, unless it’s San Jose.

The Cincinnati Reds ought to be running away with the weak NL Central, not sitting in fourth. Okay, they don’t stink, but serious thought must be given to replacing Dusty Baker if things don’t get better fast. That is, unless management thinks that their young talent was overrated (which it might be).

Did anyone pick the Minnesota Twins to be nearer the basement than the top of the AL Central? I said in April that it was a fragile team that couldn’t weather sustained injuries to key players. That’s been the Doomsday scenario that’s played out with Joe Mauer, Jim Thome, Liriano, Kubel, and others spending time on the DL. I continue to think the Twins will get well enough to make a run. I doubt it will be enough to get them to the postseason.

I picked the Tampa Bay Rays to win the AL East on the strength of their pitching. I think I’m wrong about them. The Rays simply can’t hit--for power or average. They lost 1-0 to the Yankees the other day, when a run scored on two errors. This team has no such margins for error and, barring a major trade or a Yankees collapse, looks like a third place team.

Add the Los Angeles Dodgers to the scrap-it-and-start-over list. This is a franchise in total disarray and Don Mattingly has been no Joe Torre in keeping his players battle-ready under the microscope. Half of this team wants out and if I’m the GM, I oblige them. Mattingly might not last the year either.

As wrong as I was about the Dodgers, give me the Double Bonehead Award for picking the Baltimore Orioles to finish above the Yankees. The Orioles have been stunningly awful--so bad that management must reevaluate its prospects. It doesn’t look as if any of their young pitchers is an ace and it appears increasingly likely that most of them aren’t cut out for the Bigs at all. Don’t get me started on what a waste of money it was to sign Derek Lee or Mark Reynolds. This team’s numbers one and two needs are new ownership and new management.

Who am I Picking Now?

Revised List--National League: Giants and Phillies. The Central is up for grabs. It still should be the Reds. If not them, it’s a toss-up between St. Louis and Milwaukee. Wild Card: Braves.

Revised American League: Red Sox, Tigers, Rangers. Wild Card: Yankees.

How’d I Do?

No too bad so far. I was out to lunch on a few teams, but none of my top picks are out of the running. Unless the Pirates go crazy and win the NL Central or the Diamondbacks steal the West, I’m fairly accurate on the bad teams as well. I’d give me a B/B+. What say you?

Told You So!

The only sane man in government?

Indulge me in a long quote:

I think what we will be seeing… within a few months [is] folks complaining on the floor of the Senate, and this is what they will say: “You know what?” The deficit is high. The national debt is too high…. [We] are going to have to deal with our national debt.” The Republicans will tell you: “Oh, we have a great plan to deal with it. We are giving tax breaks to millionaires. But now we… have to make deep cuts in Social Security….We are certainly going to see attacks on environmental protection, on education…. Cut. Cut. Cut…. [They] want to move the country back into the 1920s when essentially we had an economic and political system which was controlled by big money interests; where working people and the middle class had no programs to sustain them when things got bad, when they got old, and when they got sick; when labor unions were very hard to come by because of antiworker legislation…. They do not believe in things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal aid to education.

Rhetoric from the Senate over the current debate on a budget compromise to keep government running beyond August 2? I wish! These words came from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on December 10, 2010, when he led an ultimately unsuccessful filibuster against the last budget and tax deal crafted by President Obama (a nominal Democrat), spineless Democratic compromisers, and Republican pyromaniacs who threatened to shut down government unless they secured an extension of Bush-era tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans and corporations (but not small businesses).

In his speech Senator Sanders also noted that the 2010 agreement to extend tax breaks was, allegedly, just for two years. He wryly noted, “I suggest you take that with a grain of salt,” and predicted that the push would come to make the cuts “permanent” as soon as the deadline approached. He also predicted that the GOP would cry “raising taxes” and seek to strike fear into the hearts of all Americans, when the taxes in question actually impacted only those making over a million dollars.

Is Sanders a voice crying out in the wilderness, or the only sane man in government? My vote goes for the latter. Those who read Sanders’s filibuster today might well think they’re reading the morning paper as everything he predicted has come to pass. Particularly striking is Sanders’s blistering condemnation (with the facts to back it up) of the trickle-down myth. If you still think that wealthy jetsetters and corporate piggies create jobs, you are seriously deluded. There is no evidence that this happens, and a considerable track record of these folks eliminating American jobs in favor of sending them to places like Vietnam, where they can pay workers 25 cents an hour.

Sanders also said that the only thing to do is for people to reclaim democracy from robber barons and the flunkies (in both parties) who serve them is to put politicians’ feet to the fire and force them to serve their constituents, not lobbyists. Flood their offices with emails, calls, letters… and work like hell to dislodge those who refuse to do the people’s will.

I’d go a step further in the current budget debate. Contact representatives who oppose the GOP plan and send a single message: No Deal! Send the same to the White House. It’s time for Obama to stop playing diplomat and, to use a British phrase, pit a bit of stick about. Let the Republicans shut down government on August 2. It didn’t work out so well when Newt Gingrich pulled that stunt under Clinton, a far savvier president than Obama has been thus far. Let Republicans go home and explain why granny didn’t get her social security check, why Billy can’t get a student loan, why the local veteran’s hospital is closed, why mom didn’t get her unemployment check, and why state services partially funded with federal money aren’t operating. In short, urge Obama to have the courage to let the pain happen so people see the GOP plan stripped of its rhetorical window dressing. If ever there is a case of no pain, no gain, this is it.

Make the call--No Deal! While you’re at it, add a “God bless Bernie Sanders.” I’ve said it before and will say it again: we need a lot more independents like Sanders in government and far fewer Republicrats.