Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Goodbye, John Edwards.

John Edwards just announced he's leaving the race, and I'm sad to see him go. I've always been a big believer in Sen. Edwards, from the quick responses to my letters when he was in office to his fight against poverty, I've never felt that there were any false notes from him. (The Iraq vote being the one glaring mis-step, which he apologized for unlike someone else I know.)

I'm almost certain that he'll endorse Obama, either that or he'll endorse no one. I can't see him endorsing Hillary at all. Just based on watching the campaign closely since last winter.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Heart's Gone The Color of Coca-Cola

There's been a spat of activity over at the Red Skull blog lately, two new posts from Marco, one new one from me.

I've been going back and listening to some of the music from the turn of the century that I absolutely loved to see if they still stick. Four albums in particular have stayed in basic rotation for the past eight years, (in order of most played) Queens Of The Stone Age R, Mclusky Do Dallas, At The Drive-In Relationship of Command, and ...Trail Of Dead Source Tags & Codes. These four were in constant rotation in my CD walkman when they came out. The Queens album has aged the best, I think, mainly because it's a timeless album. I can see myself driving kids to the museum or the baseball fields whichever they end up choosing, listening to R and skipping over "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer". They may never again reach the heights they achieved here and on Songs For The Deaf, but as long as I have those two albums, I'll be all right.

I went on at length about Do Dallas over at The Red Skull. Relationship of Command has lost some of it's sheen to me only because of how the members of this amazing band completely dropped the ball once they split up. Sparta ended up being real boring, and The Mars Volta, well, I can only listen to one of their albums every three years. They aimed for outerspace and landed on some over the top planet where Rush fans live. The tension between the two creative forces in the band, the post-punk and the weird outerspace music is what made At The Drive-In so compelling. And listening to this album again, it's as exciting as it was listening to it in Derrick's truck as he unexpectedly drove us into a field where the Target in Wake Forest would later be, the high grass hiding the large gashes in the dirt beneath us. Putting us on two or one wheel(s) at a time.

I have a feeling that Source Tags & Codes will end up as one of the best albums of this decade, it's a perfect statement from a band whose ambitions would soon outweigh their abilities. After this album And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead collapsed under their own momentum. Poised to be a Sonic Youth for the new millennium (there's a phrase I haven't used in a while), Trail of The Dead lost the reigns. I hold out hope with every new album they put out, but I think all is lost for these guys. It's a shame, too. It's interesting listening to this album now and seeing it as the most influential album of the lot. Trail Of Dead's sweep and scope informed the Arcade Fire and numerous other bands of the moment.

While I was writing this, I noticed that each of these bands has ended up disappointing me in the long run, Era Vulgaris was a half baked attempt at regaining their fun side which QOSTA abandoned for the interesting Lullabies To Paralyze. Mclusky broke up, and I haven't heard anything from their new band Future Of The Left yet. At The Drive-In broke up and followed their respective muses to less interesting ends. And Trail Of Dead, well, they made one perfect album.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Motherfuckin' Hillary Clinton

I think I've made it pretty clear throughout my blogging history that I'm an Obama man. To me he's clearly the best candidate the Democrats have had since... well, Bill Clinton. One problem among many that I have with Hillary Clinton is that she assumes she should have the presidency based solely on her "experience" as a Clinton. I believe I posted a video a while ago where Meredith Vierra broke that "experience" story into pieces. Essentially pointing out that Hillary's "experience" as First Lady included visits to foreign countries with Sinbad.

So, it dispirits me when my blogging compatriot, Marco, is a Hillary man. As is the case with about 65% of my replies to his blog posts, this one ran a little long, so I transferred it over here.

In his post, Marco was talking about Michelle Obama (and the Obama camp in general) have reacted to The Clinton's attacks of recent.

But you know what? If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, you
can bet the Republicans will do this and much much worse. Hell, they’ve
already started bullshit rumors about Obama being some stealth terrorist or some
shit. They will probably be aided by a complacent media, always eager to
show they can take down a Democrat. So really, unclutch your pearls.
Get excited when the real mud starts to fly.

Okay, so, I'll agree with you on the whole oh "woe is me" reaction. It's working out for Obama though, the media is buying his framing of the situation, so that works for my man. I do however have a problem with the Clinton's "attacks". Some to most are unfounded bullshit. i.e. when they attack Obama for voting "present" on pro-choice bills that came up in Illinois. A little background on this and you'll see that was NARAL and Planned Parenthood's directive for these bills to vote "present" to force more moderate democratic members to vote yes.


The Rezco thing reeks of small time bull crap that the Clintons and any other person with a law degree running for office occasionally runs into. Add to that, Hillary was on the board at WalMart. So, who's worse? One slumlord or America's slumlord?

The excuse of starting baseless attacks against a fellow democrat just because someone in the other party would do it is bullshit. But then again, I guess that she used the same mindset when voting for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act (twice), and the Kyl-Liberman act.

And this brings me back to experience. This is the experience Hillary is touting. She's been hawkish as all get-out. Now, where is this coming from? Is this being an actual war-hawk? If so, Hillary is dangerous as president. We might end up in Iran or Syria if she follows this muse for real. The other possibility for the motivations to her experience is that she's an opportunist whose rhetoric matches the direction of the wind. That's not exactly leadership material to me. Either she's steps away from running with Joe Lieberman as her VP and making Iraq the 51st state or she's flaky as all get out.

I guess the most important question is, will she actually get us out of Iraq? Or is that just something she's saying to get into office?

Bill and Hillary are playing this scorched earth game, where there's no way that anyone else could get the nomination based on the impression that they wouldn't be there to help in someone else's general election campaign. It's them or no one. It's a chicky drive with the voters and the party, and it's shameful.

We're still boys Marco, I just can't get with you on this Hillary Clinton thing, sorry.

I did read your post about Amy Winehouse though. That shit is tight, I didn't want to believe it when I first heard it. A portion of me still doesn't completely believe it. But you should check out Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, their new-ish album 100 Days 100 Nights totally owns the Winehouse record. Here's a little taste of awesomeness.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

OBAMA!

Oh, what great news we got the other night when we heard that Obama won the Iowa caucuses. Though the caucuses are total bullshit, where votes are garnered with cookies, as I'm told. Then again, I can't be sure if that's just East Coast liberal condescension for the rubes out in Iowa. "Oh, isn't it cute that in their antiquated ceremony they drag people to different sides of the room with the lure of home-made cookies!" Either way, Obama's got himself some momentum heading into New Hampshire, where he'll trounce Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

I can't help feeling bad for Edwards, who was my choice before Obama announced. I really couldn't stick with him when the most exciting politician I've ever seen joined the race. I'm pretty sure Obama made me cry in 2004 when he gave that keynote speech at the DNC. So, sorry, John Edwards, I think you'd make a great vice president, if you're up for second banana a second time around.










Weirdly, speaking of Vice President, Mike Huckabee when he was on Jay Leno the other night (SCAB!) he said he really liked Obama and compared himself to Obama. Is Huckabee doing some kind of weird political jujitsu where he's aiming to be some whacko Andrew Johnson.

P.S. I found this clip of Hillary's "experience" being dismissed by that lady from The View. Hillary Clinton, traveling the world, breaking down barriers, getting experience with Sinbad. Pssh! Sinbad can be out-whacky-faced by the governor of California! And he calls himself a statesman!