Music Reviews-Bo Diddley, Alicia Svigals, 100 Proof(Aged in Soul), Sweet Honey In The Rock

Bo Diddley

Along with fellow Chess Records label mate Chuck Berry, and men like Ike Turner, Louis Jordan, Little Richard and Fats Domino, Bo Diddley could (and often did) make a claim to be a Founding Father of Rock-n-Roll. His music was slightly different than Chuck Berry's. Both men were influenced by previous jazz, blues and R&B musicians but whereas Chuck Berry added a little more country and jump blues to his music, Bo Diddley's works, much like John Lee Hooker's, provided an obvious link back to Africa through his more open use of clave. I understand clave as a 3-2 call and response pattern. Clave is of course found all over the music of the African Diaspora from people as seemingly disparate as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Mongo Santamaria, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Bobby Bland, Duke Ellington and many others but in the US is most closely associated with music from the Caribbean: especially Afro-Cuban compositions. The simplified popular version of clave often can be expressed by the "shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits" rhythm but it can get much more complicated than that. I am neither a musician nor a musicologist so I'll just stop there and just say clave is an important element of African and Diasporic music.

Diddley played up this seemingly exotic sound by having a maracas player (Jerome Green) take a prominent role both in studio and on stage. Many Bo Diddley songs didn't change chords. This was similar to people like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. But Diddley was playing faster than they were with more "drive" for lack of a better word. He tended to use straight eighth rhythms instead of triplets. He once claimed he couldn't really play blues.
As with older blues players it could occasionally be difficult for someone unfamiliar with Diddley's music to detect where the "one" was. This could be very rhythmically intoxicating. Bo Diddley was extremely aware of his own skills and originality. He often verbally fenced with interviewers determined to get him to list his influences. He always said that he got his own sound and thought other musicians should as well.

Like James Brown, Bo Diddley brought an intensely rhythmic drive to his music, one which was no doubt influenced by his church experiences and early training on drums. His music always had a lot of bounce and syncopation. He played the guitar like a drum. This approach may have been because of extremely large hands and fingers that made certain techniques easier and others more difficult. He started out playing classical violin and wasn't bad at it. Check out "The Clock Strikes Twelve". Bo Diddley wasn't crazy about a lot of cymbals, because he thought they often clashed with what he was playing on guitar. He did like tom-toms and maracas. A lot of his music has very prominent tom-tom sounds. I like this as I think the tom-tom is often overlooked in modern music. For my money there's nothing like the deep resonance of a tom-tom drum.

Bo Diddley was born Otha Ellas Bates in McComb Mississippi but grew up and learned to play music in Chicago. His stage name was African in origin and was said both to refer to nothing and the one string wall guitar (diddley bo) that was also African in origin and on which many future blues stars first learned to perform on. Bo Diddley had a different vocal style than Chuck Berry as well. Whereas Chuck Berry occasionally fancied himself something of a crooner in the Charles Brown or Perry Como style, Diddley's deeper voice and music were a little bit rougher and occasionally a bit more menacing. It wasn't every man who could convincingly sing of having walked 47 miles of barbed wire, used a cobra snake for a necktie, lived in a brand new house on the roadside that was made from rattlesnake hide with a brand new chimney made out of human skulls. But Bo Diddley could. His music had a large sense of humor to go along with the often surreal lyrics such as "You should have have heard what I just seen". He wrote the song "Love is Strange" which became a hit for Mickey and Sylvia.

Diddley was also a forerunner of rap. Many of his songs were self-referential. On stage he was the macho braggart with the heart of gold or he put it "..a young woman's wish and an old woman's dream.." Although Bo Diddley's songs often included outlandish mannish boasting (check out his rewrite of Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Koochie Man" as "I'm a Man" which was a pretty revolutionary song for a Black man to be singing in 1950s America), he was an equal opportunity employer and often had women lead guitarists. That was very unusual for the times. It's actually The Duchess playing lead on "Aztec". "Aztec" sounds like a missing cut from a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack. Bo Diddley was a big sartorial and musical influence on later guitarists-most obviously Jimi Hendrix, Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Check out Bo Diddley's hats and jackets and then look at Jimi or SRV. Bo Diddley was one of the first guitarists to consciously seek out and use such "bad" sounds as pick scratches, fret noise, harmonics, distortion, and feedback squeals. This was most apparent in "Please Mr. Engineer" and "Roadrunner".

Diddley's techniques would lay the groundwork for hard rock and heavy metal later on. He also was a big fan of tremolo and vibrato. There may be a few recordings floating around with him using a wah-wah pedal though it could be judicious use of tone controls. Bo Diddley designed, customized and occasionally built his own amps and guitars. He was most closely associated with the Gretsch Guitar company, who built him odd custom instruments of unusual shapes, colors and sizes-some were even fur lined. Billy Gibbons was the presenter for Bo Diddley's induction into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. Gibbons credited Diddley not only as a primal influence but also with turning him on to fur covered guitars. Go figure.

Bo Diddley's music prioritized rhythm over melody. Unfortunately for him, American law did not (does not??) recognize rhythm as something which can be copyrighted. So he had no recourse when other people started using rhythms he had popularized. Things went from bad to worse when he was cheated out of the royalties from songs that he did write. In other desperate situations he signed away certain publishing rights. And trying to build a music career as a black man in segregated America was no one's idea of an easy task. These experiences apparently left him rather bitter as over the years he rarely failed to bring this up in interviews. Live and learn I guess. Many original rock-n-roll musicians, especially the black ones, were treated poorly and ripped off by record company execs, publishers, promoters and agents. He never had many chart hits but his music was influential both on his peers and musicians who would come afterwards. Early on, The Rolling Stones were a virtual Bo Diddley cover band. The Who's "Magic Bus" is a Bo Diddley vamp. In the seventies Shirley had a disco hit with "Shame, Shame, Shame" which was also a take on a Bo Diddley riff. In the 70s, he updated his music to include nods to current funk and rock which had replaced original rock-n-roll as popular music. In his final decades he made a semi-respectable living on the old time rock-n-roll circuit with occasional flashes of interest that came from opening tours for others or the commercial he did with Bo Jackson.

Bo Diddley, the original sharp dressed man, is gone now but his music will last forever. If you're not hip to him well you ought to be. As he said "You've got your radio turned down too low. Turn it up!!!"

Who Do You Love  Bo Diddley   Pretty Thing  I'm a Man  Mona   500% More Man   Rock-n-Roll  Hong Kong Mississippi
Say Man  Bo's a Lumberjack  Cops and Robbers  The Clock Strikes Twelve
Before You Accuse Me   Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry together live No More Loving
Please Mr. Engineer  Aztec    I don't like you   Shut Up Woman   Roadrunner
Bo Diddley live at Shindig with The Duchess You can't judge a book by looking at the cover Crackin up

Alicia Svigals

Klezmer music is Jewish mostly secular folk and dance music that primarily hails from Eastern Europe, especially what is now Poland, Romania, Moldova and The Ukraine. It is pretty lively stuff that also has a fair amount of Roma, Greek and Turkish influences. Once it got to the US it also underwent minor cross cultural sharing with jazz and blues. They're long gone now but there used to be a number of African-American blues players who threw in klezmer licks or Yiddish vocals in their music as well as a number of klezmer players who picked up some pop or blues sounds. Obviously times change and both the Holocaust and the process of modernization and assimilation drastically reduced the number of klezmer musicians in the post WW2 US.

However in the past few decades there has been something of a modest klezmer revival as people gain interest in the music of their forebears. One of the musicians leading the charge in this is Alicia Svigals, who also happens to be one of the finest violinists I've ever heard. She was a founding member of the klezmer revivalist group The Klezmatics and also has enjoyed a vibrant solo career. She's also performed with (and tutored) Itzhak Perlman. Svigals is probably the best klezmer violinist performing today and has eagerly shared her knowledge with many other students of the violin or fidl. In an interesting echo of past cross-fertilizations, adventurous jazz musicians like Don Cherry have worked in klezmer styles while some klezmer musicians have included jazz or other world music in what they're doing.

Her solo album Fidl is probably the best introduction to klezmer music and her very individualistic style. Like a lot of the best musicians who straddle the gulf between old styles and new, she knows all of the traditionalist rules and styles and also knows when to break them. This music is an acquired taste of course but if you are open to hearing something different, klezmer music may hit the spot.

Gasn Nign Manhattan Concert Bessarabian Medley Romanian Fantasy Kallarash

100 Proof(Aged in Soul)

Motown owner, CEO and President Berry Gordy was notoriously tight with control and money. This became a problem for his three top songwriters and producers, Lamont Dozier, and brothers Brian and Edward Holland, who were famous, even legendary, as the Holland-Dozier-Holland team. It became so much of an issue that once ultimatums had been issued, Gordy showed the team the door and told them that they were free to do their own thing (though not free to use their own names as Gordy tied that up in legal disputes). Peeved the trio did just that and started the record labels Hot Wax Records and Invictus Records. Many bands that signed to these labels had a recognizably "Motown" sound which made sense considering who was running the label. Most of the bands were quite funky as that what was in at the time. There were, despite Gordy's best attempts, some musicians who worked at both Motown and Hot Wax/Invictus. I suppose I'll be discussing more musicians from this period later but one group which I always enjoyed was 100 Proof (Aged in Soul). I don't know much about them. I think all the original members are dead and gone. I'm sure I must have heard them growing up but my first "modern" taste of them came on an Invictus compilation release which featured tracks from people like Parliament, Freda Payne, Honey Cone and several other heavy hitters.

100 Proof (Aged in Soul) was initially made up of Eddie Holiday, Steve Mancha, and Joe Stubbs (brother of Four Tops vocalist Levi Stubbs and former member of The Falcons and The Contours).

I really like the song "Everything Good is Bad". I don't think a lot of people really sing like that any more. The vocals are soulful, masculine and pleading without falling into either ridiculous melismas or wimpish whines which seem to make up a lot of what passes for modern R&B. I also like how the bass drops out. This reminds me of dub/reggae. Music like this was really updated modernized blues. Much of the lyrics are concerned with unrequited love, passionate love, adultery and hard times, just like many classic blues songs.

Everything good is bad    Don't you wake me  Somebody's been sleeping in my bed  I don't care if I never get over you If I could see the light in the window 90 day freeze
Nothing sweeter than love

Sweet Honey in The Rock

At this point Sweet Honey in the Rock is as much an institution as a musical group. In its origin it was founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon, a civil rights activist (check out her work in "Wade in the Water") who always let her music show which side she was on. It's primarily, though not exclusively, an acapella group. When they do use instrumentation it's usually minimal. Reagon retired from the group a few years back which is a shame but that's life, you know. Anyway in my opinion they are among the best living performers of African-American spirituals (and gospel as well) and old pre-blues folk music. Obviously there's also some doo-wop and scat singing in their sound as well. Basically they draw upon the entire history of African American vocal traditions, both secular and profane. At a time where too many women of all colors seek attention for not wearing many clothes and speaking in degraded language, Sweet Honey in The Rock has upheld a musical and fashion standard that does not treat women as if their only value is sexual.

Their songs run the gamut of various personal issues of course but they are best known for reinterpretations of traditional tunes or original music which is concerned with struggling for justice in a variety of contexts, gender, racial, environmental, economic, etc. Sometimes when people who have strong political beliefs make music, the music suffers. Sweet Honey in the Rock is the exception to that rule. Sometimes I think that the most beautiful and most versatile instrument is the human voice. This group may make you think so as well. "When I Rise" is really incredible work.

When I Rise  Doing Things Together Ballad of Harry Moore Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round Testimony More than a paycheck Ella's Song

Father Daughter Dances: Gender Discrimination??

I am for the most part on the progressive side of the spectrum. But there are a few places, often involving what are referred to as "social" issues, where I am not. In fact there are some areas where I think self-styled progressives are full of it. This story out of Rhode Island is one such instance.

Father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames -- those cherished hallmarks of Americana -- have been banned in a Rhode Island school district after they were targeted by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU, the self-proclaimed guardian of the nation's liberty, says such events violate the state's gender-discrimination law. The organization challenged their existence following a complaint from a single mom who said her daughter was prevented from attending a father-daughter dance in the Cranston Public Schools district.

The story has created a furor both online as well as in Cranston, a community located south of Providence and considered one of the safest places in America.

"[Parent-teacher organizations] remain free to hold family dances and other events, but the time has long since passed for public school resources to encourage stereotyping from the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Not every girl today is interested in growing up to be Cinderella -- not even in Cranston. In fact, one of them might make a great major league baseball player someday.

For my money it appears that some people who would make a fuss over a father daughter dance aren't so much trying to prevent "gender discrimination" as they are trying to impose their framework of gender relations upon everyone else. Just for the record I am against "gender discrimination" but I don't think father-daughter or for that matter mother-son activities fall under that rubric. And if they do according to Rhode Island law then the law is stupid and needs to be either ignored or better yet changed. It's little things like this that make people on the bubble withdraw from public society and only engage in their own private social networks. I mean this is ridiculous. A state is actually saying that a father-daughter dance is "gender discrimination". Why would I want my kids to attend public schools if public schools are going to have to submit to that sort of foolishness? I would pull them out to a private school and start agitating 24-7 to reduce teacher pay and school funding. Were I an ACLU member (and I happen to be) I would question making donations.

Not everything is for everybody. If a young girl doesn't have a father in her home or in her life but would still like to attend a father-daughter dance the proper response should be to have an uncle, cousin, grandfather, older brother, in-law or properly vetted family friend or priest stand in to escort the child. The correct response is not to shut down the entire project because someone in the ACLU apparently has issues with traditional gender roles or heterosexuality itself. Maybe these little girls are being trained for future oppression by having a school sponsored dance with Daddy. Oh the horror, the horror!!!!! Are we going to shut down proms because not everyone could get a date?

Sometimes people who are pro gay marriage wonder why opponents even care. Well things like this are part of the reason. The idea that gender is or ought to be irrelevant in almost every instance is an article of faith for a vocal section of the left. This underlying idea is what leads some to enthusiastically support gay marriage but it also leads to some people having barely disguised hostility to cultural artifacts of gender distinction like father-daughter dances. I mean who sits around thinking that we need to stamp out father-daughter dances because otherwise we'll never have any female major league baseball players? Somebody explain to me how that works because I'm not seeing the connection. Whatever happened to if you don't like or can't participate in an activity, don't do it? Right? If you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. If you don't like opposite gender family activities...run to the state and get them shut down because they offend your delicate sensibilities.

The US is the midst of a transition, really a decline, in which for women under thirty most births occur outside of marriage. I don't think this is good for men, women, or children or society as a whole. I may write more about that at a later time. With so many single mothers, there will be many more daughters who may not grow up with their father. That's unfortunate. Good paternal relations can head off a host of problems down the line. But for those daughters who do live with their father or at least have a relationship with him, let's not prevent them from enjoying a happy and harmless little tradition like a father-daughter dance. What's wrong with some common sense?

Thoughts?

Mitt Romney Secret "Victims" Video Blows Up

In our recent radio show we raised the issue of why, with voters faced with massive income declines and stubbornly high unemployment, Mitt Romney has so far been unable to surpass President Obama's poll numbers. Not only is Romney staying ever so slightly behind President Obama but recent swing state polling data would seem to indicate that Romney might even be headed for an electoral college beatdown were the election to be held today.

Of course the election is not going to be held today but in November after the presidential and vice presidential debates and one more jobs report. So although Mitt Romney hasn't made tingles run up the legs of likely American voters the night isn't over and Mitt still might get lucky. This is despite the fact that some conservatives and Republicans are essentially edging away from him BEFORE the election while some normally Republican voters who hate President Obama are nonetheless resigned to voting for the President instead of Mitt Romney.

Sheryl Harris, a voluble 52-year-old with a Virginia drawl, voted twice for George W. Bush. Raised Baptist, she is convinced -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that President Barack Obama, a practicing Christian, is Muslim.

So in this year's presidential election, will she support Mitt Romney? Not a chance.

"Romney's going to help the upper class," said Harris, who earns $28,000 a year as activities director of a Lynchburg senior center. "He doesn't know everyday people, except maybe the person who cleans his house."

Neither the President nor Romney is extroverted. Both men keep a close circle of friends and advisers, beyond which they don't venture willingly or for long periods of time. Doing so can be enervating. This is classic introverted behavior. I know because I am an introvert. But introversion doesn't mean you don't have a lot to say to and a lot to share with certain people. And recently Mitt Romney shared his strategy for winning with a small group of supporters. Thanks to Grand Central for bringing this to our attention. Mother Jones magazine infiltrated a recent Romney fundraiser (they won't confirm the location or timing) and took these videos of Romney. Romney said that President Obama started out with an advantage of poor voters who believed they were victims. Although Romney's statements were somewhat insulting and factually untrue, that's really almost besides the point. What I was fascinated by was the passion that animated his statements, though I vehemently disagreed with them.

Romney shows a heretofore unseen self-awareness and vigor. We see the calculation of the 1% businessman who knows that he must carefully market a message to suburban white independents and hopefully peel off a few Hispanics while holding on to his own lunatic fringe. The reason the lunatic fringe is both lunatic and well...a fringe is that they actually believe that their candidate should yell their slogans from the rooftop every chance he gets. Ironically if Romney loses this election it may well be because he veered too far to the right and never could connect to those middle swing voters. These videos do show that however unsure some conservatives might feel about Romney's bona fides on immigration, affirmative action, abortion or contraception when it comes to economic issues he is Mr. 1%. If Romney could put this energy in his campaign President Obama might have something to worry about. I'm happy the videos came out. Romney lays out what appears to be a cool contempt for poor voters, those that he thinks of as lazy. I am sure there will be some damage control around this but it's good to get things out on the table, I always say.

There are numerous problems with Romney's statements but honestly I currently lack the time to point all of them out. I will just say that most people who don't pay federal income taxes don't pay because they are either retired and living on Social Security payments or they are so doggone poor that they don't even earn enough to qualify to pay federal income taxes. That would be somewhere around $20,000/yr. Does Mitt Romney really think that people earning $20,000/yr need to pay more taxes?  Do you know anyone who is earning that kind of money who is happy because although they're poor they're not paying federal income taxes? Would you rather earn $20 million/yr and pay 13% in income taxes or earn $20,000/yr and pay nothing? If you have to think about your answer to that question you might be named Mitt Romney.

The other factoid which Romney left out is that in 2011 there were a fair number of Fortune 500 corporations which paid extremely low income tax rates, no income taxes at all, or in a few cases wound up owed money by the Federal government. There is also the unpleasant fact that the Federal government spends more money on corporate welfare than it does on social welfare.  Are those "people" victims? Should we ensure they pay higher taxes? Anyway there are numerous other issues that are raised by this that maybe we can discuss today.

QUESTIONS
1) Is insulting half the nation a winning election strategy?
2) Does Romney have it right that he essentially has no chance with poor or lower middle class voters?
3) Why isn't Romney running a better campaign?
4) If you were Romney's campaign manager how would you turn this thing around? Is it too late?
5) Should Romney apologize, clarify more or distance himself from these comments?
6) Is this much ado about nothing, since each candidate essentially ignores the other side's base?

Movie Reviews-Breaking Bad (Season Four), Which Way is Up, Battleship

Breaking Bad (Season Four)

Growing up I played Dungeons and Dragons. D&D had a system to describe your character's morals, ethics and general world view. This was called alignment. It's hopelessly inadequate to describe real world people since we're mixes of good and evil. We're simultaneously fierce individualists and herd animals. But nonetheless alignment made the game work and was useful in describing fictional motivations. Good is mostly defined by caring about and trying not to hurt other people. Evil is usually either caring solely about yourself and/or being indifferent to or even enjoying the suffering of others. Of course there were other extremes of worldview besides good and evil.  A lawful person often sees the utility in externally imposed standards of conduct and group cohesion while a chaotic person sees no benefit to living by other people's rules, following laws or allowing other people to impose their will on him. And neutral positions can be found between both good and evil and law and chaos. Some people are just trying to live their lives and don't make special efforts to help or hurt people. Others have ethics and values that vary depending on the situation. So you could be good, neutral or evil and also lawful, neutral or chaotic, for a total of nine different alignments. 

There were three major different types of evil. Some evil people are capricious, won't keep promises, go out of their way to hurt people, don't like joining groups and break laws and violate mores just because. Imagine the Joker or your average street thug. Other evil people are methodical. They prefer organizations and enjoy defined hierarchies. They stay within the law (or at least their law) when possible, though they twist it to their own benefit every chance they get. They often have a perverse or malicious sense of honor, order and loyalty. Imagine Vito Corleone or Darth Vader or a corrupt police officer or judge. And finally there are those evil people that lack a strong philosophical connection to either groups and law or radical individualism; their primary motivation is selfishness. They can only be counted upon to do whatever is best for them. They couldn't care less who gets it in the neck. This is Neutral Evil. This is Walter White. In Season Four of Breaking Bad, Walter White's moral decline is complete. He's an evil SOB. Walter is neither cartoonishly evil nor is he an antihero. Walter simply lacks human feeling for anyone outside of his immediate family. 

Last season Walter (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) had become well paid employees of the debonair, deliberate and extremely Lawful Evil Gus (Giancarlo Esposito). If you follow orders and perform well Gus will do right by you. You need not fear. Gus keeps a low profile and does not bully or humiliate his employees. He doesn't financially cheat people. His word is his bond. That's the lawful part. But if you disobey his directives, interfere (purposely or not) with his plans, fail at a task or challenge his authority Gus will make you wish you had never been born and take a vindictive and quite sadistic delight in doing so. That's the evil part. Push him to extremes and the nice guy mask drops. It's quite chilling. In Season Three an impulsive action by Jesse and a protective response by Walter put both men in Gus' bad books. The only reason he hasn't murdered them yet is because he can't find other high quality meth cooks. But he's looking. And Gus is NOT the sort of person to forgive or forget. Anything. Ever.

Typically, Skyler (Anna Gunn) has bogarted her way into Walter's criminal life. She decided against divorce. Unsurprisingly Skyler (a CPA) thinks she already knows more than anyone else ,especially Saul (Bob Odenkirk) or Walter, about how to be a criminal mastermind. Over Walter's tepid objections, she becomes Walter's money launderer. Having sudden access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash goes to Skyler's head. She makes some bad decisions behind hubby's back that place both of them in legal jeopardy. She's not yet as unlikable as Walter but she's getting there quickly. Like Walter, Skyler thinks she's always in charge of any given situation. 

Hank (Dean Norris) is undergoing slow painful recuperation from Season Three events. He's been busy putting two and two together and coming up with five. He thinks maybe Gus is not the community pillar that he pretends to be. Hank begins to investigate, well at least as much as a semi-paralyzed man can investigate. His activity attracts the attention of Gus and Mike (Jonathan Banks), who are fed up with interference from Walter White and his extended family. Gus embarks on a season long quest to break Jesse apart from Walter while Mike informs Walter that if he knows what's good for Hank, he will find a way to divert his attention. This chess match drives the season's storylines. Hank's recovery journey is an important story theme. A strutting macho man who prides himself on being in charge is reduced to someone who has an epic struggle to walk a yard and must rely on his somewhat scatterbrained and kleptomaniac wife Marie (Betsy Brandt) for everything. I have had to help family invalids and if you haven't done so yet, eventually you probably will. One day you may have to have loved ones (or employees) help you with the most basic intimate things. That's scary. Seriously. That was something I didn't like seeing and don't like thinking about. Hank's situation strains his marriage. 

We get some more background on Gus and learn why he is so careful, detailed and patient. Even so Gus isn't perfect. The cartels, Hank, and Walter are all looking for chinks in his armor. Saul continues to provide some comic relief but he also has a darker side behind the bad jokes and sexual innuendo. The tension ratchets up during the season. To steal a phrase from Supernatural, there's a storm coming and Walter and Jesse are smack dab in the middle of it! Supernatural came to mind as Jim Beaver, who plays Bobby Singer on that show, had a Breaking Bad cameo as an avuncular gun dealer.

Both Jesse and Walter are murderers now. Walter is, typically, not bothered by this while Jesse, much like Hank, must find a way to separate what he has done from who he thinks he is. This will almost tear Jesse's psyche and soul apart. In Season Four there is a serious question raised as to whether the new person Walter is now is really who he was all along. Skyler once asked Walter if he was in danger. Walter's arrogant response was "You don't understand. I AM the danger." Walter's paranoia and narcissism are in full effect. Remember that he not only started cooking meth out of desperation to pay for his cancer treatments but also because he was angry at his lack of financial success and social status. Now Walter is reveling in his new found wealth, his ability to kill at will and his firm and increasingly annoying belief that yes he really is smarter than everyone else. 

Walter White is definitely going to Hell. But when he gets there he will have an epic rant about why he doesn't belong there and snidely demand to speak to the idiot in charge. In Walter's mind it's always about Walter. It's his world. You're just living in it. Walter has literally become unable to process any information without thinking about the benefits to himself first. It costs him a fair bit of energy to pretend otherwise. Walter is the sort of person who, if you both were trapped on a sinking ship, would spend his last moments, not trying to make his peace with the Lord or finding a way out but would be yelling at you for being stupid enough to get him in this situation. I am a bit worried by the fact I took an online quiz and scored as Walter White. Uh-oh.

If you haven't seen this series, do yourself a favor and start from Season One. This show ranks with The Wire, The Sopranos, and The Shield. I am not surprised that this won Emmys. Steven Bauer (Manny from Scarface) had an important guest spot. In the extras Bauer spoke about the differences between Mexican and Cuban Spanish and how he tried to ensure that his normal Cuban accented tones would pass for the different cadences of a Mexican. Obviously if you speak Spanish, which I do not, you would get more out of this. Comedian Bill Burr also has a small role.
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Which Way is Up
directed by Michael Schultz

This was a Richard Pryor movie that I wasn't allowed to see as a kid. Of course kids being kids I saw bits and pieces of it over the years but it wasn't until I was in college that I saw the complete film. When you're grown you can do what you want to do. These days this film would likely be considered mild stuff but back in the seventies it was considered quite raunchy, crude and a little bit nasty. It also might be considered racist, sexist, colorist, and every other "ist" there is. It probably is all of those things I guess. I found it funny years ago. Upon re-watching, I'm not sure it was as humorous as I thought. Maybe I changed or maybe it was never THAT funny. It's uneven. There are a few scenes though that will still have me fall out laughing. Evidently it was based on an Italian film ,The Seduction of Mimi, which I suppose I should get around to watching some day.

Pryor plays three separate characters though really only one of them is that well defined. 
This film really doesn't have any redeeming message. Well maybe just one which I'll mention later. It's mostly a collection of skits that follow the misadventures of one Leroy Jones (Pryor), an impoverished southern California orange picker who lives with his wife Annie Mae (Margaret Avery) and his obscene, profane and sex crazed father (Pryor again). Jones doesn't have anything to anticipate except backbreaking low paid work and rare loveless unpleasant sex with his wife. He's a desperate poor man who lives in fear.

When a union leader (think Cesar Chavez) tries to get permission to have a vote on whether the orange pickers can be represented by a union, no one will step forward to give the permission needed for fear of losing their job and/or their life. Leroy is watching the events and very much accidentally becomes that one worker needed to get a certification vote. He flees to Los Angeles but again becomes a target when he is a witness to the attempted murder of the union leader. 

Feeling that Leroy Jones is really too dumb and weak to kill and might be of more use to them alive, the Powers that Be (who all wear special rings so you know they're the bad guys) decide that Leroy should become a foreman at their processing plant , as long as he keeps his mouth shut. Leroy brings in his friends from back home but soon alienates them by becoming a caricature of a slave driving manager. Leroy has also started a relationship with an intelligent feminist labor activist Vanetta (Lonette McKee) who tells him that she'll be and do anything for him, provided he can be faithful to her and her alone. She's not interested in adultery, polygamy or being a concubine. And she doesn't hand out second chances. Back home Annie Mae is feeling ignored and is seduced into a relationship by the greasy sleazy lecherous Minister Lennox Thomas (Pryor again).
Hijinks ensue. There is a classic picnic scene which I love. In some respects this movie could be about the dangers of unrestrained or misdirected masculinity or the costs that men pay to live up to a masculine stereotype. However it's mostly just about Pryor acting a fool.
TRAILER

Battleship
directed by Peter Berg

I had a free rental and unfortunately decided to waste it on this film. I like alien invasion type movies and was hoping this film wasn't as bad as other people had claimed. Well the only good things about this movie from my pov were Rihanna's and Brooklyn Decker's good looks, the 16 inch guns of the Battleship Missouri, and a new ZZ top single. But those really weren't enough to recommend the movie. It was just about as bad as everyone said it was. Bad acting, bad writing, bad special effects, just bad. This movie took a few good parts from classic alien invasion movies and lazily threw them against the wall to see what would stick. 

Scientists have beamed a transmission to a possibly habitable planet they've discovered that's roughly 20 light years away. That means that traveling at the speed of light the transmission would take 20 years to arrive. And if intelligent life could immediately send something back it would be another 20 years before we received it. Of course a 40 year round trip is not what the filmmakers had in mind and just seven years after the initial transmission, NASA (and presumably other organizations) notice several unidentified flying objects headed for earth. Right. Faster than light travel. Hmm.

In the meantime a maverick ne'er do well named Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is dragooned into the Navy by his protective big brother and destroyer commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard). Somehow Alex is an officer which is strange because we last saw him committing burglary to impress the curvaceous Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker) who happens to be the daughter of Admiral Terrance Shane (Liam Neeson). I guess the Navy is really desperate for leadership material.  Alex and Samantha got a thang going on. It's unclear as to whether this has just been on the back burner for seven years but they are ready to get married once Alex gets the stones to ask his would be father-in-law (and boss) for the fair maiden's hand. 

But that will have to wait because during a multinational naval exercise Alex gets into a fight with Japanese Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) and during the resulting disciplinary hearing smarts off before top brass. Well that's it because the Admiral has had it with him and big brother can't protect him any more. Dishonorable discharge is imminent. But then the aliens invade, kill big brother, separate Alex's ship from the task force and start kicking booty and taking names. Alex and Captain Nagata are the only leaders left. Only one little problem. These aliens who have broken the laws of physics by faster than light travel and have materials that aren't on the table of elements are evidently SEVERELY allergic to the sun. Yes that's right. Aliens traveled 20 light years to invade a planet which gets TONS of sunlight. Well I guess the aliens weren't too bright. You may lose IQ points watching this film. It's full of cliches, CGI and noise. Again, short of watching Decker bounce around or Rihanna (whose acting wasn't that bad here) I didn't gain much from this movie. This movie was like eating junk food when you're hungry because there's nothing else around. You know it's not really good for you but you don't feel like actually taking the time to go get something nutritious. If you have really low expectations, this movie might work for you. And yes they really do play Battleship...
TRAILER

Violence in Egypt and Libya: Free Speech and Muslims

I woke up yesterday to news that American embassies in Libya and Egypt had been stormed. In Libya, the American ambassador and at least three other Americans had been killed. Wow. What could have caused this? Were we at war? What set it off? Did we need to put our button men on the street?

I was not surprised to learn that this unbelievably awful film, allegedly by a right-wing American-Israeli filmmaker that no one seems to have heard of, had somehow popped up on some people's radar screens. There is a large mostly American and European neo-conservative cottage industry of print and visual media that likes to sell the idea of a clash of civilizations between the Judeo-Christian West and the Islamic East. In this view Muslims are irretrievably backwards, violent, women-hating, cousin-banging religious nuts who can't process that it's no longer the 7th century. Of course from this mindset it is essential that we stand with the State of Israel and support them in their desperate attempt to steal the rest of Palestine for Jewish only settlement struggle against these fanatics. It is also rather important for these ideologues to emphasize the vile, violent, expansionary and reactionary aspects of Islam while glossing over the fact that historically, European Christians weren't exactly known for tolerance of Jews.

This "clash of civilizations" idea wouldn't gain much traction were there indeed not plenty of Muslims ready, eager and willing to play their part. I mean is this stupid or what? Someone (and we don't really know who) makes an ineptly offensive film insulting Muhammad and depicting Muslims as dumb, violent brutes. Outraged Muslims take to the streets to denounce the film and commit dumb brutish acts, including the murder of an American ambassador. I guess some Egyptians and Libyans must not be familiar with the concept of getting played. I guess SOMEONE proved their point. Some Muslims should get it through their skulls that burning things, rioting and shooting people any time someone expresses an opinion you don't like is so 14th century. What happened to boycotts, peaceful protests, writing a book attacking your critics or trying to bring down someone's career behind the scenes?

Free speech in this country still includes the right to satirize, mock or even crudely insult people, ideologies or concepts you don't like, including religion. Remember The Life of Brian? Pi$$ Christ? The Last Temptation of Christ? Do you also remember the violent American Christian protests where they ran amok and started burning things? No? Me neither. Why is it that blasphemy is still a real concept for some people? Honestly I think all religions are equally valid and equally silly. I think it is is just as ridiculous to believe that God talked to you through a burning bush and told you he loved you and yours more than anyone else as it is to believe that God is going to send you to hell for eternity unless you worship him and think he's three beings in one as it is to believe that God sent a prophet who told anyone who believed in him that they were thus entitled to convert people by the sword. We should remember that Arabic is spoken in Africa for many of the same reasons that English, French and Spanish are spoken in the Americas: invasion, conquest, enslavement and settlement. No religion's metaphorical hands are clean. Everyone has awful deeds in their past.

But if I'm the State Department, I really don't care that the people outside my embassy have been lied to and manipulated. I really don't care that their little feelings have been hurt by someone calling them names and making fun of their religion. Anyone attacking my embassy or consulate is going to get two in the head. The embassy is sovereign territory. You don't want other nations or organizations to get the idea that they can just roll up to your embassy and do what they like. If the embassy is attacked it may well be overrun but there ought to be a pile of dead attackers laying on the ground when all is over. Tragically there apparently wasn't the US protection that there should have been at the Benghazi consulate but it is important to note that Libyan forces fought the attackers, along with an American rescue mission.  So we can't say that all Libyans were involved with this or even that the attacks had popular support. We just don't know. By many accounts the consulate attack was simply too well organized and armed to have been the work of spontaneous rioters. Even in Libya I doubt everyone has quick access to mortars and rockets or the skill to coordinate volleys. So this is a bit curious don't you think?

This is my house. I will not allow violence against this house.

We simply can not allow violent people of any faith to enforce a rioter's veto over speech that they do not like. That takes us back to the days where blasphemy and heresy were crimes punishable by imprisonment, torture and death. If people do not like religious criticism or ridicule, unfair or not, their option is to ignore it or to respond in kind. I am an atheist. I have doubts that Muhammad existed but if he did I don't think that God or angels were talking to him. Portions of the Qu'ran or Bible or Torah are laughably ridiculous. If reading that fills a true believer with insensate rage, that's too freaking bad.

Post Enlightenment we have the right to disdain religion. In some majority Muslim countries, that's not necessarily the case. Fortunately several American Muslims are pointing out the benefits and primacy of free speech. Hopefully that idea will spread across the world. Because if a small minority of crazy Muslims goes berserk every time someone "blasphemes", more people in majority non-Muslim nations will start to ask some unpleasant questions about the costs and benefits of Muslim immigration. And that falls right into the "clash of civilizations" meme that the Right is pushing. I think it is time to stop any moves towards any sort of international blasphemy standard. I don't want any sort of internal American limitations on free speech for religious sensibilities.

This is a political movie," said Bacile. "The US lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas."
Bacile, a California property developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believed the movie would help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.
"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly.
The two-hour movie, Innocence of Muslims, cost $5m (£3.1m) to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.
The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse.

LINK

We should be VERY wary of provocateurs like Bacile, if that is indeed his real name..  Not only are his name and identity in question but an actress now claims that the film was edited post production to include insults about Muhammad. "Bacile" may have been a Coptic Christian who was upset about Muslim violence against his co-religionists and linked up with anti-Muslim people in the US and elsewhere to promote his film. If I were really really conspiracy minded I would wonder if this is indeed some sort of attempt to influence the US election by either making the US president look weak or make him feel constrained to finally give the greenlight for a US attack on Iran. But if that were the case Romney's stupid response to events frittered away an opportunity to look Presidential while making even some other Republicans question his decorum.

We don't have to excuse or explain away the submoronic responses of some Egyptians and Libyans to realize there are some right-wingers who have some very real reasons for wanting to gin up trouble between the US and the Islamic world. They believe in a religious war and they want one. Some of these folks are bigots who seek to deny American Muslims  the rights they themselves enjoy and carve out exceptions to free speech that offends them while hypocritically wanting to keep the right to offend others. These people should not be silenced for that would be wrong. But we don't have to accept their world view either.

The attacks in Libya and Egypt also show why I tend to be against foreign interventions and an activist neo-con foreign policy. We end up making more enemies and/or helping people that really don't like us very much. As far as Libya goes, some Russians evidently could not resist saying "We told you so".

Yevgeny Y. Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, said American leaders should not expect “one word of sympathy” from their Russian counterparts. 

“It is a tragedy to the family of the poor ambassador, but his blood is on the hands of Hillary Clinton personally and Barack Obama personally,” Mr. Satanovsky said. He said Russian warnings against intervention in the Middle East came from the bitter experience of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

“They lynched Qaddafi — do you really think they will be thankful to you?” he said. “They use stupid white people from a big rich and stupid country which they really hate.” 

QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the timing of this has anything to do with the American election?

2) Do you support limitations on speech that insults religion?

3) Did you or do you think the Libyan intervention was a wise decision?

4) How can the US avoid being blamed for things it had nothing to do with?

5) How did the protesters even find out about this film?

6) Do you believe in a "clash of civilizations"?

Book Reviews-Requiem for a Glass Heart, The Cleanup, Legends of Light

Requiem for a Glass Heart
By David Lindsey

Requiem For a Glass Heart is a book I took to read at the barbershop, anticipating a long wait. Fortunately, however the wait wasn't that long and even more fortuitously Requiem For a Glass Heart was actually a pretty entertaining book. It kept me eagerly turning pages to see what happened next. Now that I have finished I suppose I could look back and say I should have seen certain things coming but then again there is a reason that authors often rely on certain tropes. They work. David Lindsey puts his own twist on a La Femme Nikita type story. He also uses two primary female protagonists. This is a little unusual for the thriller genre. The men are not the heroes. Not being a woman I can't say the leads were perfectly written but they didn't strike me as cartoon cutouts either. There are a few male characters who are a bit over the top, including an updated Fu Manchu stereotype, but if you can look past some of that it's not a bad little story.
I think some of it will seem familiar to you but again the author obviously did his research and was talented enough to breathe new life into a thriller/suspense novel format. It's set in the mid nineties, shortly after the chaos of the Soviet Union's disintegration. It's very descriptive of the cities and hotels in which the action takes place.

A devastatingly beautiful Russian woman, Irina Ismaylova, performs assignments across Europe for her boss, Sergei Krupatin. Sergei, who Irina often describes as Satan, is the enormously arrogant, self-satisfied and completely pitiless boss of a Chechen Mafiya organization. In short time he has risen to become not only infamous within Russia and the former Soviet Republics but worldwide, with operations across Europe, South America and the United States. Sergei doesn't tolerate mistakes or disloyalty. To cross him is to guarantee death not only for you and your entire family but also for your friends and associates.
Sergei and Irina have a history together. He has corrupted her into becoming a "special" of his. Her assignments include murdering people that either Sergei can't reach or would prefer that his organization not be implicated in killing. Irina's looks will make just about any man and not a few women lower their guard. To the deeply cynical Sergei this makes her the perfect assassin. He enjoys forcing people, especially women, to do things against their will. But Irina is growing weary of Sergei's sadism and her own moral loss. She wants out. Sergei has one last assignment for Irina, one which she dare not refuse.

In the US, a FBI undercover agent named Cate Cuevas finds out that not only was her husband, a DEA undercover agent infiltrating the Sicilian Mafia, murdered, but also that he was evidently killed either by or in the company of a beautiful mystery woman. His fellow agents knew of his philandering ways but kept silent about his infidelities. While Cate is processing this betrayal, the FBI and DEA get word from Russian and German intelligence that Krupatin is up to something big. He may change his normal pattern of deep cover and visit the US with Irina. Cate's bosses know that Irina is a courier for Sergei. They have a mole in Sergei's organization and think they can leverage that man to get Cate close to Irina. Through Cate they hope to get intel on Sergei and disrupt his plans. What could possibly go wrong?
The Sicilian Mafia and Chinese Triads are involved. Except for Sergei, most other male characters aren't very strongly drawn but that's okay since many of them are only seen through Irina's or Cate's perspective. Male sexuality is often portrayed as something dangerous to women but also something that makes men vulnerable to women. It's ironic as Irina is deadlier than any man except for Sergei. The book's title comes from Irina's self-description to Cate. Irina sees herself as both fragile and hard. The hold that Sergei has over Irina is obvious but isn't confirmed until much later. There's a thin line between love and hate. To conclude, if you enjoy well written thrillers with scummy bad guys, morally complicated Natasha Fatale heroines who might be only slightly less bad than the bad guys, and international criminal/intelligence conspiracies with a fair dose of tastefully understated sex, you will like this book.

The Cleanup
by Sean Doolittle

For whatever reason this book didn't quite grab me as much as I thought it would. I may have to go back and re-read it as during at least some of the time I was reading it I was involved in some difficult projects at work. I also may have just temporarily overdosed on noir books. Hmm. Anyway it was a good story but was occasionally a bit hard to follow.

Matthew Worth is an Omaha, Nebraska police officer who is something of a loser. He comes from a long line of police officers-his grandfather, father and deceased brother were hero cops but Matthew is evidently not cut from the same cloth. His ex-wife was cheating on him with a detective. When Matthew confronted the detective, not only did he badly lose the ensuing fight but as hitting superior officers is a no-no Matthew was given the most humiliating assignment his department could think of. This was to guard a low-rent grocery store which has been the target of a few robberies and burglaries. Most nights this means actually bagging groceries or even sweeping up while he's in uniform. His fellow officers find this to be greatly amusing and love calling in "emergencies" on the police scanner that involve "cleanup in aisle five" or "gimme a price check on preparation H stat!!".

Matthew tries to make the best of it. As he became a police officer out of a sense of family obligation he doesn't have a whole lot of pride that could be injured by this assignment although he is too stubborn to quit. As a side benefit at least Matthew gets to talk to and occasionally flirt with the fallen angel checkout clerk Gwen, who when she's not being abused by her violent thug boyfriend, actually has a kind word for Matthew.
This all goes belly up one night when Matthew gets a frantic call from Gwen. Tiny little Gwen has just removed her hulking boyfriend from the planet and needs Matthew's help. Immediately Matthew has to make a choice about how he wants to play this and if he is going to place the law over his feelings of affection (both lustful and protective) for Gwen.

The decision that Matthew makes sets in motion an avalanche of activity which gets attention all the way up to the Chicago Outfit, which doesn't get an expected delivery at the promised time. And when the Outfit doesn't get what it wants, people die. Matthew will have to rely on 1) Gwen, who has reserves of strength and cunning unknown to him, 2) the detective who "stole" his wife and beat him up and 3) on his estranged big brother who as an ex-con is the black sheep of their law enforcement family.
One nice technique I liked is that the author lets conversations play out very realistically. People don't always explain every little thing and it can take a while before you realize for example that two supposed "good guys" are considering if they should murder someone. Characters make mistakes, take actions based on wrong assumptions and generally make a mess of things. And even when people try to do the right thing, like when Matthew's ex drops by to tell him that she's pregnant by her new husband, they often end up hurting people emotionally.




Legends of Light
by Ed Wardin

I could have sworn that I reviewed this book before. I really thought I did but a search didn't reveal anything. So if I did apologies, that's what happens as you age. Anyway this is a photographic collection of Michigan lighthouses. I always say that if you die and go to heaven you will be reborn on the cool shores of Lake Superior. Hell is of course being forced to attend an Ohio State University football game over and over again.
I love living in Michigan, especially as summer gives way to fall and winter approaches. Michigan is blessed with The Great Lakes. I would love to retire to a lakeside property some day. The Great Lakes are really more freshwater inland seas. In particular, Lake Superior is well named as it is the largest freshwater lake in the world. There are a lot of interesting facts about Lake Superior. In the days before mass transit and aircraft the Great Lakes served as the commercial highways of the northern US, linking the East Coast and Midwest to the Plains States and the South. In order to help captains navigate and avoid accidents, people built a great number of lighthouses all along the shores of the Great Lakes as well as some of the tributary rivers.

Of course now that everyone and their dog has GPS and other more impressive communication and navigation devices these lighthouses are generally unused. Many of them are actually for sale or are maintained as historical buildings. Some others have fallen into disrepair. Organizations have arisen to keep lighthouses maintained and in good order. There are also programs that allow caretakers and their families to live at lighthouses so long as they repair them and keep them up to code.

This coffee table sized book details in quite lavish and striking pictures the various lighthouses of The Great Lakes, some massive and inspirational, others small and picturesque. The lighthouses are shown at all times of day and night, in various types of weather and during all four seasons. Legends of Light is not only a beautiful homage to some works of architecture and art that will hopefully not be forgotten but also serves as a reminder of the natural beauty that lies all around us if we care to take the time to look. The list price for this book was $39.99 but if you are interested you can find it for much less than that. I believe I paid about $9 for it at a clearance sale and it was money well spent, believe me.

Democrats and Choice

Occasionally people on the progressive end of the political spectrum, which tends to be where I am most comfortable, like to point out what they see as the hypocrisy of the Republican pro-life and religious conservative contingent, some of whom, despite mouthing platitudes to small government and rugged American individualism, spend an awful lot of time worrying about such things as how to use government to discourage or prevent things like gay marriage, sex education, teaching that homosexuals are no better or worse than anyone else, and of course abortion. Many progressives triumphantly say that these inconsistencies (as they see them) show that the Republicans and/or pro-life advocates or defenders of traditional marriage really aren't about small government at all and should evidently just go sit down and shut up. Or something. =) It's always fun to point out that people that you don't like anyway are also wrong factually and logically.

But if there's one thing I believe and know to be true it's that hypocrisy is a human condition, not a partisan one. Many of the people who like to claim the mantle of choice and individual freedom, at least when it comes to abortion, aren't necessarily huge defenders of such ideas when it comes to other sections of human life. The same people who want government out of abortion choices often want government involved in lots of other intimate decisions. Hypocrisy? Well I am just shocked I am. A libertarian website pranked DNC delegates into discussing what choices they thought should not be up to the individual. Again, all of us are tight little bundles of reason and emotion, hypocrisy and sincerity. None of the people in this video are necessarily evil or bad, but I do think that occasionally people on all sides should realize that they may not have a monopoly on "good" thinking. There are tons of different perspectives in the world. There are a multitude of ways to be "good".

Comments?
Where does a person's right to make choices for themselves end?
Does government get to constrain those choices?