August 19, 2012

• Put Another Nickel In...

  "Put Another Nickel In,

  In the Nickelodeon,

  But make sure behind the coin slot bin,

  There ain't a Karl Rovian chin,

  Or crouched along aside of him,

  His Minions, Minions, Minions"

  

  Antony of Antony and the Johnsons

  Okay- I'm taking liberties with an old tune. I'm also knocking it out of it's pleasing cadence in the process- but, hey, it's been decades since I used to sign everybody's yearbook with a limerick made up on the spot.

  Hey- I used to be kinda smart. You know, kinda.

  Last few weeks or so I've been loving, as I mentioned a post or two ago, Lana Del Rey.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bag1gUxuU0g   

  She may be, for me, one of the more accessible representatives of the fragility, spark and, perhaps, slightly accelerated disillusionment that some young people feel especially intensely.

  (After having been through a few episodes of ultimate despair of my own I've found these scenes in foggy memory to have the glow of a gorgeous sunset that the colors continue to wash out bit by bit in and then increasingly they come to me in cartoon form as my joints ache first thing in the morning and there aren't as many of the "us" I knew as there used to be. Then those aching moments and times seem a luxury of the radiating beauty, health and naivety that may as well be a scene from someone on another planet.)

  Other musical loves of mine have been two artists I have appreciated through PLC's alertness to new talent. One of them, Antony, from Antony and the Johnsons some may have already heard of. Antony, et. al. seem to have had a big impact a few years back and Antony is still creating new work. One of the masterstrokes from their/his/her much acclaimed album "I Am A Bird Now" is a duet with Boy George called "You Are My Sister"  that has become a touchstone between me and PLC for the delicacy of its feeling and a mythic and nostalgic pathos. (Alternate live version of Boy George and Antony).

  

  Ex-boyfriend Reuben Butchart (just kidding)

  The other singer is named Reuben Butchart. Butchart is a musical prodigy from northern California who has also done a stunning duet with Antony, "All There Is To Tell" off Buchart's album "Golden Boy".

  Another of Butchart's other songs I love is called "Come and Play".

  The other day I wondered out loud to PLC if some of our appreciation of Butchart wasn't from thinking he seemed like a creative boyfriend from either of our pasts. Of course he left us both to go onto to bigger things- not that our "things" are that small, mind you.

  ***************

  

  Barack Obama.

  I was thrilled- as so many were- when he was elected.

  But...

  1. Have I said anything positive about this guy since he was elected?

  2. Have I had any verifiable reason to remain so after he was in office and then backtracked on what I perceived as his assessment of the wastefulness of our War on Terror?

  3. Did I have reason to remain encouraged when he failed to close down the Guantanamo prison as a Nazi-like example of extrajudicial law that answered to no one and threatened to expand into the latest parody of "due process" for the next demagogue in office?

  The transparency of Obama's Executive branch fails to stand in crystalline contrast to the probably stolen U.S. Presidential elections of Florida in 2000 or Ohio in and Florida in 2004. Nor does it stand in pleasing contrast to the mounting disregard for even the brazen appearance of impropriety between multi-national corporations and the laws of the United States that were renderered indistinguishable through fiat of legal maneuvering during the Bushevik Regime .

  The Big O's own regime fails, furthermore, by prosecuting more so-called "whistlebolwers" in government and military circles than all presidencies combined before. These people who are unquestionably brave, regardless of one's political persuasion, are also the most natural defenders any citizens have against corruption and the consolidation of power by non-democratic means. They appear to be the only sources left to nourish a "free press" and they are being extinguished by what in legal rhetoric would be called a "chilling" manner.

  But we are facing a current and potentially even more dominantly Repugnacious Congress as well as a alleged "constructionist" Supreme Court that appears poised to increase tax cuts for the uber-wealthy whose primary mode of trickle down "job creation" has thus far been to foster more offshore positions for the citizens of China, Malaysia, India and ports and countrysides beyond without adding to the utility of the un- and under-employed American middle class now withering away at the beginning of this millenium faster than the ice caps of Greenland.

  Thanks to that court- with the rare exception to their rule from time to time- the victory of the Robber Barons over the masses and Dred Scott decisions over our better natures seems to be progressing- or regressing- at the typically alarming rate we've, many of us of the Republics Citizens' Ununited, come to loathe and fear.

  ***

  All of which is one of my typically long-winded manners of approaching the question:

  How wasted would my vote be for a third party candidate that hasn't a chance in Hell of winning or getting beyond single digits in a best case scenario?

  It's a scenario that would certainly cement Mittens Romney and his newly-minted Boy Wonder Congressman Paul Ryan as the leaders of the party that seeks to dissolve what was left of a less-than-perfect-union into the afterbirth of a dunked Alka Seltzer dose swimming in the amorphous mixture that is our Feudal Corporate World of the Future.

  Really, we got the Magna Carta signed for this???????????

  

   

  Magna Carta

  Thanks to Richard Nixon (- though let me make this perfectly clear- I am not blaming Nixon or his boyfirend Bebe for the ninnies we have collectively allowed ourselves to become-) ,who created a food stamps program, the EPA and, most importantly, got rid of the draft which had the effect of taking everyone who was approaching their late teen years out of the political equation and furthering the severance of the United States of America from it's "prosperity for all and a rising middle class" to a mercenary military- divorced from public concern and input and furthured it's penchant for being neurotically involved with the bowel movements of the economic trappings as well as traps of realpolitik in opposition to it's commitment to it's more original charter goals as a nation continuously enrapt to "form a more perfect union".

  We are now faced with a world in which our heroes are political prisoners and potential martyrs Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Pussy Riot (the latter is an especially useful instruction on resurrecting a Csarist guv'mint for all of us Johnny-Come-Latelies) and anyone else who had the audacity (that word again- but this time it's actually personal and political) to challenge the authority-du-jour.

  You could swing the proverbial dead cat over your head and let it land anywhere only to find you've soiled the cashmere sweater of someone who also thinks democracy is going to Hell in a handbasket.

  ***

  RE-ELECT OBAMA!!!!!!

   

  Although it's depressing to say it I am leaning to voting for Obama again. More importantly it would be useful for the House to be won by the Democratic party. If the House increases it's GOP percentage and the U.S. Senate falls as well it will be the darkest day for Liberals and the radicals who villanize them in many moons. And we've seen some pretty dark moons lately.

  The only real solution to any of this is to vote for the Democrats and then coalesce around building a third party movement in between elections while kicking the Dems in the ass to fix a few things while they're still in office.

  Of all the people I have come to admire most I think none of them would agree that "we" should be voting for Obama.

  But that's how bad this all is seeming to me right now- and for some time now.

  　

  ***********

  

   

   

  "Hushpuppy" and friends (upper)  "Hushpuppy" and Dad (lower)

   

  Just to leaven this latest heartfelt yet depressing screed from me there's a movie I want to recommend.

  PLC and I both had the same reaction that it is the best film we've seen in some time.

  It's called "Beasts of the Southern Wild" .

  It take's place in a watery outpost of an island in danger of flooding south of New Orleans. On the island are a makeshift community of the island's traditional residents, multiracial and funky, funky, funky as well. The hero of the story is a 6-year-old girl who lives with her alcoholic father who seems to have health issues of his own as well. The little girl is played by a non-professional actor who is stunning nonetheless. The actor playing her father is also excellent. I leave you with a couple of review sites that fills in the gaps I'm too verklempt, politically, to continue with. Talk amongst 'yaselfs.

  http://www.metacritic.com/movie/beasts-of-the-southern-wild

  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beasts_of_the_southern_wild/

  • 7:29 pm
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