The Emperor's New Buildings

Note: This is a piece the MSM in Portland didn't want you to see. It was rejected (roundly) by everybody to whom I pitched it.

Every so often it falls upon a citizen to tell the emperor he is naked. That the new suit made by those "swindlers," as Hans Christian Anderson called them in the original story, is a hoax. That the "swindlers" have put one over on us, and have convinced us that something wonderful exists where, in reality, nothing exists.

The architecture with which similar "swindlers" have clothed Portland…the Pearl District, most of the new buildings downtown, and the inevitably-to-be-flooded River District are is as ugly as sin and will obviously deteriorate faster than cheese left out in the sun.

We want to believe that these awkward, clunky manifestations of "build-fast-on-the-cheap-and-sell-high-as-possible" scheming are making us look beautiful. Remember the "honest old minister" sent by the emperor to check on how the new suit of clothes was coming? He said, '"Oh, it is very pretty, exceedingly beautiful. What a beautiful pattern, what brilliant colours! I shall tell the emperor that I like the cloth very much.'"

Is that what the rich residents of "The Henry" said when they looked up at their new home? Perhaps they really saw a dull green bunker, more fit for a small city in East Germany, when there was an East Germany. Instead, they said they liked it very much, just like the old minister.

Portland architecture has always been built on the cheap, but some of it was good cheap, The Portland Building, or the Art Museum, for example. But the collection of unconnected, graceless buildings in the Pearl, some of which are already showing signs of deterioration, barely five years into what should prove to be a short lifespan has apparently fooled the moneyed class into believing that their city is making itself attractive.

As Hans put it," Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing…"And we gave them huge tax breaks to build, don't forget that. Elected officials and the unelected whom they appoint also looked at models and drawings of these buildings and saw what? Maybe they saw money. They certainly didn't see beauty or longevity. Was Hans writing the story of Portland in the 21st Century when he said "(T)he swindlers asked for more money, silk and gold-cloth, which they required for weaving. They kept everything for themselves, and not a thread came near the loom, but they continued, as hitherto, to work at the empty looms."

We've got a lot of empty looms. Some of them are rising before our eyes at the moment in the flood plain near the OHSU tram boondoggle (which was brought to you by the same folks).

Yes, the same folks that brought you East Berlin in the Pearl are bringing you Budapest 1957 by the river. All you have to do is look. This lack of architectural self-awareness in a town that prides itself on self-awareness leaves a relative newbie (nine years) like me in the dark. 'But he has nothing on at all,' said a little child at last," wrote Hans. Twenty years from now, when the buildings in The Pearl have fallen apart and the money has moved elsewhere, people around here are going to want to know who the "swindlers" were.

Start with Homer Williams and list pretty much every other person or corporation who has foisted this "swindled" result on the rest of us. But blame yourself, because you're the one who looked at the new and said, like the "honest courtier" who, "praised the cloth, which he did not see, and expressed his joy at the beautiful colours and the fine pattern. 'It is very excellent,' he said to the emperor."

My June Playlist

While waiting for the new John Ashcroft/50 Cent a capella collaboration to be released, I’m listening to.

1. Sun Ra, Untitled LP
On one side the label is hand-colored orange and green. Somebody wrote "Sun Ra" in black above the hand lettered list of four tunes which include "Space is the Place, "Dedicated to Natures, "The Cosmos Me," and "Space Shuttle." Under that is a crinkle-cut pasted-on piece of paper that has "compositions by SUN RA" typed in black.
I have no idea when this is from. I know it's before the summer of 1977, because that's when I got it.
You've got to pull out some Ra now and then. It's as fresh as it was the day it was recorded, and has never been surpassed on a lot of levels. Ra was the ultimate trickster, a genius who might have, indeed, been from another planet.
The brilliance and cheesiness, the great musicianship and the head-shaking weirdness of it all proves Ra's famous quote, "It ain't necessarily so that it ain't necessarily so."
And it ain't.

2. Stanton Moore "All Kooked Out!" CD
Best known as Gallactic's drummer, he's already in the pantheon of great New Orleans drummers, having studied at the feet of some of the current masters. This is from 1998 and has Charlie Hunter on 8-string guitar, Skerik, the little-known but much admired saxophonist. This is Moore at the start of his career, all young and bursting forth.
The interesting thing about Moore is that as good as this is (I had it on in the car for a week), he's gotten that much better over the years.
I once heard a street argument in Portland, Oregon over who was the best drummer in New Orleans, Russell Batiste or Stanton Moore. I voted for Russ between the two at the time, but you can find great drummers on any street there. Or you could before Katrina.
I could get started on the current diaspora in New Orleans, but you can read about that here, in a piece I wrote on Jazzfest 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-dantoni/the-real-jazzfest-anger-_b_21045.html

3. Phillip Glass "Mishima" soundtrack CD
I was driving from Portland to Seattle to see the Orioles game and suddenly remembered the delights of driving fast with Phillip Glass blasting out of the speakers…especially Mishima, with its electric guitars, and martial drums.
Even though it evokes the persona of Mishima, the music itself is more effective by itself than it is in the movie it was written for. The opening is one of the most thrilling two minutes and forty-five seconds ever written.
When they used to let you use electronic equipment on planes during takeoff, this or The Photographer would always be in my ears. I still think about it when I'm taking off….or driving 85 on I-5 between Seattle and Portland.
Is that dishonoring Mishima? He can't get to me. He daid.

3. The Meters "Kickback" CD
Sundazed Music released all of The Meters LPs a few years ago. This is a collection of tunes that never got on any Meters' albums. There's some great stuff on here, and some not-so-great. They take pains to point out that the previously unreleased "Love The One You're With" is based on the Isley Brothers' version and not the original. Doesn't really matter though, there's a reason it wasn't released.
These are from the Warner Brothers/SeaSaint days of the mid 1970s.
The gem is "All I Do Everyday" which I re-discovered because New Orleans/now Portland, Oregon saxophonist Reggie Houston does it in nearly every set his Earth Island Band plays. I think I played this song 5 times in a row one day in the car. I'm going to go play it again now.
When the Meters played their famed reunion concert at Jazzfest 2005, they pulled out "He Bite Me," a song that's also on this. It could be the funniest song they ever recorded. It's about a dragon. Zig and George growl. Don't ask.
"Keep On Marching (Funky Soldier)" used to be in the regular set list of The Funky Meters, Art and George's band with Russell Batiste and Brian Stolz who kept the Meters' music alive until they finally figured out how to get along.

4. Michael Haberman "Plays Sorabi—The Legendary Works for Piano"
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) wrote dense solo piano music, which Habermann discovered in a little shop in Mexico City in the 1970s. He became the only pianist Sorabi would trust to play his music.
It is not Cecil Taylor-like pounding and histrionics. A lot of it is just flat-out beautiful, if difficult. Some of these pieces have 8 staves for two hands. It took Habermann years to get them down.
He used to live in the apartment next to mine in Baltimore in the 1980s and I could lay in bed and listen to him practice. Before he knocked on my door to ask if he was bothering us, I thought angels lived next door.

5. Brian Eno "Music for Films" "Music for Airports" LPs
Although he never really disappeared, Eno has wormed his way back into public consciousness by working on Paul Simon's latest album. What's fun about these is that they're LPs and have scratches, adding to the "ambience."
I bought into the whole concept when they were released in the late 70s. They hold up. Could have been made today. In the back of my head there's a voice saying, "It's not New Age. It's not New Age. Really, it's not."
The music on here works the way it was designed to work.
It's isn't New Age. Really, it's not.

6. Eric Dolphy "Out There" LP
Oh man. Dolphy on alto, flute, clarinet and bass clarinet. Ron Carter on CELLO and George Duvivier on BASS and the young Roy Haynes at his young and gnarling best. Recorded FORTY-SIX years ago….jazz players today should BE this innovative.
What ever happened to the avant-garde?
Dolphy's tribute to Mingus, "The Baron," a Randy Weston tune and the rest Dolphy originals.
This album jumps out the speakers and runs away begging for new listeners and the long life it deserves.
I have the 1969 re-issue with notes from Ralph Berton in which he says, "…you won't 'know where you are;' you won't hear the well known chords and changes; you're on your own with the music being flung your way, music representative of a great deal that's happening now. Are they speaking to you? Or just thinking out loud? And do you like listening in?"
Is it me, or did the avant-garde stop? Somebody called today's scene "museumification of the music." The music on here is bright life. A museum couldn't hold it.

7. Oregon "Crossing" CD
The final recording with Colin Wolcott, and possibly their best. Well, it's the best one of theirs I've listened to this month, anyway. I have never gotten tired of Glen Moore's "Pepe Linque" and I've heard it a million times.
They are still huge in Europe. They are still little-known in America. Don't get me started. Sometimes I think most of the greatest music will never be discovered by most people. Oh well, that's show biz.
Glen Moore once unlocked Oregon for me, even though I had always loved them. He told me that when they started out, their objective was to make music as beautiful as Bill Evans'. Makes sense, huh?

8. Joe Turner "In The Evening" LP
Back when Joe had to sit down to sing. On the stool, becalmed until it was time for him to sing a verse, he would fill with some sort of inspired helium and belt out his lines, only to slump back on the stool until it was his turn to sing the next verse.
This is a Pablo release from 1976 backed by a quintet, including piano and guitar. Joe was a blues droner as well as a blues shouter by then. He's lanquid and old and world-weary. This makes "I've Got the World On a String" especially effective.
I've pretty much destroyed this record over the years by playing it when I've been pretty much destroyed, myself. It works every time. Like I said before, scratches help.

This also appears on counterpunch.org

Happy Birthday Jack Kevorkian

To clarify, Dr. Jack Kevorkian is still very much in favor of physician-assisted suicide and Oregon remains the only state in which it is legal.

News reports today, if read quickly, indicate that Kevorkian, who marks his 78th birthday today in a prison cell for helping a man die on television, does not favor the concept of controlling one’s own death any longer. This is not the case. He said only that he might have done things differently in his own cases.

There are many things to criticize about his methods, but without Kevorkian’s public persona and actions, the inexorable journey to nation-wide adoption of the Oregon model would probably not have come as quickly. He certainly does not deserve to rot and die in a prison cell.

In the future, Kevorkian will be known as a visionary, and the torture which he as been put through since his incarceration will be looked at as barbaric and unconscionable.

Having said that, when I was first discussing making a documentary out of Robert Schwartz’ death under Oregon’s Death With Dignity law, Robert and I discussed how the Kevorkian/Thomas Youk 60 Minutes story (which got him sent to jail) was a failure because: 1) Kevorkian was the story, not the dying man, and 2) there was no context for Youk’s death, other than the fact that he had Lou Gehrig’s Disease and wanted to die.

I promised Robert that the documentary would provide that context. Just before he died, Robert told his family and friends, at a service of Holy Communion on his back porch, how happy he was that they could be there and not be liable to criminal prosecution. He didn’t say, “as Kevorkian was,” but he might as well have.

Still, even though it was all legal, the facilitator took pains to make sure he did not hand Robert the glass of liquid Nembutal. Under the Oregon law, the patient must take the lethal dose on his own.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Kevorkian, from a resident of Oregon, who feels more secure and more in control of his own destiny because of your sacrifice. And I thank you for the men and women who have used the law, whether they took the medication or not.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

The Real Jazzfest: Anger and Sorrow

For two weeks the news from the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazzfest) sounded hopeful. The Festival folks and the city as a whole tried to put on a smiley-face for the tourists. Good-intentioned big names like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, Dave Matthews were the focus. What has been missing from the Jazzfest coverage Jazzfest is the anger and the sorrow expressed by many of the local musicians who performed.

Also missing are about 200,000 residents of New Orleans who are still spread out all over America. Some estimate more. An overwhelming percentage of them are African-Americans. An Associated Press story estimated 150,000 in Houston alone. That’s larger than many familiar American cities. The 2000 U.S. Census tells us that the population of New Orleans was close to 485,000 with 67.5% of those African-Americans.

The essence of New Orleans culture and the wellspring of American music begins at Congo Square where slaves were allowed to drum and dance on Sundays. The blues was born in that context. The combination of the healing joy of music and the expression of the misery of conditions under which the slaves lived continues to this day.

New Orleans culture doesn’t get any deeper than the Second Line. Not only a part of funerals but of everyday life in New Orleans, especially for African-Americans. The Social and Pleasure Clubs and brass bands and Mardi Gras Indians who made the street parade a way of life have been a large part of the diaspora of the flood of 2005. Diaspora is a word I heard many times during the second weekend of the festival. It means a dispersion of a people from their original homeland. The word originally referred to the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel during the sixth century B.C., when they were exiled to Babylonia.

Some people go to Jazzfest to hear the mainstream performers. The festival promoters bring them in to attract affluent white folks who love the food and much of the flavor of the festival, but want most of their entertainment white. In recent years the promoters added jam-bands to attract younger audiences.

But the soul of the festival has always been the local musicians. Big Chief Monk Boudreau of the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians was scheduled for a mid-afternoon set on Friday of the second weekend. New Orleans music magazine “Offbeat” describes Monk as, “One of the great voices in the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux tells the history in song. Post Katrina, this kind man with a warm smile spearheaded getting Indians feathers and plumes for their new suits.”

Donations to fund the suits rolled in from organizations and individuals such as Wynton Marsalis, Ed Bradley and Harry Shearer. Coordinating the effort with Monk was Quint Davis, who is Jazzfest’s director. After they found “plumes” from all over the country, they stored them in a building in New Orleans which was hit by a tornado.

Davis was quoted in The Times-Picayune, New Orleans daily paper, “’Monk and I were dying, dying, I tell you,’ Davis said. ‘Out of all the streets, all the buildings in New Orleans, here where the plums are, a tornado pops up. I tell you, though, when I heard the boxes were safe, I knew it was meant to be. Monk and I knew that this tradition is supposed to be kept alive.’”

Big Chief Monk Boudreax does not usually bring politics or social commentary into his music. The Mardi Gras Indian chants are all about what happens on Mardi Gras day and how they’re going to win confrontations with other tribes. He can go on for twenty minutes chanting “Donkey Got Water.”

But at the end of his set he unleashed all of the anger and all of the sorrow inside of him. With an all-star band backing him, chanting “You’ve got to save our city tonight,” Monk began half-singing half-chanting about the state of things and how he feels about them.

He said it made a grown man cry. He mourned the dead. He mourned the absence of the evacuees. He thundered at the fate of his city and the politicians who have not done nearly enough. It was the centerpiece of Jazzfest.

Later that day Big Chief Victor Harris of the Fi Yi Yi and Mandingo Warriors Mardi Gras Indians performed on one of the stages. He was dressed in bright green feathers and surrounded by his tribe, some of whom had been flown in from other parts of the country. It was another transforming moment.

This is from Steve Hochman’s account on Blogging New Orleans http://www.bloggingneworleans.com/2006/05/05/urban-renewal/ :

“No wind, no rain, no storm can stop Fi Yi Yi from coming home,” he said, encased in the stunning green suit he'd sewn by hand, as he had for his kids as well, in the six months between Katrina and Mardi Gras (the Indians usually start work on each year's new suit the day after Mardi Gras; the ones he'd been working on were destroyed in the flood).
As one of his associates chanted, “From Mandingo out to Houston, from Mandingo out to Atlanta . . . the drums are calling all of the people to come home,” the Big Chief took up the cry:
“Calling all the people to come back home, New Orleans is where you belong. They took my people away from home. I'm still waiting on my mother, my sister, my brother to come back home.”
He had to step back from the mic. He was crying. He walked around the stage trying to compose himself. Hochman picks it up:
And then:
“Shame on our representatives. Shame on our officials. Shame on all of them. They say they only want good people back. All people are good people.
“Listen to the drums.
’Listen to the drums
“I am not afraid.”

In the audience, people cried along with him, as they had during Boudreax’s last song.

There is anger and sorrow everywhere, both in New Orleans and among its evacuees. At the head of the list of critics is Cyril Neville, a member of New Orleans first family of music, now living in Austin, Texas. He refused to come home for Jazzfest. He was quoted by Robert Gabriel in an Austin Chronicle story:

"What happened during Katrina was not an evacuation as much as a roundup and a forced displacement," insists Neville. "It was the height of arrogance, greed, conceit, and disdain for a people who you think are less human than you. As that wind blew through New Orleans and that forced migration took place, that was the end, or at least a lot of people want it to be the end, of African-American political power in New Orleans.
"Why it's considered such a stretch for anyone to connect the dots between a boldfaced legacy of oppression and gentrification of black neighborhoods in New Orleans and the marginalization of poor blacks post-Katrina defies common sense. Life in the Big Easy has always been dictated by barriers between white and black. It's no secret that the economic disparity between the two communities serve as a study in violent inequality. Of course, rich whites have been eagerly debilitating poor blacks in New Orleans like a favored pastime. Ku Klux Klan sympathizer David Duke almost became governor of Louisiana only 16 years ago. To anyone paying any attention, no degree of racism in New Orleans should be considered surprising under any circumstance.
"The carving of New Orleans wards for political and economic gain is something that goes back at least to the Forties," says Neville. "At one point, Claiborne Avenue was one of the richest African-American thoroughfares in the United States. So they put the Claiborne overpass through it. There were two rows of oak trees where you could walk in the rain and not get wet on Claiborne Avenue. People picnicked there, people had birthday parties, christening parties. Every carnival, that's where the Mardi Gras Indians would make a straight shoot from uptown all the way downtown and back. Naturally, they tore down all the trees, put an overpass through there, and killed that entrepreneurial area of the city.
"That's the other point that a lot of people missed in what I was saying. It's hard to put into words what it was like on a day-to-day basis living in New Orleans as an African-American, because it's a proven fact in this country that no matter how high you climb up the social ladder or how many degrees and how many letters you have behind your name, if you're black, you're black, and regardless of what you think of yourself, you can get broke down right quick. You could be on your way home from a great meeting – you just did a great thing for your company and everybody is happy. You're in your Porsche on top of the world and then you get pulled over and called the big N and brought back to reality of where you are and who you are to the society that you're coming up in.
"A lot of those people that we saw in the Dome and at the Convention Center had been written off a long time before Katrina. A couple weeks before the storm hit, the oldest masking Mardi Gras Indian, Big Chief Tootie Montana, died at a meeting at the New Orleans City Council protesting how the chief of police and the city itself had been treating our culture, which since 1841 had been happening out in the streets from neighborhood to neighborhood."
"The powers-that-be only want a certain element back as far as black people are concerned," maintains Neville. "But the spirit of New Orleans is African and it ain't going anywhere. I guarantee any convention they have in that Convention Center and anything they have in that Dome will be haunted. People already don't understand that the Dome was built on top of a whole neighborhood. They've got a whole African-American cemetery underneath that Dome. Louis Armstrong's house was taken to the dump, chopped into pieces, and set on fire and a new parish prison was built on where he grew up."

Of course, there is also a spirit of rebuilding among those who have been able to come home. On the Tuesday that the flood hit, I was in Portland, Oregon but my heart was in New Orleans. I went to hear Reggie Houston play that night. Reggie held the baritone sax chair in Fats Domino’s band for twenty years. He also co-led Charmaine Neville’s band during that time. Reggie had moved to Portland in 2004, and missed the flood.

The next morning in an op-ed piece for The Oregonian, Portland’s daily paper, I wrote:

At the bandstand, Reggie played with a greater intensity than usual. At the other end of the room, the endless loops of devastation played on CNN. Reggie provided the soundtrack. The juxtaposition of the classic “Junko Partner,” the raucous brass band tune, “It Ain’t My Fault” with a ruined New Orleans was uplifting and heartbreaking all at the same time.
The traditional jazz funeral in New Orleans consists of a walking dirge, a memorial, and then a joyous second-line parade afterward. Reggie knows this, it is in his blood.
We’re in the dirge right now. Images flash. Proposing marriage to my wife over dinner. Sitting in Buster Holmes greasy spoon in 1979, tasting real red beans and rice for the first time as The Meters played on the jukebox. Shooting a TV story on the streetcar. Buying hats at Meyer The Hatter on St. Charles St. A Neville Brothers Christmas concert at Tipitina’s. Losing my shoes at The Columns Hotel. The delirium of musical overload at Jazzfest.
As The Meters’ song says, “if you’ve ever been there, then you know what I mean.”
I told my wife that if I die before she does, I want my ashes to be spread on Congo Square in New Orleans. Congo Square is the place where the slaves were allowed to dance and make music. It is said to be the only place in America where this was the case. It is also said that from that place American music sprung.
Some day, Congo Square will again be a destination for the living and the dead. The spirit of New Orleans will win this battle. Reggie showed me that Tuesday night.

On Sunday at the Festival, I was sitting in a tent eating some crawfish monica when I heard the unmistakable sound of a brass band. I dropped everything because I saw Reggie Houston marching and playing with the Storyville Stompers, led by a Social Aid and Pleasure Club, and followed by second-liners. I got in line. The spirit was there. Later, I found out that the Festival had flown in many of the members of the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs for the Festival.

This was a good thing. The reunions were joyful and heartbreaking. But it also made it look like things were normal. Thanks aren’t normal. Of course, New Orleans is a pimp. They’re even charging tourists to ride Grey Line tours through the devastation.

Later that night, Reggie invited us to “Bullet’s,” a little club in the 7th Ward, in Gentilly, a neighborhood in which the water covered the rooftops. The club had been a haven for survivors because it had a second floor. During the aftermath, Rollin “Little Bullet” Garcia, Jr. stayed there, gun in hand to protect his place.

He rebuilt it. In that little place, surrounded by street after street of empty houses, by FEMA trailers, by darkness and misery, Reggie and his “pardners” rocked the house. One hundred percent Black except for me, my wife and two friends, people danced, they sang and in that moment the true spirit of New Orleans was alive.

Trymaine Lee, in The Times-Picayune, wrote about Bulllet’s:

“This here is therapeutic," Little Bullet said of his bar late last week, as he poured a beer for a customer. "The history's here. Ray Charles played here once. So did Roy Brown and other local artists. They (regulars) step through these doors and besides a little paint, nothing much has changed.
“Some days are harder than others, he said. One customer broke down crying recently. He said he wanted to die, the memories of Katrina were too tough to deal with. The hole it carved into his life was too deep for him to climb out of.
“I just cooked up a bowl of gumbo and shot the (breeze) with him, and it’s like nothing ever changed,” bar owner said. “If I can give them that then he knows he ain’t in this alone. That none of us are in this alone.”
"We do this so everybody can have something," said Cecilia Garcia, Little Bullet's wife. "These men have lost their homes. Some of them lost their wives. Coming here gives them something to hold onto."

There is spirit enough to rebuild this broken city, but it can never be truly rebuilt until its children come home. Until that happens, it can be built, but never rebuilt.

Just don’t mistake the attempts at attracting tourists for the real feelings on the ground. The hurt, the anger and the sorrow will take as much time to heal as the ruined buildings. More, I think.

The theme of the festival was “The Healing Power of Music.” In that way, the Festival was really for the folks in New Orleans, to show themselves they could, in some fashion, be like they were before the flood. In that, it was a success.

The end of this story is far from over.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

The Madness of King George: Dangerous and Unstable

In his farewell speech to the White House staff in 1974, Richard Nixon said “…only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”

For George W. Bush, the opposite is true. Only if you have been on the highest mountain can you ever know how tragic it is to be in the deepest valley.

No matter how evil we think he is, he must know his position. He must be in the dark valley of his failure. He must feel the pain of seeing his world crashing around him. This makes him the most dangerous man in the world.

He must feel it all slipping away. His war is a disaster. The people have turned against him. His closest aides are being arrested. Even his father doesn’t approve. God knows what Barbara has said to him.

The world is collapsing around him. Only three years ago, he was triumphant, at least in his own mind. He stood in uniform, Commander-In-Chief, on the deck of that aircraft carrier, surrounded by men who were under his control, and declared he was King of the Hill. Number One. He did everything but raise his index finger.

Can you imagine what was going through his mind? Yes, of course he was set up by his handlers and put into that situation, but that has nothing to do with how he thought of himself and his world at that moment.

Bush is a classic bully. The website “Kids Health” says, “Some kids who bully realize that they don't get the respect they want by threatening others. They may have thought that bullying would make them popular, but they soon find out that other kids just think of them as troublemaking losers.” Have you ever heard a better description of the President of the United States? But does he yet realize?

We’re not talking about the actions of his administration, those are directed by others. We’re talking about HIM. What happens when a bully is defeated? I’ve never been a bully, so I can’t tell you. Perhaps they learn a lesson. Perhaps they strike back.

What must he think when he’s alone? Is there a level of insanity creeping in? He isn’t an evil genius. He is no Stalin or Hitler. He was a rich kid who bullied is way through life. But really, he is a weak boy who thought he had finally proven to his mom, his dad and brother and to all the Yalies who had made fun of him that he had beaten them all. Has he ever understood anything about himself? Has he ever been in therapy? What is the real level of self-awareness in this man?

It’s all darkness and defeat for him now. If we think his remaining time is a long two year nine-month sentence, how does HE feel? I wonder if he wouldn’t just chuck it and get back to Texas and have it over with?

Or is he ready to strike back, an unrepentant super-bully?

How would we deal with such a defeat? Would our despair overwhelm us? Can you imagine that feeling? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have sympathy for him. His evil will outlive him and he deserves ever moment of his misery. The question is: what does his potential instability mean for us?

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Playlist Friday 4/28/06

While I’m waiting for the Leon Russell revival to begin, I’m listening to:

1. “Urban Blues, Blues Uptown Vol. 1” Imperial Legendary Masters Series LP

I found this at a little shop in St. Johns, Oregon called “Vinyl Resting Place.”

The liner notes (by Pete Welding) say this collection is from 1968 and gives credits to Bob Hite and Henry Vestine of Canned Heat for “Inspiration” and “Final Selection Approval” and to Hite “for the loan of his priceless originals.”

Almost none of these tunes were hits, but that just don’t matter none, nohow. Tunes by Fats Domino from1953 and “c.1951-53,” from Smiley Lewis, Roosevelt Sykes, T-Bone Walker and someone named Mercy Dee (Walton) who, it turns out, wrote “One Room Country Shack” while living in Fresno.

The gems are a tune by Big Joe Turner recorded with Dave Bartholomew’s band in 1950, a previously unissued (remember this was 1968) Joe Turner/Wynonie Harris duet, and the most sublime version ever recorded of “Mother Fuyer.” It’s by Nelson Wilborn who recorded it under the name “Dirty Red.”

2. Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk “Live at Jazzfest 2005”. CD

Aaron’s son has taken over as the number one funkiest Neville of them all. He was a big part of all that new energy on the last Neville Brothers’ recording and leads this band which, along with Papa Grows Funk just may keep the funk alive till New Orleans gets itself together again and the musicians come back from Austin, or Memphis or wherever they’ve gone (and where they’re making more dough playing than they ever did in New Orleans).

Ivan’s got two bass players on this gig (which I saw from the audience) on the Accura Stage last year. Also sitting in is bonist Mark Mullins from Bonerama.

Ivan has matured. He isn’t the kid anymore. He’s the man.

Listening to it now, it seems like things were so much more innocent at last year’s Fest. Nobody knew what was coming. It was the final year of Jazzfest and New Orleans as we knew them.

3. Various Artists “The Now Sound of Brazil 2” Ziriguiboom CD

Ziriguiboom is a label. Don’t let anybody tell you Brazilian music isn’t just as happening now as it ever was. This collection came out last year and it’s got everything you’d ever want out of Brazilian music: rhythm, beauty and the sexiest signing (literally) in the world. Nobody ever had to learn Portuguese to appreciate this stuff.

Bebel Gilberto is the best known singer on this, but it’s been a lot of fun to discover the others on here: Cibelle, Celo Fonesca, Zuco 103, Bosscucanova, and Apollo Nove. See? Even their names are sexy.

Somebody took a lot of trouble to sequence the tunes. I can’t get enough of this.

4. Paul Motian Trio “At The Village Vanguard” CD

From 1995, with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell. Frisell’s the chameleon, Lovano the Lion and Motian the intellectual. It’s easy to get swept up in who they are rather than what they’re playing, but wrapping yourself up in the vibe here is good for ya. It might make you smarter. It always makes me think. It’s one of those recordings that provides a jumping off point for your own brain.

You put it on, get into it, and let whatever brain cells are still functioning take over.

5. Don Cherry “Multikulti Live” DVD

Thank God there’s a visual record of Don Cherry’s last band. This is from a concert in Germany in 1991. Nobody ever said he was the greatest trumpet player who ever lived, or the greatest composer. He projected something more than talent (although he had it in freight car-sized amounts). He had, oh I dunno…a goodness, a vibe of peace.

I didn’t know him, although I interviewed him for an hour at the time he was recording the first Multikulti album. I mean, he could have been a rotten sonuvabitch and mean as shit, but I doubt it.

I can’t imagine anybody asking him why he had people of all colors in his band. I wish every American who travels abroad could bring what he brought to this concert.

Why can’t this DVD be an hour longer? Don Cherry has only grown in stature since his death.

Wonder what’s up with Nenah?


6. Nathaniel Mayer “I Just Want To Be Loved” CD

When I was a 14, I heard a song on the radio called “Village of Love” by somebody named Nathanial Mayer. It was wild. I bought the single and used to play it over and over and over, etc.

In 2004, forty-four years later Fat Possum released this album of newly-recorded songs. Nathaniel had stopped recording decades before and was currently, and had been by all accounts, getting over as best he could, if you know what I mean.

This is just as wild as “Village of Love.” Wilder. Out of control in an end-of-a-fucked-up-life way that we’ve never much heard before…the result of living the bad life in Detroit.

There are great liner notes which include a conversation with Mayer. He was calling for money. He wanted a car, he wanted clothes. Finally he said, “Fuck everything. Just give me 20 dollars so I can get my dick sucked.”

He sings like a thief and a pimp. Not the commercial 50 Cent kind, but in the most transparently calculated way. He’s the kind of Black Man who White Folks never understand. And he wants to keep it that way.

This was recorded with a very rough, funky Detroit band.

I like to drive around oh-so-polite Portland, Oregon and play this real loud with the windows down. Nathaniel would like that.

7. Wayne Horvitz The Four Plus One Ensemble “Sweeter Than The Day”

Not the funky Wayne of Zony Mash, not the outside Wayne of Pigpen, but the sweet, acoustic Wayne. Julian Priester is on here, Reggie Watts, Tucker Martine, Eyvind Kang on viola and violin, and the underrated Skerik, from New Orleans on bari sax.

He wrote these tunes in the middle of a night when he couldn’t sleep. He was living in a little town in Central Italy for a few months.

This album brings ya round. It’s narcotic in the good way. It hugs you. It’s a slow dissolve in a jump-cut world.

Horvitz and I have the best hats in the NW.

8. Louis Prima Keely Smith with Sam Butera and The Witnesses “Las Vegas Prima Style” LP

On the front cover it says, “Recorded Live at the Sahara Hotel” (underline theirs). On the back cover it says, “At 12:30 (a.m.)…Louis Prima issues the call that summons the faithful. From now until six in the morning, Las Vegas belongs to Louis Prima.”

I know he became a Lounge icon to the hipsters of the late 1990s but I’ve always loved Louie (underline mine). He’s all over the place with volume and coolness and excitement.

Imagine Tiger Rag, White Cliffs of Dover, Should I, Holiday For Strings and O Sole Mio all done al la Louie.
The thing about Louie and Sam and the band is that, besides being “The Wildest” (which they were), they could PLAY.

9. George Harrison and friends “The Concert For Bangladesh” DVD

I rented this to see how I would react to it, 34 years after the fact, and to see Dylan. Here’s what I found:

a. What the fuck was all that Indian religious shit about, anyway?
b. I like the Beatles only slightly better. I still nevah liked them. So shoot me.
c. Was Eric Clapton on junk? He didn’t play one good lick.
d. Did Eric Clapton have the worst haircut ever placed on the head of man?
e. Thank God for Billy Preston, who took the concert out of the muck of pandering to Eastern religion. Oh wait, he did a gospel tune. I’m busted.
f. Leon Russell was so heavy that Harrison introduced him without using Russell’s last NAME.
g. Everybody on stage was smoking!
h. Dylan was king. No competition.
i. Leon Russell singing harmony with Dylan was absolutely brilliant. Oh yeah, George sang on that song, too.
j. Yes, I listened to part of the Ravi Shankar set and skipped the rest.
k. The naivety was positively charming.
l. Leon Russell’s medley killed.
m. Did I keep pulling my hair away from my eyes every ten seconds when my hair was a long as George’s?

This also appears on CounterPunch.com

Click! I Quit!

More. Faster. Louder. More. More. Faster. Louder. More.

We have become contracted in our way of life. We are a jump cut society. Our discourse is truncated yet louder. Our visual stimulation must be more rapid or we tire and change the source. Thoughts come and go.

Five of the seven words you can’t say on TV have been said on network TV. The most violent thoughts, the most criminal behavior are a part of our children’s daily entertainment.

Having grown up playing video games, or not, is the defining factor of existence.

More violence. More greed. Sold to us, packaged and sold by those who believe in its reality, in its necessity. And each one who comes after believes that the way to success is to be more than what came before. To be faster. To be louder than what came before.

The number of boxes on a screen we are able to watch at any one time, indeed, the number of screen themselves, grows in inverse proportion to the number of paragraphs we can absorb at any one sitting. Watch your TV. Look at your magazines.

The internet has taught us that we no longer have to read anything more than 800 words. It has exposed our failure to have taught people to read, while at the same time has caused more people to type than ever before. Typing is not writing. You’re is different from your.

The President shouts at us, while three-word slogans repeat on the wall behind him, over and over, the simple message he cannot put into words. No one ever finishes a sentence on interview shows. Smugness reigns, and I sit on the bus, watching it pick up speed with no one at the wheel.

More. Faster. Louder. More. More. Faster. Louder. More.

Does anyone who is responsible for these things ever use these things? I mean, ulitimately responsible. The poor fools do. Not the buyers, but the fools making the things that go faster, louder, more profane, more violent, and which ignore basic human values. And more fools line up every day, confident in their belief that if they just made more of what already exists faster, and louder, that they can have more of what somebody else just made faster and louder and more.

Sex, music, politics, TV, movies. More. Faster. Louder. More. Can you top this? Can you take it further? If I just sat down and thought of the worst thing in the world, people would buy it. If I just made it a little bit more gross, a little bit more violent, a little faster, a little more. Just a little more.

How far over the top can you go before you fall off the edge? How edgy can you be before the edge becomes so thin, it disappears? How self-referential can you be before all of existence becomes a weblog and you spend your whole life documenting each and every moment as it happens?

I am infected with it. I can’t even finish writing this. I am bored by my own thoughts.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

U.S. & Iran---Friends Seperated by Religious Fanatics at the Top

Two countries, whose people have often liked each other, are now in the hands of reckless religious fanatics. The United States is ruled by a lawless Christian fundamentalist who has rained destruction and death on a Middle Eastern country which had not attacked it, and which he sees as a bed of infidels.

Iran is ruled by a similar head of state, a Muslim fundamentalist who wishes to have the means destroy a Middle Eastern country which has not attacked it and which he also sees as a bed of infidels.

This leaves us, in both America and Iran, the more informed and less fanatical of us wondering what how we got in this mess. Both leaders were selected in dubious, dishonest elections. Both are messianic in their beliefs...that they have the one sole truth, and that god smiles upon them.

I feel like if I had the phone number of a guy like me in Tehran, I’d call him up and we’d both be tearing our hair out about this situation. Neither of us wants to destroy the other, invade each other’s countries, or any others we can think of. We’d probably like to sit down and have a beer and shoot the shit, because the shit is the same all over.

He’d like me to put on some American music. I’d like him to put on some of what Americans call “World Music,” (that which comes from someplace other than our own back yards).

But no, we have to sit in our own houses without contact, wondering if these nutcases who think they have a pipeline to divinity are going to start a war over…over what? Has anybody figured that out?

These leaders appeal to the worst in humanity. They must be stopped. A small minority wants either side to start killing.

Hey, guy in Tehran. I want to tell you that there are lots of people trying to remove our lunatic from office. I’m hoping there are like-minded folks in your neighborhood. Maybe we’ll be glad to see each other again.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Tom DeLay Meets Jesus

Shortly after Tom DeLay was struck and killed by a runaway golf cart as he played the 18th hole at The Congressional, and as his immortal soul floated toward the light, it stopped at a crossroads where he was met by Jesus.

“Hello, Tom,” Jesus said.

“Who the hell are you?” muttered the Hammer.

“I am Jesus, the Son of God, Tom,” was the reply.

“No shit,” he said, extending the glad hand with the same smile he had in his mug shot. “Gladta meetya.”

“It is time to take stock of your actions in life, Tom,” Jesus said.

“I did pretty damn good, didn’t I? Except for those wimp-assed bastards who messed with me at the end,” Delay said proudly.

“Did you lie, Tom?” asked Jesus.

“Well, it takes a lot of guts to be a man in my position,” came the reply.

“So that’s a yes,” Jesus said, marking it down.

“And did you tell people that you were working on behalf of God, and in His name?”

“Yes, of course. I always spoke highly of you and told the people that you’d do the same as me, if you were me,” said DeLay

“Do you think I would make children work in sweatshops in Saipan like you did when you blocked reform there?” asked Jesus.

“Uh, well I had to take care of my friends, you know.”

“I will ask you again, do you think I would make children work in sweatshops in Saipan like you did when you blocked reform there, and force them to have abortions as you did?”

“Where’d you hear that, from Huffington or some other Godless Communist place?” said the Hammer getting angry.

“Tom, are you getting angry with me? Do you know me?” said Jesus. “Do you know what this crossroads is that you’ve come to?”

“No, I don’t,” the Hammer said, bristling.

“Well, Tom you’ve done a bad job representing me on Earth. I think the only thing left to do is to teach you a lesson.”

“Whad’ya mean?”

“Here’s a surprise for you, Tom. I have been talking this over with several friends of mine, including Buddha, Moses and Mohammed and we’ve come up with this. We’re going to send you back to earth, to Texas.”

“Well, thankya, Jesus!”

“Not so fast, Tom,” Jesus replied. “We’re sending you back as a roach, to Sugarland, and we’ve arranged for your extermination company to be scheduled to visit the kitchen you’re going to infest.”

“Just a damn minute,” said the Hammer.

“You will escape a couple of times, running in sheer terror as your company tries to spray you out of existence, but finally your time will come. When that happens, I’ll be here waiting and we can have another conversation, Tom,” said Jesus.

“Wait, wait, holdonhere,” cried Delay.

And with that he was gone, back to earth and his next destiny.


This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

D For Danger

Sometimes being “out here” in Oregon adds a certain perspective. East Coasters, especially in, on and around the Beltway, or in New York City, because they’re a part of the machine (or think they are), don’t get quite as alarmed as others. Or as alarmed they should be.

The incremental takeover of the powers of government by the executive branch has gotten totally out of hand.

Look at this: The President of the United States has decided he is above the law. Is there any disagreement with that?

He thinks he can ignore any existing law he chooses, violate the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, and by adding a paragraph at the end of any particular law he’s signing, he can nullify that law.

Just a minute, here. We’re allowing this to happen before our very eyes.

This isn’t funny. This isn’t censurable. This is impeachable. This is criminal. This is profoundly anti-American. It is what dictators do.

We’re in deep shit. Deeper than we’ve ever been in before.

We’ve let them steal an election (two really). We’ve let them start a war. We’ve let them bankrupt our country. We’ve let them ship our jobs to other countries. We’ve allowed religious fanatics to infect every aspect of our lives.

We’ve stood by and let this happen. Why did we do that? Because of a few terrorists? Does this make sense to you? Does anything make sense?

And if we try to vote them out of office, we’ve allowed them to place voting machines that give bogus results in our polling places.

What's wrong with us?

Why are the Democrats complicit? Ok, not Conyers and Feingold and Dean. Where are the so-called liberals from so-called progressive Oregon?

It’s easy to see why V For Vendetta is so popular. But as articulately as it laid out the logical conclusion of what’s transpiring in Washington right now, the Masque-ex-machina was a convenient savior. It didn’t require much action by the public, except putting on some masks and walking downtown.

Wasn’t the first American Revolution fought against a King George? Is that what’s required of us?

2006 is the tipping point. Which side are you on?

The Night I Went To Bush's Resignation With Lewis Lapham

I fell asleep with C-Span on my TV (works better than Ambien), and a copy of Harper’s Magazine on the table next to me, opened to Editor-In-Chief Lewis Lapham’s piece on the case for impeaching George W. Bush.

I began to dream.

I was at a cocktail party on the upper West Side of Manhattan with other journalists. They had all read my book. That’s how I know it was a dream.

I was drinking some wine and talking with Ellen Barkin (always in my dreams) who had been invited to the party by Cal Ripken (for some reason) when Lapham walked up to us and slapped me on the back saying, “Tom, I’ve never laughed as hard as when I read your book last night. I bought fifty of them to give to my staff.” (Did I mention that this is NOT a wet dream?)

I told him I loved his impeachment piece. He moved closer to me and said, “We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous.”

I nodded.

But then he said, “Tom, I want you to come with me to the White House, Bush is resigning in twenty mintues.”

You don’t question time or travel in dreams so I said, “Love to, Lew.” (Do people call hm “Lew?”)

All at once we were standing in the same room where Nixon gave the farewell address to his staff on August 9, 1974, the day before my birthday. Lapham whispered, “Nice birthday present, huh?”

I chuckled and looked around the room.

It wasn’t only Bush’s resignation but a combination of Nixon’s and Bush’s. Cheney was still old. Rumsfeld was young but still pasty. Pat Buchannan was there and gave me a sharp punch to the kidney. Lapham had my back and told Buchanan he’d never be published in Harper’s again.

What a guy, that Lew.

There was one First Lady. I couldn’t tell which one she was but she had hair like Condi, lips like Pat, and the Xanax/Valium eyes of well, both Laura and Pat.

Henry Kissinger sidled up to me and said, “You know Tom, the President is a man awake in his own nightmare.” I said, “I know how he feels.”

As Jeff Gannon was giving Bob Woodward a lap dance, all the heads turned when a combination of Scott McLellan and Ron Ziegler walked in wearing a full nun’s habit and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen the Presidents of the United States.”

The Justices of the Supreme Court ushered him/them in singing “She's Lump, she's Lump. She's in my head. She’s Lump, she’s Lump. She might be dead”

I turned to Lapham and asked, “Were you ever into grunge?” He gave me a stern look and said, “Nah. I’m strictly old school rap. I used to wear a big watch around my neck at home.”

Bush/Nixon stood at a podium before a wall decorated, as with all his appearances, with a backdrop. This one read, “FTW” over a Harley-Davidson sheild. He had a five o’clock shadow. He stepped up to the mic, hunched his shoulders forward, looked around and said, “Who the hell are you people?”

From behind the curtain, a small voice said, “They work here, Mr. Presidents, they work for you.”

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know, Turd Blossom,” he said, turning slightly to the left and behind him. “I never did too much work around here.” And then he laughed the Bush laugh, “Neh-neh-neh-neh.” There was never a Nixon laugh.

He turned to the crowd and said, “I think the record should show that this is one of those spontaneous things that we always arrange whenever the President comes in to speak, and it will be so reported in the press.” Then turning to me, he said, “Thanks for coming, Tom. You have to call it as you see it. But on our part, believe me, it is spontaneous. You believe me, don’cha?”

He turned away before I could answer and spread his arms out in that patented Bushian flex, started moving his neck and gave a “V” with both hands.

He continued, “You are here to say goodbye to us, and we don't have a good word for it in English -- the best is ah ravar, uh revere, oh reservoir, oh shit, whatever. Don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore, do I?” Harriet Miers, Condi and the two Bush daughters…or were they the Nixon daughters? They must have been the Bush daughters because I saw them chug the rest of their Jagers. All four of them held signs over their heads, one letter per sign, which collectively read, “L-O-L-Z.”

They squealed like they were in the audience at TRL.

Bush changed from wearing a gray business suit to wearing a white jumpsuit with a wide red belt and said, “Thankyaverrmush.”

Women screamed. Several fainted.

Instantly Bush was wearing a red-striped running outfit. He looked wistfully out to the crowd and said, “I look around here, and I see so many on this staff that, you know, I should have been by your offices and shaken hands, and I would love to have talked to you and found out how to run things around here but I just haven't given a shit. I mean you’ve gotten your share of the loot, haven’t you?”

John Stewart sat in the corner crying, bleeding from a bite in his neck administered by Michael Chertoff, who was standing nearby smiling and slowly licking his bloody lips.

At the podium, Bush was wearing a little boy’s private school uniform and beginning to cry. “Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Jeb has the rights all tied up. My mother was a saint when she sobered up for about fifteen minutes in 1963 and apologized for locking me in up the basement for a month. And I think of her, two boys and how she taught us how to turn everything we touched to shit. Yes, she will have no books written about her, especially by you Lapham. Don’cha be going all new-cue-lar on me Lew,” he said with that patented Bush snicker.

At that moment, the real Nixon burst through the doors and said “Wait just a goddamned minute here. I may have been a lot of things but one thing I wasn’t was stupid. And I could pronounce the word nuclear for chrissake. New-clee-ar, you hear that you moron? Buchannan, are you responsible for this crap?”

Pat Buchannan spoke up, “No way, Mr President. In our day we were crooks but we knew how to run things. Let’s go kill a bottle of single malt and leave these amatures be.” They walked out hand in hand.

Bush continued, “Remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. I guess they’re all winners then, cuz I hate their goddamned guts. But then I win too, don’t I?” Turning back to the curtain he whispered, “Don’t I Turd Blossom.”

“Get this over with, asshole,” came the reply

“And so, we leave with high hopes, in good spirit, and with deep pockets, and with very much gratefulness in our hearts for the amount of money we were able to spread around among our friends.

“I’d like to announce with great sadness that I’ve accepted the resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney”

Cheney wheeled around and shot Lapham in the neck, face and chest with his shotgun. “It’s all your fault, you commie bastard,” the now-former Vice President said with a belch.
“Nice shot, daddy,” Bush cried out, laughing.

He continued, “And so before I leave, as my last act as your President, I’d like to introduce your new President and Vice President. Please welcome The President of the United States Tom DeLay, and the Vice President of the United States, Katherine Harris.”

I woke up. When I regained my senses I thought, “whenever I think something can’t happen with these Republicans, something worse always does.”

I’m staying tuned.

And, thanks for buying my book, Lew. At least in my dream.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

 

Oregon's Death With Dignity Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story

Numbers tell some of the story. Thirty-eight people took their own lives, legally in 2005 under Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, according to figures just released from the Oregon State Department of Human Services, which keeps tabs on who gets the lethal doses and why they take them or not take them.

That’s thirty-eight deaths out of the sixty-four prescriptions written. Of those who got the prescriptions and didn’t take the medication, fifteen died from their illnesses and seventeen were still alive. Six people who had gotten their prescriptions during 2004 died in 2005 from the medication. Those numbers have been stable since 2002, one way or the other.

They mostly had cancer. They averaged seventy years of age.

There are more numbers, but that’s all they are, just numbers.

Unless you’ve been at the bedside of one of those numbers, as I have, you can only imagine what a blessing the Oregon Death With Dignity Act has been to the handful of suffering souls (one out of every 800 deaths in Oregon) who have had their final life decision in their own hands.

The opponents of the Oregon law warned against all kinds of horrors. They said thousands would be rushing to Oregon to take advantage of the law. That the law would be used to euthanize the disabled, against their will. That the law would be used by family members wishing to rid themselves of the expense of caring for their dying relations. That people would use the law indiscriminately and there would be lines around the block for prescriptions.

None of what the fear-mongers warned came true. The biggest opponent, the Catholic Church was also the biggest donor to the failed effort to knock down the Oregon law in the two ballot initiatives. The fundamentalist-right and the Republicans were right behind them. Does it seem familiar, the use of fear to persuade? It’s the most pervasive tool among those who wish to control other people’s behavior.

We are all afraid of death. Even if you believe that there’s a benevolent father waiting for you in the clouds, or if you believe that there’s a party of virgins-gone-wild as your reward, nobody wants to die. Nobody except those near death, who wish to end their suffering while they still have a little dignity left. That’s why it’s called Death With Dignity.

That’s how Robert Schwartz died, with dignity, surrounded by his friends and family. An AIDS patient, he was the subject of a two year project by me and co-director Greg Bond to document how one person used the law. He died wearing our microphone.

Every year, when the numbers come out I feel it is my duty in, one form or another, to find a public forum to remind people that each of these numbers is a person who wanted to live, but who also wanted to control the end of life. Each has a separate story. Each took the decision excruciatingly seriously when it came to the time to take the medication.

I watched Robert Schwartz chose two dates for his own death, and then change his mind. I watched him chose to have his enlarged spleen removed so that he might rid himself of some of the pain so that he might live a few more months.

So when you read these numbers, take a moment to consider what each of these people experienced. And then think about your own death for a moment. It isn’t easy, but it’s something you’re going to experience, no matter how indestructible you may feel at this moment.

Several other states are considering Death With Dignity laws, using the Oregon law as a model. The opponents will trot out the same old arguments, but mostly what they’re really saying, underlying their statements, is that their opposition is based on their religion. That’s fine for them. It’s not fine for the rest of us.

Fighting for personal rights and against religious tyranny is a fact of life. It has always been and will always be. The use of religious coercion is a fundamental human flaw, but it has nothing to do with how I wish to choose the manner of my own death.

I’m lucky to live in Oregon.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Am I Headed For the Gulag?

I’m wondering, given the talent and efficiency of the Bush Administration, if I’ll be prevented from flying the next time I travel. Whether I’ll be cuffed and shoved into the back of a black van, flown to a foreign country where I’ll be tortured, raped and possibly murdered because an international terrorist data base found out that I wrote this headline:
"WOMAN USES TAXIS FOR TOILETS: ONE-WOMAN WAVE OF DEFECATION TERRORISM."

That headline appears in my book, “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories From a Tabloid Writer” (Villard/Random House), a collection of totally fabricated stories I wrote for the supermarket tabloid, The Sun.
Wrapping around those stories are quasi tell-all boo-hoos from me about how I made up all the stories and how it drove me nuts thinking of all these horrible things.

I’ve had pretty good media run since the book came out around Thanksgiving; a piece in USA Today, a lot of radio (Public Radio’s “Whad’Ya Know” sold a huge amount of books). I got up at 2:30 am PT to be funny at 3:30 am PT for East Coast radio several times. I did lots of morning zoos, a few with hosts who would rather fart than talk. Most recently, Joe Frazier of the Associated Press did a piece on me and the book.

Have you ever Googled yourself? Of course you have. I have tried to keep tabs on various places the book has landed over the past couple of months. I also have never tired of seeing my own name in print. But last night, when I was rooting around, trying to find out how many papers had picked up the AP story, I found that the story was up on a website called MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base http://www.tkb.org/NewsStory.jsp?storyID=104906 .

MIPT stands for Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, an Oklahoma City based outfit which describes itself as “a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing terrorism on U.S. soil or mitigating its effects.”
They go on to say that “MIPT was established after the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, and it is funded through the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training (G&T).

Remember now, I had clearly stated in my book that I had made up all the stories. The cover even says, “All Made Up by Tom D’Antoni.”
MIPT continues, “The United States Congress directed MIPT to conduct ‘research into the social and political causes and effects of terrorism’ through our automated information systems and to ‘serve as a national point of contact for antiterrorism information sharing among Federal, State and local preparedness agencies, as well as private and public organizations dealing with these issues.’ MIPT firmly believes that the accurate dissemination of knowledge on terrorism is a critical ingredient for combating terrorism.”

Their “accurate dissemination of knowledge on terrorism” in my case was catching Joe Frazier’s story which contained that headline about a woman who was crapping in London taxicabs for fun or for some other reason I didn’t specify. I also didn’t specify exactly which terror outfit she was working for, if any. I first wrote the story in the mid 1980’s when terrorism had a different meaning to Americans, and had not yet been used as a political tool to frighten us into voting for idiots who would wind up turning the world upside down and the nation’s population into thralls of the corporations.

Matter of fact, the only place terrorism is mentioned is in the headline. The story lead was a quote from the cabbie, “’It was a hell of a tip, brother.’” She had run out on the fare. Later, the driver told the cops “I jump right out of the cab and open the back door and there it is, right in the middle of the back seat, a whole pile of it. The police came over and he looks in the back and sees it and says, ‘How the hell did this get here?’

“I tell him about the bird who ran out on her fare. He says, ‘Did she have a dog with her?

“I say no, it must have been her.

“He says, ‘Are you serious?’

“I say there ain’t no other explanation, sir. I saw her moving around a lot and fixing her clothes, but when you’ve been a cabbie as long as I’ve been, unless they’re trying to rob you, I don’t pay that much attention to what goes on back there. I just try to give them a good ride and collect my money. Anyways, you don’t figure somebody’s gonna take a…well, do what she did in the back seat of your cab.”

This, THIS stupid story has put me on MIPT’s “Terrorism In the News” section. We can only assume that the story has been forwarded to the proper authorities in Washington, at NSA, to Langley, Homeland Security and other similar points of interest.

MIPT defines terrorism thus, “The term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

I’m finding it difficult to reconcile this definition with a tabloid story about woman taking repeated dumps in London taxicabs.

Accompanying that story in the same chapter is “Bag Lady’s B.O. Kills Five People On Bus,” also mentioned in the AP story. Even though people die, there is no mention of terrorism, although who’s to say she wasn’t in the employ of Osama? I say. I invented her.

The MIPT “knowledge base” (laughing here) describes itself as, “is the one-stop resource for comprehensive research and analysis on global terrorist incidents, terrorism-related court cases, and terrorist groups and leaders.”

Like the woman who was crapping in taxicabs, from a story I admitted in my book as having made up, that the AP said I made up, that has now probably put me on watch lists.

If I disappear, you’ll know why.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Yes, Rabid Nun Merchandise

No, I'm not kidding. Be the first in your neighborhood. Be the only in your neighborhood, or in the universe.
Do what it says. Read the book. Buy some stuff. Act stupid.
http://www.cafepress.com/rabidnun

Why Do We Fight? Whom Do We Fight Is a Better Question

If I were an American soldier in Iraq I don’t think I’d know exactly who to shoot. Which side am I on? I guess I would shoot at whoever is shooting at me, but who isn’t shooting?
Is everybody who isn’t a Kurd my enemy?
We’ve got the Shia armies (conveniently called “militias” in our media—making them sound somewhat less like a military force and more like a police department). We’ve got the Sunnis and the remains of Saddam’s army. We’ve got Al Qaeda. They’re all fighting and the American soldiers are somewhere in the middle of it.
Do we protect the Shias from the Sunnis? The Sunnis from the Shia? Everybody from Al Qaeda? The Kurds from everybody including the Turks? Or do we just guard the American bureaucrats and the cash they brought with them and try not to get blown up while driving around?
The Bush administration been unsuccessful at everything it has tried in Iraq with the exception putting their hands in our pockets, taking out our money and handing it over to their friends with a smile. Oh, and bankrupting America. Why is it a surprise that thousands of FEMA-bought house trailers sit empty in a field in Arkansas. I could go on and on.
The tide is rising against the Republicans. Even the weaknesses of the Democrats may not be able to stem it.
The problem is that when faced with defeat, despots often destroy everything they are able. What we can look for in the remaining years of this administration is too awful to imagine. And every time one tries to imagine, the next day’s headlines prove our nightmares to be real.
There’s no place for the American military in Iraq’s civil war. There’s no place for them in Iraq, period. They are there to protect what?
I wonder if Bush found out about the escalation in the Iraq civil war by seeing it on TV, like he found out about the UAE port deal?
These are the dark ages and there’s no escape. Fifty Daily Shows won’t make this funny.

This also appears on huffingonpost.com

White House Plans More Such Deals After the Port Protection Plan Contract is Signed

The White House announced today that several transactions are in the works that are similar to the signing of the deal to make the Emir of the United Arab Emirates protector of some important American ports.

In the first, a government-owned North Korean firm has been hired to supply guards for several American sites where nuclear weapons are both stored and manufactured. A White House spokesperson said he was happy to have them aboard because they have done such a good job protecting their own nuclear facilities.

In fact, he added, the United States is getting a bargain because the workers will receive minimum wages, tripling what they make in Korea. As an added payment the Atomic Energy Commission will be supplying an unlimited number of new movie releases to Kim Jong-il. This will replace his subscription to Netflix.

The White House also said it has hired security arm of The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) to patrol the nationwide centers run by the Child Protective Services Unit of the U.S. Department of Education. A spokesperson said that although the organization is not known for security, it does keep the kids in their sights at all times and would be more attentive than other such security groups.

In addition, a company owned by AUM Shinrikyō, last heard from when they used sarin gas during a terrorist act in a Tokyo subway has been hired to provide security for Metro, the Washington D.C. subway. White House sources say that they were assured by several Japanese businessmen that the group has reformed and is especially qualified for this job due to the fact that they know everything about the subject.

I can’t go on. I just can’t. I can’t make this up. My friend Art Levine sent me a piece he wrote which parodied the Texas sherrif’s report on the Cheney shooting. In his piece, Cheney is drunk and snarling. Art called me and asked what I thought. I told him that it didn’t go far enough. It was TOO BELIEVABLE!

I told him he would have to have Cheney having SEX with the quail.

How many times in the past 4 years have you heard the words, “you can’t make this stuff up,” when the Republicans do something outrageous.

I can’t either. And I just tried.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Since It's a Day To Thank Those Who Hurt Us

After hearing Mr. Birdshot's statement, I think it's only fitting that I personally thank the man who beat me about the legs and arms with a golf club and sent me to the hospital a few years ago. I guess I deserved it, although I had never met the gentleman before.

I realize his family and friends were heartbroken for him.

That he didn't kill me, I mean, and that I didn't have more money on me.

I feel bad that he didn't accoplish his task, too. So I'd just like to tell him, if he wants to try again, I'm always at his disposal. Perhaps he should try a hammer next time. Or a shotgun.

I mean, I'm really very grateful to him. I had never ridden in an ambulance before.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

A comment on my last post from huffingtonpost

Mr. D'Antoni:Having admired your writing for years in baltimore, I am glad to find you contributing to one of the best news/opinion sources on the Internet. I read your wife's letter in today's CityPaper. She is absolutely right, and you should not take offense at the opinions of a couple of ill-informed and d**k-headed morons. In addition, Gadi Dichter can't even wipe your a** when it comes to journalism. Best of luck in your future. Oh, and I would be surprised to find out that "Dick" Chaney actually has one...has you seen the size of his shotgun?
Posted by: fferret on February 15, 2006 at 03:43pm

Thanks for the support, ff.

Sex Scandals Are Always There For the Taking

Republicans have had the majority of sex scandals (usually homosexual and usually involving public homophobes). It’s refreshing to discover there may be a new sex scandal involving a heterosexual. If our ever-Prilocetic Veep really had a goomah with him when he went hunting and drinking, why should we, why WOULD we be surprised?

Is he not a man? Is he not dishonest to begin with? Is he not the Godfather and entitled?

What amazes me is that journalists have been unable to uncover the rampant decadence that always follows men of power, especially conservative religious fanatics. Is it any surprise to anyone that the most virulent homophobes are nearly always the most enthusiastic and least discrete (read: found in public)?

How come nobody, not even those who do not have editors breathing down their necks and bothering them about sources and attribution…bloggers, I mean. How come even bloggers never found out who was schtupping Jeff Gannon at the White House? (Does it have two “p’s?”)

Is there any doubt that somebody was? Come out, come out wherever you are.

So it took a shotgun blast at close range for MSM to wake up to the fact that Cheney is a lying sack of buckshot? Those of us whose job it is to size you up in the first 20 seconds after meeting you had sized him up in the 1970s.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have another Presidential election Instead, let’s have an “American Presidential Idol” show for the month of October 2008. Paula Abdul couldn’t be a worse judge of character than the millions of fools who voted for a chimp.

Shaking my head here at the fact that the Veep’s companion will get more play than the real blood that’s on his hands from the decisions he made in his official capacity.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

I am defended

From The Baltimore City Paper 2/15/05

The Wife’s Tale

I am Tom D’Antoni’s wife. I just received copies of your paper (“Fuck Us,” Arts and Entertainment, Jan. 25). I worked as a political journalist, have read three papers a day for more than 30 years, and never, in that time, have I seen an article so vile as the one on my husband.

I sat there during the interview, so was surprised at the article that was written. It was nothing like the interview. Tom loves Baltimore. We have Baltimore stuff all over our apartment and a Baltimore Orioles bumper sticker on our car.

Tom hit bottom in Baltimore, and it almost killed him, but he is proud to be from Baltimore. When he runs into folks here from Baltimore, they sit around and joke about their hometown, just as he did with Gadi Dechter. When friends come over he loves to show stories he produced for Evening Magazine about ordinary people who define Baltimore. Those who most would make fun of, Tom found something heartwarming about.

Tom has always talked about moving back there, but obviously, that is no longer an option.
Mr. Dechter, instead of doing some work and talking about some significant accomplishments of a complex and talented man, chose to base a story on tongue-in-cheek comments he and Tom both were making about Baltimore.

Tom just finished a documentary on assisted suicide. He filmed a man who ended up taking his own life, with cameras rolling and wearing Tom’s mic. Tom has said this was the most important work he’s done. I heard him talk to Dechter about this and was sure it would be included in the article. Of course, Tom talked mostly about his book, because that was the pretense Dechter used to call Tom.

Have you seen this man destroy other people? Did the article seem familiar?

Tom’s mother lives in Baltimore, as does the rest of his family, and a lifetime of friends. They have been hurt by this article, as have I.

Many of the things in the article are infactual and libelous, but that is what attorneys are for.
This is what wives are for.

Tom has done thousands of stories in his career. They have been well investigated and reflect good journalism. I am sure I cannot say that about Mr. Dechter.

Karen FoxPortland, Ore.

Other Appointments in the Wake of the Delay Committee Assignment

Headline: Rep. Tom DeLay has been given a House of Representatives seat on the committee overseeing the Justice Department which is investigating HIM.

In other news:

Michael Jackson has been appointed head of Bahrain’s Child Protective Services Bureau.

James Frey has been hired to run Fox News’ Standards and Practices Department.

Michael Brown has been named new chairman of The American Red Cross.

Jack Abramoff has been appointed chairman of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Scooter Libby has been appointed designated “Target” at Dick Cheney’s next hunting trip.

Harriet Miers has left the White House and will marry a Bigfoot impersonator.

Judith Miller has been given the Journalism Department head job at Bunny Ranch University.

OJ Simpson has been appointed lead investigator for CNN’s newly formed Missing Murdered Attractive White Girl Team.

Ken Lay has been given Max Bialistock Business Ethics Chair at Yale University.

Scott McClellan has quit to join The Daily Show as a replacement for Stephen Colbert.

You know, you CAN make this up, but look how far you have to go.

Any additions?

This is also up on huffingtonpost.com

For Baltimore City Paper Readers

It's too bad that those dishonest, slimy bastards at the Baltimore City Paper would let me have only 500 words to reply to their lying attack on me.

First and foremost, I NEVER said to anyone connected to the City Paper that I hated Baltimore. I never said "Fuck You" to anyone connected to the City Paper about Baltimore. These are lies. I will give a big "Fuck You," however, to everyone connected with the City Paper after their smear of me and their misrepresentations of what I said in a two-hour phone interview.

Here's the full letter I had written to them about that dishonest schmuck Dechter and his poorly-written hatchet job:

"I knew I was going to get nailed, but what Gadi Dechter doesn't tell you is that he seriously slanted and cherry-picked the things I told him. He left out the fact that I walk the streets of Portland wearing my Orioles sweatshirt, how I nearly cried when I heard a real Baltimore accent last summer....and there are a lot of other things.Dechter chooses to leave out a lot of positive things in order to set me up as a straw villain.

What else can we expect from an L.A. guy who's aim is to gather as many scalps as he can before he moves on to a larger market. Same as it ever was...Baltimoreans being exploited and victimized by journalists on the way up and who can't wait to get out of town.By the way, my impression, after talking to him for a couple of hours, is that he hates Baltimore much more than I. He agreed with me on many points.Here's an example of how he dishonestly skews things.

He writes, "He remembers one scene in particular. 'I pick up this black woman and her daughter,' he says. “And for some reason the little girl looks through the sliding glass shield and she says, ‘I love you.’ And I busted out crying right there in the cab. It was such a contrast to what I had to face every day.'His conclusion: 'People in Baltimore are angry and mean.'"That story did not make me conclude that people in Baltimore are angry and mean. I think many are, but that was one tender moment in a nightmare of a job.

I told him a lot of things. I told him about the documentary I've just completed on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. I followed a man for two years beginning the day he got the legal lethal dose, through all the twists and turns of the decision-making process as to when to end his life. He died wearing our mic.Dechter could have included that, but it wouldn't have fit his idea of caricaturing me and his scalp-gathering agenda.

Lucky for me, he can't hurt me, he can only piss me off...unlike poor Mike Olesker, who deserved better.

How does he know I am "hustling for even more publicity?" And is there something wrong with promoting your own book? If he writes a book and it's bought by Random House, is he planning to turn down the promotional opportunities his publicist gives him? I doubt it.

While I'm complaining, the photographer who took that picture was here for an hour on Saturday and most of the pictures he took were of me smiling. You chose to run one where I was frowning.

So when the headline says, "Fuck Us," Dechter isn't including himself in the "us." Believe me. I'm more "us" than he'll ever be.

Baltimore....Gadi Dechter is not on your side.

Before he hung up, he said that he'd like to hang out with me and see how I reacted the next time I came back to Baltimore. Uh, no thanks, dude. I'll stick to Jimmy's and people who know who Jerry Turner was.

By the way, I still yell "O" during the national anthem when I drive up to Seattle to see the Orioles.

Here are some of Dechter's blatant mistakes:

1. I was never a news producer at WJZ-TV. I was a news producer at WMAR-TV and a story producer at WJZ-TV's Evening Magazine. Also, I never told him that Evening was new and hiring producers. It had been on the air for a year and was already a hit when I came to work for them.
I also never told him that I regretted coming back to Baltimore to work for Evening, as he claims. I don't regret a moment of my work at Evening.

2. I said "Baltimore's greatest cultural contribution in the past 50 years is Divine eating dog shit off a sidewalk on Read St." Not “Baltimore’s greatest claim to fame is that Divine ate shit on Read Street,”

3. P.J. O'Rourke was editor of HARRY for a brief period of time (a matter of months). In reality, Michael Carliner, HARRY's original publisher was the editor, followed by O'Rourke for a few months when I was publisher, and then I was editor/publisher.

4. I did not tell him I was a "children's party DJ." I was a wedding reception/party DJ. If he had bothered to check the piece I wrote for the City Paper in 1996 on my brief DJ career, he would have discovered that. Notice how sloppy Dechter is? I sent him my resume with the jobs I've had and the dates I had them. Apparently he did not avail himself of that document.

5. He implies that I took "odd jobs to pay the rent on his Mount Vernon apartment. He penned tabloid articles, created screaming car dealership TV ads, produced features stories for a failed “Trucker TV” network, and worked as a children’s party DJ." Actually, other than the tabloid work, I did all those other things from 1986-1996."


That's what you didn't get to read.

When the City Paper's "fact checker" called me, I had to correct her many times. The "facts" that Dechter had in his original piece were obviously very wrong. I corrected at least 6 inaccuracies she presented.

It would have been nice if she had been more thorough. It would have been nice if Dechter had been an honest journalist, instead of a lying sack of shit, but that's his problem.

It also brings up a problem in basic credibility. The Baltimore City paper has none. Andy Markowitz, when he took over that paper, buried the hatchet with me and published three pieces of mine. He's gone and the people in charge now do him a great injustice.

Russ Smith started a bad paper, and his spirit lives on.

Is it any wonder I brought HARRY back to life to compete with this crummy paper? So now they've had their shot at me. If I were a young person in Baltimore right now, I would start up a new paper. Baltimore deserves better than this dishonest piece of shit.

p.s. During an email exchange with Dechter, he actually replied "Word" to an email from me. How quaintly 90s. You should see him dance like Hammer sometime.

Pretty good for a failed screenwriter from L.A. trying to rescue his career, pathetically atempting to rise in his profession by hurting others.

Dude, this isn't over by a long shot. We Baltimoreans have long memories. We're still pissed at the Mets and Jets in 68, and at Irsay when he stole the Colts.

We won't forget what you did to Olesker, and what you failed to do to me.

Addition since the issue with my letter came out:

That schmuck Dechter was also too chickenshit to reply to my letter. Know why? Because he was caught with is journalistic pants down.

I hope this controversy follows him. I hope I find out where his next job is, because his boss will be the first to know what a dishonest cheap-shot media whore he is.

Also, to the writers whose letters got in; you wrote those before you knew the real story. But to Matt Selander who accused me of racism, allow me to tell you Matt...I went to Morgan State College when it was a college. I was one of 3 or 4 whites who were enrolled. I had a column in the school newspaper. I worked in a poverty program. I sat on the front porch of the Black Panther Party one night during the time when Panthers were being killed all over America. I could go on. What have you ever done, Matt, my little white thuggie?

I have to tell you guys who wrote in that I loved the tone of your letters. Pure Baltimore. It didn't make me feel homesick, I only feel that way during the baseball season, but your letters had that kiss my ass Baltimore spirit. Thanks, even though you hate me.

A few words to Blaine Taylor, who wrote a strangely nasty letter about me in last week's edition. I say strange because he seemed ambivalent. I guess all I can say is that I had a lot to be negative about. Of course, he neglects all the happy hippie words and deeds during that period. He also ignores all of the celebratory stories I did about Baltimore for Evening Magazine, and all of the musicians I covered for all those years. He also didn't get a chance to see my reply to Dechter.

I must say, I've always thought Blaine's writing to be stodgy and boring and not in the least creative. But I agree with him on one point, and I thank him for making it, even though he is not a fan....Baltimore's loss truly is Portland's gain. I have been accepted here, both personally and professionally.

Even though the O's will always be in my heart, Baltimore is my past.

Baltimore, you're Fredo. You're dead to me now.

Portland is my home.

Angering Somebody Elses God

Newspapers across Europe have enraged those so very highly enrageable Muslims by cartooning Allah and causing those feeling blasphemed upon to think themselves sent by their lampooned Deity on a mission to take a variety of revenges including the always popular embassy burning.

Can the other Gods be far behind?

And there are so many to have to watch out for: Jesus and Moses along with Zoroaster, whoever Wiccans worship, Satan, Celtic Gods, Polynesian Gods, Aztec, Hindu Gods, Goddesses of the Near-East Realm, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pilipino Deities, Lusitani Gods, Scandinavian, Tibetan, Norse Gods, Apotheothenai (humans made Gods by other Gods), African, Native American, Inca, Egyptian, Mayan, Phoenician, Persian, Slavic, Greek, Roman-Etruscan Gods and Demi-Gods are all standing by and waiting to be pissed at you for making fun of them.

They’re more than happy to send their followers around to kick your ass. Or perhaps those followers have made up their minds on their own. Or even worse, thought that their particular God was speaking to them, Mr. President.

Noted religious entrepreneur Jerry Falwell blamed Katrina’s destruction on HIS God’s anger over rampant fun and too much sex with too many people in New Orleans. He should have blamed Clermeil, the Voodoo God who, when angered makes rivers overflow. Everybody knows it was Clermeil who did it.

With so many thousands of Gods watching our every move, no wonder the world is in such a pickle. The Gods must work overtime at smiting. You may have been smitten yourself and not even have known it. Remember the last time you said, “Goddamnit!?” Ended up with a handful of worthless Powerball tickets, didn’t you?

The real problem arises when the people who worship whatever particular God you’ve offended get wind of it. You had better watch your ass then, buster. Ask Salmon Rushdie. Ask the poor schmuck who is out of a job because he ran Mohammed cartoons in the French paper he no longer edits.

Or ask Danish film maker Theo van Gogh. Oh wait, you can’t ask him. An Allah fan killed him for making a film about how Muslims treat their women like so many pieces of furniture.

Best to make fun of Agunua the Serpent God of the Solomon Islands (and all this time I thought Solomon BURKE was the God of the Solomon Islands). All the other Salomon Island Gods are just one aspect of Agunua, so if you make a cartoon about Agunua, you’re taking on all the other SIG’s.

Taking on a God like Australia’s Daramulun is another thing, entirely. That boy is not only heroic, but is usually pictured with his mouth full of quartz (for some reason) and brandishing both a stone axe and a massive phallus. There’s a God you shouldn’t want to mess with.

One thing is certain; believers do not have a sense of humor.
So Denmark, already on Allah’s “terrorist watch list,” Norway, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and since you can find them online, the whole damned (literally) world has seen caricatures of Allah. Religious fanatics are taking to the streets in violent protest over what again? Some cartoons?

Here is the face of your enemy, America. And they wonder why we laugh?

In 2002 there was another religious cartoon dust-up. An Austrian comic portrayed Jesus as a life-long doper who got hooked by the Wise Men’s frankincense. The Archbishop of Vienna, in a Mullah-like stroke of insight described it as an attack on democracy.

At times like this, I find comfort in the words of Christopher Hitchens. When asked what would be the one thing that could bring world peace, he allowed that outlawing all religion would be a good way to start.

I’m sure if the Archbishop of the Aboriginal Church of Daramulun read what I had to say, he would be at my front door with a mouth full of quartz and massive phallus in hand. I’m planning to prevent my wife from answering the door for the next few weeks, just in case.

What am I doing about all of this? I’m praying to the Great and Holy, Most High and Exalted God who sees all, hears all, and sits on the throne of heaven directing the quick and the dead…..Louis Armstrong.

C’mon Pops, you gotta know somebody who will cut him if he stands and shoot him if he runs.

Amen.

This is also on huffingtonpost.com

What if he gave a State of the Union and nobody listened?

Not everybody watched the State of the Union address. Most people didn’t. Lots of people had dinner to make. I know it may come as a shock to you that most people don’t live in the Eastern Time zone, and an even greater shock to those in the political writing business.
I have around three hundred channels to choose from on my cable system, more or less. Nine of them carried the State of the Union. There were a lot of other places to go.
The numbers say viewership of the speech was overwhelmingly Republican.
We’ve seen the outpouring of opinion last night and this morning. What’s missing is the towering irrelevancy of it all. Bush spoke like he was on an Ambien hangover. He said nothing, badly. Period.
Most of the rest of us went about our lives. Feeding the family on the west coast (and probably in the Mountain Time zone), spending time with our spousal unit and/or family in the Central Time zone, or spending our evening hooking up on MySpace in the East.
Those whose lives are spent and whose money is made on politics have a vested interest in commenting on every wrinkle and pucker of news makers. I used to be like that.
I’m the guy who used to watch BOTH C-SPAN channels simultaneously, read all the pundits religiously and wouldn’t miss all the Sunday morning talk shows for anything.
What happened to the guy who voted for all those people who wanted the Feds to fix things?
I had spent most of my life in Baltimore, minutes away from the Capitol. Maybe the proximity to where the action is made me feel a part of it. Perhaps the heat radiating from the geopolitical center of the universe produced empathy in me, or at least fandom.
Then I moved to Portland, Oregon.
There was no buzz here.
People paid more attention to the salmon count in the STATE of Washington, than they did to Washington, D.C.
My first hint of this difference struck me shortly after I moved here in 1997. At the time, the cable provider carried only one C-SPAN channel, and The Oregonian wasn’t carrying thousands of words per day of Washington news. And you had to be a P.I. to find the Washington Post. (I found it.)
During an interview on a radio talk show I was doing, I asked Bill Thomas, at the time the editor of Capitol Style magazine in Washington, D.C., to rate the Oregon congressional delegation for style points. He couldn’t, really; there just wasn’t much to say about them since Bob Packwood. Oregon was one of those, you know, “good government states.”
Relatively few listeners called. Nobody was interested.
Then the Lewinsky scandal broke. Like all good political scandal junkies, I leapt upon it. To my surprise, I was berated by several friends, accusing me, as a member of the media, of spending too much time on it, TWO DAYS after the story broke. They didn’t blame Bill, Monica, Ken or Linda. They blamed me for dwelling on a story they just didn’t care about. Oh, I had lots of calls the first week, but by the third week of the scandal, I couldn’t buy a call.
Monica and Bill and Hillary and Ken just didn’t amount to much of a ripple in the Great Northwest. Why? These are things that happen there. To them. They don’t really have much to do with my life. And I began to think, well, no….they don’t, do they?
But get in our way, and look out.
Oregon voters twice passed death-with-dignity legislation. Most of the people here were satisfied with it. And then those…those FEDS in Washington were tried to negate the will of the people. Us. Me!
For the first time since they wanted to put me in uniform and send me to Vietnam, I felt the need for the federal government to keep out of my business. Odd too, it seemed, that it was the Republicans who were extending this particular arm of the governmental octopus and trying to squeeze the life out of the death-with-dignity law. But they don’t seem to mind using the power when it suits their purposes, while paying lip-service to the concept of a less intrusive central government.
But that’s all over now that the Supreme Court has bitch-slapped the Bush administration. Even the conservative frozen pea-packer, Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith has said it’s a done deal.
Who’d a thunk it? Here I am, a lifelong lefty, siding with my Oregon buds, and standing up against the power of the federal government. Did I pass through some kind of looking glass when I crossed the Continental Divide?
I wasn’t going to watch the speech last night, but I couldn’t find a good movie and it was raining. I had it on, but I didn’t really listen much. It was shrugworthy.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com