Pink Martini---The Concert and Afterparty

I have a frame of reference. I've seen Pink Martini a dozen times over the past ten years and I have never seen them better than they were at The Schnitz on Tuesday, May 15.

Period.

As I wrote in my livepdx article Thomas had a difficult time with "Hang On Little Tomato." Everybody knew something was not going well, but the band has such good will that we put up with the years of delays and looked forward to their second album.

Why they couldn' t have just put out a concert album in the meantime escapes me. When "Tomato" was released, we all said nice things about it, but many of us hid our disappointment. Count me in on that. I did an Art Beat TV piece on China Forbes around the release, and in it I avoided that disappointment.

Come to find out Thomas was just as dissapointed.

That's why it was such a relief to find "Hey Eugene!" to be so bright and full of happiness, even in the sad songs. That vibe carried over to the concert at the Schnitz. China was in great voice, Thomas was lively and gay (I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I meant it in the old fashioned way.) He's one of the few people who is gay and gay.

The first half of the concert was made up of tunes from "Eugene," done perfectly, not as note for note replicas but almost. My favorite from the album was my favorite in the show, "Cance e Dance," a gorgeous Brazilian-styleded tune by their bassist Phil Baker. The tempo was slightly faster in concert. The David Yorke Ensemble was on stage to help and Phil played rhythm guitar. I could have gone home after it was over and been completely satisfied.

After the concert, at the afterparty in Bluehour, I told Phil I thought it was one of the most beautiful tunes I had ever heard. I thought he was going to cry. I meant it.

After the intermission, Thomas introduced March Fourth Marching band saying he wanted to run away and join them. They played four tunes by themselves, complete with dancers, stilt and otherwise. No fire dancers allowed in The Schnitz, however.

They began with "Space Hole" their signature tune, accompanied by a hula-hoop dancer of great dexterity, ingenouity, grace and humor.

They stayed on stage for "Das Vedanya Mio Bambino," Pink Martini's language mashup which ends with the chorus of "The Happy Wanderer."

The band played older tunes which did not sound dated or shopworn, but rather familiar and sweet. It is always fun to see percussionist Brian Davis workout on the traps for the band's swring tune. Their encore was (take a wild guess) "Brazil," which was accompanied by all of the guest artists. Thomas told me one time that he could play "Brazil" until the day he dies.

We don't mind.

When we walked up the stairs to the afterparty at Bluehour, China was at her most slink-ely lucious sitting outside the door and holding court. I was very gratified when she thanked me for the Art Beat piece I had done on her. She said he had always thought about calling but never did. Well, um…I appreciate it, no matter when it comes.

Inside was a madhouse. Somehow we found a couple of seats next to OBT's Christopher Stowell's table. Chatted with Northwest Film Center's Bill Foster, hugged Thomas and got drinks.

It was full of the beautiful people, hair done perfectly and dressed in Pearl Chic. All of a sudden, in walked the members of March Fourth, still in their band unis and making Bluehour seem more like Portland.

Bassist/singer Belinda Underwood slinked in looking lovely and hanging with pianist Benny Green. I told him how unusual it was to have two former Betty Carter pianists in the same town. Darrell Grant is the other.

A couple of small but tasty martinis later, it was time to go.

KMHD Playlist 5/19/07

Listen to my show every Saturday night from 10pm to 1am on KMHD 89.1FM in Portland or kmhd.fm on the web.

10:00 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue Show theme
10:02 PM Don Cherry Birdboy Multikulti
10:06 PM Gordon Lee & the Gleeful Big Band Bitter Wind Flying Dream
10:21 PM Wayne Horvitz Sweeter Than the Day Disingenous Firefight Unreleasd live recording @ Cafe Paloma, Seattle
10:29 PM Wayne Horvitz Sweeter Than the Day Love, Love Love Unreleased live recording @ Cafe Paloma, Setttle Thanks Wayne!
10:36 PM Mary Lou Williams Leo Zodiac Suite
10:39 PM Mary Lou Williams Scorpio Zodiac Suite
10:42 PM Mary Lou Williams Aquarius Zodiac Suite
10:47 PM David Murray Evidence Fo Deuk Review Amiri Baraka reading his poem
10:53 PM Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy Duke's Fantasy Twiight Dreams
11:05 PM Weather Report Teen Town 8:30 live...tune by Jaco on vinyl
11:11 PM Stanley Clarke Vulcan Princess Stanley Clark From Vinyl
11:16 PM Conjunto Berretin Afiches Tangamente Portland band
11:26 PM Astor Piazzola Milonga Del Angel Tango Zero Hour
11:29 PM Orquestra Electronica Berretin Lunes Electro Tango Portland Band/ Alex Krebs
11:32 PM Liv Warfield Embrace Me Embrace Me Portland's own.
11:35 PM John Abercrombie Love Song Timeless
11:40 PM Fred Hersch & Bill Frisell My One and Only Love Songs We Know
11:46 PM Azimuth Dream/Lost Song Azimuth 85
11:52 PM Wayne Horvitz' Sweeter Than the Day Sweeter Than the Day Sweeter Than the Day
11:59 PM John Coltrane My Favorite Things Afro-Blue Impressions
Listen to "In Deep" next week from 12midnight to 1am.

KMHD Playlist 5/12/07

Listen to my show every Saturday night from 10-12 on KMHD 89.1 FM Portland or kmdh.fm on the web.

10:00 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue Show Theme
10:02 PM Charles Mingus E's Flat, Ah's Flat Too Blues and Roots
10:08 PM March Fourth Marching Band Space Hole March Fourth Marching Band Portland's own
10:16 PM James Blood Ulmer Are You Glad To Be In America Are You Glad To Be In America
10:19 PM Pops Staples World In Motion Peace In the Neighborhood
10:23 PM Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson Winter In America The First Minute of a New Day
10:34 PM Pink Martini Tempo Perdido Hey Eugene!
10:44 PM Moises Santana Alegria Rough Trade Guide to Brazil: Rio de Janiero
10:47 PM Revelacao Narinha E Eu
10:50 PM G.R.E.S Beja-Flor A Saga de Agotime Samba de Enredo
10:55 PM Mono Bloco Rap de Cartao Postal ? Brazilian set courtesy Brian Davis
11:02 PM Reggie Houston Pass Me Not O Gentlr Savior The Gospel Saxophone of Reggie Houston
11:11 PM Original American Jazz Quintet Nevermore In the Begninning 1956
11:21 PM Alvin Batiste Bat's Blues 1980 Southern University Jazz Ensemble LP provided by Reggie Houston
11:26 PM Alvin Batiste The Latest Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste
11:31 PM Rebirth Brass Band Just a LIttle While to Stay Here Mardi Gras In New Orleans
11:33 PM Storm Large Sacred Love Vasectomy Remixed by Auditory Sculpture
11:38 PM Jack DeJohnette Silver Hollow New Directions
11:47 PM Pink Martini Cance e Dance Hey Eugene!
11:51 PM Bill Frisell When I Fall In Love Have a Little Faith
11:53 PM Allen Toussaint Sweet Dreams Connected

KMHD Playlist 5/5/07

10:00 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue
10:03 PM Pink Martini Ojala Hey Eugene!
10:06 PM Pink Martini Everywhere Hey Eugene!
10:09 PM Mac Potts Tipitina Unreleased
10:23 PM Sonny Rollins Someday I'll Find You Freedom Suite
10:26 PM Dexter Gordon Number Four Daddy Plays the Horn
10:31 PM Mel Brown I Want a Little Girl Mister Groove Sweet Baby James Benton
10:38 PM Miles Davis Maiysha Get Up With It Miles on trumpet and ORGAN
10:41 PM Mose Allison One Room Country Shack Back Country Suite
10:57 PM John Callahan Purple Winos In the Rain Purple Winos In the Rain Yes, the cartoonist
11:02 PM Curtis Salgado & the Stillettos You're Gonna Make Me Cry Rose City Blues Festival The Album Vinyl
11:08 PM Chris Thomas King Da Thrill Is Gone From Here Dirty South Hip Hop Blues Tabby Thomas also vocals (his dad
11:13 PM The Down Band Ghost Jazz Unreleased Derek Sims trumpet/ Keith Schreiner keys
11:16 PM Skip vonKuske Intuit Intuit
11:21 PM Zoe Keating legions (reverie) one cello x 16: natoma
11:25 PM Vernon Reid Uptown Drifter Mistaken Identity
11:28 PM Daily Fog David Vest unrelesed
11:32 PM Mahavishnu Orchestra A Lotus On Irish Streams The Inner Mounting Flame
11:38 PM Carla Bley Dreams So Real Dinner Music Vinyl
11:44 PM Miranda Martino Secate (Wake Up) Canto Morricone Arranged and conducted by Maestro Morricone
11:48 PM Wayne Horvitz Love Love Love American Bandstand
11:53 PM Julee Cruise The Space For Love The Voice of Love Written and produced by DAVID LYNCH!
11:56 PM Ennio Morricone Love Theme Soundtrack Cinema Paradiso
11:58 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue

What Ever Happened to Michael Moore?

A couple of years ago he was a hero, standing up to power, standing up to Oscar, standing for what's right. Anybody seen him lately? Like at the mall? Or a 7-11? Or in line at the movies?

Wasn't he supposed to be coming out with a documentary on the health care system? Last I heard he was still looking for people who had been abused by it. How hard could it be to find that?

And I used to get emails from him all the time. Not to me personally, but his email essays were frequently brilliant, and always funny. I haven't gotten one in I don't know when.

Did he quit? Is he sick? On vacation? Did he have a motorcycle accident and is on the sidelines in a cast? Is he running a Dodge dealership in Flint? A deli in Manhattan?

Did he just get sick and tired of the fat jokes? Of all the jokes? Does he have documentarian block? Did he run out of money? Is he out skiing in Aspen?

Was he bought by the oil companies and is coming out with "The Wonderful Story of Standard Oil and How It Helps Mankind?"

Is he writing for Hugo Chavez and doesn't want to come back? Did he leave the country like many of us talk about doing?

Was he so bummed by the 2004 election that he decided to get out of the business?

I mean I haven't heard him on Air America. He doesn't seem to show up on Ed Schultz. Has Olbermann asked him to be on? Hell, he doesn't even take advantage of being on the air with a hot chick like Stephanie Miller.

Where have you gone Michael Moore? Didn't we line up in front of all those theaters? Did we not love you enough? Our nation turns its bloodshot eyes to you.

What's that you say? His new doc is going to Cannes? Why the hell didn't I get a call about this? See what happens when they get a taste of the good life? They forget their friends. Well, I only met him once but you know what I mean.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

My Radio Playlist April 28 KMHD and www.khmd.fm

Listen every Saturday night from 10 to Midnight at 89.1 in Portland or on the web.

10:00 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue
10:03 PM Pink Martini Tempo Perdido Hey Eugene!
10:07 PM Pink Martini Hey Eugene! Hey Eugene!
10:14 PM McCoy Tyner Moment's Notice Supertrios Tony Williams on drums
10:20 PM Jim Pepper/Claudine Francois Trio Crepuscule with Nellie Camargue Monk tune
10:25 PM Neville Brothers Tell It Like It Is Neville Brothers Live at Jazzfest 2005 I was there in the audience slow dancing Karen.
10:31 PM The Meters Welcome to New Orleans The Meters Reunion Jazzfest 2005 I was thisclose to the stage.
10:46 PM Reggie Houston and the Charmaine Neville Band Brother Can You Spare a Dime Live at Jazzfest 2006
10:57 PM Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians Sky Keeps Cryin' Live at Jazzfest 2006
11:07 PM Pink Martini Bukra wba'o Hey Eugene!
11:10 PM Pink Martini City of Night Hey Eugene!
11:14 PM Pink Martini Dosvedanya Mio Bambino Hey Eugene!
11:22 PM Eric Dolphy Miss Ann Status
11:29 PM Bebel Gilbert Simplesmente Bebel Gilberto Remixed Start of Snuggle Set
11:35 PM Tom Waits Somwhere Blue Valentine
11:38 PM Oregon Beneath An Evening Sky Oregon In Moscow
11:44 PM Beliss Trees Beliss
11:49 PM Pink Martini Tea For Two Hey Eugene!
11:57 PM Mahavishnu Orchestra A Lotus on Irish Streams Inner Mounting Flame

KMHD Playlist from 4/21

From my show, 10pm to Midnight every Saturday night on KMHD 89.1 in Portland and here on the web.

1. THEME WAYNE HORVITZ DUKE FROM MONOLOGUE

2. TREES SNOOKS EAGLIN FROM THE WAY IT IS

3. PEPE LINQUE OREGON FROM CROSSING GLEN MOORE TUNE

4. BROADJUMP JOHN KIRBY/CHARLIE SHAVERS FROM MOVIE SEPIA SINDERELLA 1947

5. WONDERING WHERE DON BYRON FROM BUG MUSIC

6. THE PENQUIN RAYMOND SCOTT FROM RESTLESS NIGHTS AND TURKISH DELIGHTS THE MUSIC OF RAYMOND SCOTT

7. DON BYRON THE PENQUIN FROM BUG MUSIC

8. FUNKALICIOUS KEITH SCHREINER AND DEREK SIMS UNRELEASED

9. VALENTINES DAY KEITH SCHREINER AND STORM LARGE FROM SESSIONS AT EAST

10. DON'T KNOW THE NAME KEITH SCHREINER SAW IT PERFORMED LIVE WITH DEREK SIMS UNRELEASED

11. CIRCLE DANCE PAUL MOTIAN TRIO JOE LOVANO BILL FRISELL

12. HOW SHALL I SEE YOU THROUGH MY TEARS JEVETTA STEELE AND THE J.D. STEELE SINGERS FROM OEDIPUS AT COLONUS ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM

HOUR 2

1. JOY OF TROY ORNETTE COLEMAN FROM TWINS

2. CYBER CYBER ORNETTE COLEMAN AND JOACHIM KUHN LIVE IN LEIPZIG

3. THE BLESSING DON CHERRY FROM ART DECO

4. NEFERTISIS ANDEW HLL FROM LIVE AT MONTREAUX VINYL
SNUGGLE SET

5. PURPLE NIGHT BLUES SUN RA FROM PURPLE NIGHT

6. #11 DANZA LUCUMI 3 LEG TORSO ARR GABE LEAVITT

7. A VALENTINE OUT OF SEASON JOHN CAGE FROM IN A LANDSCAPE STEVEN DRURY KEYBOARDS

8. LULLABY FOR HELENE (QUARTET VERSION) BILL EVANS FROM FROM LEFT TO RIGHT CD VERSION

9. BETTY CARTER

1O. SWEETER THAN THE DAY WAYNE HORVITZ FROM FROM A WINDOW

My KMHD Playlist 4/14/07

I do a radio show Saturdays from 10pm to Midnight (Pacific) on KMHD-FM 89.1 on the radio and streaming live here on the web.

Here's the playlist from last night.

Time Artist Song Album Notes

10:01 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue
10:03 PM Bobby Previte Open World Pushing the Envelope
10:08 PM John Zorn The Sicilian Clan Naked City
10:14 PM Liv Warfield Brotha Man Embrace Me Live at Doug Fir
10:25 PM Dahlia Forget This Place Emotional Cycles Jen Folker on vocals
10:29 PM John Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen Pin Your Spin Pin Your Spin
10:32 PM Reggie Houston's Earth Island Band Mean Bunions Urgin for the Virgin He means Virgin Islands
10:35 PM Galactic Black Eyed Peas Late for the Future
10:40 PM David Vest Monklite in Vermouth Unreleased
10:42 PM David Friesen Trio Come Rain or Come Shine Midnight Mood Live in Stockholm Randy Porter Piano, Allan Jones Drums
10:49 PM Mac Potts Tipitina Unreleased www.myspace.com/macpotts
10:58 PM Various Last of the Hipmen A Tribute to John Coltrane David Murray on Sax
11:06 PM Lester Bowie Rio Negros The Great Pertender
11:14 PM World Sax Quartet Night Train Rhythm & Blues
11:20 PM Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett The Raven Speaks Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett 1971
11:27 PM Gil Evans Las Vegas Tango The Individualism of Gil Evans Vinyl
11:36 PM Dr. John Qutre Parishe N'Awlins Dis Dat or D'Udda
11:38 PM Oregon Take Heart Northwest Passage
11:43 PM Zoe Keating We Insist one cello x 16: natoma layered cello
11:46 PM Pink Martini Song of the Black Swan Hang on Little Tomato
11:49 PM Tim Buckley Chase the Blues Away Blue Afternoon
11:53 PM Yet To Be Oregon Northwest Passage
11:58 PM Wayne Horvitz Duke Monologue Show Theme

The Cruel "Old" Subtext in the Imus Flap

Just as the Imus flap has exposed how deeply the race issue goes in America, what you may not have noticed is the subtext for many of Imus' detractors. That is the subtext of age discrimination.

Laugh if you want. But if you're laughing at that statement, you're probably under 55. And you probably laughed at "I've fallen and I can't get up." And you laugh at all the "old" jokes, too.

Take the subtext in Nina Burleigh's post here "Don Imus and the Rage of the Viagrans." His first offense was his statement about the Rutgers women. His second offense was that he's old. He needs Viagra and is therefore a lesser person than someone who doesn't. He's just old. Push him out of the way and get on with it.

Take her last line, " They are the jokes that their wives and girlfriends share with each other, but quietly, in order to hang onto their icky diamond rings and the rights to the sweet little retirement ranch.
They have to do with what those little blue pills can't cure forever."

Perhaps she doesn't see what's in her future.

Unlike bashing ethnic groups, dissing older people is particularly stupid because while Imus will never become black, every single one of those who ridicule their elders will one day become a member of the club.

In many societies elders are respected. Not this one. The difference is that the current crop of older folks are boomers who are not about to take the guff. Present company included.

You can laugh at me but I learned everything before you did, and I’m going to know what happens after you die before you do. Top that with a Viagra joke, kid.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Imus Was Doing His Job

Those African-Americans who are calling for Don Imus to be fired, should look to their own media. Radio One, an African-American owned radio network, for years has hired black racist talk show hosts. They constantly generalize about "white folks" or "Europeans." They're serious. They're not making jokes.

Ever seen any African-American comics on HBO or BET? One anti-white joke after another.

Are African-Americans going to fire anyone who makes racial jokes? How about blacks who do the dozens on other blacks? Let's fire them. Just because you're of the same race as the person to whom you are throwing the worst insults possible (the sole purpose of the dozens), doesn't absolve you of hurtful language.

Was Imus' comment stupid? Sure lots of Imus' comments are stupid. He has made a career out of stupid comments. Did I think he meant what he said? Of course not. He was doing the dozens. He insults everybody. He's a SHOCK JOCK. His purpose is to shock you. How can he shock you? By going to the limit of taste and sensitivity.

That's his job. You and I may not like the job description, but that's what he gets paid for.

I realize there's a danger in that kind of humor. But the essence of humor is exaggeration. Imus' technique of saying the worst thing that comes to his mind in order to get a laugh may be regrettable, but it doesn't make him a racist. If that were true then paint every jock and comic of every race with that brush and fire all of them.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

George Bush's Jake LaMotta Moment

Remember in "Raging Bull" when Jake LaMotta was fighting Sugar Ray Robinson for the last time? Jake was beaten to a bloody pulp. Robinson brutally hit him, repeatedly. When the ref stopped the fight, LaMotta stood, blood all over his face. Blood even dripping from the ropes. Although he was still standing, he was thoroughly defeated. He turned to Sugar Ray and said, "I never went down, Ray. You never got me down, Ray. I never went down, Ray," as though that fact mitigated his defeat.

George W. Bush has had a series of Jake LaMotta moments recently, talking defiantly to the Democrats who have defeated him. As his administration, and his life, crumbles around him, he stands in the rose garden and says, "I never went down, Nancy. You never got me down, Harry. I never went down, Democrats."

The whole world knows he has been defeated, yet he stands, bloody, trying to make us believe that it means something that he appointed the Republican fund raiser, and lying Swift Boater Sam Fox as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Another crony who would have been rejected by the Senate, snuck in as a recess appointment.

"I appointed Sam Fox, Ray. You couldn't stop me, Ray."

He stands in the ring with boos in his ears, looking defiantly into the camera and telling us that he will veto the funding for the troops. He's still reeling from the punches, dizzy and confused. Maybe he'll never realize what's happened to him…the total rejection of his presidency.

He behaves as though these childish acts negate the series of Bush Administration scandals that have been exposed. It doesn't.

As Jake's behavior was indicative of his total denial (of everything), so is Bush's recent bully behavior. Many bullies understand when they've lost. Jake didn't. Bush doesn't.

I know it'll never happen but I wouldn't mind seeing Bush in a dark cell banging his head against the wall and shouting, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

All we can hope for is that Bush ends up running a cheap bar in Miami, where he gets up on stage every night and tells bad jokes.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Sampson Revealed True Bush Philosphy

"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-rated' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial."
---Kyle Sampson, under oath.

We know that's your philosophy, Kyle. But that's not how "justice" is supposed to work. We know that your statement reflects the entire ethos of the Bush administration. Thanks for summing it up.

Politics trumps everything.

How nice of you to give us that very clear picture. "Performance-related" is the same as "political." Doing the right thing in the pursuit of justice and punishing criminals is a function of politics.

Has there ever been a clearer explanation of the theory of Rovian governance? I mean other than that he "goes home and rips the heads off of small animals." Did anyone notice how easily those words rolled off of Rove's tongue. They sounded just like all of his other lies. I wonder which of them we should believe? I choose to believe that there are many headless small animals in Karl's compost.

The "small animal" line is much more credible than anything Alberto Gonzalez has said in the past few weeks….I mean than he EVER said.

All Democrats have to do is swear these people in and let them talk. They'll tell us their morally bankrupt philosophy.

I used to think I was a cynic.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Notes: 10,000+ On the Streets of Portland, Oregon

Several weeks ago I posted here about my reactions to the antiwar demonstration in Washington D.C. I called it Good Demonstration, Bad Show. It was based upon watching people on TV scream into microphones at the podium before thousands in the live audience…and how that made for bad TV. And how that presented a good point of view badly.

Yesterday, I participated in a similar demonstration in Portland, Oregon. An estimated 10,000-15,000 people marched through the downtown, filling around 20 city blocks with a single purpose, demanding an end to the war. There were other issues and other groups involved including a bunch of those cute anarchist kids who caused a ruckus and got themselves arrested.

Early on, I sought them out because I figured they're would be the only ones who presented any danger (read: entertainment) in an otherwise polite spectrum of lefties of all stripes. They carried a sign which read, "No Gods, No Country, No Masters," (without the commas). As they marched they chanted, no jeered, at bystanders, "While you're shopping, bombs are dropping."

They appeared to be 16-20 years old. They appeared feel they had nothing to lose and were bent on venting their anger. I felt like they were my army. Then I thought, "All armies are always made up of people this age." I must admit it felt empowering to consider that they were fighting in my name. Then I thought, "Does that make me any different from anyone else who has an army?"

That thought didn’t stop me from enjoying their enthusiasm. During the Vietnam protest era, I was having a beer with some guy who was around my (draft) age. He looked at me very seriously and said, "You're into trashing aren't you?" (Note: "trashing" meant busting up things in the name of "revolution," a word that was tossed around a lot back then.) I said, "Uhhh. Ummm. Well, I'm kind of non-violent but I can see your point."

When they caused the dust-up, they spray-painted the backs of several members of the media. I thought, "Good point."

Nevertheless, as far as staging one of these mass demonstrations, it's still a bad idea to let one person after another drone on and on from a stage, through a sound system that about 25% of the crowd can hear while the rest of the folks hang out till it's time to march. It's mostly preaching to the choir anyway, and let's face it, it gets boring, no matter how heartfelt the preacher.

Oh, and one more thing. Could we have about 80% fewer folk singers?

Thankfully, and probably because it's Portland and the West Coast, there was a Burning Man feel to some of the festivities. We need that. If you don't know what Burning Man is, you're part of the problem.

There were a lot of clever signs. Take note in case we need more demontrations in your town:
"The Rapture Is Not An Exit Strategy"
"You're Certainly Too Stupid to Be the Antichrist…But You're Evil Enough," including a picture of Bush with horns.
"Some folks say we're Bush Bashing. In Oregon we call it THINKING."
"War Is Terrorism with a Bigger Budget."
"Empty Warhead Found In White House."
"W Is the New Swastika."
And one that said simply, "Enough."

What's good is being in a crowd of ten thousand people who think more-or-less like you do. It's inspiring. It was inspiring. Inspiring because folks like us have helped turn the tide. The problem is, of course, that in the face of overwhelming public disapproval of the war, the White House sends more and more troops. At the same time we chafe at the pace of Congressional action.

The point is to end the war, after all. Point made yesterday, anarchists and all.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Oregonian Story on Shel Bailey

I wrote this piece on Shel Bailey for today's Oregonian A&E section.

To My Fellow Jurors Part 2

I actually got started writing a piece on the trial we were on. A few minutes ago, after futher consideration and after looking at the defendant's MySpace page and seeing his friends, I came to the conclusion that I'd rather night write about the trial.
If "Slate" had the nerve to walk up to the victim and threaten her IN THE COURTHOUSE, there's no telling what he or his friends might do should I sell this to Willamette Week or Portland Monthly.
I will use the experience in a piece of fiction I'm working on.
Your notes will live on, just not in a piece of non-fiction.
Thanks again. I still feel like we did the right thing.

Oregon's Solution to Universal Health Care

While all eyes are on Washington, on the collapse of the Bush administration and the danger America faces from these wounded Republicans, on the war in Iraq and rumors of wars. While we focus on a premature Presidential campaign which is taking our eyes off the ball and distracting us from the real work at hand, many states are striking out on their own.

While it may seem as a joke and as traditional conservatives are laughing behind their hands at the Federal paralysis they've wrought, state government is still government!

States are moving quickly on global warming and health care. California has a health care bill working and here in Oregon, which made physician-assisted death a health matter, rather than a moral one, a bill has been introduced which makes a lot of sense.

The front man for the bill is former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D), himself an M.D. The bill has this simple statement, which blows away all of the complexities that the medical industry throws at us, "the objective of our health care system is health, not just the financing and delivery of health care services."

Oh yeah. The object is not making money for the medical industry. What a concept!

The law "Requires (the) Governor, within 90 days of passage of Act, to request congressional approval to redirect federal moneys into (a newly formed) Oregon Health Fund." That means all of the money that the federal government feeds to the state would go to a central fund which includes, "(a) Medicare funds under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act; (b) Medicaid funds under Title XIX of the Social Security Act; (c) General Fund moneys that would otherwise be spent in the Medicaid program; and (d) The value of state tax expenditures for employer-sponsored health insurance coverage."

The law argues that, "the ability of states to maintain the public's health is increasingly constrained by those federal policies, which were built around 'categories' rather than a commitment to ensure all citizens have timely access to the effective treatment of essential health conditions."

Federal policies were written by those beholden to the medical industry, not to insure the health of Americans but to make money for that medical industry.

The proposed Oregon law recognizes that, "clinging to the system of employer-sponsored coverage as it is currently structured is not an option," and similarly, "that clinging to the current structure of Medicaid is not an option." It aims to, "eliminate the need for a special program for the poor by ensuring that all Oregonians, including the most vulnerable members of our society, have access to treatment for at least the same defined set of essential health conditions."

The bill goes on to explain the nuts and bolts of how the Fund would administer health care. Read it for yourself.

While Congress talks itself to death, some states are actually doing something about health care, our most important problem.

The organization pushing the Oregon bill is We Can Do Better. This bill may or may not be the best solution, but it's an open and honest one. One that has just one objective: to keep us healthy and get us health care that doesn't bankrupt us.

The medical industry has had its day. It's time to put the brakes on them. Overtime.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Check out Art Levine's blog

Despite being an old friend of mine, he's a terrific journalist and a funny guy. His blog is listed on this page.

Portland Girl

A few years ago Greg Bond and I created this music video of a John Callahan tune. It was shot on the rainiest night of the winter, and for Portland that's saying something.
John is known for his good sense of bad humor. It was a revelation to us that he wrote so poignantly.
Clara Aho plays the Portland girl. Quite a trooper, huh?



A few months ago John released "Purple Winos In the Rain," a CD of his songs. A different version of Portland Girl is on it. You can buy it here.

Here's My Appearance On Evening Magazine

Last spring, Seattle's Evening Magazine (KING-TV) ran a piece on me and the Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent book.
They re-ran it last week. Watch it here.

Understanding the Reactions to the Cheney Bombing

In once sense I can understand why this site would delete comments on the bombing near Dick Cheney in Afghanistan that might lament that the bomb wasn't close enough do personal damage to the VP. Most of us, no matter how grudgingly, approved of Michael Dukakis' answer to Bernard Shaw's question during the campaign for President. Shaw asked, "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Dukakis said, "No, I don't, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life."

What most of us thought at the time was, "If somebody raped and murdered MY wife, I'd like to see the bastard die a slow death, but I refuse to lower myself to his level."

When the planes hit the buildings on 9/11 and thousands died, most of us wanted to retaliate. We thought it right to retaliate. That means killing the people who were responsible for those deaths. It was roundly agreed upon, except from those who think any killing is wrong.

So when Dick Cheney, the one man responsible for the deaths of thousands of American men and women in his boutique war in Iraq, and the maiming of tens of thousands of other Ameicans in his war. And the one man responsible for turning America into a nation who comitts atrocities and war crimes in torturing prisoners and illegally holding others.

And the one man responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands (hundred of thousands?) of Iraqis. And the one man who wants to start another war with Iran.

And when the one man who has hijacked the American Constituion and has tried to turn our country into a Presidential dictatorship has a bomb go off near him, is it so far-fetched to wish him ill? How many of us would have the courage of Michael Dukakis and say, "No. I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life?"

If I heard he had been blown up? It's never good to take a life but I would not have been unhappy to have someone else as Vice President of the United States.


This is also on huffingtonpost.com

To My Fellow Jurors

Was a troublesome weekend, wasn't it?
I have not get begun to write and I don't know where it'll end up, if anywhere. If you'd like to see the result it might be better for you to email me your email address and let me notify you when I'm done and what I've done with it.
My email is tvdpdx@gmail.com
I'm getting a CD of the courtroom recordings and I'd be happy to share that with you, too. They don't transcribe, or "translate" as that P.I. called it.
Thanks to those of you who gave me your notes. I will not be using the real names of any of us jurors.
I still feel I made the right decisions, even though doubt creeped in from time to time. It wasn't enough to make me think I should have voted the other way.

Portland Songwriters Contest Story

Here's a piece I wrote which ran on Friday, February 16 in the A&E section of The Oregonian.

Through the Open Shield

Originally posted on Common Ties a wonderful website which I am very happy to write for.

By Tom D’Antoni

It was 1992 and I had it going. I was living in Baltimore. I had a writer/producer staff job at an advertising agency, I had a show on a national talk radio network, I had begun publishing an alternative newspaper and I was producing a TV show for the Mayor of Baltimore. Around that time King World hired me to produce segments for a new TV show they were introducing starring comedian Tim Reid. And I was living with my poet girlfriend and helping her raise a 10-year-old son.

I had a great life.

Within six months it was all gone. Everything, including the girlfriend. Some of it was my fault and some of it was bad fortune. Doesn’t matter though, does it?

I had nowhere to turn. I got a job driving a cab and spent the next two-plus years working at America’s single most dangerous occupation.

Driving a cab in a city like Baltimore is not like driving a cab in New York or L.A. where, although it sucks, it is perceived as a way-station, an in-between job for creative types. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a godsend for immigrants, and in towns like Portland, Oregon, drivers actually enjoy their work and make a profession out of it. But see, I had already had my work before millions of people and I was over 40. It felt like a dead end. How could I ever recover? I didn’t see any way possible.

I played the kill-me game. I would pick up anyone. I picked up every criminal I could find. Maybe one of them would kill me. Baltimore was a racist town, probably still is, and the hatred went both ways. I was the fish and the cab was the barrel.

It felt good having sunk so low. It confirmed all the bad things I believed about myself. If I had been smart enough, I thought, I would have been a real criminal. They weren’t going to have their phone cut off. They didn’t have a heart to break. I was stuck. I could see no way out.

I was in shock. I felt the pain, but I was too numb, hurt too badly to feel all of it. I drove cabs so beat up they shouldn’t have been on the street. I wasn’t able to drive every day. I didn’t want to die that much. I was passive aggressive about my suicide. Three, maybe four nights a week, and no weekends, too much competition. I could make as much on a Monday as those poor bastards did fighting each other for fares on the weekends.

It was too crazy on the weekends, anyway. I couldn’t even commit to my own suicide enough to risk being out there at 1:30 a.m. when the night was at its peak, when the bars were almost closed, and the frenzy of drunken, vicious men scavenged the streets, out to use the night and everybody in it for their own purposes, no matter what the cost.

Fridays were the worst. People got paid on Fridays. You never had the back of the cab empty then. You were never out of danger. I wanted to choose my poison. I didn’t leave the house thinking, “Tonight I’m gonna do something to cause them to kill me.” Maybe it would just happen that way.

Odd, in light of this, that I wouldn’t drive without a shield between the front and back seats. Some drivers wouldn’t drive WITH one. They didn’t pick up criminals.

Cab drivers were getting shot all the time, blown away usually from the back seat, sometimes from the driver’s side window. It didn’t make me feel anything. I figured one of these days my number would come up. There would be a lot of pain for a brief moment, and then all the pain would stop.

I felt time running out. I had spent so much time working at what I did best, the writing, TV and radio … this should have been the time I put it all together and really did something. Instead, I was in this cab. I could feel the time slipping by like I was bleeding to death.

I thought about those self-righteous self-help bastards on TV, always talking about having a choice … nice theories … bullshit in reality. Ask a junkie. Ask a drunk. Ask the cab driver.

In the depths of it all, I picked up a black woman and her little daughter who was maybe 5 years old. I left the shield open. We didn’t talk after she told me where she was going. I was so buried under the weight of my failure I could barely talk to anyone.

What prompted her, I’ll never know. We drove in silence for 10 minutes. I stopped at a red light. Without warning, the little girl grasped the base of the open shield with both of hands. She stuck her head through the opening in the shield and said, “I love you.”

I busted out crying.

It was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.

Through my tears, I said, “I love you, too.” I don’t know if her mother heard me or what she thought, but she must have been as surprised as I was.

My misery continued for another couple of years, but that one moment of pure angelic bliss has never left my mind.

Send This Message To the Troops---The Truth

Republicans like John McCain and Joe Lieberman (I know) keep saying that we shouldn't send the wrong message to the troops, when it is they who have been sending not only the wrong message to the troops, but wrong in sending the troops THEMSELVES in the first place.

Truth is harsh. It's not pretty, but here is the message the troops should be hearing:

You have been sent to fight and die so that several American corporations can make untold fortunes from your sacrifices. You were lied to from the beginning. There was no threat to the United States. You are not defending "freedom." You are dying so that others may get richer.

That's why your friends have died, your wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, even Cindy Sheehan's son. Not for freedom, or to prevent another 911, but for the greed of the friends of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In other words, in vain.

As tough as that is to swallow, it's the truth.

Troops, the rest of America has figured this out. We're trying to get you home. Many of us have been fighting for years to get you home. Many of us did all we could to try to prevent you going there.

One problem is that Bush has two more years in the White House, and you are stuck in his hell. Many of you will die for his miscalculated adventure which, although it blew up in his face, still provided war profits on a scale that should send him and his friends to a federal prison for the rest of their lives. His handlers have turned his latent megalomania into an excuse for keeping you in the middle of a civil war that they stoked.

Make no mistake, we want you home. The problem is that politicians are politicians. When a McCain trots out the tired old (see 1968) "supporting the troops" chant, even politicians against the war take cover, sputtering when they should be loud and clear. It's simple. The war was wrong. We were lied to by the Bush Administration to get into it. It is they who have the blood of your comrades on their hands.

They need to say, "Not one more dime for this war. Nothing. Mr. President, if you don't have the money to fight this war, then you'll just have to bring home the troops. And start today."

That's what the American people were saying on election day.

A harder truth is that it is our troops who tortured and are probably still torturing. Yes, I know that orders came down from above, but the deeds have been carried out by the "troops" we're supposed to be supporting. Every action carries personal responsibility and the responsibility for killing and maiming in the name of me and my country is on the troops as well as those giving the orders.

Here's another idea, troops. Stop fighting. Do everything you can to protect yourself and your comrades, but no more. Tell your commanding officers, they might agree with you. If you come home and they want you to go over again, don't go. Step forward and join the huge percentage of the rest of us who are convinced that this is a mistake that we need not compound any more.

So if you're one of the troops who continues to kill Iraqis so that Haliburton, Exxon-Mobil and the rest can continue to loot America's treasury and ruin the economy for future generations, I don't support you. You don't represent me. You represent a CEO someplace.

Like I said, truth is harsh.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Gays In the Military---It's a MALE Problem

The problem with gays in the military being out of the closet is not a gay problem. It’s not even a straight problem. It’s a male problem, it has to do with how men behave.

In the entire debate, which began again once last week, there has hardly been a peep out of lesbians or hetero women on any of the issues raised by straight men opposed to the idea. We didn’t hear anything about women not wanting to shower with other women, or sleep in close quarters, or…. anything.

Why? Because women don’t behave the same way as men do, sexually. For one thing, with very few exceptions, women don’t rape.

There is within every man, straight or gay, an unconscious understanding of male sexuality. It is, I am told by my gay male friends, better understood by gay men, because they deal with other men’s sexuality on a regular basis. But straight men (like me) know that, given the opportunity, men will have sex with anything that attracts them; be it male, female, animal, vegetable….basically any other person or object in the universe.

And when are the male peak sexual years? The same years most men serve in the military, including the years when the main thing men think about is sex.

That’s what straight men in the military are afraid of, even though they may not know that’s what they’re afraid of. Unfortunately, they may be right. This is not an argument against giving gay men and lesbians the same rights for which they are putting their lives on the line. It’s just a fact about men.

If gay military men were allowed to be out, it could well be a tremendous lesson for men in general. It could help men in confronting the fact that it is the men in the world who do the raping, and most of the sexual harassment. When these straight men are confronted with gay men who behave the same way toward them that they have behaved toward women….well, we may have some old fashioned consciousness raising.

And, by the way, anybody who thinks that gay men won’t be checking out every good looking man who walks by, just doesn’t understand men.

Does this mean that men can’t control themselves? Of course not. It means that men might better learn to, finally, or at least learn that anything that turns them on is not fair game.

It’s all a learning experience. Learning how to live with each other in or out of the military is tough, given the random nature of human behavior. There should be a lot more talk among men about their sexuality. And I mean neither Howard Stern-type discussion, nor running to the woods and beating on drums.

There aren’t any simple answers to the questions of how to deal with men of all sexual orientations in the military. Men just don’t deal with their own sexuality very well.

Perhaps a calms discussion of how men of all sexual persuasions can live together in the military is a good place to start.

Sex In Space?? America Demands Answers!!

Once again, reality catches up to tabloiditry.

Years ago I wrote a piece for The Sun, the American supermarket tabloid, entitled "Sex In Space, They've Already Tried It." The piece was rejected because they didn't want any sex stories, something I always regretted because sex is the home page for fantasies. There are more fantasies about sex than any other single aspect of human existence.

Don't look at me like that.

Nevertheless, I didn't include that story in my book "Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories From a Tabloid Writer ." It just wasn't as funny as the others, which may be another reason it got shot down by The Sun.

Now we find out that astronaut Lisa Nowak and Shuttle pilot William Oefelein were "involved." They may have tried it during weightless training for all we know. They never flew together, but other men and women have shared that small intimate space aboard the Shuttle. According to MSNBC, "Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was 'more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship,' according to an arrest affidavit."

All of this came out when she was arrested for allegedly going after a woman whom she thought was seeing her celestial lover.

Do our astronauts have meaningless sex in space?

Now the real questions begin:

Did they take their clothes off?
What's it like doing it while weightless?
Did the others know?
How far did they go?
What's the quality of the orgasm in space?
How do they clean up?
Is there video?
Where can I buy it?

As a loyal American citizen, I demand to know these answers. I helped pay for the damned Space Shuttle and the salaries of those astronauts and I want the facts! Here's where Congressional oversight comes into real play.

What have we learned from their experiences?
Did weightlessness contribute to Nowak's alleged jealous rage?
Is the pilot of the shuttle a cad?
Is it true that they had to erase "For a good time call Lisa at (phone number redacted)" on the shuttle and the space station walls?
And just how do all those sperms swim without gravity?

America demands answers!!

A can of worms has been opened! Was this the first time?
Have they been testing out the body's reactions to sex all along?
What about all those men-only flights?
Is there a higher rate of pay for those who participate?
Do they tip?

I want Congressional hearings now! And I want them on C-SPAN, every goddamned second of them.

America is drooling today!

And don't bother looking for the video online. I already tried.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Harold & Kumar Go to Jail In Boston---For WHAT?

How funny was it to hear those self-righteous reporters at the "news conference" held by Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, the two guys who pranked the city of Boston?

Very.

Very very.

Gave me faith in the power of silliness.

First of all, they were obviously told by their lawyer not to talk about the case. So what do you do if you're creative, hold a certain contempt for MSM and have been told to shut up? You ACT up. You talk about hair. Dreads, especially.

The New York Times said that "the men engendered little public sympathy when, after their release, they held a news conference at which Mr. Berdovsky said they wanted to discuss 'haircuts in the ‘70s and how they affect our lives today and how we live in the future.'"

Wrong. They engendered lots of public sympathy (and giggles) from people like me who understand what a prank is, and that somebody grossly overreacted in Boston, thinking that stupid little ad boxes were bombs.

According to the NYT, a spokesperson from the offending company. "said that the company had intended the devices as unconventional advertising in 10 cities, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. She said the light boards had been in place for two to three weeks and there had been no complaints from other cities."
A Boston official said, “Maybe the media wants to take this lightly and ask foolish questions -- they can do that, but we’re going to take this seriously.”

And now Boston wants to jail Harold and Kumar for putting up stupid little boxes to advertise a goofy cartoon series. Further, the media continues to excoriate the boys for playing with them at the news conference.

Somebody needs to lighten up, starting with the City of Boston and its media.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Some Recent Oregonian Stories of Mine

I've been writing for their A&E section. Here are some you might like:

On Noah Mickens

On bassist/singer Belinda Underwood

On trumpeter Jumaane Smith

Don't Be Fooled by Gordon Smith's "Moderation"

I was wrong when I wrote here about Sen. Gordon Smith (R. Oregon). Well, I wasn't mistaken in my reaction to my meeting with Smith when I was working on a story on physician-assisted suicide, I just cut him a break of which he isn't deserving.

For the real lowdown on Smith please read this story by Steve Novick in the current issue of Portland's Willamette Week. It'll set everybody straight about Smith.

Ok, I admit it. I WAS wrong. And I'm voting for Steve if he runs.

Good Demonstration, Bad Show

The anti-Iraq demonstration on the mall in Washington was all well and good. Not huge by historical standards, but it's always good to put some bodies in front of the capitol and show either support or rejection.

Since I was 3000 or so miles away, I watched it on C-Span. What I saw was both happily familiar and extremely discouraging. Happily familiar because I participated in many such demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the streets and on the Mall, and in Oregon during the weeks before the current war.

Extremely discouraging because what I saw on TV was a lot of people yelling into a microphone, and a lineup of various causes and factions that, while worthwhile to consider, distracted from the message of the day.

First, it did nobody any good to stand in front of a microphone and scream angrily. I'm as angry as anybody, as anyone who has read any of my postings here knows, but the series of belligerence that presented itself on my TV, while perhaps effective in a large outdoor gathering, trivialized the arguments against the war and the Bush administration.

Am I calling for more politeness? No. Well, yes. I count myself in with the angriest of the speakers, but I know how to use a mic and I know what works on TV and what doesn't. Yelling into a mic doesn't play well, except with the people who agree with you to the letter. Hell, I'm on their side and it annoyed me. Imagine how it played elsewhere.

You know what it's like? It's like watching a play performed in a theater, but shot for TV. The actors are playing to the balcony because they have to be heard, but to the viewer, it appears as though the actors are overplaying everything. Everything is exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.

Thankfully, nobody watches C-Span.

And another thing. Stop with the chants. It was one thing to yell "Hell no, we won't go," even "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win" in 1968. It's another thing to keep chanting the same things over and over and over and over. Get a new tune. Better still, don't chant. I don't care if it makes you feel good. It pigeon holes you. It dates you. And it annoys me.

And variations don't work either. It's old media. It's medium hot. All it does is get on people's nerves.

As far as allowing every group who has an axe to grind that might be the least bit close to the issue at hand? Keep the message simple. Yes, we'd all like the Palestinians to have self-government, but keep them off the podium at an anti-Iraq war demonstration. It only confuses the issue.

I took away this image from watching on Saturday: Somebody dressed in a big winter coat, standing in front of the microphone yelling, with steam billowing out of their mouth. Spit, too. I know they were trying to rally those in attendance. It didn't look that way. It looked like something I wanted to avoid.

These demonstrations need to be re-thought and brought into the 21st Century.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Welcome to the Geezer Club

I would like to be the first to welcome the members of Gen-X to the Geezer's Club.

The current issue of "Betty's Attic: Where memories of yesterday live on today" arrived in my mail today. It featured various nostalgic ephemera: Elvis merchandise, a Marilyn Monroe Shoe Purse, a Lucy "Vitameatavegamin Wall Clock," a Betty Boop watch, a Reagan wall plaque, various WWII and Civil War items, a Mr. T bobble-head doll, stuff from The Munsters, The Beatles and John Wayne, a "Flower Power Car Magnet Set," and an assortment of vintage car models, among many other things. But on the "Sights & Sounds From The Past" page, next to some Elvis Poster Magnets and Grateful Dead merchandise was the "Kurt Cobain Figure."

Gen-Xers, you've finally made it.

The copy reads, "Generation-X-ers remember the first time they heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' It was a seminal moment for rock—grunge replaced 80s glitter and Kurt Cobain was at the forefront of a cultural transformation. This 7" tall vinyl action figure with acoustic guitar, chair, microphone and music stand captures the essence of Cobain based on a 1993 MTV Unplugged session."

It's twenty bucks.

And for Gen-X, I'm happy to say, "It's all over now, baby blue."

You now qualify for membership in the ranks of those you once scorned. Welcomin, bienvenue, welcome. We've been waiting for you.

Personally, I've been waiting for you since I heard your first selfish whine. Now that you're officially over the hill, do those little problems you were having back then seem so big? You thought you had problems then? Well, think how close you are to having your prostate swell up like a bowling ball.

You're going to be in the unenviable position of paying off the bills all of those Republicans ran up when you were off wandering around in your own muck. You couldn't be bothered to vote, of course, you were too busy being sad. At the same time you'll be counting the days until you have to pay for my nursing home bills. You'll be welcoming your Denny's senior discounts then, my friends.

Oh, it's a delicious moment.

When grunge was at its "peak" (or should I say, "depth") I remember saying, "Hey, call me when you get a real problem." Well, now you have one, more than one.

How are you going to handle this? Put on some Elliott Smith?

Face it, your hero has been reduced to a trivial action figure. No more valuable than Mr. Potato Head, who also costs twenty dollars. Or the Zorro figurine which costs a HUNDRED AND SEVENTY!

Are you finding yourself going out much less frequently and dozing off in front of the Daily Show? And not even getting to Colbert? Perhaps you can put your Kurt Cobain inaction figure on your nightstand.

See you in line at Denny's, dude.

This first appeared in The Oregonian on their op-ed page.

Will the media revert to cowardice?

What will be interesting to see this evening is how much of a break the networks and news channels (not Fox News) give Bush when he's finished his hubris. Time after time, we've heard drivel and weak obsequies from the gathered reporters and pundits after a major Bush speech.

Will they reflect the polls and take the gloves off? We know Olbermann will. But in times like these, they have always bowed and scraped to the office and the power. It's one of the things that got us in this mess.

They may have enough cover now. They haven't gotten any more courageous, but when only 28% of the polled population supports Bush's war, the media have someplace to hide.

Today's news channels have programmed like this speech was the Super Bowl. I'm hoping John Madden will be there to telestrate as Bush reads. (As he reads someone else's words.)

What's the Vegas line on the outcome?

Chney to CBS: Let's Hang Saddam at Super Bowl Halftime

This email was sent to me by accident today. It was intended for Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS.

12/28/06
From: Dick Cheney
To: Les Moonves
Re: Super Bowl Halftime

Hey Les. We're all sitting around up here talking about how to look better on the Iraq issue and we have an interesting proposition for you. I know this is the first Super Bowl for CBS since Janet Jackson. We worked together so well on that one. Karl's idea of the nipple reveal was a brilliant stroke. It took the heat off of us on the war, and sent your ratings through the roof. It also galvanized our base.

So how about this? I know it's coming to you late but….We're offering to hang Saddam on the 50 yard line at halftime at this year's Super Bowl. We figure if you start the promos two days before, the lefties will do the work of getting the word out. I can't wait to hear fucking Olbermann on this one lololol.

We'll pick up the construction of the gallows. KBR can get that built fast, if I tell them to.

If there's any trouble with the entertainment you've already scheduled, Condi had a great idea, have Prince and Beyonce sing "Where Doves Cry" in duet as the trap door opens. W suggested 50 Cent pay tribute to Saddam's crimes with some funky fresh thug rhymes (those are W's words) as Saddam is driven into the stadium in that spare Popemobile they keep in Miami.

I can understand if you want to keep Jim Nance and Phil Simms out of it. We can provide Bill O'Reilly for play-by-play. If you have a problem with Fox talent, I can get you Michael Buffer, everybody loves him.

We can arrange to have several thousand Iraqis in full native costume to weep and wail and cheer as he dies.

I know you understand the entertainment and ratings value of this. We figure it'll help get our momentum back. Get back to me asap.

Can't wait for us to go hunting again!

James Brown In the Witness Chair c.1980

In the early 1980s, James Brown's empire was in tatters. He had sold his James Brown Motor Inn in Baltimore and had to sell WEBB, which before he bought it had been the first all-Black radio station in Baltimore, Maryland. He was selling off properties all over the country.

I was a story producer for Westinghouse's Evening/PM Magazine at the time and I heard that he was going to be in town for a court appearance. Apparently he owed millions. I wanted to see if he would do an interview for the show, so I showed up at the courtroom.

This was around the same time that the federal government had just bailed out Chrysler to the tune of $1.2 billion.

When I walked in, there he was, James Brown himself, on the witness stand. Lawyers interrogated him. The judge asked him questions. It was obvious he was in deep shit.

After a half-hour of questioning, James Brown turned to the judge and in that unmistakable rasp of a voice, and in one moment of pure insight said, "Judge, if I was Chrysler, you wouldn't be doing this to me."

Of course, he was right, but the proceedings went ahead anyway.

BTW….I got the interview.

One day his various behaviors will be forgotten and only the music will remain. Then we'll fully understand his singular genius.

This can also be found at huffingtonpost

Throwing Rocks at Republicans -- Real Rocks

Kenneth Dwayne Thomas is in jail today in Columbus, Ohio for doing what many of us would like to do if we didn't mind sitting in a similar lock-up. Columbus TV station WCMH said he "was caught on camera throwing rocks at the Republican Headquarters building in Columbus. Officials said windows at the headquarters on South 5th Street have been broken nearly a dozen times… They also said staff members have nearly been pelted with thrown objects. Republicans said they thought the vandalism would die down after the recent elections, but that wasn’t the case."

Is anybody else laughing besides me?

Kenny reportedly told police that Republicans were a cancer and should be exterminated.

He may have gone a little far there. A hefty dose of chemo, yes, but extermination is probably not a good word to use, Kenny. I understand though. Ohio Republicans stole the 2004 Presidential Election and therefore take on responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration since then.

Hey, sometimes you just wanna throw rocks, you know? A pie is more my speed, if I must throw something, but I'm better at throwing invective.

Although Ken is 58, what can a poor boy do? That sleepy college town is no place for a street-fighting man.

I'm surprised the Republicans haven't called it a terrorist act, YET. Give Fox news time though. But even though I'm not advocating the use of violence (did you read that Alberto?), Jim Webb DID want to punch Bush in the chops the other day. It isn't unreasonable to want to punish the Republicans for the damage they've done to America.

Still, a little "yessssssssssss" was heard all over America when folks like me who would like to form an organization called "People for American Payback" heard about Kenny's activities.

W's Smirk is back

The arrogance and condescension is back in his voice and the smirk is back on his face…the straining to convince us that what he believes is right because he believes it; and exactly what's wrong with us for not believing him? He's leaning forward with that "Don't you KNOW? Don't you understand what I'm SAYING? Is it too COMPLICATED for you? What I'm saying is so OVBIOUS. Why don't you GET it?"

And the look that says, "How many times do I have to TELL you this before you GET it?"

In other words, after a short period of looking "thumped," he is back with all the aspects about him that Americans have rejected, those things that have made him the laughing stock of the world. The only ones not laughing are those who have suffered and continue to suffer and die under his regime.

Did you see him yesterday at his "news" conference with the military? Did you hear him talk about how brilliant they were? And did you notice the two guys flanking him? The one on the right who looked like his head had been used as a bowling ball and the one on the left who had apparently added an extra couple of stories to his forehead. They looked about as brilliant as the slow class at The United States Military College at Mortville.

Am I disrespecting the troops? I think I am. Think about it, what kind of idiot do you have to be to join the military this month? To fight for what? Has anybody told the troops over there that they're getting killed so some fat guys in Washington and Texas can buy mansions, stuff their faces and purchase whores?

You know what I call someone who puts on a uniform and flies to the other side of the world to risk his life for the Republican Party? I call him a terminal fool.

But then, that's what I've been calling W since the moment I first saw him. As part of the media pack when he visited Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2000, before the Republican Convention, I got to be close to him. The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. A sure sign of a drunk.

The second thing I noticed was that, like James Webb, I wanted to slap his monkey face. He was just like all of the fratboy assholes I had ever known. I have never wanted to have a beer, a line of coke with him, or spend another single moment in his presence.

So when he walked out with those stuffed uniforms yesterday, and his mouth formed that ugly smirk, and he said, once again that his way was the only way and fuck Baker and fuck Hamilton and the stretch limos they rode in on, I didn't feel quite a bad as usual. Why? Because he's a pitiful isolated lonely lunatic, clinging to power and ridiculed behind his back by everyone in the world. America's friends, its enemies, its trading partners, even countries who could give a rat's ass what happens in America are laughing at him.

We're all laughing at you George. Don't you get it? Even old Gerald Ford who did absolutely nothing as President, and got fired before he could fall down another time, even HE was voted a better president than W….and by a huge margin.

Wipe it off, W, the Dems haven't even started the hearings yet.

The Sincere Senator Smith

About this Gordon Smith guy.

As a ten-year Oregon resident, my first lesson in Oregon politics didn't come from any one here. It came on my radio talk show (at the time) shortly after I moved here, and it didn't come from an Oregonian. It came from Washington (DC) writer Bill Thomas. I asked him about the Oregon Congressional delegation. You know, the dirt. He said, "Oh, well there isn't much. Oregon is one of those 'good government' states."

We have our right wing crazies here, of course, but they always lose. They've done their damage over the years; spending limits and mandatory sentencing, both of which have proven failures. This year's election saw the rejection of a conservative Republican and the re-election of the current governor who is best known for his bowling. Hardly anyone can think of a single thing he's ever done. In Oregon, that's not necessarily a bad thing, after all, the legislature meets every TWO years.

We tend to use government here in the way it was intended, to improve things. Although Portland has been living off its gloriously innovative recent past, it's still way ahead of much of the country in the way it decides how things get done. There is less of that now, as the condo class takes over the city, but still people flock here because it's just a better place to live.

There are lots of things on Gordon Smith's minus side. Oregon is the least churched state in the country, but we're tolerant and most of us tolerate Smith's belief in Mormon mythology. We didn't like his recent support of racist Trent Lott's quest to return to House leadership.

Smith isn't easy to pigeon-hole. He's literally from the Udall family. Mo is listed as a "double cousin" (whatever that is). If there is such a thing as the Republican center, he's in it.

He's generally pro gay rights but voted against gay marriage. He's generally with the administration but not on stem cell research. He was against the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law, but sponsored the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges. The act is named after his son who killed himself. It was around that time that he and Oregon's other Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, became close friends. Remember the striking video of Wyden consoling Smith on the floor of the Senate?

I sat I his office in 2000 when I was working on a magazine piece on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. The other Republicans were trying all manner of fakes and dodges to pander to their base and thwart the law, making things up right and left about the law and its administration. Smith was the only politician I interveiwed who looked me square in the eye and said it was a religious issue for him. I may disagree with him and I'm definitely in the Sam Harris camp when it comes to finding religious views absurd, but at least Smith was telling the truth.
So it was surprising but not terribly so to hear him speak out against the war the other day. He's from one of those "good government" states.

One insight into his personality comes from the Smith Frozen Foods website www.smithfrozenfoods.com. He bought his grandaddy's business in Western Oregon in the 1980s and is known among us snickering Progressives as "the peapacker." But he apparently takes it seriously. And why not? Here's what they say about him, " One of Gordon Smith's earliest memories is stepping into the freezer of a pea processing plant his family owned and feeling the cold air on his face. He saw rows and rows of boxed vegetables, ready for shipment. He saw his grandfather and father at work that day, long ago in the plant. For him, it produced an image frozen in time."
As inadvertent a joke as the phrase "frozen in time" may be, it gives you an idea that this guy may be on the wrong side of many if not most issues, but he's got sincerity coming out his ass.

Nevertheless, he's too late to the Iraq war party. Whether his sincerity overrides his bad choices in supporting the Administration on the war all these years sets up a fun show when he runs for re-election in 2008. He could be beaten by ex-governor John Kitzhaber, should he run. Kitzhaber is a physician who favors cowboy boots and is getting national buzz for his push for better health care. www.wecandobetter.org

this also appears on huffington.com

Baker Boys -- A Total Waste of Time

With everyone running in circles, leaping for joy and clapping their hands over the fact that Jim Baker's boys have concluded what many of us knew before the war started, that you can't win in Iraq, it might be good to consider:

Any reading of history will tell you that this was the obvious outcome.

And if you had asked any Iraqi at the time (as many did), you would have discovered that yes, they wanted Saddam out, but they wanted us out just as fast.

The overwhelming sentiment in Iraq in the days before the U.S. invasion was that things would be fine if the U.S. would leave things to the Iraqis and go home quickly. Under ordinary circumstances you would expect the U.S. government to know things like that. It is the ultimate irony that the group led by James Baker, which represents the worst in American foreign policy in the 1980s (see: Iran-Contra, etc) would be the ones to bring a sliver of reality to the attention of the Bush White House.

All of those months of study, the thousands of hours of testimony and deliberations will be for nothing. That's because nothing but the total withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq will solve the problems Bush unleashed when he made all the wrong decisions.

He broke it. He can't fix it. America can't fix it. We've proven that. The Iraqis don't want the U.S. to fix it. And if we don't like the manner in which they will fix it themselves, that's our problem, not theirs. They have enough problems. Our leaving will solve one of them. How they solve the other problems is their sovereign choice, not ours. The U.S. doesn't care how the Sudanese are fixing their problems. Or how the Rwandans did.

Blog on folks. Let the hours of punditry reign for a couple of news cycles. It won't matter. Nothing will change until there isn't a single American, military or mercenary, left in Iraq.

this also appears on huffingtonpost.com

CounterPunch December Playlist

While waiting for Rick Rubin to offer O.J. Simpson an album deal:

1. Zoe Keating "one cello x 16: natoma" CD

You can't cross the street without engaging a cello these days. At least that's the way it seems. Keating, a tall woman with stalks of wild red hair and an international following has cooched up her cello with electronics, loops herself, plays percussion on it, and sounds like a one-woman string quartet with self-percussion.

Matter of fact, she even calls it "layered cello." And even though if you say that aloud, it sounds like some kind of dessert, it is the cello equivalent of "prepared piano." Of course, given today's technology, prepared piano is a quaint concept. This isn't quaint.

If I were writing for a MSM publication I might have to tip-toe around and mew shit like, "this is very modern but it's totally accessible." Well I don't give a rat's ass if it's accessible or not. It's accessible to me, and this is the stuff I'M listening to. On the other hand, this album made it to #2 on iTunes classical chart at one point, so she's certainly well-known.

This is gorgeous, it's exciting and irresistible. She is getting a new cello in a few months. He current cello has been with her since she was twelve. She is all excited about it. She'll continue to travel with the old one, but if you see a new studio album in the future, it will be with the new one. She is all excited about it. She is recording live in Portland, Oregon at Mississippi Studios in December with the old one.
www.zoekeating.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUDI256PY4E


2. John Callahan "Purple Winos In the Rain" CD

He's the quadriplegic nationally syndicated cartoonist with a dark sense of humor that twenty-somethings only dream of having. There is something to be said for a bad attitude coming from a person who actually earned it.

A few years ago videographer/editor Greg Bond and I made a music video of one of Callahan's songs for a TV show we were working on. It was "Portland Girl." Few knew that Callahan was a song writer or a singer at the time. The song was oddly sentimental. Sentiment is not something John is known for.

Guitarist Terry Robb produced this album and John did the illustrations for its brilliant packaging.

The songs are not happy ones, sentiment aside. They come from the depths but are not the whining of someone just out of puberty who never grew out of teen-angst. These are adult, sarcastic; sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic.

It includes a recording taken from Callahan's voice mail of Tom Waits singing one of Callahan's songs to him.

Callahan's voice is soft and fragile, sometimes reaching for notes. Every time he reaches you want him to make it.

Although "Purple Winos In the Rain" is the title tune, and the most promotable for the title if nothing else, the key song is "Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel." You'll have to make that journey on your own, dear reader.

You're going to be hearing about this soon. Remember you heard it here first.
www.callahanonline.com


3. Bob Dylan "Theme Time Radio—Food"

Dylan's radio show on Sirius has evolved from his playing recordings of other people and either cracking wise or obviously reading (stiffly) copy it sounded like someone else had written about the subject of that show.

These days, he sounds much more relaxed, is quipping and making those bad jokes he has become known for in his later songs, and has added audio clips from other songs, radio commercials and other ephemera. His show has gone from a curiosity to a treasure of great old tunes that Dylan finally sounds like he's having fun with.

There have been thrity-one of them at this writing. You can find them online at
http://www.whitemanstew.com/2006/05/12/bob-dylans-theme-time-radio-hour/
It will lead you to the shows.

4. "Let the Good Times Roll: A NW Tribute to Ray Charles

The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon is one of the best in the country, and perhaps the only one booked by a working musician. Two years ago saxophonist Patrick Lamb, best known for his "smooth jazz" recordings, wanted to get back to his R&B roots and put together an all-star Portland band to pay tribute to Ray Charles.

The result is this album, and it's a powerhouse. New star vocalist Liv Warfield does a duet with harmonica virtuoso and singer Paul DeLay, soul/blues diva Linda Hornbuckle sings on two cuts, veteran vocalist Sweet Baby James Bentonswings, and Wildman Lee Garrett takes the band to outer space.

Solos by ex-New Orleans great Reggie Houston, by Lamb himself, pianists D.K. Stewart and Janice Scroggins, and out of the blue, Eddie Martinez comes out of nowhere on guitar.

A couple of solos on this are poignant to jazz fans in the Northwest from fiery trumpeter Thara Memory, a force of nature for a long time here. He is currently in a wheelchair, a victim of diabetes and is in bad shape. It is lovely to remember him as he was here.
www.nwraycharlestribute.com


5. Bunker Hill "Hide and Go Seek (Part 1)" on Ace CD "The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Volume 6"

I bought the single new. I was partial to jungle drums and wild R&B. Little did I know that "Bunker Hill" was actually Dave Walker who had just come from singing with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and after a brief solo career would rejoin them.

Nor did I know that the musicians behind this song and all of his recordings as Bunker Hill, was none other than Link Wray. Matter of fact the line up on this out-of-control gospel-party-out-of-church is as follows: Bunker Hill - vocals, Link Wray - guitar, Vernon Wray - piano, Doug Wray - drums, Shorty Horton – bass…not that I can hear any guitar. You can listen for yourself on the MySpace page.

Hill (Walker) had been a professional boxer in D.C. Legend has it that he was 18-5-5, with many of his fights on TV. Billboard Magazine even said the he had been Archie Moore's sparring partner, but who knows what the truth is?

The real truth is that I keep playing this over and over. I did when I bought the single, and I continued after I discovered it on this great CD collection (which includes the Sparkletones' "Black Slacks," and Noble "Thin Man" Watts' "Hard Times (The Slop)." I even put "Hide and Go Seek" on my own MySpace page: www.myspace.com/tvdpdx. I have never gotten tired of it.

Walker (Hill) had written "You'll Never Know," one of the songs on the Mighty Clouds of Joy's first album and sang lead on it. His career as Bunker Hill was something he kept separate and concealed, as much as possible.

You can hear the gospel influence as Bunker Hill, and the devil's too. He hooked up with Link Wray in D.C. He wanted to remain anonymous. Link and his brother wanted to call him "Four H. Stamp," but settled on Bunker Hill.

When "Hide and Go Seek" was released in 1962 (in two parts—both sides of the single) it made Billboard's Hot 100, stayed there for thirteen weeks and got up to #33. At a time when Rock n Roll had turned into pop drivel people like Bunker Hill and Gary U.S. Bonds kept the flame alive.

After his next few records stiffed, Walker (Hill) went back to the Clouds. He is said to have died in Houston in the 1980s. But even the most fanatical website can't confirm this. Most of the facts above were taken from such sites. You think I KNEW this shit?

What is this song about? Who the fuck knows? I just can't stop playing it. I'm STILL not ready!!!! (Listen and you'll understand.)
www.myspace.com/bunkerhill


6. Gil Evans "The Individualism of Gil Evans" LP

From 1964, on Verve, I group this with his two Impulse! albums "Out of the Cool" and "Into the Hot." He was a total individual then, and his work remains equally unique.

The personnel on here are astounding. On two of the cuts he uses THREE bassists, Paul Chambers, Richard Davis and Ben Tucker on one and Milt Hinton, Paul Chambers and Richard Davis on another. Ron Carter and Paul Chambers are on yet another tune.

Horn players? Only Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Jerome Robinson, Wayne Shorter and Johnny Coles among others. Elvin Jones is the principal drummer.

Many familiar Evans classics were recorded here first, "The Barbara Song" and "Las Vegas Tango" for two.

There is beauty here that was unparalleled at the time it was released, and which has lost none of its adventurous luster. And it sounds so good on vinyl.

I come back to Gil Evans over and over and over.

7. Flat Mountain Girls "Honey Take Your Whiskers Off" CD

You want to have some fun? Get this album. These girls (and one guy) play old-timey music with great speed, passion, humor and virtuosity. The three women are unique, strikingly unique personalities. In performance you don't know who to watch. In recording, these personalities blend and balance and compliment each other.

Nann Alleman, who fronts her own group, Spigot, has one of the most unforgettable voices in the history of voices. Lisa Marsicek, the fiddler and leader keeps everything from spinning off into outer space. Rachel Gold banjos up a storm.

Most of all, it's great fun.
www.flatmountaingirls.com

This also appears on counterpunch.org

Robert and Me

June 2001 to September 2005, Portland, Oregon

By Tom D’Antoni

On the day I was to meet the subject of a documentary I wanted to do on Physician-Assisted Suicide (legal only in Oregon) I wasn’t ready to meet the patient.

I pulled up outside the beige, white-trimmed nondescript one-story post-World War II bungalow in gritty North Portland at 3:30 p.m. on June 8, 2001. It was the home of Robert Schwartz. I didn’t want to go in. My stomach turned. Inside there was a dying man whom I had never met. What would I find? A picture of best friend Garey Lambert formed in my mind. I was in the hospital room as he died from AIDS five years before. In my mind’s eye I saw him take his last breaths again. I heard them.

I looked at the grey wooden ramp lined with red roses leading up to the front porch. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it was for a wheelchair.
There were beat-up cars parked on the street. There were blacks and working class whites on the block.

Portland, Oregon is considered by most to be one of the most enlightened, most beautiful, most livable cities in the United States. It is politically progressive, has little crime, a great public transportation system, logical land-use laws and a rich cultural life, all wrapped up in a slightly provincial, exceptionally polite and friendly atmosphere. People don’t even cross the street against the light here.

But the travel guides don’t send you to North Portland. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t sophisticated, even though over the past few years there has been a lot of migration by folks looking for low rents as wealthy Californians have moved North to Portland, pushing writers, artists, musicians and such out of the more desirable areas.

What would Robert Schwartz be like?

I asked George Eighmey of Compassion In Dying if he could find a patient for me for a TV documentary. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 2001, an email showed up from Eighmey titled “Patient for interview.” It read:
Dear Tom:
I contacted the person who is willing to be interviewed for you new project. His name is Robert Schwartz. He is 50 years old. His illness is late stage AIDS. He does not yet have his pills. He told me he plans to pick them up this Friday. He lost his partner, Oliver, to AIDS 2 years ago. Robert was active in the Death With Dignity campaigns in 1994 and 1997. His family is supportive of his decision. His mother and brother plan to be present when he takes the meds. His father and stepmother can’t be present but are supportive.
I told him you would be calling him soon. Let me know how it goes.

I held it for a few days before calling Robert. I dreaded putting myself through the emotional turmoil I suspected it would cause. I printed it and kept it on my desk. I called on June 5th and was relieved that he wasn’t home. I called again on the 6th, same result. I sensed this experience might change my life, but I did not sense the extent.

If I had wanted to write what the next two years would bring as a piece of fiction, nobody would have believed it.
I finally spoke with Robert for the first time on Thursday, June 7, but he told me he wasn’t feeling well enough to see me. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was he close to death? Just weak? He agreed to meet me the next day, in the afternoon.

I took the long way to his house. I drove through the neighborhood. I drove around the block several times. I didn’t want to do this. I sat in front of his house. I didn’t want to go in. Finally I walked up the ramp and rang Robert’s bell. Nothing would be the same after that.

He didn’t look 50, and he didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look well, either. He was thin, but with a protruding stomach. He was rugged. His face was lined around the eyes, which were soft blue, and kind with a twinkle. His eyes were very alive. His voice was also soft, but strong. There was a small black earring in his left ear. His hair was brown and cut short. He had a red beard. There were bags under his eyes and creases on his forehead. Still, if you guessed his age, you wouldn’t have been an idiot for saying mid-40s.

He looked like a normal guy, and was not obviously gay.

We sat in his living room and talked about the documentary project, Robert in his old cushioned rocking chair which was covered by a patterned quilt. That same chair was the one from which he got up to walk into the bedroom and take his own life 23 months later.

We did not talk very much about his condition. I told him almost immediately that I would not be asking him at this meeting the questions I would ask when the camera was present, that it was my belief that it spoiled the spontaneity of the interview.

He seemed sharp and very aware even though he was in pain.

I told him I had been at the bedside of my best friend Garey as he died from AIDS, and how wonderful it was for him to have his friends and family with him at the end. I mentioned that I was not gay, myself.

He was concerned about exploitation. He may have even mentioned the words, “snuff film.” I explained to him that I had objected to what 60 Minutes had done with Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Thomas Youk. In that segment Kevorkian administered a lethal dose to the terminally ill Youk. I told Robert that although I thought Kevorkian was a pioneer in end-of-life issues, that there was no real context for Youk’s death. That you never got to know Youk and what went into his decision to allow Kevorkian to administer a lethal injection.

Robert agreed.

I told him that the one thing I could promise was that there would be a complete context for him, however this documentary progressed.
He agreed to begin shooting the following Monday, June 11, 2001, on the day he was to receive the pills that would end his life. He wasn’t going to take them that day. He had no firm plans for taking them, no specific date. He was also ambivalent about allowing us to videotape him as he took the pills and died. He wasn’t ruling it out, but he was unsure. I had not yet gained his trust.

For the next 23 months we made the documentary. The story wasn’t all pretty. Over that time, Robert fell in love, was betrayed by that man but later reconciled. He chose two dates to end his life and changed his mind. He had his spleen removed. Finally, when he received a diagnosis of a lung condition that would make him suffocate to death, he ended his life by drinking liquid Nembutal, prescribed legally under the Oregon Death With Dignity law, on camera wearing our mic. That law came under challenge by the Bush administration during the course of shooting. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court last year.

I promised Robert many times that I would tell his story and do right by him, the last time just moments before he ended his life.

Turns out it wasn’t so easy for me. It took two years of legal wrangling for me to get final cut and copyright control of the material. It cost me everything but the love of my wife. What else could I do? I had promised Robert I would tell his story, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.

I didn’t cry when he died. I was working.

I didn’t cry at his memorial, where I eulogized him.

I got emotional now and then during the editing, but that was such an intense tornado of work, I didn’t have time to dwell.

I was sitting in the post production house, after it was edited, after it was posted, looking at the final version. Greg was out of town and couldn’t be there, so it was just me and an editor whom I didn’t know.

I sat through the whole thing. When it came to the bedroom scene I was overcome. Suddenly I didn’t want Robert to die; I desperately wanted him to live.

That’s when I cried.

this originally appeared on commonties.com

 

Pelosi---Anything BUT a San Francisco Democrat

"Anybody who's ever dealt with me knows not to mess with me." – Nancy Pelosi

First of all when Republicans first started using the term "San Francisco Decmocrat" it was shorthand to their base of hate. It meant, "I like gay people," and all that goes with it.

As years went by it grew to mean, "soft on everything," "weak," "and everything the Republican base, in all it's bigoted splendor, hated.

More than one Republican called Nancy Pelosi a "San Francisco Democrat." Typical of Republican lies, she is anything but. Yes, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and has for a long time, but she learned her politics in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old-time city machine headed up by her dad, Mayor Thomas J. D'Allesandro, Jr., known in Baltimore as Old Tommy. He was Mayor from 1947 to 1959, having also served in Congress from 1939 to 1937. He is still fondly remembered for having brought the Orioles to Baltimore from St. Louis. He is also revered by the Italian-American community in Baltimore.

Old Tommy was tough as nails.

Her brother is Thomas J. D'Allesandro III, known as Young Tommy in Baltimore. He was Mayor from 1967 to 1971.

So rather than growing up in the laid-back west coast culture, she was schooled in the cauldron of tough East Coast big city politics. One of her first jobs was on her brother's staff. Some say she was one of the most influential members of that staff, keeping track of favors and who owed what to whom.

Politics is in her blood, as the foes she has defeated over the years will tell you.
She's Old Tommy's daughter and about as much a "San Francisco Democrat" as Rudy Giuliani.

She is the tough Democrat we've always been looking for.

41's Crew--Didn't we throw them out in '92?

The smirk has begun returning to W's face. That's probably because he can't help it, but also because he's about to be bailed out by daddy again. Among the many problems with that, the biggest is that these are the same people with the same philosophies that we turned out of office in 1992.

That we welcome them back to power is a measure of the level of incompetence and evil in 43's administration. That 41's people are seen as "pragmatic" and "reasonable" just underlines how dogmatic and unreasonable the current administration has been.

They aren't back to save 43's presidency, they're back because their interests are threatened by the past six years worth of disaster. I never thought I'd ever be glad to see Brent Scowcroft again. I'm not, but you know what I mean.

The best we can hope for? A couple of years of better intentions from the Democrats in Congress which pries the levers of power from the cold dead hands of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

I think we haven't gotten over the disbelief that America agreed with us. I may be speaking for myself, but I don't think so. Didn't you feel a sense of unreality as the returns came in? We never wavered in our beliefs, fighting against what seemed to be an unyielding avalanche of Republican evil, but there was a fatalism as election day approached.

We really thought they were going to steal the election.

As the old 41 crew attempts to establish some order in 43's unraveled presidency, we can stop and smell the flowers, but only for a moment. You can be sure that Rove and the Boehner's of the world are planning more and better ways of regaining power, keeping happy the corporations who own them, and spreading bigotry.

On the other hand, those same corporations are most likely the ones who have sent 41s people into the breach. Oh wait, 41's people ARE the corporations.

Smirk or no smirk. 41's crew or no, it's nice to breathe again.

America to Bush: STFU

Yesterday America stood up and told Bush, "Stop it. Shut up. We think you're an idiot. We think you're a moron. We're sorry you got the job. You are not the king. You are a dumb jock frat boy, and you always will be. You will now stop all this shit, immeditately. We voted yesterday and threw your boys out of Congress. If you don't want us coming after your own ass, you will sign what we pass and change your ways."

Yesterday we spoke. We reduced the Universal Presdient to the Little Boy President. A slap in the face. A kick in the ass. A rejection. A repudiation of a President who has embarassed us before the world, put our safety at great risk, and perverted the constitution he swore to uphold.

You wouldn't listen to reason, Bush. You behaved like a crazy person. You allowed yourself to be led around by the nose by dangerous lunatics. You're to be pitied.

We have spoken.

Get out of our face, we have adult work to do.

A Victory Speech for November 9

As the Republicans continue to try to scare us into losing, I thought it would be beneficial to write a potential victory speech one of us might give on November 8:

My fellow Americans, as we celebrate our victories and regaining the control of both houses of Congress, we must stop for a moment before we move on to the job of cleaning up the mess, and taking new steps to make laws that benefit most Americans, rather than the few.

Before we take those steps we must pause to consider the recent past. It is our responsibility to attach responsibility for the state of the nation. While we were out of power our nation was taken to war under false pretenses. And once at war, those in positions of responsibility, although they dislodged Saddam from power, did not heed the words of the Iraqi people when they said, before the war, to many journalists, "Depose Saddam, but leave quickly or face the consequences. We are a complex nation, made of many groups who have been kept from each other's throats by the dictatorship of Saddam. But the one thing we Iraqis hate worse than one another, is the invader. Have you not read our history?"

The Republicans did not hear them. As the bodies of our military men and women were coming home, hidden from us, the Republicans were sending their corporate benefactors, their pockets filled with our money, and money borrowed in our names, into Iraq to "rebuild." They did not rebuild. They profited from the blood of our children, brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands and wives. Many Iraqis feel they are worse off now than under Saddam.

Meanwhile the Republicans tortured in our names, broke the Geneva Conventions, spied illegally on us, subjected our military people to death from all sides in a civil war, and breached the U.S. Constitution when they monkeyed with habeas corpus.

Our first pledge to you is to find out what happened and why, who is responsible, and how they can be held accountable. We now have subpoena power. The Republicans can no longer block Congressional oversight. We promise to conduct fair but tough investigations into why we went to war, how we went to war, and who profited from the war and what laws we can pass to make sure this never happens again.

The Constitutional questions are difficult. There are still three branches of government and the current President is of a mind to continue these outrageous acts of aggression on traditional American values. We pledge to fight for the Constitution and for the freedoms and privacy we have always come to expect.

We promise to spare not a single penny in caring for the Americans who fought in Iraq and were injured. Full medical care. Proper respect. Our thanks and a promise that America will never again fight a war for the wrong reasons.

So there is a lot to clean up in that regard.

There is so much more to clean up. Curing the cancer of incompetence and neglect and of the fox watching the hen house when it comes to industry regulations, environmental safeguards and scientific research, will take time. We wish we could stop it today, but that's not realistic. The Republicans still control the Executive branch of government, but the days of their running roughshod over the health and safety of the American people so that corporations can make obscene amounts of money are over.

This is going to take time. There has been much damage done. The United States Government is in tatters thanks to the perfect storm of greed and incompetence of those who have held power these past years.

You have given us a direct message. Work in the interests of the American people, not corporations. Make decisions based on what is the right choice, not on what will play to the worst in us.

Most of all, the best thing we can do from this day forward is to replace the climate of fear with one of hope. This can't be done overnight. Fear will give way slowly. When we implement all of the recommendations of the 911 Commission … that will be a first step. But what you can expect from us is that we will confront our problems with confidence, not fake bravado; that we will, as we always have, include everyone in the actions of government, not demonizing one group or another in order to build hate.

We're not about hate. We never have been.

Give us some time. This is the first step, but it's a new day. Let's go to work.

This is also on huffingtonpost.com