So, a week or so ago, I mentioned that on an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Hal ended up framed for corporate embezzlement, after which "he lost nearly everything he owned in a government confiscation (sans trial)."
Good thing he's fictitious, and not an artist. It's pretentious to quote Marx, of course (and yes, I already have), but far less so to quote bubblegum pop songs of the sixties, so I'll do that instead: "second verse, history as farce"...only in this case, things run in reverse...
(You may have noted my tendency to mis-hear lyrics...)
5.25.2004
5.24.2004
plot summary of next season's 24
In a special homage to Andy Warhol, episodes will follow President Palmer, Jack, and the CTU gang in the immediate aftermath of Day 3, as they go home and settle into a well-deserved full day's worth of sleep.
5.20.2004
malady du jour
So when did allergies to nuts become the big thing? Not only are warnings about the presence of nuts and nut derivatives showing up on menus and lists of ingredients all of a sudden, here's The Onion with one of its "News Briefs" (scroll down the page: it's about an unfortunate werewolf). And as I and seventeen or eighteen other people might recall, an allergy to peanuts played a role in an episode of Wonderfalls. (That was a TV show to which Fox gave about four minutes' chance earlier this season, for the other 6.4 billion less 17 or 18 of you.) I mean, it's obviously a potentially serious issue for people with such an allergy - but nuts have been part of the human diet for millennia, and now suddenly they're the beneficiary of allergists' fond attentions? Curiouser and curioser...
5.18.2004
More Favorite Misheard Lyrics
Frankly, I always wished the lines from Suede's "Sleeping Pills" were what I thought they were, instead of what they are: "You're a water sign / I'm an air sign." The way I first heard it, I thought Brett Anderson was singing: "You're a water sign / I'm an asshole." Much better than going along with astrological bullshit would be characterizing the other person via their implicit belief in said bullshit, and folding in the unpleasantly aggressive aspect of playing such a person for a fool by acknowledging one's own assholity. Plus, if the idea of the two lines is incompatibility, I like "water sign" and "asshole" much better. (Yes, it's true: I've got sweet F.A. to do this afternoon.)
5.17.2004
laugh-outlawed Sunday?
If nothing else, Fox should get some credit for apparently being willing to leave its nasty editorial pawprints off its comedies - at least, its popular comedies. Because, apparently, Sunday night was Impending Police State night at Fox.
The Simpsons started it off with Bart, temporarily deafened by a dubious vaccination shot, inadvertently mooning an American flag (courtesy of a donkey - wait a minute, maybe Fox did interfere a bit...). From the resulting accusation of anti-patriotism, the show spiraled into a farcical but pointed satire of with-us-or-with-the-terrorists "patriotic" oneupmanship.
And then Malcolm in the Middle presented evidence-manufacturing FBI agents embroiling Hal in a corporate scandal, as a result of which he lost nearly everything he owned in a government confiscation (sans trial), and he was subject to house arrest via one of those ankle bracelets. The vicious whimsy of the guy controlling how far Hal could go from the bracelet's control unit was wonderfully done. The secondary plot, featuring a jilted Reese run off to join the army, not only featured the usual screaming martinet of a drill sergeant but, more pointedly, presented Reese's realization, that things worked much more smoothly if he stopped thinking and just followed orders, as the sweetest moment in that sergeant's military career. Although the episode was surely written well before the prison torture scandal was revealed to the public, the specter of "just following orders" was rendered particularly grim by its current context.
The Simpsons started it off with Bart, temporarily deafened by a dubious vaccination shot, inadvertently mooning an American flag (courtesy of a donkey - wait a minute, maybe Fox did interfere a bit...). From the resulting accusation of anti-patriotism, the show spiraled into a farcical but pointed satire of with-us-or-with-the-terrorists "patriotic" oneupmanship.
And then Malcolm in the Middle presented evidence-manufacturing FBI agents embroiling Hal in a corporate scandal, as a result of which he lost nearly everything he owned in a government confiscation (sans trial), and he was subject to house arrest via one of those ankle bracelets. The vicious whimsy of the guy controlling how far Hal could go from the bracelet's control unit was wonderfully done. The secondary plot, featuring a jilted Reese run off to join the army, not only featured the usual screaming martinet of a drill sergeant but, more pointedly, presented Reese's realization, that things worked much more smoothly if he stopped thinking and just followed orders, as the sweetest moment in that sergeant's military career. Although the episode was surely written well before the prison torture scandal was revealed to the public, the specter of "just following orders" was rendered particularly grim by its current context.
5.12.2004
they're choruses, Jim - but not as we know them
Your left-field song-jimmiers can fiddle together a song without a chorus (my definition: a structurally distinct, recurring segment of music generally with the same lyrics each time it repeats), or without repeating elements, or in any other unconventional structure - but try writing an actual hit song without a chorus. Is it possible, given most people's tastes?
I'd say so - with qualifications. What's the chorus of Gary Numan's "Cars"? There's no chorus that fits my definition - but in a way the song doesn't need one, since it's built on a riff. And to indulge in a bit of dead-horse abuse, a distinctive riff often does the work normally handled by lyrics: anchoring the song in memory. Most classic riff-based songs double up on their hookiness by also featuring a distinctive vocal chorus (think of "Sunshine of Your Love," and not only do you hear the riff in your head, but probably also the chorus - whose lyrics, as if that doubling-up isn't enough, consist primarily of the song's title). Bill Murray made fun of this convention by having his lounge-singer character write lyrics to the Star Wars theme: they were, of course, basically the words "Star Wars."
An odder case (and, perhaps, a less popular song because of it - but still a charting single) is Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street." Probably the most distinctive aspect of this song - and the part of the song positioned where a chorus would normally be - is that arching saxophone line. If you know the song, that's probably the part you thought of when you read the title. But if you think about, that lick really is the song's chorus: structurally, the rest of the song is nothing but verses, a bridge, and an instrumental section over the chords of the "chorus" segment. Furthermore (and probably diminishing the song's standing in people's mental jukeboxes), the title doesn't appear in the lyrics (or if it does - I'm too lazy to google them - it's not in any distinctive position).
Now you know why people can never remember the titles of songs by New Order or Stereolab...
I'd say so - with qualifications. What's the chorus of Gary Numan's "Cars"? There's no chorus that fits my definition - but in a way the song doesn't need one, since it's built on a riff. And to indulge in a bit of dead-horse abuse, a distinctive riff often does the work normally handled by lyrics: anchoring the song in memory. Most classic riff-based songs double up on their hookiness by also featuring a distinctive vocal chorus (think of "Sunshine of Your Love," and not only do you hear the riff in your head, but probably also the chorus - whose lyrics, as if that doubling-up isn't enough, consist primarily of the song's title). Bill Murray made fun of this convention by having his lounge-singer character write lyrics to the Star Wars theme: they were, of course, basically the words "Star Wars."
An odder case (and, perhaps, a less popular song because of it - but still a charting single) is Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street." Probably the most distinctive aspect of this song - and the part of the song positioned where a chorus would normally be - is that arching saxophone line. If you know the song, that's probably the part you thought of when you read the title. But if you think about, that lick really is the song's chorus: structurally, the rest of the song is nothing but verses, a bridge, and an instrumental section over the chords of the "chorus" segment. Furthermore (and probably diminishing the song's standing in people's mental jukeboxes), the title doesn't appear in the lyrics (or if it does - I'm too lazy to google them - it's not in any distinctive position).
Now you know why people can never remember the titles of songs by New Order or Stereolab...
5.11.2004
It's odd how unpredictably events affect you. When I first heard about the events of September 11, 2001, I was on my way to teach. The university didn't cancel classes until the afternoon, and so I tried holding my two morning classes, while students huddled around one student with a portable radio and tried to figure out what was going on. Needless to say, we talked far more about the attacks than about anything else. Undeniably, I was affected by what was happening - but at a certain remove, I guess, in that I didn't know anyone directly affected, and as soon as I knew my friends in NYC were okay (one of whom had seen the second plane hit from the roof of his building), I think my habit of moving things to an analytical register took over very quickly. I didn't have to wait long, that is, to find myself thinking about the events politically; and I think because that was something I could, at least potentially, do something about, it was an easier place to inhabit than a more directly emotional engagement.
So a day or so ago, I'm watching the DVD of Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, the TMBG documentary, and one scene has the band playing a midnight in-store at Tower Records in New York City to promote the release of Mink Car. And then a caption establishes the date as September 10, 2001. I suddenly realize that, within ten hours, the lives of the people in this audience will be changed utterly. How many of them would be dead, or would have family or friends die? And of course, none of them have the first idea, as we see them on the screen, that anything eventful is about to happen to them. In one shot, I think, we can see a policeman in the doorway, presumably on crowd-control duty. I'm not even sure whether he's a real cop or just a security guy (I didn't look that closely), but I imagine him as an NYPD officer, getting off his third-shift duty, going home, falling asleep, and being awakened the next day, probably to try to save people, almost certainly discovering that several of his friends are dead.
It's odd, isn't it - but I suppose not surprising - that even seeing mere images of people in close proximity to death makes those people more vividly alive, more breathingly human, and thereby translates the abstraction of death into emotional legibility, felt in the body itself. And I wonder at my reluctance to look at, even to see, images of the atrocities in Abu Ghraib: am I forestalling a real human engagement with the victims, or (as I like to tell myself) merely following a decent urge not to gawk at evidence of how appallingly some humans can behave?
And I recall an article I read once on homeless people: several of the homeless who were interviewed said the thing that angered them most about public reaction to them, even more than abuse or condescension, was when people looked right through them as if they weren't there, as if to deny their very existence.
So a day or so ago, I'm watching the DVD of Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, the TMBG documentary, and one scene has the band playing a midnight in-store at Tower Records in New York City to promote the release of Mink Car. And then a caption establishes the date as September 10, 2001. I suddenly realize that, within ten hours, the lives of the people in this audience will be changed utterly. How many of them would be dead, or would have family or friends die? And of course, none of them have the first idea, as we see them on the screen, that anything eventful is about to happen to them. In one shot, I think, we can see a policeman in the doorway, presumably on crowd-control duty. I'm not even sure whether he's a real cop or just a security guy (I didn't look that closely), but I imagine him as an NYPD officer, getting off his third-shift duty, going home, falling asleep, and being awakened the next day, probably to try to save people, almost certainly discovering that several of his friends are dead.
It's odd, isn't it - but I suppose not surprising - that even seeing mere images of people in close proximity to death makes those people more vividly alive, more breathingly human, and thereby translates the abstraction of death into emotional legibility, felt in the body itself. And I wonder at my reluctance to look at, even to see, images of the atrocities in Abu Ghraib: am I forestalling a real human engagement with the victims, or (as I like to tell myself) merely following a decent urge not to gawk at evidence of how appallingly some humans can behave?
And I recall an article I read once on homeless people: several of the homeless who were interviewed said the thing that angered them most about public reaction to them, even more than abuse or condescension, was when people looked right through them as if they weren't there, as if to deny their very existence.
5.09.2004
bored now...
I got tired of the old look. So here's the new look. It seems blogspot has its own commenting feature now (we'll see if it works). 'Course, all the old comments disappeared - but if you're obsessive about your own comments, fret not: I've saved 'em (except for the May ones, because I'm an idiot.)
I'll probably find some more weird bugs to change. Also, I will attempt to figure out how to modify certain features of this template that I don't like...but I'm a lame-ass, so I can't promise much of anything.
I'll probably find some more weird bugs to change. Also, I will attempt to figure out how to modify certain features of this template that I don't like...but I'm a lame-ass, so I can't promise much of anything.
perhaps they've been huffing it? (an excursion into wonk world)
One of the clearest signs of rampant irrationality in the general public is the absurd panic over gas prices, exemplified by sites such as this one that track prices - presumably so people can drive twenty miles out of their way to "save" a penny per gallon. Now, if you're truly poor, rising gas prices do have a major effect on your life - but then, so do all rising prices, and it's not usually the poor who are getting vocally bent out of shape by gas prices. More often, it's upper-middle-class suburbanites who drive ridiculous vehicles like a Hummer H2, which costs at least $55,000 and gets about 10 miles per gallon.
Let's do the math, shall we? If you drive 12,000 miles per year, that's roughly 230 miles per week. If your car gets 33 mpg (which is what we get in our '98 Mazda Protege), you use about 7 gallons per week. So if gas prices rise 20 cents per gallon, you'd spend an extra $1.40 on gas each week. Not exactly breaking the bank. Even Mr. Insecure Manhood in his Pigwagon would spend only an extra $4.60 each week. If he can afford the payments on his luxury barge, he can afford that. Let's say he has to drive more miles per year - say, 20,000. And let's say gas prices go up even more - 50 cents per gallon. That's still less than $20 a week added to his gas expenses - but why should we weep over some guy in a half-million dollar house spending an extra $20? (And those of you who live in locales where a "half-million dollar house" looks like a shack in a Walker Evans photo...consider that around here, that's a mansion - and those folks are still complaining.)
Okay, if you're a cross-country trucker, that's gonna hurt - and I'm not arguing that higher gas prices have no effect on the economy. But higher anything prices affect the economy - but they don't inspire breathless outrage on the op-ed page or panicked letters to the editor in quite the same way as gas prices do.
If these people are really concerned about those prices, why are they still buying Hummers or other ridiculously bloated, low-mileage vehicles? (And what the hell is the purpose of the Cadillac Escalade EXT - a Cadillac pickup truck? What's their market? Guys with too much money who want to prove both that they've got money to burn (it's a Caddy) and that they're macho men (it's a pickup truck)? What do you haul in a Cadillac pickup truck? French poodles?) Even at that 20k-per-year/50-cent-increase level, someone driving a Toyota hybrid (50 mpg) is going to have to spend only about $4.00.
Instead of complaining, abandon your Hummer on a street corner (where it can house an entire homeless family) and buy a hybrid.
Related pet peeve: the reason I have a link to the federal government's Consumer Price Index inflation calculator (to your right) is that it bugs all hell out of me when media write things like "And back then, cars cost only $2,000." Yeah - and how much lower were people's average incomes? Even granting that the CPI isn't completely accurate, it's a hell of a lot more accurate than not adjusting dollars at all. For instance, a month or so back, the papers were all about how gas prices were at a record high average of $1.80 or so. And sure, in 1980 gas might've been "only" $1.20 per gallon. But what would that be in today's dollars? As this chart shows, average gas prices peaked in the early '80s at an approximate current equivalent of anywhere from $2.25 to $2.40 (on this page, dealing with California prices only). Kind of dims that nostalgic glow, doesn't it.
Let's do the math, shall we? If you drive 12,000 miles per year, that's roughly 230 miles per week. If your car gets 33 mpg (which is what we get in our '98 Mazda Protege), you use about 7 gallons per week. So if gas prices rise 20 cents per gallon, you'd spend an extra $1.40 on gas each week. Not exactly breaking the bank. Even Mr. Insecure Manhood in his Pigwagon would spend only an extra $4.60 each week. If he can afford the payments on his luxury barge, he can afford that. Let's say he has to drive more miles per year - say, 20,000. And let's say gas prices go up even more - 50 cents per gallon. That's still less than $20 a week added to his gas expenses - but why should we weep over some guy in a half-million dollar house spending an extra $20? (And those of you who live in locales where a "half-million dollar house" looks like a shack in a Walker Evans photo...consider that around here, that's a mansion - and those folks are still complaining.)
Okay, if you're a cross-country trucker, that's gonna hurt - and I'm not arguing that higher gas prices have no effect on the economy. But higher anything prices affect the economy - but they don't inspire breathless outrage on the op-ed page or panicked letters to the editor in quite the same way as gas prices do.
If these people are really concerned about those prices, why are they still buying Hummers or other ridiculously bloated, low-mileage vehicles? (And what the hell is the purpose of the Cadillac Escalade EXT - a Cadillac pickup truck? What's their market? Guys with too much money who want to prove both that they've got money to burn (it's a Caddy) and that they're macho men (it's a pickup truck)? What do you haul in a Cadillac pickup truck? French poodles?) Even at that 20k-per-year/50-cent-increase level, someone driving a Toyota hybrid (50 mpg) is going to have to spend only about $4.00.
Instead of complaining, abandon your Hummer on a street corner (where it can house an entire homeless family) and buy a hybrid.
Related pet peeve: the reason I have a link to the federal government's Consumer Price Index inflation calculator (to your right) is that it bugs all hell out of me when media write things like "And back then, cars cost only $2,000." Yeah - and how much lower were people's average incomes? Even granting that the CPI isn't completely accurate, it's a hell of a lot more accurate than not adjusting dollars at all. For instance, a month or so back, the papers were all about how gas prices were at a record high average of $1.80 or so. And sure, in 1980 gas might've been "only" $1.20 per gallon. But what would that be in today's dollars? As this chart shows, average gas prices peaked in the early '80s at an approximate current equivalent of anywhere from $2.25 to $2.40 (on this page, dealing with California prices only). Kind of dims that nostalgic glow, doesn't it.
5.07.2004
all in the family
George W. Bush may be the best-known liar in the Bush family, but he's far from the only one. Older bro Jeb, governor of Florida, let loose this whopper in response to the Michael Moore controversy: "We don't give tax breaks, that I'm aware of, to Disney."
Really. Apparently Governor Bush is ignorant of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which was created and granted near-autonomous powers by the State of Florida in 1967. This district - essentially under the control of the Disney corporation - is "empowered to levy its own taxes and enact its own building codes and [is exempt] … from filing environmental impact statements or abiding by municipal or regional laws regarding development, zoning, and waste control," according to author Mark Dery. Several chapters of Andrew Ross' book The Celebration Chronicles outline the social and environmental harms heaped upon the Orlando area by the powers granted Disney by the state.
As for "tax breaks," journalist Ed Erickson notes that "because the company can float bonds and tax itself to pay for them, it can then write down some of its capital expenditures as 'local taxes.' After that it’s a matter of deducting those taxes from corporate income tax, rather than amortizing them. It’s legal and it saves them millions every year."
So obviously, Moore is wrong: Disney has nothing to worry about, since Jeb Bush knows nothing about any tax breaks. Since he knows nothing about them, he obviously wouldn't do anything about them to retaliate if Disney distributed Moore's anti-Bush movie.
See? Those damned left-wingers are so paranoid.
(addendum: I was thinking of changing the title to "Disney's Dream Debased," or "Disney's Dream Debased?" or "Disney's Dream: Debased" in homage to The Fall - but I don't really care about Disney's dream at all. Just superfluous referentiality now.)
Really. Apparently Governor Bush is ignorant of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which was created and granted near-autonomous powers by the State of Florida in 1967. This district - essentially under the control of the Disney corporation - is "empowered to levy its own taxes and enact its own building codes and [is exempt] … from filing environmental impact statements or abiding by municipal or regional laws regarding development, zoning, and waste control," according to author Mark Dery. Several chapters of Andrew Ross' book The Celebration Chronicles outline the social and environmental harms heaped upon the Orlando area by the powers granted Disney by the state.
As for "tax breaks," journalist Ed Erickson notes that "because the company can float bonds and tax itself to pay for them, it can then write down some of its capital expenditures as 'local taxes.' After that it’s a matter of deducting those taxes from corporate income tax, rather than amortizing them. It’s legal and it saves them millions every year."
So obviously, Moore is wrong: Disney has nothing to worry about, since Jeb Bush knows nothing about any tax breaks. Since he knows nothing about them, he obviously wouldn't do anything about them to retaliate if Disney distributed Moore's anti-Bush movie.
See? Those damned left-wingers are so paranoid.
(addendum: I was thinking of changing the title to "Disney's Dream Debased," or "Disney's Dream Debased?" or "Disney's Dream: Debased" in homage to The Fall - but I don't really care about Disney's dream at all. Just superfluous referentiality now.)
5.06.2004
Fun World
After a late dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, Rose and I are driving home when all of a sudden a car whips by us on our right, in the parking lane. Almost instinctively, I hit the horn. At the next light, there's the car that passed us. I look over at the driver - Rose has been writing down the car's plate number - and notice with a start that it's a cop, in an unmarked car. (He hadn't used his lights or siren when he passed us.) Well, having already given him a dirty look (although nothing too provocative: no digits involved), I figured no harm was done in not looking particularly abashed at conveying with a glance my general impression of, hey, what the hell are you doing driving like an idiot? So anyway, he's parked at the light in the right-turn lane. The light turns green, we proceed through the intersection...and sure enough, our new buddy is following us, illegally going straight through the intersection, from that right-turn lane. Our route home leads us to a left turn a block or so beyond that intersection, so of course I'm very carefully driving the speed limit, signalling all turns, etc. A block beyond the left turn, the cop turns on his lights to pull us over. Oh great, I'm thinking - although honestly, I'm wondering what he could possibly charge us with. (We'd been driving the speed limit when he illegally passed us.)
So, after the usual wait (designed, I've always assumed, to make the driver nervous: they train them on this, right?), the officer arrives at our driver side door. Now I know better than to put on attitude with cops, so when he gets to the door in a not very convincing impersonation of politeness, I'm entirely cooperative: "good evening, officer," with a zero degree of sarcasm. All this time, by the way, Rose has been writing down details, and is getting more and more pissed off. So the officer asks me if there was anything I wanted to say to him, since I'd been looking at him at the intersection. Polite as can be, I observed that I hadn't known he was a police officer until we stopped at the intersection next to him, and I was wondering why he'd rushed past us on the right like that, and, for future reference, what we as motorists should be aware of when police officers need to pass vehicles like that, and under what circumstances they're not supposed to use their siren or lights. He replied that he was on an "urgent" call, and that because there was enough room to pass in the parking lane, he didn't need to turn on his lights or siren. (This, by the way, proved to be an outright lie: we called the district office when we got home, and the officer on duty informed us that the only time cops can blatantly violate traffic laws is in emergencies, and when they do so, they must have siren or lights on unless stealth is of the essence.) He then informed us that, because he noticed Rose writing all this stuff down (he actually said that), he was going to issue us a citation for illegal use of the horn.
So he returns to his vehicle, for the second stage of intended anxiety production, and after a short while returns my drivers license to me with a few questions about whose vehicle it is (ours) and our address and phone number. I asked him for his name. After giving it to us, he then returns to his car and drives off, without having issued the citation he'd threatened us with.
We get home, and decide we need to call the police station to get our version of things on record before his version. Rose makes the call, and after a couple of transfers encounters a very smooth-voiced PR-type person, who assures us that no citation would be issued and that he was certain the officer's urgent mission must have required both stealth and speed, and that we shouldn't allow our being upset at this incident to color our general impression of the fine services and demeanor typical of the Milwaukee Police Department.
Although Officer Smooth was only doing his job, I've gotta say: nice try, but I'm not buying it. If stealth was required, and that was why he didn't use his lights or siren when he passed us in the parking lane, where did that need for stealth go when he used his lights to pull us over two blocks later? And if he was being called to an "urgent" situation, where was that "urgency" when he was parked at the light half a block after passing us - and under what conditions is pulling over a motorist for "illegal" use of the horn more urgent? No: what we've got here is Officer Impatient, deciding that he needed to get to wherever he was going faster than we were driving, so he whips past us in the parking lane - because he can. And when we visually confronted him on driving like an asshole - before we knew he was a cop - he didn't like that, and pulling us over and threatening us with a bogus citation was obviously a power play.
Good thing I'm not a black or brown man, in this city notorious for police racial discrimination, or that Rose wasn't a woman alone in a more secluded neighborhood: I certainly wouldn't trust a guy who'd pull asshole stunts like these not to do worse given the chance. I worked in a civilian capacity in a police station about twenty years ago, and a macho, us-against-them, highly judgmental mentality is all-pervasive among cops. In that environment, macho one-upmanship at the expense of suspects and prisoners, extending in extreme cases to violence, even torture (the brother of a woman who lived at the co-op I lived in in Madison "committed suicide" under highly suspicious circumstances while in police custody), is a nearly inevitable result. Am I surprised in the least at the abuse at Abu Ghraib, or the reports of abuse and torture of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other holding cells for the victims of the pathetically misnamed "Patriot" Act? Not in the least: ideology, indoctrination, and the desire to prove oneself harder than the next guy ensure the assumption of guilt until proven innocent, and training that promotes violence as the primary and ultimate solution to most problems all but guarantees that the "guilty" will be punished with brutality. And for some - mostly the "some" whose skin tone, ethnicity, or ideology doesn't fit those of the jailers - there's no possible proof that will persuade the jailers of innocence.
Obviously, my situation doesn't come close to those of the U.S.'s prisoners of war or ideology left to rot in their holding pens, stripped of all rights and dignity - but I think the psychology that underlies the wardens and ideologues that create those prisons is similar to that motivating the arrogant cop we encountered this evening. It is an attitude that assumes right, power, and privilege are all on one side, and that those who challenge that assumption constitute a clear danger or threat, unless they're merely contemptible and deserving only of abuse. Let's put it this way: if the officer tonight truly were on an urgent call, he wouldn't have stopped us. And if, imagining a best-case scenario, he had been on such a call but heard that another officer was responding to it immediately after he passed us, the only possible reason to pull us over would have been...to apologize for driving like a jerk and explaining that at the time he had reason to do so. But the notion of apology is, of course, alien to the sort of perspective I'm describing. Because you're on the right side, you can never be wrong. Apology is betrayal. You're either with us, or...well, you fill in the blank.
So, after the usual wait (designed, I've always assumed, to make the driver nervous: they train them on this, right?), the officer arrives at our driver side door. Now I know better than to put on attitude with cops, so when he gets to the door in a not very convincing impersonation of politeness, I'm entirely cooperative: "good evening, officer," with a zero degree of sarcasm. All this time, by the way, Rose has been writing down details, and is getting more and more pissed off. So the officer asks me if there was anything I wanted to say to him, since I'd been looking at him at the intersection. Polite as can be, I observed that I hadn't known he was a police officer until we stopped at the intersection next to him, and I was wondering why he'd rushed past us on the right like that, and, for future reference, what we as motorists should be aware of when police officers need to pass vehicles like that, and under what circumstances they're not supposed to use their siren or lights. He replied that he was on an "urgent" call, and that because there was enough room to pass in the parking lane, he didn't need to turn on his lights or siren. (This, by the way, proved to be an outright lie: we called the district office when we got home, and the officer on duty informed us that the only time cops can blatantly violate traffic laws is in emergencies, and when they do so, they must have siren or lights on unless stealth is of the essence.) He then informed us that, because he noticed Rose writing all this stuff down (he actually said that), he was going to issue us a citation for illegal use of the horn.
So he returns to his vehicle, for the second stage of intended anxiety production, and after a short while returns my drivers license to me with a few questions about whose vehicle it is (ours) and our address and phone number. I asked him for his name. After giving it to us, he then returns to his car and drives off, without having issued the citation he'd threatened us with.
We get home, and decide we need to call the police station to get our version of things on record before his version. Rose makes the call, and after a couple of transfers encounters a very smooth-voiced PR-type person, who assures us that no citation would be issued and that he was certain the officer's urgent mission must have required both stealth and speed, and that we shouldn't allow our being upset at this incident to color our general impression of the fine services and demeanor typical of the Milwaukee Police Department.
Although Officer Smooth was only doing his job, I've gotta say: nice try, but I'm not buying it. If stealth was required, and that was why he didn't use his lights or siren when he passed us in the parking lane, where did that need for stealth go when he used his lights to pull us over two blocks later? And if he was being called to an "urgent" situation, where was that "urgency" when he was parked at the light half a block after passing us - and under what conditions is pulling over a motorist for "illegal" use of the horn more urgent? No: what we've got here is Officer Impatient, deciding that he needed to get to wherever he was going faster than we were driving, so he whips past us in the parking lane - because he can. And when we visually confronted him on driving like an asshole - before we knew he was a cop - he didn't like that, and pulling us over and threatening us with a bogus citation was obviously a power play.
Good thing I'm not a black or brown man, in this city notorious for police racial discrimination, or that Rose wasn't a woman alone in a more secluded neighborhood: I certainly wouldn't trust a guy who'd pull asshole stunts like these not to do worse given the chance. I worked in a civilian capacity in a police station about twenty years ago, and a macho, us-against-them, highly judgmental mentality is all-pervasive among cops. In that environment, macho one-upmanship at the expense of suspects and prisoners, extending in extreme cases to violence, even torture (the brother of a woman who lived at the co-op I lived in in Madison "committed suicide" under highly suspicious circumstances while in police custody), is a nearly inevitable result. Am I surprised in the least at the abuse at Abu Ghraib, or the reports of abuse and torture of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other holding cells for the victims of the pathetically misnamed "Patriot" Act? Not in the least: ideology, indoctrination, and the desire to prove oneself harder than the next guy ensure the assumption of guilt until proven innocent, and training that promotes violence as the primary and ultimate solution to most problems all but guarantees that the "guilty" will be punished with brutality. And for some - mostly the "some" whose skin tone, ethnicity, or ideology doesn't fit those of the jailers - there's no possible proof that will persuade the jailers of innocence.
Obviously, my situation doesn't come close to those of the U.S.'s prisoners of war or ideology left to rot in their holding pens, stripped of all rights and dignity - but I think the psychology that underlies the wardens and ideologues that create those prisons is similar to that motivating the arrogant cop we encountered this evening. It is an attitude that assumes right, power, and privilege are all on one side, and that those who challenge that assumption constitute a clear danger or threat, unless they're merely contemptible and deserving only of abuse. Let's put it this way: if the officer tonight truly were on an urgent call, he wouldn't have stopped us. And if, imagining a best-case scenario, he had been on such a call but heard that another officer was responding to it immediately after he passed us, the only possible reason to pull us over would have been...to apologize for driving like a jerk and explaining that at the time he had reason to do so. But the notion of apology is, of course, alien to the sort of perspective I'm describing. Because you're on the right side, you can never be wrong. Apology is betrayal. You're either with us, or...well, you fill in the blank.
5.04.2004
more on lyrics
Seems I've picked a timely topic: here's Greil Marcus (who loves words so much he sometimes gets himself utterly tangled in them) on why the lyrics to Roxy Music's "More Than This," ultimately, don't matter. And the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (with - inevitably - American Idol idiots on the cover) features a rather uninspired "debate" on whether lyrics matter (thanks to Rog for pointing out that article). I forget the two writers' names, but I'll refer to them as Anti-Lyrics Guy and Pro-Lyrics Guy, respectively. Pro-Lyrics Guy generally scores more points here, mostly because Anti-Lyrics Guy seems, well, not very bright: if he can't tell what a lyric's about instantly, he dismisses it as meaningless nonsense, and he can't seem to conceive that a song might evoke and engage more than a single mood simultaneously. (His grappling with Dylan's "Idiot Wind" is just plain embarrassing.) ALG also falls into the time-honored trap of imagining that if lyrics matter, they should work on the printed page, like poetry - which is kind of like saying that if you like oil and vinegar dressing with your salad, surely you'll enjoy downing a bottle of the same. "Lyrics" means "words meant to be sung"; and we can talk about the lyric origins of poetry all we want, but much of the poetic canon was never meant to be sung, and plenty of it (despite its attention to sound) probably prefers to be read rather than heard. What looks stupid on the page, and what sounds inane when read aloud, can become transcendent in a musical context. For instance: on the page, a line like "Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean" seems pointless, slack, a sign of poor editing. But sung (in Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Your Song," as it happens), it becomes expressive of the proverbial tongue-tiedness that afflicts lovers attempting to translate their trembling into the rather too rigid fit of language.
The EW article also implies an all-or-nothing approach (as if titled "Lyrics: Do We Need Them At All?") - which is just stupid. Of course lyrics matter; I just argue that they're less important than many journalists seem to think, and that I, personally, pay them less attention than many people do. Generally, I'm more capable of ignoring dumb lyrics with shit-hot music than the reverse - not that awful lyrics don't get in the way of my enjoyment, only that I can ignore them, willfully. If the music does nothing for me, fine, give me the lyric sheet.
The EW article also implies an all-or-nothing approach (as if titled "Lyrics: Do We Need Them At All?") - which is just stupid. Of course lyrics matter; I just argue that they're less important than many journalists seem to think, and that I, personally, pay them less attention than many people do. Generally, I'm more capable of ignoring dumb lyrics with shit-hot music than the reverse - not that awful lyrics don't get in the way of my enjoyment, only that I can ignore them, willfully. If the music does nothing for me, fine, give me the lyric sheet.
Presenting...the Lie-O-Meter!
Everyone's familiar with the idea of the Big Lie: repeat an untruth often and loudly enough, and people will come to believe it. The Asshole-in-Chief and his cronies seem to have come up with a new theory: tell lies in sheer quantity, so that they swarm around truth like thousands of piranha, and people will just avert their eyes.
Thankfully, technology has come to the rescue: here is a fancy database containing - well, no one would be so foolhardy as to claim it contains all of Bush's lies - but a lot of 'em, anyway.
Thankfully, technology has come to the rescue: here is a fancy database containing - well, no one would be so foolhardy as to claim it contains all of Bush's lies - but a lot of 'em, anyway.
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