Mick Bassett and the Marthas; Prussia; Child Bite, Weekend Recap...

"Are you gonna blog about this tomorrow?" (one blogger, asking another blogger...)

(Weekend Recap, including rubbing elbows with fellow Detroit-music chronicle-writers Elle and Scotter and Jasper at the Northern Lights...)


Another busy crazy explosive left-right-and-now-over-there and who's up next and did you know so-and-so's also playing over here kind of night…in Detroit

Prussia and Mick Bassett and the Marthas, both of them notorious favorites of Deep Cutz, both put on stunning performances – not in any guitar burning, windmill strumming jaw-dropping sense, but just in the taut, stalwart delivery of stellar performances of each song. Prussia opened with a Smtihs cover, the indelible "This Charming Man," in preparation for their upcoming Halloween show in which they'll take on the persona (in set list and possibly appearance as well) of the 80's UK lush-melodrama-popsters. The Marthas, meanwhile, presented their catchy calamity through energizing guitar-fuzz through older songs from their Here's The Whirlwind EP and a few newer songs floating in-waiting before an upcoming full length.

Between the two of them was the more prog-rock space grooves of Jason Croff's musical consortium, which started as a 5-piece and then adding a female vocalist. Tight musicianship and sweet sliding jazz-inflected pop-rock -

The thorn in the side of the night was I-75…and oh, indeed, there were many curses exuded within our car as we hastily traversed service-drives and around lesser known boulevards to try and make our way over to Small's in time for Child Bite (having, at this point, nearly 1 in the morning, missed the openers, F'ke Blood, Stnng and Benny Stoofy).

Child Bite…what can I say? They blow my mind. I know I'm supposed to pepper this slowly growing paragraph with all sorts of exuberant left-field adjectives and nearly-unwinding metaphors…but at some point you just have to sit down, throw all the word soup down the sink and say—this band just blows my fucking mind. Man, what a blogger-type paragraph…The site of them alone is enough to shock the senses – the sounds are spiky, whirling, noisy, cutting, but so poppy all at once. And, guitarist Zach Norton brought his cordless guitar…which meant the whole room became his stage.

So, after duly noting guest trumpeter Kevin Bayson's slowly building rivalry with a local singer from another band who may soon be named here, once I get his sober-in-the-daylight-approval to start pushing it…I started to gather myself and head out…with Carjack and I asking others, in regards to the fucked-up travel patterns that I-75's construction would cause us… "how did you get here?"

Most people took it in the more cosmic sense and started inebriated ponderings of the Universe…
…but we just wanted to get home.

(photos: mike milo)

Reviewing the Reviews....

Baltimore Round Robin: The 'Baltimore meets Detroit' discussions... ~ Recaps: http://www.post-rockist.com/ http://fivethreedialtone.com/podcastbox/ http://jasper.webvomit.com/?p=1770 Indeed, outside of…for lack of a better title, "the bloggers," this writer included, some Marthas and Mr. Carjack., there weren't very many other regulars from the…again, for lack of a better title, "Detroit Scene." But, in a way, it did feel like a diplomatic conference, which is why we all felt a vitality in supporting, not only the gesture of this traveling scene visiting our own arena, but also to share with them our own insights into the Detroit, ahem,…scene. The night, the format, the performances were, simply put, exhilarating. But the blogs listed above can give you much more details. The big debate revolves around the understandable sentiment of: why isn't Detroit like Baltimore…essentially, though it is much more nuanced than that…but that's the initial gut question. I can't answer that – but Dan Deacon, the transfixing, charismatic synth-fuzz dance-storm pied piper for armies of now anti-hipsters in big glasses and awful sweaters and fluorescent socks, is one of the key ingredients – Detroit would first need a comparable luminary to organize the countless artists of the Motor City's burgeoning music community. Next is, yes, motivation…but motivation is something that was blasting, oozing and spilling all over the place like some sort of hyper volcano of enthusiasm inside the walls of Wham City, the factory/flop-house/artist-enclave that bore many of the performers on this Baltimore stage. All these googly-eyed head expanders bouncing around together in a veritable endless pillow-fight of idea-sharing… Bring these two incomparable factors together and you're bound to get something close to Baltimore. To just have one would do Detroit a lot of good (in terms of equaling it)…because as I've said countless times here, the conditions, the people, the ideas, the talent…it's all here… Ready to burst… But at the end of the day, for as close as we feel in the heated swirl of a great local line up at the Magic Stick, the Belmont, Smalls, Lager, wherever...we all go home afterward and return to our scattered suburban positions...and there are much more deeper socio-political histories that have led to that...and it's way too much to unpack here... The point is, in Baltimore...they were synched up with each other 24-7...eating breakfast together and studying early 90's Disney movies for their neo-pop-art inspirations...TOGETHER so who wants to move in with me? We'll start soemthing....

More Reviews: Deerhoof - 'Offend Maggie!'

Next Saturday, (10/18), Deerhoof plays the Crofoot in Pontiac.
Yesterday, they released their 10th album, Offend Maggie on Kill Rock Stars


Deep Cutz Review:






listen: "Offend Maggie"








Deerhoof gets under your skin – and sometimes people don't like that. They shroud the sweetest kite-flying melodies in recklessly shredded guitar tones and oblique structures that embrace speak-sing airy female vocals that could bounce along like the happy-go-lucky doily edges of a children's storybook, or instead merge with more deep-rooted viscera of animalistic howls or shouts– and this is all propelled by thunderous and tight jazz-spaz drumming and ominous bass looms – essentially, they've helped forge the framework for this new century's sculpt of experimental indie-rock: highly expressive beyond regard for accessibility yet undeniably stimulating in its refreshing transformation of melody and the hooky riff of the pop sensibility.



After 2005's The Runner's Four (an unusually epic album for the typically succinct, or spastic quartet), the band shifted their line-up and recorded essentially the closest thing to a straight-forward, palatable rock record, (for them) with 07's Friend Opportunity. The difference now is – there seems to be more comfort, more confidence – they're back to the acerbic, the sharp cutting guitars, the off-feeling tones, the sprinklings of endearment, the enchanting acoustics, the sweet-grooves that mutate into wild left turns – whereas FO just sounded weird, Offend Maggie! feels more settled into the eccentric-pop-n-mayhem-zenith they'd found with 02's Milkman. This healthy re-familiarization sets in immediately with the hard drawing guitar scrapes of "Tears of Music and Love" that flow into a nice surf-n-shimmy garage riff under up-n-down siren vocals with the guitars later adopting this melody as the drums pound on… "Buck and Judy" exemplify the delicate haunting their stripped down booming march rhythms set beside the eerie harmonization of vocals-and-guitars; while the first verse is stalked by a bit of noisy stabs and crashes, the chorus lingers capriciously into some beautifully toned guitars that float like an ellipses before the destructing bass plods back… the taut drums and pedal-strained guitars of "Basketball Get Your Groove Back" dance along with the cartoon-painting-imagery of the wayward vocals and at some points it seems like the rhythm is thrown off by the guitar zooms, or vice-versa…with cheerleader-esque pep-cheers to an aspiring ball-playing bunny to "Go Go, Be Be Champyong!"



We get the cryptic acoustic pop "Don't Get Barn," the somewhat trudging all-out guitar-rock "My Purple Past," the more unsettling fair of nocturnal harmony-heavy possessors like "Family of Others" and the nerve-wracking guitar-n-drum build of "Eaguru Guru," the synthy-skin-crawling room clearers "This is God Speaking" and softer, sunnier, here's some steady hook-n-pop-romanticism "Offend Maggie" and a punchy-meandering rocker that gives the group to flesh out a lot of intricate instrumentations from each corner, "Fresh Barn."



Looking back on it, I wouldn't say Deerhoof would be the band to "return" to a sound or style – their credit for continued strength as stalwart noise-pop architects lies in their naïve defiance as they continue to kartwheel into new mutations…

(words: milo)

Reviews: The Fifty (from Detroit); Low Vs. Diamond; Willoughby

The Fifty - Laugh Until It Hurts

Detroit rock quintet The Fifty understand the necessity of balance, clasping grit-n-grime with polished poignancy…they can squeeze endearing piano-runs that shimmy with a playfulness over sidewinding shake-able percussion, but by the next track it could be all fuzz-blown guitar-muscle rock and cyclone solos over pounding bass and avalanche drums.

Vocal harmonies and piano intricacies and pounded-to-pirouette drumming and post-punk wavy basses and sweet guitar blitzes – a new take on the pop/rock format – not all the way sugary or all the way harmony-focused, or even all the way 70’s classic hard rock explosions, but yet dipping into all three.

The band plays 5th Avenue in Royal Oak on October 15th. (As part of a weekly residency.) Check them out at: myspace.com/thefifty

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Low Vs. Diamond - S/T (epic/red ink)


Smooth and shimmery pop-rock as grand as the wide open blue sky, as euphoric as the sun-spilled swing in the hammock or as writhing as that long drive home from an inevitably crumbling love – this is that youthful kind of escapism where you steal the car for the night and wander through the city streets finding new perspectives and breaking hearts and having your psyche torn this way and that in naivety-killing twists in the thick traffic-light spackled brush of the concrete jungle.

The lyrics are often melodramatic, the drums are these rousing runs that keep the engine rolling through alleys that throb with the steady bass-grooves and the guitars shoot across the sky like wondrous pedal-effected comets. It follows that same sort of brash and celebratory tract as Tokyo Police Club or the Killers, but adds the proper weight and wide cinematic scope that this Los Angeles-by-way-of-Colorado group of jam-band-players could conjure through their rebirth of theatric rock reverence that riffs on Echo & The Bunnyman, U2 and Coldplay – but really amps up the rhythm on the heavier rockers, (which are balanced by the occasional piano-pensive whirling.

High-gooey vocals and charging guitars, heavy on growing-pains documentation and lovelorn reflections, this is a steady debut in the pop-realm and should open up a rewarding future of plenty of soundtrack-slots and stadium shows for the ambitious rockers.

Listen: www.myspace.com/lowvsdiamond
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Willoughby - I Know What You're Up To (Sargent)
Sun-baked lo-fi melancholic singer/songwriter pop, with subtle humming grooves, warm soft toned organs and acoustics and the occasional spacey synth accompaniment, under sweet and shy vocals sung in that wispy harmony-ready California sunset glow (ala Byrds/Zombies.) After the pleasing pair of opening racks, William Gustavus Seyffert (Willoughby) drops the low-key Sea Change-era Beck or sunnier-Sparklehorse vibe to reveal a beautiful, distinctive piano-bar march and a spooky, bending guitar in the tingly ballad of unrequited love, ‘Frankenstein.’ Stripped-down sessions of one-man with a rotating cast of friends, perfect rainy-day music that Elliott Smith fans should take notice of - complete with an evocative cover of Lennon’s “I’m Losing You.”
Listen: www.myspace.com/willoughby

(all words: milo)

Deep Cutz State of the Union Part 3

Deep Cutz - State of the Union
-part one
-part two
(for part 3...a simple reflection on a passage from Howard Zinn...)

but, first... it's important to note that this recent editorial comes, not just from the opinion of one writer, but the ENTIRE New York Times:

McCain / Palin "frightening, intolerable" and running "one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember." Stay tuned here to Deep Cutz, for a discussion with musician Ted Leo - concerning the protests at the Republican National Convention, the de-fang-ing of a generation, the healing powers of music, and the reinforcement of community! In the meantime...consider this Deep Cutz State of the Union Part 3... and here...I can't put my feelings about this election, about the current state of -not only this country, but the world, any more aptly or inspiringly, than "radical" historian Howard Zinn did, in the closing chapter of his memoir, You Can't Stay Neutral on a Moving Train Zinn, on "The Possibility of Hope" "...to demand that America rethink it's beginnings, rethink it's values. It is this change of consciousness that encourages me. Granted, racial hatred and sex discrimination are still with us, war and violence still poison our culture, we have a large underclass of poor, desperate people and there is a hard core of the population content with the way things are, afraid of change. But i we see only that, we lose historical perspective, and then it is as if we were born yesterday and we know only the depressing stories in this morning's newspapers, this evening's television reports. Consider the remarkable transformation in just a few decades in people's consciousness of racism, in the bold presence of women demanding their rightful place, in a growing public awareness that homosexuals are not curiosities, but sensate human beings, in the long-term growing skepticism about military intervention despite the brief surge of military madness during the Gulf War...(this was written around the mid-90's) It is that long-term change that i think we must see if we are not to lose hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act. We forget how often in this century we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. The bad things that happen are repititions of bad things that have always happened - war, racism, maltreatment of women, religious and nationalist fanaticism, starvation The good things that happen are unexpected. Unexpected and yet explainable by certain truths which spring at us from time to time, but which we tend to forget: Political power, however formidable, is more fragile than we think. (Note how nervous are those who hold it.) Ordinary people can be intimidated for a time, can be fooled for a time, but they have a down-deep common sense, and sooner or later they find a way to challenge the power that oppresses them. Human beings everywhere want the same things; ...they long for peace, for friendship and affection across lines of race and nationality. -Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society... ...To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificiently , this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." (Zinn, 207-08)

JSB Squad; Barack N Bowl (10/10--Garden Bowl) and Post-Debate Politi-Cutz round up

Deep Cutz 10 / 8
Jeff Milo

It’s 1 a.m, the Magic Stick is closing down after a set from the Marthas…initially, I wonder if it’s exhaustion or the recent ill-advised shot of tequila that makes me think I just heard Jesse Shepherd-Bates say something about bringing "seven guitarists" to Friday's Obama rally/concert, Barack N' Bowl (in the Garden Bowl, with Satin Peaches , Pewter Cub, Rogue Satellites, Duminie and Smashed Windows, 10/10)














But really, it’s par for the course for the intriguing and exhilarating JSB Squad, spearheaded by the young multi-instrumentalist and aided by (almost-) countless local musicians, (including Satin Peaches, Mick Bassett). This line up could be as large as 14 players. Pure guitar-n-drums propulsions – like some relentless rocket-launched forklift of roots-rock's golden-hue n' rich flavor with inevitable flashes of punk's errant shredded exertion but wound up by often beautiful vocal melodies and goosebump-falsettos that mix an engaging singer/songwriter vibe with distinct hard-hooking exploration.

That said, I hope by now all of you are registered to vote – frankly, this may be one of the most tumultuous and important years in human history. Whatever happens, consider the future, and consider coming together. No more of this contemptible fear-inspired partisan tunnel vision. Consider unity, consider progress, consider where we've gone wrong. This is a torch-passing year between generations - and one choice embodies that…Vote!
Myspace.com/jsbsquad

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Moving on into more politics...

The entire debate (on film, and transcribed) can be found here:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/second-presidential-debate.html


Frankly, this is where things get nerve-wracking...the political bottleneck, the crystalization of opinions...the pieces get set in place and there's less of that idealistic fist-pumping march and winning hearts and minds (even though Obama still resonated more with independents again, for this debate...)...but, now, people are going to start making up their minds and there will be little, save another catastrophe on the scale of the recent financial crisis (which, at the end of the day, didn't seem to rattle us at all...mostly it just fed our mistrust of the government...) that will push them from their current choice...

No, now...it's all up the people and that both excites me and frightens me to no end...(set aside the fact that both 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen...) Now its feeling reduced to the young vs. the old, the liberals on the coasts vs. the conservatives in the heartland...

But I'm scared for other reasons...

Especially when we have Palin, self-described lipstick-wearing-pitbull, delivering speeches that actually would incite violence against Obama - by continually referencing his limited, brief interaction through a charity-board, in his past with community organizer (and, yes, former Weatherman) Bill Ayers...essentially, Palin, with her wretching folksy-ness, wants to have her cake of being racist and eat it too, by getting away with it by cloaking it in words like ...he associated with a known domestic terrorist... ...riiight, "he doesn't see America like you and I..." she said...constantly repeating the word "terrorist..." ...catering to the unconscious Id of the radical right and stirring their visceral passions - if you continually repeat the word "terrorist" in (attack-filled-) speeches about Obama...then eventually the red-eyed bulls of the deepest dark spirits of the right will eventually make the connection Terrorist - - Obama...

Immeasurably, indescribably contemptible...and evil-hearted - the GOP ticket is encouraging violence to the point where some are shouting out "terrorist" "treason" and "kill him!" during Palin and McCain's rallies.


Can you fathom this? The McCain campaign is ENCOURAGING...potentially-murderous-hatred toward their oponent...who is black...ENCOURAGING racially-charged violence...by cloaking it with words like "terrorism" and essentially only using Ayers as a scapegoat.

How do you even defend that?


















Anyway--back to the Debate from last night.



From Huffington: "[Obama] was centered where McCain was scattered. Forceful where McCain was forced. Presidential where McCain was petulant.
Obama's measured reasonableness totally countered that caricature. You could fault Obama for not being particularly inspiring, but you could not miss the rock steady competence he exuded -- authoritatively delivering substantive answers to questions on the economy, health care, taxes, and foreign policy. "

"[McCain] won't be elected because he has nothing relevant to offer for an economy in meltdown and a nation in fear. "

~

From Walter Shapiro on Salon.com

With the economy nose-diving, McCain did not achieve the surge he needed, while Obama looked masterly as the candidate of reassurance.

also from Shapiro: "McCain desperately needs to discredit Obama, since he cannot survive an election where the dominant topics are recession, Wall Street and George W. Bush..."

So, you have nothing left, McCain, but to embrace race-baiting and invite violent hatred against your candiate... Obama is your fellow American, John, he is your fellow-human-being...and you are catering to the most primal, malleable anger that would stilt us back to pre-Civil Rights Movement-hatred...

Contempitble...

~

"That one???"

Bob Cesca unpacks McCain's palpable disrespect for Obama, by calling him "That One..." during the debate.

"...referred to Senator Obama as "that one," calling to mind some of the not-so-subtle race baiting that has been the spasmodic, desperate tactic du jour for McCain and his airheaded coward of a running mate..."

~

Thomas L. Friedman (NYtime) asks, How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?

Obama's closing statement...
"I know that I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for the fact that this country gave me opportunity. Are we going to pass on that same American dream to the next generation? Over the last 8 years we've seen that dream diminish. Wages and incomes have gone down. People have lost their health care or are going bankrupt becuase they get sick. We've got young people who have got the grades and the will and the drive to go to college but they just don't have the money. And we can't expect that if we do the same things that we've been doing over the last 8 years, that somehow we are going to have a different outcome we need fundamental change. But we're going to have to have the courage and sacrifice, the nerve to move in a new direction..."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjPpf-C1WJQ

Deep Cutz State of the Union
part 1

part 2

VOTE

Debates Tonight - a new candidate arises (10-10 in Rochester)

It feels like most of us have our minds made up...but the town-hall style debates tonight (9pm, on any major network) will primarily aim for the Undecided...which is anywhere from 10-18%, depending on which of the many sources you scour on the internet...

It could get ugly from the Right...

And, keeping up with the financial crisis--are we watching light leave the eyes of American capitalism?

Anyhow...this isn't an official Politi-Cutz--rant...

But, when you're watching tonight - keep in mind how much space there is on that stage...room enough for a third candidate? ("“the people can change anything they want – corporations are not mentioned in the constitution…”)



or a Fourth Candidate?
(C.Jack-08)







in the meantime...
The Factory is on Rochester Road/Main Street...between 3rd and 4th street...you can see Carjack do his own stump speech campaigning their, along with Aleph-1 and My Dear Disco





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dipping again, briefly back into politi-cutz...
where is the outrage??


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Music News - tours coming through Detroit: BALTIMORE ROUND ROBIN + SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS w/SEX GHOST+Sucker DJs

A fun and feverish October lies ahead for Detroit... BALTIMORE ROUND ROBIN 10-8 & 10-9 - MOCAD This weekend, October 8th and 9th, at the MOCAD - (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) will host the substantially varying and crazy cast of south-by-southeast born musicians out of the fruitfully freak-friendly Baltimore scene, which includes the indomitable Dan Deacon, the dreamy Beach House and the intriguing Video Hippos... as well as The Death Set, Jana Hunter, Adventure, Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, WZT Hearts, Nautical Almanac... The Dan Deacon-curated tour is known as the Baltimore Round Robin, where bands set up along the premiter of the venue/space, boxing the audience in like walls of a fort and commencing to go-round-the-room, band-by-band, one song each, until the show is done...with no headliner and no front, back left or right sides... Stopping twice in each city - the first night (Eyes Night) is dedicated to more atmospheric, cerebral folk-type stuff, which features beach house creepers ed schrader jana hunter lesser gonzalez alvarez lexie mountain boys nautical almanac santa dads teeth mountain wzt hearts The second night, (Feet Night) features the more jump-up-kick-out-wiggle-and-rock dance vibes, with adventure blood baby dan deacon the deathset dj dog dick double dagger future islands height lizz king nuclear power pants smarthgrowth video hippos One tour, 20+ bands, 60+ people - lots of enthusiasm, lots of fun... info

http://baltimoreroundrobin.com/

ALSO---Check out MOCAD photos, courtesy of Riaz K, of the strange and spectacular Carjack show, from a couple weeks back...where a 14-foot-tall, 20-foot-long orange tabby cat came parading into the venue mid-set to cause chaos with a cadre of mice.

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SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS October 17th - Pike Room

One of my new favorite bands...School of Seven Bells was started by guitarist Ben Curtis (from Secret Machines) and pairs his dreamy-lulls and charged buzz pop with twin sister singers Claudia and Alejandra Deheza (from On! Air! Library), sweet sirens with enchanting vocal harmonies that fly and thicken and sway and just seem to carry you away - over beautifully drone-pop-informed fuzz-charms leaning toward wall of sound aspirations but kept modest with lab top beats and measured guitar waves...

check out
"Connjur" and "Chain"
from their debut full length Alpinisms (and check out the Ghostly International Artists page)

(photo: Elle Muliarchyk)

Their visit to the Pike Room in Pontiac is the start of a fateful tour which sees them later meeting up with Black Moth Super Rainbow and M83 - but, the treat for us...is that we get to see them with local favorites - such as the consummate dance/punk trio Javelins, the ever transforming electro-pop of Deastro and the stalwart shoegaze of 800Beloved.

ALSO...if you head downstairs from the Pike Room to Vernor's Subterranean Lounge, you'll find the "Evil Dead meets Thriller" grimy sultry noisy dance pop of locals Sex Ghost - along with the stupdendous and affable Sucker DJs providing the soundtrack for the evening - as part of Phonotropic Phridaze.

Deep Cutz State of the Union Part 2

More Politi-Cutz....
...(with more music on the horizon) --(by Jeff Milo)

So...I went spinning off into mad rambilng oblivions yesterday, into some barn-doors-blowing stomps and stretched-to-the-breaking-point-rants in political essay-writing with the last post... or...something not far from this... But there's more to say...Indeed, now the door is open, the spirit is charged, the powder trail is lit and the spark is blazing down the line... - As I write this, it is only an hour or so before the Vice Presidential Debates - so I'll be behind on whatever mind-numbingly idiotic stammering word-soup junior-high-debate-class-note-card-jumbling bat your eyes and use that Fargo accent charm that the unbelievably disconcerting Sarah Palin may have blathered herself into... (then again, Joe Biden is certainly one of the farthest from being graceful or succinct with his public speaking)...it should be one amazing mess of human obtuseness But a few things struck me in the last 24 hours.....and as I am feeling ever more restless to continue to stomp around, fist in the air in some sort of hopefully proactive manner...I felt I should share some of these with you... -----If you check out Detroit Riot you can watch a nigh-5-minute clip featuring a parade of celebrities clearly targeting the youth vote... -----if you hit up Newsweek's site - you can read Fareed Zakaria level-headed and extremely grave tirade / warning, aganist the frightening potential of allowing Sarah Palin anymore advancement into politics - and how this is absolutely....AB-SO-FUCKING-LUTELY...the worst time in history, just a perfect storm of shit and greed and wayward economies and wars and stressed geopolitical relations....just the WORST time....to even joke about having someone like this in the white house... Writes Zakaria: Can we now admit the obvious? .....she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. ...Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions)." ------Also, this slipped under the mainstream press....John McCain said he aspires to be a dictator.... (Keith Olbermann mentioned it, but...hinted...or perhaps hoped?...that the Senator was joking...)

--for more insight into this aspiring Dictator... - http://therealmccain.com/

Now,...like I'd written before, I often find myself feeling apprehensive and full of doubt and anger - because we can all get high and giddy on HOPE and wave signs and chant for O-Bah-Mah or Yes-We-Can....

but the unhealthy aspect of all this rousnig is that it emphasizes the future - the danger is to not have your dreams, your imagination, your hopes - taken advantage of....nothing is as sweet as your wildest dreams...

Democrats are politicians...or as Ralph Nader once aptly described the two (often-in-cahoots-)-dominating parties- "two heads of the same corporate party" (check this out for inspiration)

And I'm not sure I have an answer for this...specifically regarding the old dry, poisonous resignment to just shrugging it off and saying "ah well, the lesser of two evils" and crank goes the (hopefully NON-electronic-)- voting machine... The answer I kept coming to was to remember that you are bigger than all these politicians - these greedy war-mongers and Wall Street players, you have a soul!!!, you and I and your friends and my friends and our friendship and family and love - are worth so much more! It's all about embracing the Self and embracing LIFE....that is where you will find truth.

And, yes!!--we must remember, that one candidate has at least said that he will get us out of Iraq, that he will work toward universal health care, that he will work (harder, more earnestly) toward alternative energy, that he will embrace diplomacy! Those things matter to me...and in an imperfect system where candidates like Kucinich and Paul and Nader are tragically pushed to the fringe by a manipulative bought-and-sold media....we must go with Obama.

if you're interested: http://www.votenader.org/

or - http://www.ronpaul.org/

But ---that said, I found a fascinating and very important article in Newsweek that I hope all of you Obama supporters will read...If we're going with Obama - then we deserve to ask...

‘Ask Not What You Can Do For Barack Obama, Ask What Barack Obama Can Do For You’

by Jonathan Darman

snippets:

"Get selfish before it's too late. The financial crisis is horrible news for everyone—rich and poor, young and old. But the fact that it coincides with the presidential debates—the last gasp of substance in the campaign—provides a unique opportunity for you to ask Obama to choose you. With the new fiscal reality, neither he nor John McCain should get away with promising everyone what he or she wants. In debates they will be pressed to explain their priorities. Seize this opportunity. To get the best of Obama, young people, cut out the blind devotion. Get off the Huffington Post. Stop the Facebook blasts. If you really want to be the change you've been waiting for, start holding Obama to some of his promises to our generation. In these waning days of the campaign, ask not what you can do for Barack Obama, ask what Barack Obama can do for you."

"The most predictable request, and a suitable one for our earnest generation, is for Obama to do something about the entitlement crisis. Many of you know how Armageddon is coming through simple math: the retirement of the baby-boom generation means the Social Security system will have to pay out more in benefits for retired workers than it is taking in from those still in the workforce....

....if our generation fails to hold Obama to a higher standard in the final weeks of this campaign, it will most likely get what it deserves: a decidedly ordinary President Obama and a new generation's descent into cynicism. This would be a tragedy, for, in truth, there is one thing that makes our generation special. We still have the power to believe.

.........which echoes all of my points from this rant.........

We can all cry tears of joy the day Obama is elected president...I know so many of us will...myself included....but the very next morning, we must calm down and regain (or attain, for the dreamers) a renewed vigiliance...and become staunch critics...

seek the truth....do something....

Register! Vote!

and yes...., still.... Hope!

Deep Cutz - State of the Union...and the World...

Not entirely subtle endorsements...and not entirely subtle indictments...

...and rambling wonders...of what really matters - and what is going to really matter..........

I still don’t know where to start with this…

I’ve been talking it out to some friends who all seem to feel the same way…
(words: Jeff Milo--- deep cutz)


The System, The Media, Reality...and our time...
2008

```
"If you want the truth...go to yourselves...that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth..." (-Network)

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."
Howard Zinn


"...all big things are made out of smaller things."
Ted Leo

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. "
Robert Kennedy



`

1


We live in a cataclysmic age. And it’s measured by commercial breaks.

It is filled with somberness and severity and bitterness and frustration…and division; the edge of a knife, riding off the rails, with the lunatics running the asylum…But, you wouldn’t know it if you turned on the television and you’d hopefully get a whiff of it on the front pages of most major newspapers. You could find it on the internet: an amalgamated perception of the true state of things - (which often feels like an upside-down-sling-shot-explosion-over-the-ever-paved-pastures-of-delusional-bullet-points).

Of course, it would help if you were familiar with the computer – (merely a devastatingly ubiquitous invention that has become a household mainstay and an inevitable aspect of our every day lives) – indeed, not knowing your way round the internet could be a hindrance. We may spit jokes of a "youtube generation," but in times of white-noise interference and reality-show distractions giddily utilized by the corporations that run these so-called news organizations, then private users like flamethrower_wafflehouse_379 become informal (and vital) “journalists” posting and re-posting the more revealing aspects of these scary well-dressed talking heads trying to run for the seat of power in this imperfect nation.

So, what I kept coming back to was history (the perception of which, television cuts us off from) and from history I came to generations…

Here we are, 2008 and every year more and more babyboomers are retiring. And more and more 20-somethings are all getting houses and scrimping for car-insurance bills and trying to get married and paying off college tuitions for degrees that actually didn’t help us get jobs in this majorly-fucked-over economy…(but I digress)

– Here we are…a painfully obvious transition is pulling at us steadily further each day. I’m suggesting we consider something beyond the social warfare of 24-hour-news-network bark-fests, beyond the left vs. the right, beyond the flowers toward the guns or the immigrants and the hunters, museum patrons or Nascar fans, NPR or MTV. No. Today, tomorrow and all of next month, we have to start considering the conflict of generations, generational transition.
Transition…Progress….Change

…consider that these babyboomers have been in control for the past 25 years – we’ve never been in "control" and we have to realize that our time is coming…and that one choice in this campaign clearly represents this generational torch-passing. Indeed…I won’t hide the fact that the button on my back-pack says Obama-08, I won’t deny that I’ve never actually been enthused by a (traditional) politician the way I’ve been for this candidate…

But the things is...I'm never without some doubt, or apprehension...
Follow politics enough and inevitably you have to start battling cynicism…jade and misanthropy. I don’t trust the government. And sometimes, while watching the product-pushing-pap and empty-shell talking heads with their useless spew of marshmellowy info-tainment (and repeated failures to cover the real issues through compromising their integrity) all these wasted breathes, these non-stories, this wasted time and numbing of minds and he-said-this and she-said-that, but he-wants-this and he-knew-that and he-hates-you and Two-and-a-Half-Men-at-8pm and they-hate-us and he’s-not-this and she’s-not-that and ask-your-doctor-if-this-is-right-for-you and we-know-what-you-want and bah-dah-dah-daaah-daaaah—I’m-lovin’-it….

...How will you really know what’s going on? And, I say that with much more gravity than I intend it…yes, I’m rambling most of this out here to any and all still out there who don’t realize the vitality of this election, who don’t realize the potential Progress we could have with one ambitious, strong-willed, and yes, youthful choice and the potential continuation of catastrophic, suppressive policies by the other aging, cancerous, cantankerous choice…No, I’m saying in the grand scope of the great spirit-crushing machine known as the Media, in the face of this flame spurting monster, how are we to know left from right and real from fake…

Moving briefly, to technology…we are ever-at-the pinnacle (depending, I suppose on research-funding), and we are ever-advancing, we are at the most technologically advanced state in the history of human progress. (Yes, and we get cool iPod toys too…and apparently we absolutely NEED them…) Instant everything, untold possibilities, just push a button – technological conveniences…we can be told what to watch, what to buy, what to drive and what to try…

But thought is not a convenience. Decisions are to be worked toward and come to independently – not molded from the easy-bake-oven of televisions. (By that rationale, I would hope it is not merely Tina Fey who shapes our opinions of Sarah Palin...just make sure you do your research...or simply listen closely to how often she casually drops the word "blessed" at rallies or in interviews...eek.)

So, then...…a view from the hill upon the valley of the American populace – a few jumbled fragments from the social landfill of the last 7 years – what part of the picture does the media put into frame…? September-11th, American Idol, Red Bull, “fight em over there,” Islamo-fascism, middle America morals, mortgage lending mega-giants need our working-stiff-help, wiretapping as a security measure, myspace.com, McDonald’s and “the surge is working” and POWs-shot-down-while-bombing-civilians—are---heroes(?)…and So…you think you can dance? –is on next!

Being a journalism graduate, I often fling into spasmodic quacks and cracks and flips of anger and disgust to know that the 4th Estate, the craft I was taught (and still revere), to seek information, to serve the public and to let no question be off limits – has degenerated into a gossip-mill of chatty, TV-pretty sales associates who are deftly talented at reading the teleprompters scripted strategically to massage away insight and avoid upsetting you so they can cut away quickly to the next Pizza Hut commercial offering greasy cheese bread and chocolate brownie-desserts and Pepsi as a family meal.

You are cooed, not clued-in (and thus, informed and thus, upset…and thus, motivated.) You are under control. ...and "I want you to get Mad..." (while we're at it, an entire generation that didn't know anything that didn't come out of this tube...turn your television off)

There is often little of worth to cull from the mainstream press – they bury the lead of casualties, of torture, of Iraqi civilian deaths, of military spending, of consumer’s-rights-violations, of constitutional-rights-violations, of cutting education and infrastructure…this is all on page 9A, bottom corner, 3rd paragraph, while the front page runs polls on more divisive (and sometimes useless) questions…like, “Can a mom be president?” Yeah, that’ll get the left and right a-yellin at each other…hell, even the men and the women
…How about this…SHOULD a mom (with a newborn) be president???

2

So yes, the media has failed – but back to generations. Whether you're 18 or 36 or even 41 – it is time – time to look up at your baby-boom parents (members of a generation that’s held political sway for the last 30 years) and say “Mom, Dad, it's 2008 and it’s not about your future anymore…it’s about mine.”

Frankly, how much future does John McCain even have left…? (If I’m riffing on the baby-boomers as an argument point, let’s also point out that John McCain is at least 9-years-older than even the oldest of the baby-boomers…) (…he’s also had cancer 4 times, including the potentially deadly melanoma.) (…and his running mate thinks the world’s only 6,000 years old and that man and dinosaurs coexisted…) ...but I digress...

In a 99% digital age, we would seriously consider electing a cantankerous war-monger, born before the invention of the television? –who doesn’t know his way around a computer? Can new voters born in 1990 even fathom that?

And, a VP candidate who would stilt our asses back to some fuzzy delusion of 1954-small-southern-town n' down-home values. Ya know, like America used to be?? A woman whose fed lines about bullying our way around the world in the name of stopping terrorism…but didn't even know the fundamentals of the Bush Doctrine…, essentially the bible for all tough-talking war-hungry conservatives.

.......…against affirmative action, against abortion,
for creationism in schools, for offshore drilling
– against gay marriage, against science,
for aggressive preemptive strikes (abroad and at home) for tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, …for using the nukes, for keeping things as they are…

("Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity…"-John Lennon)

It is an emphasis of the great rift of generations that only swelled throughout the 90’s – while the babyboomers settled into their 40’s and 50’s, they found what looks like, apparent complacency. Meanwhile, we came into our 20’s and our 30’s and grew into a radical, open-minded maturity and found consciousness. Forget the 'in my day' and 'walking barefoot in the snow to school' cliches, we have had quite the different experience in growing up, vs. our parents...

We are more than ready. And, damn it, we should be so motivated by the sheer anger we deserve to feel – for the state of the world…national debt UP, military spending UP, global warming WORSENING...for taxes going to help corporations...

Think outside yourself, think beyond now. Resist complacency. Embrace HOPE. Christ, embrace each other. We’re all in this together. As Joe Strummer said, “Without people, you’re nothing…”
Progress! Register! Vote!

("We are one people, we are one nation...")


3


But partisan politics – through the mouthpiece of the media – commits a psychological warfare upon us, each and every day – through those god-damned glowing boxes in our living rooms.

Which brings me to a recent interview I conducted with the outspoken punk-soul-folk singer/songwriter, Ted Leo... I ask Ted how he is and he sighs in deep breathy defeat. (This is just after the protests at the RNC over labor day...) There’s apprehension and melancholy in his voice – as though there’s just been a death in the family.

“It would depress you if I started to really get into it…” he says. And, writing it out now, I have to wonder how much of myself took that as a challenge to pry further. The way he trails off though, it’s a somber punch in the chest, a slouch to the soul – my now somewhat face-planted enthusiasm stems from an adoration for Ted that had always built him up as a hero in mine and many’s eyes – a sort of modern day profit and protest singer, a crusader, a regular dude who sang about Jersey and often showed how much of a “nerd” he was for scouring the internet for world news. Relatable, but heroic, and always dynamic in his lyrics which painted the world as a shaky place being rocked by unseen sinister forces wrongfully installed into power. Biting, dashing, striking, singing…("Why would you give power to those who robbed you blind, yet another time?")

…and here I was seeing the trail of blood droplets leading to his favored wing. But, reflecting, the weariness of this crusader puts that same sort of blinding pride and fervor of any beaten soldier running to pick up a tattered flag to carry it forward onto the torched field.

On most nights, I’m too sensitive to write about politics, it’s true, I don’t’ know what to tell you – the paradox (of my palpable cynicism) is life would have me also rally to a man who has HOPE plastered all over his campaign signs, some unknown, unclassifiable impulse inside me pushes me towards this thus-framed embodiment of hope in a suit, standing in front of a flag. I am young, poor, idealistic, sensitive, humanitarian – of course! Yes! It would only make sense that I’d get goosebumps and holler and jump and get behind this man of hope.

Hope’s all I really have…-------------

But real hope…

I get real hope from real people. (From you.) Ted’s a hero to me not because of his dash and dare and outspoken songs and onstage valiance – all of this visceral barrage combines for the same psychological effect of the valiance of Obama, this man of hope, in perfect skyblue hues and American flag-laden backgrounds. (It is important to remember that...) Hope can be manipulated – but not when it’s the honest, weary sighed defeat of a real-life person who wakes up just the same as me every morning, sees the news, sees the world and says “…this is fucked, this makes me angry…”

Somehow…, I get hope when Ted says he doesn’t have an answer.

Because these are very real emotions. REAL. But, let’s take a breath…my nausea of politics is mainly born from the symptoms of the television-age. (Where we’re cut off from reality, where we all think we’re the center of the universe and where we have no concept of history.) I am not all of a sudden some self-righteous humanitarian/sensitive anarchist who believes we should all just escape to a meadow, hold hands and groove on spiritual universality. (I’d go mad outside the city.)

There is still work to be done and I do still believe in democracy. If this is about youth and hope and anger and the weariness of real people – then there is still one candidate over the other. And if you believe in democracy – then believe that all of our young, hopeful, angry, weary voices can come together and voice a decision.
Hope. Progress. Change.

4

It starts to feel like there’s three simultaneous and conflicting “realities” all yelling and bumping into each other…

There’s the System: government, the Federal Reserve, partisan politics and religion… - this is all stuff we’ll either not (or find difficult to) understand, or we’ll be too small to truly effect it, or it’ll just make us angry or just waste our time…(and often, divide us).

Then, there’s the Media: television, programming, marketing garbage, where we lose touch with history and reality and each other, numbed into apathy and sometimes lulled into malleability-for-marketers…(often working in tandem with the system and covering politics like a soap opera)...Where our glow-box delusions have us believe we are the center of the universe.

Then, there’s Reality…REAL reality: real people, real interactions, love, sharing, caring, all of that, discourse, engagement, stimulation…which is most fruitful when fueled by education, art and science…and served best with an open mind and lots of love…

So, what I’m saying is, essentially – vote for the future, vote for Obama—I would implore you; for this is the passing of a generational torch –

We have seen reactionary politics and policies that disregard and destroy the constitution and restrict the Bill of Rights, (totalitarian) suppression has reared its ugly head like a beast (see: St. Paul, see: the CAID raid) testing the air and environment outside its cave – if its not impeded, it will continue advancing until it is openly upon us every day – suppressive, fascist tactics parading under the guise of security in the name of wars that a government willingly, surreptitiously, conspiratorially entered…ultimately for financial gains (that us working stiffs will never see!!)

And yes, it is important to remember that Obama is, at the end of the day, a politician…
but, McCain will gladly continue these totalitarian tactics and let the beast loose. (Watch a fellow POW give his opinion on presidential qualities.)

Rely on Obama’s "liberalism" (as exaggeratingly-labeled by a fear-based right-leaning reactionary media)…to promote true protection – protection of the Constitution of the United States!

Don’t let them divide us through fear, bullying, partisanship, religion, class, or race – we are weaker when we are divided…and that’s what the Republican Administration of the last 8 years has thrived upon…divide and conquer! We must come together…

5

Most importantly…don’t panic…or, at least…remember that through unity, we are stronger…and thus there would be no need for panic. As we finished our interview, I asked Ted Leo about a concert he's set to perform on election night, November 4th, if he anticipated a nerve-wracking evening – and if he would remain neutral regarding the candidates…

“well I can definitely say that I don't attempt to be non-partisan,” said Leo, “I also don't attempt to turn my shows into like rallies – I think when anybody enters into this kind of mode of expression...you want to see that you do have an effect in “changing the world" but,...I just try to express my thoughts about things, I try to make sense of what's going on for myself and by extension...other people, and hopefully help somebody else make sense of something or just make it through....a day!...thanks to music!...in a way that music has been there for me in my life. So, it's kind of in that spirit that I approach even something like playing on election day...whatever the outcome is...it's gonna be...celebratory and cathartic and it's gonna be community reinforcing...”

Indeed: The first two “realities” are complete bull-shit, and often merely the tools of a self-serving system of control. Stay in reality, stay here with each other…open up…and…

Come together…and if you’re reading this…VOTE.

And consider…

CHANGE.

Viewing and reading material

Fareed Zakaria's case against Sarah Palin

Watch how nervous Jack Cafferty makes Wolf Blitzer, simply for speaking his (and our) opinion

What does conservative George Will have to say?

72 years old and cancer...but the media often glosses over it...

This was also not mentioned...it made Alaskan-history, the largest protest in state history

Where have all the protests gone?

when the press fails

remember Iraq?

"...a fear campaign was innaugerated...we cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to distruction..."
charles lindbergh

Obama's answers to the top 14 science questions facing America

AdBusters

RNC Protests

Democracy Now!




and other alternatives.......



"Ordinary people can be intimidated for a time, can be fooled for a time, but they have a down-deep common sense, and sooner or later they find a way to challenge the power that oppresses them..."


-Howard Zinn