We went to the parade today, and while my video from that is uploading, I have some amendements to make from my prior post.

I was sort of sour on the whole politics angle of the HONK! bands. I think what I said was true, that basically, if the goal is to convert the unconverted, spectacles like this aren’t going to be the forum where that happens. My experience is that the only time peoples’ minds are changed is when there is some personal connection between two people that transcends politics, and then they have to reconcile their feelings to their viewpoints. Anyway, so, maybe people are not going to hear the Leftist Marching Band’s song about Wal-Mart and are suddenly going to see the light and say, yeah, they treat their workers like crap, I’m not going to shop there.

But I think there is something to the politics of the music itself that I basically buy into. First off, it’s just a total non-product. Very few of the bands there were even selling CDs. None of these people are making their living from their music, they are just out there for the joy of the thing. (I’m guessing here, to be fair: but I suspect that only a relative handful of people are making a living from music these days, and the folks in the HONK bands have not given up their day jobs). But the format of this kind of music is just not salable; it can barely even be recorded well. I mean, it technically can be recorded, and it can even sound pretty good. But unless you have a really crazy sound system at home, it’s just not going to sound like 10 horns and 5 percussionists (or more) standing 3 or 4 feet away from you, there’s not going to be a crowd dancing all smelly after a day of dancing.

I also feel like it opens a viable door for popular music. I guess it’s not popular in the sense that a lot of people like it. But it is pop music in the sense that you don’t need any kind of specialized cultural context or background to have an immediate visceral human reaction to people blowing horns and banging drums in front of you. It’s a popular music that you can participate in just by listening to it and ditching the snobbery and admitting that you like it– you don’t have to buy a T-Shirt, you don’t have to participate in some kind of record store nerd snottery, you don’t have to claim your turf as part of a subculture (there were townies, trustafarians, old crusty Cambridge folkies, new somerville yuppies with their kids in their maclaren strollers, and Click and Clack the Tappett Brothers for god’s sake). You can just listen and shake your butt and be happy to be in the middle of something great on a couple of gorgeous New England autumn days.

And I love that it just harkens to a time when if you wanted music, you just made it. You didn’t go shopping.

The first time I read Thoreau was in 8th or 9th grade English class, and I had no use for the guy. I grew up on a farm, feeling pretty disconnected from the modern world, and was pretty actively trying to connect to it. So I had little patience for some earnest jackass who preached about renouncing it.

But clearly, I had a pretty strong reaction, and he definitely touched a nerve. And I find little bits of Walden coming in to my head from time to time.

Every time I find myself getting a news addiction, I think of this:

After a night’s sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. “Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe” - and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

… And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip.

…What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old!

I find this kind of thing comforting when news cycles seem to be heating up, when world events seem to be impossibly dire. And I am occasionally attracted by more contemporary variations of this attitude.

I guess what I ultimately don’t buy is that withdrawal from the world is somehow the answer. I think that it’s better to stay engaged, while keeping it all in perspective. People have been feeling like the world is spinning out of control for thousands of years — O tempora! O mores! — and sometimes it is, but usually it isn’t. A coward dies a thousand times, etc. (which also comes straight to you from 8th grade English class…)

Seriously, I’m going to just stop talking about her (after this post).

She’s completely derailled what was an interesting presidential campaign, made it petty and predictable, and completely polarized the country along the same boring lines we had 4 years ago. Being a subscriber to Hanlon’s Razor, and with no clear Rovian evil genius strategist on the McCain team, I think her appointment was an act of desparation rather than evil genius. Still, just talking about her plays to McCain’s favor, so I’m stopping!

I’m sort of optimistic about politics these days, even though in the back of my head I feel like Charlie Brown on his way to kick the football again.

Still, I can’t help but think our politics would be better if we had a Plaid party.

Since I read news more often than I watch or hear it, I have had a hard time knowing whether Sarah Palin’s last name is pronounced with a long “a” or a short “a”.

And then I read that she gave her son the middle name “Van” because “Van Palin” rhymes with “Van Halen”, so now that’s all cleared up for me.

She was governor of a state that’s right near Russia, and she named her kid after a band who had a hit in the 80’s with a song called “Panama”. And you thought she didn’t have foreign policy experience…

Senator, you may sing “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”. You may pick an unqualified zealot from the hinterlands to be your second. You may have your vicious temper and your flights from reason and your lack of domesticy policy chops combined with flawed positions on foreign policy.

But. You. May not. Steal. “Barracuda”!!!!

Disclaimer #1: I know I’m about four days late in bothering to write about this; sorry, gang, I do sort of have a Real Life. Disclaimer #2: I’m going to assume you are aware that last week was the Democratic National Convention, that Barak Obama gave a speech, that you watched it, and that if you wanted a full rundown and insightful commentary that you have already gone elsewhere.

OK, here’s the line that caught me most:

Instead, it is that American spirit that American promise that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; That makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

Now, I’m glad I’m not the only one who instantly thought of Moon River at that line.

Two drifters
Off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world
To see…

We’re after the same rainbow’s end
Waiting around the bend
My Huckleberry friend
Moon River and me…

I love this. I think it totally taps into a deep well of What It Means To Be American™, the sense that our hearts desire is somewhere out there just beyond reach…

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further…and one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I can’t decide if Christopher Hitchens’ article in Vanity Fair in which he willingly submits to being waterboarded in order to help him decide if it’s torture or not qualifies him to be considered like one of those spunky courageous first-person journalists of yore like Orwell or if it’s just an audition for Jackass: Celebrity Journalist edition. I’m guessing a little of both, leaning toward the latter. Because while it certainly shows a little more guts than many of his milquetoast bretheren, there are actually a lot of fairly courageous journalists actually covering the war at real, great personal danger. And it’s ultimately sort of a pointless stunt: maybe Hitchens personally wasn’t sure waterboarding was torture, but honestly, I don’t even think the Bush administration lawyers really believe deep in their hearts that it isn’t.

I gots to vote on the primary next Tuesday, but I’m still undecided.

Here’s the situation.

I don’t vote on issues, I don’t vote on character. My vote usually goes to whomever can build the most competent cabinet, and whose politics are not totally abhorrent to me. Cause face it, nobody can do it all their damn selves. So I try to think not about the candidate, but about the candidate’s network.

I tend to hate the “authenticity” candidates like last election’s loathsome Howard Dean, possibly the least intelligent silver-spoon candidate to run for the presidency since George W. Bush. (Or so I thought, until Bush’s Skull-and-Bones pal John Kerry’s dismal Yale GPA was made public). As much as I think it was unfair the way that Dean’s candidacy was derailed by getting made into a joke, I still just don’t see what my fellow supposedly Internet-savvy east coast liberals saw in his schtick. I couldn’t figure out what Dean was up to, other than taking donations over the internet and then turning them over to Old Media outlets.

So by my usual logic, I should be voting for Clinton, who arguably has the best capacity to build a strong cabinet. But she’s the same kind of spineless say-anything-to-get-elected weasel as Bill, sans the I’m-getting-away-with-this charm.

I’m leaning Obamawards, but just am a little concerned that he’s more speechifying than substance, and in 4 years, we’re going to still be in Iraq, he’s not going to roll back any of the encroachment of civil liberties of the last few years. But in spite of myself, in spite of my whole basic outlook on life, which says that nothing is more bogus than authenticity and that nothing is more real than artifice, I can’t help but think that there are things in life that can’t be done but without some modicum of faith in one’s own sincerity, in faith in the future, some amount of “I know, we’ll put the show on right here! In the barn!”. And the ability to ignore the fact that this is basically an untenable point of view. And I think Obama’s got that more than any candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime.

The good news is that I’m not a Republican. I’d be in a worse position then, because they’re pretty much all joke candidates, except for McCain, who would be funny if his insanity weren’t so genuine. He used to appeal to the authenticity-minded middle-grounders. But in recent hears he has been able to distinguish himself by being simultaneously a party-line weasel AND a totally wacko loose cannon, so I don’t think he’s going to be able to grab too many independents or undecideds (who will tolerate wackos but not party-line weasels).

Casablanca is on TCM tonight, and it just got to the scene in Rick’s Café where the German soldiers sing “Deutschland Über Alles”, and everybody else sings “La Marseillaise”, drowning out the Germans.

That reminded me about one more thing about the Berlin Filmmuseum, which I mentioned last week. That scene was playing on a loop in one of the rooms in the permanent exhibition near the Marlene Dietrich section that showed all the German actors who went into exile in Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s. How weird must it be to see a fairly propagandistic film from a former enemy country playing on a loop in one of your museums.

Things I want but can’t really have.

• Illinois senator Paul Simon to have won the 1988 presidential election. I don’t know what exactly happened, but the point at which he dropped out of the race… nothing has really been the same since, and so much would be different now.
• Taco Bell to bring back the Rancho Steak Burrito, a short-lived offering, ca. 1995.
• A new Neutral Milk Hotel album.
• Sacco and Venzetti to not have been executed

More next year.

We ended up renting a small SUV, a Chrysler Pacifica, when we were in California. The rental place claimed to be entirely out of anything smaller (it was 2am, so it’s plausible). The rental place said it got 26 mpg highway, so we chose it over the Chrysler 300 which was smaller but only got 24. But we did some highway driving between Santa Barabara and LA, and the best we did was 16. That said, it was pretty fun to drive. You could actually, like, accelerate, and go up hills.

Again, I’m a bit slow on the local news, but this is such a perfect skewering of the insane Kennedy family hypocrisy in standing against the Cape Wind project. You must watch this.

Like the Passat Wagon I mentioned earlier, here’s one more to file under “non-SUV owners who aren’t smart enough to make sure their car is more fuel efficient than an SUV before putting a smug anti-SUV bumper sticker on their fuel guzzler”. Volvo wagons get between 14 and 18 mpg generally. Hummer H3’s get 15.

That said, I’m not going to be getting a Hummer anytime soon. Nor will I be wearing Hummer cologne.

The first time I realized John Kerry was incapable of articulating a clear position on anything was when I saw him interviewed by ESPN’s Jon Miller about the designated hitter. Miller asked him what he thought about it, and his answer was something like “uh, well, I think it’s good, but, you know, some people think it isn’t.” (of course, the look in his eyes said “what is a designated hitter?”).

I do have a lot of problems with the way that we– or at least our proxies in the media– demand a foolish consistency from public figures when changing one’s mind is something that any honest person should be allowed. And I think in general that swaying with public opinion is a virtue for a politician in a democracy. But still. At that moment, my heart went out of my support for Kerry, to see him not even take a tiny baby stand, one that just didn’t matter.

Anyway, the exchange below between Tim Russert and Gov. Bill Richardson, where he comes up with a convoluted way to be both a Red Sox and Yankees fan might also be a fatal moment for this long shot candidate in my book.

Candidates, when Tim Russert asks you “Red Sox or Yankees?”, you are just going to have to order off the menu. There are two safe answers that spring to mind:

• The Chicago Cubs. Nobody can fault you for backing an underdog.
• The Dodgers, if you say it’s because they were the first team to integrate, and that Jackie Robinson was your hero. And then qualify it as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

MR. RUSSERT: You spent a lot of time in, in Massachusetts. Are you a Red Sox fan?

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan, but I got into trouble in New Hampshire. You know why? Because I said…

MR. RUSSERT: Luis Tiant, the fund-raiser. But, now, governor, this is very serious. In your book on page 18 it says…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, about Mickey Mantle?

MR. RUSSERT: You said you’re a Yankee fan!

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no. I said—no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: I mean, you can, you can…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: …you can have different views on immigration, assault weapons…

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, no no no no. No, what I said…

MR. RUSSERT: But when it comes to Red Sox, Yankees.

GOV. RICHARDSON: What I said, the Associated Press asked me, “If you weren’t running for president, if you weren’t running for president, what would you rather be?” I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, but I said if I weren’t running for president I would like to be number seven, Mickey Mantle, playing center field for the New York Yankees.

MR. RUSSERT: “Because of Mickey Mantle, I became a Yankee fan.”

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, my favorite team has always been the Red Sox.

MR. RUSSERT: You’re a Red Sox fan.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan.

MR. RUSSERT: End of subject.

GOV. RICHARDSON: End of subject.

MR. RUSSERT: You better get rid of this book.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Oh, no! I’m also a Yankee fan. I also like…

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, now, wait a minute!

GOV. RICHARDSON: You can—Tim…

MR. RUSSERT: I guarantee…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, I know, I got in trouble…

MR. RUSSERT: …if you go—if you go to Yankee Stadium or Fenway, you cannot be both.

GOV. RICHARDSON: But I like—Mickey Mantle was my hero. If I weren’t running for president, and the Associated Press asked me, I’d play center field for the New York—I wanted to be number seven. And—but I still love the Red Sox as a team. I mean, this is the thing about me, Tim. I can bring people together. I can unify people.

MR. RUSSERT: Yankee fans and Red Sox fans?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Not a chance.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I bet you I can.